Lucky Leonardo (6 page)

Attorney Mark Seltz, when he got back from his Colorado mountain-climbing vacation, returned Leonardo's call. “You just hired her on the spur of the moment? No discussion about whether she's experienced with this kind of work? Whether she has enough support staff? No review of her resume? No references? That's a quick trigger, Lenny.”

“Mark,” Leonardo answered, “I was comfortable with her, you were on a fucking mountain, and I had to get something done. The thing was driving me crazy.”

“Did she warn you that this kind of litigation is a meat grinder?”

“I'm warned.”

“Did she talk about the other attorneys?”

“What about them?”

“Does she know them?”

“I think so.”

“I know them, Lenny. They're tough bastards. Martin Drunkmiller is a very tough bastard.”

“Thanks for sharing that with me, Mark.”

“He used to be a prosecutor. He has the self-righteousness, you know? Like God's on his side?”

“Thanks for the heads up.”

“Not a problem. I just hope for your sake that your girl Abigail has the balls.”

“Thanks very much.”

“Your hearing's at two o'clock this afternoon?”

“Yes.”

“Let me know how it goes.”

Leonardo hung up, thanked Seltz for nothing, and greeted his next patient.

“Come in, David,” he said.

“I read about you in the newspaper this morning, Dr. Cook,” David said as soon as he sat down.

“Yes.”

“It said there's a lawsuit…”

“I think it will all work out.”

“It said one of your patients fell out a window…”

“I think it will be fine.”

“Was it this window the patient fell out of?” David asked, pointing to the window which looked out on Leonardo's side yard.

“No. It was a different window. But it had nothing to do with you and me. I think it will all be fine. Tell me, how have you been?”

“Was the other window high up?”

“Yes.”

“Did he fall or jump?”

“David, he was a very disturbed man. Sometimes people who are very disturbed do harmful, dangerous things to themselves. I feel very bad for him.”

“Did you try to save him?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“Would you try to save me?”

“What? David, you've had situations in the past where you've been at risk, we know that, but I think you are…”

“Dr. Cook, if I was about to jump out a window, would you hold on to the inside with one hand and like reach for me with the other? Sort of stretch yourself out the window…”

“David, I don't think that's a place we need to go…”

“No, I'm just wondering how you'd handle it, you know? Like if you'd be really calm and try to coax me back in, or if you'd like start screaming that I had to grab your hand, and like tell me I had five seconds to grab it or you'd go back to what you were doing before…”

“I wouldn't do that…”

“Because, Dr. Cook, I can see myself slipping away, you know?”

———

Leonardo commingled the concerns of David and Seltz with his own as he sat next to Abigail on a wooden bench at the back of Courtroom 7B of the Middlesex County Courthouse among the twenty or so lawyers and others waiting for the afternoon's business to begin, although judging by the number of dark suits and brief cases, Leonardo figured most everyone else in the room was a lawyer.
Why are they looking at me?

Abigail accented her buttoned-up dark suit with a red and white striped blouse, visible like a slash around her throat.
Maybe they're looking at her?

In consultation with Abigail, and wanting to look sincere and trustworthy if he ended up testifying, which she said he might, Leonardo wore a doctorly tweed jacket and slacks, and a tie with ducks flying across that he usually saved for funerals. He was sweating so heavily that he worried he would sweat through his shirt and his tweed would start smelling like a wet dog. “Remember,” Abigail warned him, “in cross examination you answer ‘yes,' ‘no,' or ‘I don't recall.' You don't embellish.”

On the elevator ride up he asked her how well she knew Drunkmiller.

“Pretty well,” she said.

“I'm told he's tough.”

“Tough, shmuff.”

“Shmuff.”

The room came to order as a man at the front started to read down a list. “He's the clerk doing first call,” Abigail whispered. “He takes attendance and disposes of uncontested matters. What isn't disposed of by him gets heard by the judge.” Leonardo thought he saw her nose twitch, like she was trying to figure out who brought the wet dog.

“These attorneys,” she said, referencing the suits on all sides, “want the court to order something or refuse to order something, like the attachment we want to stop, or an injunction, or an order to make the other side do something they should have done already or punish the other side for doing something they shouldn't have done, or an order scheduling trial or dismissing the case, or whatever. Lots of pissing contests.”

“Pissing contests.”

The room was windowless and modernistic, with plastic-looking wall panels, and recessed lighting which cast a greenish hue. The ventilation system buzzed and groaned in the walls and beneath the feet, like the engine of a ship, creating the illusion of a room at sea, a room moving up and down at sea, a green and airless room, making Leonardo regret the pork chop and mashed potatoes he ate for lunch. “I could throw up any minute,” he advised his attorney.

They were the third case called on first call. “
Binh et al. v. DeltaTek et al.
,” said the clerk. “Plaintiffs' motion to attach.”

“Moving party,” said a round-faced man on the far side of the room.

“Opposing party,” Abigail replied matter of factly.

The clerk acknowledged them with a nod, scribbled a quick note, and continued down his list. Leonardo scrutinized the round-faced man. “That's not Drunkmiller,” Abigail whispered, clarifying. “Probably his junior associate.”

“Meaning?”

“Not the first team.”

Leonardo felt breathing space for a few inhalations, until the back door of the court room swung open to reveal a short man carrying a big briefcase. He wore glasses. He was balding. He was dressed plainly and simply. But he scanned the room like a hunter entering the hunting arena. Leonardo felt an urge to duck for cover.

“Drunkmiller,” Abigail advised. “First team.”

“Oh good,” said Leonardo.

Drunkmiller's gaze passed over Abigail and Leonardo—a motionless Leonardo—to the round-faced man who nodded a welcome to him, and whom he joined and quietly conferred with. They took turns whispering into each other's ear. Then Drunkmiller made a facial gesture which Leonardo construed as a smacking of his lips in anticipation of dinner, and rose, and quietly approached the position of Abigail and Leonardo through the shadows along the back wall of the room.
How much fun is this?

“Abigail,” Drunkmiller said in a low voice when he reached her, extending his hand in greeting, “how have you been?”

“Fine, Martin, nice to see you,” she said, rising from her seat and shaking his hand. She stood between him and Leonardo.

“I understand you represent defendant Leonardo Cook,” Drunkmiller said.

“I do,” she answered. “He's right here.” She turned a bit to expose a slice of Leonardo.

“How do you do?” Drunkmiller inquired.

“Fine, thank you,” Leonardo replied.

“I represent the Binhs,” Drunkmiller said.

“Yes. Eugene and Susan H.,” said Abigail. “I've read your pleadings. How is Eugene's recuperation progressing?”

“He continues to be in great pain,” Drunkmiller said.

“I'm sorry to hear that,” Abigail said. “Please tell him that we wish him a speedy and complete recovery.”

“Thank you,” Drunkmiller said. “If he could move his jaw he might say thank you himself. May I speak with you for a minute, outside?”

“Of course,” Abigail answered. “Stay here and don't talk to any strangers,” Leonardo thought she whispered to him as she left with Drunkmiller, which felt like the famous time he was abandoned in the children's shoe department with the menacing clown.
I haven't seen you for a while
he said to the clown who joined him on the bench as he mopped sweat from his brow with one hand and kept the other at his mouth just in case.

When she, Abigail, finally returned—prompting the clown to return to being a bulbous-headed lawyer—the judge was listening to attorneys argue the first case on the list, something about a bank account, and a wire transfer, and a missed deadline, and a lot of trouble, a world of trouble,
and did the judge just say something about a menacing clown?

“Leonardo,” Abigail whispered, “come outside with me for a minute.”

“Sure.”

When they were in the hallway, by themselves, she said, “Listen to this. Martin—Attorney Drunkmiller—says he's not out to get you, he's out to get DeltaTek. He asks if you want to make a deal…”

“Huh?”

“…to help him get DeltaTek.”

“Huh?”

“He sees you as the star witness.”

“Oh?”

“He wants you to be a friendly star witness.”

“You mean if I say things happened the way he wants me to say things happened…”

“Yes.”

“…but what if things didn't happen that way?”

“Exactly.”

“What would he do for me?”

“He didn't say. It would be a negotiation.”

“Oh.”

“He wants to interview you, or depose you, to get your story. He'll postpone today's hearing.”

“I…I…What do you think?”

The courtroom door swung open. The clerk emerged. “Your case is called,” the clerk said to Abigail.

“Thank you,” she said to him, “I'll be right there.” To Leonardo she said, “I'm happy with a month postponement, no strings attached. Can't hurt. We'll find out where your malpractice carrier is. We'll find out where DeltaTek is. If Martin—Attorney Drunkmiller—wants to talk to us during the month, fine. OK?”

“Ummm…”

“OK?”

“OK.”

Abigail strode back into the courtroom. Drunkmiller stood at one of the two counsel tables in front of the judge, waiting. Abigail placed herself at the other. She addressed the judge: “Your honor, may I have a minute to confer with my brother?”

“One minute,” said the judge.

Abigail whispered to Drunkmiller. He nodded. Abigail walked back to her table. “Your honor,” she said, “the parties agree to continue this motion hearing for one month. Is that acceptable to the court?”

Chrissie came back to his house that night, after dinner at a new fish restaurant in the Back Bay which she'd heard about and wanted to try. Leonardo, feeling the noose loosened by his month's continuance, asked if she would like to bring her mother and make it a party, but the request just irritated her. “You don't want to meet my mother,” she said. “You're just faking it. You don't even want to meet me. You just want to get sucked off.”

He started with a cup of clam chowder. She chose the double jumbo shrimp cocktail, “…because it's the most expensive appetizer on the menu.” He had grilled salmon, and she the two-pound boiled lobster dinner, which she took her time with and did a nice job on. They had two beers each. She didn't talk except to the waiter until after the plates were cleared, and until after she undid her bib and rinsed her fingers and patted her swollen belly and groaned in delight at the big meal she consumed.

“Lenny,” she then said, “I'm sorry for busting you. Has something been bothering you lately? Do you want to talk?”

He was touched. She was a pretty girl who deserved better. That she settled for him, for now, with his cool heart and fidgety ways bespoke old wounds and frailties, and convalescence. He didn't think he was doing her harm. He knew that before him there was a violent boy, which had to be worse. Obviously he was pleased to get sucked off, but he tried to be gentle and caressing in return, and he paid for her dinner which had to beat a kick to her head from her violent boy, and as far as he knew there was no evidence that a dead-end relationship with an older man was inherently worse than any other kind of dead-end relationship she might fall into.

“I've had some difficult work issues recently,” he replied. “Thank you for asking.”

“Helen told me you were in the newspaper because one of your patients tried to kill himself.”

“That Helen…” he said. They exchanged glances at the thought of funny Helen, curiously funny Helen.

“Do you like Helen?” Chrissie asked.

“She's…” Leonardo said.

“I know…” Chrissie said.

“That night,” Leonardo went on, in a direction away from Helen, “was the night your mother came down for dinner. Remember? It was a bad night all around. For me, for the guy who almost killed himself, for you, for your mom. I'm sorry again…”

“Forget about it.”

Later on they lay still on his bed in the darkness, her head resting on his arm, her body curled toward him, with the window opened a crack by her “…to allow the wind to speak.” It had a lot to say as it blew in from the north, whipping up fallen leaves and pressuring clinging survivors to take the plunge. All branches were swaying. The neighbors' swings were creaking. A twig snapped.

Chrissie was upright in a second, listening for more sound.

“It's only the wind,” Leonardo whispered.

She shook her head, and covered his whispering lips with her hand. The bottom of Leonardo's bedroom window was only five feet above the back yard. The first time Chrissie entered the room, on a lovely May afternoon, wearing only panties and brassiere as a result of heavy petting on the living room couch, with Leonardo draped all over her cooing sweet nothings and rubbing his hands over and around her limbs in rapture at their smoothness and loveliness, and at his good fortune that they should be within his grasp, she abruptly spun away and went fast to the window, and examined it, and its height, and the view from it, and pushed it open.

“You know,” she said matter-of-factly, “I am visible to anyone standing in your back yard…and I think an athletic man could easily jump over the window sill and land in this room…” She released her brassiere and discarded her panties and showed full frontal nudity to the back yard without any further prompting or pawing from Leonardo.

“Hubbada,” said Leonardo.

So he knew from the start she had a window issue, which under the circumstances he found more exciting than pathological, but which he kept an eye on, and when she periodically sat bolt upright at the sound of the wind, or ran to the window when a distant dog barked, he did employ a little shrinking to talk her down, and in the process wormed out the story of her high school boyfriend Roger LaFlamme who, unbeknownst to her mother who knew him, and his father before him, and couldn't stand either, sneaked to her first floor bedroom window when they were passionately dating and helped her out for the night or helped himself in, and continued to sneak to her window when they weren't dating anymore, particularly when he'd been drinking, and scared her to death. Sometimes he just stood outside in the dark and watched and waited, and left soiled tissues and empty beer bottles. Other times he tapped on her window, or taped messages on her window, or peed on her window. One drunken time he smashed her window with a stone and jumped through the jagged glass into her room and grabbed her by the hair as she screamed and as he bled, and spun her around until he passed out. She obtained a court order that he stay away.

“Maybe I should have married him,” Chrissie told Leonardo. “If he stopped drinking I might have. He was cute. He still tells people he loves me.”

“High school romances are profound,” Leonardo commented. He wanted to share the story of Barbara and Stan's high school romance, but didn't because it hurt and made him look like a fool. Chrissie didn't need to know how he happened to be hiding in the bushes in front of Stan's porch. Unlike his other private parts, he kept his life history zipped and out of Chrissie's reach.

Likewise he didn't think she needed him to remind her that she was the one who opened the window, which Roger LaFlamme, if he happened to be flying by on the wings of the wind, might take as an invitation to love and terrorize her. Like she was asking for it.

So Leonardo waited for Chrissie's initial intensity to pass, and for her to be amenable to gentle talk. “Sweetheart, it was just the wind,” he said as her ears reclined a little, and her nipples diffused. “It's strong tonight. It needs strength to push away the fall and pull in the winter.”