Writ of Execution (37 page)

Paul bent down, pulled him up, and came up behind him in one seamless action. “Security!” he commanded, but the first two sturdy uniforms that materialized beside him were city police, followed closely by Sergeant Cheney.

Riesner had fallen onto the ground, where he lay with his cheek nestled into the garish pattern of the red carpet. He raised his head and put a hand on his neck. When he took it away, he stared at the blood and his eyes widened.

He saw Nina.

“You!” he said. “I’ll have you arrested. . . .” But hands were pulling at him, pointing at the man with his hands behind his back, groaning. His jacket was still zipped up and he wore jeans and Nikes. His face was pale and something was wrong with his goatee. Paul had torn his goatee almost off, but there was no bleeding. The man’s mouth opened in another groan and Nina saw the gap in the front teeth, the gap which she knew well.

She bent down and gingerly picked up the white container Ully Miller had dropped. Another weapon? Small, plastic—

Dental floss.

31

IF YOU DON’T like somebody, but they do you a good turn, and you’re a normal person, you tend to look upon them more softly. And if you don’t like somebody, but you do them a good turn, same thing: You have a positive stake in this person.

But this is not the psychology of lawyers. In the psychology of lawyers, you have been one-upped in the former case, and you have kicked butt in the latter case. In neither situation does one party like the other party any better.

So it was that Jeff Riesner’s first words to Nina at the meeting in her conference room that Friday were “Still in this dump, I see.” He was resplendent in a shiny gray suit, no sign of the incident in the casino two days before except a Band-Aid on the left side of his neck where Ully Miller—or Ulrich Miller, as they called him in the papers—had begun to cut his throat.

As he pulled out one of the office chairs, which, true, were from Office Depot, on sale, guaranteed stackable, and sat gingerly down, Nina’s impulse was to pour her hot double espresso over his head. But that would have been a waste of good espresso.

Was Riesner humiliated at being saved by Paul? No doubt. He hadn’t thanked Paul yet, and he probably never would. Right now, Paul was on the road, driving back to the central Coast, to pick up the threads in Carmel.

He was gone. She couldn’t think about that right now. She snapped back into her focus on Riesner. Would he rather have been gutted like a snapper, murdered in full view of dozens of people?

Maybe so. At least he wouldn’t be sitting here today, summoned by Nina, who, having pepper-sprayed and mortified him, had called a meeting of casino officials that he could not avoid.

His unsurprising public reaction to all these latest events was to affect unruffled aplomb. His personal reaction had lodged like Ully Miller’s knife somewhere between his corrupt black heart and slimy soul. He would not forget or forgive her for any of it, that she knew for sure.

John Jovanic laughed about something into his cell phone. Prince Hatfield, an ex–Nevada state senator, member of the Nevada Gaming Control Board, and Ully Miller’s boss, sat next to him, trying to get comfortable in one chair when it would have taken two to hold his girth. And Thomas Munzinger, Global Gaming’s vice president, he of the Marlboro Man face and the cowboy hat, was at the far end of the table. He was waiting.

“John,” Riesner said, shaking hands across the crowded table. “Mr. Hatfield. Hello, Thomas.”

Munzinger nodded, not a pleasant nod.

The second hand of the wall clock jigged past the twelve, signifying that it was ten A.M. exactly, and Munzinger said, “Let’s get started.” Jovanic murmured something and hung up. Nina sipped her coffee and wondered if she could carry it off. A year before, she would have been tongue-tied with anxiety, but she had changed. The men in the room seemed to sense this. Riesner was watching her uneasily.

“Gentlemen,” she said, “thank you for coming. But where are your attorneys?”

“We’ve talked to our attorneys and decided to leave them behind today. We can handle this,” said Jovanic.

Nina shrugged. “I won’t take up much of your valuable time this morning. I have a press conference at eleven.”

“And that’s what this is all about,” Munzinger said softly.

“Yes. I will be frank. I think you have a problem, and I think I have a solution.

“Your problem is that I am about to go on national television and discuss how Ulrich Miller knew the Greed Machine was going to hit. I am going to be asked about the random number generators, about the sevens on top of the line and below the line but hardly ever on the line, about the house percentages being carefully set in a nonrandom fashion, about the big spenders who can slip in their club cards and change the odds. And of course, about the nonrandom nature of the microchip in the high-jackpot slot machines.

“I am likely to be asked just how important slot machines are to the state of Nevada, and I will of course answer truthfully that slots are Nevada’s biggest industry. And I will be compelled to point out that in the case of this particular jackpot, all Mr. Miller did was predict the jackpot, not tamper with it. In other words, all he did was take advantage of the way the machine was already legally rigged by Global Gaming.”

“That statement is actionable,” John Jovanic began. He looked at Munzinger, who gave one short shake of his head. Jovanic sat back.

Munzinger said, “At the very least, he stole proprietary information from us to win a jackpot. That is illegal. Therefore the jackpot is void.”

“I thought you would say that,” Nina said. “In fact, let me try to state your position. It is that you are going to wait for Judge Amagosian to rule on the Writ of Execution, and then you are going to step in and void the jackpot if Jessie Potter wins the case. So she won’t get the money anyway, at least without a formidable fight in court.”

“There is still Mr. Riesner,” Munzinger said. “He might win.”

“There is still my fee,” Riesner said at the same time. “Forty percent of the jackpot. That was the contingency agreement with Atchison Potter. I have a notarized retainer agreement.”

“No doubt. Let’s say Judge Amagosian decides in your favor. If you billed at a fair rate of, say, $200 per hour, your fee would be somewhere around ten thousand dollars. Of course, I’m being generous with that estimate. So if you win, Mr. Riesner, what happens to the jackpot? You’re hoping that at the end you will be awarded almost three million dollars, and the rest will go to pay off Mr. Potter’s margin calls. But the end will be a long way away for you.”

“I have a contract,” Riesner repeated to the whole table. He turned to Munzinger. “I practically got killed by your buddy Miller. He killed my client. I have suffered a lot of trauma. I am going to collect.”

Munzinger ignored him. He said to Nina, “What is your proposition?”

“Simple,” Nina said. “You gentlemen persuade Mr. Riesner to drop his claim, which will end the writ hearing and allow Mrs. Potter to take the jackpot. Sign a waiver of all claims against Mrs. Potter for the jackpot. After all, she is an innocent third party. Nobody is suggesting she had anything to do with Miller.”

“And what do we get out of this mess?” Munzinger said.

“I’ll have to cancel out of the press conference due to other commitments,” Nina said. “And so will Kenny Leung, Mrs. Potter, and my staff. We will sign an agreement not to discuss this settlement of your potential claim against Mrs. Potter. At all. Including, of course, the microchip information.”

“Most of what you plan to say is already public knowledge, available to anyone who reads the newspaper. And we can tie you up for a very long time, and probably get a gag order,” Munzinger said.

“That’s right,” Riesner said. “Let’s get real. My firm and the Gaming Control Board and Global Gaming—you are gonna get smashed so hard you’ll wish you never took the bar.”

“Maybe. But you may be surprised at the fight we’ll put up. I’m betting we will win down the line,” Nina said. “That’s the alternative, and we’ll beat you the hard way if it takes ten years, and we will get Mr. Riesner’s fee knocked down to something reasonable, and I will ask for my attorney’s fees ten years down the line. Meantime, the information about the slot machines will appear as major news all over the place, not just in the local papers, even if you get a gag order, leaked by persons unknown and unfindable by you. Bet on it.”

“That boy, Kenny Leung, he’s the smartest kid I’ve ever seen when it comes to computers,” Prince Hatfield said thoughtfully. “I don’t know if we ever would have known how Miller did it if you hadn’t brought him to us yesterday. What’s going on with Miller, Mrs. Reilly?”

“He’s still being held at the Douglas County jail while the Nevada D.A. drafts up the murder charges,” Nina said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he tries for an insanity defense.”

“May we have a few minutes?” Munzinger said.

“We don’t need a few minutes,” Riesner said.

“Quiet, Jeff,” Munzinger said.

“Of course.” Nina got up. “Oh, one other thing,” she said. “Part of any settlement among us. You gentlemen know Marlis Djina, the attorney who has been working with the Nevada Empowered Women’s Project?”

John Jovanic said, “The Kiss My Foot campaign. The lawyer.”

“That’s right. You also agree to a one-inch-heel maximum for shoes for the cocktail waitresses at Prize’s. No higher, unless the waitress wants it higher. The rest of the casinos that haven’t already will fall in line.”

She glided out. In the outer office Sandy was pretending to do some word processing. She straightened up and waggled an eyebrow. Nina put her finger to her lips. Then she went over to the wall and put her ear to it. It was cheap, paper-thin Sheetrock, not thick insulated paneling like the expensive office walls of Riesner and Munzinger.

She could hear perfectly.

Sandy couldn’t stand it. She tiptoed over, as well as a person of her substance could tiptoe, and put her ear to the wall too.

“She’s a menace,” Riesner was telling the rest. “We need to teach her a lesson. She’s lying. She couldn’t hold on six months. I have a friend at her bank, and I happen to know she hasn’t got squat for a bank account. She couldn’t bankroll lunch at a deli.”

Nina’s eyes narrowed and she gritted her teeth. Sandy put a hand on her arm.

“The publicity could bring in federal regulators,” Munzinger said. “They don’t mind looking the other way as long as it stays quiet, but she’s got CNN, Fox News, coming over here in half an hour. I heard
20/20
wants to do a story.”

“No,” a masculine voice said in horrified tones.

“It’s all legal,” Riesner went on. “
20/20
already did a story, you remember, couple of years ago. And nobody cared. Why all the panic? It’s all been legitimized in your own state supreme court, by your A.G.’s office. You’re not gonna panic, are you? You think anybody’s gonna care about this story? You think you’re gonna lose one dollar of business? Think again. I’ve seen Reilly herself down there at Prize’s tossing in the quarters, and she’ll be there again come Saturday night.”

“Maybe if you adjusted your fees some, Jeff, we could get her to cover them as part of the settlement,” someone said. “My boss wants this over, and he told me not to take her to the wall. His wife was a client of hers. He has a soft spot.” It was John Jovanic, so he must be talking about Steve Rossmoor, the manager of Prize’s.

Ah. Thank you, Steve, Nina thought. So she did have a friend in the castle.

“Not gonna happen,” Riesner said.

“You have the hots for this little gal, don’t you, Jeff?” said a rumbling voice that could only belong to Prince Hatfield. “Makes you stubborn. Can’t let her whup your ass. Will you take fifty thousand?”

“No!”

“And the continued association of Global Gaming with your partners for our business needs?” Munzinger said.

“Oh. Now I see it. You’re gonna sacrifice me. The fatted calf—”

“Pretty lean at the moment,” Prince Hatfield said. Nina and Sandy heard the jolly laughs in the background. “Fifty is better than nothing.”

“You’re making a big mistake,” Riesner said. “You give her this, she’s gonna think she can do anything in this town. You’ll see her again. She’ll sting you every time if you don’t deal with her now.”

“Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee,” someone said. More laughter.

“What about the cocktail waitresses, John?” Prince Hatfield said. “The heel height for the cocktail servers?”

“You think it’s a deal-breaker?” John Jovanic said. “ ’Cuz if it’s not legs, it’s got to be tits, no offense to you ass men.” More chuckles all around. Both Sandy and Nina gritted their teeth.

“I think we have about twenty minutes to get this contained,” somebody said.

“Well,” Jovanic said, “the club owners of the Northern Nevada Gambling Association have been discussing this at great length. And we already decided to let the girls lower the shoe height.”

“Yeah? We’re all gettin’ pussy-whipped today,” somebody said.

Jovanic said, “Uh huh. We’re going to give ’em the low heels, but we’re gonna lower the bustiers by an inch. All new costumes.” Nina was pretty sure she was hearing some high fives in the conference room amid the general hilarity. “An inch for an inch,” Jovanic said, all choked up with laughter.

“Okay, so we’re all set,” Prince Hatfield said.

“No way,” Riesner said. “I haven’t agreed to anything.”

“Shut up, Jeff. Or we reduce your take to twenty thousand,” Thomas Munzinger said. “Okay? We all set?” Murmurs of approbation. Nina and Sandy tiptoed quickly to the front of the office and Sandy slid into her seat. Nina looked over Sandy’s shoulder at what Sandy was writing.

“@#%KJHCV:,” was all Sandy’s neat letterhead paper said. The door opened. Nina assumed a face of extreme gravity.

“Please.”

She followed the arm wave into the roomful of men, who seemed to her now like a bunch of the boys in high school she remembered. She sat down and folded her hands.

“In the interests of all of us getting back to work, we are going to accept your proposal,” Thomas Munzinger said.

“Good move,” Nina said.

“One caveat.”

“Yes?”

“Mr. Riesner has indicated his willingness to reduce his fee to one hundred thousand dollars as his part in settling this matter. Now, that’s very fair. Of course, the money would have to come from Mrs. Potter’s winnings.”

“Sorry,” Nina said. “No deal.”

“Seven million dollars and you’re kicking about a hundred grand?” Prince Hatfield said.

“Not one dime out of my client’s money for this asshole,” Nina said.

They looked at each other. Riesner was, well, she thought, there was only one way to describe it.

Riesner was bullshit.

Jovanic looked to Munzinger. Munzinger looked to Prince Hatfield.

“Okay,” Prince Hatfield said. “We’ll cover his fee.”

“I’ll prepare the waiver and the settlement agreement,” Nina said. “The documents will be faxed to you tomorrow.” She stood up. “Thank you, gentlemen and Mr. Riesner,” she said, and John Jovanic gave a hearty laugh.