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.”