The King of Torts (40 page)

“They could be bluffing, depends on what happens in Flagstaff. If they lose big, then they have to think about settling. A split-decision—liability but small damages—and they might want to try another one. If they choose yours, then you can bring in a trial stud and whip their asses.”

“You wouldn’t advise me to try it myself?”

“No. You don’t have the experience. It takes years in the courtroom before you’re ready for the big leagues, Clay. Years and years.”

As fiery as he was about big lawsuits, it was obvious to Clay that Patton had no enthusiasm for the scenario he had just laid out. He was not volunteering to be the trial stud in the D.C. case. He was just going through the motions in an effort to comfort his young colleague.

Clay left late the next morning and flew to Pittsburgh, anywhere but D.C. En route, he talked to Oscar, and he read the e-mails and news reports of the trial in Flagstaff. The plaintiff, a sixty-six-year-old woman with breast cancer, had testified and presented her case beautifully. She was very sympathetic, and Mooneyham played her like a fiddle. Go get ’em, ol’ boy, Clay kept mumbling to himself.

He rented a car and drove northeast for two hours,
into the heart of the Allegheny Mountains. Finding Reedsburg on the map was almost as difficult as finding it on a highway. As he crested a hill on the edge of town, he saw a mammoth plant in the distance. WELCOME TO REEDSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA, a large sign said. HOME OF THE HANNA PORTLAND CEMENT COMPANY. FOUNDED IN 1946. Two large smokestacks emitted a chalky dust that drifted slowly away with the wind. At least it’s still operating, Clay thought.

He followed a sign to downtown and found a parking place on Main Street. Wearing jeans and a baseball cap, with three days’ worth of dark stubble, he was not worried about being recognized. He walked into Ethel’s Coffee Shop and took a seat on a wobbly stool at the counter. Ethel herself greeted him and took his order. Coffee and a grilled cheese sandwich.

At a table behind him two old-timers were talking football. The Reedsburg High Cougars had lost three straight, and both of them could do a better job calling plays than the head coach. There was a home game that night, according to the schedule on the wall near the cash register.

When Ethel brought the coffee she said, “You just passing through?”

“Yes,” Clay said, realizing that she knew every one of Reedsburg’s eleven thousand souls.

“Where you from?”

“Pittsburgh.”

He couldn’t tell if that was good or bad, but she left with no further questions. At another table, two younger men were talking about jobs. It was soon clear
that neither was employed. One wore a denim cap with a Hanna Cement logo on the front. As Clay ate his grilled cheese, he listened as they fretted over unemployment benefits, mortgages, credit-card bills, part-time work. One was planning to surrender his Ford pickup to the local dealer who had promised to resell it for him.

Against the wall by the front door was a folding table with a large plastic water bottle on it. A handmade poster urged everyone to contribute to the “Hanna Fund.” A collection of coins and bills half-filled the bottle.

“What’s that for?” Clay asked Ethel when she refilled his cup.

“Oh, that. It’s a drive to collect money for the families laid off out at the plant.”

“Which plant?” Clay asked, trying to appear ignorant.

“Hanna Cement, biggest employer in town. Twelve hundred folks got laid off last week. We stick together around here. Got those things all over town—stores, cafés, churches, even the schools. Raised over six thousand so far. Money’ll go for light bills and groceries if things get bad. Otherwise, it’ll go to the hospital.”

“Did business turn bad?” Clay said, chewing. Putting the sandwich in his mouth was easy; swallowing was becoming more difficult.

“No, the plant’s always been well run. The Hannas know what they’re doing. Got this crazy lawsuit down around Baltimore somewhere. Lawyers got greedy, wanted too much money, forced Hanna into bankruptcy.”

“It’s a damned shame,” said one of the old-timers. Coffee shop conversations were shared by all present. “Didn’t have to happen. The Hannas tried to settle the damned thing, made a good-faith effort, but these slimebags in D.C. had ’em at gunpoint. Hannas said, ‘Screw you,’ and walked away.”

In a flash, Clay thought: Not a bad summary of events.

“I worked there forty years, never missed a paycheck. A damned shame.”

Because Clay was expected to say something to move along the conversation, he said, “Layoffs are rare, huh?”

“The Hannas don’t believe in laying folks off.”

“Will they hire them back?”

“They’ll try. But the bankruptcy court is in charge now.”

Clay nodded and quickly turned back to his sandwich. The two younger men were on their feet, heading for the cash register. Ethel shooed them away. “No charge, fellas. It’s on the house.”

They nodded politely, and as they left both dropped some coins into the Hanna Fund. A few minutes later, Clay said good-bye to the old-timers, paid his bill, thanked Ethel, and dropped a $100 bill into the water bottle.

After dark, he sat alone on the visitors side and watched the Reedsburg Cougars do battle with the Enid Elk. The home stands were filled almost to capacity. The band was loud, the crowd rowdy and eager for a win. But the football failed to hold his attention. He looked at the roster and wondered how many players
listed there were from families hit by the layoffs. He gazed across the field to the rows and rows of Reedsburg fans and wondered who had jobs and who did not.

Before the kickoff, and just after the national anthem, a local minister had prayed for the safety of the players, and for the renewed economic strength of the community. He had ended his prayer with, “Help us through these hard times, O God. Amen.”

If Clay Carter had ever felt worse, he could not remember when.

   CHAPTER 38   

Ridley called early Saturday evening, quite upset. She had been unable to locate Clay for four days! No one at the office knew where he was, or if they knew they wouldn’t tell her. He, on the other hand, had made no effort to call her. Both had more than one phone. Was this any way to advance a relationship? After listening to the whining for a few minutes, Clay heard something buzz in the line and asked, “Where are you?”

“St. Barth. In our villa.”

“How’d you get down there?” Clay, of course, had been using the Gulfstream.

“I chartered a smaller jet. Too small, actually, we had to stop in San Juan for fuel. It wouldn’t make it here nonstop.”

Poor girl. Clay wasn’t sure how she knew the number of the air charter service. “Why are you down there?” he asked, a stupid question.

“I was so stressed out because I couldn’t find you. You can’t do that again, Clay.”

He tried to link the two—his disappearance and her escape to St. Barth, but quickly gave it up.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I left town in a hurry. Patton French needed me in Biloxi. I was too busy to call.”

A long pause as she debated whether she should forgive him right then or wait a day or two. “Promise me you won’t do it again,” she whimpered.

Clay wasn’t in the mood for either whining or promising, and he found himself relieved that she was out of the country. “It won’t happen again. Relax, enjoy yourself down there.”

“Can you come down?” she asked, but without any feeling. Sort of a perfunctory request.

“Not with the trial in Flagstaff getting close.” He doubted seriously if she had an inkling about the trial in Flagstaff.

“Will you call me tomorrow?” she asked.

“Of course.”

Jonah was back in town, with many adventures to report from the sailing life. They were to meet at nine at a bistro on Wisconsin Avenue for a late and long dinner. Around eight-thirty, the phone rang, but the caller hung up without a word. Then it rang again, and Clay grabbed it as he was buttoning his shirt.

“Is this Clay Carter?” a male voice asked.

“Yes, who is this?” Because of the sheer number of disgruntled clients out there—Dyloft and Skinny Ben and, now, especially, those irate homeowners up in Howard County—Clay had changed numbers twice in
the past two months. He could handle the abuse at the office, but he preferred to live in peace.

“I’m from Reedsburg, Pennsylvania, and I have some valuable information about the Hanna company.”

The words were chilling, and Clay sat on the edge of his bed. Keep him on the phone, he said as he tried to think clearly. “Okay, I’m listening.” Someone from Reedsburg had somehow acquired his new, unlisted phone number.

“We can’t talk over the phone,” the voice said. Thirty years old, white male, high school education.

“Why not?”

“It’s a long story. There are some papers.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m in the city. I’ll meet you in the lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel on M Street. We can talk there.”

Not a bad plan. There would be plenty of foot traffic in the lobby, just in case someone wanted to pull out a gun and start shooting lawyers. “When?” Clay asked.

“Real soon. I’ll be there in five minutes. How long will it take you?”

Clay was not going to mention the fact that he lived six blocks away, though his address was no secret. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“Good. I’m wearing jeans and a black Steelers cap.”

“I’ll find you,” Clay said, then hung up. He finished dressing and hustled out of his town house. Walking rapidly along Dumbarton, he tried to imagine what information he could need or even want on the Hanna company. He’d just spent eighteen hours in Reedsburg,
and was trying, quite unsuccessfully, to forget about the place. He turned south on Thirty-first Street, mumbling to himself, lost in a world of conspiracies and payoffs and spy scenarios. A lady passed with a small dog in search of a suitable spot on the sidewalk to relieve itself. A young man in a black biker’s jacket with a cigarette hanging from his mouth approached, though Clay barely saw him. As the two passed, in front of a poorly lit town house and under the limbs of an old red maple, the man suddenly, with perfect timing and precision, unloaded a short right cross that caught Clay directly on the chin.

Clay never saw it. He remembered a loud pop in his face, and his head crashing into a wrought-iron fence. There was a stick of some sort, and another man, two of them up there throwing punches and flailing away. Clay rolled to his side and managed to get a knee under himself, then the stick landed like a gunshot on the back of his skull.

He heard a woman’s voice in the distance, then he passed out.

The lady had been walking her dog when she heard a commotion behind her. There was a fight of some sort, two against one, with the man on the ground getting the worse of it. She ran closer and was horrified to see two men in black jackets hammering away with large black sticks. She screamed, they ran. She whipped out her cell phone and dialed 911.

The two men ran down the block and disappeared around the corner of a church on N Street. She tried to
assist the young man on the ground, who was unconscious and bleeding badly.

__________

CLAY WAS taken to George Washington University Hospital where a trauma team stabilized him. The initial exam revealed two large head wounds caused by something blunt, a cut on his right cheekbone, a cut in his left ear, and numerous contusions. His right fibula was cracked neatly in two. His left kneecap was in pieces and the left ankle was broken. His head was shaved and eighty-one stitches were required to close the two large cuts. His skull was badly bruised but not fractured. Six stitches in his cheekbone, eleven in his ear, and they rolled him into surgery to put his legs back together.

Jonah began calling after waiting impatiently for thirty minutes. He left the restaurant after an hour and headed on foot to Clay’s town house. He knocked on the door, rang the bell, cursed just under his breath, and was ready to throw rocks at the windows when he saw Clay’s car parked between two others down the street. He thought it was Clay’s car, anyway.

He walked slowly toward it. Something was wrong there, he just wasn’t sure what. It was a black Porsche Carrera all right, but it was covered with a white dust. He called the police.

A torn and empty Hanna Portland Cement bag was found under the Porsche. Someone had evidently covered the car with cement, then thrown water at it. In spots, especially on the roof and the hood, large patches of the cement had dried and stuck to the car. As the police
inspected it, Jonah told them that its owner was unaccounted for. After a long computer search, Clay’s named popped up, and Jonah took off for the hospital. He called Paulette, and she was there before he arrived. Clay was in surgery, but it was only broken bones and probably a concussion. His injuries did not appear life-threatening

The lady with the dog told police the assailants were both white males. Three college boys entering a bar on Wisconsin Avenue reported seeing two white males in black jackets hurry around the corner from N Street. They hopped into a metallic green van, where a driver was waiting for them. It was too dark to see the license plates.

The call Clay had received at 8:39 P.M. was traced to a pay phone on M Street, about five minutes from his town house.

The trail grew cold quickly. It was, after all, only a beating. And a Saturday night beating at that. The same night would see two rapes in the city, two drive-by shootings that injured five, and two murders, both of which appeared to be completely at random.

__________

SINCE CLAY had no family in the city, Jonah and Paulette assumed the roles of spokesmen and decision makers. At 1:30 A.M., a doctor reported to them that the surgery had gone smoothly, all the bones were set and ready to heal, some pins and screws had been installed, things couldn’t be better. They would closely monitor brain activity. They were sure there was a concussion
but didn’t know how serious it was. “He looks awful,” she warned them.

Two hours went by, as Clay was slowly moved upstairs. Jonah had insisted on a private room. They finally saw him just after 4 A.M. A mummy would have had less wrapping.