— Of whose luck! Oscar's? My God Harry I've never heard such, help out these minorities I've never heard such a ridiculous, what is it now Lily?
— I'm sorry but, I can't find any tea bags I looked all over and…
— Of course you can't find any tea bags, you're not making one cup are you? for three of us? There's loose tea in a square yellow tin that says tea on it you make a pot of tea not a cup, you want tea don't you Harry?
— I think I want a drink.
— I should think you might! Pour yourself one and sit down, just stop walking back and forth you're not in a courtroom Harry I've never heard such nonsense from you in my life. From you Harry! Swyne & Dour and your friend Sam trying to give these minorities a leg up like your little bastard Mister Mudpye? Out of two, three hundred lawyers you've got there every one of them white? male? and you need a black face or two in the window before some antidiscrimination law wakes up and hands out a good stiff fine in the only language they speak up there, money? Put a pair of white shoes on Mister Basic make him a partner your friend Bill Peyton would think the place looked like a minstrel show and you can stand there with a straight face and, will you sit down! I feel like I'm talking to a…
— Look Christina, a place like Swyne & Dour you're not even proposed as a lateral partner unless you're bringing along a million and a half or two in billings with you, I've told you that. You think Basic or any of them's got that kind of a client base? Never been a black partner the whole time I've been there, never even more than two black associates at once and they didn't last long either, did I ever say it wasn't about money? You want to live in a place like Massapequa and drive around in a broken down Japanese, look at Oscar. Why do you think I referred him to Lepidus, Shea, smaller firm no white shoe trying to keep his costs down because Sam would try to give him a break on rates and…
— Keep his, my God have you seen the bills they where is it, that blue folder Oscar where is it. Keep his costs down, they've charged him for everything here but paperclips. Long distance calls, telecopier, deposition transcripts, photocopying thirty cents a page? They must have done the whole Britannica, car rentals, travel that's our friend Mister Basic off to California, Mister Basic buying drinks for the house at the Beverly Wilshire they all could have flown to the moon, you call this giving him a break?
— I said on the rates Christina, those are costs, I said the hourly rates.
— Mister Basic sitting here with his clock running showing me pictures of the hairy Ainu?
— Not exactly what I, what I'm talking about rates Christina, we'd price somebody at Mudpye's level out at one eighty six an hour, Basic's probably priced around a hundred, maybe less, two or three hours of conferences for his client to explain the situation, a couple of hours of reading whatever's relevant and a couple more preliminary legal research, another conference you're up to a thousand before he's even taken the case, then he drafts the Complaint. Twenty hours research, four hours to write it and we're up to thirty five hundred and you've barely started. Kiester's brief comes in filing for dismissal and the heavy research time comes in, maybe forty more hours preparing Oscar's cross motion for summary judgment. Depositions, discovery documents if Kiester handed them all over, if he didn't more conferences, more briefs, deposing your witnesses probably count on at least ten hours of preparation for every hour of actual deposition time and an important deponent like Kiester himself figure his deposition lasts ten hours so there's a hundred and ten billable hours right there and you're still pretty early into the pretrial stage when things begin to get really expensive…
— Harry?
— Trial strategy and preparing your witnesses, the whole…
— Why in the name of God are you telling us all this.
— Just trying to explain how these things can mount up, even a fairly simple case like this one you take the case I'm on multiply every figure by a hundred, a thousand, I told you it would run into money didn't I? right at the start? If he'd won…
— He lost! He didn't win Harry he lost! my God how many times do we have to…
— Win or lose Christina, I told you at the start you begin running up bills the minute you…
— You don't think he's going to pay them do you?
— What?
— I said, by any remote stretch of the imagination you can't think that Oscar or anyone in his right mind would even faintly consider paying these idiotic bills for one instant, can you?
— Just telling you they put in a lot of time and work on the case Christina, take a look back there at Oscar's deposition I think Basic did a pretty damn good job for the…
— For a fraud, so the State can put him away for a year, what about your friend Sam. How long can they put him away for, he knew about it before the decision didn't he? You knew didn't you? didn't you call him?
— Look I've been out of town, it still might have been just a rumour and I've been so damn busy with the…
— Is that what you're worried about Harry? what the State can do to you? You sent Oscar to Lepidus, Shea and the whole…
— No wait Christina, look. The State's got nothing to do with it, no law that we have a duty to look into the credentials of lawyers we make referrals to. The whole thing's a self regulating profession, deal with things like that under the ABA's Code of Professional Responsibility doesn't mean a client has a cause of action against a lawyer who's violated the Code just because he loses a…
— The Code! My God you sound like a, a self regulating profession! Your friend Sam got us into this mess didn't he? Is anybody going to regulate your friend Sam or do we just put it down over here Lily, do try not to spill it.
— Do you want the…
— Just put it down!
— Have to research that Oscar, end up putting you to a lot of trouble entering a claim citing the elements of damages you've incurred here needed to make you whole, as they…
— To make him what?
— Legal phrase Christina, just means what it says, to make him whole, restore someone who can prove he's suffered damages to his…
— Well look at him, he's sitting right here in a thousand pieces if you want proof of damages to make himself whole, he can't get a new trial he can't find anyone else around to sue so he's suing himself is that what you mean?
— Of course it's not. Whole heart of the Fifth Amendment, you can't be made to testify against yourself, you've got a new law firm on that haven't you Oscar? Isn't that what they've told you?
— Well he, there's a letter here from him somewhere, from Mister Mohlenhoff, he thinks maybe they could get around that by granting one of us immunity to testify against the other one under threat of perjury or contempt he's looking into it. They want a five hundred dollar retainer to look into it.
— Most ridiculous thing I ever, don't send them a nickel, these the ones you got off a matchbook cover?
— Which one of him are you talking to Harry, the one who got Mister Mohlenhoff off a matchcover or the one Lily found for him who wants Oscar to pay him for suing himself in the first place.
— I didn't know what he'd, I know it was my fault Mrs Lutz but I just thought he was this lawyer that would help Oscar out now he's doing the same thing to Daddy, he took this money from Daddy where Daddy gave my brother Bobbie all this money to buy this Porsche that Reverend Bobby Joe calls the death instrument so now Daddy's in trouble where they want to sue him for something they call I forgot what they call it but, but maybe I better go Mrs Lutz I didn't mean to start…
— Probably a suit for what they call negative entrustment Lily, like handing a shotgun to somebody who isn't resp…