Gail cinched the straps on her vest, a slick yellow ski vest with reflective stripes at the neck—in case the wearer fell overboard at night, she supposed. She wished the boat had seat belts.
From the front passenger seat Karen watched him turn one of the keys. There were two of them. Two monstrous engines, Gail realized. The starter whirred. He tried again. Karen swung her legs. "My father used to have a lot of boats. He's in St. Thomas at the moment. That's in the U.S.' Virgin Islands."
Anthony smiled at her. "Yes. I know." He turned the other key. Another whirr. They had drifted halfway across the inlet. Gail was standing now, ready to push them away from the sportfisher.
Karen said, "He has a sailboat, a forty-foot sloop. It's bigger than this boat. He lets me sail it. I think he'll be back around Christmas."
"You can be my special boat consultant." Finally the engine snarled and spat, then settled to a low growl. He gave the other key a turn, and that engine also began to rumble.
Gail tapped Karen's shoulder. "Sit in the back. I get the front seat. Privilege of age."
In the bright orange vest, Karen climbed over the rear seat, then sat on the long, padded rear deck that covered the engines.
"You should sit on the seat," Anthony said.
"I won't fall off. We're not even making a wake." She held on to the stainless steel railing along one side.
Anthony's fingers drummed for a second on the wheel. He shrugged and put the boat into gear. Slowly the ridiculously long bow swung around. Gail could feel the heavy vibrations through her feet, as if there were a beast underneath the deck gathering its muscles to break through the fiberglass and steel. She straight-armed the dash, checked Karen, then said, "Take it easy when you give it the gas, okay?"
Muttering in Spanish, Anthony sat back down. At no-wake speed they maneuvered out of the inlet then along the canal. The air was sticky with humidity but not as hot. The sun was turning orange above the horizon.
Gail said, "She isn't usually like this. I don't know what's the matter with her."
"You don't?"
"Be patient, will you?"
"I am." Anthony's eyes flicked to the rearview mirror. "I'm very patient."
Gail stood up, crossing her arms on the wraparound Plexiglas windshield. Karen was a hard topic, better avoided. She took off her sunglasses and tilted her face into the breeze. A smaller boat putted past and the couple in it waved cheerily. Gail waved back. Water gurgled in the channel, sparkling in the lowering light.
She looked around at Anthony. He was watching her and reached over to pull her closer with an arm around her waist. Gail lifted off his cap to kiss him on the top of his head. His hair was thick and wavy and smelled of spicy shampoo and fresh air. He leaned his cheek against her chest for a moment, then let her go.
"Guess who I saw today," Gail said. "Your pal Mark Brody."
"Pour us a daiquiri, why don't you? What did he say?"
She found the bag Anthony had brought, Thermos of frozen daiquiris inside, then told him the gist of the conversation: the signatures didn't look like Althea Tillett's. It wasn't enough to guarantee a win, but enough to start digging.
She sipped her drink, then set the insulated glass into the holder on the dashboard. Polished chrome, designed to swing when the boat moved. She wondered if anyone had ever baited a hook in this floating rocket. Behind her, Karen was flat on her stomach, barefoot, watching the water churn slowly past the stem. She had a little stack of cookies beside her.
Gail turned around. "Next week I'll talk to the management committee about letting me take the case."
"You'll make some money," he said.
"Maybe a few extra thousand dollars at the end of the year when they hand out bonuses."
'That's it?"
"The partners get a percentage, not us poor associates."
Anthony squinted into the sun, pointing the boat to the north. They were coming into Biscayne Bay, and the boat moved with the deeper swells. "I don't understand. Why do you work for a law firm which pays you so little, tells you what cases you may have, robs you of your family life ..." He lowered his voice. "It doesn't surprise me she is so jealous. She has too little of you as it is."
"Make me feel guilty. Look. I've worked for Hartwell Black since before I graduated from law school. Yes, the pressure can be murderous, but finally it's coming together for me. Partners can set their own schedules, hire extra staff. My God, I might even be able to work normal hours."
"Then you tell them—" He turned the wheel a little, watching ahead. "Tell them if you win this case, you want a partnership. Make them do that for you. Otherwise, you leave."
She took a swallow of daiquiri, the slushy ice chilling her mouth. "I'd almost say it just to see Paul Robineau's reaction."
"And what will you do if they don't accept the case?"
She laughed. "Maybe show up at your office, how about that? You and Raul need a good civil trial attorney?"
Under the hat brim Anthony's face was bathed in gold light. He didn't answer right away, then said, "Is this something you've been thinking about?"
"No. Not really." She finished her drink and dropped the empty glass into the holder. "I do appreciate the enthusiastic response, though."
"Gail." His look was gently chastising.
She grinned at him. "Would I get to bring Patrick with me?"
"No."
A little way past the mouth of the channel he turned around in his seat. "Karen! Sit down. I'm going to go faster, and I don't want you to fall out."
She scooted forward to the edge and put her bare feet on the bench seat. Her sneakers lay upside down on the deck behind her.
"On the seat, please."
"I can't see from down there."
Before Gail could speak, Anthony took the boat out of gear, stood up, and pointed. "Sit on the seat. Now. And put your shoes on the floor." Chooz. His Spanish accent came through when he was angry.
The two of them glared at each other from under the bills of their baseball caps. Then Karen retrieved her shoes and slid down into the seat.
Gail held back a laugh. "Aye, aye, Captain. Karen, come up here with me." She stretched around the front seat to take Karen's arm and pull her into her lap. The life vests were bulky between them.
Anthony pushed forward on the throttle. The pitch of the engines rose from a deep growl to a roar. The stern sank and the bow shot upward. The Thermos of daiquiris flew off the dashboard and bounced on the carpeted deck.
Gail shrieked.
Karen swung her head around to look at her, laughing. Her ponytail whirled under her hat. After a second the boat leveled out, but the water was a hissing, foaming rush. Gail clutched Karen around the waist.
"Mom. Mom! Let go!" She pointed at the speedometer and yelled, "It's only thirty miles an hour!" The speedometer, Gail noticed, went all the way to eighty.
"Oh, God." The shoreline was scrolling past on their right, tile-roofed houses and green lawns. Kids playing in a pool. A woman trimming her roses. The sea beside the boat was a blur.
Karen tugged on Anthony's arm. "Go faster!"
"We can't, this close to shore."
She bounced up and down on Gail's lap, shouting over the roar of the engines. "Anthony, let me do it! Please?"
"You know how?"
"Yes! Yes!" Gail yelled, "No!'
Karen wriggled away. Anthony stood her between his knees. 'Turn it south. Let's go around the ocean side."
"We're going into the ocean?
"Gail, don't worry, it's okay."
The horizon tilted. The Miami skyline moved around the bow, then swung to the stern. Anthony stood up behind Karen and his hat flew off, sailing up and back, a spiraling dot that bounced once on the wake, then vanished. He looked after it for a only an instant. The wind whipped through his dark hair. He pushed Karen's hat down on her head. She was holding on tightly to the wheel, squinting over the top of it, flexing her legs with the rhythm of the boat. The water hissed under the
hull.
"Oh, God!" Gail clamped her fingers into the armrests.
The boat skipped from one crest to the next, the seat rising and falling.
Anthony shouted, "Gail, look at her. She can do it!" His arms extended around Karen, not quite touching, and his hands were poised at the wheel.
Chapter Eight
The management committee of Hartwell Black and Robineau was comprised of six of the seventeen partners. Gail tracked them down at lunch, in the corridors, or in their offices. More law firm business got done that way than in formal meetings. She told them about Patrick Norris and the phony will.
Larry Black had been surprisingly noncommittal. Jack Warner, head of litigation, wanted to hear more. Paul Robineau, with no time to listen, requested a memo. Cy Mackey from real estate and zoning had laughed. He said, "Hey. Rock and roll." The head corporate lawyer, Bill Schoenfeld, said he would wait to hear what everyone else thought. Forrest Putney, the oldest member of the firm, had invited Gail to attend the meeting.
The committee convened late Monday afternoon, their regular month-end get-together. It was nearly six o'clock before they called Gail in to explain why she wanted the firm to take on Patrick Norris as a client.
Paul Robineau, who might have been counting the little holes in the acoustical ceiling tile as she spoke, swung his chair back toward the table. "Questions? Anyone?"
The six men looked tired, and the room stank of cigarettes. Papers, coffee cups, calculators, and files littered the polished oval table. Gail sat next to Larry Black along one side.
Cy Mackey grinned at her from under his brushy, gray-streaked mustache. "Jesus. Fifteen mill. You sure about that?"
"It's a fair estimate. I did a real estate title search and came up with a list of holdings Patrick Norris didn't know about. Without the inventory, this is the best we can do for now. It could go higher."
"Rock and roll. Hey, Jack." Cy Mackey tapped a rhythm on the table. "What are the numbers on a case like this? I'm talking fees."
Warner, tie loosened and jacket off, was reaching around to refill his coffee cup from the pot on the credenza behind them. In his late fifties, one of the state's top litigators, Warner had to be pulling down well over a million a year. He could walk into a courtroom and hypnotize a jury. Uncanny. Lately the talk was that if Jack Warner had his way, he and Paul Robineau would move the firm out of the cramped quarters on Flagler Street and into one of the sparkling towers on Brickell Avenue.
Warner was a tall, slender man with thinning gray hair and heavy-lidded eyes, which now moved toward Cy Mackey. "I'd want to go with the standard contingency fee. Thirty percent if settled, forty if it goes to trial, fifty on appeal."
"Excuse me?" Gail said. Everyone looked at her. "Six million dollars for a trial? Isn't that a bit much? I quoted the client an hourly rate."
Warner smiled slightly. "Hourly?"
'Two-fifty office, three hundred in court."
He and Robineau exchanged a look.
Paul Robineau said, "Gail. Please don't tell me that you agreed to a fee before you discussed this matter with us."
"No, I gave Mr. Norris an estimate. But I in no way intimated that he'd be paying a standard contingency fee. I've never used that for commercial litigation. It's for tort cases. Personal injury."
Robineau raised an eyebrow. "I believe fraud is a tort. Have they changed the law?"
Larry Black said, "Lay off, Paul. You know what she means."
Three of the lawyers started talking at once. From the other end of the table, Forrest Putney tapped the bowl of his pipe on his coffee cup and waited for quiet.
"Ms. Connor is correct," he said. "It's exorbitant." Putney's hair stood out from his pink scalp like dandelion fluff, and age spots dotted his forehead. He was wearing a seersucker jacket and a red bow tie. Fifty years ago, returning from the war with a Navy Cross, Putney had clerked for the firm's original founding members.
"You'd be in probate court, gentlemen. The probate judges don't like big fees. Takes money from the heirs." He gripped his pipe in his teeth and felt around in the inside pocket of his jacket, retrieving a thin green book. He thumbed through the tattered pages. The title read Florida Bar Minimum Fee Schedule 1970.
Putney spoke around his pipe. 'The old guideline for contingency fees in will contests is fifteen percent. I wouldn't go over that."
Mackey snickered. "Fuckin' book's a little out of date, isn't it, Forrest?"
Robineau raised a hand. "We'll get to this later. Are there any more questions for Ms. Connor?"
"If I'm going to do this case," Gail said, "I expect to have some input as to what we charge."
Cy Mackey grinned. He glanced at Robineau, who was playing with his pen. Robineau said slowly, "Ms. Connor. On major cases, this committee assigns counsel and determines the amount of attorneys' fees."
She felt her stomach tense. "I know the policy. I also know that Patrick Norris will go somewhere else if he thinks we're overreaching."
Robineau made a smile. "Something of a conundrum, isn't it? He wants you. He doesn't want you if you charge the going rate. What do you suggest?"
"Fifteen percent would probably be acceptable to him, against an hourly rate of three hundred. Ten percent if it's settled, twenty on appeal. Plus costs. If other attorneys at the firm become involved—Mr. Warner, for instance—the hourly rate would go up accordingly."
Jack Warner asked, "Is it winnable at trial?"
"I never guarantee—"
He swiveled his chair around. "I'm not a client you're talking to. You want a twenty grand cost advance. I want to know what we get for it Do you believe the case is winnable or not?"
"Winnable, yes," Gail said. "I wouldn't recommend it otherwise. And remember we have security—the $250,000 cash bequest to Patrick Norris." She casually poured herself a glass of water. Her mouth was going dry.
Mackey laughed. "Come on, Jack. This kind of fee potential and you've got a bug up your ass about twenty grand?"
Schoenfeld took another pull on his cigarette. He was pushing sixty and overstuffed on deli food from years in smoky conference rooms. "So even if we lose, we can't lose. So to speak."
Larry got out of his chair and took his coffee cup to the insulated pot on the credenza. The curtains were drawn. Already the light behind them was fading. "I don't like it." He glanced at Gail—apologetically, she thought. He said, "We'd catch more hell than it's worth."
"Who from?" Mackey asked. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about the charities who'd think we were taking their money." He lifted the top off the porcelain sugar bowl. "They'd be right too."
Gail had expected opposition, but not from Larry. Warner's gaze was fixed on the opposite wall. The two men worked together, but apparently they had not agreed on this one.
Larry measured two level teaspoons of sugar. "Yes, we might collect a sizable fee. But this is one case. What about the long term? My God. Killing a half-million-dollar bequest to the University of Miami? I'm on the Orange Bowl Committee, let me remind you." He laughed. "They'd cancel our season tickets. Oh, hell. It isn't that. The point is, you don't screw the people who count in this town. You don't even allow the perception that you're screwing the people who count."
Schoenfeld chuckled. "I'm worried what my wife would do to me. She plays golf with Weissman's wife, Mona." Jack Warner leaned back with his hands locked behind his head. "You know, Alan and I did a seminar for the Bar a couple of years ago. I think he was slipping, even then."
Mackey poked Schoenfeld. "I was in Sally Russell's the other day at lunch and he was slipping off his fuckin' barstool."
"Yeah, but forge a will," Schoenfeld said. "What a dumb-ass thing to do. He drinks, but he's not stupid. Is he on coke or something? Is he screwing Monica Tillett? What?"
"May I remind you, gentlemen—" Forrest Putney's voice, honed on forty years of trial work, could still resonate. "We in this firm do not question the integrity of fellow members of the Bar wit
hout cause."
"Sorry, Forrest." Mackey smoothed his mustache, trying to look serious.
Schoenfeld spoke to Gail over Larry's empty chair. "What about conflicts? Did you run all these names through the computer? I can't believe we don't represent at least one of the beneficiaries. I'm not talking about your mother. She's willing to let the ring go. We've got no problem with that."
Gail said, "There is one minor thing. We advised the YMCA last year with relation to renewal of their lease."
Paul Robineau asked, "Are we on retainer?" When Gail shook her head, he added, "So they aren't a current client."
"Paul." Forrest Putney looked pained.
"Forrest is right." Larry Black set his cup down on the table but remained standing behind his chair, stirring, the spoon clinking, clinking in the cup. "It's a conflict." He looked at Gail. "Did they send us a letter terminating our representation? Anything?"
She had to admit she didn't know.
Warner sighed. "Larry, forget it."
Gail could guess what Warner would do. If the YMCA complained, he'd ask Patrick to pay the amount listed in the will. Five grand. A cost of doing business.
Mackey said, "Hey, Larry, you going to drill a hole in that cup or what?"
Still frowning, Schoenfeld tapped his ashes into a cut-glass ashtray already full of butts. "What about this residuary beneficiary? What about that?"
Gail said, "The Easton Charitable Trust. They get the leftovers, whatever's not otherwise mentioned in the will, which should amount to quite a pile of cash, even after the other beneficiaries collect. Easton has an office on Brickell Avenue and a phone number in the book." "Which I assume you called."
"I did. A woman answered—very cultured voice. I pretended to be doing an article on local charities for the Miami Business Review. She told me that the Easton Trust was established in 1937, that their projects are strictly confidential, and that the man who runs it is G. Howard Odell. The executive director."
She glanced at Larry, who was hiding behind his coffee cup. He knew Howard Odell, but he wasn't going to say so, and she wasn't going to bring it up first, not here. "Howard Odell was out of the office. The woman offered to have him call me, but I said no. I'd given her a false name."
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