“Mort, you’ll have to excuse us here,” she began, taking her seat at the head of the table. “We’re all feeling pretty shaken today, with Robert St. Amien’s death last night. He was our client and our friend.” She gestured Abrams into a seat to her left, giving him the view of the cityscape.
“Of course, I understand.” Abrams sat down and glanced around the table, with a puckered lower lip. “I met Robert only once, but he was a fine man and an excellent businessman. In fact, I owe him a debt of gratitude. He was the one who put me onto the notion of expanding into Europe, and we acquired an English sub.”
“A subsidiary,” Bennie supplied, though he could just as easily have meant an English submarine, for all she knew about business.
“Yes. I’m American, obviously, and my core business is manufacturing calibrated fittings for medical equipment.”
“Fittings, I see,” Bennie said, though she was constantly amazed by the number of widgets it took to make a machine of any kind. The only thing she could make was a brief, and the only widgets she understood were words. “What exactly is a fitting?”
“Well, a fitting is a little ring that”-Abrams made an O with his index finger and thumb-“well, forget the details, the bottom line is that fittings are rings that fit like collars on things, in my case most types of medical equipment. My company, FitCo, manufactures them in West Chester, outside the city.”
“Okay, I’m with you.”
“Last year, I wanted to expand my business, so I acquired a small English concern that manufactures medical lenses. My English sub, also called FitCo, has been damaged by the trade association’s boycott against foreign lenses. We’ve lost two contracts since the association’s meeting.”
“You can document this?”
“Easily.” Abrams spread his palms. “I’m wondering if I can join the class-action litigation against the association.”
“What were the damages from the lost contracts?” Bennie slid a sharp pencil and a fresh legal pad from the center of the table.
“Nothing in the neighborhood of St. Amien amp; Fils’s, but significant for us. A contract with Key Medical, Inc. A half million dollars.”
“That’s significant, all right,” Bennie said, writing it down. It was five hundred grand more than she had, for starters.
“It certainly is, and it was only the beginning for our little sub.” Abrams tented his fingers. “We use outside counsel for business work, but he doesn’t do much litigation, and no class-action litigation. So I find myself in the position of needing a lawyer but not knowing whom to choose. I think a lot of us smaller companies are in the same position. I thought I’d come here to speak with you.”
“Thank you for giving us a shot,” Bennie told him, but her blood didn’t race as it had that morning with Robert. If anything, she should have been more excited about signing Abrams, because she was more broke now, if such a thing was possible. Everything hung in the balance, but she couldn’t muster the requisite enthusiasm for a dog and pony show.
“I saw your argument yesterday in the courtroom. I was in the gallery.” Abrams smiled in an encouraging way. “I thought it was very interesting, what you did. I didn’t follow all the technicalities, but I liked how you handled yourself, and the motion you filed seemed to do the trick.”
“It may have, but the judge didn’t exactly rule,” Bennie said, then kicked herself. Why was she talking Abrams out of hiring her? What was the matter with her? Plus she hadn’t even offered him coffee. She started to rise. “Excuse me, would you like some coffee?”
“Don’t drink coffee.”
“Okay.” Bennie sat back down. Bad to worse. She could hear her house selling at foreclosure, a gavel hitting a wooden block. She’d have to find an apartment that took Bears.
“I am considering retaining Rosato amp; Associates because of what I saw, and part of my thinking is that if Robert chose you as counsel, that’s a very high recommendation. There are a lot of lawyers in this suit, and he could have gone anywhere.”
“Thank you.” Bennie tried to rouse herself. “We may not have the experience the other firms do, but we’re more than qualified, and we can get the job done for a fraction of their cost because we’re smaller. We were very pleased that Robert selected us from among all the class-action counsel in the suit.”
“I’ll say. My corporate lawyer says that the roster reads like a who’s who of class-action lawyers. Linette, Brenstein, Quinones, and a man named Kerpov, I think. My lawyer did some asking around, and he referred me to Bill Linette.”
Bennie almost gagged on the irony, considering the steak knife still in her purse. She swallowed hard, relieved she hadn’t had the chance to brief the associates on what she’d learned about Linette’s dinner last night. They were too young to have developed a poker face. She said evenly:
“Bill Linette is a very qualified lawyer, Mort. I’m sure he’d serve FitCo with skill and vigor.”
“That’s not what he says about you.”
“Excuse me?”
“He said that you had no business representing a plaintiff in any class action. That it was malpractice for you to represent Robert, or to try to assume a leadership role in the lawsuit.”
Bennie blinked, at a momentary loss for words. Most lawyers wouldn’t trash others to get a client, but if the steak knife was any indication, unfair competition was the least of Bill Linette’s sins.
“Gimme a break!” somebody blurted out, and Bennie’s head snapped around. Judy Carrier, her cheeks as pink as her hair, had turned to address Abrams. “That’s funny that he said that, considering that he was here trying to hire Bennie this morning, and that he wants to buy the whole damn law-”
“Carrier!” Bennie jumped in, alarmed. “That really won’t be necessary.”
“Well, Jeez, boss!” Carrier protested. “It’s just absurd to let him get away with that!”
Murphy piped up, “Really, it’s not true! We can do as good a job as-”
“Ladies, that’s enough,” Bennie said firmly, rising at the head of the table, which seemed to shut the associates up. “I know you both mean well, but we don’t play that here. Bill Linette can say whatever he wants, it makes no difference to us. We are professionals here, even if we did forget about the coffee.”
“Okay,” Carrier answered with a teenager’s huff, and Murphy folded her skinny arms, simmering in redheaded silence.
“Good. Fine.” Bennie eased back into her seat and looked at Abrams. “Sorry, we are definitely feeling a little raw today.”
“I see that,” Abrams said, and faced the associates. “Judy, Anne, I gotta tell you, in my opinion, there’s nothing wrong with a little team spirit. I’d be pissed if anybody talked that way about FitCo. I know how good our company is, and I’m proud of it.”
“Thanks,” Carrier said gratefully, and Murphy nodded.
Abrams turned back to Bennie. “Please, don’t feel like you have to apologize for feeling bad today. If I ever got murdered, I’d like my lawyer to feel sad the next day. I’m sorry if I offended you or your associates. I probably shouldn’t have mentioned what Bill said anyway. I couldn’t help wondering what your response would be.”
“Well, you just got it,” Bennie answered with a smile. She liked his honesty, and he seemed to be loosening up. She was guessing he had baby birds, too. “And for the record, I disagree with his assessment. We may be inexperienced in class-action law, but we’re smarter than we look, and we work hard here.”
Abrams smiled gently. “For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t take what Linette said to heart. He was well into a few drinks when he said it, and it was probably the scotch talking.”
Scotch. Bennie flashed to Dante saying, Mr. Linette likes to have his after-dinner drinks. Always picks a nice malt. She played the strangest hunch. “Mort, when did Linette say this about me?”