Defiled

by Mike Nemeth

“That leaves the house and the alimony.” He looked at me for a long moment before continuing. “She’s not going to let you sell the house out from under her. She wants it in her name, wants you to pay for the construction loan, and she’ll pay for the home equity loan. It’s a deal breaker.”

  Tony, fearing he’d be tied up the rest of the day, jumped on the mediator’s bandwagon. “Do you want that house way out there?”

  “Of course not,” I said. “There’s no there, there.”

  “Then let her have it and fight over the alimony.”

  An alternative to a trial, one that had been forming in my subconscious for the past thirty minutes, suddenly crystallized and danced in front of my eyes like sugarplum fairies on Christmas. Maybe Carrie should try to murder me.

  I made them wait a few minutes before I said, “I’ve sold the beach house. I close on Friday the 9th of October, so you can’t give one home to each of us and think you’ve done a great job. If she wants the house, she has to pay for it.”

  Tony came out of his chair. “You’re in contempt of court, Randle. You’re creating a mess and causing me trouble with the judge.”

  “You’re wrong, Tony! I can do anything I wish with premarital property.”

  Smallwood lost his patience. “You messin’ with the law, young man. I have to disclose this to your wife, and she’s not goin’ ta be happy.”

  I said, “You ever been divorced, Mr. Smallwood?”

  He jerked back in his chair like he’d been slapped in the face. “Been married to the same woman for fifty-three years. Proud of it.”

  I nodded. “That explains why you don’t know what this negotiation is about. The lawyers see it as a game, and you see it as a job, but for the husband and wife it’s about guilt and shame. The settlement is the apportionment of blame. Until you get that right, you don’t have a deal.”

  Smallwood slammed his pencil on the table. “You’re gonna end up with a raw deal, and you’re not gonna like it, boy.”

  I banged the flat of my palm on the table, making a loud splat sound that shocked the old guy. “If she wants the house for herself, she has to buy me out.”

  Smallwood shrank back in his seat.

  Tony said, “Settle down, Randle. We’re trying to help you out of the mess.”

  “You’re no help, Tony. The only way for me to get a fair settlement is to have a trial.”

  Smallwood said, “I haven’t heard anything today that would get you a better deal at trial than I can get you right now. It pisses Phyllis off when she has to hear a trial.”

  Tony said, “Just get it over with, Randle.”

  I delayed for a moment and replayed the events of the last two weeks and the conversations with Connie. I made up my mind. As though I were still negotiating, I said, “What did they offer on alimony?”

  “They’ll accept eighty thousand dollars for five years if she can have half your bonuses during the alimony period. They split the difference between the two proposals just like I told you, negotiating in good faith, and you should do the same.”

  Obviously, Smallwood had suggested the compromise, but he didn’t understand the economics. The bonuses were worth as much as the alimony. I turned nasty and said, “You had no authority to mention royalties or bonuses.”

  Smallwood was offended by my insolence, but he tried a softer approach as a last-ditch effort. “Your wife seems like a very nice person, a gentle soul who wants a fair outcome. She expected to be married forever, put all her trust in you, and now you’re splitting up. She needs some help down the road.”

  I was exasperated by the “system’s” bias toward my wife. “The judge won’t order more years of alimony than we had years of marriage.”

  Tony pulled a face and said, “Who knows what a judge might do. Five years is better than permanent.”

  Incompetent jerk. Just wants to get this case done. Turning back to Smallwood, I said, “Anything else up their sleeves?”

  “Yeah, two more things any smart lawyer gonna ask for: They want you to pay for a million-dollar life insurance policy, in case you kick the bucket before paying all the alimony. And they want you to pay her legal fees.”

  “No way,” I said. “Neither one.”

  I was genuinely offended by the suggestion, but Tony said, “It’s routine, Randle. The plaintiff always gets to protect alimony payments, and the plaintiff always gets legal fees.”

  “I’m a plaintiff too!” I shouted.

  “Alright, young man,” Smallwood said, still trying to be conciliatory, “let me give her the house and the furnishings, the insurance policy, twenty-five thousand options, and five years of alimony, and I can set you free.”

  I spent a few minutes mentally totaling it all up. Initially Carrie had asked for more than three million dollars. Her second proposal totaled around two point two million dollars. Smallwood’s compromise was approximately one point seven million dollars. I could have looked at that proposal as a savings of one point three million dollars—like a woman bragging about a sale on something she didn’t actually need—but compromise was no longer my goal.

  “Here’s my best and final offer: We sell the house, and she can have all the upside. I’ll pay the construction loan until it sells, but she pays the home equity loan. She can have the furniture and another ten thousand options. I’ll throw in one hundred eighty thousand dollars upfront, which is the equivalent of three years of alimony at sixty thousand per year. There will be no ongoing relationship of any kind—no insurance, no legal fees, no bonuses, and no royalties. Otherwise we go to court.”

  That would be a haul of a million dollars, give or take, but Smallwood said, “You a fool!” Looking disgusted, he got up and left.

  Tony said, “You’re going to end up right where Ross has you now, but the trial will cost you a bundle of money to get there. How is that smart, Mr. Negotiator?”

  “Let her stew over this for a while, Tony. In the meantime, see if you can subpoena her bank records and prepare a motion for a trial.”

  Tony sighed. He had no enthusiasm for doing more work on the case.

  Smallwood returned, his shoulders slumped in defeat. He said, “They didn’t accept my proposal but want you to know their offer is on the table any time you want to accept it. And your wife gave me this note for you.” He handed me a folded piece of Carrie’s personalized stationery.

  I opened the note and read: I have the sex tape. I’ll make you a YouTube star if you don’t cancel the psychiatrist and give me the house.

  Expressionless, I folded the note and slipped it into my breast pocket. Smallwood and Tony waited for me to react or disclose what the note said, but I remained placid as I said, “Let’s get out of here.”

  The old guy blocked the door. “What you gonna tell Phyllis?”

  Another member of the legal fraternity afraid of the judge. “Tony will tell her that they rejected both my offer and your compromise.” As I eased toward the door, I said, “Sorry to have wasted your time, Mr. Smallwood.”

  “You ain’t wasted my time. I get paid to watch people act stupid.”

  I brushed past him and left the room.

  In the parking lot, Tony said, “The judge is going to be all over me about you selling that house.”

  “It’s premarital property.”

  “Did you put money into the deal?”

  “Yeah, premarital money.”

  “Oh my God!”

  “As long as we’re having a nice chat about strategy, I’ll let you in on another secret: The IPO has been delayed until February 15th.”

  He stopped walking and pivoted, as though he might run back and tell everyone the secret. “We should have told them, Randle.”

  “We’re not going to be the only saps who follow the rules, Tony. This is a negotiation. We want them to agree to a settlement assuming they’re going to get a bunch of the outstanding options, then we’ll whisk those options away like a magician pulling a tablecloth out from under a four-place setting.�
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  “No, Randle.” He shook his head. His lips quivered with anger. “I have to tell the judge.”

  “No, Tony, you will keep this communication privileged until we go to trial.”

  His lips were still moving as I cranked my car and drove away. I didn’t mean to be rude, but I had bigger fish to fry.

  On my way back to the beach house, I stopped at the home goods store and found the aisle where desks, chairs, and filing cabinets were displayed. There were two three-drawer steel cabinets identical to the one I had bought Carrie for her office. A pair of silver keys dangled from each lock. I took the keys from the locks and mixed them up in my hand. Then I tried all four keys on each lock. They all worked—all the locks on the cheap filing cabinets were the same. I slipped a pair of the silver keys into my pocket and left the store.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The courtroom resembled a community college classroom but with the ambience of a waiting room at a police station. On an elevated platform, the judge’s bench was a simple clerk’s desk and the witness stand was a lonely chair beside it. A lectern for lawyers to hide behind stood in the center of the room facing the judge’s desk, and opposing counsel sat at cafeteria tables on either side of the lectern. A low railing separated a small spectator gallery from the business end of the room. The people in the gallery looked as though they wanted to be somewhere else.

  As I entered the courtroom, business was being conducted in a low hum of chaotic activity. Cases started and ended without fanfare. At intervals triggered by some unheard signal, lawyers, witnesses, plaintiffs, and defendants switched prescribed positions like football offenses and defenses taking and leaving the field. I took a seat in the front row between a Hispanic family and an elderly black woman. Carrie was nowhere in sight, probably packing a bag for her psychiatric vacation.

  Tony leaned against the far wall, apparently on the defendant’s side of the courtroom, waiting his turn to occupy the counsel table. I didn’t see de Castro enter the courtroom or approach Tony, but the next time I glanced in my lawyer’s direction, she was in Tony’s face, hissing and spitting like a King Cobra ready to strike. Tony appeared placid, as though he wasn’t hearing anything alarming, was just riding out the storm of viperous emotion, until de Castro jerked a thumb over her shoulder in my direction. Tony automatically looked my way and found me in the crowd. He wore a frown with a question mark over it.

  De Castro made her way to the near side of the room, behind the plaintiff’s counsel table, and gave me a look that could kill. I smiled and nodded a “hello” in return, as though I had no idea why she would be angry with me.

  Several more team changes took place before Marks v. Marks was called. Zambrano and de Castro stood side by side behind the lectern as Judge Matthews-Bryant opened a file on her desk. With all the background noise, it was like a conversation in a crowded restaurant—each conversation private because all conversations were shielded by the general noise level of the room.

  Tony was about to speak when Matthews-Bryant cut him off. “What do you think you’re doing, counselor?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “The Baker Act, Mr. Zambrano. That’s a pretty low blow, don’t you think?”

  Tony uttered the first unrecognizable syllable of a response but halted as soon as the judge gave him the “stop” sign. “You will not initiate any other legal proceedings without my consent so long as we are adjudicating this divorce. Is that perfectly … crystal clear, counselor?” That made me laugh. I’m sure the judge opted for “crystal” over an f-bomb to avoid offending all the sensitive souls in the gallery.

  Tony didn’t back down. “Your Honor,” he said, “the Baker Act examination has nothing to do with the divorce action. It grows out of Mr. Marks’s longstanding efforts to get his wife proper mental health care. I admit the timing is bad, and I apologize for that.”

  The judge pointed a finger at Tony and said, “Never again, Mr. Zambrano.” I was right—judges have no power, and she let us get away with it.

  Tony said, “Understood, Your Honor.”

  “Okay, give me an update.”

  Tony cleared his throat. “Mediation was conducted yesterday, as ordered by the court, but the parties failed to reach a settlement, Your Honor.”

  Matthews-Bryant peered over her reading glasses at the two lawyers before her. “Why not, Mr. Zambrano?”

  “Your Honor, defendant made an offer and the mediator proposed a compromise, and plaintiff rejected all attempts to settle.”

  The judge removed her glasses. Turning to de Castro, she said, “Any reason you couldn’t accept a compromise?”

  Shifting from one trademark red high heel to the other, de Castro said, “Our offer was justifiable, Your Honor.”

  Matthews-Bryant took a moment to digest the information and then wrote a note in her file. When she looked up, she addressed de Castro. “Justifiable isn’t the goal in mediation. You know that, Ms. de Castro. The idea is to reach a compromise, right?” The judge wore a questioning look but de Castro treated the question as rhetorical, so the judge continued. “I order that a repeat mediation session be scheduled within two weeks. I’ll leave that to you, Mr. Zambrano.”

  Matthews-Bryant closed the file on her desk, believing the appearance to be concluded, but Tony said, “One more thing, Your Honor. The IPO for Atlanta Medical Analytics has been delayed again—until 15 February of next year.”

  Tony!

  De Castro threw her hands into the air and dropped her files on the floor. The judge ignored the dramatic response and folded her hands on top of the file. She said, “Then there is something to negotiate in mediation. Where did you stand on that issue in the first mediation session?”

  De Castro hoped Tony would respond, but he waved a hand in her direction and forced her to say it aloud. De Castro said, “We asked for half of the unallocated shares.”

  The judge said, “I can see why Mr. Zambrano felt you were being unreasonable. Don’t get greedy, Ms. de Castro, and don’t leave this in my hands. Now let me get on to more important cases, please.”

  Tony stopped her again. “I’m sorry, Your Honor, but I also want to apprise the Court that the defendant will petition the Court for a trial and a directed settlement. We have no confidence that another mediation session will produce an agreement.”

  De Castro’s jaw dropped and her mouth hung open. The judge exhaled a puff of surprised breath and slowly removed her glasses as she considered this turn of events. Defendants rarely asked for a trial, as they had been accused of wrongdoing and usually were guilty. She said, “You can file any motion you like, counselor, but I won’t be ruling on anything until you put some effort into another mediation session. My advice: Reach a settlement.”

  The judge tried to shoo the attorneys away with a flip of her hand, but de Castro begged for a chance to make a point as well. Irritated, the judge said, “What is it, counselor?”

  “Your Honor, defendant has disposed of a major asset—the home in Dolphin Beach.”

  With a questioning look, knowing there must be more to the point, the judge said, “That’s his privilege. It’s premarital.”

  Hoping she finally held a trump card, de Castro said, “He used marital funds to complete the transaction—forty-five thousand dollars.”

  The judge turned to Tony and motioned for him to speak. He said, “It’s semantics, Your Honor. Defendant has sufficient premarital funds to cover the payoff, but they aren’t liquid, so he used liquid funds to complete the sale and he’ll true-up when a settlement is reached. Of course, the settlement now must include an agreeable disposition for the Cortes County home as it is the only remaining home the couple owns.”

  The judge said, “Don’t make me engage an accountant to find all the money, Mr. Zambrano.” Turning to de Castro, she said, “That should explain it to you, counselor.”

  The judge didn’t allow a retort. She banged her gavel and called for a recess. De Castro walked away looking as though she’
d been stampeded by a herd of normally docile milk cows.

  Tony caught my eye and motioned for me to meet outside the courtroom. When I joined him in the hallway, he grabbed me roughly by the arm and dragged me away from eavesdroppers. Shoving me against a wall, he said, “Are you a sadist?”

  “You didn’t have permission to disclose the IPO delay.”

  “De Castro gave me an ultimatum: ‘If you go to trial, Mrs. Marks will disclose evidence that your client sexually abused her.’”

  “Tony, you ruined our negotiation.”

  “Are you going to answer my question?”

  I yanked my arm out of his grip. “It’s a bluff, Tony. While we were dating we made a tape of ourselves playacting various scenes. She scripted the scenes.”

  He rolled his eyes. “I went to bat for you, Randle, and I hope that was the right thing to do. I told de Castro that we won’t cave in to her threats and we want a trial. Am I right?”

  That made me smile. My lawyer was finally invested in my case. “Yes, but you shouldn’t have mentioned the IPO delay.”

  “I had to tell the judge, Randle. You could see how upset she was.”

  “You got a gentle slap on the wrist.”

  His mouth opened, but he wimped out. Seeing that de Castro was headed for the elevators, we turned in the opposite direction and took two flights of stairs down to street level. It was a short walk to a Starbucks crowded with people who had found Lady Justice or been defiled by her. We sat in easy chairs and sipped lattes.

  Tony rubbed his chin, thinking. “What was in that note from your wife?”

  “The same threat that de Castro made to you.” In more colorful language. Carrie had taken the tote of old files because the sex tape was buried in that tote.

  “They seem desperate.”

  “We’re desperate too. I want a trial. File the motion, Tony.” In truth, I merely wanted to put pressure on my erstwhile bride. I had no evidence to turn a trial verdict in my favor.

  Tony sighed loudly. “Okay. I’ll need a real list of witnesses.”