“William Prescott, please,” I said to the receptionist.
“Who can I say is here?”
“You don’t remember me?”
She gave one of those patented tosses of her mousse-swept hair and said, “No. I don’t.”
“Victor Carl.”
Her eyes opened wide for just an instant, just long enough so I knew that the story had spread through the whole of the firm, from partners to associates to secretaries to the receptionist. Even the cleaning crew, I bet, had a good laugh at my expense.
“Take a seat please, Mr. Carl, and I’ll tell his secretary you’re here.”
“Don’t bother,” I said as I headed toward the stairs. “I know the way.”
She stood up. “You can’t go unescorted Mr. Carl. That’s policy.”
“I’m sure it is,” I said without stopping. “But it’s your policy and I don’t work here.”
By the time I reached the stairs on my way to Prescott’s office she was already barking about me on the phone.
Up the wide circling stairs with the burnished rail, along the lucratively noisy hallways with secretaries typing vigorously and lawyers bustling in and out of their offices as they hurried to fill up their time sheets with billable hours, around the corners and past the richly furnished conference rooms, generously outfitted with legal pads and embossed pens and soft drinks. I had just reached the custodian’s closet, where I had spent desperate hours with Sheldon waiting for the hall to empty, when a flustered Janice rushed to meet me. She wasn’t as efficiently pretty as I remembered her to be on our first meeting, though the difference might have been mine.
“Oh, Mr. Carl,” she said. “You can’t just wander around the office alone.”
I lifted my hands. “No staplers in my pockets, honest.”
“It’s policy,” she said. “Mr. Prescott is on a conference call. I’ll take you to a meeting room to wait for him if you’d like.”
“That’s all right, Janice,” I said as I started again toward Prescott’s office, brushing past her. “But I’ll just wait with Billy. I’m sure he won’t mind.”
She sort of chugged after me saying something or other, but I ignored her. Why I was being so obstreperous is clear to me now. One result of my experience at the trial was to loose some shackle from my neck. I had always felt that there was a right way to behave, a right way to dress, a right manner to affect, as if all these rights would add up to something tangible, and add up to something tangible they did. What they added up to was a slavery of the soul. I had so wanted to be them I pretended to be like them, which only made it easier for them to kick me in the groin and step on my face whenever they liked. I was playing a losing game because I was playing on their turf, by their rules, number one of which stated that they always won and I always lost. But I guess I had lost one too many times. My long bitter period of obeisance had passed. I was reveling in my freedom to be whatever I chose, even if what I chose to be was rude.
The door to his office was open a crack. With Janice just behind, I skirted her work station, pushed open the door, walked into his office, plopped down onto one of the tapestry chairs across from his desk. Prescott was sitting straight-backed in his suit jacket, talking into the phone. When he saw me his face startled but quickly composed itself again.
Janice, in the doorway, said, “I tried to stop him, Mr. Prescott,” but Prescott waved her off and she backed out, closing the door behind her.
“Sam, Sam, Sam,” said Prescott into the phone while he smiled at me. “We will get you everything you’ve asked for, I promise, but we need that opinion letter by tomorrow afternoon at the latest. We’re going to the printer tomorrow night and it has to be ready by then.” He spun his finger in the air, indicating that this Sam on the other end was going on and on. He winked at me. “Listen, Sam. I have to go, I have someone in my office. Simon and Jack, stay on the line and talk with Sam about getting him all that he needs. We’ll satisfy you, Sam, but we need you to move on this, all right? Let me know before the end of the day of your progress.”
When he hung up he shook his head. “Some lawyers are so timid about opinion letters it’s amazing that any deal ever gets done. Valley Hunt Estates. We have the interim financing and we’re ready to go. It’s going to be a killer deal. Too bad you’re not a part of it anymore.”
I shrugged.
“But you’ll be gratified to know that we gave the business to your friend Sam Guthrie over at Blaine, Cox,” said Prescott. “He, at least, seems grateful for the opportunity. So, Victor, what brings you unbidden once again to our offices?”
I reached into my briefcase and pulled out a manila envelope, which I tossed onto his desk. “I wanted to personally serve our motion for a new trial that we’re filing today with Judge Gimbel. In it I lay out in detail everything that happened from the moment I was hired to defend Chester Concannon.”
“I see,” said Prescott as he opened the envelope and scanned the lengthy motion inside. “I expected as much. And frankly, Victor, I wish you luck. Jimmy’s been acquitted in the federal trial and the murder charges against him have been dropped. Nothing would please me more than for Chester to get off also.”
“I don’t think the judge will see it so benignly.”
He shrugged his shoulders as he continued leafing through the motion.
“You set me up,” I said.
“Yes,” said Prescott. “It wasn’t so hard to do.”
“You figured the only way to really clear Jimmy of the charges was to put them off on Chet, and the surest way to get the jury to believe it all was to get Chet’s lawyer to do the dirty work for you. If you had called Veronica to lie on the stand it would have looked obvious and no one would have bought it. But for Chet’s lawyer to put her on and to have her bury him, well, that clinched it.”
“Effective, wouldn’t you say?”
“And totally improper.”
“No, Victor, that is where you’re wrong. We were doing everything in our power to defend our client. The Sixth Amendment requires no less. Were you following the same high standard, hmmm?”
“It’s patently improper to have a witness perjure herself, even if you don’t call her.”
“But who’s to say it was perjury?”
“She told me the truth when I subpoenaed her.”
“Maybe that was the lie.”
“I don’t think so.”
“What you think and what you can prove are two very different things. I must say, Victor, you surprised me. The whole Veronica thing was very risky. I thought all our inducements for you to cooperate would stop you from going after Jimmy. I assumed that was our surest way to win, to just have Chester sit there and eat whatever we handed him. I hired you because I thought you’d come cheap, but Jimmy suspected you’d turn into a crusader. I guess he’s a better judge of character than I. So to be safe he dangled Veronica before you just in case you decided to play it noble. It worked out better than we could have hoped. You snapped at her like a trout at a perfectly tied fly. We actually expected that she’d have to tell you everything, but your investigation was amazingly thorough. The more you found out, the easier it was for us. But then when you put her on the stand, that was the riskiest part of all. You see, Victor, you seemed to have a great influence on that poor girl, greater than you know. We weren’t sure what she was going to say until she said it. Her actual testimony was a great relief to all of us.”