by John Grisham
Miss Nina Huff knocked on the door and introduced herself as the secretary. She was a heavyset woman of forty-five, and with one glance it was not difficult to understand why she was still single. With no family to support, it was evident she spent her money on clothes and makeup—all to no avail. Mitch wondered why she did not invest in a fitness counselor. She informed him forthrightly that she had been with the firm eight and a half years now and knew all there was to know about office procedure. If he had a question, just ask her. He thanked her for that. She had been in the typing pool and was grateful for the return to general secretarial duties. He nodded as though he understood completely. She asked if he knew how to operate the dictating equipment. Yes, he said. In fact, the year before he had worked for a three-hundred-man firm on Wall Street and that firm owned the very latest in office technology. But if he had a problem he would ask her, he promised.
“What’s your wife’s name?” she asked.
“Why is that important?” he asked.
“Because when she calls, I would like to know her name so that I can be real sweet and friendly to her on the phone.”
“Abby.”
“How do you like your coffee?”
“Black, but I’ll fix it myself.”
“I don’t mind fixing your coffee for you. It’s part of the job.”
“I’ll fix it myself.”
“All the secretaries do it.”
“If you ever touch my coffee, I’ll see to it that you’re sent to the mail room to lick stamps.”
“We have an automated licker. Do they lick stamps on Wall Street?”
“It was a figure of speech.”
“Well, I’ve memorized your wife’s name and we’ve settled the issue of coffee, so I guess I’m ready to start.”
“In the morning. Be here at eight-thirty.”
“Yes, boss.” She left and Mitch smiled to himself. She was a real smart-ass, but she would be fun.
Lamar was next. He was late for a meeting with Nathan Locke, but he wanted to stop by and check on his friend. He was pleased their offices were close. He apologized again for last Thursday’s dinner. Yes, he and Kay and the kids would be there at seven to inspect the new house and the furniture.
Hunter Quin was five. His sister Holly was seven. They both ate the spaghetti with perfect manners from the brand-new dining table and dutifully ignored the grown-up talk circulating around them. Abby watched the two and dreamed of babies. Mitch thought they were cute, but was not inspired. He was busy recalling the events of the day.
The women ate quickly, then left to look at the furniture and talk about the remodeling. The children took Hearsay to the backyard.
“I’m a little surprised they put you with Tolar,” Lamar said, wiping his mouth.
“Why is that?”
“I don’t think he’s ever supervised an associate.”
“Any particular reason?”
“Not really. He’s a great guy, but not much of a team player. Sort of a loner. Prefers to work by himself. He and his wife are having some problems, and there’s talk that they’ve separated. But he keeps it to himself.”
Mitch pushed his plate away and sipped the iced tea. “Is he a good lawyer?”
“Yes, very good. They’re all good if they make partner. A lot of his clients are rich people with millions to put in tax shelters. He sets up limited partnerships. Many of his shelters are risky, and he’s known for his willingness to take chances and fight with the IRS later. Most of his clients are big-time risk takers. You’ll do a lot of research looking for ways to bend the tax laws. It’ll be fun.”
“He spent half of lunch lecturing on billing.”
“It’s vital. There’s always the pressure to bill more and more. All we have to sell is our time. Once you pass the bar your billing will be monitored weekly by Tolar and Royce McKnight. It’s all computerized and they can tell down to the dime how productive you are. You’ll be expected to bill thirty to forty hours a week for the first six months. Then fifty for a couple of years. Before they’ll consider you for partner, you’ve got to hit sixty hours a week consistently over a period of years. No active partner bills less than sixty a week—most of it at the maximum rate.”
“That’s a lot of hours.”
“Sounds that way, but it’s deceptive. Most good lawyers can work eight or nine hours a day and bill twelve. It’s called padding. It’s not exactly fair to the client, but it’s something everybody does. The great firms have been built by padding files. It’s the name of the game.”
“Sounds unethical.”
“So is ambulance chasing by plaintiff’s lawyers. It’s unethical for a dope lawyer to take his fee in cash if he has a reason to believe the money is dirty. A lot of things are unethical. What about the doctor who sees a hundred Medicare patients a day? Or the one who performs unnecessary surgery? Some of the most unethical people I’ve met have been my own clients. It’s easy to pad a file when your client is a multimillionaire who wants to screw the government and wants you to do it legally. We all do it.”
“Do they teach it?”
“No. You just sort of learn it. You’ll start off working long, crazy hours, but you can’t do it forever. So you start taking shortcuts. Believe me, Mitch, after you’ve been with us a year you’ll know how to work ten hours and bill twice that much. It’s sort of a sixth sense lawyers acquire.”
“What else will I acquire?”
Lamar rattled his ice cubes and thought for a moment. “A certain amount of cynicism. This business works on you. When you were in law school you had some noble idea of what a lawyer should be. A champion of individual rights; a defender of the Constitution; a guardian of the oppressed; an advocate for your client’s principles. Then after you practice for six months you realize we’re nothing but hired guns. Mouthpieces for sale to the highest bidder, available to anybody, any crook, any sleazebag with enough money to pay our outrageous fees. Nothing shocks you. It’s supposed to be an honorable profession, but you’ll meet so many crooked lawyers you’ll want to quit and find an honest job. Yeah, Mitch, you’ll get cynical. And it’s sad, really.”
“You shouldn’t be telling me this at this stage of my career.”
“The money makes up for it. It’s amazing how much drudgery you can endure at two hundred thousand a year.”
“Drudgery? You make it sound terrible.”
“I’m sorry. It’s not that bad. My perspective on life changed radically last Thursday.”
“You want to look at the house? It’s marvelous.”
“Maybe some other time. Let’s just talk.”
6
At five a.m. the alarm clock exploded on the new bed table under the new lamp, and was immediately silenced. Mitch staggered through the dark house and found Hearsay waiting at the back door. He released him into the backyard and headed for the shower. Twenty minutes later he found his wife under the covers and kissed her goodbye. She did not respond.
With no traffic to fight, the office was ten minutes away. He had decided his day would start at five-thirty, unless someone could top that; then he would be there at five, or four-thirty, or whenever it took to be first. Sleep was a nuisance. He would be the first lawyer to arrive at the Bendini Building on this day, and every day until he became a partner. If it took the others ten years, he could do it in seven. He would become the youngest partner in the history of the firm, he had decided.
The vacant lot next to the Bendini Building had a ten-foot chain-link fence around it and a guard by the gate. There was a parking place inside with his name spray-painted between the yellow lines. He stopped by the gate and waited. The uniformed guard emerged from the darkness and approached the driver’s door. Mitch pushed a button, lowered the window and produced a plastic card with his picture on it.
“You must be the new man,” the guard said as he held the card.
“Yes. Mitch McDeere.”
“I can read. I should’ve known by the car.”
“What’s your name?” Mitch asked.
“Dutch Hendrix. Worked for the Memphis Police Department for thirty-three years.”
“Nice to meet you, Dutch.”
“Yeah. Same to you. You start early, don’t you?”
Mitch smiled and took the ID card. “No, I thought everyone would be here.”
Dutch managed a smile. “You’re the first. Mr. Locke will be along shortly.”
The gate opened and Dutch ordered him through. He found his name in white on the asphalt and parked the spotless BMW all by itself on the third row from the building. He grabbed his empty burgundy eel-skin attaché case from the rear seat and gently closed the door. Another guard waited by the rear entrance. Mitch introduced himself and watched as the door was unlocked. He checked his watch. Exactly five-thirty. He was relieved that this hour was early enough. The rest of the firm was still asleep.
He flipped on the light switch in his office and laid the attaché case on the temporary desk. He headed for the coffee room down the hall, turning on lights as he went. The coffeepot was one of those industrial sizes with multi-levels, multi-burners, multi-pots and no apparent instructions on how to operate any of it. He studied this machine for a moment as he emptied a pack of coffee into the filter. He poured water through one of the holes in the top and smiled when it began dripping in the right place.
In one corner of his office were three cardboard boxes full of books, files, legal pads and class notes he had accumulated in the previous three years. He sat the first one on his desk and began removing its contents. The materials were categorized and placed in neat little piles around the desk.
After two cups of coffee, he found the bar review materials in box number three. He walked to the window and opened the blinds. It was still dark. He did not notice the figure suddenly appear in the doorway.
“Good morning!”
Mitch spun from the window and gawked at the man. “You scared me,” he said, and breathed deeply.
“I’m sorry. I’m Nathan Locke. I don’t believe we’ve met.”
“I’m Mitch McDeere. The new man.” They shook hands.
“Yes, I know. I apologize for not meeting you earlier. I was busy during your earlier visits. I think I saw you at the funerals Monday.”
Mitch nodded and knew for certain he had never been within a hundred yards of Nathan Locke. He would have remembered. It was the eyes, the cold black eyes with layers of black wrinkles around them. Great eyes. Unforgettable eyes. His hair was white and thin on top with thickets around the ears, and the whiteness contrasted sharply with the rest of his face. When he spoke, the eyes narrowed and the black pupils glowed fiercely. Sinister eyes. Knowing eyes.
“Maybe so,” Mitch said, captivated by the most evil face he had ever encountered. “Maybe so.”
“I see you’re an early riser.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, good to have you.”
Nathan Locke withdrew from the doorway and disappeared. Mitch checked the hall, then closed the door. No wonder they keep him on the fourth floor away from everyone, he thought. Now he understood why he didn’t meet Nathan Locke before he signed on. He might have had second thoughts. Probably hid him from all the prospective recruits. He had, without a doubt, the most ominous, evil presence Mitch had ever felt. It was the eyes, he said to himself again, as he propped his feet on the desk and sipped coffee. The eyes.
As Mitch expected, Nina brought food when she reported at eight-thirty. She offered Mitch a doughnut, and he took two. She inquired as to whether she should bring enough food every morning, and Mitch said he thought it would be nice of her.
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing at the stacks of files and notes on the desk.
“That’s our project for the day. We need to get this stuff organized.”
“No dictating?”
“Not yet. I meet with Avery in a few minutes. I need this mess filed away in some order.”
“How exciting,” she said as she headed for the coffee room.
Avery Tolar was waiting with a thick, expandable file, which he handed to Mitch. “This is the Capps file. Part of it. Our client’s name is Sonny Capps. He lives in Houston now, but grew up in Arkansas. Worth about thirty million and keeps his thumb on every penny of it. His father gave him an old barge line just before he died, and he turned it into the largest towing service on the Mississippi River. Now he has ships, or boats, as he calls them, all over the world. We do eighty percent of his legal work, everything but the litigation. He wants to set up another limited partnership to purchase another fleet of tankers, this one from the family of some dead Chink in Hong Kong. Capps is usually the general partner, and he’ll bring in as many as twenty-five limited partners to spread the risk and pool their resources. This deal is worth about sixty-five million. I’ve done several limited partnerships for him and they’re all different, all complicated. And he is extremely difficult to deal with. He’s a perfectionist and thinks he knows more than I do. You will not be talking to him. In fact, no one here talks to him but me. That file is a portion of the last partnership I did for him. It contains, among other things, a prospectus, an agreement to form a partnership, letters of intent, disclosure statements and the limited partnership agreement itself. Read every word of it. Then I want you to prepare a rough draft of the partnership agreement for this venture.”
The file suddenly grew heavier. Perhaps five-thirty was not early enough.
The partner continued. “We have about forty days, according to Capps, so we’re already behind. Marty Kozinski was helping with this one, and as soon as I review his file I’ll give it to you. Any questions?”
“What about the research?”
“Most of it is current, but you’ll need to update it. Capps earned over nine million last year and paid a pittance in taxes. He doesn’t believe in paying taxes, and holds me personally responsible for every dime that’s sent in. It’s all legal, of course, but my point is that this is high-pressure work. Millions of dollars in investment and tax savings are at stake. The venture will be scrutinized by the governments of at least three countries. So be careful.”
Mitch flipped through the documents. “How many hours a day do I work on this?”
“As many as possible. I know the bar exam is important, but so is Sonny Capps. He paid us almost a half a million last year in legal fees.”
“I’ll get it done.”
“I know you will. As I told you, your rate is one hundred an hour. Nina will go over the time records with you today. Remember, don’t ignore the billing.”
“How could I forget?”
Oliver Lambert and Nathan Locke stood before the metal door on the fifth floor and stared at the camera above. Something clicked loudly and the door opened. A guard nodded. DeVasher waited in his office.
“Good morning, Ollie,” he said quietly while ignoring the other partner.
“What’s the latest?” Locke snapped in DeVasher’s direction without looking at him.
“From where?” DeVasher asked calmly.
“Chicago.”
“They’re very anxious up there, Nat. Regardless of what you believe, they don’t like to get their hands dirty. And, frankly, they just don’t understand why they have to.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re asking some tough questions, like why can’t we keep our people in line?”
“And what’re you telling them?”
“That everything’s okay. Wonderful. The great Bendini firm is solid. The leaks have been plugged. Business as usual. No problems.”
“How much damage did they do?” asked Oliver Lambert.
“We’re not sure. We’ll never be sure, but I don’t think they ever talked. They had decided to, no doubt about that, but I don’t think they did. We’ve got it from a pretty good source there were FBI agents en route to the island the day of the accident, so we think they planned to rendezvous to spill their guts.”
“How do y
ou know this?” asked Locke.
“Come on, Nat. We’ve got our sources. Plus, we had people all over the island. We do good work, you know.”
“Evidently.”
“Was it messy?”
“No, no. Very professional.”
“How’d the native get in the way?”
“We had to make it look good, Ollie.”
“What about the authorities down there?”
“What authorities? It’s a tiny, peaceful island, Ollie. Last year they had one murder and four diving accidents. As far as they’re concerned, it’s just another accident. Three accidental drownings.”
“What about the FBI?” asked Locke.
“Don’t know.”
“I thought you had a source.”
“We do. But we can’t find him. We’ve heard nothing as of yesterday. Our people are still on the island and they’ve noticed nothing unusual.”
“How long will you stay there?”
“Couple of weeks.”
“What happens if the FBI shows up?” asked Locke.
“We watch them real close. We’ll see them when they get off the plane. We’ll follow them to their hotel rooms. We may even bug their phones. We’ll know what they eat for breakfast and what they talk about. We’ll assign three of our guys for every one of theirs, and when they go to the toilet we’ll know it. There ain’t nothing for them to find, Nat. I told you it was a clean job, very professional. No evidence. Relax.”
“This makes me sick, DeVasher,” Lambert said.
“You think I like it, Ollie? What do you want us to do? Sit back and let them talk? Come on, Ollie, we’re all human. I didn’t want to do it, but Lazarov said do it. You wanna argue with Lazarov, go ahead. They’ll find you floating somewhere. Those boys were up to no good. They should’ve kept quiet, driven their little fancy cars and played big-shot lawyers. No, they gotta get sanctimonious.”
