Primary Justice

31

BEN WALKED BACK TO his office, stifling a yawn. He hadn’t slept at all the night before. Too much was happening, pulling him every which way at once. Derek, Julia, Sanguine. Emily. Too much. Too much concern, too much guilt. He began to wonder if he would ever sleep peacefully again, if the gnawing in his stomach would ever subside.

Just as he had nearly made it to his office, he was stopped by Maggie. “Two messages came in for you, Mr. Kincaid,” she said, in an unnecessarily loud tone of voice.

“Thanks, Maggie.” He lifted the message memos from his spindle.

The first was from Christina. It read: No luck yet. Still hard at it—probably conducting more audits than real IRS. Why does Tulsa need so many different places to live?

Ben smiled. Now there’s a good woman. This was probably part of the cosmic karma, he mused. In exchange for getting to work with Christina, he had to tolerate working with Derek and Maggie.

The second message informed Ben that Mr. Derek wished to see him. Ben crumpled that message in his fist and, taking his own sweet time, strolled into Derek’s office.

“Good to see you, Kincaid.”

Ben blinked. Derek actually seemed cordial, all smiles.

“Where have you been hiding yourself?”

Ben was startled by this sudden outburst of friendliness. This wasn’t the Derek he had come to know and be repelled by. Something had changed radically.

“Take a chair, son. I’d come around, but my trick knee is acting up again.”

Ben sat as instructed.

Derek looked into Ben’s eyes, but it seemed more a friendly scrutiny than the usual dissection. “Well, now, you’ve been a busy boy, haven’t you?” He squinted his eyes into impossibly thin slits, then laughed. “Just got off the phone with Joseph Sanguine.”

Oh, great, Ben thought. I pushed Sanguine too hard, and he’s ticked off about it. I’m history. Finished. Fired. Impoverished. Destitute.

“We’ve been after Sanguine for years to appoint someone to act as in-house liaison counsel for Sanguine Enterprises, and we wanted it to be someone from our firm. To solidify the relationship between our business and his.” He paused meaningfully. “Do you realize that Sanguine Enterprises paid over four million dollars in legal fees to Raven, Tucker & Tubb last year alone? Incredible. Needless to say, we don’t want to lose this client.”

Derek uncrossed and recrossed his legs manually, using both hands to lift the legs into place. He winced as he bent his right knee. “Sanguine wants you to be his in-house counsel, Kincaid. He asked for you by name and made it clear he would accept no substitutes. Frankly, we thought he’d go for someone with more legal experience, someone who’d been here ten, maybe fifteen years, rather than ten, fifteen days”—he waved his hand absently in the air—“but who are we to judge? The client always knows best. Sanguine says he wants to train someone fresh, someone who will learn to transact business his way from day one. And frankly, Sanguine knows damn well we’ll give him whomever he wants.”

Ben stared at Derek in disbelief. His mind was frozen in the mental equivalent of a gaping jaw. “I … I—don’t see how …”

“I don’t see how you did it either, Kincaid. You’ve been involved in two minor cases, you’ve only been on the Vancouver case for one day, and suddenly, you’re in-house counsel. Sanguine said something about admiring your aggressiveness and spunk. I don’t know what you’ve been doing during your visits to his office, but whatever it was, it worked like a wet dream. You’ve taken a giant step ahead of your peers.”

He paused, then decided in favor of another of his characteristic blasts of brutal honesty. “Frankly, Kincaid, I didn’t think you’d be the one to take a giant step ahead of the wolf pack. You struck me as too meek and mild for Raven, and especially for Sanguine. I guess I was honest with you about that. Well, I suppose it’s Sanguine’s decision.”

“What would in-house counsel do?” Ben asked hesitantly.

“Oh, find out what’s going on, first. They’re so disorganized at Sanguine, they’ve got cases pending that they’ve lost track of or totally forgotten about. Sanguine’s got local counsel working for him all over the globe, but no one back home looking over their shoulders and supervising the work. Before long, I expect you’ll start building your own staff of in-house lawyers. You’ll be in charge of other people, lawyers older than yourself, probably. They could hardly be much younger, could they? You’ll also take care of the day-to-day legal minutiae that comes to an operation the size of Sanguine Enterprises on a regular basis. Of course, litigation matters, especially the big money cases, you’ll still want to refer out to Raven, Tucker.”

“But—” Ben found himself sputtering like an infant. Something was wrong, but he was unable to express that to Derek. “I never wanted to be an administrator. I wanted to litigate. I wanted to try lawsuits.”

Derek waved his hand in the air. “Kid, you can make this job whatever you want. It’s your blank check. Speaking of checks, you’ll maintain your firm salary, and in addition, you’ll be receiving a sizable stipend from Sanguine. Eventually, they’ll take over your entire salary. Plus, you’ll receive a signing bonus and various corporate benefits. Kincaid, you’ve been working here less than a month, and you’re rich!”

Ben fell back in his chair. It sounded too good to be true. Much too good.

“All you have to do is play your job right and keep Sanguine happy. Remember,” Derek added, the expression in his voice changing somewhat, “we’re all counting on you. Sanguine asked for you and you alone. If you fail, there’s no guarantee he’ll choose someone else from this firm to take your place.”

Derek paused to let his words sink in. Then his face suddenly brightened. “Now, congratulations, you wild man. Get out of here. Go celebrate. Take the rest of the afternoon off. We’re going to have a reception this evening at my house for some key Sanguine people you’ll need to meet, and some of our attorneys who work on Sanguine matters. You’ll be the guest of honor, Kincaid.”

Without another word, Derek returned his attention to the tall stack of papers on his desk. In a daze, Ben managed to find his feet and make his way back to his own office. Too much. Too much.