California Fire And Life

79

Doesn't take long.

Three hours later, Paul Gordon's standing in Tom Casey's conference room, pointing down at Jack, shouting and red in the face. Jack thinks that Paul Gordon is maybe going to be the first-ever witnessed event of self-combustion.

Which would be okay.

There's not a claims dog in California who wouldn't like to see Paul Gordon go up in a ball of flame. Paul Gordon ignites, your basic claims guy is going to spring up and write a letter to the Fire Department to get over there right away.

They used to say that Paul Gordon sits at the right hand of God. Then the lawyer hit Fidelity Mutual Insurance for $40 million in punitive damages on a bad faith suit. Now they say that God sits at the right hand of Paul Gordon.

Gordon has the looks for it, too. Tall, silver hair, ice-blue eyes, craggy features. He's standing by the window in Casey's office, he's got Newport Beach Harbor as a dramatic backdrop and he's telling Jack, Tom, and Goddamn Billy that he's going to take Cal Fire and Life down for the biggest punitive damages award in the entire history of bad faith litigation.

Man's gonna break his own record.

"… make the Fidelity Mutual verdict look like a church bingo pot!" is part of what he's screaming.

"What he did… what he did…," Gordon's saying, pointing at Jack, "he told my client – one day after his wife's funeral – that he thought my client killed his wife and burned the house down around her! Then he came to my client's home to hand deliver a denial letter!"

"Did you do that, Jack?" asks Goddamn Billy.

"Yup."

"Why?"

Billy instantly regrets asking this because Jack turns to Nicky, who's sitting there with this little smile on his face, and says, "Because he killed his wife and then burned the house down around her."

"SEE?! SEE?!!!??" Gordon yells. "He's doing it again!"

"Jack, keep your mouth shut, please," Casey says. He's sitting in his chair sipping coffee and acting like they're all just hanging out discussing the Dodgers' chances of winning the division.

Here's a story about Tom Casey.

Casey goes to a settlement conference with Goddamn Billy, and he has draft authority for $100,000 in his pocket. Plaintiff's attorney comes in and asks for five grand. Casey stands up, slams his fist on the table and yells, "What do I look like, Santa Claus?!" The plaintiff settles for two thousand.

So even though Casey has Paul Gordon, the biggest, baddest plaintiff's attorney in Southern California in his office yelling about Armageddon, Casey is not exactly pissing his pants. This is because Casey is the biggest, baddest, defense attorney in the Southern Bear Flag Republic.

What you got here – if you're a connoisseur of multimillion-dollar bad faith litigation – is you have the heavyweight championship of the world.

Gordon v. Casey.

You could make a mint from the pay-per-view rights just selling to attorneys who'd watch it in the hopes that they'll actually kill each other.

Funny thing is they're in the same office complex.

Both Casey and Gordon have their offices in the "Black Boxes," a marvel of modern architecture, black glass and hubris that sits astride the Newport Beach greenway. They're called the Black Boxes because that's exactly what they look like, except the bottom right corner of each building is cut away, so they look like black boxes that are about to topple over. Which is where the marvel of modern architecture bit comes in.

Casey calls them the "There Isn't Going to Be Any Fucking Earthquake" buildings, because one good temblor and you got to believe that these babies are coming down, precariously balanced as they appear to be. So you got Casey in one, and Gordon in the other, both on the twelfth floors, and they actually face each other. If they have their curtains open they could exchange friendly morning waves, which is just about as likely as O.J. and Fred Goldman sitting down over a fondue.

Anyway, Casey says, "Jack's conduct was inappropriate, no dispute, Paul."

Gordon nods with some satisfaction but he knows a punch is coming in here somewhere.

Casey throws it. "But Paul, do you think that if a jury concludes that your client is an arsonist and a murderer, it's going to give a rat's ass about some dumb thing Jack did?"

"The jury won't conclude anything of the kind, Tom."

"Maybe not," Tom says, shrugging. "But just to add a jalapeno to the chili, I will tell you right now, if you push this to a trial, I will make sure that it's monitored by the federal prosecutor's office to consider potential criminal charges against your client."

Casey turns to smile at Nicky and explains, "Arson can be considered a federal crime, at the discretion of the U.S. Attorney."

Nicky shrugs an exact imitation of Casey's patented shrug.

Like, you can stick your U.S. Attorney up your ass.

And waddle.

Nicky says, "You have no evidence."

"Mr. Vale, to use a technical term," Casey says, "I have evidence up the wazoo."

Lays it all out for him.

Incendiary origin.

Motive.

And opportunity.

Especially opportunity, because he has him in a lie on his whereabouts that night.

"The guard has you coming in at 4:45," Casey says.

"So?"

Oh-so-cool Call Me Nicky.

"So you're hosed," Jack says.

Seeing if he can, you know, set Paul Gordon off.