PrivateSector

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Predictably, George Meany threw a monumental hissy fit when Janet informed Bob, and Bob then unhappily informed his boss, that she had insisted on returning to D. C. for business. After what sounded like a fairly good tongue-lashing, an ashen-faced Bob handed Janet his cell phone.

She said to Meany, “George, let’s not get into an argument about this.”

He said something, and she nodded, and replied, “That’s right. My mind is made up. I have work to do, and I’m going to do it.” And they went back and forth like that for a while, sounding like an old married couple.

But apparently, experience had taught him that with the lady in question he wasn’t going to win this, or any, argument. A compromise of sorts was reached; he would have two more special agents meet us at the Delta departure gate, to be reinforced by two more agents when we arrived at Ronald Reagan National.

Janet and her aunt and sisters then spent some time doing the emotional good-bye thing, and I used the occasion to draw Spinelli out to the back porch. We had a deal, and to show I honored my word, I gave him a swift rundown on our suspicions about the firm, what we’d found inside the car, and so on. He got the sanitized version, of course. Daniel Spinelli was motivated by self-interest, and to protect my self-interest I carefully held back a few key issues I might need in exchange for later favors. He seemed to really appreciate my confidences, however, so I exploited his good mood to arrange another deal.

In fact, two guys in nondescript clothing were cooling their heels by the curb when we pulled up to the Delta entrance at Logan International in Bob’s black sedan. From the look of them, Meany had apparently concluded that the search for the killer was going nowhere; or his boss had ordered him to move Janet’s safety up a few pegs on his priority list, because these two were clearly members of the A-team. Grim-faced, hard-nosed, and well-built, they had already completed the paperwork to fly with their guns, and in fact had persuaded Delta to whisk us through the ticketing procedure and allow us to cool our heels in the VIP lounge until three minutes before takeoff.

I like guys who take no chances when my safety is at stake. Also, I was really hungry, and I stuffed my pockets with free peanuts.

But they obviously had been prebriefed that we were difficult cargo, because they put up almost no fight when Janet insisted they sit no closer than six seats forward or aft, so she and I could have a discussion about confidential legal matters. It wasn’t like this guy was going to come running down the aisle and whack us, anyway, so they obliged us, and we had two hours to jointly ponder our dilemma and plot our strategy.

The dilemma was fairly straightforward-somebody in the firm was an accessory to murder. Janet commented that this was like one of those old closed-room mysteries English people go nuts about, where somebody killed the host-but who? The shortlist included Harold Bronson, Cy Berger, Barry Bosworth, Sally Westin, and Hal Merriweather. I wanted it to be Hal, or Barry, or Harold.

The trifecta would be Hal, and Barry, and Harold. I believe I mentioned I have a vindictive streak, and the beast demanded to be fed. I could live with it being Sally, though I’d be very surprised. I’d be disappointed if it was Cy, but only mildly surprised.

Anyway, I informed my new attorney about the basis for my lawsuit, and we efficiently worked through the details of how we would shape and present it. The legal fine points and elements of proof were meaningless anyway-it was all bluff and bluster.

There’s a saying in our biz: If the law is on your side, pound on the law; if the facts are on your side, pound on the facts; if neither is on your side, pound on the table. We lacked the law and facts, and they owned the damned table, which meant we had to pound on them. The basic idea was to infuriate, insult, and threaten everybody and see who got all sweaty about it. Somebody in that room had important things to hide. The time had come to find out who, and what.

By the way, not two, but four more agents met us at Reagan National Airport. Spinelli had had enough of us, and he left alone in a taxi. Janet and I departed a few minutes later in an inauspicious caravan of three shiny black Crown Victorias; a lead car in front, us in the middle, and a chase car behind. We traveled at high speed, straight to 1616 Connecticut Avenue. Janet informed our bodyguards that we were attending a confidential legal conference, so they would have to wait in the downstairs lobby.

At 7:30 P.M., the elevator door opened on the eighth floor. Hal Merriweather was perched stiffly beside Elizabeth’s long wooden desk. Standing freeform, he looked like an egg on stilts.

I said, “If it isn’t my man. Hal, this is my attorney, Miss Janet Morrow. Janet, this is the idiot who claims we stole information from the firm.”

The supercilious grin on Hal’s face disappeared. “Janet Morr- Are you stupid, Drummond? What in the hell is she doing here?”

“Don’t let his appearance fool you,” I told Janet. “Hal’s even stupider than he looks.”

She laughed.

Hal’s face turned a nice shade of off-pink. “Watch your mouth, asshole. You want more trouble? Just fuck with me.” Hal’s manners and charm apparently took a turn for the worse when his minders weren’t around.

I laughed. “Janet… save me from this guy… please.”

“Smart people don’t ignore my warnings, Drummond.”

“Smart people ignore you, Hal.”

“Fuck you.”

I said, “Move your ass, errand boy. Your bosses are waiting.”

“We’ll see who’s laughing in an hour, asshole.”

“Every time I see you, I laugh, pal.”

He unlocked the doorway to the stairwell and led us up the stairs to the next floor. I couldn’t resist informing Janet, “No, that’s not the Goodyear blimp, that’s Hal’s ass.”

Hah-hah. Boy, I was hot. I had Hal worked into a nice frothy fury, which was exactly how we wanted him.

We entered the ninth floor hallway, where Hal led us to the big conference room in the center of the floor. He banged open the door and stomped inside. The room was large, thirty by fifty feet or so, expensively furnished with leather-backed chairs around a very long, carved conference table.

Cy, Harold Bronson, and two other gentlemen were seated side by side at the far side of the table, the picture of intimidation. Barry, but a lowly associate, was hunched over in a chair along the wall. Hal tromped over and joined him. They made a lovely pair of matched idiots.

For the benefit of the two other gentlemen, Cy said, “Major Sean Drummond, if you haven’t met him.” He said to me, “Sean, we’ll have to ask your friend to leave. This is a private hearing.”

“Wrong. She’s my attorney… Miss Janet Morrow.”

The other three partners stared inquisitively. Cy squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. I mentioned to Cy, “You were well acquainted with her sister Lisa, weren’t you?”

Given Janet’s unexpected presence, he understood the underlying context.

“She was a friend,” he replied innocuously. I did notice, however, that my comment drew nosy stares from the other partners, who were inevitably aware of Cy’s reputation with the ladies, though apparently not with the particular lady in question.

Of course, the purpose of this little repartee was to dry-fire a warning shot across Cy’s bow that I knew about his affair, a serious breach of professional ethics in the workplace. And regarding his behavior in a session that concerned my professional ethics, he might want to balance my needs with his own. But what’s a little blackmail among friends? Though, actually, we weren’t really friends. And in any regard, what is blackmail to one man is often insurance to another.

Cy recovered his composure and said to Janet, “Miss Morrow, I’m truly sorry about Lisa’s death. We all thought very highly of her. And I… well, I intended to send the family a card expressing my condolences, but things have been very busy.”

Janet nodded coolly. “We look forward to getting it.”

Cy seemed to have gotten the point, so I said, “I’m afraid I haven’t met the other partners.”

One was middle-aged: dark, thinning hair shot with gray, gold-rimmed glasses, and a fleshy, pugnacious, pockmarked face. He looked like a Mafia cutthroat in a gray wool suit. He said, “I’m Marcus Belknap, managing partner at the New York office.”

The other was older, silver-haired, sort of a patrician face, heavy-lidded eyes, probably went to Harvard Law, married a millionaire’s daughter, enjoyed racquetball, fast Porsches, and three-martini lunches. He said, “Harvey Weatherill, Philadelphia office.”

Their names and titles were irrelevant to me; they were outsiders brought in to lend this thing a patina of fairness and balance it clearly did not merit. The outsiders would vote however Cy and Bronson told them to-assuming it got to that stage. The important point was that the other side of the table was stacked with corporate attorneys accustomed to the silky, elbow-rubbing environment of conference rooms and protracted debates over where to put a comma in a contract clause; Janet and I were hard-eyed criminal brawlers accustomed to kneecapping our opponents.

We all spent a moment sizing up one another before Bronson opened the bidding, saying, “We will begin this session with a briefing and presentation of evidence from Mr. Hal Merriweather. Then we will move to a more disturbing matter of atrocious misconduct, and testimony on that matter will also be presented.” He took a theatrical pause, as if to underline the gravity of this session, then said, “Mr. Merriweather.”

Hal bounced out of his chair and spent ten minutes detailing with great gusto my egregious burglary of confidential firm information, the several laws and several firm policies I had violated, the irrefutable evidence, and so forth. I rocked back in my chair, closed my eyes, and let him drone on.

But I guess he finally wrapped it up, because I felt Janet’s elbow in my ribs and heard Bronson saying, “Well, Drummond?”

“What?”

“Again, what do you have to say in your behalf?”

I looked at Janet, and she looked at me. She replied, “We’ll wait until the second charge has been fully aired.”

Cy looked curiously at Bronson and said, “What is this second charge, Harold?”

He enjoyed the attention as he explained, “In the office complex of a client, Drummond assaulted his supervising attorney.”

The other partners all looked properly aghast.

I asked Bronson, “Who did I assault?”

“ Whom, Drummond. And you know damn well.” But he explained for the benefit of the others, “Barry Bosworth.”

“How?”

“You grabbed him… well, you know where you grabbed him.”

Janet clarified. “By the balls, gentlemen.”

I chuckled. I love this stuff.

Cy said to me, “Sean, these are very grave matters. Conduct yourself accordingly.”

Bronson snapped. “You’re being offered a chance to defend yourself, which I, personally, consider a complete waste of our time.”

“Of course you do, Harold.”

Sensing the decorum needed to be brought up a notch, Cy said, “For the edification of the partners who haven’t been briefed on the altercation, Barry, describe what happened.”

So Barry cleared his throat, sat up a bit straighter, and explained, “The incident occurred three days ago, at the headquarters of Morris Networks. The audit was complete and I had gone over to supervise the final steps. I explained to Drummond the great importance of getting it to the Defense Department right away, asked him to sign it, and he told me we needed to talk. He led me to the men’s room, I thought for privacy. The second we entered, he shoved me against the wall, grabbed my… well, my testicles, and threatened to rip them off.”

Cy asked, “Unprovoked?”

“Well… yes. It was a complete surprise, Cy.”

When no further questions were raised, he continued, “He told me he wouldn’t sign unless the firm dropped all charges against him. I told him we wouldn’t be blackmailed. He told me how much he detested the firm. Harold, he called you a phony, pompous ass.” He looked at me and added, “These are his words, mind you-he said the partners of this firm are all limp-wristed assholes who lack the backbone to stand up to him.”

Cy looked at me. “True?”

“Parts of it.” For instance, it was true the partners were ass-holes.

“What parts aren’t true?” Cy asked.

Janet replied, “Are we done describing my client’s purported crimes and offenses?”

The partners all looked at one another. Cy replied, “I believe we are.”

Bronson informed Janet, “If you have something relevant and factual, we’ll hear you out.”

Janet acknowledged his patronizing tone with a smile. “Relevant?”

“You’re an attorney, young lady. You should know the definition.”

“If my client discovered a massive fraud involving your firm, would that be relevant?”

“No, it is not. I will not allow you to turn this into a circus.”

“Have it your way, then,” Janet replied. “I’m filing a civil suit in the morning for the vicious and unprovoked assault on my client by Barry Bosworth.”

“What?” Bronson exploded.

Janet said to me, “Please show these gentlemen your wounds.”

I obediently unbuttoned my shirt and pointed at a massive bruise on my left chest. It looked awful. In fact, it should look awful. I had invested a lot of time, trouble, and pain in the bathroom on the plane from Boston, using my shoe to reinforce and expand the mild bruise Barry had actually inflicted.

Janet explained, “These hideous wounds were inflicted by Mr. Bosworth in his attempt to coerce my client into signing a legally flawed audit.” Janet then said to me, “Explain the full extent of your injuries.”

It is axiomatic for lawyers to spice up a conversation with emotive adjectives and pronouns, and Janet had done her part, so I appeared appropriately distraught. “Barry ordered me into the men’s room. The moment we entered, he brutally shoved me against the wall, resulting in a severe concussion. He then assaulted me with his fists, inflicting these serious wounds. I now have short-term memory loss, blurred vision, difficulty breathing, severe whiplash, and mental trauma. I’ve developed a sleeping disorder, appetite problems, mental anguish, and self-esteem issues.”

They didn’t know whether to laugh or howl.

Janet added, “These injuries have been photographed, a doctor has examined my client, and we have statements from two renowned psychiatrists. Sean will require years of expensive therapy. His sterling military career is through, as is his ability to lead the happy, well-adjusted life he experienced before his employment here.”

Well, we hadn’t actually accomplished any of that on the plane ride down, but it is also axiomatic for lawyers to exaggerate, and indeed, they were all staring at Janet now, fully attentive, as she further explained, “Your firm placed my client in the grip of a sadistic bully, and Bosworth committed his heinous, unprovoked assault at the behest of your firm’s tawdry financial interests.” She allowed a moment for the shock to settle in. Then she said, “We’ll be asking for one hundred million in damages.”

“This is preposterous,” Bronson exploded, leaping out of his chair.

The two outside partners were shaking their heads and trying to make sense out of this circus. Cy’s eyes, though, were examining us-apparently, he was the only one in the room with enough sense to take this farce, and us, seriously.

He asked Janet, “You’re claiming Barry attacked Drummond?”

“No question about that.” She nodded in Barry’s direction. “It boils down to who had the motive. His partnership comes under review next month, and clearly relies on his ability to maintain Morris Networks as a client. Your firm is notorious for its treatment of associates. All that pressure… he simply snapped.”

Janet peered up at Bronson, who, incidentally, appeared livid, and she instructed him, “Sit down and act like an adult.”

Unaccustomed as he was to being talked down to, he huffed and puffed, while Cy tried to restore order, and Barry insisted, “Cy, Harold… it’s a travesty. I never touched him.”

Janet was handling this really well, and she sat patiently and waited for the noise and emotion to subside before she continued. She said, “Our case will obviously require us to expose the filthy scheme Bosworth was trying to keep hidden, a conspiracy involving a company named Grand Vistas that has been indulging in fraudulent activities with your client Morris Networks. We will show that Barry Bosworth put the scheme together, that he met with executives from Grand Vistas, that he arranged the appropriate contracts, that he and, by extension, the senior partners of this firm were knee-deep in bilking thousands of investors.”

Cy looked surprised and said, “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Janet replied, “Morris Networks and Grand Vistas will necessarily be included as litigants. The assault occurred on the improperly policed premises of the former, to cover up the illegal activities of both litigants.”

Janet stood and I followed her lead. She stared down at the partners and warned, “When the Pentagon hears about this, Morris Networks’ contracts will in all likelihood be canceled. I suspect Mr. Morris’s response will be to start shopping around for a new law firm.”

Cy appeared frustrated and implored us, saying, “Please, sit down. Let’s talk this out.”

Barry yelled, “He’s lying!”

Bronson said, “Young lady, you’re a fool if you think you can blackmail this firm.”

Well, we’d gone as far as facts and suspicions would allow, and before we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, I announced, “We’ll be filing at 10:00 A.M. at the Arlington courthouse. Shortly thereafter, we’ll issue a press release to the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. I’d advise you to contact your clients and warn them.”