Steve Martini - The Arraignment

I look at him, shocked, round eyes.

“We’ll double whatever you’re making in your current practice. And we’ll find a place for Harry. I have Harvard grads doing research for me. They could take lessons from him.”

Harry in a place like Rocker, Dusha would be like a lit cigarette next to black powder.

“I don’t think that would work.”

“I don’t want you to give me an answer right now. Think about it. Take it back to Harry. Get out your calculators and see what you both need to come on board. Think about it,” he says. “I see no reason why the two of you couldn’t continue to work together. We’ll find adjoining suites, put you both under contracts, after a year, you’d both have an ownership interest, partners. You’d report directly to me,” he says.

“I’m flattered,” I tell him. “But I don’t think…”

“Don’t think about it right now. Give it some time. We can talk after you get back from your trip.”

What can I say? I’m looking at my watch, time to go. Adam grabs the phone off the sidebar behind him, orders up his car and the driver, then walks me out the door to the elevator.

“Just press G-One, down to the garage, first level. My driver will meet you there, get your bags. Give him your keys, he’ll move your car into one of the spaces in the garage until you get back. Give him your flight and he’ll be out in front of the terminal to pick you up. Oh, and one more thing. Here, take one of these.” He hands me one of the firm’s newsletters, eight pages in four colors folded like a tabloid. “A little something to read on the plane,” he says.

With the roar of the jet engines, the kinetic drag of acceleration presses me back in my chair. A few seconds later, we lift from the runway and climb quickly to a thousand feet.

The pilot throttles back to cut noise, and we glide out over Ocean Beach, a few shimmering blue specks of backyard pools, past Sunset Cliffs, and the rolling line of surf. The flight crew gooses the powerful turbines again and the Boeing 737 climbs rapidly, heading north up the coast.

We settle in at cruising altitude and I pull the attache case from under the seat in front, take what I want from it, and put it back. On the tray table in front of me is the newsletter from Tolt’s firm, a file with Tresler campaign statements that Harry had collected, and Nick’s small handheld device.

I settle back in the chair and open the newsletter. Just below the fold I see my name in bold headline type.

MADRIANI and HINDS

SETTLE CLAIM

FOR RUSH ESTATE

This is why Adam handed it to me. The story is not long, a few inches. It talks about the firm’s key-man policy. Adam has taken the opportunity to boost this as one of the perks of partnership.

In two short sentences, the article covers Nick’s death, the date, and the fact that he was caught up in a drive-by shooting while talking with a client in front of the federal courthouse. The last two graphs read like a promotional brochure for Harry and me.

“Those who knew Nick Rush will be happy to learn that even though Nick’s death was tragic and untimely, local attorneys Paul Madriani and Harry Hinds of the Coronado law firm of Madriani and Hinds effected a sizable insurance settlement ($3.8 million) for Nick’s family and survivors.

“The settlement was grounded on evidence that Nicholas Rush was the innocent and unintended victim of a drive-by shooting, thereby availing his heirs of insurance reparations under the life insurance policy’s double indemnity clause for accidental death.”

Lawyers, more than most, like to feed and water illusions of their own prowess. But I know that settlements like this don’t happen unless insurance adjusters and the people they report to are operating under the influence, in this case of Adam Tolt.

I suspect Adam realizes, as well as I do, that it was a symbiotic relationship. We used each other. I wanted to maximize the dollar figure and get settlement as quickly as possible and get out of it. He wanted to dry clean the skirts of the law firm. If Tolt hadn’t suggested his office as the location for a settlement meeting, I would have.

I assumed it would take several meetings and a few months to hammer something out and nail it down. Adam’s reach may be longer, and his grasp more vital, than I had imagined.

The fact that he could get the carrier to open its purse so cheerfully and that they would allow Adam to publish the amount, which is what he really wanted, surprised even me.

While my partner was doing his legal research to justify whatever we would get, I was doing my own. I knew that Adam sat on a number of corporate boards.

Burrowing my nose into some publications, I discovered that the actual number was seven, unless I missed some, which I may have. All of these are large multinational businesses, with home offices in the U.S. Their boards include the usual list of corporate suspects, names you might recognize from government positions they’ve held in the past, or causes they’ve championed. These are people who make their living, to the tune of fortunes, just by being connected. They have developed a business celebrity. Corporations may wait in line to have them join their boards. Because they are on one board, they get on another. Because their name appears on those two, they pick up a third. Once they are there, competence is assumed. At the end of the day, they are sitting around the boardroom comparing handicaps on the back nine, making a million or more a year, and pocketing the company pens paid for by investors. It is not just in Hollywood where perception becomes reality.

What I learned by doing my research was that three of the Devon Insurance board members cross-pollinated with Adam on other boards. That was all I needed to know.

The settlement, and the publicity that now follows it, serves the purposes of Rocker, Dusha by bringing to an end any ugly speculation as to why Nick may have died. Confronted by client’s questions at a cocktail party, Adam or his partners can now say, “Haven’t you heard? Oh, yeah, Nick’s death was an accident.” To business clients for whom the exchange of dollars is like breathing air, the payment of cash is reliable evidence. The payment of nearly four million dollars by a sober and staid insurance company will be viewed as irrefutable proof that Nick was just another random victim in a violent world. Within a year, Adam will have most of his corporate clients trying to recall just how Nick died and thinking maybe it was lightning.

I’d like to hope that Adam has more respect for me than to believe I would be flattered by his article. Though I suspect if he thinks it would sweeten his offer for Harry and me to join the firm, he would see no harm in a little icing on the cake.

I scan the rest of the newsletter. Another office in the works. This one in Houston with an eye toward petroleum, gas, and oil ventures. All of the partners may not be happy, but Adam is still on the move, building his equity interest in Rocker, Dusha.

I stick the newsletter behind the flap in the seat in front of me and turn to the computer printouts of Tresler’s campaign contributions that Harry has been working on. He has underlined two of the names from Nick’s list of PAC contributors. One is a partner in the firm’s office Washington, D.C. The other is one Jeffery Dolson, a partner in their San Francisco operation. Both men show up not only in the address book of Nick’s handheld device, but also in the date book, which shows meetings in their respective cities with times and dates. Dolson, in San Francisco, met with Nick twice in the two months before Nick was killed, if the date book is accurate. The last time was only nine days before the shootings. It’s the reason I am flying to San Francisco this afternoon instead of directly to Capital City.