Brian Freemantle - The Namedropper

‘The sooner the better,’ said Beckwith. ‘The moment there’s a public listing the media are going to be alerted. You warned Alyce against any public comment?’

‘I have, although it wasn’t really necessary. She wants to dig a hole and go hide in it. How about your boy?’

Beckwith’s snigger became a laugh. ‘He’s a tetchy son-of-a-bitch about what and how he’s called: to be referred to as “my boy” would send him ape. He certainly doesn’t need any warning about talking to the press. He’d like to go hide in the same hole as Alyce.’

‘Which was the start of both their troubles,’ reminded Reid, coarsely. ‘You got your diary with you to talk about next week?’

‘Your convenience,’ offered Beckwith.

‘Wednesday,’ chose the other lawyer. I might stay over.’

‘I’ll leave the evening free, in case. Harvey’s at the Carlyle, incidentally.’

‘High roller,’ commented Reid.

‘That’s what he tells me he is.’

‘Let’s hope he stays lucky.’

‘Let’s hope we all stay lucky.’

‘Getting Pullinger wasn’t lucky,’ reminded Reid.

‘Luckier,’ Beckwith corrected himself.

Jordan picked up the waiting message slips as he checked back in to the Carlyle and returned Beckwith’s call the moment he entered his suite.

Beckwith said, ‘I tried to get you a couple of times?’

‘I went to Atlantic City.’

‘How’d you do?’

‘Finished $4,500 up over the two days.’ And got accredited receipts for a total of $23,000 representing the money he’d taken in to the casinos and switched back and forth between dollars and chips, he reminded himself, more than satisfied with the trip. As he was more than satisfied with the accumulation in the five Appleton accounts in the Wall Street banks, which now stood at $56,000. The following morning he intended withdrawing most of it to put into the waiting safe-deposit boxes.

‘We’ve got Pullinger, the judge we didn’t want,’ declared Beckwith.

‘I was going to call you today to tell you I was thinking of briefly going back to England; see how things are there.’

‘You still can. Nothing’s going to happen except Bob coming up on Wednesday, to talk a few things through. Bring ourselves up to date.’

‘I’ll put it back,’ decided Jordan at once. ‘I’d like to be with you.’

‘I thought you would. There’s no real reason, though.’

‘I’ll be there,’ insisted Jordan. And lay out as many leads as I can for you to pick up, he thought.

‘Your choice.’

‘Will Alyce be there?’

‘I don’t know. Why?’

‘Just wondered,’ dismissed Jordan. ‘Where on Wednesday? What time?’

‘I’ll let you know.’

He had a day and a half to get all his ideas together for the meeting, thought Jordan: more than enough time.

The surprise wasn’t that the New York meeting was in Beckwith’s office but that Alyce was again ahead of him. And that Jordan was pleased to see her. He said, ‘Hello, yet again,’ and she smiled, very briefly, but didn’t speak. To the two lawyers Jordan said, ‘I’m sorry to be late. I allowed myself forty-five minutes! I don’t know how you manage to work at all in Manhattan.’

‘It’s an art form,’ said Beckwith.

‘So how bad is it that we got Pullinger?’ asked Jordan, as he sat.

Beckwith sighed. ‘You want coffee?’

‘I’d rather catch up on what I’ve missed.’

‘You haven’t missed anything,’ said Reid, as irritated at Jordan’s impatience as the other lawyer. ‘We small-talked, waiting for you.’

Jordan was aware of Alyce smiling again and this time wished she hadn’t. ‘Thank you. Coffee would be good.’ As well as his not appearing so anxious would have been good, he realized. He’d been thoroughly pissed off by the gridlock and the time it had taken him to stash his bank account money into the safe-deposit boxes, neither of which were causes for him flustering in as he had. He smiled his thanks to Suzie when she came in with his coffee, which he didn’t really want, wondering how she managed to breathe in her second-skin virginal white trousers and top.

‘So let’s pick up on your question,’ began Beckwith. ‘We’re stuck with Pullinger, which is bad luck but something we have to live with. What we really have to do is use the cantankerous old son of a bitch more to our advantage than to Appleton’s – ’ he turned to Alyce – ‘I guess we’ve already covered the ground but we’re going to have to talk about your husband as if he’s the enemy, OK?’

‘As far as I am concerned he is the fucking enemy. So let’s stop apologizing for something that doesn’t need or deserve apology,’ responded Alyce.

There was a brief, although not actually shocked, silence and Jordan was glad that her impatience had risen to match his, hoping she took his smile as appreciation, not condescension. As in Raleigh they were away from an official working area. There were more polished plants than in Reid’s annex and a skyscraper view uptown towards the unseen park. All the sepia photographs on the wall were of early American settlers and Native Americans, most in full tribal regalia, which Jordan supposed was fitting for someone of Alyce’s ancestry and Beckwith’s dress code.

‘Let’s do just that,’ said Beckwith, recovering. ‘I got the formal notification on Monday and the same day filed for a pre-trial dismissal hearing on our part. I haven’t yet got an acknowledgement, obviously…’ He paused, gesturing to Reid.

‘And I’ve filed for court acceptance, to be party to each and every pre-hearing application. As well as making our own applications. The first is for court enforcement of our being supplied with Appleton’s medical records. The second, again against Appleton – which is the only legal way open to me – is to enforce Leanne Jefferies, upon risk of contempt, to comply with the demands of Alyce’s damages claim by providing an attorney reference. Once I have her lawyer through whom to work I can apply for her medical records, to establish if she was a sufferer from chlamydia-’

‘What about the other admitted mistress, Sharon Borowski?’ broke in Jordan, his script – as well, he hoped, as its presentation – well prepared during the preceding day and a half.

Reid frowned, appearing irritated at having been interrupted. ‘I already told you, she’s dead-’

‘The result of a car accident, not a sexual disease,’ broke in Jordan again, looking directly at the North Carolina lawyer. ‘Bad luck, Sharon, rest in peace. But if Appleton caught it off her, not Leanne, got himself fixed, and Leanne is provably clean, who gave it to Alyce? I didn’t, which we can prove. Which leaves your case that Alyce didn’t have any lovers previous to me shot to bits before you even begin, don’t you think, Bob?’

From the reaction from both lawyers Jordan thought it was turning into a conference without words: clearly it was a possibility neither had considered.

Eventually Beckwith said, ‘That’s a damned good point.’

‘I suppose Pullinger could order the production of Sharon Borowski’s medical records,’ said Reid, although doubtfully. There was an asthmatic catch in his voice.

‘Do doctors keep medical records of people who’ve died?’ asked Alyce, quietly. ‘I wouldn’t have thought so.’

‘What I do think is that it could be one great big problem for us,’ finally admitted Reid.

‘Doctors might not keep medical records,’ Jordan pointed out. ‘Police or coroners might. If she died in a traffic accident there would have been an autopsy, wouldn’t there? With a pathology report?’

‘Let’s hope there was and that the medical examination went beyond finding the immediate cause of death,’ said Reid. He was talking now with a discernible wheeze.