William Gaddis - A Folic Of His Own

— It's not that no, no it's just this feeling something's terribly wrong about the whole…

— Well there is Oscar! There is something terribly wrong my God Harry if you won't tell him I will! Our friend Mister Basic's a fraud Oscar, he never went to law school he lied on his bar exam and every place else and he's going right back to prison where he came from!

— But, but he, but…

— That's why you haven't heard from him, going on about his little theatre days his little theatre was the Federal prison where his buddy found his true vocation as the Emperor Jones while he sat in the prison library looking for ways to get them all out, finding his own true vocation buying drinks for his cellmates with your money in the…

— No but how could, how do you know!

— Harry just told me in the car driving out here, he…

— But he, Harry? is it true? What she just said is it true?

— Not, no, no not what she…

— Well what is then!

— He didn't lie on his bar exam Oscar, took the New York bars and passed on his second try but he'd falsified his application, falsified the document affirming he had a degree from an approved law school, he may have altered some inadmissible correspondence school diploma in the same state where the prison was and falsified the affidavits they require attesting to his good moral character all adds up to a Class A misdemeanor, a fine or a year in prison and they revoke his license to…

— To what! What about me why didn't you tell me! If you knew all this Harry why didn't you tell me!

— Haven't known it that long Oscar, look. If you'd won there'd be no problem over whether you'd been represented by a properly accredited attorney or not so why give you a few sleepless nights making the wrong move by dismissing him and throwing away your chances before we heard the decision, just seemed for your own good to wait and…

— But, for my own good! what do you…

— Look, once you'd turned down their settlement offer there was no place to go, a judge like this one with no track record so your remedies the way it stands now, if you've got any remedies they'll just spring from the fact that you lost.

— Well my God Harry he did lose, that's why we're sitting here! Sleepless nights, what do you mean if he's got any remedies of course he's got remedies, a new trial he can certainly get a new trial.

— Have to check it out Christina, a civil case like this one. If it was a criminal case and his lawyer hadn't been admitted to practice there'd be grounds to have a conviction vacated but of course there you've got a lot more protection under the Constitution than you do in a…

— Well he's not a criminal! If there's a criminal it's, where is he. Mister Basic, where is he.

— He'll turn up sooner or later, back in county jail or someplace else, a man like that can't stay out of trouble. He'll turn up.

— Why should he turn up if nobody turns him up, what about your friend Sam. Aren't they after him?

— Don't know what he'll decide to do Christina. If Basic was a partner at Lepidus, Shea they could sue to make him sell his partnership share if they could lay their hands on him, in fact under the disciplinary rules they'd have to but just an associate they put on the case that's not their, not up to them it's the State, up to the State to chase him down if they want to bother. Take the volume of cases we handle or Lepidus, Shea for that matter, the size of our staffs there's always the chance of a slip somewhere, try to help out these minorities give them a leg up you get some smooth laid back ex-con like Basic slips through the cracks just a stroke of luck that we…

— Of whose luck! Oscar's? My God Harry I've never heard such, help out these minorities I've never heard such a ridiculous, what is it now Lily?

— I'm sorry but, I can't find any tea bags I looked all over and…

— Of course you can't find any tea bags, you're not making one cup are you? for three of us? There's loose tea in a square yellow tin that says tea on it you make a pot of tea not a cup, you want tea don't you Harry?

— I think I want a drink.

— I should think you might! Pour yourself one and sit down, just stop walking back and forth you're not in a courtroom Harry I've never heard such nonsense from you in my life. From you Harry! Swyne & Dour and your friend Sam trying to give these minorities a leg up like your little bastard Mister Mudpye? Out of two, three hundred lawyers you've got there every one of them white? male? and you need a black face or two in the window before some antidiscrimination law wakes up and hands out a good stiff fine in the only language they speak up there, money? Put a pair of white shoes on Mister Basic make him a partner your friend Bill Peyton would think the place looked like a minstrel show and you can stand there with a straight face and, will you sit down! I feel like I'm talking to a…

— Look Christina, a place like Swyne & Dour you're not even proposed as a lateral partner unless you're bringing along a million and a half or two in billings with you, I've told you that. You think Basic or any of them's got that kind of a client base? Never been a black partner the whole time I've been there, never even more than two black associates at once and they didn't last long either, did I ever say it wasn't about money? You want to live in a place like Massapequa and drive around in a broken down Japanese, look at Oscar. Why do you think I referred him to Lepidus, Shea, smaller firm no white shoe trying to keep his costs down because Sam would try to give him a break on rates and…

— Keep his, my God have you seen the bills they where is it, that blue folder Oscar where is it. Keep his costs down, they've charged him for everything here but paperclips. Long distance calls, telecopier, deposition transcripts, photocopying thirty cents a page? They must have done the whole Britannica, car rentals, travel that's our friend Mister Basic off to California, Mister Basic buying drinks for the house at the Beverly Wilshire they all could have flown to the moon, you call this giving him a break?

— I said on the rates Christina, those are costs, I said the hourly rates.

— Mister Basic sitting here with his clock running showing me pictures of the hairy Ainu?

— Not exactly what I, what I'm talking about rates Christina, we'd price somebody at Mudpye's level out at one eighty six an hour, Basic's probably priced around a hundred, maybe less, two or three hours of conferences for his client to explain the situation, a couple of hours of reading whatever's relevant and a couple more preliminary legal research, another conference you're up to a thousand before he's even taken the case, then he drafts the Complaint. Twenty hours research, four hours to write it and we're up to thirty five hundred and you've barely started. Kiester's brief comes in filing for dismissal and the heavy research time comes in, maybe forty more hours preparing Oscar's cross motion for summary judgment. Depositions, discovery documents if Kiester handed them all over, if he didn't more conferences, more briefs, deposing your witnesses probably count on at least ten hours of preparation for every hour of actual deposition time and an important deponent like Kiester himself figure his deposition lasts ten hours so there's a hundred and ten billable hours right there and you're still pretty early into the pretrial stage when things begin to get really expensive…

— Harry?

— Trial strategy and preparing your witnesses, the whole…

— Why in the name of God are you telling us all this.

— Just trying to explain how these things can mount up, even a fairly simple case like this one you take the case I'm on multiply every figure by a hundred, a thousand, I told you it would run into money didn't I? right at the start? If he'd won…