Catastrophic

by Dustin Stevens

  Reed studied Shane for several moments with a wary gaze, as if trying to size him up. Shane met the gaze, staring back without giving an inch, forcing himself to not so much as even blink. The air seemed to withdraw from the room as the two peered at one another, neither giving the other the satisfaction of looking away first.

  Age and experience on one side of the table, trying to assert his will on a situation. Youth and conviction on the other side, refusing to be pushed around.

  Ramirez might as well have not even been in the room.

  After several long moments, Reed lowered a hand to his side, his eyes never wavering. He lifted up a document almost a quarter inch thick and set it on the table beside him, placing his hand atop it.

  “You know why we’re here, so we might as well just get down to it. This is our formal response to your complaint. At the conclusion of this meeting, one of two things will happen. Either you will accept our settlement offer and your client will become a wealthy man, you take what should amount to a very nice salary for the year, and we all part as friends.”

  Reed paused there for several moments, as if willing that option onto Shane, trying to force him to realize it was the only acceptable choice.

  Shane would have none of it.

  “Or?”

  “Or we walk out of here, go straight over to the courthouse and file this response, and we all prepare to go trial in a few weeks. The choice is yours.”

  After the conversation he’d had with Tyler and Margie the night before, Shane knew it would take an exorbitant offer for him to even consider settling. Still, he kept his face drawn, his emotions in check, as he stared back at them.

  “Understood,” Shane said. “Let’s hear what SynTronic has to say.”

  Reed stared a moment longer before shifting his gaze over to Ramirez and nodding. On cue, Ramirez reached down to his side without looking away and produced a single piece of paper, folded down the middle. He placed the paper on the desk and tapped his index finger on it three times before sliding it over to Shane.

  The room was silent as Shane looked from Ramirez to Reed and back again, waiting until Ramirez removed his hand before reaching out. He snagged the paper with the pad of his index finger and pulled it towards him, never once lowering his gaze to look at it. Once it was in front of him, he lifted the top half of the paper, studied it a moment, and lowered it back into place.

  No outward reaction of any kind passed Shane’s face, though inside him a coil of barbed wire tried to fight its way up through his stomach. He and the Bentley’s had decided on a number that would be optimal, a number they would like to see, and a bottom line number they could live with if it came down to it.

  This one was significantly south of all three.

  Shane had known when he walked in that the odds of SynTronic meeting his price were long, but he hadn’t expected the opening volley to be quite so low. This wasn’t just an exercise in negotiation, it was a full-on slap in the face, an attempt to sweep things under the rug for pennies on the dollar.

  Still, if this stoic round of window dressing was what they wanted, he would give it to them.

  Shane slid the paper back into the middle of the table and studied both of the men before him. He withdrew his hand and again laced his fingers in front of him, his face a mask.

  “I assume that’s an opening offer.”

  The sentence came out as a statement of fact, the intent clear. The amount was insulting and if the meeting was going to continue, a real figure had better be mentioned and fast.

  “No, that is the offer,” Reed said, his voice a bit deeper.

  Beside him Ramirez added, “This is the standard settlement amount for negligence claims arising against our client.”

  Shane looked between each of the men a long moment before nodding his head. “Tell me though, how many of those claims were filed by college athletes that lost a limb due to one of SynTronic’s products?”

  With that one sentence, the atmosphere in the room went from indifferent to icy. Reed pressed his lips together so tight a vein in his neck began to bulge. Beside him, Ramirez’s eyes seem to grow two sizes larger in an attempt to impose his will.

  On the opposite side of the table, a strong desire to laugh out loud at the men welled within Shane, fighting with the extreme insult he felt from their lowball offer for the predominant emotion within him. There was not a bullying tactic on the planet that he hadn’t witnessed firsthand dating back long before he ever enrolled in law school. If these two thought for a second they were going to force him into an offer so laughable, they were very much mistaken.

  “Are you sure that’s how you want to handle this?” Reed asked, as if giving Shane one last chance to do the right thing. “That may not be the figure you walked in here wanting, but it does ensure your client goes home with something.”

  Using the same move both of the men in front of him had just employed, Shane reached for his briefcase without looking down at it and stood. He ran a hand down his tie to make sure it was flat against his torso and stared at each of them, neither making any attempt to rise.

  “You’ll want to take a left out of here.”

  Confusion clouded both faces, though neither looked to one another, both still focused on him.

  “Courthouse is down the street on the right, the big building with a lot of steps. You can’t miss it. Clerk’s office is on the second floor, closes at five.”

  Shane departed without looking back, striding right out the way he’d came, his briefcase by his side, his face impassive. He didn’t so much as look from side to side as he left, even keeping his phone stowed away in his bag until reaching the car. Once there, he dialed a single number and held it to his ear before pulling away from the curb.

  It was answered after only a single ring.

  “Well, what did they say?”

  “Can you be back in Columbus within the next two weeks? We’re going to trial.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Six hours after meeting with Shane, Reed and Ramirez hosted a second meeting in the executive conference room of the Omni. The set-up, the mood, the participants, everything was different from the encounter they had that morning.

  Reed and Ramirez remained in their respective rooms until one minute after four o’clock, a conscious decision to make sure everybody was present and seated before they arrived. They met in the hallway at the agreed-to time and took the back stairwell down to the first floor, emerging just ten feet away from the conference room and walking into it. Neither one spoke as they made the trip, never even so much as glancing around to see who was nearby.

  This was a move they had practiced many times in the past, a vital part of the act that reinforced their belief that practicing law was equal parts showmanship and intellectual acumen.

  The two men, despite being several feet wide, managed to enter the door at the same time, complete silence falling as they did so. Reed walked right to the head of the table, a white board and pull-down projector screen behind him. Ramirez stopped just long enough to close the door behind them before taking a place off to the side. Both men made sure to always be in direct eye line of everybody at all times, and to always, always be standing.

  The crowd in the room had swelled, most of them arriving less than an hour before on the private Cessna Citation Mustang SynTronic kept on standby for just such purposes. The left side of the table was lined with a pair of associate attorneys, both men in their late 30’s with matching haircuts and glasses. The only distinguishable difference between them was one wore a blue suit and the other one grey. Over the years, Reed and Ramirez had even taken to referring to them behind closed as doors as The Twins.

  Past them were two paralegals, one male and one female, that looked to be in their early thirties. Both wore white dress shirts and slacks, no ties or jackets. A legal pad and pen was poised in either of their hands, their task outlined for them on the way in.

  Write down everything, get anything the at
torneys ask for, speak only when asking clarifying questions.

  On the right side of the table sat Marcellus Sarconi and Dr. Leonard Pinkering, two men that Reed had spoken to just once before, two days prior via video conference. The men appeared before him as they had on the screen, the idiosyncrasies of their appearances, Sarconi’s weight, Pinkering’s hair color, a touch more pronounced in person.

  Behind them sat the Dragon Lady, her usual disapproving scowl in place. Her primary role for the next few months would be to serve as project manager and task master for the team, both positions she relished with a fervor that bordered on zeal.

  Reed surveyed the room from left to right and back again, glanced over to Ramirez, and folded his arms across his chest. “Three days ago a complaint was lodged against the SynTronic Corporation by Shane Laszlo on behalf of his client, Tyler Bentley. Two days ago, we had a brief meeting with Mr. Sarconi and Dr. Pinkering here to ferret out the legitimacy of the claim. Finding it to be rather credible, Mr. Ramirez and I caught a plane for this hellhole of a city and set a meeting for this morning with Mr. Laszlo.”

  Reed rattled the facts off one after another, reducing the entirety of the case chronology into just a few simple sentences. When they were done he looked to Ramirez and gave a single nod, sliding himself off to the side without ever removing his arms from across his torso.

  “As should be obvious by the fact that we’re all here,” Ramirez began, “that meeting did not go well. We extended the standard SynTronic settlement amount to Mr. Laszlo, which was refused. Once the meeting was over we went to the courthouse and filed our response. A trial date has been set for three weeks from Monday.”

  The left side of the table took the information with practiced indifference, the only movement of any kind being from the paralegals as they took notes. Across from them, Sarconi and Pinkering both looked to be sick.

  “Are there any questions before we get started?”

  Blue twin looked at Ramirez and asked, “How strong is their case?”

  Ramirez flicked his gaze over to Sarconi and Pinkering. He let it linger just enough so everyone in the room knew what he was alluding to before looking back. “The claims are valid, the case well thought out. There is little doubt of what happened, even less that SynTronic was the cause of it.”

  “Our job on this case will be to establish four things,” Reed said, walking back to stand beside Ramirez, arms still frozen in place, a deep frown on his face. “First, that the Bentley’s were fully apprised of their options and in their haste to get Tyler back on the field, made an unwise decision.”

  “Did they?” Grey twin asked.

  This time, both Reed and Ramirez fixed an accusatory stare on Sarconi and Pinkering.

  “No,” Ramirez said. “Not even a little bit. Like I said, there is no doubt that SynTronic was the cause of this situation.”

  Pinkering’s face went through three shades of red as he sat staring back, his fingers tapping out an inaudible beat on the table in front of him. Sarconi went in the opposite direction, every bit of blood draining from his face, leaving his visage chalky white. He seemed to retract himself back as far into his seat as he could, like a turtle trying to retreat into its shell.

  All he managed to do was increase the number of skin folds around his neck.

  “Second,” Reed said, shifting his attention back to the room at large. “Is to make clear the mutilation that rendered the leg unsalvageable was done by poor surgical work and not by any fault of the product itself, that the leg should have survived product failure just the way it survived the original injury.”

  Pinkering’s jaw dropped open at this statement, the revelation that he would be attacking a friend and colleague in the courtroom hitting him square in the face. His jaw worked up and down a few times in silence, trying to find the words. By the time they came to him, Reed was charging ahead, intent on keeping the discussion to a minimum.

  “Three, we will assert that no small part of the product’s demise was due to the wanton disregard for the limitations placed upon it by Tyler Bentley himself.”

  The paralegals continued to scribble in the back of the room as he spoke, everyone else listening in motionless silence.

  “And last, we will do everything in our power to drive down the amount of damages that could be awarded to the family.”

  The words hung with a heavy connotation over the room. Despite the previous three points, the fact that a stated goal of the defense was to minimize damages meant that even the attorneys before them knew they were fighting a losing battle.

  “Did you get a sense from Mr. Laszlo what they will be asking in damages?” Grey Twin asked. If he was at all surprised by the previous revelation, he gave no indication.

  “There was no stated amount in the complaint,” Ramirez said, “but as you all know that’s not uncommon in civil cases. Plaintiffs prefer not to have a ceiling on themselves, to put forth a case and hope a sympathetic jury takes pity and awards them the moon, especially against large, faceless corporation like SynTronic.”

  The Twins both nodded in unison, the paralegals continuing to take notes beside them. In the corner, Lauren watched the entire proceeding with a sense of icy detachment, watching the people around the table more than the two men in front of it.

  Pinkering and Sarconi both looked like they might vomit. Pinkering’s face was such a deep hue of crimson it appeared his head might explode at any time while Sarconi was so pale that passing out appeared to be a real possibility. Both stared straight down at the table before them, looking at no one, saying nothing.

  “Based on the actions of Mr. Laszlo this morning though,” Reed said, “I would venture to guess that it’s no small amount they are seeking.”

  There was a pause from the room, waiting for him to continue. When he did not, Blue Twin prompted him.

  “What makes you say that?”

  Reed glanced over at Ramirez, giving him the go ahead to answer without saying a word.

  “The kid looked at our settlement offer, looked at us, pushed it back across the table, and told us to go to hell,” Ramirez said.

  Even the paralegals stopped writing at that revelation, every face in the room turned to Ramirez.

  “Not in those words by any stretch of the imagination,” Ramirez said. “He was very polite, very professional, but it was clear from the moment he walked in that they weren’t accepting a low ball offer.”

  “Did we expect them to?” Grey Twin asked.

  “No,” Reed replied, “the offer was more to feel them out than anything. The young man in question was a star athlete that is now facing a lifetime of prosthetics, therapy, everything that comes with the loss of a limb. That’s no small matter.”

  “Still, the manner with which our offer was denied showed that they are swinging for the fences,” Ramirez added.

  The Twins nodded in unison, as if the information was what they’d expected to hear all along.

  “What do you make of Laszlo?” Grey Twin asked. “What did you call him, The Kid?”

  “Not The Kid, a kid,” Reed said. “He seems sharp, but he’s just a year out of law school, been practicing environmental law for the past year in Boston.”

  Blue Twin made a reflexive face, confusion splayed across his non-descript features. “So what’s he doing here?”

  Reed and Ramirez exchanged a long, doleful glance that lasted almost a full minute, drawing the attention of everyone at the table. The two focused in hard on one another the entire time, each wondering how much to divulge just yet, not knowing how relevant it might be.

  “We’ll get to that,” Reed said at last, his words traced with a bit of uncertainty.

  Before anybody could question the directive, Ramirez clasped his hands in front of him. “Alright, any more questions, or should we get started?”

  “What about me?” a man in the back of the room asked, snapping half the heads at the table towards the unknown voice.

  The other h
alf recognized it right off.

  On the end of the table, Lauren went rigid, her lips parting in horror. She sat frozen in place, making no attempt to turn to the man she knew was seated within easy reach of her. Two seats over, Sarconi tried to pull himself even further into his turtle shell, his jowls trembling as a heavy swallow passed down his throat. The pasty complexion of his bloodless face remained, now shiny with sweat. At the head of the table Reed and Ramirez both stood unmoving, each of them making sure to avoid eye contact.

  Silence hung for almost a full minute.

  Pinkering, along with the entire left side of the table, stared at the man sprawled in a chair in the far corner of the room with a mix of surprise and curiosity. He was not there when they had entered and Ramirez had shut the door behind him fifteen minutes before. Nobody had come or gone from the room, nobody had seen the door open, yet somehow the man sat here now as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

  “It’s not very nice to ignore someone when they ask you a question,” the man said, his voice somewhere between a leer and a smirk.

  From where he was seated, the man did not appear especially tall or large, though he was well put together. He wore faded jeans with rips at the knees and scuffed black boots, a grey Henley thermal with the sleeves pushed up, and a long gold chain around his neck. A tangle of short brown hair seemed to sprout out in every direction above a two-day beard and humorless eyes.

  “Everybody, this is Ute Carbone, special consultant to SynTronic,” Reed said, his voice heavy with resignation. “You will all be seeing him around here from time to time in the coming months, though his role is more of a behind-the-scenes one.”

  The remark drew a wide grin from Carbone, followed by a smirk. “Special consultant...behind the scenes...” he muttered, just loud enough for everybody in the room to hear. The implication that the title and the description were both complete fabrications was very clear.

  “And to answer your question,” Reed said, his voice rising just enough to try and stem any further comments Carbone might say, “no. Right now, we won’t be needing your services.”