The Associate (19 page)

When their drinks arrived, they toasted Placid Mortgage and the 400,000 foreclosures it had precipitated. They toasted Tabor, who had vowed to stay at his desk until midnight. They toasted Scully & Pershing and its wonderful beginning salaries. Halfway through the martini, the gin hit Dale’s mushy brain and she began giggling. When she ordered a second, Kyle excused himself and walked home.

_________

At 5:30 on Tuesday, Kyle was wrapping up his second day in the dungeon and mentally drafting his letter of resignation. He would happily tell Bennie to go to hell, and he would happily face Elaine and her rape claim in a courtroom in Pittsburgh. Anything would be better than what he was enduring.

He had survived the day by continually repeating the mantra “But they’re paying me $200,000 a year.”

But by 5:30, he didn’t care what they were paying
him. His FirmFone pinged with an e-mail, from Doug Peckham, and it read, “Kyle, need some help. My office. Now if possible.”

He forgot his letter of resignation, jumped to his feet, and bolted for the door. To Dale he said as he dashed by, “Gotta run see Doug Peckham, a litigation partner. He’s got a project.” If this sounded cruel, then so be it. If it was boasting, he didn’t care. She looked shocked and wounded, but he left her there, all alone in the Placid dungeon. He ran down two flights of stairs and was out of breath when he walked through Peckham’s open door. The partner was on the phone, standing, fidgeting, and he waved Kyle into a fine leather chair across from his desk. When he signed off with a “You’re a moron, Slade, a true moron,” he looked at Kyle, forced a smile, and said, “So how’s it going so far?”

“Document Review.” Nothing else needed to be said.

“Sorry about that, but we all suffered through it. Look, I need a hand here. You up to it?” Peckham fell violently into his chair and began rocking, thrusting himself back and forth without taking his eyes off Kyle.

“Anything. Right now I’ll shine your shoes.”

“They’re shined. Gotta case here in the Southern District of New York, a big one. We’re defending Barx in a class action filed by some folks who took their heartworm pills and eventually croaked. Big, messy, complicated case that’s raging in a number of states. We go before Judge Cafferty on Thursday morning. You know him?”

I’ve been here two days, Kyle almost blurted. I don’t know anybody. “No.”

“Caffeine Cafferty. He’s got some chemical imbalance that keeps him up all night and all day, and when he’s off his meds, he calls up lawyers and screams at them because the cases are moving so slowly. When he’s on his meds, he yells, too, but doesn’t swear as much. Anyway, his schedule is called the Rocket Docket because he moves things along. Good judge, but a real pain in the ass. Anyway, this case has dragged on, and now he’s threatening to send it to another jurisdiction.”

Kyle was scribbling notes as fast as possible. At the first break in the narrative, he said, “Heartworms?”

“Actually, it’s a drug that eats away plaque in the major blood vessels, including the left and right ventricles. From a medical point of view, it’s complicated and nothing you should worry about. We have two partners with medical degrees handling that aspect of the case. Four partners total, as well as ten associates. I’m lead counsel.” He said this with far too much smugness. Then he jumped to his feet and lumbered over to the window for a quick look at the city. His white starched shirt was oversized and did a nice job of hiding his bulbous physique.

Bennie’s summary had been typically to the point. Peckham’s first marriage broke up thirteen months after he joined Scully & Pershing fresh out of Yale. His current wife was a lawyer who was a partner in a firm down the street. She, too, worked long hours. There were two small children. Their apartment on the Upper West Side was appraised for $3.5 million, and they owned the obligatory house in the Hamptons.
Last year Doug earned $1.3 million; his wife, $1.2 million. He was regarded as a top litigator whose specialty was defending big pharmaceuticals, though he rarely went to trial. Six years earlier he was on the losing end of a major case involving a painkiller that caused suicides, at least in the opinion of the jury. Scully & Pershing sent him to a spa in Italy for a two-week treatment.

“Cafferty wants to get rid of the case,” he said, stretching a sore back. “We, of course, will fight that. But, truthfully, I would rather see it in another jurisdiction. There are four possibilities—Duval County, Florida; downtown Memphis; a rural county in Nebraska called Fillmore; or Des Plaines, Illinois. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to research these four jurisdictions.” He fell into his chair again and began rocking. “I need to know what juries do there. What are the verdicts? How do big companies fare in these places? Now, there are several jury research outfits that sell their data, and we subscribe to all of it, but it’s not always accurate. Lots of numbers but not a lot of useful info. You gotta dig and dig. You gotta call lawyers in these four places and find the dirt. Are you in, Kyle?”

As if he had a choice. “Sure. Sounds great.”

“I wouldn’t call it great. I need this by 7:30 Thursday morning. Have you pulled an all-nighter yet?”

“No. I’ve only been here for—”

“Right, right. Well, get to work. Memo form, but nothing fancy. We’ll meet here at 7:30 on Thursday with two other associates. You’ll have ten minutes to do your summary. Anything else?”

“Not right now.”

“I’ll be here until ten tonight, so zip me a note if you need something.”

“Thanks, and thanks for getting me out of Document Review.”

“What a waste.”

The desk phone was ringing as Kyle hustled out of the office. He went straight to the cube, grabbed his laptop, and raced off to the firm’s cavernous main library on the thirty-ninth floor. There were at least four smaller libraries scattered throughout, but Kyle had yet to find them.

He could not remember being so excited over a research project. It was a real case, with deadlines and an angry judge and strategic decisions in the air. The memo he was about to prepare would be read and relied on by real lawyers in the heat of battle.

Kyle almost felt sorry for the poor rookies left behind in Document Review. But he knew he’d be back there soon enough. He forgot dinner until almost 10:00 p.m., when he ate a cold sandwich from a machine while reading jury research. With no sleeping bag at hand, he left the library at midnight—there were at least twenty associates still there—and took a cab to his apartment. He slept four hours, then made the thirty-minute walk back to Broad Street in only twenty-two minutes. He was not about to start gaining weight. The firm’s private gym on the fortieth floor was a joke because it was eternally empty. A few of the secretaries used it during lunch, but no lawyer would be caught dead there.

His meter began promptly at 5:00 a.m. By 9:00, he was calling trial lawyers and defense lawyers in Duval County, Florida, in and around Jacksonville. He had
a long list of cases that had gone to trial, and he planned to talk to every lawyer he could get on the phone.

The more calls he made, the longer the list became. Lawyers in Florida, Memphis and western Tennessee, Lincoln and Omaha, and dozens in the Chicago area. He found more cases and more trials, and called more lawyers. He tracked every Barx trial in the past twenty years and compared their verdicts.

There was no word from Doug Peckham, no text message or e-mail on the FirmFone always lying on the table next to the legal pad. Kyle was delighted to be given such free rein, such discretion. Dale sent an e-mail and asked about lunch. He met her in the cafeteria for a quick salad at 1:00 p.m. She was still imprisoned in the Placid tomb, but mercifully three other rookies had been sent in to help with the grunt work. All three were thinking about quitting. She seemed genuinely pleased that someone she knew had been given a real task.

“Save me some Placid files,” Kyle said as they left the cafeteria. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

He left the library at midnight on Wednesday, after billing Barx for eighteen hours. Six the day before. He added two more early Thursday morning as he polished up the fifteen-page memo and rehearsed his ten-minute presentation to Peckham and a team of senior associates. At precisely 7:30, he approached the partner’s door and saw that it was closed.

“He’s expecting me at seven thirty,” he said politely to a secretary.

“I’ll let him know,” she said without making a move toward the phone.

Five minutes passed as Kyle tried to settle his nerves and appear calm. He had a knot in his stomach, and there was sweat around his collar. Why? he kept asking himself. It’s just a brief presentation before a friendly audience. We’re on the same team, right? Ten minutes, fifteen. He could hear voices in Peckham’s office. Finally, the door was opened by one of the associates, and Kyle walked in.

Peckham appeared surprised to see him. “Oh, yes, Kyle, I forgot,” he said, snapping his fingers and frowning. “I should’ve e-mailed. The hearing’s been postponed. You’re off the hook. Keep the memo. I might need it later.”

Kyle’s mouth fell open and he glanced around. Two associates were huddled over a small worktable, papers everywhere. And two more were seated near the desk. All four seemed to be amused.

The False Deadline.

Kyle, of course, had heard of this little maneuver. The hapless associate is run through the grinder to produce a useless memo or brief that is time sensitive but will never be used. But the client will nonetheless get billed, and will pay, so even though the research is not needed, it is at least profitable.

Kyle had heard of the False Deadline, but didn’t see this one coming. “Uh, sure, no problem,” he said, backtracking.

“Thanks,” Peckham said as he flipped the page of another document. “See you later.”

“Sure.”

Kyle was at the door when Peckham asked, “Say, Kyle, where’s the best place for Barx to try the case?”

“Nebraska, Fillmore County,” Kyle said eagerly.

Two of the associates laughed out loud, and the other two were highly entertained. One of them said, “Nebraska? No one tries cases in Nebraska.”

“Thanks, Kyle,” Peckham said, patronizing. “Nice work.” And please get out of here.

For $200,000 a year, plus treats, the job would naturally have its moments of humiliation. You’re getting paid for this, Kyle kept repeating as he slowly made his way up the stairs. Take it in stride. Be tough. Happens to everyone.

Back in the dungeon, he managed to smile. When Dale asked “How did it go?” he said, “It’s hard to say.” At the far end of the room two associates were plowing through mortgage files. Kyle nodded at them, then parked himself near Dale, arranged his pen, legal pad, and FirmFone. He opened a box, removed a file, and reentered the world of Placid Mortgage. It was known territory, and he felt oddly safe there. He would not be harmed or humiliated. A long career as a document reviewer would no doubt be dull, but it would also be much less hazardous than that of a litigator.

W
hen Kyle left the office late Friday afternoon, he considered his first week to be a success, though a dismal one. He billed Placid thirty hours and Barx Biomed twenty-six, and though virtually all of this valuable time would eventually mean little to either client, he wasn’t paid to worry about such things. He was there to do one thing—bill. If he kept up the pace and managed only fifty hours a week, he would hit twenty-five hundred for the year, a high number for a first-year and one that would catch the attention of the higher-ups.

For the week, Tabor the Gunner billed fifty hours. Dale, forty-four. Tim Reynolds, forty-three.

It was amazing how consumed they were with the clock after only five days on the job.

He walked to his apartment, changed into jeans, stuffed a phone in each pocket, and headed for the ballpark. The Mets were at home against the Pirates, who were already guaranteed another losing season. With seventeen games to go, the Mets were in first
place, two games ahead of the Phillies, and primed for another choke in the stretch.

Kyle had paid cash for two tickets sold by a broker recommended by a paralegal at the firm. As he made his way to Shea Stadium, he picked up his surveillance as it was picking up him.

His seat was fifteen rows behind the third-base dugout. The night was hot; the Mets were in first; the place was packed. He timed his entrance perfectly and sat down just as the first pitch was thrown in the bottom of the first. To his right was a young boy holding a baseball glove and eating ice cream. To his left was a real fan with a Mets cap, Mets jersey, blue and orange sweatbands, even goofy Mets eyeglasses. Under the cap and behind the glasses was Joey Bernardo, who had spent his entire life in Pittsburgh and hated the Mets almost as much as he hated the Phillies.

“Do not acknowledge me,” Kyle said as he watched the field.

“Don’t worry. Right now I hate your guts. And I hate the Mets almost as much as I hate you.”

“Thanks. I like the glasses.”

“Can I take them off? I can’t see a damned thing.”

“No.”

They were talking out of the corners of their mouths, just loud enough to hear each other. Shea was alive with every pitch, and there was little chance of being overheard.

Joey took a sip of a tall beer. “Are they really following you?”

“Oh, yes. Every day, everywhere.”

“Do they know that you know?”

“I don’t think so.”

“But why?”

“Basic espionage tradecraft.”

“Of course.”

“Information is crucial. The more they watch and listen, the more they know about me. If they know what I eat, drink, wear, watch, listen to, and who I talk to and hang out with and where I like to shop and browse and sneak away to, then they might one day be able to use it all to their advantage. Sounds pretty dull to you and me, but not to these guys.”

More beer as Joey absorbed this.

A ball bounced off the left-field wall, scoring a run, and the crowd was on its feet. Kyle and Joey acted like all the other fans. When things had settled down, Kyle continued: “For example, I’ve found this wonderful little store in midtown that sells all sorts of spy gadgets. Tiny cameras, hidden mikes, phone-tapping devices, and some high-tech stuff that the military has left behind. It’s run by a couple of misfits who claim to be ex-CIA, but then people who are really ex-CIA don’t talk about it. I found the store online, at the office, not at the apartment, and I’ve been there twice when I was able to shake surveillance. I might need the store one day, but if the goons knew I had discovered the place, they would really be interested.”