John Dobbyn - Neon Dragon

I went back to the superior court clerk’s office to see if there was any pending litigation against Adams Leasing, Inc. The chances were good, since any company that leased apartments, particularly roach farms, was probably a familiar name on the court docket. True to form, Adams Leasing had a string of civil suits against it.

I ran the list until I came across a slip-and-fall case based on the dangerous condition of an apartment. The key factor was that the plaintiff’s attorney was a law-school classmate to whom I had lost enough money over a two-hand poker deck during the third year of law school to claim him as a dependant.

Gene Martino was one of those ferreting kinds of lawyers, who keeps on ferreting long after most lawyers turn off the light. He ferrets for the sake of ferreting. He once told me that he can beat better lawyers because they learn everything necessary about a case. He learns everything about a case. I decided to “draft” on Gene’s particular talent.

I got the number from the court records and made the call on my cell phone in the lower lobby of the courthouse. Gene’s secretary buzzed him.

“Mike! How you doing? How about a little two-hand poker? My rent’s due.” He cackled.

I laughed at his little funny-not because I found it humorous, but because it was the best lead-in to a favor.

“Hi, Gene, you son of a gun. You’re still looking for a fish.”

“No way, Mike. I never thought of you that way. It was just a friendly way of passing the time.”

“What I remember passing was money for lunches, carfare, dates…”

“Hey, we had fun, didn’t we, Mikey?”

If I told him the truth, or for that matter told him that the next time he called me “Mikey” I’d feed that phone to him from one or both of two directions, he might have been inclined to deny me the favor. I wimped out.

“Hell of a time, Gene. I’ll never forget it.”

“So what’ve you been up to?”

“I’ve been up to getting myself into a position where I need to ask a favor, Gene. You’ve got a case against Adams Leasing, right?”

“That I do. Slip and fall. I’m gonna hammer ’em, Mikey. You’re not representing those scum buckets?”

“No. No, no. No connection. Actually, I need some information. And if anybody has information, you’re the man, Gene.”

“You got that right, Mikey. Gimme a try. What do you need?”

“Did you ever find out from depositions or interrogatories who owns Adams Leasing?”

“Did I find out? It pains me that you ask. Would Gene Martino walk into a courtroom against a corporation without knowing who manicures the fingernails of every secretary in the place? Come on, Mikey. That’s basics.”

It was music to my ears to hear old self-deprecating Gene brag on because I knew he couldn’t stop himself from backing up the bravado with his ferreted information. I had but to turn the spigot to open the flow.

“I know you, Gene, but that can be tough information to come by. Those people guard the names of the owners pretty carefully.”

“Mikey. Listen to me. It’s wholly owned by a holding company. Which tells you nothing, because it’s just a dummy corporation owning the stock of another corporation. What you really want is who owns the stock of the holding company. That took some doing. It’s wholly owned by a limited partnership. I can give you the name of the general partner of the limited partnership. It’s right here. It’s Robert Loring. Want his address? He’s at 495 Federal Street.”

I was writing on the back of an old Bruins ticket as fast as I could. “Gene, you’re golden. Now for the big one. Who are the limited partners?”

“I’m working on it, Mikey. I got a deposition of Loring on Wednesday. I’ll dig till I get it. You still at Bilson?”

“That’s where I call home.”

“I’ll get you there.”

“Geno, it was worth every dime, every penny I begrudgingly lost to you, every aggravating hour listening to that grinding East Boston accent of yours, to come to this moment.”

Actually, I just thought that. What I said was, “You’re a prince, Gene. I hope I can repay the favor.”

I had to touch a couple of bases at the office. Harvard could wait another hour.

The old offices at Bilson, Dawes actually looked good. For some reason, the nods and smiles of the secretaries and paralegals carried a bit of what I self-indulgently sensed as respect. The usual attitude toward associates, particularly on the part of the fossilized queens of dictation of the more senior partners, is that of a day-care matron toward a child whose nose won’t stop running. I silently thanked Judge Bradley for throwing me into a case and an association with Mr. Alexis Devlin that boosted my status three rungs on the food chain.

I was walking proudly by the time I reached Julie’s desk. Needless to say, none of the above commentary went for Julie. I always thanked God for granting me a human being for a secretary. This particular blessing came with a concomitant curse.

Just as Julie was raising her eyebrows while she asked, “How are you and ‘Lex’ getting along?” I heard my name whined in the adenoidal tones of junior partner Whitney Caster.

“Knight, I want to see you.”

I smiled at Julie and whispered, “Lex wants to adopt me. Would you prepare the forms?”

Julie’s giggle was stepped on by a second whining outburst. “Now, Knight!”

I moved slowly backwards toward Caster’s office while asking Julie, “Anything critical?”

She said, “Mr. Malone called three times about the Keilly case. He wants to set up a deposition.”

“Tell him to give me a break. That case won’t go to trial for two years. What else?”

“Mark Shuman wants a date for pretrial motions on the copyright case.”

“When did he call?”

“Yesterday morning.”

“No sweat. Mark’s tuned in. He’s heard what’s going on. He won’t press it. Anything else? I mean critical.”

“Bob Casey just called about the Detroit Red Wings game tomorrow night.”

“That’s critical. And painful. Would you tell him it’s impossible? Maybe the Black Hawks in two weeks.”

From behind me, at a ten-decibel increase, “KNIGHT!”

Julie stifled a grin. “That man’s gonna split a hemorrhoid if you don’t get in there.”

I smiled back. “Is that a promise?”

Caster was a nice shade of pink by the time I was looking across his desk at him. I’m sure the fear of losing the power of having me on voice commands had nearly driven him to distraction. My finally-obedient presence before him came just before he started sucking his thumb.

“Did you call me, Whitney?”

Any form of “yes” would have sent Julie into a case of the unstiflable giggles. I think he appreciated that, because he finessed the question.

“Knight, I have an idea. I want you to go back and reargue that motion to suppress discovery before Judge Bradley.”

I could see his weasely little mind working. He was salivating at the thought of Judge Bradley finding it difficult to deny my motion when I was in the midst of representing his son. More to the point, if I won the motion, Whitney could see himself garnering the credit with the seniors for coming up with the ploy.

“Whitney, baby, you don’t have enough brains or ethics to realize that a man of Judge Bradley’s character would recuse himself from the case before he’d play into your sniggering little plot.”

I liked the sound of that, but it never actually passed these restrained lips. What came out was, “That’s an idea, Whitney. I’ll get on it.”

“You do that, Knight,” he whined as he busied himself with lofty legal issues in a brief. I was dismissed. I curtsied, and turned for the door.