California Fire And Life

117.

Jack starts, "Mrs. Hathaway, I don't have time for this today. I'm in a very bad mood. So, for the last time, I'm not paying for your spoons. Not now, not ever-"

"I didn't come about my spoons."

Say what?

"Then why-"

"I came because a lawyer came to see me," Olivia says. "A Mr. Gordon?"

"Paul Gordon?"

"Do you know him?"

"Sort of."

"Anyway," Olivia says, "he came to ask me to join in a suit against you. A class suit."

"A class action suit?"

"That's right," Olivia says. She takes out her knitting and goes to work. "He said that he had at least twenty other people that you've cheated that are going to join together and sue you for bad faith and punitive damages. He said that we could stand to share millions of dollars."

"Did he tell you who the others were?"

"I don't remember them all," Olivia says. "There was a Mr. Vale, a Mr. Boland, a Mrs. Vecch…"

"Veccharrios?"

"Yes," Olivia says. "And a Mr. Azmekian."

"A Mr. Azmekian?" Jack asks.

"Yes."

" Kazzy Azmekian?"

"No," she says. "I think it was Kazimir."

Jack sits there while she recites a litany of various claims Jack has turned down for the past seven years. It's like the old lady is reading off his freaking inventory.

And the only way, Jack thinks, that Paul Gordon could go trolling for these clients is that he's had access to all my files.

Jack hears Olivia saying, "So Mr. Gordon wants me to join in this suit against you. He even offered me shares in the Westview," Olivia says.

"In the what?"

"In the Westview Company, my dear. Very confidentially, of course."

What the hell?

"What did you tell him?" Jack asks.

Olivia looks up from her knitting.

"I told him to go fuck himself. Cookie?"

"Yes, ma'am, I'd like a cookie," Jack says.

Her blue eyes look at him very seriously.

"I know a scam when I see one," she says. "Sugar – your favorite."

"A great cookie."

"Now, about my spoons…"