BREACH OF PROMISE

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  “For the record,” Riesner began, “Cross-Defendant continues to object to this Request on grounds that it is overbroad, calls for a conclusion, is vague, ambiguous, and unintelligible, and all the other grounds set forth in our opposition thereto last week.”

  “Noted,” Nina said briefly. Riesner could object until he gave himself a sore throat, but he still had to turn the documents over. Mike still hadn’t opened his mouth. Riesner passed over a manila file stuffed with papers, and Nina began picking them up one by one, identifying them for the record, and having Mike authenticate them. Before the day was over, Sandy would copy them. There were originals of the corporate documents she had already seen, Articles of Incorporation, Bylaws, registration documents, Profit-and-loss Statements, and so on. The next group included the deeds to the Markov homes, several titles to vehicles, and other titles to property, all in Mike’s name.

  Then came the tax returns, both corporate and personal. After Mike had stated for the record what they were, Nina put these aside for copying. She would go over them with the accountant down the hall from her office this evening so she could ask intelligent questions about them tomorrow.

  The next group seemed to be a series of interoffice memos and correspondence with suppliers and customers in which Mike made various policy and executive decisions. So what? She wasn’t impressed. Lindy had a similar pile of documents lying in wait for Mike. Each note and memo had to be identified for the record. Nina was very careful, very formal as she described the documents for the reporter.

  Exhibit 1 was the most important of the lot. If Mike didn’t have some kind of smoking gun here, they’d be all right. They’d have a good chance.

  Mike kept on, polite, unfaltering, answering each question after a short pause, sometimes consulting for a moment in a low voice with Riesner. As the morning wore on, the tediousness of the process settled them all down.

  Unwritten rule of legal practice number 13: If you dread it, it will come. It came just before noon. Riesner had put it at the bottom of the stack just to raise a little more hell with her.

  A sheet of lined notebook paper like the kind Bob used in school, the document in question was crumpled, stained, and had been drafted on a manual typewriter that needed a new ribbon. SEPARATE PROPERTY AGREEMENT was typed in capital letters at the top.

  Mikhail Markov’s apparent signature at the bottom was followed by Lindy’s.

  Lindy, who had her eyes on the document, too, scratched her arm, the only reaction she showed. Her silence at this moment was a worrisome omen.

  “What’s this, Mr. Markov?” Nina said sharply.

  “That is a separate property agreement between Lindy and me,” Mike answered, keeping his face impassive. But Riesner couldn’t resist. Victory flashed across his long face, and his false smile turned real before Nina’s eyes.

  You son of a bitch, she thought, shaking her head, her mind boggled by this blow.

  She began asking narrow questions about the exhibit, and Mike answered everything in an unhesitating, well-rehearsed voice.

  He and Lindy had agreed that if they ever split up, they would keep each other’s property separate. The business was in his name and she understood that only he would continue to run it on that basis. They had sat down and talked about it the day they moved to California, thirteen years before, on October 12, and Lindy had typed their agreement up on their old Underwood. They had both signed it. Mike spoke in a flat voice, just spitting out the facts, keeping his eyes off Lindy.

  “Let’s take the lunch break,” Nina said. “We’ll start again at one.”

  “Oh, let’s,” Riesner said. He and Mike got up, two wealthy, successful men without a care in the world, and walked out, leaving the exhibits to fester on the table. Nina left, too, and went back into her office. Sandy laid out box lunches for both of them on Nina’s desk while Lindy visited the bathroom.

  Nina hadn’t moved by the time Lindy returned. Lindy sat down heavily beside her. “Well?” Nina said.

  “Well what?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” She let her anger show.

  “There’s nothing to tell. I do remember, during the time he’s talking about, we were in the red. Mike was feeling very insecure. Things were rocky between us. We were arguing a lot. You argue a lot when money is low, it’s natural.”

  “So you signed an agreement that you have never once mentioned to me.”

  “I never saw that piece of paper before in my life,” Lindy said, shaking her head. “It’s a forgery. Or a joke.”

  “Look at it again.”

  Lindy picked it up and studied it. “Looks like our old Underwood,” she said. “That’s strange, because I gave that typewriter to Goodwill years ago. Maybe he took it out and hid it somewhere. Or I suppose it’s possible he typed the agreement way back before I donated the machine.” She said the right words but her tone was wrong, all wrong.

  “Lindy?” Nina said. “You see this paper? If it sticks, it means we’ll probably lose. Both of us.” She got up and leaned her arms on the table, moving in close to extend the full force of her enraged gaze onto Lindy. “Don’t lie to me.”

  “I’ve never seen it before.”

  Nina shook her head, incredulous.

  “Anyone can forge a signature,” Lindy was saying. She held the paper at arm’s length, squinting at it. “I’d even swear it was mine if I didn’t know better.”

  “You need reading glasses, Lindy,” Nina said, leaving the room.

  Riesner and Mike came in a little late and took their places, the cool air and clean scents of the outdoors trailing behind them.

  The load of wet concrete Riesner had dumped on Nina was drying now, tightening, weighing heavier and heavier, suffocating in its implications.

  She didn’t believe Lindy. If real, that piece of paper might be worth a hundred million dollars to Mike. If a fraud . . . but it wasn’t. Riesner would never take a risk like that. He had to know Nina would discover a fraud, and that the jury would reward Lindy accordingly.

  Could Mike be lying to Riesner? No. Riesner would already have had the thing looked at by professionals, because he never trusted his clients.

  Why would Lindy keep the knowledge of this devastating evidence from her own lawyer?

  Stupid question. Denial, fear that Nina would bow out, hope that Mike had lost it . . .

  What now? Walk barefoot over a bed of burning coals all afternoon. The joy of law.

  “Let the record show we are gathered here again and all parties are present,” Nina said to the grinning, smirking red devils behind the polite faces of the men across the table from her. Madeleine’s fingers began working her reporting machine.

  Nina walked the hot coals all afternoon without even giving her opponents the pleasure of an ouch. Mike claimed he kept the agreement in his fishing tackle box, where he also kept his Social Security card. He insisted that Lindy signed the agreement of her own free will after a calm discussion. He said his divorce back in the sixties had cost him everything he had, and that at the time the agreement was signed he had feared that Lindy, too, would leave him and take the little that he had struggled to build. He readily admitted that he had initiated the discussion, but he said Lindy had typed it up. He kept looking at Lindy, who seemed to have zoned out.

  At about three o’clock he said, “Can we please go off the record?” Nina nodded, and the reporter shut down her machine, stretching her hands.

  “Lindy,” Mike said. He held up his big hands. “Quit while you’re ahead.”

  “Leave me alone.”

  “I’ll give you a million dollars to walk away from this.”

  “Keep quiet, Mike,” Riesner said, raising his voice. He took hold of Mike’s arm. “Let’s go in the other room and talk.” Mike shook himself free, his eyes never wavering from Lindy.

  “You can’t win. You’re wasting our time. You’re ruining the business.”

  “Me?” Lindy was outraged. “I’m not even involved.”


  “The longer you force me to screw around with this shit,” Mike said, “the quicker things fall apart at work. Hector, Rachel, they’re running the show, but nobody’s making the big decisions because of that receiver your lawyer put there. We’re not meeting the orders.”

  “So get over there and make things right.”

  He continued as Lindy spoke, as if deaf to her. “MarDel is suing us. Understand? We’ll go broke if I don’t get back to work, and as long as the receiver’s coming in and sitting in my office, I’m not setting foot in there.”

  “I can’t do anything about that.”

  “But you can. Use your head,” Mike said. “Let’s make a deal.”

  “Don’t say anything,” Nina said to Lindy. “Mr. Riesner, please instruct your client that he is not to address my client directly, or the deposition is over, and I’ll ask for sanctions.”

  “Come on, Mike. Other room.” Riesner jerked his head.

  “Lindy, take the deal,” Mike said.

  “Now you listen,” Lindy said. “You can’t buy me off with half a percent of what the company’s worth. You want me out? Offer me fifty percent or keep your big mouth shut.”

  “A million. That’s my offer,” Mike said. “My only offer. I’ll see you in hell before I’ll ask again.” He let out a laugh. “You thought I’d forgotten it, or lost it, didn’t you?” He allowed himself to be stood up and marched into Nina’s office. The door slammed, and they could hear the voices next door, but not the words. Madeleine said, “I think I’ll go chat with Sandy for a minute.” She closed the conference room door behind her.

  Nina turned to Lindy. “He didn’t forget it. He didn’t lose it. What do you say to that?”

  “I say he’s sinking mighty low. He won’t get away with this.”

  “Lindy, that paper changes everything.”

  Lindy said nothing.

  “I can try for two million, if you want, but at this point, it’s my opinion you won’t do any better. You can put it away, buy a house. You’ll have interest income.”

  “No.”

  “It may be the best I can do for you, considering.”

  “Considering what? This crummy old thing?” Before Nina could prevent it, Lindy reached over, picked up the piece of paper, and tore it into jagged halves. Nina lunged at her, calling, “Sandy!” They struggled. Lindy’s fists had locked fast. Sandy came running in, followed by Riesner and Markov. And then Lindy stopped. Looking as if suddenly all the electricity had failed, leaving her in the dark, her grip loosened. Nina took the pieces out of her hands and gave them back to Riesner.

  “How can you humiliate me like this, Mike?” Lindy said calmly. But the calm after the storm held more portent than the actual thunder that had preceded it. “Rachel put you up to this, didn’t she? She’s the one who’s pushing you until you’re like somebody I never met and wouldn’t want to know if I did. This has all gone too far.” She was raving but Nina couldn’t figure out how to stop her. She tried to break in, but was shoved aside and ignored. “I’m going to do what I should have done already and put all of us out of our misery right now. Kill her!”

  “Sandy. Take Mrs. Markov out of here,” Nina commanded.

  “Well, now,” Riesner said. “Death threats, destruction of evidence. Nice client control, Counselor. I think we’ll be going.”

  “But . . .” Mike said. Lindy had begun to breathe in hiccuping gasps, one way of not crying, Nina suspected. For a moment, Nina thought Mike was going to take her hand.

  “Yes, indeed. The deposition is over,” Riesner said. “I’m afraid I have to take this exhibit back with me to ensure it is not destroyed.” Firmly, he edged Mike into the outer office.

  The outer door slammed.

  “Did you get a copy of that thing, Sandy?” Nina said.

  “Right after you broke for lunch,” Sandy answered.

  Madeleine, who had been hovering in the doorway, said, “Are we adjourned?”

  “Oh, yes,” Nina answered. They were as adjourned as they could be without being stone cold dead.

  9

  School started at the ungodly hour of seven-thirty, so the next morning when Nina let herself into the office after dropping Bob off, she knew she would have some time alone. Avoiding the answering machine with its winking light, she went into her office and pulled up the blinds. Snow everywhere, covering up all the dirty tricks and poverty and lies, making everything look so pretty. Turning on the lamp at her desk, she pulled out her checkbooks. Forced-air heating labored valiantly through the grate in the ceiling, the only sound.

  She scratched quite a few numbers on her yellow pad and called a couple of credit card automated lines. Fifteen minutes later, she knew everything there was to know. Unlike Markov Enterprises, she didn’t need an expert to figure out which way the wind blew.

  Assets: the house on Kulow, equity thirty thousand, mortgage payment fifteen hundred a month. She had sunk all the money left after the divorce into it.

  The cottage on Pine Street in Pacific Grove her aunt had left her, value about two hundred thousand. She owned it free and clear. The two students renting it barely covered the property taxes and upkeep.

  The Bronco. Value, maybe two thousand considering the rapidity of its disintegration. Her jewelry, clothes, and furniture, another couple of thousand. The office furnishings and equipment, the same.

  Accounts receivable. Closely balanced to the accounts payable. Monthly operating expense, including Sandy, about ten thousand.

  Credit card debt, for the washer-dryer and the new fridge, fifteen hundred. Not bad at all. That was it, Reilly Enterprises, both sides of the register.

  Now she looked at the page on which she had estimated the costs of getting through the Markov trial. She had started out with twenty thousand from Lindy, and only a month later she was down to five thousand, thanks to signing up Paul, Genevieve, and especially Winston.

  She had counted on Winston to put up half the costs of the litigation, not to take money out, but Winston had managed to come onboard without putting up anything. In fact, he had taken a ten thousand dollar retainer for himself. He had explained that the IRS was causing him a lot of grief right now, plus his current case had tapped him out. He had made vague promises to come through in the crunch.

  Now Winston, her much-vaunted cocounsel, had just lost that major case and probably could not contribute a dime to the costs in advance of trial. And her client had probably lied to her about signing a separate property agreement, which left their case looking weaker than ever. And Lindy had very little more to give.

  That left Nina to scrape up enough money to make a major motion picture out of an anemic plot with mediocre box-office potential.

  She pushed aside the ominous feelings in her gut. You have to spend money to make money, she said to herself. She leaned back in her chair and put her stockinged feet up on the desk. The heat was making her drowsy. She’d get up and make some coffee . . . instead she drifted into a reverie.

  On the last warm weekend in October, she and Bob had ridden their bikes down the pathways by the Baldwin Mansion. After wearing themselves out, they had stopped and climbed on a rocky pier to check out the lake. Not far away, off to their right she noticed a long white cabin cruiser with the name The Felony written in italics on its impeccable side. At the helm, in a white captain’s hat, the wind whipping his hair so that the bald spot showed, Jeffrey Riesner had stood. He noticed her at the same time and turned so that the wake of his cruiser practically drenched them.

  Jeffrey Riesner owned a house on the water at the Keys. His wife stayed home with their toddler. Nina sometimes caught sight of her in her little red running shorts jogging by the office, pushing the stroller, so buff that nary a ripple jiggled even in the most sensitive places.

  Riesner was the same age she was. Where did he get the money to live like that? And Winston had told her all about his Ferrari and the place in Bel Air he had managed to “scavenge,” as he put it, from his secon
d wife. Even Genevieve’s studiously nonchalant wardrobe suggested she made more money than Nina did.

  She would have a million dollars in the bank at least, post-taxes and debts, if she won the Markov case. Then she would live a whole different life. Move up in the world. Travel, first class all the way. She and Bob, at the Pyramids, cruising the Greek Isles . . . even Jeffrey Riesner would be forced to rethink his automatic contempt for her, wouldn’t he, impressed by the only thing that impressed anybody: money, money, almighty money . . .

  Of which she needed a lot right now.

  She called the bank. Requested the paperwork to arrange for an equity loan on the cottage and a second mortgage on the house on Kulow. Dictated a letter informing the students in Pacific Grove of a rent hike. Applied for another credit card with a fat credit line. Canceled her appointment to have the Bronco fixed. She’d limp around in it until the trial in May.

  By the time she was done, she had hocked everything. You had to spend money to make money.

  Several more days went by without communication on either side, but that didn’t mean Riesner wasn’t working behind the scenes. Nina, too, kept herself busy. Friday, she called Lindy at Alice Boyd’s house. She wanted Lindy to tell her the truth.

  “Ms. Reilly!” Alice answered in a delighted voice. “I understand from Lindy that all is very hunky-dory on the lawsuit front.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear she thinks so,” said Nina.

  “Don’t you? Is something wrong?”

  “Ms. Boyd, may I speak with her?”

  “Call me Alice and I’ll call you Nina, okay? When in Rome, or Tahoe for that matter . . .” she said with a laugh. “Anyway, she’s out. I don’t expect her for a couple of hours. She’s helping to pack food boxes for some holiday thing.”

  “Could you ask her to call me?”

  “Sure. Mind if I ask what this is about?”

  “I just need to talk to her.”