Brain Storm (31 page)

Inspector Digit had a floppy disk in hand. He kept looking at it, instead of looking at Watson’s face.

Watson’s skin burned, a surge of nausea making it even harder to breathe. “This is about software?” he hissed sarcastically. “Software, Arthur? This is my appointed case. This is Judge Stang, right? Software?”

Arthur managed a convincingly flabbergasted sag to his face and looked back over his shoulder at Inspector Digit and Drath Bludsole. Bludsole and Arthur shrugged their shoulders and tossed their heads.
Not the first associate with a noggin full of loopy ideas
, they seemed to be thinking.

“What could this possibly have to do with your appointed case or Judge Stang?” asked Arthur. “Loading third-party software onto the firm network is a terminating offense. Every employee in the firm knows that.” He turned to Inspector Digit, then back to Watson. “Certainly every lawyer, especially those with computer backgrounds.”

“Horseshit from a bull,” said Watson. “We beta test, and he knows it.” He still hadn’t managed to goad Digit into actual eye contact. “And you know it too.” Watson glared at his boss.

Arthur must have practiced in front of the mirror last night, because
he assembled his features into yet another amazed look. “We? You mean, there are other associates who have endangered the firm’s information systems and compromised confidential client files with unapproved software? I find that hard to believe. But if that is so, we’ll scan their PCs after we leave here, and they will be terminated. Today.”

Digit shuffled his feet. Arthur showed Watson his courtroom, game face. “But we need names,” he added grimly, “or else we’re forced to assume that this is another wild accusation of yours, like your notion that you are being terminated for fulfilling your obligations to a client appointed to you by the federal court.”

Arthur, Digit, Drath, everybody in the room knew who the other chiphead lawyers were in the associate ranks. Gweebos. Hackers. Webheads and Westlaw geeks. The normal rules did not apply to associates with a certain level of expertise. Names would do nothing except establish Watson’s willingness to squeal and take comrades with him, down in flames and out onto the street.

“I thought so,” said Arthur. “You know the termination and separation drills,” he said crisply. “The same ones we put in place for our employment law clients. Mr. Shannon, here, will handle security matters,” he added, waving the security guard forward. “He will supervise the removal of your personal property and make certain that firm property remains. For obvious reasons you will not be allowed to access the computer systems before being escorted from the building. I’m sure we’d both prefer that there be no question of sabotage.”

“Sabotage?” Watson choked.

“You may remove paper files pertaining to work you are doing for your own personal clients, but you may not remove files pertaining to firm clients. If there is a question, Officer Shannon will inspect the file, and I will resolve any doubts. Of course, you are free to take research and work product pertaining to your appointed case, which to my knowledge is your only significant personal client.”

“I’m being fired for refusing to plead out my appointed case,” said Watson, addressing no one in particular. “For doing what Judge Stang ordered me to do.”

Arthur gave the group another astonished look. “I anticipated that you would challenge our judgment in this matter.” Arthur turned to Digit and waved him forward. “The information systems people will reboot your machine and run a program that will identify and inventory
all of the software in your system, registration numbers, version numbers, and a list of files altered within certain time frames.”

Digit politely waited for Watson to step back. Watson toed his briefcase even further under the desk.

“Joe,” said Drath, “I hope you understand the firm’s position. Believe me, if this were a simple performance issue or a bad fit, we would allow you to make arrangements elsewhere and resign. But we can’t tolerate an ongoing security threat.”

“My bonus?” Watson asked, almost demanded.

“Termination for cause,” said Drath, with a don’t-blame-me shrug. “The compensation committee won’t set associate bonuses until next week. At which time, you will not be a Stern, Pale employee. How could we …?”

“How could you dry-fuck me?” asked Watson. “Is that what you mean?”

Digit popped the floppy disk in drive A and pushed reset. Arthur and Drath took a step out into the hallway and bowed their heads, turning to keep Watson in view.

“Sir,” said the security officer, “you may remove your personal belongings from your desk.”

Watson selected a brown accordion file, full of research in manila folders, clearly labeled “U.S. v. Whitlow” and coded with the case’s nonbillable client numbers.

“I’m going to pack my research on the appointed case first,” he announced, holding the red jacket up for Arthur and the security guard to see. Arthur nodded and continued talking with Drath.

Watson pulled the briefcase out, quickly opened it, and dropped the accordion file into the standing compartment where the wad of money was, covering the stacked bills. He calmly reached up and grabbed more folders and accordion files, displaying them briefly for the guard’s approval and filling the entire compartment of the briefcase. The files stuck up a few inches higher than he liked, but the briefcase was so deep, the files were still below the dividers.

“The boys from office services have dead-file boxes out here for your personal books and belongings,” Arthur said.

The security guard followed Watson over to his file cabinet. Watson retrieved Judge Stang’s two-by-four from the bottom drawer and passed it out to Arthur in the hallway.

“If memory serves, this is yours, Boss.”

Arthur accepted it with a grimace and gently leaned it against the wall in the hall.

The last thing Watson packed was the last thing he had printed from his desktop machine—the Darrow quote.

M
yrna picked up the bundle of bills, dropped it on her desktop, tilted her head, and listened to the thud. “All twenties?”

“All twenties,” said Watson, running his fingers nervously through his hair. She seemed blasé, almost unsurprised, about the trip to Judge Stang’s chambers and Joe’s swift, brutal termination. He looked at her phone, wondering when and how he was going to break this to Sandra. Maybe he could write a novel in the first person,
Vexing the Memsahib.
Unemployment.
“The System Is Unstable at This Time. Abort, Retry, Ignore?”
Sandra would call in her parents, reboot him from a clean floppy, then have the in-laws debug him and scan him for boot sector viruses. “This Work-A-Daddy Unit is not functioning properly,” they would say. “It’s a rogue Go-Bot with fatal memory allocation errors. We need to lock out bad sectors, reformat, and update the flash BIOS. Reprogram to produce income.”

Sheila and Benjy loomed onto the stage of conscience, pathetic victims in a tragedy directed by and starring cad, bounder, terminated lawyer, faithless spouse, criminal consort, and failed father Joseph Watson. His chest tightened with what, in later life, would probably be diagnosed as pre-angina. Once he withdrew all the money out of the stock funds, his kids would probably have to make do with the local community
college. As for what Sandra’s dad called Real Money? Nowhere in sight, except what R. J. Connally would maybe consider a smidgen there in front of him on Myrna’s desk.

She dropped the bundle again. “Sounds like ten grand to me,” she smirked through smoke. “Don’t tell me. Just under ten grand, right?”

“Just under,” said Watson. “Unemployment makes it seem like way over.”

“They got balls as big as boulders,” she said. “If Judge Stang knew that they were riding you out on a rail because of an appointed case, he’d get the whole fucking place disbarred. Maybe I’ll tell him myself. Nope, I’ll tell Ida. She’s the best way to him. No one gets to Judge Stang except through Ida, or one of the clerks.”

She dropped the sheaf of Andrew Jacksons on the desk again and listened to the thud.

“It smells like April,” she sighed. “Memory and desire stirring dull debts with fresh cash. It’s so fulfilling in some elemental way. Words are inadequate. Imagine you are ravenously hungry, you are parched and hornier than a three-headed iguana, and one of your clients comes in and gives you a bacon-wrapped filet, butter-soaked lobster, chilled spring water, iced chardonnay, some goopy, resiny buds of Afghani pot, and oral sex—all at once.”

“What do I do with it?” asked Watson.

“Celebrate,” said Myrna. “Have a few beers. Fire up a W. C. Fields–size bomber and get functionally stupid. You’ve escaped from the Empire’s tractor beams, and your first day flying solo in the rebel sectors you pick up a client who pays in tax-free cash. You’re sitting so fat you need new clothes.”

“I don’t have to tell the court about the money?”

The Nikes fell off the open drawer as she doubled over in a smoky coughing fit.

“The money, the fact that it exists, the fact that it was offered, the pay arrangements, the discussion of medical experts and how to compensate them—are all privileged communications from your client and his lawyer. If the attorney or the client is dumb enough to
share
the privileged communication with a third party, like a judge, the privilege is destroyed. Do you want to rephrase your question, Counselor?”

“What do I do?” asked Watson.

“Take the money and enter your appearance with the court as retained counsel,” she said. “Let me put it another way: Stop being a paralegal,
an amanuensis, a famulus and factotum, a water boy, utility knife, and all-purpose hand tool for some mugwump partner, and start being a lawyer. Somebody just parked a sledful of cash on your desk. They want to hire you. Do you want to work?”

Watson stood and paced, displaying behavior imprinted during his duckling days of following Arthur around. “I don’t have a job. No office. My shit is stacked in boxes in the back of the Honda. I lost my bonus and the firm-issued computer. I got a tin lizzie Pentium at home with a one-gig hard drive and a 14.4 modem in it. It barely runs Reader Rabbit for DOS, let alone Westlaw. What do I do? Crank up the kids’ printer and file dot-matrix memoranda in federal court?”

Myrna tapped a finger on her cigarette. “Give me three hundred bucks a month and you can have the spare room next door. Take three or four grand and go buy a fucking computer if it makes you feel better. Money has appeared. I could even help you. We could be partners,” she offered, and when he looked up quickly, “on a case-by-case basis, of course, meaning, on this case, for starters.”

“Really?” he asked. The first sign of reinforcements filled him with joy. “You’d help me?”

“Sure,” she said, “I charge by the hour. Three hundred in court. Two hundred out of court. And don’t forget Dirt,” she added, patting a folder on her desk. “He’s been busy. Doing great work, too.”

She watched him doing math in his head, then she touched the bundle of bills.

“I have a feeling more of this will show up soon,” she said. “On this side of the law, people don’t say things like … How did they put it?” She fingered the note from Buck’s lawyer, drew it over to her side of the desk, and read from it. “ ‘Cost is not the concern. Results are.’ That’s succinct. I like that.”

“So,” said Joe, “then you would try the case?”

“Too early to decide that,” she said. “You go draft up some quality motions and memos for Judge Stang, I’ll get ready for a fucking trial. But if anybody asks,” she warned, “you came to me, right? I am helping you because you asked me to.”

“OK,” said Joe, uncertainly. He parted his lips to ask who might ask about that and why it would be important.

“Partners on the Whitlow case?” she asked, holding up her half of a high five.

“Partners,” he said with a swat.

“OK. Listen up,” she said, handing him a yellow legal pad and a pencil. “Take notes.” Then she sat up and smiled big. “Stop being a lawyer, and start being a paralegal, an amanuensis, a famulus and factotum, a water boy, utility knife, and all-purpose hand tool for me, a mugwump partner.”

She puffed up her chest, made her neck disappear into the sweatshirt she was wearing by raising her shoulders up to her ears, lowered her voice, and held forth after the fashion of Rumpole of the Bailey or some other bewigged English barrister.

“Take a fucking memo,” she said. “You need to talk to the wife,” she said. “Did you talk to your wifey person yet?”

“My wife?” asked Watson, understandably still preoccupied with his own domestic situation.

“His, not yours,” said Myrna. “Fuck me naked running through a briar patch. Nobody’s talked to the defendant’s wife yet? Maybe I should talk to her. Mary Whitlow is not just the linchpin, she’s the only pin. The only other person to leave the room alive.”

“They gave me her statements,” said Watson. “I thought it was like civil litigation, where you can’t talk to the other side’s witnesses unless you depose them with both lawyers present. But this morning, or last night I guess, she left me a message on my machine at work.”

“She called you?” Myrna asked, sitting up and peering intently into his eyes. “What did she say?”

“Something about how she and her murdering husband would both be dead, if he didn’t give back what he took. She kept talking about ‘they’ this and ‘they’ that were gonna kill them. She sounded drunk or on pills or something.”

“What else?” Myrna probed. “Did she say anything about Buck? Like, ‘Where is Buck?’ ”

Her familiar reference to Buck gave him pause. She kept talking, as if she had detected him noticing.

“I mean, you were saying all about how Whitlow was so wound up about this Buck fellow and getting his car back and all. So it occurred to me, maybe Mary knows this Buck guy and maybe she had something to say about him.”

“She said something like, ‘They don’t believe the story that Buck is spreadin’ around that I hid it somewheres.’ But I don’t know what
it
is, or what Buck has to do with
it.
And, no, she didn’t say where or who Buck is.”