The Litigators (26 page)

Wally was in a group of lawyers, all waiting impatiently. He knew about half of them. The other half he’d never seen before. In a city with twenty thousand lawyers, the faces were always changing. What a rat race. What a grinding treadmill.

A wife was crying in front of the judge. She didn’t want the divorce. Her husband did.

Wally could not wait until these scenes were history. One day soon he would spend his time in a swanky office closer to downtown, far away from the sweat and stress of street law, behind a wide marble desk with two shapely secretaries answering his phones and fetching his files and a paralegal or two doing his grunt work. No more divorces, DUIs, wills, cheap estates, no more clients who couldn’t pay. He would pick
and choose the injury cases he wanted and make big money in the process.

The other lawyers were watching him warily. He knew this. They mentioned Krayoxx from time to time. Curious, envious, some hoping Wally would strike gold because that would give them hope. Others, though, were eager to see him fall flat because that would prove their drudgery was what they were meant to do. Nothing more.

His cell phone vibrated in his coat pocket. He grabbed it, focused on the name and number of the caller, then jumped from his seat and sprinted from the courtroom. As soon as he cleared the doors, he said, “Jerry. I’m in court. What’s up?”

“Big news, Brother Wally,” Alisandros sang. “I played eighteen holes of golf yesterday with Nicholas Walker. Ring a bell?”

“No, yes. I’m not sure. Who?”

“We played on my course. I shot a 78. Poor Nick was 20 strokes back. Not much of a golfer, I’m afraid. He’s the chief in-house lawyer for Varrick Labs. Known him for years. Prince of an asshole, but honorable.”

There was a gap Wally needed to fill here, but he could think of nothing helpful. “So, Jerry, you didn’t call to brag about your golf game, right?”

“No, Wally. I’m calling to inform you that Varrick wants to open a dialogue on the issue of settlement. Not actual negotiations, mind you, but they want to start talking. This is the way it usually happens. They crack the door. We get a foot in. They tap-dance. We tap-dance. And before you know it, we’re talking money. Big money. Are you with me, Wally?”

“Oh yes.”

“I thought so. Look, Wally, we have a long way to go before your cases are in a posture to be settled. Let’s get to work. I’ll line up the doctors to do the exams—that’s the crucial part. You need to jack up your efforts to find more cases. We’ll probably settle the death cases first—how many do you have now?”

“Eight.”

“Is that all? Thought it was more.”

“It’s eight, Jerry, with one on the fast track, remember? Klopeck.”

“Right, right. With that hot chick on the other side. Frankly, I’d like to try that one just to stare at her legs all day.”

“Anyway.”

“Anyway, let’s kick into high gear. I’ll call later this afternoon with a game plan. Lots of work to do, Wally, but the fix is in.”

Wally returned to the courtroom and resumed his wait. He kept repeating, “The fix is in. The fix is in.” Game’s up. Party’s over. He’d heard it all his life, but what did it mean in the context of high-powered litigation? Was Varrick throwing in the towel, surrendering so quickly, cutting its losses? Wally assumed so.

He glanced at the haggard, beaten-down lawyers around him. Ham-and-eggers just like himself who spent their days trying to squeeze fees out of working stiffs with no money to spare. You poor bastards, he thought.

He couldn’t wait to tell DeeAnna, but first he had to talk to Oscar. And not at Finley & Figg, where no conversation was ever private.

T
hey met for lunch two hours later at a spaghetti house not far from the office. Oscar had had a rough morning trying to referee six grown children fighting over their dead mother’s estate, in which there was virtually nothing of value. He needed a drink and ordered a bottle of inexpensive wine. Wally, at 241 days sober, had no trouble sticking with water. Over Caprese salads, Wally quickly recapped his conversation with Jerry Alisandros and ended with a dramatic “This is the moment, Oscar. It’s finally going to happen.”

Oscar’s mood changed as he listened and gulped down the first glass. He managed a smile, and Wally could almost see the skepticism evaporating. He took out a pen, shoved the salad aside, and began scratching. “Let’s run through the math again, Wally. Is a death case really worth $2 million?”

Wally glanced around to make sure no one was listening. The coast
was clear. “I’ve done a ton of research, okay? I’ve looked at dozens of settlements in mass tort drug cases. There are too many unknowns right now to predict how much each case is worth. You gotta determine liability, cause of death, medical history, age of the deceased, income-earning potential, stuff like that. Then we gotta find out how much Varrick is tossing in the pot. But a million bucks is the floor, I think. We have eight. Fees are at 40 percent. Half to Jerry, plus a stroke for his expertise, and we’re looking at a net to our firm of something like $1.5 mill.”

Oscar was scribbling with a fury, though he’d heard these numbers a hundred times. “They’re death cases. They gotta be worth more than a mill each,” he said, as if he’d handled dozens of these large cases.

“Maybe two,” Wally said. “Then we got all the non-death cases, 407 as of now. Let’s say only half can qualify after a medical exam. Based on somewhat similar cases—the mass drug variety—I think $100,000 is a reasonable figure for a client whose heart valve has been slightly damaged. That’s $20 million, Oscar. Our cut is something in the neighborhood of $3.5 million.”

Oscar wrote something, then stopped, took a long drink of wine, and said, “So, we should talk about our split, right? Is that where this is going?”

“The split is one of several pressing issues.”

“Okay, what’s wrong with fifty-fifty?” All fee fights began with an even split.

Wally stuffed a slice of tomato into his mouth and chewed it fiercely. “What’s wrong with fifty-fifty is that I discovered Krayoxx, rounded up the cases, and so far I’ve done about 90 percent of the work. I have the eight death cases in my office. David has the other four hundred upstairs. You, if I’m not mistaken, have no Krayoxx cases in your office.”

“You’re not asking for 90 percent are you?”

“Of course not. Here’s my suggestion. We have a ton of work to do. All of these cases have to be screened by a doctor, evaluated, and so on. Let’s put everything else aside—me, you, David—and get to
work. We prep the cases while we’re also looking for new ones. Once the settlement news breaks, every lawyer in the country will go crazy over Krayoxx, so we gotta get even busier. And once the checks arrive, I think a sixty-thirty-ten split is fair.”

Oscar had ordered the lasagna special, and Wally the stuffed ravioli. When the waiter was gone, Oscar said, “Your fee is twice mine? That’s never happened before. I don’t like it.”

“What do you like?”

“Fifty-fifty.”

“And what about David? We promised him a cut when he agreed to take the non-death cases.”

“Okay, fifty for you, forty for me, ten for David. Rochelle gets a nice bonus but no piece of the pie.”

With so much money on the way, it was easy to toss around the numbers, even easier to cut a deal. There had been nasty fights over $5,000 fees, but not today. The money soothed them and took away any desire to squabble. Wally slowly reached across, and Oscar did the same. They quickly shook hands and plunged into their entrées.

After a few bites, Wally said, “How’s the wife?”

Oscar frowned, grimaced, and looked away. Paula Finley was a subject completely off-limits because no one at the firm could stand her, including Oscar.

Wally pressed on. “You know, Oscar, this is the moment. If you’re ever going to ditch her, do it now.”

“Marital advice from you?”

“Yes, because you know I’m right.”

“I assume you’ve been thinking about this.”

“Yes, because you have not, and that’s because you’ve never believed in these cases, until now perhaps.”

Oscar poured more wine and said, “Let’s hear it.”

Wally leaned in closer again, as if they were swapping nuclear secrets. “File for divorce now, immediately. No big deal. I’ve done it four times. Move out, get an apartment, cut all ties. I’ll handle it on your end, and she can hire whomever she wants. We’ll draw up a contract,
date it six months ago, and it’ll say that I get 80 percent of the Krayoxx settlements, if any, and you and David split 20 percent. You gotta show some income from Krayoxx; otherwise her lawyer will go nuts. But most of the money can stay in a slush fund for, I don’t know, a year or so, until the divorce is over. Then, at some unknown point in the future, you and I settle up.”

“That’s a fraudulent transfer of assets.”

“I know. I love it. I’ve done it a thousand times, though on a much smaller scale. I suspect you have too. Pretty clever, don’t you think?”

“If we get caught, we could both get thrown in jail for contempt of court, with no hearing.”

“We will not get caught. She thinks Krayoxx is all mine, right?”

“Right.”

“So, it’ll work. It’s our law firm, and we make the rules on how the money gets split. Completely within our discretion.”

“Her lawyers won’t be stupid, Wally. They’ll know all about the big Krayoxx settlement as soon as it happens.”

“Come on, Oscar, it ain’t like we hit these licks all the time. Over the last ten years I suspect your adjusted gross has averaged, what, $75,000?”

Oscar shrugged. “About the same as yours. Pretty pathetic, don’t you think? Thirty years in the trenches.”

“Not the point, Oscar. The point is that in a divorce, they’ll look at what you’ve earned in the past.”

“I know.”

“If the Krayoxx money is mine, then we can argue, with evidence, that your income hasn’t changed.”

“What will you do with the money?”

“Bury it offshore until the divorce is over. Hell, Oscar, we could leave it offshore and pop down to Grand Cayman once a year to check on it. Believe me, there’s no way they’ll ever know. But you gotta file now and get out.”

“Why are you so keen on me getting a divorce?”

“Because I loathe that woman. Because you’ve been dreaming of a
divorce since your honeymoon. Because you deserve to be happy, and if you sack this bitch and hide the money, your life will take a dramatic turn for the better. Think of it, Oscar, single at sixty-two with cash in the bank.”

Oscar couldn’t suppress a smile. He drained his third glass. He took a few bites. He was obviously struggling with something, so he finally asked, “How do I break it to her?”

Wally dabbed the corners of his mouth, stiffened his spine, and assumed the voice of authority. “Well, there are many ways to do it, and I’ve tried them all. Have you two ever talked about splitting up?”

“Not that I recall.”

“I assume it would be easy to start a big fight.”

“Oh, so easy. She’s always unhappy about something, usually money, and we fight almost every day.”

“That’s what I figured. Do it like this, Oscar. Go home tonight and drop the bomb. Tell her you’re unhappy and you want out. Plain and simple. No fighting, no bickering, no negotiating. Tell her she can have the house, the car, the furniture, she can have it all if she’ll agree to a no-fault.”

“And if she won’t agree?”

“Leave anyway. Come stay at my place until we can find you an apartment. Once she sees you walk out the door, she’ll get angry and start scheming, especially Paula. It won’t take long for her to blow up. Give her forty-eight hours and she’ll be a cobra.”

“She’s already a cobra.”

“And she has been for decades. We’ll file the papers, have them served on her, and that’ll send her over the edge. She’ll have a lawyer by the end of the week.”

“I’ve given this advice before, just never thought I’d do it myself.”

“Oscar, sometimes it takes balls to walk away. Do it now while you can still enjoy life.”

Oscar poured the last of the wine into his glass and started smiling again. Wally could not remember the last time he’d seen his senior partner so content.

“Can you do it, Oscar?”

“Yep. In fact, I think I’ll go home early, start packing, and get it over with.”

“Awesome. Let’s celebrate with dinner tonight. On the firm.”

“A deal, but that bimbo won’t be around, right?”

“I’ll lose her.”

Oscar downed the wine like a shot of tequila and said, “Damn, Wally, I haven’t been this excited in years.”

I
t had been difficult to convince the Khaing family that they sincerely wanted to help, but after a few weeks of Big Mac dinners a high level of trust developed. Each Wednesday, after an early dinner of something healthier, David and Helen pulled through the same McDonald’s, ordered the same burgers and fries, and drove to the apartment complex in Rogers Park to visit the family. Zaw, the grandmother, and Lu, the grandfather, joined in because they were also fond of fast food. For the rest of the week they lived on a diet that was primarily rice and chicken, but on Wednesday the Khaings ate like real Americans.

Helen, seven months pregnant and looking every day of it, was initially hesitant about the weekly visits. If there was lead in the air, she had an unborn baby to protect. So David checked everything. He badgered Dr. Biff Sandroni until he cut his fee from $20,000 to $5,000, with David doing most of the legwork. David went through the apartment himself and collected samples of wall paint, water, ceramic coatings, cups and saucers, plates, mixing bowls, family photo albums, toys, shoes, clothing, virtually anything and everything the family came into contact with. He drove this collection to Sandroni’s lab in Akron, dropped it off, then picked it up two weeks later and returned it to the family. According to Sandroni’s report, there were only traces of lead, acceptable levels and nothing for the family to worry about. Helen and the baby were safe in the Khaing apartment.

Thuya had been poisoned by the Nasty Teeth, and Dr. Sandroni
was prepared to say so, under oath, in any court in the country. David was sitting on a promising lawsuit, but they had yet to find a defendant. He and Sandroni had a short list of four Chinese companies known to make similar toys for American importers, but they had not been able to pinpoint the manufacturer. And, according to Sandroni, there was a good chance they would never identify it. The set of Nasty Teeth could have been made twenty years earlier, then stored in a warehouse for a decade before being shipped to the U.S., where it could have spent another five years languishing in the supply chain. The manufacturer and the importer could still be in business, or they might have gone bust years ago. The Chinese were under constant pressure from U.S. watchdogs to monitor the amount of lead used in a thousand products, and it was often impossible to determine who made what in the maze of cheap factories scattered around the country. Dr. Sandroni had an endless list of sources, he’d been involved in hundreds of lawsuits, but after four months of digging, he was empty-handed. David and Helen had been to every flea market and toy store in Greater Chicago, and they had put together an astonishing collection of fake teeth and vampire fangs, but nothing exactly like Nasty Teeth. Their search wasn’t over, but it had lost steam.