Brian Haig - PrivateSector

A quick jerk brought Barry up on his tippy-toes. “I should warn you I’ve done ears, no problems. But this nuts thing… it’s kind of confusing… I mean, I tried it once and I don’t know… I probably squeezed when I should’ve yanked… and, Jesus, they’re sort of like grapes, you know? Very soft.”

Barry’s mouth opened, and I said, “Shhh.”

Well, for once, he actually did shut up. Barry was being very reasonable. Maybe I had misjudged him after all.

I asked, “Did you insert those legal files in Lisa Morrow’s e-mail?”

He shook his head, but it’s important in these situations to be on the same wavelength, so I gave another hard tug. He babbled, “Ow, ow. .. I swear… I swear.”

It looked like an honest response. “Okay, Grand Vistas. What is it?”

“You don’t… I mean… please…”

“Do you think your voice will actually get higher?”

“It’s… it’s what I told you. It’s a holding company.”

“Who owns it?”

“I… I don’t know.”

Barry suddenly found himself another inch higher up on his tippy-toes. He’d better know how to levitate.

“I… I swear I don’t know. God, ow… it hurts… please don’t.”

“Is it a front? What?”

“No… it’s a… a real company. Like I tried to tell you, it’s… auggh… it’s a legal partnership.”

I had to contemplate that for a moment. Barry, I thought, was being as honest as he knew how to be. I mean, you could only expect so much from a guy like him. But I was also certain he was scared out of his wits. The fount of that fear, however, was the interesting question.

So I asked him, “What are you afraid of?”

He studied my face, I think weighing which was worse- explaining to the Mrs. why there’d be no more tiny Barrys skipping around the suburbs, or exposing what he knew about Grand Vistas. Not a hard choice, in my view. But hey, that’s me.

“I don’t know who they are. I met with their lawyers and brought back the agreement. That’s what I was told to do… and look… that’s all I did.”

“Told by who?”

“By Cy. And Jason.”

“No due diligence?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I was assured they were okay.”

“What are you not telling me, Barry?”

“I, shit… I just, please, don’t… auughhh.”

Well, Barry somehow arched up another quarter inch, but I think he and I both knew we were down to the last millimeter.

“Ow… oh God, this hurts… ow, ow, ow…” Then he said, “All right… please… ow…”

So I let him down about two inches. He drew a few deep breaths, then blurted, “I swear, I don’t know who they are. Not people you want to fuck with, though.”

“Crooks? Spies? What?”

He was shaking his head. “I don’t know… something. We met in a secret location in Locarno, Italy. They came with guards.”

“Lots of rich assholes have private security.”

“Not like that, Drummond. These guards were tough bastards. They were different, you understand?”

I suspected I did understand. I asked, “Nationality?”

“I only spoke with their lawyers. One French, the other German. The meeting lasted less than thirty minutes. They gave me the contract and told me to get it signed. No changes, no negotiations.”

I released Barry’s gonads and he slumped immediately to the floor. He was rubbing his crotch, and you could tell Mrs. Bosworth wouldn’t have to fake any orgasms for the next few weeks. I walked to the basin and washed my hands. I said to Barry, “You will go out and inform Jessica that my concerns about the audit are reasonable and will be straightened out in a day or so. Understand?”

“You don’t tell me-”

I took a step back in his direction and he slapped his hands over his crotch. I added, “Tell Cy and Bronson I’m completely unreasonable. Explain that I’m very pissed off. Put on your lawyer’s hat and persuade them that I will not sign that audit if they take any action against me. Understand?”

He looked up at me. “You can’t… This whole deal could go down the drain.”

“Yes… it definitely could.”

“Don’t be an idiot. If we lose that contract for Morris, he’ll drop our firm. It’ll destroy us.”

“Good point.” I wiped my hands and added, “Be sure to explain that to Cy and Bronson also.”

I left him blubbering on the men’s room floor. I found Martha, got a copy of the audit, and departed.

Okay, yes, I had been very, very rough on Barry and his nuts. Sometimes I have no idea what gets into me. However, a string of ugly thoughts had begun dancing around inside my head. Right now, it was like one of those hyper-modernist, impressionist paintings with colors splashed everywhere, dripping down the canvas and running into one another.

But with a little elbow grease that picture would clarify.

A defense counsel practicing criminal law owes his fealty to his client-open and shut. It matters not that most clients are guilty, even when you know they’re guilty. Unless the client wants to confess, it’s ethical, in fact orthodox, to pretend innocence and try to hinder, smear, and obfuscate the search for truth and justice.

Corporate law is the same-but not. Morris Networks was my client and thus was owed my service and loyalty. Within limits. But where that line of loyalty is drawn is a murky province.

As I previously explained, corporate lawyers can actually become party to a felony. Therefore, if, for instance, an associate knows a client is up to its knickers in illegal muck he is expected to tattle to a partner. The partner then approaches the client, cautions its executives to amend their bad ways, and if the client refuses, then the partner should terminate the business relationship and everybody goes along their merry way.

More ticklish is what happens when the associate merely suspects something’s amiss. The convenient thing, obviously, is to update your malpractice insurance and keep billing your ass off-actually their asses off, to get the possessive forms properly aligned. Investigating your own client isn’t anywhere in the legal canon. And, obviously, as lawyers, we’re expected to respect the attorney-client confidentiality to the bitter end.

This was the quandary gnawing at me as I drove away from the scotch-bottle tower of Morris Networks, my client, possible future employer, and partner of an international company that appeared shady-“appeared” being the operative verb.

Further complicating matters, I did not trust Barry, Sally, Cy, or Bronson. All four could be neck-deep in these shenanigans.

So. This was going to be tough. How to get to the bottom of it?

I needed someone I could really trust. Blood is thicker than water, as they say, and in fact, my parents had actually two children-the good-looking, lovable stud who is hung like a rhino, and my brother, John, a year older, a hell of a lot smarter, but, trust me on this very salient matter, shorter where short really matters.

If you’re interested, my father was a career officer who made it to colonel before he was leading his brigade on a sweep in Vietnam, dropped his map, bent over to pick it up, and a Vietnamese peasant with an ancient crossbow and a wicked sense of humor plunked one up his ass. Colonel Drummond, however, was a tough bird and survived, though his organic garbage disposal had to be reconfigured, requiring hourly trips to the potty, further requiring him to trade his Army green for a medical disability discharge. Literally, his career went to shit.

But back to John, he and my father had that special bond that often exists between stern, ambitious, hard-driving military fathers and their eldest sons. My father wanted to mold John into his finest soldier; John wanted to mold my father into the parent of an orphan. But what was a bad deal for John was a good deal for me, since I got to hide in his shadow.