The Ditto List

by Stephen Greenleaf

  Bobby E. Lee went away, leaving D.T. to his routine. He fixed another drink, then went to the file cabinet in the anteroom, pulled out the Stone file, and took it to his desk. Not much in it, really. Petition and Response. Income and Expense Declaration. Order for temporary custody and support and property restraint after the motion for same. D.T.’s perfunctory set of interrogatories to the petitioner and a basic request for admissions, drawing predictable answers and objections from Dick Gardner, Chas Stone’s attorney. He noticed he had attached a subpoena duces tecum to the notice of deposition, requesting production of a host of Chas Stone’s business records. Which meant he would need the copy machine. Which meant he would have to pay the bill. He picked up the phone and bet a nickel on the Celtics, taking the points.

  Oddly, there had been no corresponding notice of deposition filed by Dick Gardner. Apparently he had no wish to examine Mareth Stone. Indeed, the only document filed by Gardner was a memo to set the case for trial. D.T. had not opposed it, and the trial date had been set for some three months hence. Quick, but why not? Unless there were disasters lurking in the testimony of Chas Stone, allegations and charges that D.T. had not considered. Then he would have to scramble, perhaps beg the court for a continuance, perhaps lie like hell to get it. All in a day’s work.

  D.T. pulled out a legal pad and started making notes. While he was crafting the opening questions the telephone rang. In the absence of Bobby E. Lee, D.T. pushed a button and answered it.

  “D.T.? Dick Gardner.”

  “Dick. How are you?”

  “Fine, D.T. You?”

  “Great.”

  “The Stone thing still set for tomorrow?”

  “Yep.”

  “Two o’clock? Your place?”

  “Right.”

  “Good.”

  A silence. The inevitable prelude to negotiation. D.T. could hardly wait.

  He considered Dick Gardner a friend, had picked Gardner to be his own lawyer during his divorce from Michele, had once nominated him for president of the bar association, in the days before he quit paying his dues. In a world where there were three kinds of lawyers—those committed to their clients, those committed to the system, and those committed to themselves—D.T. placed himself in category one, and Dick Gardner definitely in number two. Gardner was among that most endangered of species—a generalist, a trial lawyer as comfortable in the criminal courts as he was doing commercial litigation on behalf of a major bank or business that held a mortgage on half the world. He was the one they called when things got sticky and slimy and hit the papers, when the only way out was hardball. Dick Gardner, in other words, was the lawyer D.T. had always wanted to be himself, was the lawyer D.T. would have been had a different kind of person walked through his door and asked for help.

  “I had a talk with my client yesterday,” Gardner began.

  “How uncommonly professional of you.”

  Gardner chuckled dryly. “He’s not looking forward to his deposition. Nothing to do with the case, of course, but it’s come at an inconvenient time, businesswise, and, well …”

  “I know, I know,” D.T. interjected. “So what’s your offer?”

  Gardner coughed and cleared his throat. “Mr. Stone has instructed me to tell you he’s prepared to be very generous to Mrs. Stone. Very generous. Much more so than I would advise him to be.”

  “Okay, Dick. I’ll play the game. How generous is ‘very’?”

  “Well, we haven’t discussed the details, but basically he’s talking property settlement of fifty thousand, lump sum, plus the house, plus the newest Mercedes. Plus two thousand a month alimony.”

  “How much child support?” D.T. asked quickly.

  Gardner hesitated, telegraphing what was coming. “That’s the quid pro quo, of course. Stone gets exclusive custody of the children. With generous visitation, naturally.”

  “Naturally.” D.T. said nothing further.

  “Well? How’s it grab you?”

  D.T. swore. “You know damned well it’s out of the question, Dick. Even putting the custody thing aside, the money is ridiculous. And even if it wasn’t, no way she’s going to give up those kids.”

  “It’s possible he’d go a bit higher with the property division, D.T. If a schedule could be worked out so it’s paid over ten years or so, couch it as alimony so it would be deductible to him.”

  “Forget it, Dick. Mrs. Stone’s not going to push her kids into the pot. Now, if he’s willing to concede custody, and talk sense on the money issues, then I’m certainly willing to listen.”

  “Will you mention our offer to your client?”

  “Oh, sure, Dick. I’ll do that. And you mention to your client that we’ll settle for four hundred thousand property, plus house and car, plus four thousand alimony plus three thousand child support plus exclusive custody. With generous visitation rights. Naturally.”

  Dick Gardner laughed, then paused. “You’re not going to like what you’re going to hear tomorrow, D.T.,” he said seriously.

  “I don’t suppose I will. Prevarication invariably depresses me.”

  “Stone’s not a bad guy.”

  “Sure. That’s why he sprang this thing on his wife like a clown with a whoopee cushion. That’s why he emptied the bank accounts and deposit boxes before he told her he was bailing out. Christ, he even snatched her jewelry.”

  “I didn’t advise that particular tactic, by the way,” Gardner said. “One of his business buddies told him that was the way the game was played.”

  “Well, he was right, wasn’t he?”

  Gardner paused. “I guess he was.”

  “At least he didn’t snatch the kids. These days that entitles him to a good conduct medal.”

  “Have you seen them?” Gardner asked.

  “Who?”

  “The kids.”

  “No.”

  “Beautiful.”

  “All kids are beautiful for about ten years. Then they’re not kids. What’s the point?”

  “They could be in a significant degree of jeopardy, D.T. I just thought I’d mention it.”

  “Jeopardy from whom?”

  “Your client.”

  “Oh, bullshit. Why would Mareth Stone endanger her own children?”

  “Because she’s not well. Based on what Stone tells me, I’d say she was unquestionably antisocial. Perhaps even psychotic.”

  “I guess that’s why I haven’t seen you around lately, huh, Dick? Been over at the med school, doing your psychiatric residency.”

  Gardner laughed. “Just trying to help, D.T. I don’t expect you to take my word for it.”

  “Good.”

  “Also, I wanted you to know why I haven’t been playing games with this one. We want an early trial and a final determination of custody as soon as possible.”

  “So do we.”

  “Then I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Right.”

  “Buy you a drink afterward?”

  “You’re on.”

  “Who do you like in the Jets game?”

  “Whoever’s playing the Jets.”

  D.T. hung up, supercharged by the taste of combat. Toe to toe with the great Dick Gardner. D.T. was going to whip his ass. He called his bookie and bet a dollar on a junior welterweight he had had his eye on for six months, and another on whoever was playing the Jets, he didn’t need to know the line.

  The routine dittos came and went, one uttering oaths, the other prayers. When they had gone, D.T. snuck out to the greasy spoon down the block, the one that obeyed him when he declined the special sauce and made the only double-breaded cheeseburger in the state. Then he returned to the Stone file and his note pad, wondering about the fix Mareth Stone might have put him in by leading him to believe she was normal.

  In the beginning he had believed them all. Later, he had assumed they all were liars. Now, hostage to experience, he was beyond generalization. He had believed Mareth Stone because it was convenient, as a result had done le
ss than he should have to prepare a defense to the charge that she was unworthy of her children. He should already have talked to friends and enemies, doctors and teachers and preachers, everyone who was in the bleachers as she lived her life. Instead, he had let it slide.

  More and more of them seemed to be sliding lately. Maybe because the kind of truth he needed took hard work to uncover. Maybe because it was the kind of truth he liked less and less to learn. Maybe because these days he frequently found himself intoxicated by about three in the afternoon. Maybe, in Mareth Stone’s case, because she was rich and confident and thus reminded him of his ex-wife, who needed no help from him or anyone. Clearly it was he who was unfit. Luckily, fitness was a standard lawyers never had to meet once they’d passed the bar.

  He went back to the file. The notes he had made after his conversations with her over the three months since she’d first walked through his door—his initial calls so frequent he seemed willing her to have a problem he could solve—indicated she was adjusting nicely to the breakup. When the order was entered giving her temporary custody and support she had brought the children back from her parents’ home and continued their lives more or less as usual. She had provided D.T. with the lists of assets and expenses he requested, a description of her children’s typical day, a few other odds and ends, and had ended every conversation as soon as was politely possible. As far as he knew she had received no communication from her husband beyond the arrangements necessary to visit the kids. She had never called for help, never for advice or reassurance, never to criticize, never for anything. Each time he had prodded she had insisted life was fine. Which made him uneasy as hell. From just such stuff came ruin.

  In a light sweat, D.T. began making further notes for his interrogation. By the time he finished he was thirsty. As he was on his way out the door, plunging headlong for the corner bar, he encountered a pristine apparition that moved toward him down the dingy hall like the ghost of all his former clients, determined to lay him waste.

  ELEVEN

  “Hello, Miss Holloway. On duty, I see.”

  She came up short, startled. Reflexively, she raised her attaché case, blocking him. The look on her face suggested she perpetually feared assault. He wondered if all women did. “Oh. Mr. Jones. Hello.” She blinked and lowered the case to her side, exhaling enough air to sail a sloop.

  “I was just thinking about you,” D.T. said.

  “Really?”

  “I was wondering what had happened to you, and hoping nothing bad had happened to Mrs. Preston.”

  Rita Holloway shook her head. “She’s fine, given her circumstances. Which are pretty much the same as when you saw her. I’ve just come from there, in fact. Can I talk to you about it?” She looked toward the dark door to his empty office.

  D.T.’s eyes followed her glance. “I was about to go have a beer. How about joining me? We can talk there.”

  She thought it over, then nodded. D.T. took her arm and led her back to the elevator. Three minutes later they were entering the Walrus, inhaling fumes of disinfectant and stale beer, hearing the hush of regulars who had begun their task long before noon, viewing a dispiriting tableau that featured only respect for your troubles. D.T. loved the place. Russ, the bartender, waved at D.T. and shouted. “Who you like on T-Day, Steelers or Lions?”

  “Neither,” D.T. yelled back. “Boredom in a walk.” D.T. looked at Rita Holloway. “We’ll have a beer and …”

  “Whiskey sour.”

  D.T. repeated her order, then led Rita Holloway to a booth near the back, out of earshot of anyone who could still decipher a sentence.

  Like a marshmallow in a brownie, her uniform quarreled mightily with her surroundings. As she slid warily into the booth she brushed her hand across the tabletop, then rubbed her fingers like a safe-cracker, then whistled. “I hate to think what kind of spores are growing in those cracks.”

  “Bars aren’t places to think, Miss Holloway. Bars are places to do the opposite.”

  They were silent while Russ served the drinks and rolled his eyes and flashed the high sign, all a burlesque indication that he was favorably impressed by D.T.’s companion. After Russ had gone, D.T. drained half his draught. “So,” he began. “What have you been up to?” He licked away the itch of foam from his upper lip before she answered.

  Rita Holloway’s hot eyes flashed in the black of the back of the bar. “You know damned well what I’ve been up to, Mr. Jones. I’ve been playing Nancy Drew, just like you told me to.”

  His fears confirmed, D.T. leaned back against the back of the booth until it groaned. “All this time?”

  “Yes.”

  “Find anything?” He sighed against the answer.

  “That’s for you to tell me, isn’t it, Mr. Attorney-and-Counselor-at-Law?” Her eyes dared him to deny it.

  “I guess it is,” he said, then said it once again.

  D.T. drained his beer as Rita Holloway reached over and pulled her briefcase from the bench beside her, placed it on her lap, snapped its latches, and reached inside and pulled out a sheaf of papers an inch or more in thickness. She closed the briefcase, set the papers on top of it, and squared their edges, making a perfect pile. “I have an abstract,” she said. “Do you want to read it?”

  D.T. checked his watch, considered claiming an appointment or an ailment. “I don’t suppose we could do this on Friday,” he said finally.

  “No. We couldn’t.” Rita Holloway looked capable of false imprisonment.

  “Okay,” he said. “If we’re going to do it let’s do it systematically. Before you tell me what you’ve found, tell me where you’ve looked.”

  She picked through her papers and pulled out the fourth sheet from the top. “I have the list right here.”

  “Read it to me. Just the essentials.”

  She wriggled to a more comfortable position and took a hefty drink of her whiskey sour, leaving a red smear on the glass. “I examined records in the following locations, for the years 1960 through 1967, to include five years before and two years after the divorce. Here in the county, I went to the assessor’s office, recorder’s office, treasurer’s office, and clerk’s office. At the state capitol, I went to the secretary of state’s office, corporations commissioner’s office, insurance commissioner’s office, and the Department of Agriculture.”

  “Department of Agriculture?”

  “I thought Dr. Preston might have owned a farm. Lots of doctors buy farms. For tax reasons.”

  “Good thinking.”

  “Most of the records involved a search for real property or for some sort of corporate affiliation.” She looked at D.T.

  “Right,” he said, to please her.

  “I also checked the litigation records in the clerk’s office, and the motor vehicle records and the records at the Department of Transportation which show ownership of boats or airplanes.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Also,” she plunged on, “I have the names of Dr. Preston’s former medical partners, and the names of the bank and savings and loan he and Esther patronized in those days. I understand banking records can be secured but I don’t know how. Also, I have the names of their stock broker and the realtor who sold them the house they bought in 1964.” Rita Holloway looked up from her papers, pleased with herself, ready for a fight. D.T. was again amazed at how many people in the world loved a good scrap. And at how few of them were lawyers and how many of them were women.

  “How about the tax returns?” D.T. asked.

  Rita Holloway shook her head. “She doesn’t have them. I asked.”

  “Too bad,” D.T. said. “Now, before we get to the bottom line, tell me. Which of the people you named have you talked to?”

  “What?”

  “Which of the doctors or the broker or the realtor did you talk to about Mrs. Preston?”

  Her back straightened. “None of them. You told me not to.”

  “I know what I told you, Miss Holloway. And I know that somehow Dr. Preston lea
rned I sicked you onto him. The other night I met him at a party. He asked what the hell I was up to, quote, unquote. I thought he was going to punch me out.”

  Rita Holloway frowned and gulped her drink. “But I didn’t … it must have been Janice.”

  “Who?”

  “Janice Cox. I roomed with her in nursing school. She works for a neurologist named Haskell. By coincidence, Dr. Haskell used to be in partnership with Nathaniel Preston, back when he was married to Esther. Later they had a falling-out. It was very bitter, but no one seems to know why.”

  “And you talked over poor Esther’s problem with your old friend Janice.”

  “Yes. I’m afraid I did.” Momentarily, the spunk had gone out of her, leaving her an entirely different creature. D.T. marvelled at the change, then watched her essence grow back as quickly as a weed.

  “And you happened to mention to Janice that the shyster you’d prevailed upon to help you out in all this was a sap named Jones. D.T. Jones, to be exact.”

  She nodded slowly. “What does the D.T. stand for, anyway?”

  “Double Talk. Well, you can count on Dr. Preston knowing all there is to know about our little plan to gouge some bucks out of him, Miss Holloway.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t … I’m sorry.”

  “He offered ten thousand to settle the thing, by the way,” D.T. added casually. “To get me and Esther off his back for good.”

  “Really? That much?”

  “Really.”

  “Are we going to take it?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not? I mean, that’s quite a bit of money. What if we end up getting nothing?”

  “If you wanted someone to fold up at the first offer on the table you should have stayed downtown. Preston got to ten grand awfully fast. We haven’t even filed against him yet. If he’ll go ten now he’ll go thirty the morning of trial. Maybe more.”

  It was more complicated than that—Preston had, after all, sworn not to pay a dime—but he saw no need to mention it. If Rita Holloway hadn’t come up with hard evidence of fraudulent concealment, or if the Supreme Court eventually ruled a professional degree wasn’t a marital asset or that a claim against the degree could not be asserted retroactively, then he would be thrown out of court on a motion for summary judgment and the ten grand in the hand would have indeed beaten the thirty in the bush. The wages of litigation. The greatest game in town next to a private casino he knew of near his office.