Practice to Deceive

by David Housewright

  “We’re only concerned about the recent investment in Willow Tree, LP,” Cynthia said, “not in your previous dealings.”

  “If that had paid off, she would have made more money than you did on that harassment case. Easy. It was a risk, sure. Didn’t work out, fine. That’s the way it goes. But she knew about it, she knew what we were getting into. I sent her the information. She didn’t respond. That’s how we worked together, OK? I sent information, explaining what we were getting into. If she had questions, she called and we did what we had to do, otherwise I went ahead. That’s how we did things for ten years. I have records.”

  “She was lying on her back in a hospital recovering from a stroke when you concocted this scheme,” I told him, probably with a little more anger than was necessary.

  “I didn’t know that, did I?”

  “The hell you didn’t,” I said.

  Cynthia shot me a look. It was not pleasant. I tucked my head in, folded my arms, and pretended to be somewhere else.

  “That’s enough, Mr. Field,” Monica insisted.

  But Field insisted right back. “Look, I’m paying you by the hour, right? I can’t afford to pussyfoot around,” he told her and then turned back to Cynthia. “I have records.”

  “I’m looking forward to subpoenaing them,” Cynthia said.

  “Subpoena, shit. You can have ’em, lady. I have nothing to hide. Just don’t try to strong-arm me, OK? I have a good lawyer sitting here, and she’s dying to mount your head on her wall. Am I right, Monica?”

  Monica said nothing.

  “Now, they tell me you’re smart,” Field told Cynthia. “They say you’re as sharp as a broken beer bottle, OK? Well, I’m a pretty bright fellow, too. For example, I know you can’t take me to an arbitrator alleging broker fraud ’cuz I ain’t a broker. There aren’t any rules of fiduciary responsibility I’m mandated to follow. Which means you’re comtem-plating a civil court case. Now, don’t deny it,” he said when Cynthia began to speak. “Well, the average investor fraud case takes five years or more to litigate, and even those who win only recover fifty-to-sixty percent of their losses.”

  “True,” Cynthia agreed. “On the other hand, seventy percent of investor fraud suits that are filed are won by the investors in court or settled to their satisfaction out of court.”

  “Notice the way I’m trembling with fear?” Field said contemptuously.

  Monica clearly wanted to say something to him, but she didn’t.

  “You want to file on me, I’ll keep you in court for six, seven years, maybe go for a world’s record for length of litigation,” Field added. “And even then I’ll win. Because I did nothing wrong. I didn’t steal from anybody, and you can’t prove that I did. But for argument’s sake, let’s say I don’t win. Let’s say you get yourself a bleeding-heart jury that sees it your way. There isn’t anything they can give you. No, ma’am. All my assets—my house, my cars, every penny—is in my sixteen-year-old daughter’s name. She has everything, I have nothing.”

  “The court will change that in a hurry,” Cynthia said.

  “A hurry?” countered Field. “What legal system do you work in? It’ll add another year to the process, easy. What are we talking about then, eight years? More? Mrs. Gustafson just celebrated the big eight-five, did she not? And she just suffered a stroke? I’m willing to bet that she’s not around to see the end of this. How about you?”

  “For Mrs. Gustafson’s sake, it was our hope we could avoid a protracted court case,” Cynthia admitted.

  “You want me to settle? Is that the alternative? I don’t think so.”

  “Perhaps we can convince you to change your mind.”

  “And how are you going to do that, Cynthia? Wait. Let me guess. You’re going to tell me that if I don’t settle, you’re going to use your media contacts to wreck my business—maybe bring the old lady up from Florida and hold a press conference, put me on the evening news. Is that the plan? Think again.” Levering Field nudged Monica with an elbow. “Tell her.”

  “This is a low-profile litigation,” Monica spoke up. “The only reason it would interest the media is because of your involvement in it. You would be the story. And we believe the media’s attention to your … let’s just say, your past … would more than offset any negative publicity my client might receive.” And then Monica smiled. “I know all your secrets, Cynthia. I know you like a book.”

  Cynthia’s expression did not change. I was ready to drive a spear hand through Monica’s throat, but Cynthia remained as calm and businesslike as when she had first entered the office. She’d spent nearly ten—God, fifteen—years carefully remaking herself, creating and nurturing an image as pure and unblemished as the Lincoln Memorial. Now Monica was threatening to tag it like a graffiti artist, and Cynthia did not so much as bat an eyelash.

  “Know me like a book?” she asked. “I think not, Monica. Or you would know better than to underestimate me.” The room went silent for a moment; then Cynthia announced, “I think we’re finished here,” and she started to rise.

  “Now, now, there’s no reason for petulance,” Field said.

  “Pet-u-lance?” I repeated slowly, but Field ignored me.

  “I was merely suggesting what could happen, not what will happen.”

  “I’m listening,” Cynthia countered.

  “I feel real bad about Mrs. Gustafson, and I would like to do something for her, but not because of the threat of litigation. I want to do something because, well, dammit, because I’m a nice guy.”

  Monica rolled her eyes, but neither Field nor Cynthia seemed to notice, locked on each other the way they were.

  “I’m listening,” Cynthia repeated.

  “What I propose is this: I will return to Mrs. Gustafson all the money I made on the deal. Ten percent, OK? I’ll give you a check right now for twenty-eight thousand seven hundred dollars; tell her I’m sorry it didn’t work out. Is that satisfactory?”

  “Mr. Field …” Monica tried again.

  “What do you say?” Field smiled at Cynthia. Then he smiled at me. That’s when I knew the sonuvabitch could be had.

  “There was this guy named Raskolnikov,” I told Field. “An asshole, only interested in money—you know the type. One day he murdered his landlady.” I shook my head for emphasis. “The crime completely ruined his life. Nothing worked out for him after that. His relationships—everything fell apart. And the guilt? It got so bad, he couldn’t live with it. Eventually, he decided that in order to save himself, he had to turn himself in and pay restitution.”

  “What are you talking about?” Monica wanted to know. From her expression, I gathered Cynthia was just as curious.

  “Crime and Punishment,” Field answered. “You know, by Dostoyevsky.” Monica’s and Cynthia’s confused expressions did not change. “Don’t you guys read?”

  “I bet the same thing happens to you,” I continued. “I tell you, Levering … can I call you Levering?”

  “My friends call me Ring.”

  “Ahh. I tell you, Ring, you did a terrible thing, ripping off that poor old woman, leaving her penniless. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if your conscience came to bother you so much that one day you just up and called me and offered to give the money back—all two hundred and eighty-seven thousand.”

  Field laughed. Monica did not. She was on her feet, accusing me of threatening her client, promising legal action if I continued.

  “What threat? Did you hear a threat, Ring? I just told the man about a book I read, that’s all.” I took a business card from my wallet and dropped it on the table. “Call me when you’re ready,” I told Field.

  CYNTHIA WAITED UNTIL we hit the street before asking, “What the fuck did you think you were doing?”

  “Ms. Grey,” I feigned shock. “What would your elocution master say?”

  Cynthia stopped me, maneuvered in front of me, and pointed a finger. “Don’t joke. I am not in the mood.”

  I took her arm. We were on Sixth be
tween Marquette and Nicollet in downtown Minneapolis, heading toward my office in the Butler Square Building.

  “He’s vulnerable,” I told her. “He can be squeezed. And that’s what I intend to do—squeeze him like an orange until there’s nothing left but pulp.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “He overplayed his hand,” I said. “That’s what my dad would tell you. He had all the cards, and then he over-played his hand. Why?” When Cynthia did not reply, I continued. “He thinks twenty-eight seven is a generous offer. Maybe it is. The question is, why did he make it?”

  Cynthia pulled her arm out of my hand; I guess I was gripping it too tightly. “Maybe he is a nice guy. Maybe it was all a terrible mistake.”

  “You believe that?”

  Cynthia thought carefully before answering, “He wants to stay out of court.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because it’s bad for business, why do you think? Monica isn’t stupid; she knows what I intend to do next.”

  “What do you intend to do next?”

  “We file suit on behalf of Mrs. Gustafson. Then, using the rules of discovery, we subpeona the records of every single client Levering Field has ever had. Let’s say we learn he’s defrauded ten, fifteen, twenty other investors. In response, we file a class-action suit on behalf of all of them. Then we’ll send a letter to every one of his clients telling them what we’re doing, asking them if they want to participate in the suit. We could get hundreds of participants. And even if we don’t, the letter will destroy him.” Cynthia smiled at the prospect. “Let’s see if he likes going back to making cold calls.”

  “How long would it take?” I asked Cynthia. When she didn’t reply, I asked, “Can you guarantee that Mrs. Gustafson will get her money back? All of it?” When she still didn’t answer, I said, “Forget it.”

  Cynthia stopped, letting me walk several steps ahead. “You’re not making any sense!” she shouted.

  I turned back to her. “Levering Field is not afraid of you. He has a lawyer who’s already painted a bull’s-eye on your forehead. He put all of his assets in his kid’s name, what do you think that is about? He’s not afraid of the legal system. But something else does frighten him. He made the offer because he doesn’t want us to discover what it is.”

  “What difference does it make as long as he settles?”

  “For ten cents on the dollar? Or a quarter? Not good enough.”

  We continued walking, crossing Nicollet, heading west toward Hennepin.

  “Why are you so angry?” Cynthia asked.

  “I don’t like the way he treated you.”

  Her reaction was swift. “Don’t you dare,” she said, grabbing my arm, swinging me around. “Don’t you dare do this because of me.” She backed me against a store window. There was a mannequin on the other side of the glass, smiling.

  “I will not have it! No, I most certainly will not!”

  My first impulse was to go with a joke, something like, “Gosh you’re beautiful when you’re angry.” I thought better of it. I had taught her a few karate moves, and she was perfectly capable of hurting me. I said nothing.

  “Sooner or later someone is going to come after me, using my past as a weapon. I know that. I have always known that. When it happens, I’ll deal with it. I will deal with it! If you can’t, then we should hang it up right here and now because I will not have you going around picking fights to protect my virtue. I will not tolerate it.”

  Being at a loss for words, I did the only thing I could think to do. I kissed her. Yeah, it’s a cliché—probably a sexist cliché—but it always worked for Humphrey Bogart and Erroll Flynn and even John Wayne. People on the street walked by smiling as I kissed her. And when I finished kissing her, she said, “So, are we clear on this?” I kissed her some more. Then I did something I did not think to do at all—but should have done a long time ago. I said, “I love you.”

  “I’ll be damned,” she replied.

  A FEW MINUTES later we were walking arm in arm toward my office. We stopped for a traffic light, and I said, “Tell me about Monica.”

  “Monica Adler,” she said without hesitation. “We were classmates at the U. And friends, I suppose. I didn’t have many friends in those days. Truth is, I still don’t. I guess I confided more to her than I should have, certainly more than I’ve told anyone else. Except you.” Cynthia hugged my arm with that admission, then continued her story.

  “We were pitted against each other in moot court when we were L-threes. Both our teams reached the quarter finals. Her team had a stronger case than we did, so when we won the coin toss, my partner and I chose to argue off-brief, meaning we decided to take her side in the case, and she was forced to take our side; the idea is that the school wants to make sure that their lawyers can argue both sides of a case. She wasn’t prepared to argue off-brief, and we cleaned her clock. It was her own fault, hers and her partner’s. They should have been ready. But the way she saw it, she and I were supposed to be friends, and I made her look bad.

  “Later, when we were graduated, I was ranked tenth in the class. She was eleventh. Rankings in law school are like your precious NBA draft: It affects where you end up and the amount of money you can command. I had always planned to start my own shop, so it wasn’t a big deal to me. But Monica, she wanted one of the old firms that had the word ‘prestige’ practically stamped on its letterhead. Dropping out of the top ten lost her the opportunity to work for some of them and reduced the amount of money she could earn from the others. She blamed me for that, too. She couldn’t understand why I didn’t take a dive for her during finals.”

  “Now she wants a piece of you, prove who’s the fastest gun in town,” I suggested.

  “Just another tough-talkin’ sodbuster lookin’ ta make a name for herself. Lord, listen to me. I’m beginning to talk like you.”

  I nodded but said nothing. In the back of my mind I was plotting my assault on Levering Field, and wondering if there was a way I could get Monica Adler at the same time.

  I invited Cynthia to dinner when we reached her car, which was parked in the lot across from my building. She declined. She was meeting with a group of potential clients. They wanted to file a suit claiming emotional distress against the family clinic where they had been patients—the clinic had employed a doctor who had recently died of AIDS.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked me. She wasn’t referring to my dinner plans.

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Dammit, Taylor,” she muttered, opening her car door, sliding in, “I’m not a criminal attorney.”

  NEVER DO ANYTHING out of anger. Who told me that? Dad, of course. My high school hockey coach. An instructor at the academy. My Sensi at Dragons, he was a great one: “When anger goes out, withdraw hand; when hand goes out, withdraw anger.” Something like that. He was right, too. They all were. So I went to my office, popped a Dr Pepper, put my feet on my desk, and looked out the window, forcing myself to stop being angry. It wasn’t easy.

  Guys like Levering Field infuriate me. He’s a part of that growing class of people who have no conception of the pain they cause others through their carelessness, indifference, neglect; who refuse to accept responsibility for their actions. Our streets are literally teeming with them, too. Individuals who cry, “Don’t blame me, it’s not my fault” at every mishap. A guy falls from the top rung of a ladder the label says not to stand on, he sues the manufacturer. Woman smokes for forty years and dies of lung cancer, the family blames the tobacco company. Man embezzles a million bucks from a charity, claims he’s not responsible because he’s suffering from brain atrophy that makes him impulsive. I remember serving paper on a couple that had owned an advertising agency in St. Paul. They had ripped off their suppliers to the tune of $1.2 million before locking their doors and walking away. They were packing for a trip to Epcot Center when I’d found them, absolutely mystified that anyone would be upset. It wasn’t their fault they never paid t
heir debts. Blame the economy.

  Well, Levering Field wasn’t going to get away with it. I was going to crush him like a grape, core him like an apple. I found myself chuckling at the images—for some reason I thought of him as produce. How to go about peeling him like a banana wasn’t an issue, either. I had conceived my plan on the spot, marveling at its simplicity. The immense risk did not occur to me until much later.

  But I did not want to be angry when I went after him. Angry people make mistakes.

  I emptied the pop can and tossed it at my waste basket. It clanged on the metal rim, then fell in. Two points. I pushed myself out of the chair and went back to the refrigerator. Before serving myself another can, however, I ran my finger along the top of the refrigerator and regarded the grit and grime it had collected. I decided the place needed a good scrubbing.

  Retrieving a roll of paper towels and a jug of liquid cleaner with a spray nozzle from the bottom drawer of my desk, I started to clean. I clean a lot. Cynthia often ridicules my “neat freak” ways, but she’s not one to talk—she hires a woman to clean her house every week. Besides, cleaning is good therapy; it relaxes me.

  I dusted my hockey stick, the one Wayne Gretzky broke against the North Stars back when he’d played for Edmonton. I dusted my framed “homer hanky” that, like a lot of people who won’t admit now, I waved like a damn fool when the Minnesota Twins won the 1987 World Series. And I carefully dusted the framed photograph of me and Kirby Puckett. He’s wearing his baseball uniform; I’m wearing a stupid grin. He had written on the photograph: To a good guy, best wishes, Kirby Puckett. People who see it invariably ask, “Do you really know Kirby?” I always cross two fingers and hold them up. “We’re like that,” I say. Truth is, I met Kirby Puckett twice, once at Camera Day when the photo was taken and the second time outside the players’ entrance to the Metrodome, where I begged him to sign it. He seemed like a nice guy.