The King of Torts

Drifting now, on foot in front of the White House. Lost for a moment in a pack of Dutch tourists taking pictures and waiting for the President to give them a wave, then a stroll through Lafayette Park where the homeless vanished during the day, then to a bench in Farragut Square where he ate a cold sandwich without tasting anything. All senses were dull, all thoughts were slow and confused. It was May but the air was not clear. The humidity did little to help him think.

He saw twelve black faces sitting in the box, angry folks who'd spent a week hearing the shocking history of Tarvan. He addressed them in his final summation: "They needed black lab rats, ladies and gentlemen, preferably Americans because this is where the money is. So they brought their miraculous Tarvan to our city." The twelve faces hung on every word and nodded in agreement, anxious to retire and dispense justice.

What was the largest verdict in the history of the world? Did the Guinness Book keep tabs on such? Whatever it was, it would be his for the asking. "Just fill in the blank, ladies and gentlemen of the jury."

The case would never go to trial; no jury would hear it. Whoever made Tarvan would spend a helluva lot more than thirty-four million to bury the truth. And they would hire all manner of thugs to break legs and steal documents and wire phones and burn offices, whatever it took to keep their secret away from those twelve angry faces.

He thought of Rebecca. What a different girl she would be wrapped in the luxury of his money. How quickly she would leave the worries of Capitol Hill and retire to a life of motherhood. She would marry him in three months, or as soon as Barb could get things planned.

He thought of the Van Horns, but, oddly, not as people he still knew. They were out of his life; he was trying to forget about them. He was free of those people, after four years of bondage. They would never again torment him.

He was about to be free of a lot of things.

An hour passed. He found himself at DuPont Circle, staring in the windows of the small shops facing Massachusetts Avenue; rare books, rare dishes, rare costumes; rare people everywhere. There was a mirror in one storefront, and he looked himself squarely in the eyes and wondered aloud if Max the fireman was real or a fraud or a ghost. He walked along the sidewalk, sick with the thought that a respected company could prey on the weakest people it could find, then seconds later thrilled with the prospect of more money than he ever dreamed of. He needed his father. Jarrett Carter would know exactly what to do.

Another hour passed. He was expected at the office, a weekly staff meeting of some variety. "Fire me," he mumbled with a smile.

He browsed for a while in Kramerbooks, his favorite bookstore in D.C. Perhaps soon he could move from the paperback section to the hardbacks. He could fill his new walls with rows of books.

At exactly 3 P.M., on schedule, he walked into the rear of Kramer's, into the cafe, and there was Max Pace, sitting alone, drinking lemonade, waiting. He was obviously pleased to see Clay again.

"Did you follow me?" Clay asked, sitting down and stuffing his hands in his pants pockets.

"Of course. Would you like something to drink?"

"No. What if I filed suit tomorrow, on behalf of the family of Ramon Pumphrey? That one case could be worth more than what you're offering for all six."

The question seemed to have been anticipated. Max had an answer ready. "You'd have a long list of problems. Let me give you the top three. First, you don't know who to sue. You don't know who made Tarvan, and there's a chance no one will ever know. Second, you don't have the money to fight with my client. It would take at least ten million dollars to mount a sustainable attack. Third, you'd lose the opportunity to represent all known plaintiffs. If you don't say yes quickly, I'm prepared to go to the next lawyer on my list with the same offer. My goal is to have this wrapped up in thirty days."

"I could go to a big tort firm."

"Yes, and that would present more problems. First, you'd give away at least half of your fee. Second, it would take five years to reach an outcome, maybe longer. Third, the biggest tort firm in the country could easily lose this case. The truth here, Clay, may never be known."

"It should be known."

"Maybe, but I don't care one way or the other. My job is to silence this thing; to adequately compensate the victims, then to bury it forever. Don't be foolish, my friend."

"We're hardly friends."

"True, but we're making progress."

"You have a list of lawyers?"

"Yes, I have two more names, both very similar to you." "In other words, hungry." "Yes, you're hungry. But you're also bright." "So I've been told. And I have broad shoulders. The other two are here in the city?"

"Yes, but let's not worry about them. Today is Thursday. I need an answer by Monday, at noon. Otherwise, I'll go to the next guy."

"Was Tarvan used in any other U.S. city?"

"No, just D.C."

"And how many people were treated with it?"

"A hundred, give or take."

Clay took a drink of the ice water a waiter had placed near him. "So there are a few more killers out there?" "Quite possibly. Needless to say, we're waiting and watching with great anxiety."

"Can't you stop them?"

"Stop street killings in D.C.? No one could predict Tequila Watson would walk away from D Camp and within two hours kill a person. Nor Washad Porter. Tarvan gives no clue as to who might snap, nor when they might do so. There is some evidence that after ten days without the drug a person becomes harmless again. But it's all speculative."

"So the killings should stop in just a few days?"

"We're counting on it. I'm hoping we can survive the weekend."

"Your client should go to jail."

"My client is a corporation."

"Corporations can be held criminally responsible."

"Let's not argue that, okay? It gets us nowhere. We need to focus on you and whether or not you are up to the challenge."

"I'm sure you have a plan."

"Yes, a very detailed one."

"I quit my present job, then what?"

Pace pushed the lemonade aside and leaned lower, as if the good stuff was about to be delivered. "You establish your own law firm. Rent space, furnish it nicely, and so on. You've got to sell this thing, Clay, and the only way to do so is to look and act like a very successful trial lawyer. Your potential clients will be brought into your office. They need to be impressed. You'll need a staff and other lawyers working for you.

Perception is everything here. Trust me. I was a lawyer once. Clients want nice offices. They want to see success. You will be telling these people that you can obtain settlements of four million dollars."

"Four is much too cheap."

"Later, okay? You have to look successful; that's my point."

"I get the point. I grew up in a very successful law firm."

"We know. That's one of the things we like about you."

"How tight is office space right now?"

"We've leased some footage on Connecticut Avenue. Would you like to see it?"

They left Kramer's through the rear entrance and ambled along the sidewalk as if they were two old friends out for a stroll. "Am I still being followed?" Clay asked.

"Why?"

"Oh, I don't know. Just curious. Doesn't happen every day. I'd just like to know whether I'd get shot if I broke and ran."

Pace actually chuckled at this. "It is rather absurd, isn't it?"

"Damned silly."

"My client is very nervous, Clay."

"With good reason."

"They have dozens of people in the city right now, watching, waiting, praying there are no more killings.

And they're hoping you'll be the man to deliver the deal."

"What about the ethical problems?"

"Which one?"

"I can think of two - conflict of interest and solicitation of litigation?"

"Solicitation is a joke. Just look at the billboards."

They stopped at an intersection. "Right now I represent the defendant," Clay said as they waited. "How do I cross the street and represent his victim?"

"You just do it. We've researched the canons of ethics. It's sticky, but there are no violations. Once you resign from OPD, you are free to open your own office and start accepting cases."

"That's the easy part. What about Tequila Watson? I know why he committed murder. I can't hide that knowledge from him, or his next lawyer."

"Being drunk or under the influence of drugs is not a defense to a crime. He's guilty. Ramon Pumphrey is dead. You have to forget about Tequila." They were walking again.

"I don't like that answer," Clay said.

"It's the best I have. If you say no to me and continue to represent your client, it will be virtually impossible for you to prove he ever took a drug called Tarvan. You'll know it, but you won't be able to prove it. You'll look foolish using that as a defense."

"It may not be a defense, but it could be a mitigating circumstance."

"Only if you can prove it, Clay. Here." They were on Connecticut Avenue, in front of a long modern building with a three-story glass-and-bronze entrance.

Clay looked up and said, "The high-rent district."

"Come on. You're on the fourth floor, a corner office with a fantastic view."

In the vast marble foyer, a directory listed a who's who of D.C. law. "This is not exactly my turf," Clay said as he read the names of the firms.

"It can be," Max said.

"What if I don't want to be here?"

"It's up to you. We just happen to have some space. We'll sublease it to you at a very favorable rent."

"When did you lease it?"

"Don't ask too many questions, Clay. We're on the same team."

"Not yet."

Carpet was being laid and walls painted in Clay's section of the fourth floor. Expensive carpet. They stood at the window of a large empty office and watched the traffic on Connecticut Avenue below. There were a thousand things to do to open a new firm, and he could only think of a hundred. He had a hunch that Max had all the answers.

"What do you think?" Max said.

"I'm not thinking too well right now. Everything's a blur."

"Don't blow this opportunity, Clay. It will never come again. And the clock is ticking."

"It's surreal."

"You can do your firm's charter online, takes about an hour. Pick a bank, open the accounts. Letterhead and such can be done overnight. The office can be complete and furnished in a matter of days. By next Wednesday you can be sitting here behind a fancy desk running your own show."

"How do I sign up the other cases?"

"Your friends Rodney and Paulette. They know the city and its people. Hire them, triple their salaries, give them nice offices down the hall. They can talk to the families. We'll help."

"You've thought of everything."

"Yes. Absolutely everything. I'm running a very efficient machine, one that's in a near-panic mode. We're working around the clock, Clay. We just need a point man."

On the way down, the elevator stopped at the third floor. Three men and a woman stepped in, all nicely tailored and manicured and carrying thick expensive leather briefcases, along with the incurable air of importance inbred in big-firm lawyers. Max was so engrossed in his details that he did not see them. But Clay absorbed them - their manners, their guarded speech, their seriousness, their arrogance. These were big lawyers, important lawyers, and they did not acknowledge his existence. Of course, in old khakis and scuffed loafers he did not exactly project the image of a fellow member of the D.C. Bar.

That could change overnight, couldn't it?

He said good-bye to Max and went for another long walk, this one in the general direction of his office. When he finally arrived, there were no urgent notes on his desk. The meeting he'd missed had evidently been missed by many others. No one asked where he had been. No one seemed to notice that he had been absent during the afternoon.

His office was suddenly much smaller, and dingier, and the furnishings were unbearably bleak. There was a stack of files on his desk, cases he could not now bring himself to think about. All of his clients were criminals anyway.

OPD policy required thirty days' notice before quitting. The rule, however, was not enforced because it could not be enforced. People quit all the time with short notice or none whatsoever. Glenda would write a threatening letter. He would write a pleasant one back, and the matter would end.

The best secretary in the office was Miss Glick, a seasoned warrior who might just jump at the chance to double her salary and leave behind the dreariness of OPD. His office would be a fun place to work, he had already decided. Salaries and benefits and long vacations and maybe even profit-sharing.

He spent the last hour of the workday behind a locked door, plotting, stealing employees, debating which lawyers and which paralegals might fit.

He met Max Pace for the third time that day, for dinner, at the Old Ebbitt Grille, on Fifteenth Street, two blocks behind the Willard. To his surprise, Max began with a martini, and this loosened him up considerably. The pressure of the situation began melting under the assault of the gin, and Max became a real person. He had once been a trial lawyer in California, before something unfortunate ended his career out there. Through contacts he found his niche in the litigation marketplace as a fireman. A fixer. A highly paid agent who sneaked in, cleaned up the mess, and sneaked out without a trace. During the steaks and after the first bottle of Bordeaux, Max said there was something else waiting for Clay after Tarvan. "Something much bigger," Max said, and he actually glanced around the restaurant to see if spies were listening.

"What?" Clay said after a long wait.

Another quick search for eavesdroppers, then, "My client has a competitor who's put a bad drug on the market. No one knows it yet. Their drug is outperforming our drug. But my client now has reliable proof that the bad drug causes tumors. My client has been waiting for the perfect moment to attack."

"Attack?"

"Yes, as in a class-action suit brought by a young aggressive attorney who possesses the right evidence."

"You're offering me another case?"

"Yes. You take the Tarvan deal, wrap things up in thirty days, then we'll hand you a file that will be worth millions."

"More than Tarvan?"

"Much more."

Clay had thus far managed to choke down half his filet mignon without tasting anything. The other half would remain untouched. He was starving but had no appetite. "Why me?" he asked, more to himself than to his new friend.

"That's the same question lottery winners ask. You've won the lottery, Clay. The lawyer's lottery. You were smart enough to pick up the scent of Tarvan, and at the same time we were searching desperately for a young lawyer we could trust. We found each other, Clay, and we have this one brief moment in time in which you make a decision that will alter the course of your life. Say yes, and you will become a very big lawyer. Say no, and you lose the lottery."

"I get the message. I need some time to think, to clear my head."

"You have the weekend."

"Thanks. Look, I'm taking a quick trip, leaving in the morning, coming back Sunday night. I really don't think you guys need to follow me."

"May I ask where?"

"Abaco, in the Bahamas."

"To see your father?"

Clay was surprised, but then he should not have been. "Yes," he said.

"For what purpose?"

"None of your business. Fishing."

"Sorry, but we're very nervous. I hope you understand."

"Not really. I'll give you my flights, just don't follow me, okay?"

"You have my word."