And then I heard, in that gauzy, soft-focus tone that I’d begun to recognize, Frank O’Leary’s voice mutter something. I could barely make it out, but I tilted my head forward, pretending to be consulting my legal pad, and concentrated to separate it from Kantor’s chatter.
Ira Hovanian, O’Leary was saying.
Jesus, if Hovanian spills-
“Ah, Bruce,” I said. “Perhaps your client can tell us a little about Ira Hovanian.”
Kantor frowned, looked annoyed, and said, “I don’t know what you’re-”
But O’Leary grabbed his arm and whispered something into Kantor’s left ear. Kantor looked at me quizzically for a moment, then swiveled around, and whispered something back.
I consulted my yellow pad and tilted my head and began to listen, but at that instant Kornstein tapped me lightly on the shoulder. “What does Ira Hovanian have to do with anything?” he whispered. “How did you know about Ira Hovanian?”
“Who is he?” I asked.
“You don’t-”
“Just tell me.”
“He’s a guy who quit the company a couple of months before SpaceTron came out. A schlemazel.”
“A what?”
“I felt sorry for the schmuck. He lost a shitload in stock options. I guess he found a better job somewhere else, but if he had stayed, he’d be a rich man by now.”
“Did he sell trade secrets?”
“Ira? Ira was a nothing.”
“Listen to me,” I said. “For some reason, O’Leary knows that name. It means something to him.”
“You didn’t mention-”
“It’s something I picked up recently,” I replied. “All right, let me think for a minute.” I turned away from Kornstein, and feigned deep concentration on the scribblings on my yellow pad. Several feet away, O’Leary and Kantor were deep in whispered colloquy.
– stole a working prototype from the safe. He had a combination. Sold it to me for twenty-five thousand bucks and the promise of another hundred grand when we started turning a profit.
I took notes as quickly as I could, and continued to listen, but the voice faded out. O’Leary was smiling, visibly relaxed now, and his thoughts were placid, therefore unreadable.
I was about to turn back to Kornstein to ask him about this, when suddenly I picked up another flow.
… burned him. What the hell was he going to do? He’s the guy who committed the illegal act, right? So who’s he going to turn to?
Now Kantor swiveled back toward me and said, “Let’s meet again in a day or two. We’ve gone on long enough today.”
I reflected for a few seconds and said, “If that’s what you and your client would like, that’s fine. If anything, that will give us time for an additional deposition of Mr. Hovanian, who has already given us some interesting information concerning a prototype of SpaceTron and a company safe.”
Kantor looked supremely uncomfortable. He unfolded his legs, then folded them again, and pulled nervously at his chin with a thumb and forefinger.
“Look,” he said, his voice a few notes higher than before, “bluff all you like. But let’s not waste each other’s time. If a minimum settlement is what you want, I think it would be in my client’s interest just to get all this stuff behind him, so we’d be prepared to make a-”
“Four point five million,” I said.
“What?” he gasped.
I stood up and extended my hand. “Well, gentlemen, I’ve got some depositions to take. With your knowing cooperation in the concealment of a felony, as the attorney of record I think we should have an interesting trial. Thank you for coming.”
“Hold on a second here,” Kantor blurted out. “We can come to an agreement of-”
“Four point five,” I repeated.
“You’re out of your mind!”
“Gentlemen,” I said.
The two clients, O’Leary and Kornstein, were staring at me, dumbstruck, as if I’d suddenly pulled down my trousers and danced a jig on my desk. “Jesus,” Kornstein said to me.
“Let’s-let’s talk,” Kantor said.
“All right,” I said, and sat down. “Let’s talk.”
The meeting broke up forty-five minutes later. Frank O’Leary had agreed to pay an outright settlement of $4.25 million in one lump sum, payable within ninety days, with a further stipulation that SpaceTime would remove its flagship computer game from the market forthwith.
At half past five, O’Leary and Kantor, considerably more subdued, filed out of my office. Mel Kornstein gave me a humid, bearlike embrace, thanked me profusely, and left, beaming for the first time in months.
And I sat alone in my office, ignoring the ringing phone, and tossed a perfect hook shot into my electronic hoop. It emitted a wild packed-Boston-Garden cheer and shouted tinnily, “Score!” I grinned to myself like an idiot, wondering how long this peculiar good fortune could last. As it happened, it lasted for precisely one day.
FIFTEEN
My mistake, as it turned out, was that classic error of the novice intelligence operative: neglecting to assume that you’re being watched.
The problem was that I had lost my bearings. My world had turned upside down. The normal logic of my staid, ordered, lawyerly life no longer applied.
We go through our lives by rote, I think, doing our jobs and performing our duties as if with blinders on. Now, suddenly, the blinders were off. How could I possibly be as circumspect, as cautious, as I once might have been?
I was able to leave the office early enough to make a stop before home. When the elevator arrived, it was empty-too late, as usual, for the evening rush-and I got in.
I needed desperately to talk to someone, but who, in truth, could I talk to? Molly? She would immediately think I had gone off the deep end. Like all physicians, her world was a very rational one. Of course I would have to tell her at some point-but when? And what about my friend Ike? Possible, I suppose; but at this point I couldn’t risk telling anyone.
Two floors below, the elevator stopped, and a young woman got in. She was tall, auburn-haired, with a little too much eye makeup, but with a nice full figure, and her silk blouse accented her large breasts. We stood there in the normal silence shared by elevator passengers who do not know each other but happen to be standing in a metal box a few feet apart. She seemed distracted. Both of us were busily looking up, watching the numbers change. My headache, that terrible welling-up of pain, was all but gone, thank God.
I happened to be thinking about Molly, in fact, when I “heard” it-what he’s like in bed.
I glanced over at her, instinctually, assuring myself once again that she hadn’t said anything aloud. Her eyes seemed to catch mine for a split second, but turned back toward the flashing red numerals in the panel above the door.
I concentrated now, and I picked up more.
nice ass. Probably a pretty strong guy. Looks like a lawyer, which means he’s probably the real conservative boring type but one night who cares.
I turned again, and this time her eyes met mine for an instant, a second too long.
If ever a woman were available, she was. I at once felt a strange spasm of guilt. I was privy to her most intimate fantasies, her private calculations, her daydreams. It was a terrible violation. It violated all the rules we human beings have developed for flirtation, the dance of cues and hints and suggestions, which works so well because nothing is ever said, nothing is ever certain.
I knew this woman would go to bed with me. Ordinarily, you can never be certain no matter what the body language. Some women like to flirt, to take things to the brink just to see if they’re sufficiently desirable to lead a man that far. Then they’ll pull back, playing along with social conventions, feigning unwillingness, a need to be wooed. The whole game, which has baffled both men and women since we all began standing upright (and likely before then), relies upon our inability to know what is in the minds of others. It is premised upon uncertainty.