Dead Ringer (10 page)

“Thank you,” St. Amien replied for the both of them, and Bennie kept her thoughts to herself. At this point, the only thing worse than losing her client to Bull Linette would be losing him to Miss Texas.

They walked down a long corridor, also damask-covered, with exquisite offices for associates on both sides of the hall. Bennie tried not to count the number of associate offices—ten in all, five to a side—or to hear the sounds of a hugely successful law firm—phones ringing, fax machines
zz-zzt
ing away, Xerox copies
ca-thunk
ing, and lawyers on the phone calling each other assholes. Bennie’s firm used to sound like that, and she missed it. She sneaked a look at her cell phone clipped to her purse, but the green light wasn’t flashing. No message from the kids about Alice.

“Here we are,” breathed the hostess, opening a heavy mahogany door. It swung into a huge conference room populated by men in Brioni suits and spread collars. The air was filled with multilingual chatter, and the people milled, talking, eating, and drinking around a glistening conference table covered with platters of cheese Danish, bagels of every type, and thin, oily slices of Nova Scotia salmon. Mounds of cream cheese and fancy jellies filled out the spread on the left-hand side, and flanking it on the right sat a plate of knotted rolls, shiny with egg whites.

“What a spread!” Bennie heard herself say, then winced. Though she was broke, she had to stop acting it. And she could feel St. Amien stiffen beside her.

“Mr. Linette did mention something about food,” he said under his breath. “I’ve already eaten, however.”

“Me too.”
Yesterday.
Bennie entered the room, noticing that bald spots were turning in their direction. There wasn’t a lawyer in the room who wouldn’t have cut off his left briefcase to represent St. Amien, and Bennie felt suddenly what it must have felt like to be a man dating Marilyn Monroe. Bull Linette himself was already charging through his guests to meet them.

“Bennie!” Bill boomed, extending a huge hand. He stood a brawny six foot three in his custom dark suit, with the heavy shoulders of a Villanova quarterback. His physical presence impressed friends, enemies, and juries, and he knew as much. His features were proportional, with round blue eyes, a fresh sunburn over a largish nose, and a toothy smile that was broad and overbleached. “Lady, it’s so damn good to see you again!”

“You too, Bill.” Bennie extended her hand and acted as if it didn’t hurt when Linette tried to break it. “Looks like we’ll be working together.”

“So I hear, and I’m thrilled!” Linette’s strawberry blond hair had thinned, but his eyes were bright as he looked down. “I need someone with your street savvy on my team.”

My
team? Bennie let it go. She had brought the homecoming king to the prom, and that said it all. “Bill, let me introduce you to my client, Robert St. Amien. I believe you’ve already spoken.”
Heh.

“Bob!” Linette fairly shouted at St. Amien, grinning and pumping his fine hand with vigor. “Great to meet you, just great! Welcome aboard! From what I hear about you, Bob, you could try this case yourself!”

“Nice to meet you, also,” St. Amien said, smiling in a well-mannered way. “Please, call me Robert.”

“Robert! Great! Have a bagel and a schmear! Meet the gang!” Linette looped his hand around St. Amien’s back, scooped him up, and steered him into the room. “You know Herm Mayer, right?”

Bennie tagged along like a fifth wheel, telling herself not to worry. St. Amien was coming home with her because she was a maverick and didn’t call him Bob. Also he loved French manicures and didn’t know she was flat broke. She checked her cell phone. No green flashing. The kids still hadn’t found Alice.
Damn! Shit! Fuck!
She got it out of her system and concentrated on introducing herself to Herman Mayer.

“Pleased to meet you,” Mayer said, shaking Bennie’s hand. He was tall, about St. Amien’s age and of average build in a brownish Brooks Brothers suit. His light brown eyes matched almost exactly the tortoiseshell of his horn-rimmed glasses, and his smile seemed a little stiff. He struck Bennie as being as plain and no-nonsense as St. Amien was classy and full of nonsense. “I understand that you are representing Robert St. Amien,” Mayer said.

“I am.”

“Then we shall be seeing quite a lot of each other. Robert and I are for many years in this business. We were both greatly wronged by these actions of the trade association.”

“Trade associations sometimes get out of line, and they need a reminder now and then,” Bennie said, guarded. She had to assume that anything she said would go straight back to Linette.

“Bill feels very optimistic about our chances of an early settlement, perhaps this month, in the neighborhood of fifty million. My wife, who is my adviser in all things, disagrees with him. But she is unfortunately in Germany. We make our home in Osnabrück.”

“I see.”

“She prefers it, and I can commute easily, twice a month.” Mayer’s eyes narrowed and his tone lowered. He inclined his head toward Bennie. “I was wondering what you thought about that. If you agreed with this assessment.”

“If I agree? With Bill or your wife?” Bennie asked, stalling. Clearly, Mayer wasn’t one of Linette’s apostles. It would be another lovely aspect of this case; while the lawyers tried to steal each other’s clients, the clients went lawyer shopping. This lawsuit was a singles bar where everybody had their eyes on the door. A class action, but nobody was showing any class.

“You aren’t sure you agree,” Mayer said matter-of-factly.

“I didn’t say that.” Bennie hated people putting words in her mouth. “I’d love to talk to Bill more about that, and I will. That’s the purpose of this meeting, I believe.” She didn’t contradict Linette, because she was trying to be a good team player. Not that it came naturally to her. There was a reason she rowed a single scull.

“I quite understand,” Mayer said, an edge to his tone. If he wanted dirt, he wasn’t getting it. He straightened up, and Bennie shifted her attention to Bill. He had finished introducing St. Amien to everyone as his new girlfriend and was cuddling him into a chair to his right, at the head of the conference table. If Bennie didn’t watch out, he’d go for second base.

“It was great meeting you, Herman,” she said, excusing herself, and made her way to the head of the table. Lawyers jumped for the seats as if they were playing musical chairs, and St. Amien was signaling her to the empty seat next to him. She wedged her way over, checking her cell phone on the fly. No message.

“Thanks,
Bob,
” she whispered, leaning over, and he smiled in response as Linette stood up, towering over the head of the table.

“Friends, Romans, Irishmen,” he began, and everybody around the table laughed heartily as they settled down and pulled shiny pens and fresh legal pads from their briefcases.

Bennie did the same, as did the men sitting opposite her, big guns in the class-action bar. Mick Brenstein, in his neat little glasses and precisely knotted rep tie. Zander Kerpov, pale and gaunt, whose sunken eyes expressed all the warmth of Ivan Lendl or Dostoyevsky at his most playful. Next to him was José Quinones, a short man with dark skin, an easy smile, and a thick pinky ring in the shape of a horseshoe. Math anxiety prevented Bennie from totaling their yearly incomes and assets. Hers, she knew with ease. And still no messages.

“This is the first day of the rest of your litigation,” Linette continued, pausing for laughter, “and I hope we will finish it by the end of this month!” He beamed with pride and burst into sudden applause. Everybody around the table clapped, too, and Bennie joined in. Why, she didn’t know. Because they were gonna get rich quick? Because the home team was gonna beat State? Those who didn’t matter enough to get seats at the table were relegated to clapping from their seats along the wall, and Linette was careful to make eye contact with them as he spoke.

“Last week we filed a complaint in federal district court, and you are being provided with a copy right now.” He gestured to a male associate who had materialized from behind the lox and was distributing copies around the table. “It states, in relevant part, that as a class we are a hundred strong—and growing!”

More applause.

“That we are all brothers—and sisters—here, and we all share common questions of law and fact.”

Applause again.

“And that this action can and should be maintained as a class, and that my client is fully ready, willing, and able to represent the class as a whole.”

Applause, except for St. Amien and Bennie. She didn’t want to stop Linette now, in front of everyone, and nothing he had said fixed the determination of who would be lead plaintiff, or lead lawyer. The choice would be something she, Bill, and the big guns would hammer out in private, and the court would have to approve. The three guns would vote with their pal, and the contest would be between Linette and Bennie. For now, she held her applause, and her fire.

“Friends, I know we haven’t officially determined the class representative so soon,” Linette said, pointedly looking at Bennie, “and that is something ultimately for the court to decide. Today, I wanted to bring all of us here, so we can meet each other as friends and break bread together. On another day, we can move on to a discussion of the facts of the case, and the statements the defendant made at the trade association meeting, which gave rise to the wrong committed against all of you. And finally, we will need to determine and quantify the damages you all suffered as a result of the trade association’s grossly illegal and unfair acts.”

Heads nodded around the table, since everybody’s hands were tired from applauding.

“And we will establish a timetable for this litigation, which, as you know, will be managed more efficiently than most small countries.” Linette paused for laughter. “We need a government, and, as usual, at the head will be lead counsel and an executive committee. Reporting to them, as always, will be the briefing committee, the motions committee, the discovery committee, the experts committee . . .”

Bennie stifled a laugh when she realized he wasn’t kidding. Was this how class actions ran? She usually tried cases herself or with an associate, sitting second chair. She would have to play well with others. The kids still hadn’t called.

“. . . the exhibits committee, the damages committee, the fees committee, and although we won’t need it, the appellate committee. We will work together to divide and conquer. That’s the best way I know to assure a swift, certain, and very healthy settlement.”

More heads nodding. From across the table, Quinones interjected, “It worked like a charm in
Bronson Mechanics
.”

Next to him, Brenstein added, “Also
Anderson-Wells
. The proverbial well-oiled machine.”

Bennie had no idea what they were talking about and assumed the references were the names of cases they’d worked together. She had expected the class-action bar would be clubby, but this was the Mob. She wondered why she didn’t recognize any of the case names, at least from her legal research, and realized that none of the cases had made it to the federal reporters. They’d all settled before they got to court. Bennie looked around the table with new eyes. These were trial lawyers who never tried cases. They might have all the money, but they missed all the fun.

At the head of the table, Linette was saying, “So far there are fifteen law firms already signed on to represent various members of the class. As usual, everybody will have to pony up for the war chest. My thought is the usual ante will do, thirty grand in cold cash. I need to collect that from each of you by the end of this week.”

More nodding, except for Bennie, who couldn’t have nodded if she’d tried. Her neck had locked in place.
Thirty thousand dollars?
How the hell would she get that? What would she do? By the end of the week? She was so stunned she could barely focus.
Thirty grand!

“At this juncture, we don’t know who the bad guys will hire as their mouthpiece, but my best guess is that it’ll be Yates & Gumm, in that big black building right across the street.” Bill winked as he gestured out the window. “I try to run ’em over when I can, but they’re too damn fast.”

Louder laughter from around the table.

“But make no mistake, my friends, Yates & Gumm is good. Very good. We may call ’em Stupid & Dumb, but they’re not. They’re three hundred strong and they got lawyers from Harvard, Penn, and Yale. I hear there’s one from my alma mater, Villanova, but nobody likes him much. He does all the real work.”

Laughter again.

“Whoever is on the other side of this case makes no difference, because if it ain’t Yates & Gumm, it’ll be somebody just as smart and experienced. And whoever it is, we’ll let ’em know that we mean business from the beginning, and that we will not relent until we have achieved justice for all of you.” Linette modulated his tone, bringing his message home. “If we all work together, we can make a just and fair settlement for everyone, no matter how large or small your damages. And that is my—and all of our—one and only goal. Justice, for all!”

Clapping surged in earnest, and Brenstein and Quinones stood up. Dostoyevsky followed, and then Bennie, and soon they all were on their wing tips, flushed and happy that victory was within their grasp, giving themselves and justice a standing ovation.

Inside, Bennie felt like crying.
Thirty grand.
And still no word from the kids.

Ten minutes later, she was walking back to her office, with St. Amien beside her. The sidewalks were crowded with people heading out for lunch, and Bennie eyed them as they walked by, suddenly hyperaware of her surroundings. Was Alice following her now? Could she have followed her to the restaurant? And why would she do any of it?

A gaggle of secretaries passed, laughing and talking, and then a group of first-year associates from one of the big firms hurried along. The ties of the bright young men flew over their shoulders, and the young girls carried tiny little purses. Bennie remembered when she had been one of them, working so hard at Grun & Chase, caring so much about her cases and the hours she billed. She had dreamed of the day when she’d be her own boss, and her life would be completely in her own control. Like now.
Eek.
She double-checked her cell phone, but no dice.