The Barrens & Others (2 page)

For those of you who get off on interstory connections, the very fact that it's set in Monroe ties "Feelings" to The Adversary Cycle; and you'll notice Dr. Walter Johnson mentions his brother, a GP who remained in their home town, "a foggy little place on the coast…" That other Doc Johnson practices in Greystone Bay (see
Soft & Others
). You'll also notice that Howie's father is Lenny Winter from "The Last 'One Mo' Once Golden Oldies Revival'" (also in
Soft & Others
). Connections galore.

Writing this one was almost as enjoyable as writing "Cuts."

Feelings

"Five million dollars, Mr. Weinstein?
Five million?
Where did you come up with such an outrageous figure?"

Howard Weinstein studied his prey across the table in his office conference room. Until today, Dr. Walter Johnson had been little more than a name on a subpoena and interrogatories. His C.V. put his age at fifty-one but he looked a tired old sixty as he sat next to the natty attorney the insurance company had assigned him. His face was lined, haggard, and pale, his movements slow, his voice soft, weak, his shoulders slumped inside a grey suit that looked too big for him. Maybe the strain of the malpractice suit was getting to him. Good. That might spur him to push his insurance company for an early settlement.

"Five
million
?" Dr. Johnson repeated.

Howard hesitated.
I'm
the one who's supposed to be asking the questions, he thought. This is my show. But he had asked his last question and so the deposition was essentially over. He wanted to say,
It's my favorite number
, but this was a legal proceeding and Lydia's fingers were poised over her steno machine's keyboard, awaiting his reply. So he looked Dr. Walter Johnson straight in his watery blue eyes and said,

"That's the compensation my client deserves for the permanent injuries he suffered at your hands due to your gross negligence. He will suffer lifelong impairment–"

"I saved his life!"

"That is hardly clear, Dr. Johnson. It's up to a jury to decide."

"When you sue me within my coverage," Dr. Johnson said, staring at his folded hands where they rested on the table before him, "I can say to myself, 'He's doing business.' But five million dollars? My malpractice coverage doesn't go that high. That will ruin me. That will take everything I own – my house, all the investments I've made over the years, all the money I've put away for my children and future grandchildren – and still leave me millions in debt. You're not just threatening me, you're threatening my family." He looked up at Howard. "Do you have a family, Mr. Weinstein?"

"Is that a threat, Dr. Johnson?" Howard knew the doctor was making no threat, but he reacted instinctively to keep the defendant off balance. He had no children and had divorced his wife three years ago. And anyway, he wouldn't have cared if the doc had been threatening her.

"Oh, no. I was simply wondering if you might have any conception of what this sort of threat does to someone and to his family. My homelife is a shambles. I've had constant stomachaches for months, I'm losing weight, my daughters are worried about me, my wife is a wreck. Do you have any idea what kind of misery you cause?"

"I am more concerned with the misery you caused my client, Dr. Johnson."

The doctor looked him square in the eyes. Howard felt as if the older man's gaze were penetrating to the back of his skull.

"I don't think you feel anything for anyone, Mr. Weinstein. You need a real lesson in empathy. Do you even know what empathy is?"

"I have empathy for my clients, Dr. Johnson."

"I sincerely doubt that. I think the only empathy you know is for your bank account."

"Okay, that's it," Howard said, nodding to Lydia at the steno machine as he closed his case folder and rose from his seat. He had let this go on too long already. "The deposition's over. Thank you for your cooperation, Dr. Johnson. We'll see you in court."

He ushered out the defendant and his attorney, then stepped over to where Lydia was packing up her gear. "Let me see the end of that tape," he said.

"Howie–!"

Ignoring her mild protest, he opened the tape compartment and pulled out the long strip of steno paper. As he scanned through it, looking for where when Dr. Johnson had begun running off at the mouth, Lydia said,

"You're really not going to ruin him, are you? You're really not going to take everything he owns?" She was thin, dark-haired, attractive in a brittle sort of way.

Howard laughed. "Nah! Too much trouble. It's S.O.P.: Ask for an exorbitant amount, then settle for somewhere near the limit of his coverage. Taking all his assets – which I could probably get if we go to court – and going through a long liquidation process would be a big hassle. Best thing to do is to get that big check from the insurance company, take my forty percent, then move on to the next pigeon."

"Is that all he is? A pigeon?"

"Waiting to be plucked."

He knew there was something wrong with the metaphor there, but didn't bother to figure out what. He had found the spot he had been searching for on the tape. He marked it with a pen.

"Stop the transcription here."

"Why?"

"It's where the doc made his closing sob story about threatening his family and–"

"–your empathy for your bank account?" She smiled up at him.

"Yeah. I don't want that part in the deposition."

Her smile took a mischievous twist. "I sort of liked that part."

"Ditch it."

"I can't do that."

"Sure you can, Sis."

Her smile was gone now. "I won't. It's illegal."

In a sudden surge of anger, Howard ripped the offending section from the tape and tore it into tiny pieces. He never would have dared this with any other licensed court stenographer, but Lydia was his sister, and big brothers could take certain liberties with little sisters. Which was the main reason he used her. Her name had been Chambers since her wedding four years ago, so no one was the wiser.

He tossed the remains in the air and they fluttered to the floor in a confetti flurry.

Lydia's lips trembled. "I hate you! You're just like Dad!"

"Don't say that!"

"It's true! You're just a 'Daddy Shoog' with a law degree!"

"Shut
up!
" Howard quickly closed the door to the outer office. "I told you never to mention him around here!"

He prayed none of the secretaries had heard. One of them might get to thinking and might make the connection. She might find out that Lenny Winter, the Fifties d-j known as "Daddy Shoog," was really Leonard Weinstein, Howard's father. And then it wouldn't be long before it was all over Manhattan: Howard Weinstein was the son of that fat balding guy doing the twist and shilling his "One Mo' Once Golden Oldies" albums like Ginsu knives (
"But wait! There's more!"
) on late night tv commercials.

God! He'd never be able to maintain credibility at another deposition, let alone conduct a court case.

He had made every effort to avoid even a faint resemblance to his father: He'd grown a thick, black mustache, he took care of his hair, combing in a style his father had never used when he had a full head of it, and he kept his body trim and hard. No one would ever guess he was the son of Daddy Shoog.

Had to hand it to the old jerk, though. He was really cleaning up on those doo-wop retreads, especially since he was forgoing the inconvenience of paying royalties to the original artists.

"Too bad you inherited Dad's ethics instead of his personality. The only reason I come around is because I'm family. You've got no friends. Your wife dumped you, you've–"

"
Your
marriage didn't last too long either, Miss Holier Than Thou."

"True, but I'm the one who ended it, not Hal. You got dumped."

"Elise didn't dump me!
I
dumped
her!
"

And did a damn fine job of it, too. Left her without a pot to pee in. God, had he been glad to be rid of her! Three endless years of her nagging, "You're never home! I feel like a widow!" Blah-blah-blah. He'd taught her the folly of suing a lawyer for divorce.

"So what have you got, Howie? You've got your big law practice and that's it!"

"And that's plenty!" She pulled this shit on him every time they argued. Really liked to twist the knife. "I'm just thirty-two and already I'm a legend in this town! A fucking
legend!
"

"And what are you doing after lunch, Mr. Legend? Going down to St. Vincent's to scrape up another client?"

"Hey! My clients are shitbums. You think I don't know that? I know it.
Damn
, do I know it! But they've been injured and they've got a legal right to maximum recovery under the law! It's my duty–"

"Save it for the jury or the newspapers, Howie," Lydia said. Her voice sounded tired, disgusted. She picked up her steno gear and headed for the door. "You and Dad – you make me ashamed."

And then she was gone.

Howard left the files on the desk and went into his private office. He ran a hand through his thick dark hair as he gazed out at Manhattan's midtown spires. What was wrong with Lydia? Didn't she understand? The malpractice field was a gold mine. There were million-dollar clients out there who hadn't the vaguest inkling what they were worth. And if he didn't find them, somebody else would!

He'd come a long way. Started out in general practice, then sniffed the possibilities in liability law. Advertising on tv had brought him a horde of new clients, but all of them combined hadn't equaled the take from his first medical malpractice settlement. He had known then that malpractice was the only way to go.

Especially when you had a method.

It was simple, really. All it took was a few well-compensated contacts in the city's hospitals to let him know when a certain type of patient was being discharged. One of Howard's assistants – Howard used to go himself but he was above that now – would arrange to be there when the potential client left the hospital. He'd take him to lunch and subtly make his pitch.

You couldn't be
too
subtle, though. The prospective client was usually a neurosurgical patient, preferably an indigent sleazo who had shown up in the hospital emergency room with his head bashed in from a mugging or a fight over a bottle or a fix, or who'd fallen down a stairway or stumbled in front of a car during a stupor. Didn't matter what the cause as long as he'd wound up in the ER in bad enough shape for the neurosurgeon on call to be dragged in to put his skull and its contents back in order again.

"But you're not right since the surgery, are you?"

That was the magic question. The answer was almost invariably negative. Of course, the prospect hadn't been "right" before the surgery, either, but that was hard to prove. Nigh on impossible to prove. And even if the potential said he felt pretty good, he usually could find some major complaint when pressed, especially after it was explained to him that a permanent post-surgical deficit could be worth somewhere in the neighborhood of seven figures to him if things went his way.

Yeah, they were druggies and winos and all-purpose sleazos and it was an ordeal to be in conference with one of them for more than just a few minutes, but they were Howard's ticket to the Good Life. They were the perfect malpractice clients. He
loved
to stick them in front of a jury. Their shambling gaits, vacant stares, and disordered thought patterns wrung the hearts of even the most objective jurors. And since they were transients with no steady jobs, friends, or acquaintances, the defense could never prove convincingly that they had been just as shambling, vacant, and disordered before the surgery.

In most cases, the malpractice insurer took one look at the cient and reached for his checkbook: It was settlement time.

Yeah, life was sweet when you knew the bushes with the best berries.

*

Lydia was still fuming when she reached the garage downstairs. She handed in her ticket and found herself waiting next to Dr. Johnson. He nodded to her.

"Can't they find your car?" she said for lack of something better.

He shrugged. "Seems that way. Goes with the rest of the day, I guess." He looked tired, haggard, defeated. He smiled suddenly, obviously forcing it. "How'd I do up there?"

Lydia sensed his desperate need for some hope, some encouragement.

"You did very well, I thought. Especially at the end." She couldn't bring herself to tell him that his final remarks were shredded on the floor of the conference room.

"Do you think I have a snowball's chance in hell of coming out of this with the shirt on my back?"

Lydia couldn't help it. She had to say something to ease this poor man's mind. She put her hand on his arm.