Ground Truth

by Rob Sangster

  “Even Justin,” Edward said, “couldn’t come up with any more legal rabbits to pull out of his hat.”

  Arthur continued. “At the last minute, Tom Montana, one of our VPs, convinced us to move our operations to Juarez, Mexico. His plan saved the company and tripled the profits of our best year.”

  Jack remembered a memo written by the S & S lawyer handling Palmer Industries prior to the move. It outlined the strict Mexican environmental protection laws governing the handling of hazardous waste. A handwritten note attached to the file copy said that the decision to move to Mexico had been made with Justin Sinclair’s full support.

  “So that’s how we wound up being a—what the hell is that word, Edward?”

  “Maquiladora. It’s time for you to remember it.”

  “You know what that word means, Strider?” Arthur challenged.

  What a condescending bastard. “It originally referred to plants along the U.S.-Mexico border that assembled products for companies based in other countries. Now it includes operations like yours that provide mostly services.” He couldn’t resist adding, “By the way, most people call them maquilas.”

  Arthur shrugged that off. “Anyway, Montana located an 800-acre site on the outskirts of Juarez, across the Rio Grande from El Paso. We bought the site from PEMEX, the giant Mexican oil company, along with a dozen warehouses and the tanks they used to store oil. Montana greased the deal through the bureaucrats, all the way to the top.” He took another drink. “Then we invested millions in equipping the plant to treat the most toxic waste known to man. Montana even got a special water line run from the city to the plant site. That’s why I take good care of Montana. I reward people who get things done no matter what it takes. That’s also why four hundred union pricks who used to work for us are now playing pinochle all day out in Concord.” He lifted his glass in a mocking toast.

  Four hundred fired. Wonder if the people who pushed passage of NAFTA saw that coming?

  “For quite a while, things were fine,” Edward said. “Suddenly we’re being hassled, just like with the unions, except this time we’re buried in citations.”

  “What we have is a sweet deal we’re damn sure going to protect,” Arthur broke in. “Profits are piling up faster than we can get to the bank. And that, dear brother, is what it’s all about.”

  Edward struggled to his feet. Light from the chandelier outlined tension lines around his eyes. “We make money, sure, but Montana swore we’d have no problems in Mexico. Now the government is trying to shut us down. How much money will we make if that happens?”

  “Calm down, Edward,” Sinclair cut in. “I think it’s time to get some input from the front lines. I’ll tell Mrs. Pounders to set up Montana for a video conference on that monitor in the corner.”

  Within three minutes, Jack was looking at Tom Montana on a 30-inch screen. The man was leaning back in a leather chair, one elbow hooked over its back. He had the air of a minor movie star—deep set eyes, thick eyebrows, sleek black hair swept back without a part. His unlined face gave no clue to his age.

  He’d obviously adapted to his Mexican environment. He wore a guayabera shirt designed not to be tucked in, white with yellow stallions embroidered on it, and unbuttoned half way down his bare chest.

  Without a greeting, Arthur took control. “For God’s sake, tell Edward there is nothing to worry about down there.”

  “Just a few bureaucratic flunkies jerking us around,” Montana said. “I’ve told you that the people at the top know the Mexican economy lives or dies on the money maquilas bring in. I’ll take care of this.”

  “You always say that,” Edward said. “But when I ask you questions, you give me the shortest answer you can get away with.” He grumbled under his breath, “I want our company back.”

  “Relax,” Arthur said. “Tom keeps me posted on everything.”

  Edward’s round face flushed. “That’s what I’m saying. You’ve cut me out of the loop.”

  “I’m sure there’s no conspiracy here.” Sinclair projected his calm voice between them. “Tom, Jack Strider is here with us. He’s familiar with Palmer Industries’ business, and he’ll be in our Mexico City office to work with me on this problem. Jack, do you have any questions for Tom?”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Jack caught Sinclair watching him with an appraising look, waiting to see how he’d deal with the situation.

  “Good afternoon, Tom. Do you know what provoked the government into going after the company?”

  “No mystery there. Either some sleazy competitor made ridiculous charges, or it’s a bureaucrat looking for a payoff.”

  “Listen, Justin—” Arthur looked disgusted. “—this is wasting my time. It’s Montana’s job to keep the plant operating. He’s doing that and has my full support, whatever it takes. I don’t need Strider’s help.”

  “And I don’t want any outsiders down here,” Montana added. “We take care of our own problems.”

  “Whether you want his help or not,” Sinclair said, “you need it.”

  “I may be able to turn this into a win for Palmer Industries,” Jack said. “If it’s harassment, I can try to stop it. If the problem is more than that, a rational compromise with regulatory authorities usually works out better than defending against injunctions and lawsuits. A cost benefit analysis could show that in the long term—”

  “Long term, my ass,” Arthur growled.

  “All right, gentlemen,” Sinclair broke in, “let’s wrap this up. Arthur, you pay me to protect you. That’s what I’m doing. Tom, Jack will give you a call in a few days to get whatever he needs.” Before Montana could respond, Sinclair touched a button. The monitor went black.

  “I’ll tell you again,” Edward glared at his brother, “we made a big mistake caving in to that sweetheart bonus deal he demanded.”

  “He doesn’t have a chance in hell of meeting the terms we set. He’ll never collect one dime of that bonus,” Arthur said. “We outsmarted him.”

  “But if he does meet the terms, we have to pay him millions.”

  “Edward,” Arthur said, “I’m fed up with you looking at a peach and calling it a damned lemon. Leave it alone.”

  “Montana’s a loose cannon. We can go to jail for condoning what he’s doing.”

  “You can’t condone what you don’t know about, so butt out.”

  “But we do know about it. When we first went into business down there, the border guards stopped our trucks and buried us in paperwork and fines. Suddenly, the problems stopped. There’s only one way Montana could have pulled that off. By ignoring it, we sent him a message. This time it’s not some penny ante border guards. He’ll try to bribe the federal government.”

  Sinclair held up his hand to stop the bickering, then took off his glasses and slowly polished each lens with a handkerchief, a telltale sign he was losing patience. “Then it’s settled,” he said. “Worst case, we go to court or a Hearing and kick their ass. If everything else fails, there are still a few heavyweights in Washington willing to do a favor for an old man. In the meantime, Jack goes to Mexico City. His pro-environment reputation is exactly what you need right now.”

  Arthur said, nodding at Jack, “Is he one of those goddamn environmental nuts?”

  “Of course not.”

  “All right, goddamn it, but on one condition.” Arthur shook his finger at Jack. “Leave Montana alone. Period. And remember that the client is always right.” He stood and headed for the door, followed by Sinclair. Edward hurried to catch up.

  Jack sat in silence, waiting for Sinclair to return. The meeting had been a disaster. Sinclair was a master at creating an illusion, so maybe he had a strategy he’d chosen not to reveal to the Palmers. If he didn’t have something clever up his sleeve, Jack’s job prospects would swirl down the toilet bowl.

&nbs
p; Sinclair walked back in. “Arthur’s a hothead, so stay in bounds.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. Sounds as if Montana is effectively running the company.”

  “I’m sure he keeps Arthur informed, at least about anything he wants to hear.”

  “Then Edward was right. They’ve cut him out.”

  “Edward would raise hell if he had proof that Montana is, shall we say, cutting corners. Arthur’s the realist. He understands that people who do business in Mexico get crap on their boots.”

  “If Montana tries to bribe his way out of this, Arthur may get crap on more than his boots. I mean fines, being shut down, even prison.”

  “We’ll keep that from happening.”

  “But if they’re doing serious harm, we have a duty to advise them to stop.”

  “Arthur’s not paying us to lecture him on morality.”

  “The stuff Palmer Industries processes is deadly. We’re obligated to—”

  “We’re obligated only to advise the client when asked.”

  Jack sucked in a breath. Dead end. Time to change the subject.

  “Edward distrusted Montana even before these citations. Do you know why?”

  “That bonus deal rankles him so he watches the financial statements like a hawk. Profits are so much higher than projected that he believes Montana must be cutting expenses way below budget.”

  “If that’s what the government citations are about, then we—”

  “That’s enough. You’re not this firm’s chaplain.” He moved behind his desk, ending the meeting.

  JACK WALKED SLOWLY down the corridor from Sinclair’s office. This time, the politicians’ Wall of Fame barely registered on him.

  When he reached his office, he dropped into his chair. He was in a field full of land mines and needed some kind of edge—and fast. He’d talk with one of the other lawyers who had dealt with Palmer. The lawyer whose name showed up most often in the files had left the firm, but there were others. One was Debra Vanderberg. He’d seen her name in the Palmer files, handling some zoning matter. She’d been a student in two of his classes, riparian rights and, his toughest one, advanced international economics. He’d found her insightful and accurate. And very attractive, but hadn’t been willing to cross the barrier between professor and student. When he’d seen her in the S & S hall a few days earlier, he’d wanted to stop, but was so pressed by preparing for Mexico he only waved. Thinking about her made him smile.

  The career reversal between them now was dramatic. His career had the upward momentum of a soggy sparkler, while she was referred to as the firm’s wonder child. Still, she was the perfect person to talk with about Palmer.

  He tapped Debra’s number into the interoffice phone.

  The line was busy.

  Another bad omen.

  Chapter 13

  June 16

  7:00 p.m.

  “I’M SORRY SIR, we’re fully booked tonight,” said the woman who answered the phone at Boulevard restaurant. “Would you like to make a dinner reservation for next Thursday?”

  Not wanting to look for someplace else, Jack tested the firm’s clout. “I’m a partner at Sinclair & Simms. Would you mind checking again?”

  Without missing a beat, she replied, “Actually, if seven o’clock is okay we have a very nice corner table. And your name, sir?”

  “Jack Strider. Dinner for two. Thanks.”

  He’d finally gotten through to Debra and, on the spur of the moment, decided to invite her to dinner. He needed to get out of the office.

  When he and Debra entered the restaurant, the hostess called him by name twice as she led them to the big money table. The sommelier arrived and handed him the wine list in a black Moroccan leather folder, as if entrusting an heirloom. Jack made his selection without a glance at the right hand column.

  Debra had seemed a little distant in the car, responding rather than initiating conversation. Still, as he looked at her across the table he was glad he’d kept calling until he reached her. Not only was she a brilliant lawyer, but she was familiar with the Palmer files, a good sounding board for his predicament. With her fine features, dark eyes, long silky black hair and tall, athletic figure, she was also the most beautiful woman in the room.

  As soon as the ritual of sampling the white Bordeaux was finished, Jack raised his glass.

  “Thanks for joining me on such short notice.”

  “My pleasure, but I’m puzzled. Except for a fly-by the other afternoon, I haven’t seen you since law school. So this must be a business meeting—but Boulevard is not exactly a conference room. So what’s up?”

  “It is business, but I’d like to hold off on that and talk about something more pleasant first. Like about your personal background.”

  That was clumsy. He’d just asked the equivalent of what her zodiac sign was.

  “You mean my family?”

  He nodded.

  She sipped her wine and gave him an amused expression. “Okay. My mother was Balinese, a painter. Father, an anesthesiologist. He’s Dutch, the reason I’m tall. We lived in Amsterdam until he brought the family to San Francisco. Mother wanted me to be a dancer, but at sixteen I switched from ballet lessons to tai chi and karate. That about sums up my childhood.”

  “How did you wind up in law school?”

  “In Holland, the law is almost sacred. In the U.S.—oh, don’t get me started. Anyway, in high school I wrote a paper called ‘Balancing the Scales of Justice.’ I thought being a lawyer would help me do that. So that was my first step toward Stanford Law.”

  “Is your dream coming true at S & S?”

  Her quick frown said she didn’t like his comment, but she blew it off. “Of course not. This isn’t a lifetime gig. After graduation, despite my scholarships, I owed $70,000 in loans. S & S offered me a lot of money, so I’m using this firm to get what I need. Sort of like you. There must be some reason you chose this sausage factory.”

  “Sore subject right now,” he said.

  The bantering expression left her face. Her dark eyes looked steadily at him. “Fair enough, but can we talk about the gorilla in the room?” She sipped her Bordeaux without breaking eye contact. “You lost your father a couple of weeks ago. Now there’s all that awful stuff about him in the Chronicle. Are you okay?”

  His defenses rose like a shield. “Our relationship was complex, but, yeah, the way he died will be raw for me for a long time. And stories in the paper pretty much knocked the wind out of me. At least my friends on the faculty have been very supportive.”

  He wouldn’t tell her about the call from the wife of a man who was infected with HIV by a girl Peck had smuggled in. Or the message left by Anita asking questions he could never answer.

  “Of course your colleagues are supportive,” she said. “They know who you really are. But there is one guy who isn’t a fan. My secretary overheard Stan Simms in the elevator talking to another senior partner. It seems Simms has a real hard on, his words, about getting you out of the firm. He said the bad publicity about your father makes the firm look sleazy. Simms is a real bastard.”

  Fortunately, Simms’ opinion of him was irrelevant. But if he didn’t hit a home run in Mexico City, he could be out of the fast track law business for good. “Sinclair hired me, so I don’t have to worry about Simms.”

  “Good. Now satisfy my curiosity about something else. I heard you spent half the afternoon with guys who make their living sending poison and jobs to Mexico. That surprised me. At Stanford, you had a reputation as an environmental white knight. Has something changed?”

  “No, but it’s true that Sinclair and I met with the Palmers.”

  “That must have been fun.”

  “Let’s just say I didn’t see eye to eye with Arthur Palmer. By the end of the meeting, I sort
of had my tail caught in a ringer.”

  “I love a good tail-in-a-ringer story.”

  “This stays between the two of us.”

  “Done.”

  Since she’d already made clear how she felt about Palmer Industries, he told her about the toxic waste violations, Arthur Palmer’s orders to keep away from Montana, and Sinclair’s laissez faire attitude.

  “I said we have a duty to advise the client not to break the law, especially when what they’re doing may wind up poisoning some unknown number of people.”

  “What did our fearless leader say?”

  “He pushed back, told me to leave it alone.”

  “We never know what to expect from him, except that he loves dealmaking and feeding his ego. Oh, and he detests one of his predecessors, Henry Kissinger. It’s about the Nobel Prize.”

  “The morning I met him he seemed upset that Kissinger had won.”

  “More than upset, but let’s go back to your situation. Here’s a hypothetical. If your client told you he planned to murder the mayor, would you intervene?”

  “What city?” He smiled. “Just kidding.”

  “If you’re right about Palmer poisoning people, it sounds damn serious.”

  A server arrived to refill the wine glasses and recommend the Lobster Martinique. He then contemplated the ceiling as he awaited their decisions.

  After they ordered, Jack said, “Of course, it’s serious, but Arthur Palmer is only worried that the Mexican government may shut down his plant.”

  “Let me guess. Sinclair wants to use your pro-environment track record to improve the odds for Palmer, and to hell with your principles.”