Beach Lawyer (Beach Lawyer Series)

by Avery Duff

  “This was my second go-round with her. I already froze her out in reception for an hour or so. Is that all right with you?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “So, tell me, why did you stand up? Why did you open that door for her when clearly I’m in the middle of breaking her down?”

  “I’m not up to speed yet, Mr. Pierce. I can promise you it won’t happen again.”

  “Make sure of it, Worth. Now look. Defendant’s counsel gave me first crack at drafting her settlement and release, so what I need from you, Worth, is a release friendly to the other side. Friendly to them. One they will sign when I show it to them. No back and forth between the parties on this one. I want her case off my calendar, and I want that whining little bitch off my back.”

  “Will do, sir.”

  Chase said, “Tough set of facts, sir, but I’ve got a feeling you’d have found a way to win.”

  Jack eased back in his chair. “Let me share this with you, Chase. You, too, Worth. If I took it to trial, here’s how it would go. I’d get those settled-out friends of Maxwell’s on the stand and make them out to be liars, same with those company write-ups on his dust mask. I’d survive a motion for summary judgment, easy, and once she took the stand, spiffed up, I’d have her crying her eyes out. She’s good at it, right, and I’d find enough people on the jury—all men, no doubt—who’d break off three, four hundred grand on her irrelevant sob story. Then again, how long does it take to try this case, Chase?”

  “Ten days, easy.”

  “Or more, and for forty percent of four hundred K—my firm’s cut? After the time I already spent? The numbers don’t work.”

  “Not at your hourly rate, Mr. Pierce.” It was Chase again.

  Jack nodded and looked at Robert. “What do you say, Worth?”

  “Cut the firm’s losses, definitely. I agree,” he said, even though he had no valid opinion of her case.

  “Right you are,” Jack said. “And right now, right this minute? Ms. Maxwell has learned my firm no longer validates her parking, and in another ten minutes, parking attendants down in the garage? Well, they’ll have a devil of a time finding that beater she no doubt drove here.”

  “Got it,” Robert said. “No friends at the firm.”

  “At my firm? Not a goddamn one,” Jack said.

  Chase asked, “Remember when she first signed on last year? She looked like primo tail, man.”

  Jack nodded. “She did look primo, didn’t she?”

  “Bet you any amount of money, that one’s a tiger in the sack.”

  Jack rose to the occasion. “Wouldn’t know about that, Chase. I’m a married man, same as you. But many years ago I heard, I forget where, ‘Once you bring a woman to tears, you’re halfway home.’”

  “Halfway home, I feel you,” Chase said, laughing.

  Robert forced a smile, not his first, relieved he didn’t have to pound it every day with these two. Even so, Jack picked up on his lackluster reaction.

  “Am I right about that, Worth?”

  “That’s what I hear, too,” Robert said.

  “That release. First thing tomorrow, Worth.”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Pierce,” he said, already wondering how first thing tomorrow related to the 9:00 a.m. deadline Jack gave his client.

  Jack stood, his eyes still on Robert. He hesitated, as if he might chastise Robert again, then he let it go and was out the door. Chase slid Alison’s legal folder down the table to Robert and walked over to him.

  “Let me give you a tip, Worth. That release better be letter-perfect or Jack will be very upset. On the other hand, your time on it will never get billed—so don’t go overboard. And by all means, call me day or night if you have any questions.”

  “How do you do it, Chase? Your head’s all the way up his ass, but your hair’s still perfect.”

  “Go straight to hell, Worth.”

  “That’s a stinger, Chase. Any more like that in your quiver?”

  Chase’s Adam’s apple jumped as he swallowed, then he brushed past Robert out the door.

  Let it go, Robert was thinking. Just let it go.

  But as he picked up her file, he remembered the Fanelli & Pierce masthead out front. Philip’s name came first. Then came Jack’s name. So he couldn’t help wondering about two words Jack kept using: my firm.

  CHAPTER 3

  “Everything okay?” Leslie DeRider asked Gia.

  “Sure,” Gia said.

  “You sure?”

  “We still on for dinner?” Gia asked, changing the subject with her friend.

  Gia sat across from Leslie, a bank vice president whose desk was right off a wide-open lobby. Now both of them noticed Chase at the same time, exiting the elevator just descended from Fanelli & Pierce. Wasn’t long before he started chatting up one of the female tellers.

  “Chase ever hit on you?” Gia asked.

  “Me and the fire hydrant out front,” Leslie said, checking her lipstick. “Look at him—puts his wedding-ring hand in his pocket while he’s talking. Plays with himself, I think.”

  “Shaves his arms and legs, too,” Gia said.

  “Do you go for that?” Leslie asked.

  “Love it,” Gia joked, “because I’m actually a gay man.”

  Leslie laughed, then Robert exited an elevator, so they checked him out next.

  “Ever hook up with him?” Leslie asked.

  “Never did,” Gia said.

  Both women watched him passing by.

  “Why not? He’s gorgeous,” Leslie said.

  Gia caught Robert’s eye and waved. He waved back.

  “Gorgeous? You think?” Gia asked.

  Leslie thought about it. “No, I guess not. More like, you know, handsome.”

  They watched him till he walked out the glass doors, far end of the bank.

  “Cool and handsome, yeah. A man,” Gia said.

  “Then why not?” Leslie asked.

  “We work together’s why not.”

  Leslie didn’t buy it. “Got an hour till my next appointment?”

  Then she stared at her friend till Gia said, “God, I don’t know. I mean, we’re friends.”

  “Meet-after-work friends or what?”

  “Office friends. Friendly. Want me to put in a good word for you?”

  “Forget it. He’d be major.”

  “Oh, yeah. Major-major,” Gia added.

  “And I’ve gotta get serious around here. I rolled in twenty minutes late today, and you-know-who was all bunched up about it.”

  “Jerome?”

  Leslie nodded. “Probably have to take him out for drinks again.”

  “Drinks? Drinks is what you call it now?”

  Gia looked at her until Leslie said, “I was drunk, okay?” She held her hands over her face. “Damn, I’m such a whore.”

  “Jerome?” Gia asked again.

  “You’re supposed to disagree.” But Leslie was laughing now.

  “I tried to, but seriously, Jerome?”

  Gia picked up a canvas bag from beside her chair: the Fanelli & Pierce receipts. She stood. Leslie did, too. In her short skirt, Leslie was sexual to Gia’s sensual, a couple inches shorter than Gia, the OC coastline spiraling through her DNA. They headed toward the business teller’s window.

  Leslie asked Gia, “Everything still . . . you know?”

  “We’re good, I promise. I’ll give you a pass on Jerome if you promise me you’re done with Ho Daddy.”

  “Don’t call Dougie that. He hates it.”

  “Good. How about junkie, loser, surf boy gone bad?”

  “That’s harsh, Gia.”

  “First love, so what? I don’t care how far you two go back. Guy hit you that time and you didn’t press charges?”

  “We still going to the track?” Leslie asked as Jerome waved from his glassed-in office. Waving back, she told Gia, “Smile at him, G, please? Act like he’s got a shot with you. I’m in deep shit, please?”

  Jerome was headed their way in a
bold glen-plaid jacket—a pattern Johnny Carson might have worn at a Friar’s Club roast.

  Leslie whispered to Gia, “Think he’s in love with me. Wife, two kids. Be nice to him, G, please?”

  So, Gia waved at Jerome, smiled at him, too, and told Leslie, “Don’t let Dougie near me, all right?” Before Leslie could answer, Gia stepped toward Jerome and made his day: “Hey, Jerome, love your jacket . . .”

  CHAPTER 4

  The white-marble statue of Saint Monica perched on top of the Palisades where Santa Monica Boulevard died at Ocean Avenue. In her cowl and robes, the statue resembled a luminous surfboard beneath the shivering, pencil-thin palms. Underfoot and all around, addicts got high and caught the ocean breeze from her billion-dollar view.

  Across Ocean from her, Robert stepped out of a small bank, grabbing lunch on the run, and crossed Monica’s namesake boulevard. As he neared his own building’s lobby, a commotion caught his attention at the lip of its subterranean parking lot. A parking attendant was arguing with the driver of a beat-up LeBaron convertible. Its top was down. Alison Maxwell was behind the wheel.

  He started to move on, but the driver behind Alison laid on the horn. Long and loud, its blare echoing deep into the bowels of the garage.

  “Shit,” he said, moving toward her now.

  He checked his watch: almost an hour since she’d left the conference room. That’s how long Jack’s fun and games had held her up. As he drew closer, she saw him. Almost in tears, she went horizontal off zebra-striped seat covers, checking her jeans pocket for money.

  When he reached her car, he asked, “What’s the problem, Ms. Maxwell?”

  “I don’t have any . . . I didn’t bring any cash, but you guys always validated, or I thought so, or I wouldn’t have parked here, so I don’t have—”

  “Hey, hey, don’t worry about it, please.”

  He reached for his wallet, gave the attendant forty dollars, got a few bucks’ change back. In that car behind her, the driver laid on the horn again. A LOVE IS THE ANSWER decal rode the front bumper.

  “Happens all the time,” Robert told her. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I’m so embarrassed. I’m . . . it’s not a good day.” She started crying for real, looking down.

  “Better get going. That car behind you is late to save all mankind.”

  Alison tried to smile, but she couldn’t pull it off.

  “Take care,” he said.

  And as she pulled away, he walked into his building, disappointed in himself for reasons he couldn’t quite pinpoint.

  Hanalei Ragsdale stashed a letter-size envelope inside her briefcase. Inside it was her certified check. Her deal had just closed, but she kept sizing up her new lawyer, Robert Worth. He had shown opposing counsel the door and was stacking her signed documents on the conference table.

  “This will take a few minutes, Ms. Ragsdale. Another cup of tea?”

  “No, thank you. I’m fine now that it’s over.”

  “That’s about as smooth as it gets. We got lucky.”

  He was trying to stay as present as possible but closing her sale ran long. After that, Ms. Ragsdale—he smiled at her—and the buyers talked shop for another forty-five minutes. That meant starting his assignment from Jack was beginning to weigh on him.

  Ms. Ragsdale told him, “What can I say, Robert? We won every point along the way, and here I sit with a certified check for my business. Certified funds for ninety-five percent of my initial asking price.”

  “They had the money and wanted your company. Only a matter of time before they got religion.”

  “I thought their lawyer was weak.”

  “I’d like to agree, but the truth is, he was stuck with his client. And I had you.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning you told me you were willing to walk away from the deal, so we played hardball. Those guys were playing T-ball.”

  She smiled.

  “You were willing to walk, weren’t you?” he asked.

  She shrugged.

  Hard for him not to like this sixty-year-old, tough as nails. “I’ll messenger your executed set of documents to you. And, please, I want you to keep them in a safe place.”

  “There will be a set here, won’t there?”

  “Even so, with important documents, always keep a hard copy.”

  “Because?” she asked.

  “Because you never know.”

  She liked his answer. “Impeccable logic, sir. Now . . . ,” she said.

  He stopped stacking papers and took a seat. “Now, Ms. Ragsdale?”

  “I’m new to this firm, so bear with me. Six months ago, I met with another lawyer here before deciding to go with Philip Fanelli. The other lawyer’s advice was to sue them to get their attention, to negotiate that way. Looking back on it, I’d say he was wrong, wouldn’t you?”

  Another lawyer? Sue them? She meant Jack Pierce. “Not necessarily,” he said. “That’s another way to go about it, Ms. Ragsdale. Philip has another philosophy, and this time we did great, but it’s a judgment call.” He played it right down the middle, a team player. But he agreed that Jack’s tactics were wrong.

  She said, “For the last three months, it’s your judgment I’ve relied on, not Philip’s. From now on, if I buy or sell anything, I plan to call you, not him.”

  This was a big deal to Robert. Once Philip signed off, she would be his client. That meant he would control her time sheets, get credit with the partners for her bills. A nice plus in his column whenever they got around to offering him a partnership.

  “I’ll check with Mr. Fanelli. I’m sure he won’t mind.”

  “Lately, he wasn’t around when I called. So if he minds?” She stood and shook his hand. “As we like to say up on Mulholland, if Philip Fanelli minds—fuck him.”

  Outside Robert’s windows, somewhere past Point Dume, the sun dipped into the Pacific and bathed Saint Monica’s face in a cotton-candy hue. “That sunset, it’s Saint Monica blushing,” Philip once told Robert. “Blushing from her husband’s countless adulteries.” Saint Monica, Robert read later, was indeed sainted for her suffering, brought on by a philandering husband.

  Now the last lawyers from corporate drifted past Robert’s door. He was unaware of them and of the sunset. His office door was closed, and he was buried in a file: Estate of Brian Maxwell vs. Consolidated Construction, Inc. Reviewing the estate’s pleadings file, making notes as he read.

  Even though he didn’t try cases in court, he knew every lawsuit began with a complaint filed by a plaintiff. Basically, a beef. That was followed by the defendant’s answer. A list of excuses: Don’t sue me here. You waited too long. I didn’t do it. I did it, but it’s not my fault. I did it, so what? Together, these filings become the initial pleadings. As time passed, these pleadings grew from added facts and legal theories developed from interrogatories, which were lengthy, written Q&As. Pleadings then swelled from depositions, which were lengthy, also, but verbal Q&As.

  From what Robert knew now, Alison’s brother’s estate sued the construction company, Consolidated, for causing his death. It sued both for his personal loss and for punitive damages. Even though she was his estate’s executor, Alison was also Brian’s only living heir. That meant she, and only she, would inherit any damages that his estate collected.

  The complaint Jack filed alleged Consolidated had used and processed building materials containing asbestos. That it did so maliciously, without caring if people around those materials were injured from inhaling their dust particles. As a direct result of exposure to that very asbestos, Brian Maxwell died from cancer at age forty-two.

  Brian, it turned out, didn’t work for the company. He was an employee of a security outfit that provided guards to Consolidated warehouses where stored insulation materials, allegedly asbestos filled, were cut to order. Brian’s first problem—his own employer went belly-up and had been self-insured. That meant Brian was out of luck collecting worker’s compensation from his own employer
, leaving him with only Consolidated to blame.

  In its defense, Consolidated claimed Brian didn’t work for them, didn’t wear their dust masks, lied about asbestos being stored at the warehouse, and that any asbestos product, even if cut to order on-site, had no effect on him. Besides that, Brian smoked, drank, rode a motorcycle to work, and was, in so many words, an all-around bad guy.

  One thing was becoming clear to Robert. Starting out, Jack believed he had a shot at collecting punitive damages from Consolidated for using dangerous materials—asbestos—near anyone, whether that person was an employee or not. Then, the file showed, about nine months into it, a Colorado court made a finding of fact in an unrelated case: Consolidated never used these products in California. Not ever.

  Even though that finding didn’t get them thrown out of court—Colorado was in a different judicial circuit—it was bad news. Punitive damages—meant to punish—are a long shot even on the strongest facts. Sure, Jack could get Alison’s case in front of a jury, as he’d said in the meeting. But gone was the day he could threaten punitive damages to leverage a fat pretrial settlement from Consolidated.

  He got the gist of it now: the Colorado case turned the case into dead weight at the firm. A case Jack had to try in front of a jury. That meant the firm was now willing to settle for ten grand, nothing more than nuisance value.

  Sorry, Jack, your firm, Robert was thinking.

  His assignment was to prepare a document settling the case and releasing Consolidated from every imaginable claim Brian Maxwell’s estate might have ever had against it. Almost comically, the release would cover the time period from the beginning of time to the present.

  His immediate problem: find a release in the firm database for a situation similar to this one. Without that, he would be starting from scratch, facing an all-nighter and butting up against Jack’s deadline.

  First thing in the morning? Whatever that means.

  The firm’s database wasn’t helping. This case was unusual. Firm lawsuits almost always involved companies suing each other and never involved personal-injury claims. This case? An individual injured in the workplace, who would normally sue under worker’s compensation law, was suing a nonemployer for negligence or intentional wrongdoing.