Джон Гришэм - The Rooster Bar

They nodded along, primarily to placate him. Gordy took another sip, moved to the left side of the wall, and pointed. “Here’s the really nasty stuff, the part you know nothing about. Rackley owns a New York law firm called Quinn & Vyrdoliac; you might have heard of it. I had not. In the trade it’s referred to simply as Quinn. Offices in six cities, about four hundred lawyers, not a top one hundred firm. A small branch here in D.C. with thirty lawyers.” He pointed to a sheet of paper with the firm’s name in bold lettering. “Quinn works primarily in financial services, the gutter end. It handles a lot of foreclosures, repossessions, collections, defaults, bankruptcies, almost everything related to debts gone bad. Including student loans. Quinn pays well, at least initially.” He pointed to a colorful brochure, a trifold opened and pinned to the wall. “I saw this four years ago when I was considering Foggy Bottom. You probably saw it too. It features the smiling face of one Jared Molson, a grad who was supposedly happily employed at Quinn with a starting salary of $125,000. I remember thinking that, hey, if Foggy Bottom is turning out guys who get jobs like that, then sign me up. Well, I found Mr. Molson, had a long chat with him over drinks. He was offered a job at Quinn but didn’t sign a contract until after he passed the bar exam. He worked there for six years and quit, and he quit because his salary kept going down . He said that each year the management would study the bottom line and decide that cuts were necessary. His last year he earned just over a hundred and said screw it. He said he lived like a bum, whittled down his debt, and now he’s selling real estate and driving part-time for Uber. The firm’s a sweatshop and he says he got used by Foggy Bottom’s propaganda machine.”

“And he’s not the only one, right?” Todd said.

“Oh no. Molson was just one of many. Quinn has a fancy website and I read the bios of all four hundred lawyers. Thirty percent are from Rackley’s law schools. Thirty percent! So, my friends, Rackley hires them at enviable salaries, then uses their smiling faces and great success stories for his propaganda.”

He paused, took a sip, gave them a smug smile as if waiting for applause. He walked closer to the wall and pointed to another face, a black-and-white photo on copy paper, one of three just under the Great Satan. “This crook is Alan Grind, a Seattle-based lawyer and a limited partner in Varanda. Grind owns a law firm called King & Roswell, another low-tier operation with two hundred lawyers in five cities, primarily out west.” He pointed to the left, where King & Roswell held a spot next to Quinn & Vyrdoliac. “Of Grind’s two hundred lawyers, forty-five came from the eight law schools.”

He took another sip and walked to the table for a refill.

“Are you going to drink that whole bottle?” Mark asked.

“Only if I want to.”

“Maybe you should slow down.”

“And maybe you should worry about yourself. I’m not drunk, just sufficiently buzzed. And who are you to monitor my drinking?”

Mark took a deep breath and let it go. Gordy’s speech was clear enough. His mind was certainly clicking right along. In spite of his disheveled appearance, he seemed to be under control, at least for the moment. He stepped back to the wall and pointed at the photos. “The guy in the middle here is Walter Baldwin, runs a Chicago law firm called Spann & Tatta, three hundred lawyers in seven cities, coast to coast. Same type of work, same fondness for graduates of lesser law schools.” He pointed to the third face under Rackley. “And rounding out the gang is Mr. Marvin Jockety, senior partner of a Brooklyn law firm called Ratliff & Cosgrove. Same setup, same business model.”

Gordy took another sip and admired his work. He turned and looked at the three. “Not to belabor what should be obvious, but Rackley has under his thumb four law firms with eleven hundred lawyers in twenty-seven offices. Between them, they hire enough of his graduates to give his law schools plenty to crow about, so that suckers like us rush in with piles of cash provided by Congress.” His voice was suddenly loud and shaky. “It’s perfect! It’s beautiful! It’s one great big fat law school scam that’s risk-free. If we default the taxpayers pick up the tab. Rackley gets to privatize the profits and socialize the losses.”

He suddenly threw his coffee cup at the wall. It bounced off the thin Sheetrock unbroken and rolled across the floor. He sat hard against the wall, facing them, and stretched out his legs. The soles of his feet were black with dirt and grime.

The crash echoed for a few seconds as they watched him. Nothing was said for a long time. Mark gazed at the wall and absorbed the plot. There was no reason to doubt Gordy’s research. Todd gazed at the wall as if enthralled by the conspiracy. Zola stared at Gordy and wondered what they were supposed to do with him.

Finally, Gordy, almost in a whisper, said, “My number is 276,000 in loans, including this semester. What’s yours, Mark?”

There were no secrets. The four knew each other well enough.

“Including this semester, 266,” Mark said.

“Todd?”

“One-ninety-five.”

“Zola?”

“One-ninety-one.”

Gordy shook his head and laughed, not from humor, but from disbelief. “Almost a million. Who in their right mind would loan the four of us a million dollars?” At the moment, it did seem absurd, even laughable.

After another long pause, Gordy said, “There’s no way out. We’ve been lied to, misled, scammed, and suckered into this miserable place. There’s no way out.”

Todd slowly got to his feet and stepped to the wall. He pointed to the center of it and asked, “What is Sorvann Lenders?”

Gordy snorted another fake laugh and said, “The rest of the story. Rackley, through another company, and this guy has more fronts than a low-rent strip mall, owns Sorvann, which is now the fourth-largest private student lender. If you can’t get enough cash from the government, then you go private, where, surprise, surprise, the interest rates are higher and the debt collectors make the Mafia look like Cub Scouts. Sorvann lends to undergrads as well and has about ninety million in its portfolio. It’s a growing company. Evidently, Rackley smells blood on the private side as well.”

Todd asked, “And what is Passant?”

Another pained laugh. Gordy slowly climbed to his feet and walked to the table, where he grabbed the bottle and took a long swig. He grimaced, swallowed hard, wiped his mouth with his forearm, and finally said, “Passant is Piss Ant, third-largest student loan collecting racket in the country. It’s under contract to the Department of Education to ‘service,’ as they like to say, student debt. There’s over a trillion dollars out there, owed by fools like us. Passant is a bunch of terrorists, been sued a number of times for abusive debt collection practices. Rackley owns a chunk of it. The man is pure evil.”

Gordy walked to the sofa and sat next to Zola. As he passed, Mark got a strong whiff of his body odor. Todd walked to the kitchenette, stepped around the debris on the floor, opened the fridge, and pulled out two cans of beer. He handed one to Mark and both popped the tops. Zola rubbed Gordy’s leg, oblivious to his odors.

Mark nodded at the wall and asked, “So how long have you been working on this?”

“That’s not important. There’s more to the story if you care to hear it.”

“I’ve heard enough,” Mark said. “For now anyway. How about we walk around the corner and get a pizza? Mario’s is still open.”

“Great idea,” Todd said, but no one moved.

Gordy finally said, “My parents are on the hook for ninety thousand of my debt, private stuff I carried over from college. Can you believe that? They were hesitant, and for good reason, but I pushed them hard. What an idiot! My dad makes fifty thousand a year selling farm equipment and owed nothing but a mortgage until I started borrowing. Mom works part-time at the school. I’ve lied to them, told them I have a great job all lined up and I could handle the repayments. I’ve lied to Brenda too. She thinks we’ll be living in the big city where I’ll hustle off to work each day in a nice suit, eager to claw my way to the top. I’m in a bit of a jam, guys, and I see no way out.”