The Mourning Sexton (5 page)

“Vintage Jack Bellows.”

“I hope you drill him a new asshole. That stuff he said, it's bullshit, Samson. Nasty, below-the-belt bullshit.”

“I'm okay with it.”

“Totally uncalled for—way, way out of bounds. I am so pissed right now I can't see straight. If I had a baseball bat—”

“Sancho.”

“I'm not kidding. If I had—”

“Sancho.”

A pause. “What?”

“I'm okay with it.”

“Ah, come on. How can you—”

“I've heard worse. Get some sleep. We'll talk in the morning.”

Hirsch walked over to the window of his apartment. It was starting to snow, the big flakes briefly illuminated as they floated through the light of the streetlamps.

Hirsch understood, of course. This wasn't rocket science. Bellows's goal was intimidation, to demoralize him, maybe undermine his commitment to the case. The execution was over the top, but everything about Bellows was over the top. Nevertheless, the strategy was sound and based on two reasonable assumptions. First, that Hirsch knew that he was alone and facing three platoons of big-firm litigators, and second, that Hirsch knew that many in his profession viewed him as a pariah.

No, the strategy was simple and sound. Rub his nose in it, and do so publicly.

What surprised Hirsch was his reaction.

He wasn't intimidated.

He wasn't demoralized.

And his commitment to the case hadn't lessened.

Quite the contrary.

Once upon a time, he had loved a good courtroom battle. Indeed, he had craved a trial the way others craved gambling or mountain climbing or cocaine. He used to joke that a good cross-examination was better than good sex—and he spoke from experience, having had plenty of both. He needed trials. He sought them. He never felt more alive than inside a courtroom in the middle of a trial.

He understood that side of himself. Not back then, but he'd had time to mull it over. He'd had time to realize that the drive that made him a success had also destroyed him. He now understood that as his duties as managing partner began cutting into his litigation time, he'd started looking for those highs elsewhere. But there was a crucial difference between life inside and outside the courtroom—a difference he failed to grasp at the time. The rush he'd sought within the controlled environment of a courtroom was far riskier to seek outside. During trial, that shot of adrenaline helped him carve up a hostile witness with icy precision. Outside the courtroom, it pushed him ever closer to the edge, from after-hours quickies with young paralegals on his office couch to forty-eight-hour gambling marathons in Vegas to his final night of infamy—a night that shifted into high gear as he staggered off the
Casino Queen
at two in the morning with six grand in his pocket and six shots of Jack Daniel's in his bloodstream. First stop was a strip club on the east side, where he had two more bourbons and a lap dance from a red-haired Cuban girl named Juanita. Standing outside the club, the world around him slightly off kilter, he'd flagged a cab and told the driver to cruise the streets of East St. Louis for some action. The sequence of events got fuzzy from that point until he awoke later that day. It wasn't the first time events had gotten fuzzy, but it's one thing to awaken in a canopied bed in a suite at the Bellagio with the sated glow of a big night at the craps table topped by a session with an A-list call girl. It's another to awaken facedown in your own vomit on the frayed carpet of a hot-sheets motel room while a streetwalker named LaTavia is on her back on the bed with a crack pipe and drug paraphernalia scattered on the mattress, her naked body already in the early stage of rigor mortis.

The life he'd constructed since his release from prison was designed to steer him clear of anything that might resurrect the old David Hirsch.

Hirsch pressed his forehead against the icy window. He could feel the change within him. Nothing dramatic, of course. He wasn't about to rise from the basement laboratory table, yank off the electrical cords, lurch through the forest toward the sleeping villagers. But he could feel a change nevertheless.

After a moment, he turned away from the darkness.

As he undressed for bed, he forced himself to forget about Jack Bellows and the lawsuit and to focus instead on tomorrow's details. He'd already made the necessary calls to confirm the morning
minyan
. He'd already skimmed through the client files in preparation for the creditors committee meetings that started at ten
A
.
M
.

He turned on the reading light and lifted
The Guermantes Way
off the nightstand. For the past few months, he'd been reading Marcel Proust's masterwork. He opened the book, glad to return to the fashionable salon of the Guermantes and leave, at least for the night, the wage-earner plans and wrongful death action and general wreckage of his life. But even as he rejoined his narrator among the snobs and the wits and the hypocrites and the phonies of Parisian society at the time of the Dreyfus Affair, he found himself remembering similar evenings at his own country club, at a time almost as distant and a place almost as nasty as the salon of the Guermantes.

CHAPTER 6

T
he other lawyers arrived without the Jack the Ripper fanfare.

Counsel for the air-bag manufacturer entered silently. No press release and no hype. Just a one-sentence entry of appearance stating: “Now come Bruce A. Conroy and Elizabeth Ann Purcell of the law firm of Egger & Thomas and hereby enter their appearance as counsel for Defendant OLM, Inc.” Hirsch received his copy of the court filing in the next day's mail. He'd heard of Egger & Thomas. It was an insurance defense firm that dated back to World War Two. He'd never heard of Bruce Conroy or Elizabeth Purcell, but that meant nothing. He'd been gone for a while.

Counsel for Peterson Tire Corporation entered softly as well, but with an invitation to lunch. Hirsch received it two days after Jack Bellows's performance on the ten o'clock news. He was at his desk in the late afternoon when his secretary buzzed to tell him that there was a Mr. Guttner on line three.

“Good afternoon, David.” The voice smooth as silk. “Marvin Guttner, at Emerson, Burke. How are you?”

“Fine.”

“We entered our appearance today, David, on behalf of Peterson Tire in the Shifrin matter.”

Hirsch was not surprised. Guttner had represented Peterson Tire for years, and his firm was lead defense counsel in the massive tire litigation pending before Brendan McCormick.

“As we were preparing our court papers this morning, David, I realized that I have never had the pleasure of litigating against you.”

“I certainly hope it won't be a pleasure for you.”

That earned a rumbling chortle. Even if you'd never seen Marvin Guttner, you could tell from his voice that the body generating it was ample.

“Well put, David. Spoken like a true warrior. And speaking of combat, I thought perhaps that it would make sense for the two of us to chat a bit about your case before we don our battle gear and heft our cudgels.”

Hirsch shook his head, amused. As if Guttner would ever get within a mile of a litigation brawl. Although he controlled more than ten million dollars in litigation business and held an important committee chairmanship of the litigation division of the American Bar Association, Guttner had not tried a case in more than a decade and had never done a jury trial. He was the litigation equivalent of a Pentagon general—good at the politics and the meetings and “the big picture,” glad to let the troops and tacticians fight the battle.

“Okay,” Hirsch said, “I'm listening.”

“Oh, not over the telephone, David. I had in mind a real chat. An opportunity for the two of us to get to know one another, to bandy about the issues in your case. How does lunch tomorrow sound? I can arrange a private room at my club. Shall we say noon?”

And thus at noon the following day, Hirsch stood alone at the east window of a private dining room at the St. Louis Club in Clayton. Off in the distance, the Gothic spires and turrets of Washington University jutted over the bare trees as if from some walled town in medieval France.

He was intrigued to finally meet Marvin Guttner, rumored to be the highest paid partner at the venerable Emerson, Burke & McGee, a six-hundred-attorney law firm that traced its St. Louis roots to the Civil War era and represented many of the region's largest corporations. To be the highest paid partner at that firm was no mean feat even for someone with the correct pedigree, but it was extraordinary for a man who not only had
not
attended the proper prep school in St. Louis but whose prominent involvement in St. Peter's Episcopal Church in snooty Ladue did nothing to dispel rumors of his less-than-Episcopal origins in Youngstown, Ohio.

Hirsch turned to the sound of the door opening.

“Ah, yes. Greetings, David.”

Guttner's detractors dubbed him Jabba the Gutt, and there was a family resemblance. He was fat and bald, with heavy-lidded eyes, broad nose, bulging double chin spilling over his collar, and liver-colored lips that sagged open. Even so, as he approached to shake hands, Hirsch was struck by how gracefully the big man moved. He seemed to glide across the room in his elegant gray suit, starched white shirt, and gleaming black shoes.

“Delighted to finally meet you, David.”

Guttner's lips pulled back into a grimace meant to pass as a smile. He gestured toward the dining table, which was large enough to accommodate eight but was set that day for two.

“Please make yourself comfortable. I shall have Julian bring us menus.”

The elderly black man named Julian arrived, departed with their drink orders, returned with iced teas, departed quietly, returned to take their lunch orders, and departed again—and all the while Guttner kept the conversation moving smoothly from one innocuous topic to the next, from the Blues game last night to the latest sex scandal in Washington, from the current episode of
The Sopranos
to the recent litigation tussle between Microsoft and one of the cable companies, and not once did he allude to the lengthy gap in Hirsch's legal career or to the events giving rise to that gap.

Even though Hirsch had heard that Guttner could be charming, he was taken by how engaging the man could be in person. Taken, but not taken in. Guttner's reputation preceded him. He could be charming when it served his purpose, but charm did not often serve his purpose. Clients treasured him as someone who would implement whatever litigation strategy they desired, no matter how harsh or oppressive or outrageous. Attorneys on the other side despised him as a brutal opponent who never apologized but was never vulnerable because he appeared in court only on ceremonial or procedural occasions, and even then was always surrounded by an entourage. Subordinates feared him as a cold taskmaster who expected obedience to whatever the client desired or he demanded. He bullied attorneys within his firm, including those who were years his senior, and regularly issued commands on Friday afternoons to underlings who knew that weekend plans were no excuse. Over the years, Guttner had summoned many a junior partner back from vacation for this or that “crisis,” most of which seemed to get resolved just about the time the harried lackey returned from Hawaii or Aspen or Tuscany. They put up with this abuse, these ambitious young and not-so-young attorneys, because Guttner had the power within the firm to shower money and resources and perks on those who pleased him and to banish those who did not.

Julian brought their lunch orders—broiled trout for Hirsch, an off-menu hamburger for Guttner that consisted of nearly a pound of chopped sirloin topped with a thick slice of Bermuda onion and a large scoop of soft cheddar cheese. Juice oozed down into the enormous bun as the room filled with the tangy odor of ketchup and the sharp scents of cheese and sliced onion. Hirsch eyed it with amazement. The logistics of getting the thing into your mouth seemed every bit as daunting as consuming it all in one sitting. Guttner, transformed by the sight and smell of his lunch, attacked it with a feral intensity.

Hirsch was only halfway through his trout when Guttner pushed back from an empty plate and removed the napkin from under his chin. There were beads of sweat on his face. He patted his forehead dry with his cloth napkin, dropped it onto his plate, and stifled a belch. His appetite sated, he settled back in his chair and resumed his genial aura.

“If not for the fatality, David, one could almost be amused by the irony.”

Hirsch gave him a puzzled look. “What irony?”

“Your lawsuit, David.” He stifled another belch. “My client has been in front of Judge McCormick for nigh on five years in what is now our nation's largest product liability case. At issue in that lawsuit is the performance of my client's Turbo XL tires. And what should happen? The very law clerk that the judge assigns to the case dies in an automobile accident while driving a vehicle equipped with Turbo XL tires. Even worse, her passenger that night, indeed, the owner of the vehicle, is none other than the Honorable Brendan McCormick. That, my good man, is irony on a grand, almost absurd scale. More fitting for one of those legal thrillers that are all the rage these days. Grist for the Grisham mill, eh?”

Hirsch said nothing.

“With one crucial difference. This is the real world, and in the real world we both know one thing about that accident.”

Guttner paused, a sheen of perspiration on his face, a faint glimmer in his dull eyes.

Hirsch waited. Guttner stared at him.

Hirsch asked, “What is the one thing we both know?”

“That there was not a damn thing wrong with any of those tires.”

“I assumed that would be your position, Marvin.”

“Hardly just mine, David. I had one of our accident reconstruction experts review the evidence. She sees no indication of tire malfunction.”

“She needs to look closer.”

“Come, come, David. We can be frank with one another. This lunch is off the record. Whatever is said here goes no further. You know, and I know you know, that there is no evidence of culpability on the part of my client.”

“I've lost cases I should have won, Marvin, and I've won cases I should have lost.”

“This is one case you are not going to win.”

Hirsch shrugged. “Juries can be unpredictable.”

“Assuming you even get to a jury. What if the judge throws the case out before trial?”

“As you said, Marvin, let's be frank with one another. No City of St. Louis judge is going to toss this case before trial. We'll be picking a jury a year from now.”

“So what? Let us imagine that you get your chance to play Clarence Darrow to a typical city jury of troglodytes. That's only chapter one. We both know that the existence of St. Louis juries is the reason why we have a court of appeals. I am quite confident that my client will prevail at the end of this lawsuit.”

Hirsch smiled. “And this is why you asked me to lunch?”

Guttner chuckled. “Touché”

The fat man leaned forward, his smile fading.

Finally,
Hirsch thought.

“As so often is the case, David, the economics of the lawsuit bear little relation to its merits. Although my client will no doubt prevail in the end, the price of victory will be substantial. That same calculus applies for the other two defendants, each of whom can expect to incur legal fees well above their liability exposure in the case.”

“You make a lot of assumptions for a lawsuit that's a month old.”

“I think not, David. Even if you could win, where are your damages? This is a wrongful death claim on behalf of a woman who had no husband, no children, no siblings, and no financial dependents. There is no claim for lost income or lost support. As for loss of companionship, the only possible claimant is her father. While we will no doubt learn a great deal more about that relationship during discovery, our preliminary investigation suggests that the father and daughter were not especially close. Indeed, some might say they were estranged at the time of her death. But even if they were close—indeed, even if the elder Shifrin takes the stand and tells a tale of paternal devotion worthy of a Hallmark greeting card—this is not a big damage case.”

“And your point is?”

“My point is that these defendants are corporations, David. From their perspective, this is nothing more than a routine one-car fatality on an icy road. Is her death regrettable? Certainly. Does that make them blameworthy? Certainly not. Does the case have any significance as a future precedent for them? Hardly. A courtroom victory advances no master strategy for any of them, and defeat establishes no harmful precedent. That suggests certain possibilities, David, including that these defendants might be willing to explore a resolution that would rid them of the case
now
for an amount less than their anticipated litigation costs in the future. Especially my client, in light of the decedent's connection to the judge.”

“Did you know Judith Shifrin?”

“Not really. I tend to leave the daily grind of my cases to those more interested in the procedural minutiae of litigation. She was present at one of the pretrial conferences I attended. I recall a little wisp of a girl with dark hair and keen eyes. The attorneys who dealt with her on a regular basis spoke favorably of her diligence and ability.” He puckered his lips thoughtfully. “By all accounts, the judge thought highly of her.”

“So I understand.”

“And that, my good man, is the wild card here. My client can safely assume that Judge McCormick has at least a passing interest in your lawsuit. I should think His Honor would be pleased if your case reached a swift and satisfactory conclusion, and if he is pleased, then perhaps some of that good karma will spill over to other cases involving my client. Conversely, if your case becomes difficult and unpleasant, which it most certainly will if we do not settle early on, then who knows what else that unpleasantness might befoul? But I must emphasize, David, that the settlement window is narrowing even as we speak.”

“Why?”

“Because every dollar I spend on defense is a dollar less I can spend on settlement. I have five lawyers and two paralegals assigned to this case. Think of them as my pack of Dobermans growling and clawing at their cage doors. At some point soon, I will have no choice but to unlock those cages. When that happens, the settlement window slams shut. Quite simply, David, if you would like to settle your case, now is the time. Ah, here's Julian, hopefully bringing us news of today's dessert offerings.”