Primary Justice

by William Bernhardt

  A tall, elderly man with a crown of white hair opened the door and peered down at him. Ben recognized him in a heartbeat. It was Arthur Raven. As in Raven, Tucker & Tubb.

  “Yes?” Raven inquired.

  “Oh, God.” Ben exhaled all the air in his body. He slapped his hand against his forehead and wiped away a layer of sweat.

  “Speak up, would you, son? I don’t hear as well as I used to.” Raven chuckled. “Nothing works like it used to.”

  “I—I—” Ben swallowed and tried to catch his breath. “I’m sorry, Mr. Raven. I was trapped in the stairwell. I—”

  “Stairwell?” the old man repeated. “You shouldn’t be in there. Doors only open on the outside.”

  “Really? I’ll remember that.” Ben looked into the lobby. All the other new associates had vanished. “Sir, I need to—”

  “Well, that’s not true, strictly speaking. You can get out on the first floor and the fiftieth. Fire codes require that. But it’s a long way down to the first floor. I remember when we first moved into this building, I thought there ought to be some kind of a back door, so a lawyer could slip out while some client he’s trying to avoid cools his heels in the lobby.”

  “Sharp thinking, sir.” Ben tried to edge himself through the door. “Well, I really must be going—”

  “But I was overruled. The Executive Committee was afraid the associates would use the door to slip out without being observed by their supervising attorneys.” The old man grinned. “You wouldn’t do mat, would you, eh … what did you say your name was?”

  It was the crisis point. No matter what Ben did, either the orientation attorney or Mr. Raven was going to be angry. Raven was undoubtedly higher in the firm hierarchy. He also seemed less likely to remember anything about it tomorrow.

  Ben gave the old man a gentle push and forced his way through the door. “Sorry, sir. Must dash. Let’s talk again.” Ben waved cheerily and ran toward the reception desk.

  “Which way did they go?”

  The receptionist smiled. She spoke in a soft, soothing British accent. “Orientation is taking place in the northwest conference room.”

  “Where’s that?”

  She pointed. “There.”

  Ben bolted. He had no use for subtlety now. There was just a chance that if he arrived before the meeting was truly underway, he might be able to slip in quietly and wouldn’t have to explain where he had been. Ben cruised down the long hallway, zeroed in on the open conference room door, and was just about to scramble through the door … when a blond man carrying a coffee cup stepped through the door and began scanning the hallway. He saw Ben a split second before impact.

  The two collided with a force that would have left a crater on the moon. The blond man fell backward into the conference room. Both coffee and cup followed a parabolic arc into the man’s face. He screamed.

  Ben leaped to his feet and gave new meaning to the phrase apologized profusely.

  “Never mind the apologies,” the man grumbled. The coffee had stained his shirt, his tie, and his suit in countless places. His face was dripping. “Give me a towel.”

  Ben grabbed several paper towels from the box next to the coffee pot warmer, then helped the man up from the floor. As he did so, Ben noticed that the man was wearing a toupee and that it had been so dislodged by the collision that it hung over his forehead like a sun visor.

  “What are you staring at?” the man asked angrily.

  “Nothing, sir. I mean—” Ben saw the sixteen young lawyer eyes trained on him. “I mean—nothing, sir.”

  “I take it you’re Kincaid?”

  “Yes, sir. Well, I can’t deny it, can I?” He laughed awkwardly. And alone.

  “No,” the man replied. “Much as you might care to.” He brushed off the front and back of his suit trousers. “Where have you been, Kincaid?”

  Ben watched the toupee droop even further forward. He could tell from the jabs and whispers around the conference table that he was not the only one to have noticed. “It’s really a long story, sir. I was trapped.”

  “Trapped?”

  “Yes, sir. In the stairwell. And then there was Mr. Raven.”

  “You were trapped in the stairwell with Mr. Raven?” The hairpiece slipped another inch. It seemed as though it must be dangling before his eyes.

  “No, no, I—”

  “Never mind!” he barked. “Let’s get on with the business at hand.”

  “Great,” Ben said, taking an empty seat next to Greg. He smiled enthusiastically. “What’s on our agenda toupee? I mean today—”

  It was too late. Ben’s slip was followed by suspended silence, as the other associates sucked in air and tried to control themselves. Ben saw Greg cover his face with his hand, while Marianne looked absently out the window. It was no use. All at once, the room exploded with laughter.

  The man with the toupee gave them all a stony glare, and the laughter quickly dissipated. Wordlessly, the man raised his band to his hairpiece and pushed it back to approximately its original position. His expression defied anyone to mention what they were observing.

  “To answer what I perceive to be your actual question, Kincaid, I had just told each associate the name of the partner who will be acting as their supervising attorney.”

  “I see,” Ben mumbled, not looking up. “And who was I assigned to?”

  “Me,” the man replied. “My name is Richard Derek. I’d like to see you in my office at ten o’clock. Sharp. And Mr. Kincaid …” He paused. “Walk, don’t run.”

  2

  BEN SAT IN THE chair opposite Derek’s desk and mourned his existence.

  He was trying to shake the feeling that his first day was already a disaster. Try not to think about it, Greg had told him—perhaps the most idiotic advice he had received in his entire life.

  Derek chose the crudest of all ways of referring to the catastrophe in the conference room—namely, not to mention it at all. At least not directly.

  “Damn back is killing me,” he muttered, a cigarette clenched between his lips. “Acts up whenever my back is subjected to … unanticipated stress. A legacy of my Coast Guard days.”

  Coast Guard days? “Were you hurt in combat, sir?” Ben asked.

  “No, I was hurt in boot camp, and that’s a damn sight worse.” He dipped his cigarette in the near-full ashtray On his desk. “Goddamn sadists.”

  Derek squirmed in the burgundy chair that perfectly accented the large desk meaningfully placed between Ben and himself. Ben noted that there were two visitors’ chairs on the opposite side of the desk, the one in which Ben was sitting and another just beside it. When Derek was talking to a fellow shareholder, or when he wanted to create a feeling of amiability, he could sit on an equal plane with his visitor without the huge desk between them. On the other hand, Ben realized, when Derek wanted to be imposing and autocratic, when he wanted to keep people on edge, he could make them sit alone, on the outside, while he nestled behind his desk and peered out at them. Like now, for instance.

  Derek’s eyes roved across his desk and came to rest on a brown piece of linen paper Ben knew must be his résumé. “B.A. in music theory, something every lawyer needs to know, minor in English literature, a year in the Peace Corps, a year as a Goodwill Ambassador for Rotary International. Oh, God. Let me guess. You probably went to law school because”—he exhaled a cloud of smoke and curled his lip—“you wanted to help people.” He smiled broadly.

  “Well,” Ben said quietly, “as a matter of fact …”

  Derek chuckled. “That’s so sweet. Well, what’s the point of being young if you can’t believe in fairy tales?” Derek stretched, grimaced, and rubbed his back in the alleged sore spot. “Of course, if you really wanted to help people, I suppose you would have gone to work at the public defenders’ office or a legal aid agency, instead of working at the biggest, richest corporate law firm in the state, right?” Derek grinned, obviously impressed with his own penetrating insight.

  “I used t
o work for the D.A. in Oklahoma City,” Ben said.

  “Right,” Derek said, nodding. “I see that in your résumé. You worked there a year and a half. Just long enough to make yourself marketable.”

  “It wasn’t really like that—”

  “Stop.” Derek interrupted Ben with a wave of his hand and a demeanor that told Ben he was about to convey some great nugget of wisdom. “Don’t bother denying it. I’m not criticizing you. I’m complimenting you.” He leaned forward across the desk. “You know what’s really important in the legal world today?”

  Ben took a pen from his end of the desk and twirled it between his fingers. “No, sir. What?”

  “Marketing. That’s what.”

  “Marketing, sir?”

  “Yes, marketing. How are you at marketing, Kincaid?”

  “Wha—I … I don’t know, sir. They don’t really cover that in law school.”

  “Hmmm.” Derek pursed his lips and drew on his cigarette as if he were bringing the smoke in from another county. “I suppose not. They didn’t teach it at Harvard, either. Of course, they don’t really need to teach marketing at Harvard. One’s mere presence at Harvard is generally sufficient.”

  Derek tapped the Harvard Law School diploma hanging over his desk, just beneath a stuffed and mounted bobcat, poised forever in mid-spring. Funny, Ben thought, Derek doesn’t really seem the hunter type. Looks more like a bridge player.

  “Of course,” Derek continued, “that stuff they teach you in law school is of some value, too. But if you aren’t adept at marketing, you don’t have clients, and if you don’t have clients, what good is knowing the law?”

  Ben raised the pen to his mouth and began to chew on the lid, then caught himself. He returned the pen to the desk and sat on his hands. “I suppose I never thought about it like that.”

  “Well, that’s the reality, kid, so it’s just as well you come to grips with it now. How old are you, Kincaid?”

  “I’m twenty-nine, sir.”

  “Hmmm. Well, you may be old enough for this. Just one more tip, Kincaid, and I hope you’re not too young to appreciate it. All that business in law school—you know, about stare decisis, and how the law is the sacrosanct wisdom of the ages, passed down from time immemorial and applied evenly to different fact situations throughout time?”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s a crock. A con job by a musty crusty crowd of academics. You know what the law really is?”

  Ben didn’t think this was an appropriate time to guess. “What?”

  “It’s mirrors and bubble gum. The only thing that’s sacrosanct is your client. Your client needs help, and the odds are there won’t be any law precisely on point to help him, so you, the lawyer, must take what law there is and perform a little magic. Create the illusion of precedent with mirrors and bubble gum, and make the law say what it needs to say. That’s what being a lawyer is all about.”

  Ben knitted his eyebrows and tried to appear as if he was absorbing all the erudition.

  “That’s what Joseph Sanguine liked about me from day one,” Derek continued. “I told him the law was a tool, just like a hammer or a monkey wrench, and I could put the tool in his tool box.” Derek leaned back in his chair. “And I’ve had all his legal business ever since. He’s one of the firm’s biggest clients. And he’s a close personal friend, too.”

  For some reason, Ben had difficulty imagining that Derek had any close personal friends.

  “Am I making any impression on you, Kincaid?”

  “Ahh—yes, sir. Yes, you are.”

  “Not much of a talker, are you, Kincaid?” He smiled faintly. “Perhaps in time.” He blew another cloud of smoke into the air. “Well, I hope you’ll take what I’ve said to heart. I have a case I want you to work on, Kincaid. An important case for the aforementioned Joseph Sanguine. President of Sanguine Enterprises. Their principal subsidiary is Eggs ‘N’ Stuff, Inc., the franchisor for those cute little breakfast joints you see all over the country. Their national headquarters is right here in Tulsa, you know. They’ve got a problem I think will make an excellent starter case for you.”

  Ben beamed. “Really, sir?”

  Derek grinned. “Now don’t get too excited, kid. It’s a domestic matter. You took family law in school, didn’t you?”

  Ben nodded, considerably subdued.

  “It’s an adoption proceeding. For one of Sanguine’s executives. You’re meeting him in about an hour.”

  Ben hesitated. “I didn’t think Raven, Tucker & Tubb handled domestic matters, sir.”

  Derek shifted positions again and groaned, still rubbing his back. “Well, normally we don’t, but for Joseph Sanguine, we do. I suppose we’d take the garbage out for Joseph Sanguine, if he wanted us to.”

  Ben tried not to look disappointed.

  “It may not exactly be a blue-chip case,” Derek continued, “but it’s perfectly adequate for a baby lawyer’s first time out.” He peered at Ben across the desk. “I suppose you think you’re too good to do an adoption case? Too much of a waste of your young upwardly mobile talents?”

  “Not at all, sir.”

  “Well, good. Joseph Sanguine is one of our most important clients. His companies provided Raven, Tucker & Tubb with over three million dollars in gross revenues last year. He likes to think he can depend on us. We don’t want to disappoint him.”

  “I understand, sir.”

  “Good. If you have any questions about the library or office supplies or anything, just ask Maggie. Maggie is my secretary. We’ll share her, at least for a while, until you’re settled.”

  Ben started to rise to his feet.

  “Just one last thing, Kincaid.”

  “Yes, sir?” Ben wasn’t sure whether to remain standing or to sit back down. He hovered in between for a few moments, then decided to remain standing, then changed his mind and sat down.

  “Did you get a good look at the incoming class of associates?”

  “I—I think so, sir.”

  “Excellent. Let me tell you something about them, Kincaid. For the next three years, they’re all going to be working hard, just like you, putting in overtime, trying to be seen by the boss at the office late at night, carrying mounds of work home with them—even if they don’t plan to work on it. Basically, they’ll be doing the same chores as you. Some cases will be interesting bits of complex litigation; some will be dogs like this adoption business. Except, when the associates receive their evaluations at the end of the first three-year period, half of them will be told that they are on track for partnership, and the other half will be told that they are not. At the end of six years, assuming they are all still here, which is unlikely, perhaps one-fourth of them will be promoted to senior associate positions, and the rest will not. At the end of eight years, assuming there have been no lateral hires, which is unlikely, one, perhaps two, of the associates in your class will be made partners in the richest law firm in the state of Oklahoma, while the rest will either be offered nonprofit-sharing permanent associateships or just sent packing.”

  Derek’s eyes met Ben’s. “Where will you be, Mr. Kincaid?”

  Ben assumed this was a rhetorical question and did not attempt to answer it.

  Derek ground his dead cigarette into the ashtray. “Now get to work.”

  3

  BEN REMEMBERED THINKING, AFTER four years of undergraduate school, two years of special studies, and three years of law school, that the days of desperate, last-minute cramming were finally over. He was wrong.

  Thanks to his eleventh-hour assignment from Derek, Ben had about forty-five minutes to immerse himself in adoption law prior to counseling a client of indirect but genuine importance. He was confident that Family Law I and the Socratic method didn’t come close to providing enough real-life practical experience to enable him to advise other human beings. He polled Greg, Alvin, and Marianne, and learned that none of them knew anything about adoption, or if they did, they weren’t telling him. He grabbed a family law h
ornbook and a copy of the relevant Oklahoma statutes from the library and walked hurriedly toward his new office.

  A middle-aged woman with a frosted bouffant hairdo was sitting in the cubicle between Ben’s office and Derek’s, separated from the hallway by heavy wooden dividers. She was smoking, and her ashtray indicated she went at it as fervently as did Derek. She did not look up as Ben approached.

  “You must be Maggie,” Ben said amiably.

  The woman’s gaze shifted from the paperback romance novel she was reading. “Yes.” Her voice had a detectable nasal twang. Ben wondered if she had come from back East with Derek.

  He smiled. “I’m Ben Kincaid. I guess we’re going to be working together.”

  “I work for Mr. Derek,” she said crisply. She returned her attention to her novel.

  “Evidently you’re working for me, too. I’m the new associate on Mr. Derek’s team.”

  Maggie looked up slowly. “I haven’t worked with a new associate in seven years.” She removed the clear plastic reading glasses hanging on a chain around her neck and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “New associates are always … writing things, and always wanting them typed by yesterday. And always changing them once they are typed.”

  “Look, I’m sorry,” Ben said, shifting his weight from one leg to the other. “It wasn’t my idea. I’ll try not to be a bother.”

  Maggie lifted the receiver to her ear and punched a button on the complex phone console on her desk. “We’ll see about this. This isn’t supposed to happen to me. We have an arrangement.”

  Ben decided that his need to hit the books was more pressing than this rewarding conversation. “I’ll be in my office,” he said.

  Maggie didn’t even nod.

  Ben surveyed his new office. Well, there will be few distractions, he thought.

  Raven, Tucker & Tubb provided him with a desk—a table, actually, and a matching chair, both made of a cheap pine Ben wouldn’t have used in his college dorm room. The walls were a barren, uninterrupted white. The table held a green banker’s lamp and a complicated telephone unit, smaller than but similar to the one at Maggie’s station. There was a short, empty bookshelf beside the table and two undeniably hideous orange corduroy visitors’ chairs. Apparently, furnishings were passed down from one associate to another—the good stuff going up the totem pole and the wretched stuff going down. Ben hoped his first client didn’t have a keenly developed sense of decor.