That just left a book in a small brown paper bag lying on the floor. I picked it up, intrigued by what Charles might choose to read on the plane or during negligible spare moments in his hotel room. Peering inside the bag, I could see that it was a paperback, very old and well-thumbed, and I could make out the title:In Black and White. I was about to take a better look when Kevin snatched it and chucked it on top of the other stuff. He scanned the floor to check that he hadn’t missed anything and then closed the case, making a big performance of ensuring the clasps were tightly shut.
“Are you sure he won’t notice?” Kevin seemed unwilling to believe that someone so important could be so careless about his personal belongings.
“Let me put it this way,” I said. “If Charles Mendip had his appendix out, the only way he’d know about it was when he got the bill.”
Kevin laughed. “And he’s the chief guy, right?”
I nodded. “Scary, isn’t it?”
He stood up. “Thanks again.”
The phone rang.
“You coming?” It was Paula. “Keenes has been bitching all morning for your handover notes and I’ve got the Clerkenwell Associates number. Pablo Tochera says he can’t do today. Tomorrow, his place at two. Oh yeah, Carol Amen called, wondering if you could make it for a bite at Starbucks downstairs. I told her that was fine, but you had a few things to clear up first, shouldn’t be more than twenty minutes, tops.”
“And where will I be dining tonight?”
“Hell do I know?”
My handover notes would never be finished. They would always be susceptible to some further refinement. I typed out an e-mail header to Mendip and Keenes, pausing over the appropriate contents for the “Subject” box.
I typed in “Freelunch.” Fuck ’em. It was accurate enough; I’d just donated my entire career to date to Messrs. Lamberhurst, Silverman,and Wardman. I attached the file with an electronic paperclip and hit “send” before I should have a change of heart.
It was 2:00P.M.Seven in London, and too late to call Clerkenwell Associates. They’d have to wait until tomorrow, along with Pablo Tochera.
Too much for tomorrow, not enough for today.
I called Schuster Mannheim’s main switchboard.
“The office of Pablo Tochera, please.”
Music. “The Sting,” for Christ’s sake.
“Hi, Mr. Tochera’s office, how may I help you?”
“This is Fin Border and I have a meeting scheduled for tomorrow afternoon with Mr. Tochera. The timing’s not good, I’m afraid. I really need to see him today.”
“Mr. Tochera’s schedule is full, sir. There’s nothing I can do.”
“Kindly inform Mr. Tochera that Mr. Mendip, senior partner of Clay & Westminster, reckons that the grieving relatives of fifteen dead people will be snapping at my ass by tomorrow, and that in his professional opinion a powwow today is better than one when my butt has disappeared.”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“Just tell him, okay.”
I hung up.
Paula was standing in front of me.
“Naughty boy. You could get in trouble for stuff like that.”
“More trouble than I’m in right now?”
Paula handed me a sheet of paper. “JJ Carlson wasn’t at Harvard.”
It was a news item off the net. Paula had summed it up well. JJ had attended a short summer program, but beyond that, Harvard had no knowledge of him and had never awarded him an MBA.
Harvard had been one of JJ’s favorite topics over a Jack Daniels, the Shangri-la of his youth. He was as near as he ever got to being poetic when he described the place, as if he could still touch every venerable stone, still hear its wise heartbeat.
“Can I keep this?” I asked.
“Sure, it’s easier to carry around than the PC.”
***
Carol sat at a table, little bigger than a quarter, in the Starbucks a few steps away from the Credence Building. In front of her was a mug of coffee and a muffin, less one bite. There was another coffee and muffin laid before the empty chair.
She smiled as she saw me. “Not exactly power lunch. But okay?”
“Perfect,” I said. It was.
“You look beat.”
“You look beautiful.”
She acted bashful, like a child. I wanted to hold her.
I gave her the page of news.
She gave a startled gasp.
“He set me up, Carol.”
“What do you mean?” She was almost inaudible.
“He bought the car in my name, used most of my money, and borrowed the rest with me as the borrower. That car cost a million. But that’s nothing compared to the lawsuits that will flow from this thing. I’ve already had the first shot across the bow from an insurance company.”
“Oh my God.”
“And they’ve taken away my client base, handed it over to my hungry colleagues. I’m in the garden, but it’s a fuck of a long way from Eden.”
“But you’ve done nothing wrong.” She displayed the same wounded indignation as my mother.
“I’m not sure that’s the point. For some reason JJ has whipped up a legal storm, and I’m in the middle of it . . .”
“My God,” she said again, a tide of hair obscuring half her face. She didn’t bother to sweep it aside; she just stared at me with one unblinking chestnut eye.
“Did you know that JJ used cocaine?” I asked.
“No,” Carol replied rather too quickly. I could understand the swiftness of her response: She was still a lawyer, the chief investment banking counsel for Jefferson Trust, and in some respects responsible for the legal consequences of a banker’s actions. On her desk mightlurk a piece of paper similar to mine, with the same two headings and the same list of potential parties.
She tiptoed her hand across the table and took hold of mine.
“You still act for Jefferson Trust, you know,” she said. “We’re the client and nobody tells us which attorney is on or off the team. Not if they want to keep the account, they don’t.”
“I don’t want to compromise you, Carol.”
She squeezed my hand and stood up, swallowing the last of the coffee. “We can talk about this later. I better get back to the office.”
“When will I see you?” I asked.
“Tonight. Dinner, my place. We can talk.” She puckered her lips and blew me a kiss. “Maybe I can console you a little.”
THIRTEEN
My call to Schuster Mannheim had paid off.
At four-thirty, I sat down with Pablo Tochera, my very own McIntyre-approved attorney, in Conference Room B.
He was a clean-shaven and dapper Puerto Rican with the contours of a man who liked his food and couldn’t find the optimum trade-off with his evident vanity. His eyes darted around like pinballs.
He was an ulcer waiting to happen.
He was studying the letter from Marshall, Forrester, Kellerman, and Hirsch.
“This is a difficult case, Mr. Border.”
Gee, I hadn’t realized. But I wanted to hear his take. “Why?” I said. “I didn’t own the car.”
“Even assuming you didn’t own it, there may be an argument that you owed a duty of care to stop Mr. Carlson taking the wheel while under the influence of cocaine.”
“Like in the ‘dramshop’ cases,” I said.
Tochera raised a respectful eyebrow and put down the Marshall,Forrester letter. “I’m impressed. You know about those cases?”
Only vaguely. The proverbial purveyor of whiskey serves the paralytic customer his fiftieth dram and then helps him to his car and waves him on his way to death and mayhem. Jesus, it was a little close for comfort.
“But you need to establish the duty of care first,” I said. “I don’t see it in this case. And anyway, I didn’t know JJ was high.”
“Or had reasonable cause to suspect he was high,” Tochera added.
“Precisely.” I’d liked his response, but there was a ret
icence that troubled me. The eyes never landed on me; they scoured the corners of the room. Scouting for dust maybe.
“I agree with you about the question of duty,” he said. “But someone might try and make new precedent with this case. That leaves us relying on the evidence.” He wasn’t yet standing on my side of the line.
“But what about proving that it wasn’t my car?” I asked. “Showing how I was set up. You’re going to get the documents, aren’t you? Have them tested. Get investigating agents. Identify the people at the McLaren showroom, at Delaware Loan, depose them, find out how JJ did it?”
“Sure, all in good time.”
We didn’t have any bloody time. Now was the time. “Mr. Tochera,” I said, “I’d like to feel that you were fired up, itching to fight in my corner.”
He smiled at me patronizingly, but still the eyes strayed. “Of course. Your sentiment is only natural, but, as I said, this is a complex matter and litigation hasn’t even been threatened. We can keep the police in a holding pattern for the time being. We need to see the kind of moves that people make, then we can establish the right strategy.”
Bullshit, Mr. Tochera. This was about who was picking up the tab. Mr. Tochera was the piper and I wasn’t paying him. I could guess who was calling the tune.
“I shall be maintaining close contact with Mr. Mendip regarding the conduct of my representation,” I said smoothly.
Tochera stiffened. “I’ll bear that in mind, Mr. Border.”
I flattened my now well-creased map of defendants and plaintiffson the table. “This case will breed parties like rabbits,” I said. “I hope you’re not offended, but I thought this chart might help.”
Tochera’s eyes were now actively avoiding the paper as well.
“I’ve been doing this kind of thing for a while now,” he said. “And I wouldn’t tell you how to draft an offering memorandum.”
I drew my scrap of paper slowly toward me. “Point taken. I’m sorry.”
He patted me gently on the back. “Sheesh, that’s okay. This is kinda shitty, I know, but we’ll be with you every step of the way. Relax a little. Let us handle things. That’s what we’re here for. That’s what Mr. McIntyre and Mr. Mendip want and, believe me, that’s what you need.”
For the first time, his eyes met mine. He grasped my shoulder. “Okay, guy?”
I nodded guardedly.
“So here’s the deal,” he said. “I’ll take a statement from you now—that’ll take an hour. Then tomorrow I’ll draft a response to Mr. Richter of Marshall, Forrester and get to work on just the kind of things you’ve been lecturing me about. We’ll have a look at your chart some other time.”
When Tochera had finished with me I took a detour on the way back to my office. It was time to visit the Clay & Westminster Human Resources Department.
The appellation of “Department” was another of Keenes’s bureaucratic conceits. It was a tiny room with two locked cabinets presided over by a battleax called Barbara. She also ran the library, hence the soubriquet that Lamberhurst had given her: the Barbarian.
Getting a file off Barbara usually took a subpoena signed by the President, unless the incumbent was a Democrat; so I was surprised when she handed over Paula’s personnel file with little more than a tasteless question about whether I’d seen any more good wrecks recently.
The file contained healthcare paperwork mostly. Doug, Paula’s late husband, had used up a lot of paper and money. Poor Doug.Paula’s file didn’t deliver much on his behalf for posterity. Admittedly, I’d never really asked about him, but the subject had somehow seemed off limits.
Then there was a pile of incomprehensible shit about her 401K Plan. I’d never understand pensions until I was drawing one.
Her offer of employment. Standard letter.
Her antecedents. I scanned them and snapped the file shut. There was only one section that interested me and it hadn’t taken long to read, but it explained a lot.
As I left Barbara’s kingdom, Keenes nearly ran into me.
“Bloody hell, Fin, can’t you stay at your desk for more than five minutes? I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
“What’s the point of staying at my desk? I don’t have any work. You took it all and doled it out like Father Christmas. Remember?”
“Watch your lip. Anyway, you have some work now. Mendip wants to see you at the Regent Hotel at eight tonight.”
“What’s it about, Sheldon?”
He was already walking away from me at speed. “You’ll find out,” he barked over his shoulder.
“Mendip’s errand boy,” I muttered and headed for my office.
Back at my desk, I leaned on my elbows and studied the chart so pointedly ignored by Tochera.
There was a potential defendant missing.
I added Schuster Mannheim to the list. In parentheses, I scribbled: “Contingent on the merger with C&W.”
If Clay & Westminster had a problem, then Schuster Mannheim would have a problem too. If the merger went ahead, that is.
Jesus. In five seconds, JJ had whipped up a black hole that had the potential to suck some very large objects into its vortex. He must have been very angry about something. But what hadIever done to him?
Paula came in.
“I want to take off now,” she said. “Your schedule isn’t enough to keep a high-flying bitch like me satisfied.”
“You’re not quitting, are you?” I asked.
“No. At least not yet. I just meant I wanted to go home, you turkey.”
Thank God. “Sure,” I said. “But I’d like a quick word first.”
She tilted her head suspiciously.
“What about, counselor?”
“I know where you worked before you came here.”
She performed a slow hand clap. “Well done, Fin. It’s only taken you five years.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that you’d been with Schuster Mannheim? And don’t say because I never asked.”
“You never asked.”
“Why did you leave them?”
“What does the file say?”
I hesitated. “Nothing.”
“Then let’s leave it at that, except to say that I wasn’t fired and that I have good reason not to be overjoyed about the merger.”
“But why the problem? Your position will be secure.”
“Just like yours.” She raised her eyes to the ceiling and exhaled sharply. “I’m sorry. That was cheap. Forget I said it.” She smiled. “You’re a decent guy. You shouldn’t be going through all this, but it’s taking it out of me too. That’s why I want to go home now.”
“Paula,” I said as she started through the door. “Can’t you even tell me who you worked for at Schuster?”
“Good night, Fin.”
I called Carol and left a voicemail telling her I wouldn’t be at her place until late as I had to pay an urgent visit to the Regent Hotel.
FOURTEEN
It was still hot at seven-thirty that evening when I stepped into the fiercely air-conditioned lobby of the Regent. The perspiration inside my shirt turned cold.
The Regent lay halfway down Wall Street, just past the Stock Exchange. Once the home of Harry’s Bar, it was now an exclusive hotel with room rates for those not on a budget. It was smart without being over the top, the kind of place Charles Mendip would like. As long as the food was good, which it was.
I was half an hour early but wanted to get on with it. I crossed over to the reception desk and asked to be put through to Mendip’s room. The receptionist told me to ring 225 and pointed to a courtesy phone on a marble-topped table nearby.
I picked up the receiver and dialed the number. Then I glanced around and saw the elevator doors at the other end of the lobby open and disgorge a bunch of men in suits. One of them was Sheldon Keenes—his blond mop a beacon among the other heads. As I felt Mendip’s voice vibrate the receiver, I quickly cradled the phone andmoved behind the protective cover of a large spray of silk flowers in a mass
ive Roman-style urn.
Two of the men seemed to have nothing to do with Keenes, and they strode purposefully toward the main entrance of the hotel and out into Wall Street. The other two remained with him, one facing out: Indian, youngish, and rather brash—the glint of jewelry as he gesticulated with his hands. The other had his back to me, but there was something familiar about it.
Sheldon appeared quite relaxed, draping his arm across the young man’s shoulder. He seemed to be making a joke. The young man laughed and poked Sheldon in the ribs as if to say, you old dog, you. His companion wasn’t so easily amused. Somehow the neat band of hair fringing his bald patch told me that his face was impassive, unmoved by Sheldon’s witticism. This was a man who had mastered intimidation from any angle.
Sheldon’s expression switched from levity to sincerity. He shook each man’s hand vigorously. I sensed that he had promised them something and that they were to be left in no doubt that whatever it was, it was receiving Sheldon’s full attention. The young man shot a furtive look around the lobby and then followed his colleague, like a puppy, through the hotel entrance. I could still see them as they stood on the sidewalk. The young man talked excitedly, while the other retained an impassive, uninterested air. He hadn’t turned around once and I still hadn’t seen his face. But I didn’t need to. It was no use kidding myself that I didn’t know who he was.
Sheldon turned and jabbed the elevator call button.
I picked up a copy ofTimemagazine and started leafing through it. I concentrated on not reading it for about five minutes until the elevator door opened once more and Sheldon emerged again. He marched straight for the entrance and went out into Wall Street.
I lifted the courtesy phone and dialed Charles’s number.
“You’re early. Come on up.”
When I got to 225, Charles was waiting, holding the door open, wearing his scruffy suit, jacket still on. He didn’t approve of jacket removal for meetings, even when the meetings were in his boudoir.
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