“Key Medical, Inc.”
“Of course. I’ll review the file as soon as I get it, then come out and meet with you and the gang. This way I won’t waste your time, or your staff’s, asking questions I can answer myself.”
“Okay, good deal.” Abrams sounded cheered. “And payment, how do we work that?”
“I’ll send you a fee agreement for your signature. I work on standard contingency, but a small retainer could get us rolling. Say five thousand dollars?”
“That’s doable. Send me the agreement, I’ll sign it and send it back with a check.”
“Great, Mort. Appreciate it.” Bennie couldn’t believe this. Two days ago she would have been deliriously happy at the cash. Now she could barely get her act together.
“I’ll get you those papers right away.”
“Looking forward to it.” They said corporate good-byes, and Bennie exhaled audibly the moment she hung up the phone. She should have been happy, but it was impossible.
David. She had trusted him, but he hadn’t told her everything. Still. He had watched over her. Taken care of her. Seen to it that she had food and rest. And he’d given her good advice last night. He couldn’t have been in cahoots with Alice on anything. Thanks to him, she’d felt great when she’d gotten up today, and great when she’d come in. Her gaze fell on the edge of the article, sticking stubbornly from her mail, and she knew just what to do with it. Tuck it back inside. So she did.
It left her facing a flock of pink message slips, with CoreMed’s on top. She hadn’t focused on it before, at the reception desk. She slid out the message, and there were others stuck to it that she hadn’t seen. Total Lenz of Korea. Reiss, Inc. Tumflex. She didn’t know any of these names, but they sure sounded like lens manufacturers. They had to be potential class members. They didn’t sound like debt consolidators.
Bennie arranged the phone messages on her desk, with Julien St. Amien’s on top. He was her biggest and best client ever, and if the others were new business too, she had better stop whining and pay attention. Work had always focused her. Seen her through, even when all else failed. She’d rested last night, but that was then. And this was now. It was time to get on the horn. She picked up the receiver and punched in the number.
“Julien?” she asked when a man’s voice picked up, then the accent registered. “Georges?”
“Yes, this is Bennie? How are you, Bennie?”
“Fine, thanks.” A tide of guilt washed over her. “I’m so sorry I didn’t call you last night after I went to the police. I spoke with Detective Needleman and saw the suspect in Robert’s murder.”
“His name is Ronald Johnson, eh? Detective Needleman says he’s a Nazi type, a skinhead. He belongs to a group. So there are these people, after all, in America.”
“Yes, there are,” Bennie said. It felt like a shameful admission, even though Johnson wasn’t the killer. For a civil libertarian, there were times even she hated the First Amendment.
“So I see I am wrong, and I am glad they have him. I hope today or tomorrow they will charge him.”
“Me, too.” Bennie wanted to shift the subject because she was such a lousy liar. “Julien called, and it may be important. May I speak with him?”
“He isn’t in. He went out with Micheline.”
Bennie’s ears pricked up. “He seems very friendly with Micheline.”
“They get along very well, yes. It’s good that they spend time together, for Julien lost his mother when he was quite young.”
And Micheline is so motherly. “What, did she take him out to lunch?”
“Perhaps, I don’t know. I got my cast off this morning, and when I came back, they had left a note.” Georges paused. “Bennie, I am worried a little bit about Julien. He has been behaving so strangely.”
“With Robert’s death, he would be.”
“No, not sad. Secretive. What was it he talked to you about yesterday? Micheline told me she saw you two talking outside in the square.”
Oh, that. Bennie bit her tongue. She had said she’d keep it confidential, so she told a white lie: “Just a few things about the company. It’s probably what he’s calling me about.”
“Really? You sure that was it?” The doubt in his voice suggested he had a good merde detector. “Micheline said it looked as if Julien was upset, and she knows the boy quite well.”
“Yes, that’s all it was. Business. Please tell him I called.” Bennie said a quick good-bye and hung up before Georges asked another hard question. She sifted through the messages for the next business call, then punched in the number for CoreMed, Inc. “Is Mr. Gupta in, please?” she asked, introduced herself, and was put through.
“Gupta here,” said a voice with a thick Indian accent. “Ms. Rosato, thank you for calling back. It is a pleasure indeed to speak with you. I am a lens manufacturer for medical equipment, based in New Delhi, and I was a friend of Robert St. Amien’s.”
“It’s wonderful to speak with you, then.”
“I see on the news they have his murderer. It is a terrible crime. A terrible shame.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Well, to the point. I had the opportunity to see you in court the other day, I was watching your performance, and I admired very much the way you dealt with the situation, and also your liveliness.”
Bennie smiled. “I am lively.”
“I call Julien to send my respects to him and his family, and he is telling me that you will continue as their counsel. Is this true? He is quite happy about this, he tells me on the telephone.”
“Yes, it is true, and I am happy to do so too.”
“Then perhaps I wonder if you would consider serving CoreMed as counsel and representing my company in the class action?”
“Yes, of course,” Bennie said, amazed. It was like picking low fruit off a tree, this plum thanks to Julien. And even while she was saying yes, another call was coming in, which Marshall picked up. “I’d be honored to do so.”
“Excellent. This makes me very happy. When shall we meet to discuss our claim?”
“Let me check next week.” Bennie got out her desk calendar and flipped the pages to the next week. Empty, empty, empty, empty. “Friday looks good to me,” she said, for effect.
“Two o’clock on Friday?”
“Done. Why don’t you send me all the documents that are arguably relevant to the case and I’ll read them before we meet.”
“An excellent idea. I value such efficiency. Now, what about the payment terms?” Mr. Gupta asked, and she filled him in. She’d send the fee agreement, he’d send the retainer check. Bennie could almost hear the ca-ching ca-ching. She was on her way to solvency. Paying back the money she owed. Getting her house out of hock.
She picked up the next message before the phone rang again and punched in the number for Tumflex, Inc. When the call connected, she asked, “Is Mr. Riagrelli in? This is Bennie Rosato, returning his call.”
She spoke with Mr. Riagrelli, who wanted to retain her, then Mr. Grsucjki of Reiss, Inc., Ms. Lutenka of SeeMore, and after that Ms. Hurye, Horst Balshamn, Dreyer Ertmann, and Seji Yamamoto. It was a veritable United Nations of well-paying clients, and they didn’t care that she had taken only high school Latin. They all wanted to speak with her, meet her, or retain her right away, based on either Robert’s reputation, Julien’s recommendation, or what they’d seen of her in court. Of this latter group, they liked her spunk, feistiness, courage, balls, toughness, softness, cleverness, honesty, and oh, yes, muscular legs. Go figure.
Bennie took all comers and worked through lunch, and all the time she was talking, the other phones were ringing. When Marshall brought her a tuna sandwich, which she inhaled, she also had ten more phone messages. By the time Bennie was finished returning all of the calls, she had a list of twelve new clients, nineteen possible clients, and accounts receivable of over fifty thousand dollars, to be paid within the week. It was almost too good to believe. Not only was Bennie back in business, she was back with a vengeance. And if this kept up, there would be no contest at all about who would be lead counsel.