Damage Control

by Robert Dugoni

  53

  THE BLUE BMW sat parked in the driveway, the only indication that Grant was home. The porch light, activated by a timer, cast a tapered glow beneath the small portico, but the eight windows that faced the street—four on the ground floor and four on the second story—were dark. Logan pulled the Austin Healey to the curb. Dana did not immediately get out. She stared at the house. Strange, given that she owned it, but she could not recall seeing it from this angle. She had always driven down the driveway and parked under the carport. They had spent a small fortune remodeling the interior with fresh coats of paint, bright drapes, and refinished hardwood floors, but the house had never felt like home. It had the neat, refurbished appearance of houses in magazine photographs—stale and stiff, without depth or warmth.

  Dana pushed open the car door and stepped onto the sidewalk, wrapping the white shawl around her shoulders, listening until the sports car’s engine became a distant, faint hum. She went through the front gate, walked down the brick path outlined by English boxwood hedges, and looked up at the darkened windows of her bedroom. While a part of her hoped Grant was already asleep, another could not bear the thought of climbing into the same bed next to him for even one more night. She’d sleep in Molly’s room. She pulled a key from her handbag, took a deep breath that brought a dull ache to her side, and opened the front door. The ambient light of a streetlamp seeped through the shuttered windows in the living room, leaving stripes on the floor. She held the door handle to keep the lock from clicking as she carefully closed the door. Then she slipped off her high heels, holding them by the straps, and started up the stairs.

  “I’m in here.”

  She stopped on the second step. The voice sounded foreign. “Grant?”

  “In the living room.”

  She stepped down and peered into the darkness. “Grant?”

  “Here.”

  She found the switch beneath the lamp shade on the end table and turned it on. It emitted a soft glow. Grant sat in a wingback chair, staring into the empty fireplace. When he moved, it was to raise the glass in his hand.

  “Why are you home? Why are you sitting in the dark?” she asked.

  He finished what remained in his glass, reached for the bottle partially obscured by the legs of the chair, and poured the glass half full. If he had noticed the disruption in the house, he did not say. Dana sat near the window. The fifteen feet between them felt like a buffer zone for doomed peace negotiations. Grant looked up long enough to consider her attire through bloodshot and glassy eyes. “Where have you been?” he asked.

  “The firm anniversary party.” She was reasonably certain he wouldn’t recall that the yearly event was held each October, not April. He detested going, for reasons he had not expressed, but which she had come to understand on her own. He felt inferior to the attorneys who worked with her. She knew he would not pursue the matter now with questions she could not truthfully answer. She didn’t want to lie, not anymore, not to him and not to herself.

  “Why are you home? I thought the trial would go at least another two weeks.”

  “So did I.” He sounded and looked like he had a bad cold. His eyes were red and puffy.

  “What happened?”

  He cleared his throat, taking several moments before he spoke to the fireplace. “We presented our case, just as I imagined we would. We put the witnesses on one after the other, smoothly, without any glitches.” His words slurred, but he maintained control of his vocabulary. “It went perfectly. They hardly objected. When they did, it was halfhearted. I thought they would throw in the towel, come to us with a settlement package approaching the hundred and fifty million we sought, and it would be over.” He raised the glass and took another drink.

  “Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”

  “Oh, no.” He laughed, though it was pained. “I’m just getting started.”

  Dana wrapped the shawl more tightly around her. She could not keep her legs from shaking. “What happened?”

  “After we rested, the judge excused the jury and told us to reconvene in the morning. There was something in his tone of voice, something I picked up on that sounded like he didn’t expect things to take very long.” He laughed again and looked up at an oil painting mounted above the mantel, two horses charging, wild-eyed, whatever chased them left to the imagination. “I remember looking over at Bill Nelson and smiling. At dinner that night, we discussed whether the judge intended his comment as a warning to the defense to settle the case, or if he expected them to put up very little defense. We were counting the money.” His voice choked. He cleared it with another gulp of the drink, grimaced, and refilled the glass.

  “The next morning they stood and presented a motion for a directed verdict. I had to suppress a smile, though I gave them credit for having the balls to bring it. And then the judge said… he said… ‘I thought you might.’” Grant paused, as if hearing the words echo in his head over and over again. “?‘I thought you might. I thought you might.’”

  He continued to stare into the fireplace. “Their motion was premised on an argument that we had failed to establish a legally binding contract. They argued that because the defective component parts were manufactured by an entity independent of the limited partnership, we had failed to establish that Nelson Industries had standing to bring the action.” He stood, stumbled, then regained his balance and raised a finger in the air, she assumed to impersonate the lawyer making the argument. “And furthermore, Your Honor, any subsequent attempt by the proper entity would now be barred as beyond the statute of limitations and without exception or relation back to the original complaint.” He turned, finally looking at her, and raised the glass in a mock toast. “In other words, yours truly had fucked up big-time by filing the lawsuit in the wrong name, and they had waited until the statute ran to mention it. It actually expired a week before trial, but they decided that rather than rush to court and expose my error, they would wait to embarrass me in front of my client, my managing partner, the judge, jury, and God Himself.” He shouted the end of the sentence like a Baptist minister before a Sunday-morning congregation, then he broke down in a strange cackle of laughter and tears.

  Dana stared at her hands, folded in her lap. She felt sad for him, but try as she might, she also could not dismiss some satisfaction, and she hated herself for it. She did not want to take any solace in Grant’s failure. She knew he was hurting, and no matter what they had become, they had shared ten years of their lives together and would always share a child. She had once cared for him. “Is it correctable? Wouldn’t it relate back to the filing of the original complaint? What about excusable neglect?” she asked.

  He laughed and bent forward at the waist, as if bowing. “Oh, that’s where it gets really good. The fucking judge took great pleasure in announcing his ruling. He took great pains to note this was a matter that could have been corrected by a more diligent attorney. ‘A lack of diligence, however, is not grounds to accommodate a motion to amend the lawsuit to add a new defendant and have it relate back to the original filing date,’?” he said, in a voice that apparently mimicked the judge.

  “He didn’t say that.”

  “Oh, yes, he did. He said exactly that. Which pretty much rules out any basis for an appeal. He also said that his father once told him … ” Grant paused as if to remember the words exactly. “?‘Arrogance leads to ignorance, because it colors one’s perception.’”

  “He didn’t.”

  A tear rolled down Grant’s cheek. “Bergman has assembled the partnership to brace for the inevitable malpractice suit. Nelson Industries will seek to recover the hundred-and-fifty-million loss, and if that doesn’t make a shareholder’s ass pucker, I’m not sure what would.”

  “The insurance will never cover it.”

  “No, it won’t.” He tilted the bottle to refill the glass. “Which is why Nelson Industries will go after the personal assets of each of the individual equity partners. How happy do you think they’re going t
o be when they’re told they’re likely to lose all of their accumulated wealth to cover for my fuckup?” He laughed once more, a sad prolonged cry. When he had finished, he looked up at her, a hand covering his mouth. “And that… badee-badee-badee… is all, folks.” He spread his arms, glass in one hand, bottle in the other as if to say, How do you like me now?

  “I’m unemployed. Bergman will have a security guard meet me at the front entrance to the building at ten tomorrow morning. I have twenty minutes to gather my things and leave. Any files or papers I take will be reviewed by my paralegal to distinguish between my personal and professional papers. They’ve locked me out of my computer and confiscated my laptop. In other words, I’m on a fucking island. Not that it would matter, because after the story is printed in the local papers, no law firm in the country will touch me.” His voice grew cold and angry. “They’re giving me twenty minutes, after nine years of sweat and labor.” He seemed to miss his own point entirely. “Twenty fucking minutes.”

  “It could have happened to anyone,” she said. “If Nelson Industries gave you the wrong partnership information—”

  He threw the glass at the fireplace, where it shattered. “That’s the best fucking part. I have memoranda throughout the file confirming my research of the appropriate entities and my unwavering confidence in the positive outcome of the litigation. Nelson baited me into it by repeatedly asking for my evaluation of the file and holding out the golden carrot of doing their legal work if we won. He set me up. I was a fucking clay pigeon. He put his company in a can’t-lose position. If they won the lawsuit and rang the bell, he had his money. If they lost, he had his pigeon. The company lawyers are hand-delivering the lawsuit tomorrow. They already had it drafted.” He took a long drink from the bottle. “He is a fucking crook. This has been a scam from the start.”

  “You did your best.” Her words sounded hopeless. “No one worked harder on a file than you—”

  “Bullshit.” Alcohol spewed from his mouth. “How could I have done my best? How could I even concentrate when I have you calling me all the time about picking up Molly, taking her to school, or some other asinine request?”

  The words stuck in her chest like a dull knife, piercing the skin but inflicting little pain. There was little pain left to suffer. He blamed her for his failure. In ten years, he had never given her an ounce of credit for his successes, but now she would shoulder the blame for his failure. He wobbled on his feet, weaving, and waved a hand in the air. “I told you that I needed more time. I told you that my cases weren’t like your little nickel-and-dime mom-and-pop clients. This is fucking war. This is a jungle—a battle of wills and strength and stamina. You don’t understand that. You’ve never understood that.”

  “I understand.” She stood from the couch and pulled the shawl around her shoulders. “I understand better than you think.”

  He approached her. She could smell the alcohol on his breath, and perspiration. “Do you, Dana? Do you really? Because I don’t think you do.”

  This was not how she had envisioned the inevitable confrontation, but he had chosen the battlefield. Her eyes met his. “Maybe you would have had more time if you hadn’t been out screwing your paralegal, Grant.”

  He stumbled backward as if the words had pushed him off balance. He looked stunned. Then he started to laugh. “What? I get through telling you that my life is ruined, and you say something like that to me? That’s just like you—just like you not to support me.”

  It was not something she had intended or wanted to do; she had no desire to kick him when he was down. But this was his war. “Nelson Industries might have ruined your professional career, but you ruined your own personal life.”

  He shook his head, defiant. “How about a little support here, Dana? How about a little fucking support? I dragged your ass through law school—if it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t be standing here right now.”

  “No. Let’s get that straight also. You didn’t drag my ass through law school. I dragged you through; you just made it seem the other way. And I’d be standing with or without you.”

  He jabbed his finger at her. “I’ve supported you. I bought this house and all this shit.” His hand swept across the mantel, knocking a porcelain clock and two vases to the floor.

  She didn’t care. “How long?” she asked.

  He shook his head and resumed stabbing a finger at her. “You’re crazy. You know that? You’re fucking crazy.”

  “Am I, Grant? Am I really crazy? After ten years, can’t you even be honest with me about it? Or do you have to take me for such a fool? Because that’s what I’ve been—a fool. Or maybe you’re right. Maybe I was crazy. But I’m not crazy anymore.”

  He put the bottle on the table and seemed to momentarily compose himself. “Dana—”

  She raised a hand. “Don’t disrespect me by lying about it.”

  He lowered his head, staring at the red Persian rug. Then his shoulders heaved and shook, and he slumped to his knees, sobbing. His body shook as if stricken by a gust of chilled wind. A part of her still wanted to cradle his head in her lap, to tell him that everything would be all right. But she knew it wouldn’t be. She wasn’t the same person she had been, and she never would be again. James’s death had changed her. It had not weakened her, as she had feared it would. It had strengthened her. It had given her a resolve to change her circumstances, to take a chance, as James had, to live her life as she chose. She started out of the room.

  Grant looked up from the floor. “Where are you going?”

  “I’ll be at my mother’s.”

  “Don’t leave me, Dana. Please don’t leave me,” he pleaded. “I need you tonight.”

  She turned at the doorway. “I’m sorry. I wish I could help you, but I have nothing left to give. What I had, you took from me. There’s nothing left. I’m empty. I’ve been empty for a long time; I just didn’t know it. I thought everyone felt hollow inside. I thought it was just a part of life. Now I know it’s not.”

  He screamed as she walked across the marble to the front entry. “You’re a runner, Dana. You’ve always been a runner. You never confront anything.”

  She stopped and faced him. “You’re right. I was a runner. But I’m not anymore.” She pulled open the door.

  “It won’t be that easy. You can’t just walk out on me. I deserve more than that. You owe me more than that. I’ll… I’ll take Molly. So help me, I’ll take Molly,” he said, and the words punched the final hole in her paper heart.

  She took the keys off the table, closed the door behind her, and started across the lawn to his BMW. The moist blades of grass felt cool and damp between her toes, and she felt lighter than she could recall having felt in years.

  54

  ROBERT MEYERS EXITED the bathroom, cinching his white bathrobe around his waist. He brushed his hair back off his forehead, placed the brush on the hand-carved mantel, and picked up a widemouthed glass, sipping a liqueur, warming near the gas-burning fire that cast flickering shadows about the darkened room.

  “The water is wonderful.” He ran a hand through his hair and considered the lines of his face in an ornate gold-leafed wall mirror. “You should take a shower or bath. It might help to soothe your nerves.”

  She sat against the headboard with her legs bent beneath her, clutching the cotton sheets and blankets to her chin like a child afraid of monsters under the bed. A dull ache masked the deeper penetrating pains between her legs and along her throat. The corner of her mouth felt puffy and tender to the touch. It hurt to swallow. But it was the dull ache on which she focused—an ache that emanated from the depths of her soul and trickled from her body like the water draining from the bathtub in the other room, slow and constant. He would continue to drain her of her will to live, and it would be a slow, painful process. She looked up at the canopied bedpost but doubted it would support the weight of her hanging body. The blown-glass chandelier in the ceiling was old, and the walls were plaster. It would pull from its housing
. She had no access to a gun, and prescription medications would never be provided. Knives were unreliable. She was a prisoner, fame and celebrity the bars of a cage she could not escape. She couldn’t even allow herself to die to his words or to his touch. He wouldn’t allow it. He would continue to force himself upon her and to force her on the public. He needed her to complete the picture he had carefully crafted and which an American public, in desperate need of hope and leadership, would cling to—the modern-day Camelot.

  Meyers sat on the edge of the bed, speaking to her like a parent to a child. “I’ve rung the kitchen and asked for a late-night snack. Would you care to join me?”

  His words remained a hollow echo somewhere outside the place she had chosen to go. He reached over and brushed strands of hair from her face, then leaned forward and kissed her gently on the mouth. She fought the urge to pull away, fearing it would only set him off again. His anger tended to linger—sometimes for days, just below the surface, capable of erupting with minimal provocation.

  “You see how much I love you? How hard I’m willing to fight to keep you? I won’t let anyone or anything come between us. I love you too much to allow that to happen. What you did was wrong, but I’ve handled it. Now everything can be as before, as I’ve planned. I forgive you. I forgive you because I am a big enough man to do so. I understand that what you did is partly my fault. You lack discipline. We need to change that. I know now that you wanted me to catch you, that you were seeking attention, questioning my love.” He stood and reached for her hand. “Come down and get something to eat with me.”

  She did not move.

  He took a deep breath. “All right, I’ll bring something back for you. You need to keep up your strength. Then we’ll talk about a new schedule for you. I’ll want to keep a closer eye on you.” He smiled. “You expected that, though, didn’t you?” He kissed her on top of her head. “Of course you did.” He started out the door, stopped. “You smell. Take a warm bath and put on something nice. Wear the perfume I gave you for your birthday… and the earrings. I love to watch them sparkle when we make love. We’ll make love as soon as I get back,” he said, and the dull ache inside of her exploded.