All the Beautiful People We Once Knew

by Edward Carlson

  Furtive, across the street, a brown kid descended a fire escape and jumped to the ground clinging a bucket of pitch. Five stories above he had graffitied the building’s facade with runic-like markings followed by big block letters that read: IXXI THE PEOPLE OF 4EVER ARE NOT AFRAID IXXI. The kid tossed the bucket into a Dumpster and hurried into the subway station of Chase Manhattan Sapphires and round red 2s and 3s.

  3

  FLEEGER NO-LOOK BACKHANDED ME a pint of Guinness and waded shoulder-deep into happy hour. Apotheosis of the profession, he possessed a Rolodex of inside jokes and because of this people adored him. They discarded their conversations midexchange to pump his hand and hear what he had to say. About punitive damages awarded for pain and suffering. Venal lawyers. Corpulent plaintiffs. Incontinent judges. Laughing about a case. Yeah that case. Where plaintiff so-and-so alleging such-and-such had the audacity to sue their client.

  “Get a job.”

  “Yeah, get a fucking job.”

  “Get a fucking job.”

  Now amassed here at O’Grady’s, like some hidden panel of that Hieronymus Bosch triptych. Downtown law firm insurance broking financial services short-selling day-trading to scrape a halfpenny off a penny happy hour bar. The Garden of Earthy delights. Chunky fake jewels and clunky titanium wristwatches. Melting foundation and glittery powdered eye sockets and nosegays of deodorant. Gargoyle andirons and designer Pogs to the tips of every pump. A plague of Pogs shall go up upon thee, Pharaoh. I slipped inside the crowd and rested my elbows against the oak plank bar and watched Attika raise the lid from a wrinkled aluminum tray and tong buffalo wings onto a red plastic plate. As the crowd rubbed up against me, my psychosexual radar failed to detect a blip.

  “Hey man, be first class and order my friend here another scotch on the rocks,” Fleeger commanded someone.

  Money Man on high-def flat screens above the bar, in the corners, nodding with financial wizardry. A septuagenarian futures trader ringing his brass bells and chyrons blinking—WUXI HEXIA FIRST CLASS—WUXI HEXIA FIRST CLASS—WUXI HEXIA FIRST CLASS. On account of the Federal District Court’s dismissal of Plaintiffs’ massive class action lawsuit against Wuxi and their insurer WorldScore. Thus saving investors a bazillion. Money Man now giving Wuxi the thumbs up.

  “First class.”

  “Hey man, that’s you,” someone told Fleeger.

  Fleeger thanked him. Thanked a few others. Acknowledged it was a big win indeed. But that he couldn’t do it without … himself.

  The crowd’s hydrostatic forces shifted, revealing Honda Tadakatsu sitting alone at the bar, two symmetrical clumps of gray white hair like Beats by Dre, fidgeting with a camera lens and donning a tactical vest. Another lens hanging from a neck lanyard and a few more tucked inside his mesh pockets. The bartender poured Honda a scotch and soda and he drank from the tall glass and returned to the lens.

  “Mr. Tadakatsu,” I said. He looked up at me. His eyes were a series of graphite and carbon dials. He smiled. He couldn’t recall my name.

  “Stephen Harker,” I said. We shook hands.

  “Of course. From Kilgore.” The Australian accent afforded him a humorous gravitas, thus humanizing his geeky obsession with camera lenses. “I’m sorry but after a while you guys all kind of look the same.”

  “I’ll try not to be offended,” I replied.

  He handed me his business card. Honda Investigations. Always gets your man.

  “So I got your email today, Stephen. Regarding the new assignment for this Thomas fellow. But you’re too late.”

  He shared Fleeger’s practice of referring to plaintiffs by their last names, to render them less than themselves. Before you sued the client you may have been Major Mike “Bud” Thomas. But now we’ll just refer to you as Thomas, because now you’re a cocksucking Plaintiff.

  “WorldScore put me on this guy a few months ago. Out in White Haven, Pennsylvania. Very apropos, I might add. Less than three hours by car but man I had no idea it was so fucking depressing.”

  I pointed at the barman. An Irish featherweight with two bushy clumps of nose hair that accessorized his eyebrows. I instructed him to put Honda’s drink on the Kilgore tab.

  “OK, horse,” he replied, unsure whether horse was what he called me.

  Honda removed a soft pack of Mild Sevens from one of his mesh pockets and extracted the last cigarette and placed the empty, crushed soft pack atop the bar. The barman swept it away. I lit Honda’s cigarette and rolled another for myself.

  “They’re getting a lot of these guys, WorldScore is. Forcing them to fight bogus compensation claims by guys returning home from the wars. This could be your bread and butter, Stephen. No shortage of work indeed and kind of interesting as well. They’re not some corpulent Dominicana in the Bronx suing Geico in New York Supreme for back pain to make a couple grand and spend it on gladiator sandals and an Xbox for the baby daddy. These guys think they have some God-given right to tear it all down. Even if it means we’ll be walking around in loincloths and beating each other with clubs.”

  I asked him what he had thus far.

  “No home runs yet. But we’ll get him. We’re gonna surveil the guy.”

  He winked. Told me he learned a couple of interesting things about the man thus far.

  “And?”

  “He’s got a deer stand mounted in a massive buttonwood tree in his front yard. Three stories above the ground. With floodlights and motion sensors. And these plastic deer arranged in his bushes: big bucks, does, Bambi, which I assume he uses for target practice. That would be a good shot for us, don’t you think? Thomas launching arrows at plastic deer positioned in his rhododendrons. Kind of refutes all those ortho claims. I also ran his name through the Pennsylvania game commission website. To see if he has any hunting licenses.”

  “Does he?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Ninja!” Fleeger yelled, crushing Honda atop his barstool. “Always gets the man.”

  “Always gets your man, Robert.”

  “Whatever. Who invited you?” Fleeger asked with faux disdain.

  “Celeste asked me to come.”

  “Dude what’s up with the Australian accent? I thought you were Japanese.”

  Honda stared at him.

  “Whoa man, just kidding. It’s so sexy.”

  “You always act like an ass, Robert?”

  “Only when we win a big case,” he replied. “Gives me carte blanche to be a dick. Not an ass. A dick. Big difference, Hondo. Get it straight.”

  The happy hour crowd cheered the arrival of Tucker Nelson, his coat collar flipped, as if to protect his neck from an approaching lance. “Rabbi.” Fleeger greeted Nelson with more kisses as Nelson struggled with his zipper. The WorldScore claims handler who laid the first flagstone on Fleeger’s path to partnership in exchange for taproom fealty and Kilgore tickets to the Jets, Devils, Boss. Nelson finally managed to remove his expensive purple coat, a patchwork of octagons, and rolled up his sleeves to commence the hard work of drinking.

  “Well if you’re good friends with Fleeger then I should be good friends with you too,” Nelson crooned as someone handed him a Beam and Diet Coke. He stirred his drink with a red straw while behind him a sinewy woman with worsted black locks took careful steps atop high heels to avoid stepping in anything gooey. She was Celeste Powers, WorldScore’s global head of claims, eyelashes battered with mascara, eyebrows plucked into skeptical commas. Fleeger placed a big mitt on her lower back.

  “Aren’t unwanted sexual advances a violation of the rules of professional responsibility?” she asked him.

  I sipped my pint.

  “Yes, but first you need to put me on notice.”

  “Notice of what?”

  “That it’s unwanted.”

  He vised Celeste with his arm.

  “Trust me, Robert. It’s unwanted.”

  She remained unfazed, immune to taking offense, as Fleeger ghost-sprayed cologne and offered his neck for her to take a sniff.

&
nbsp; “Must be the Wuxi,” he said. “Come on. Smell it. It smells like victory.”

  She abstained from smelling him but played along.

  “Precluding over a thousand Panamanian infants from obtaining compensation for allegedly ingesting contaminated cough syrup insured by WorldScore’s sloppy, bonus-happy underwriters?”

  “Warrants a Nobel prize,” I said, then finished my pint. Celeste sized me up, entered me on the agenda, and returned to Robert. A thrum dangled from the hem of her tight black wool dress. I ordered another Guinness from the featherweight bartender. He half-poured the stout and set it aside to cascade on a perforated metal tray. I would have to wait a minute before drinking.

  “Now Robert, we have some important matters to discuss tonight.” She sounded half serious. “This is no time for fun and games.”

  “There’s always time for fun and games,” he replied.

  A delicate dance commenced just beneath the surface. It was like watching a tiger shark contemplate mating with a killer whale. Except I couldn’t tell which was which—who was who—whale or shark. She was a different species than him. Wouldn’t fit on his spreadsheet, because she required a specialized source code. At the minimum greater abstraction, a faculty that he lacked. I took a stab.

  Celeste Powers (Mrs.) (classic black-and-white).

  “Wuxi is now in the past, Robert,” she said. “And besides, I’ve complimented you enough. And compensated you plenty. It’s not like you did the work pro bono.”

  “I like the way you say pro bono,” Fleeger interrupted. “You really own it.”

  She ignored him.

  “There is a synergy at work here, Robert, and I want to see where we can take this. You’ve generated some goodwill and at the same time we’re staring down the barrel of a new gun. So yes, sure I’m here to congratulate you about Wuxi—good work, smart chap, and all that—but more importantly to discuss Kilgore’s internal capacity.”

  Celeste slapped the Redweld portaged inside her Louis Vuitton and Honda appeared at her side and Nelson fell in line behind them. Wonder Twins activate. This gathering tonight now about Fleeger’s capacity to handle more defense work. She had the orders and the strategy, she explained, but she needed a team to execute the plan and accomplish the objective. Each worker’s comp claim WorldScore successfully refuted constituted another boon against the surge of unemployed, underemployed, broken, addicted, and/or mentally crippled men returning home from Afghanistan and Iraq with no jobs and no option but to sue their former war zone employers for benefits. To keep their manhood intact. Private welfare via spurious litigation. The system was ripe for abuse. For every legitimately injured military contractor who returned from Iraq with one-and-a-half arms there were scores of dudes filing dubious insurance claims for impossible-to-refute PTSD and subjective back pain. All to obtain twice-monthly payouts that almost always went toward purchasing the sundry tools associated with irrefutable American manliness: hunting bows, rifle scopes, 3D camouflage golf carts for tooling around in the woods while hopped up on beneficent prescriptions for opioids to cure phantom ailments. An entire ghost economy built up around insurance claims, Cabela’s, and drive-through pharmacies.

  Fleeger backhanded me Celeste’s Sol and it slipped. I caught the bottle mid-descent. Scar along her left patella, morning dabs of bergamot, her steel-tipped heels punched dimples into the burgundy carpet. The tiny advanced footwear of professional women who’d never borne children. She ignored me while accepting the beer bottle I offered her and the barman handed me my third or fourth Guinness.

  “You’ve been defending WorldScore for some time now,” she said to Fleeger. “What has it been? Nine years? You’re quite the loyal foot soldier.”

  “Nelson sends me work and all I have to do is buy him drinks,” Fleeger said.

  “How convenient,” she replied.

  “For Nelson it is,” Nelson said. A purple shadow covered his left eyelid. I couldn’t tell if it was a sty or if he’d been hit. The color matched his coat.

  “Hello, Stephen,” he said.

  “Hello, Nelson,” I replied.

  Nelson upticked his head. Said it was always good to see me too brother and shuffled off to speak with Attika, who instructed Nelson to order another drink on Kilgore’s tab.

  “And you are?” Celeste asked.

  “Stephen Harker. Pleasure to meet you.”

  We shook hands.

  “I love a lawyer with a sweaty palm,” she said, wiping her hand against her outer thigh. “It means he has something on his mind. Robert tells me you are the top associate on his team. What makes you his top man, Stephen?”

  “I’ll have a Blue Moon,” Nelson told the barman.

  “Sorry, horse. Keg is kicked.”

  “Stephen’s already working up the Thomas file,” Fleeger informed Celeste.

  “Why do you keep calling me a horse?” Nelson protested.

  “Ok, horse. If you want a Blue Moon I’ll have to check downstairs, but you’ll have to wait.”

  “Stephen tell Celeste how qualified you are.”

  “Robert’s prone to exaggeration,” I said.

  “God I hope not. Are you prone to exaggeration Robert?” Mocking my use of the word prone. I couldn’t do anything right with this woman. “Let me try with him. So what makes you so qualified, Mr. Harker? Years toiling at Robert’s beck and call?”

  The main problem with this evening was that everyone was trying to sound clever. And I couldn’t walk away and I didn’t want to be here. The moment hung there like the moment before you suspect something momentous will happen. Because you think you’ve been here before, and that maybe if you focus you can foresee the momentous event about to occur, right there on the other side of the following seconds. And that in thinking you can predict what will happen next you confirm your own omniscience. But then you can’t. And it doesn’t happen. Because it’s a ruse. A small skip of the machine that tricks you into thinking you are on the cusp of significance. Because you are not Nostradamus. And you were a fool to think you are.

  “Who needs another drink?” Fleeger asked.

  “I’ll switch to a chardonnay,” Celeste said, now checking her phone.

  Fleeger dispensed the alcohol, leading us around the bend. Nelson grabbed an orange slice from behind the bar and the barman launched a rag at him. I wanted space to breathe and recalibrate, succumb to the temptation of my vibrating phone. Hoping to read it wasn’t a coronal mass ejection potentially menacing satellite communications but instead a Betelgeuse-sized ball of plasma careening toward Earth, broken free from the belt of Orion. Ladies and gentlemen, our mistake. My hopes for astronomical Armageddon dashed by a Bloomberg tile announcing a steep rise in India GDP. Nelson lit a long, thin cigarette and Fleeger waved away the smoke. “There you go horsebox,” the barman said as he positioned another Guinness before me on a napkin.

  The alcohol had supercharged the benzodiazepine, the mixture now soaking into my marrow. No longer producing T cells and white blood cells but something mean and reckless. I rolled and lit another cigarette. The tobacco did something too. No mere inert substance, it stirred the pot, summoned the stench of things I promised myself not to think about while drinking.

  “Stephen, I ordered us some food,” Attika said. I looked at her. “You look like you need to eat.” I wanted to tell her those were the kindest words I had heard all day. Nelson tapped his fork against his bottle to announce a toast.

  “For what?” Fleeger asked.

  “For your Wuxi victory, man,” Nelson explained. “It’s huge.”

  We raised our glasses to Fleeger. My black suit reflected in the platinum quatrefoil spinning at Celeste’s wrist.

  “To Wuxi,” I said, tipping my beer toward Attika.

  “To Wuxi,” she replied.

  Celeste removed her cashmere cardigan, revealing a trilobite ribcage and a body of constant vigilance. Fleeger, chin down, took her in, looked at me, motioned with his head, and reentered the screen of
his mobile phone.

  “Now, Stephen, you can no longer ignore me,” she said. “This is no time to be shy. After all, it sounds as if we’ll be working together quite closely. So let’s try to get to know each other a bit, shall we? To build up my confidence in your capabilities. And unfortunately I must say I still need a bit of convincing. So now you must tell me something about you. Something personal, perhaps.”

  Her teeth matched her pearl necklace.

  “Don’t you prefer these personal details to reveal themselves more naturally?” I asked. “Without all the questioning? Isn’t that more English?”

  “No, Mr. Harker. You’re wrong. You’re thinking of the French. They’re the ones who don’t ask any questions of one another. So. Impress me. I’m here to be impressed. Surely you can engage me in some form of stimulating, intellectual conversation. After all, I’m the client. I’m here for you to charm me. Then you do the work and I like what I see and I send you more work. And before long you’re sitting in Fleeger’s seat. But it takes a little initiative, Mr. Harker. It takes a bit of ass kissing. So come on. Pucker up, young man.”

  “Tell her about the time you raced horses drunk with the Quiché Indians in the Peace Corps,” Fleeger said.

  “Hmm quiche,” Nelson purred. Like it was a dirty word.

  She ignored them both.

  “Let’s start with the present. You’ve been at Kilgore eight years?”

  “Just about.”

  “That’s almost as long as Robert.”