Paul Melko - The Walls of the Universe

He opened the second, thicker envelope. It had a return address of a law firm in Toledo. The document inside was dozens of pages thick and, at first, John couldn’t parse the legalese. Then he realized that the Ray Paquelli in the document was Ray from Woodman’s and that he was suing them for breach of contract and theft.

John sat heavily on a kitchen chair. How would they deal with this? They had forty-eight hours from the postmark on the letter (yesterday!) to remove the machines, and they had no more than a handful of quarters in the bank. And Henry and Grace were at home on winter break.

He called Grace and Henry the next morning on a conference line from his apartment.

“Call our student lawyer,” Grace said.

“No, we need a real lawyer this time,” Henry said.

“How will we pay for that?”

“Call Kyle Thompson!” Grace said. “He filed the patent for us; maybe he’ll do this too.”

“He’s probably on winter break,” John said.

“At least try!” Grace said.

“Maybe Casey can help,” Henry said.

“No,” John replied quickly. That was the last person he wanted to see for help.

“I mean, she’s in Findlay-”

Grace cut him off. “If John doesn’t want Casey, Henry, don’t push it.”

“Okay. I’m just saying…”

John said, “I’ll contact Kyle. Maybe he’s still in town.”

“Do you need us to come back?” Grace asked. “I mean, I can turn around. My parents would understand…”

“Don’t even think about it,” John said. “It’s just a game.”

“Sure,” Henry said. “Call anytime. Even on Christmas. Good luck.”

Kyle didn’t answer his phone, but the message didn’t say anything about being out of town for the holidays. It didn’t note a second number either. John drove over to the law school. The door was locked, but a pair of students pushed out through the double doors and John slipped in after them. Kyle had an office in the basement, called the Bench, an open space of dozens of desks and chairs jammed together in what may have been optimized use of space or just plain chaos. Surprisingly, the place was nearly half-full with law students. One of them was Kyle Thompson.

“Ah, the intrepid Pinball Wizard,” he said as he saw John approach. “Nothing back from the Patent Office yet, so no news to give you.”

“It’s not that,” John said. “It’s these.” John handed the letters to Kyle.

Kyle leaned back in his chair, instantly absorbed in the documents. He seemed to forget that John was there, and John began pacing in front of Kyle’s desk. When Kyle turned the last page of Ray’s suit, John said, “Well?”

“It’s not my speciality,” Kyle said. John sighed. “I don’t do municipal law. And I can’t advise you on this lawsuit.”

“That’s okay,” John said. He reached for the documents. “Thanks for-”

“But-” Kyle placed his hand on the documents. “I think we can still help.”

“We?”

“Hey, Angela!” Kyle called. A brunette looked up from her desk. “You interned in the mayor’s office, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you take a look at this?”

Angela was a foot shorter than Kyle, dressed in a wool sweater and gray skirt. She skimmed the letter from the city, then threw it down on Kyle’s desk.

“They can’t do this,” she said.

“They can’t?”

“No, Department of Treasury has no jurisdiction over gambling. That’s the Department of Gambling Control. That’s Able Swenson. Treasury can garnish wages for back taxes, but it can’t order a cease and desist.”

“What can I do about this?”

“Do? You fight these bastards for trying to muscle you!”

“Sure,” John said. “But how?”

Angela wrote down a number. “This is Able’s number. Call him. He’ll know what to do.”

Kyle took the number from Angela. “I’ll do it,” Kyle said. He picked up his phone, and Angela took the suit document. She started quizzing John.

“Did you have a contract?”

“We shook on it.”

“Anything written?”

“No.”

“Did Paquelli contribute to the business?”

John shrugged. “He provided a place for the machine.”

“In exchange for a cut?”

“Yeah.”

“What about working on the game? Did he help? Did he give you ideas?”

“I don’t think he ever even played it,” John said. He tried to remember a time when Ray was in the same room as the pinball machine, and couldn’t except for the time he showed up at the lab to watch the first time.

“Where did you get the idea, anyway?” Angela asked.

John felt himself flush. “Well…”

“Don’t answer that!” Angela said. “It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t have a leg to stand on. But that’s the good news.”

“There’s bad?”

“Do you have any money? Do you have the cash on hand to fund a long legal battle?”

“Of course not!”

“Ray probably is guessing that, and thinks you’ll be an easy mark.”

“Couldn’t Kyle…?”

Angela shook her head. “We’re just students. We can’t argue in court. Well, we could, but it’s six kinds of felonies.” She turned toward Kyle. “Have you heard of Paquelli’s lawyer?”

“What’s the name? Panderstack?”

“Per Panderzelder.”

“Nope. Could be from Columbus.”

“We just rented a warehouse,” John said. “All our cash is tied up in parts.”

“Do you have orders?” Angela asked.

“We do. A couple more bars want machines. And we had an inquiry from a firm in Las Vegas.”

“No booked orders?”

“No, I guess not.” John realized they’d been doing everything haphazardly.

Kyle slammed the phone down. “Good news!” he said.

“But there’s bad news too,” John said. “I’m beginning to get the pattern.”

“Yeah, but good news first,” Kyle said. “We got a hearing with the Department of Gambling Control. Swenson said that Treasury has no authority to order them off, but he does.”

“When’s the hearing?”

“January fifth.”

“So we can keep them in the bars until then?”

“Well, bad-news time. Swenson wasn’t convinced they were nongambling devices. He needs to see them. If he thinks they are, he’ll ask you to pull the plug until the hearing.”

“When is he coming to look?”

“He wouldn’t say, but within the next three days.”

“That would mean the end of our cash flow, if the games were shut down,” John said.

“They need a real lawyer, Kyle,” Angela said.

“I know!” Kyle seemed exasperated. “I feel responsible for you guys. Freshmen, building a business in one quarter.”

“With quarters,” John said.

“For quarters,” Angela added.

“I’ll call around for you,” Kyle said. “We’ll need a lawyer who’ll take the case pro bono. But I know some people.”

“Me too,” Angela said. “You guys have appeal. College students, entrepreneurs, inventors. There might be public interest.” She snapped her fingers. “We could paint Ray as the bad guy here. Too bad the school paper won’t publish another issue until next year, but this won’t show up on a docket for a month or more.”

“That’s a good idea,” Kyle said. “You guys need some marketing help. You need some exposure.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Of course not, you’re an engineer,” Angela said. “Yours is a great story.”

“Thanks for your help, guys,” John said. “This is all too much.”

“You said it,” Kyle said. “We’ll get you through this.”

On the way back to his apartment, John’s mind roiled. For a moment he was ready to chuck it all. What did this have to do with understanding the device? Nothing at all. Yet he couldn’t abandon his friends. Nor could he bring them closer to himself. All this running around, all this legal maneuvering, seemed like so much bullshit. It meant nothing in his universe.