Give ’Em the Ax

15

Bertha Cool carefully closed the door. “Damn you,” she said. “You got me into that. Why didn’t you tell me what I was going up against?”

“I tried to, but you told me that no damn lawyer could rattle you.”

Bertha just glared at me, reached for a cigarette.

I took one from my pocket and settled down into the client’s chair.

Bertha said, “How the hell can anyone remember all those little things? You can’t remember what you were doing and just how many seconds lapsed and all that sort of stuff.”

I said, “I’m interested in Esther Witson. She’d been tagging along for eight or ten blocks. Now you remember she...”

There was a timid knock at the door.

I said, “If that happens to be Mysgart, don’t loose your temper.”

Bertha looked at me helplessly. “If it’s that damn lawyer,” she said, “you... you do the talking, Lover.”

I opened the door.

Mysgart said, “May I come in?”

“Come on in,” I told him, and indicated the client’s chair.

Mysgart smiled at Bertha Cool. “I trust there are no hard feelings, Mrs. Cool.”

I answered for Bertha. “No hard feelings,” I told him. “It’s all a matter of business.”

“Thank you, Mr. Lam. I’m glad you appreciate my position. My client is a little impulsive — as so many women are.”

Bertha simply glared at him, and blew smoke out through her nostrils.

“Cigarette?” I asked Mysgart.

“Thank you.”

I passed over the humidor. He took one and lit it.

“Is Mrs. Lidfield badly injured?” I asked.

He made a little grimace and said, “You know how those things go. If she gets a settlement she’ll be running around spry as can be. If she doesn’t she’ll be in bed for a year. Glimson is a shrewd one. He specializes in this sort of stuff.”

“You’re no slouch, yourself,” I told him.

He grinned.

Bertha said, “Of all the goddam...”

I said to Bertha, “Excuse me. If you’re going to handle it, I’ll go out.”

I started for the door.

“Don’t go, Donald.”

I hesitated a moment, looked meaningly at her.

“I’ll keep quiet,” Bertha promised.

I took my hand off the knob of the door.

Mysgart said hastily, “Mrs. Cool said something about being willing to effect a settlement in the case so she wouldn’t have to be a witness.”

“She’s been a witness now,” I said.

Mysgart opened his brief case, fumbled around, brought out some papers and started looking at them very studiously. He said, “I think it might be possible to settle the case. I think that’s the reason Glimson wanted to rush ahead with these depositions. I think he wanted to get some kind of a settlement.”

“Well,” I said, “anything you want to make.”

He looked at me in surprise. “You mean that you don’t want to make any settlement now?”

“Not particularly.”

“Why, Mr. Lam! I don’t want to precipitate an argument, and I trust we can handle this in a business spirit and in a friendly way, but the evidence now shows that Mrs. Cool was quite negligent according to her own testimony. She was stopping at an illegal place, at an illegal time, in an illegal manner, and giving conflicting signals for two illegal maneuvers as well as this waving signal.”

I said, “How about your own client? If Lidfield was driving his car fast then, he must have been in the intersection before Esther Witson entered the intersection. So then it was up to her to look out for him.”

Mysgart said, “I will admit that there are some puzzling aspects to the case.”

“They aren’t puzzling Glimson any.”

Mysgart sighed. “I was hoping,” he said, “that a way would present itself by which we could get the entire matter cleared up.”

“How much does Glimson want?”

“Oh, I haven’t the faintest idea.”

I kept on smoking.

“If you folks would make some contribution,” Mysgart said, “my client might be prepared to make some contribution, and between us we might get the situation straightened up.”

I said, “Why don’t you quit beating around the bush?”

Mysgart scratched his nose with the red mustache. “The situation,” he said, “has some unfortunate aspects.”

I said, “All right. I’ll break the ice. We’ll give you five hundred dollars.”

He looked at me reproachfully. “Five hundred dollars! Is that intended to be a joke — or an insult?”

I said, “You can take it either way. If you don’t want it I’ll withdraw it.”

“No, no. No, no,” he said. “Now don’t be hasty, Mr. Lam. After all, you and I are businessmen, and we can keep our tempers. Can’t we?”

“I don’t know,” I told him.

Mysgart jumped up, shoving papers back in his brief case. “Now just keep calm,” he said. “Just keep cool, Mr. Lam. After all you and I are businessmen. We’ll see what we can do. Glimson and his client are waiting out by the elevator. I’ll talk with him.”

Mysgart went out the door.

“Why didn’t you offer him fifteen hundred bucks?” Bertha asked. “He’d have jumped at that.”

I said, “Wait and see.”

Bertha said, “The whole damn thing is screwy to me. Damn lawyers, anyway. I hate their guts. The questions that man asked me! Why, if a man jumped on you like that, you couldn’t tell what you’d had for breakfast.”

I grinned at her.

“Go on and grin like a Cheshire cat,” Bertha said. “I’d just like to see you get up there on the witness stand once and let those birds start asking you questions.”

The telephone rang.

Bertha pounced on the receiver, said, “Hello,” and then made her voice all honey and syrup. “Oh yes, Miss Rushe. No indeed, we haven’t forgotten you. Just a moment and I’ll let you talk with Donald. He’s around the office somewhere. It may take me a minute to get him. Just hold the line.”

Bertha clapped her palm over the mouthpiece of the telephone and said, “It’s Georgia Rushe and damned if I hadn’t forgotten all about her. What are we supposed to be doing for her — oh yes, that investigation of Mrs. Crail. It’s up to you to talk to her, Lover. You’re good at making things up on the spur of the moment. Thank Heavens I had sense enough to stall her along and tell her you weren’t immediately available. Start thinking and I’ll tell her that you’re busy dictating and she’ll have to wait a minute.”

“I’ll talk to her,” I said.

“Well, think up something good,” Bertha told me.

Bertha took her hand off the mouthpiece and said, “He’s dictating, Miss Rushe, but he’ll be here right away. He... Here he is now... What? What’s that?”

Bertha scowled portentously into the mouthpiece. “Say that over again,” she said. “Say it slow.”

Bertha listened for as much as thirty seconds, then said, “You’re sure that’s what you want? Well, if that’s the way you feel about it. Poor child, you’re crying! Now listen. You better talk with Donald. He’s here. He wants to talk with you.”

Bertha once more clapped her palm over the mouthpiece.

“Take it, Donald. She’s nuts, too!”

I took the telephone, said, “Lam talking, Miss Rushe.”

Georgia Rushe poured words into the telephone with such rapidity that it was difficult to understand them. It was a steady stream of almost hysterical sound.

“I want you to call everything off, Mr. Lam. I want you to stop it. Don’t do another thing. Let it go just as it is. I’m sorry I ever started it. I didn’t realize what it would lead to or I wouldn’t have done so. And don’t worry about the two hundred dollars. Simply keep that and forget about the whole thing. Only don’t... don’t under any circumstances ever let on that I employed you to do anything. And please, please stop everything right now. Don’t do another bit of work. Just stop whatever you’re doing. Quit the whole business.”

“May I ask why you’ve reached this decision, Miss Rushe?”

“I can’t tell you. I can’t tell you a thing in the world about it. I don’t have time to discuss things. I don’t want to. Just let it go, please.”

I said, “Perhaps you’d better come into the office personally and confirm these instructions.”

“You don’t need them confirmed. They’re all right. You do just as I tell you. Surely it doesn’t need any signature before a notary public to tell you to quit work. What’s the matter with you people! What are you trying to do, anyway? Just quit it. I tell you I want you to stop. Don’t do another thing. Just forget the whole business. Keep the money. Stop right there.”

She was keying herself up to an hysterical pitch.

“But, Miss Rushe, we’re just beginning to get some really valuable information. We’re getting...”

“That’s what I was afraid of. That’s why I want you to stop. Stop right now. I don’t want anything more. I’m... I’m going away. I’m... I’m not going to be here. You won’t see me again — ever.”

I heard the sound of a choking sob at the other end of the line, and then abruptly the receiver was hung up.

I dropped my receiver back into the cradle.

“What do you make of it?” Bertha asked.

I looked at Bertha gravely and said, “As nearly as I can make anything of it, she wants us to quit working on the case.”

Red blood flushed into Bertha’s face. “Damn it! Don’t you think I can understand the English language? I know what she said. I was asking you what you made of it. At times you’re the most despicable little...”

A timid knock sounded on the door.

“Mysgart,” I said.

Bertha gave me a final glare, then put on her best receiving-a-client smile and said, “After all, the son-of-a-bitch is making money for us. Come in.”

Mysgart opened the door almost apologetically. The way he moved into the room was an indication of the pussy-footing tactics in which he was indulging. The feet unconsciously adjusted themselves to the man’s mental processes. He all but tiptoed over to the client’s chair. “Mr. Lam,” he said, “I think that if you could make that one thousand dollars we could effect a settlement.”

I looked at my watch and grinned at him. “You’re just two minutes too late.”

“What do you mean?”

I said, “I mean, Mrs. Cool and I have just received a very unpleasant jolt. A very important case on which we were working has been canceled.”

“A big case?” he asked.

“It was a small case,” I said, “as cases start. But it was leading to something big, very big.”

Mysgart scratched his nose with his mustache.

I said, “Under the circumstances, I don’t see how we can even contribute five hundred dollars toward a settlement. I’m afraid we’ll have to just let the thing take its course.”

“Oh, but you can’t do that! You can’t do that! I’ve already made the settlement!”

“On the basis of a thousand dollars?” I asked.

“Just a minute,” he said. He came up out of the client’s chair with a rush. “Just a minute now. Don’t go away! Just a minute now!”

He was out through the door like a fleeting shadow.

Bertha looked at me and said, “Whatever Georgia Rushe said over the telephone doesn’t affect the job we are doing for Mr. Crail.”

I said breezily, “Well, let’s not be narrow-minded about it — particularly when we’re dealing with an automobile lawyer.”

Bertha batted her eyes at me, said suddenly, “I love you, you little bastard. I have the greatest admiration for the thinking machine that’s back of your eyes — and you make me so goddamn mad I could kill you a dozen times a day. You...”

Mysgart’s timid little knock sounded on the door, and this time he didn’t wait for an invitation to enter, but having made the knock as a matter of formality, he twisted the knob, opened the door just far enough to accommodate his pudgy body, and slipped into the room, closing the door silently behind him. He was nodding his head. His lips were smiling, but his eyes were dubiously apprehensive.

“It’s all right. I’ve got it fixed. It’s all settled. My congratulations to both of you. You’ve worked out a very fine settlement. You’ve extricated yourselves from a very precarious position. It’s all right. Five hundred dollars will do it. I’ve explained to the parties that the cash will be immediately forthcoming.”

I said, “Mrs. Cool will want releases signed by Mr. Lidfield, Mrs. Lidfield, and Esther Witson.”

“She shall have them. I’ve taken the liberty of asking your secretary to type out a release from Esther Witson, Mrs. Cool; and Mr. Glimson has the releases all signed by Mrs. Lidfield and Mr. Lidfield.”

“Where did he get Mrs. Lidfield’s signature?” Bertha asked suspiciously.

“Glimson had a signed release with him, the consideration, of course, being blank.”

Bertha pushed back her chair an inch or two. “Do you mean the son-of-a-bitch came up here and put on that act for the sole purpose of blackmailing me into a settlement? You mean that he had the signed release in his brief case all the time he...”

Mysgart held up a pudgy hand. “Just a moment, Mrs. Cool. Just a moment. Calm yourself, please! I beg of you, don’t get all excited. It’s not entirely an unusual situation. An attorney secures a written Power of Attorney from a client to effect a settlement, then has the client sign a release, the attorney being given a certain leeway, a certain discretion. That’s so that when all of the parties are together and are in a mood for settlement, a prompt settlement can be put through without the necessity of a lot of delay which sometimes leads to complications. I can assure you that it’s not at all unusual, Mrs. Cool. I’ve even done it myself!”

I said to Bertha Cool, “Make out a check to John Carver Mysgart, attorney for Esther Witson; and Cosgate & Glimson, attorneys for Mr. & Mrs. Rolland Lidfield, in an amount of five hundred dollars.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Bertha said. “I make out a check to the Lidfields and to Esther Witson, and I turn it over when I get the release and not before.”

Mysgart coughed.

I said to Bertha, “No soap, Bertha. You’re dealing with a couple of automobile lawyers.”

“What the hell do you mean?” Bertha asked.

I said, “It’s a matter of professional courtesy to make the check payable to the lawyer rather than the client.”

“Then what protects me?”

“The release of the client,” Mysgart interposed, smiling gratefully at me. “You have the signed release of the client, a release which will be ample in form, Mrs. Cool, releasing you from all claims of any sort, nature, or description from the beginning of the world to the date hereof.”

“From the beginning of the world?” Bertha said.

Mysgart’s bald head reflected the light as he nodded vehemently. “A legal form, Mrs. Cool, a safeguard.”

“You’re so good to me,” Bertha said sarcastically, and then added, “fifty thousand years would be all right.”

“The beginning of the world is a legal safeguard. It’s a form, Mrs. Cool. Apparently Mr. Lam has some familiarity with the procedure in such cases, and I think he can assure you that it’s a customary form and it would be well for you to take advantage of its protection.”

“Oh nuts!” Bertha said disgustedly. “Have I got to write all that stuff in a check?”

I said, “Elsie can type it. Give me a check and I’ll go out and get her to fill it in.”

“Don’t give up the check until you get the releases,” Bertha said.

Mysgart coughed again.

I said to Mysgart, “The bank’s right downstairs. It’s after hours, but we can get in the side door and they’ll cash a check given for a settlement like this. You and Glimson can go down to the bank with me. When the cashier shoves the cash through the window you and Glimson can hand me the signed releases, and...”

Mysgart’s head was bobbing enthusiastically up and down. “You and I are businessmen, Mr. Lam! That’s excellent.”

Bertha jerked open the drawer of the desk, pulled out a checkbook, and ripped out a blank check which she fairly shoved into my hand. “Donald,” she said, “if you love me get these goddamn lawyers out of my office.”

Mysgart turned and started to say something conciliatory.

I slipped my hand through his arm and gently led him out of the office.

Elsie Brand had to crowd the lines in order to get all of that in the check, but she managed it.

I said to Mysgart, “Wait here. I’ll go and get Bertha’s signature on the check, then we’ll go downstairs. Now there’s a couple of things we’ll want in connection with the settlement.”

“What are those?”

I said, “Esther Witson was a busy little woman getting names and license numbers of witnesses at the time of the accident, and I think Mr. Lidfield did a little prowling around on his own. My partner is a little suspicious. She’ll want to get all of the data that both parties had, the names of witnesses and license numbers.”

“Oh, yes,” Mysgart said, nodding enthusiastically once more. “I can appreciate her attitude. She confuses my professional attitude with my personal relations. She shall have all the data, Lam, all of it. We won’t hold out a thing. No, indeed!”

He beamed at me.

I took the check in and put it on Bertha’s desk.

She looked at me suspiciously, said, “When these goddamn lawyers start pussyfooting around the office and smirking at each other, damned if you don’t join in the procession and pussyfoot and smirk right along with the rest of them. I don’t know what the hell it is. It’s probably your legal training.”

Bertha grabbed up the desk pen and all but jabbed the point through the paper as she signed the check.

I went out gently closing the door.

The little group was clustered around the elevator. Lidfield came over and thrust out a rather timid hand. “I haven’t had a chance to meet you, Mr. Lam. I’m glad we’re getting this thing settled. Rather a nasty case.”

“I only hope your wife will get better,” I said.

A look of ineffable sadness crossed his face. “I hope so. Poor girl!”

We all went down to the bank.

“Now just a moment,” I said, “before the money is passed over. You’ll remember that I was to get a complete list of the witnesses.”

Mysgart smiled at Esther Witson and said, “That was the understanding, Miss Witson. I think you have a notebook there...”

Esther Witson pulled a notebook out of her pocket, said, “You can copy these or...”

I said, “Just take the original pages out of the notebook. It’s a loose-leaf notebook and...”

Esther Witson jerked the pages out of the notebook and handed them to me.

“These are all?” I asked.

“All,” she said.

“Now then,” Glimson said, “there’s a consideration to be paid by Miss Witson herself, and...”

“We can do that between us,” Mysgart interposed hurriedly. “Miss Witson’s bank is down the street four or five blocks, and if we hurry, we’ll be able to get in the side door. They know Miss Witson very well down there, and...”

Glimson said to Lidfield, “Give me a list of your witnesses.”

Lidfield was rather apologetic. He said, “I just wrote the license number of every car that was around there that I could see.”

I said to Glimson, “Of course after your client gave you the license numbers of these automobiles, you had them investigated and have the names of the owners?”

Glimson sighed reluctantly, opened his brief case and took out a typewritten sheet of paper which he handed to me without a word.

The teller looked at me inquiringly.

I nodded.

They grabbed the money and started for the door of the bank, anxious to get down to Esther Witson’s bank while they could still get in.