“I’m very interested in the other work, Mr. Prescott, very, but I just don’t think I can accept this case. The Rules of Professional Conduct won’t allow me to take a case where I couldn’t be adequately prepared.”
He pressed his lips together and then began writing on a pad. Without looking up at me he said, “That’s fine, Victor. We’re not always ready to seize our opportunities, no matter how transient they may be. I understand completely. Janice will show you out.”
I waited for a moment, waited for him to look up and smile, waited for him to again tell me how good a lawyer I was and all that we could do together, but he didn’t say another word, concentrating instead only on the pad upon which he wrote. After more than a few moments of waiting I rose and headed for his door.
“Did I mention the retainer,” he said as I turned the doorknob.
“No, you didn’t.”
“Fifteen thousand dollars up front if you decide to take the case.”
“That sheds a new light on the offer,” I said, releasing the knob from my grip.
“I thought it might.”
“Mostly, sir, it would be the honor of working with you.”
“Yes, I see. So I take it you’re on board?”
I hesitated a moment, but not too long a moment. “Yes, sir.”
“Terrific,” he said brightly and he smiled his charismatic smile that warmed me. “The trial team is meeting Monday night, here, at six. You can meet your client then. Before the Monday meeting you can look at whatever evidence we have. I’ll set up a room for you, say starting at ten.”
“Fine.”
“We have a status hearing before Judge Gimbel on Tuesday morning. I’ll make sure your retainer is ready by then. By the way, Victor, what’s your hourly fee?”
“One-fifty,” I said.
“You’re going to make us look like chiselers by comparison. For this case your fee is two-fifty. Is that acceptable?”
“Perfectly.”
“It’s great to have you on the team, Victor. This is a terrific opportunity for you, son,” he said, and I knew that it was. Prescott was offering me more than just a high publicity case in which my picture would make the papers and my name become known. He was offering to mentor me, to guide my career, to raise me to something more than second-rate. There was no telling what I could gain from his wise guidance and touching concern for my welfare.
“I understand,” I said, “and I am very grateful for the chance.”
“Yes,” he replied, without a hint of credulity in his face. “I believe that you are. And I have no doubts but that you’ll come through for us.”
So maybe I had been wrong after all. Maybe this glorious land to which my great-grandfather had brought his family from Russia actually was the land of opportunity he sought and maybe this William Prescott III was the instrument of that opportunity, along with whichever fate had lodged that chunk of roasted duck in fat Pete McCrae’s throat. I still had my doubts, sure, but fifteen grand up front and two-fifty an hour did a lot of easing.
4
BESIDE A RAGGED DOOR in a hallway atop a Korean grocery on 21st Street, south of Chestnut, hung a series of names spelled out in small chromed letters. There was VIMHOFF & COMPANY, ACCOUNTANTS, and beneath that PARALLEL DESIGN INC., and beneath that JOHN STEVENSON, ARCHITECT, and beneath that, oddly off-center from the rest, DERRINGER AND CARL, ATTORNEYS. The name of our firm was off-center because the first series of letters had been ripped off the wall, and hastily, too, if the presence of plastic nubs still imbedded in the drywall was any indication. A careful examination of the dirt shadows around the missing word revealed the name Guthrie. I won’t deny that I had been the ripper and it had felt damn good, too, even as the sharp edges of that bastard’s name bit into my flesh. When is betrayal not betrayal? When it is only business.
All the firms shared a receptionist, an older woman named Rita with a white streak in her blue-black hair and a blue streak in her voice. “Any messages?” I asked her when I returned from my meeting with Prescott.
“Nothing worthwhile, Mr. Carl. Surprise.” Her voice was pure New Jersey, like an annoying siren. “Except that guy from the copier company called again. He started complaining to me, like I was the one who owed him the money. I told him to make a xerox of the invoice and send it in.”
I took the pink slips from my place in the message rack and shuffled through them. “They don’t want you to call it a xerox,” I said idly. “It’s a trade name.”
“Yeah, I know. But I love when they start explaining it over the telephone. He’s sending you a warning letter and a xerox of their trademark policy. Vimhoff’s looking for you,” she said.
“Is he here?”
“No, but he said he wants to talk with you Monday morning. How much rent do you owe?”
“I won’t be in Monday morning.”
“That much?”
“A new case. Really.”
She didn’t laugh, she gave off more of a snort.
I took my messages and followed the vinyl-papered hallway past Vimhoff’s office, as neat and orderly as a row of numbers, past the large design office filled with the whirr of Macintosh computers, past the architect’s office, door closed as always, until I reached the rear, where Ellie, our secretary, sat quietly at her desk, chewing gum, reading a magazine, guarding our three sad little offices. She was impossibly young, Ellie, very pretty in a Catholic school way, red hair, freckles, cute comic book nose, and always dressed inappropriately bright and sharp, as if each morning she was on her way to a christening. Guthrie had hired her right out of high school, had gotten her name from a nun, though when he left for his new firm he took with him Carolyn, our other secretary, the one who knew how to type. But Ellie had kept coming around even after her paychecks stopped, which was better than her knowing how to type.
“Where’s Derringer?” I asked. “I have news.”
“On the way back from Social Security.”
“How did it go?”
“It was the Cooperman case,” said Ellie in a tone that meant nothing else needed to be said. “By the way, Mr. Vimhoff’s looking for you.”
“I know. I finally settled Saltz.”
“That dog?”
“Be polite.”
“Does that mean I get paid this month?”
“Just as soon as the check clears. By the way, Ellie, do me a favor. I ran into Winston Osbourne the other day and it got me thinking. Find out who Osbourne’s daughter is, her name, I think she’s married, and her address. Call Mrs. Osbourne at the house. She’ll know. Pretend you’re an old friend.”
“Sure.”
“I’ve a hunch where we’re going to find ourselves a Duesenberg.”
My office proper was a small dark place. I had once had plans for it. I was going to paint the walls an eggshell blue, lay down an oriental carpet, haul in a huge mahogany desk, hide the pale metal of the filing cabinets in a wood veneer. From the galleries on Walnut Street I was to pick a large landscape, Early American, epic and green, and hang it catercorner to the window. Plants, there would be tall leafy plants, and deep leather chairs for my clients to sit upon as I wove for them the sage legal advice for which I would become renowned. But the plans for my office, like the plans for my life, had dissolved before the relentless progression of my reality. My office now was a small dark place, cluttered with the detritus of a failing career – disorganized piles of meaningless paper, dusty stacks of long dead files. On the windowsill was the narrow brown spine of a wandering Jew who had settled down in death. There was desolation in my office that would not be eased by forty thousand dollars, only prolonged.