Lethal Lawyers

by Dale E. Manolakas

  Tricia and Sophia said quick goodbyes to Toak and Taylor.

  As they left Sophia confided in Tricia. “You saved me. Awkward moment.”

  “What do you mean? What did you say to Toak?”

  “Nothing really. Just condolences and that I wanted to meet with him.”

  “Was he receptive?”

  “No. Not at all.”

  * * *

  The two met Paul in the parking lot and started back to the firm where Tricia and Sophia had left their cars.

  “Where were you guys?”

  “I had to rescue Sophia from a failed Toak kiss-up moment.”

  “With Toak it’s going to take a lot of sucking up for a long time,” Paul said. “Get ready to do some prolonged ass-kissing.”

  “I don’t care what it takes. I am not going the way of Jim and Doug, and I am not letting it get as far as it did with Roger. I’ll do what it takes.”

  “You’ve started, and that’s what counts,” Tricia reinforced.

  “I’m glad I’m not you,” Paul said. “It’s hard to stroke that idiot’s ego.”

  “Tell me about it!” Sophia thought that Taylor should have helped her and he hadn’t.

  “Before I forget,” Tricia said. “Do you have room in your golf foursome for Jay, Paul?”

  “Since my foursome is presently a threesome . . . I think so.”

  “Was the retreat really fun last year?” Sophia needed a boost.

  “It was amazing.” Paul wove knowledgeably down the well-lit surface streets back downtown. “Friday we were up almost all night—wasted. Then we met at six a.m. for an early morning hike up a mountain.”

  “But he forgot to tell you there are no mountains around there.”

  “Okay,” Paul laughed. “It seemed like a mountain. We were still plastered. But, plastered or not, I beat everyone to the top of the ‘hill’.”

  “It was barely a mound,” Tricia goaded him. “And you were crazy the whole weekend. You have to watch him, Sophia. He’s a madman.”

  “I wouldn’t have guessed that,” Sophia said.

  “I’m a madman. I admit it, but at least I’m not a bad man. I couldn’t believe who hooked up.”

  “Wait,” Sophia said. “You mean people got together?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Tricia replied. “Even ‘old Southern gent’ Carlisle was grabbing ass on the dance floor Saturday night. Stay away from the old farts whose wives go to bed early.”

  “So you mean no one really hooked up. It was just flirtation.”

  “I heard they did,” Paul said. “But it’s none of my business.”

  “Honestly, we don’t know, but it’s fun to speculate.”

  “And surmise,” Paul added.

  “What about Toak and Marlene?” Sophia asked.

  “His wife doesn’t come,” Paul said. “And we know he stashes Marlene nearby because he disappears when he thinks no one will miss him. Last year, he said he was too tired to golf. We knew why.”

  “But remember, Sophia, Toak can do no wrong now and forever,” Tricia cautioned.

  “Right,” Sophia agreed. “I still like gossip, though. Did Taylor pair off?”

  “Sure,” Paul said. “He danced all night with that cute little second year that isn’t here anymore. She left to go to a boutique entertainment law firm in Beverly Hills.”

  “Were they in a relationship?” Sophia asked.

  Tricia darted a look at Paul. “That was not nice.”

  “What did I do?” Paul drove into the building garage. “Sophia was not even here then. Geez. I can’t win.”

  “It was nothing, Sophia. Not to worry.”

  Paul parked in the garage. Paul and Tricia went up to their offices to get some things, and Sophia went to her car alone. She used to be nervous in the garage by herself. Now with the surveillance cameras, she felt safer, at least in the garage.

  ⌘

  Chapter 82

  Boas Are Not the Only Constrictors

  As the retreat approached, the firm was back working like the machine it was. Or an organism, which, even after its legs have been cut off, immediately regenerated them, and got back up and running.

  Sophia, however, was not working like a machine because she had no client matters. She sat in her office and did administrative busy work, billing for each minute. It was better than nothing, even though those hours were not bringing client cash into the firm.

  Until the “Toak Effect” blew over, she was lying low. When she passed Toak in the halls, he was still cold as ice. She didn’t have the nerve to go to his office. Oral argument for his summary judgment motion wasn’t calendared until after the firm retreat. That meant Toak would go on the warpath again after the retreat when his motion was dismissed. And Sophia knew, unfortunately, that it would inevitably be dismissed.

  Sophia used Paul and Doug’s list to seek out work, and projected normalcy by being seen in the halls and eating in the cafeteria. She made new alliances, going for coffee or lunch with new people. Top on her list was doing her own client development and she billed every second to that admin billing code. She went to county bar association lunches and short continuing legal education programs to fish for clients and joined the Beverly Hills Bar Association, the most social of the local bar associations.

  Between meetings, coffees and lunches, Sophia called friends and classmates to get client referrals. After the retreat, she had several lunches set up with law school classmates to “catch up.” That was code for “give me business, a job, a date, or all three”. Two of her good friends in law school had started their own plaintiff’s firm, Krause & White, and wanted to meet with her. It fought for the rights of the injured and powerless. She got the sense they were recruiting her. She decided she would avoid that lunch. She had already been poor, and wasn’t interested in being poor again, even if the plaintiffs they represented were deserving.

  Although Taylor had called, they hadn’t gotten together. He’d been too busy, or at least had said he was.

  Ben called her repeatedly. She hung up on him, as Paul advised. It didn’t stop him. She also got random calls from a few other reporters. The annoyance was firm-wide. Some people had secretaries to screen their calls. Sophia, of course, didn’t so it made her vulnerable.

  * * *

  Failed and frustrated, midweek Sophia finished her busywork for the morning and decided to call Taylor for lunch.

  “Hey, I miss you.”

  “Me too, babe.”

  “Lunch?”

  “Can’t, but soon. How’s the hunt for work?”

  “Not so good, no partners have given me anything. Most of them say ‘see Roger’.”

  “And you have?”

  “Yes. I call him everyday.”

  “Good.”

  “I have a million calls out to get my own business. I’m doing lunches, coffees, meetings, you name it. I’m lunching with a few classmates after the retreat.”

  “It’ll keep you busy. But I’ll tell you, if they have any clients, they are going to keep them. The only business they will hand over is what they are forced to by a conflict of interest with another client at their firm. Even then, they will try to get waivers of the conflict from each client, set up Chinese walls to compartmentalize the matter, and keep it.”

  “That’s depressing. Tricia and I thought the lunches were a good plan. They’re a waste of time, then?” Sophia could hear Taylor thumbing through papers.

  “Huh?”

  “I said . . . never mind. You’re busy. We can talk later.”

  “No, I’m not. And lunches are a good idea. You could hit it right or they could think of you a couple of years from now. You never know. You're sowing the seeds at least.”

  “I need the work now, though. Not a year from now. You must know of something. Roger could make up an assignment on Crondall Properties if he wanted. I think he’s happy I’m being stonewalled.”

  “He’s not happy, Sophia. That’s not fair. Crondall is just inactive.
You know litigation is feast or famine. And you know that in a case already staffed it is hard to add another litigator and justify that to the client. It’s tough being assigning partner.”

  “Well, Marvin got some things back after Judith died. Maybe him? Or Joe?”

  “I’ll ask again.” Taylor was thumping on his keyboard now. “You know, it’s too bad Doug couldn’t have held on. Judith had some of his big cases. He’d be sitting pretty now. They went to senior partners.”

  “I get why Doug couldn’t hold on, or Jim, for that matter. It’s hard. It’s humiliating.”

  “I’m so sorry. But Carlisle has control of Joe’s client matters and Chet has my biggest client. Too bad it wasn’t one of them who kicked the bucket. I could give you work. We’re not as lucky as Marvin and Roger.”

  “That’s not nice.”

  “Chill, Sophia. I was joking.”

  “Sorry.” She was thinking that the detective was wrong when he said Taylor had benefited by these deaths.

  “I only got a post-judgment collection client back after Dante’s heart attack. No work to do. We’re just waiting to find some assets to grab. I already did the debtor’s examination at court to discover assets. They’re hidden, of course. But, this is funny. I got the guy’s ring he was wearing. He was surprised when the court made him hand it over. Assets are assets. His attorney should have told him not to wear it.”

  “Well, that case is not going to help me,” Sophia said impatiently, not wanting to be an audience for his war stories at the moment.

  “Oops, got to go. I’ve got a meeting. I have to beat Roger out for the junior partner spot on the Management Committee. It could get nasty.”

  “Good luck.” Sophia mustered as much enthusiasm as she could and hung up.

  Sophia was sorry she had asked him to lunch. His decline was more than she could take right now. Although his excuses for not getting her work seemed logical, she resented his casual attitude. But she did believe that Taylor had no work for her and his friends were not going to help out. They didn’t like or trust her. In fact, the last time she saw Roger, he had gone out of his way to ask her how Detective Rutger was.

  Sophia had started to regret not helping the detective get Roger—right or wrong. She hated Roger. She thought of Ben and actually talking to him off the record, but knew it would be a firing offense.

  As unlikely as it was, Sophia was convinced that getting her own clients and power base was the only way to go. These days, that was true everywhere in the world of private law firm practice. Just more true at Thorne & Chase.

  Sophia finished making more calls and sending confirming emails for business-getting lunches. Then she went to the cafeteria to troll the partners on Paul’s list for billable work. Billing admin time was getting old.

  * * *

  In the cafeteria, Sophia parked herself near the self-serve cream and sugar. She sipped her latte and waited to pounce. Everyone needed cream, sugar, chocolate powder, or something to perk up his or her caffeine vehicle.

  She targeted Josh Rosen who was also in the cafeteria. He was the junior partner she had interviewed with and who had been arguing with his son’s school about his son’s shaved head.

  “Hi.”

  “Oh, hi.” Josh put cream and sugar in his coffee.

  “Tell me, how did it turn out with the school and your son?”

  “What? Oh, you mean the shaved-head issue?”

  “Right.”

  He stood thinking for a minute. “Well, not so good. My son has the distinction of having the most demerits of any student who ever attended Akiba Academy. But I’m trying to keep him afloat until he graduates. How are things going with you?”

  “Good. Though I’d like to be a little busier. You have anything cooking?”

  “Not a lot, but ask Roger. He will load you down. I hear he may be bringing in a big contingency case very soon. That will be a billing fest.”

  “Great.” Sophia was getting the brush off, but she wondered why Taylor hadn’t told her that Roger’s contingent case was imminent.

  Sophia went back to her office, discouraged. If anyone else told her to ask Roger for work, she would scream. At least she did not have to do the walk of shame past Marlene’s desk. Marlene hadn’t been back since the day of her humiliation by Chet, although Sophia was sure she was getting a paycheck. Sophia hoped she was not coming back, ever.

  She listened to her voicemails. Ben Kowrilsky had left a message, which she erased at the first word. The ever-faithful Tricia wanted to do lunch. An old law school classmate wanted to have dinner. Sophia returned his call immediately. Halfway through the conversation, she wished she hadn’t. He had just separated from his wife and was looking for fun. Sophia told him she was busy.

  The phone rang while Sophia was going over her law school alumni directory again to see if there was anyone to contact for business. She answered.

  “It’s Steve. Don’t hang up. I have to talk to you.”

  “What do you want? Haven’t we talked enough? You have ruined my life.”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way, Sophia. But you need to know . . .”

  “You leave me alone.” She slammed the phone down.

  ⌘

  Chapter 83

  What a Tangled Web We Weave

  In keeping with Sophia’s new high-visibility policy, Tricia and Sophia went to the cafeteria for lunch at noon. They got the fish special: salmon with dill butter sauce, roasted new potatoes, and steamed fresh baby green beans. They took a table for four to snare anyone with work and clients, but worker-bees with no clients were not allowed.

  “Friday is always busy here.” Tricia popped some green beans in her mouth. “We’ll corral someone. Everyone wants to grab something and pile-drive the work to get one day off on the weekend.”

  “They should give me their work.”

  Tricia tasted the salmon. “This is great. But I need more lemon. You have two pieces.”

  Sophia forked them and then put them on Tricia’s plate.

  “Now you do. Chet is over at the condiment bar. I’m going to get lemon and a billable work assignment. He’s in charge of Taylor’s cases.”

  “Good luck.”

  Sophia walked over to the condiment bar.

  “Chet. How are you?”

  “Fine.” He took four wedges of lemon and put them on a small plate with the silver-colored tongs. “And you?”

  “Good. I am a little slow and was looking for more assignments.”

  “That’s not good. Go see Roger.” Chet smiled and headed to a table with Carlisle.

  Sophia didn’t take any lemon and went back to Tricia.

  “How’d it go?”

  “Nowhere. The usual. Go see Roger.” Sophia grabbed her lemon wedges back from Tricia’s plate and squeezed them on her salmon. “Toak has spread his poison and . . . oh, forget it.”

  They sat quietly eating their lunches. The private buzz-cut-headed security guards stood just outside the lunchroom door because Chet and Carlisle were there. Taylor, Joe, Marvin, and Roger came in, ordered, and got a table on the other side of the room.

  Sophia stabbed at her green beans. “There they are. The fabulous four.”

  “Have you seen Taylor?”

  “I get a couple of calls every day. We did coffee. No lunch. No dinner. No dates. He is too busy trying to get the junior partner seat on the Management Committee and gathering the support of the New York contingent.”

  “Too bad Paul is still in depositions out in the Valley. He’d find out the scoop for us. But anyway, Taylor could actually be too busy. I see a lot of meetings, a lot of politicking going on. The conference rooms have been full.”

  “We’ll see. I just can’t Taylor-speculate any more.” Sophia changed the subject. “Look over there; those are the New York partners joining Chet and Carlisle. Taylor said they stayed on after the memorial to settle things down.”

  “Chet looks pissed.”

  “Yeah, Chet did
n’t like it when Taylor got the New York office to support having a junior partner on the Management Committee. The party line is that they are doing it for continuity and firm peace. None of them liked what they saw here.”

  “Why should they?” Tricia smirked. “It’s all about control and money.”

  “Yeah, and immense male egos.”

  “And it seems the ancients even have them.”

  “They sure do.” Sophia finished her salmon. “And Taylor’s young ego is bruised because after all his groundwork, Roger may be the one who gets the Management Committee seat. It’s a closed ballot on Monday and a lot of the junior partners sympathize with him.”

  “Who cares who wins? Everyone here is power hungry. It doesn’t matter who’s on the Management Committee, young or old. They are all just out for themselves. Besides, Paul said they created the junior partner slot to stop that lawsuit. It would be more bad publicity.”

  “Maybe, but I don’t think they’d win any cause of action I can think of.”

  “Paul says it’s all about avoiding airing dirty linen in public, especially after three deaths, four if you count Jim Henning.” Tricia pushed her half-eaten plate away.

  “All I know is that I hate Roger, and if Taylor gets what he wants, I’ll have an ear on the Management Committee.”

  “And, by extension, Paul and me. I’m getting dessert. You?”

  “Sure.” Sophia got up with Tricia and headed for the dessert buffet. “And cappuccinos?”

  “Yes, I need a boost. Look! A new dessert! Apple pie.”

  “Yum. I love this place. I can’t be pushed out. I’ve never eaten like this in my life.”

  They took their apple pies and cappuccinos back to their table and dug in.

  Suddenly, Tricia whispered, “Don’t turn around. Detective Rutger is here. Over at the coffee.”

  “He’d better not be coming to our table.”

  “He is.” Tricia looked down at her pie.

  Detective Rutger sat at their table with his coffee, black. “Sophia, I didn’t find you in your office.”