John Grisham - The Litigators

“Let’s start signing,” Wally said. “I want these in the mail this afternoon. The clock is ticking.”

The letters were on Finley & Figg stationery and sent by the Honorable Wallis T. Figg, Attorney and Counselor-at-Law. After the “Sincerely” sign-off, there was room for only one signature. “What am I supposed to do here?” David asked.

“Start signing my name,” Wally replied.

“I’m sorry.”

“Start signing my name. What, do you think I’m signing all three thousand of these?”

“So, I’m forging your name?”

“No. I hereby give you the authority to sign my name on these letters,” Wally said slowly, as if speaking to an idiot. Then he looked at Rochelle and said, “And you too.”

“I’ve already signed a hundred,” she said as she handed another letter to David. “Look at that signature. A first grader could do better.” And she was right. The signature was an effortless scrawl that began with a wavy roll that was probably meant to be a W and then spiked dramatically for either the T or the F . David picked up one of the letters Wally had just signed and compared his signature with Rochelle’s forgery. They were slightly similar, but both were illegible and indecipherable.

“Yes, this is pretty bad,” David observed.

“It doesn’t matter what you fling down, can’t nobody read it anyway,” she added.

“I think it’s very distinguished,” Wally said, signing away. “Now, can we all get busy?”

David sat down and began experimenting with his scrawl. Rochelle was folding, stuffing, and putting on stamps. After a few minutes, David asked, “Who are these people?”

“Our client database,” Wally replied with great importance. “Over three thousand names.”

“Going back how far?”

“About twenty years,” Rochelle said.

“So, some of these folks have not been heard from in many years, right?”

“That’s right,” she said. “Some are probably dead; some moved away. A lot of these folks won’t be too happy to get a letter from Finley & Figg.”

“If they’re dead, let’s hope Krayoxx got ’em,” Wally blurted and followed it with a loud laugh. Neither David nor Rochelle saw the humor. A few minutes passed without a word. David was thinking about his room upstairs and all the work it needed. Rochelle was watching the clock, waiting on 5:00 p.m. Wally was happily casting a wider net for new clients.

“What kind of a response do you expect?” David asked. Rochelle rolled her eyes as if to say “Zero.”

Wally paused for a second and shook the stiffness out of his signing hand. “Great question,” he admitted, then rubbed his chin and gazed at the ceiling as if only he could answer such a complex question. “Let’s assume that 1 percent of the adult population in this country is taking Krayoxx. Now—”

“Where did you get 1 percent?” David interrupted.

“Research. It’s in the file. Take it home tonight and learn the facts. So, as I was saying, 1 percent of our pool is about thirty people. If 20 percent of the pool has had problems with heart attacks or strokes, then we’re down to about, say, five or six cases. Maybe seven or eight, who knows. And if we believe, as I do, that each case, especially a death, is worth a couple mill, then we’re looking at a very nice payday. I get the sense that nobody else around here believes me, but I’m not going to argue.”

“I haven’t said a word,” Rochelle replied.

“Just curious. That’s all,” David said. A couple of minutes passed, then he asked, “So when do we file some big lawsuit?”

Wally, the expert, cleared his throat in preparation for a mini-seminar. “Very soon. We have Iris Klopeck signed up, so we could file tomorrow if we wanted. I plan to get Chester Marino’s widow on board as soon as the funeral is over. These letters go out today; the phones’ll start ringing in a day or so. With some luck, we might have half a dozen cases in hand within a week, then we’ll file. I’ll start drafting the lawsuit tomorrow. It’s important to file quickly in these mass tort cases. We’ll drop the first bomb here in Chicago, get the headlines, and every person on Krayoxx will toss the drug and give us a call.”

“Oh, brother,” Rochelle said.

“ ‘Oh, brother’ is right. Wait till we get around to the settlement, and I’ll show you another ‘Oh, brother.’ ”

“State or federal court?” David asked, quick to throttle the bickering.

“Good question, and I’d like for you to research the issue. If we go into state court, we can also sue the doctors who prescribed Krayoxx to our clients. That’s more defendants, but also more high-powered defense lawyers causing trouble. Frankly, there’s enough money at Varrick Labs to make us all happy, so I’m inclined to keep the doctors out of it. On the federal side, because the Krayoxx litigation will go nationwide, we can plug into the mass tort network and ride their coattails. No one really expects these cases to go to trial, and when the settlement negotiations begin, we need to be hooked in with the big boys.”

Again, Wally sounded so knowledgeable that David wanted to believe him. But he’d already been at the firm long enough to know that Wally had never handled a mass tort case. Nor had Oscar.

Oscar’s door opened, and he emerged with his usual frown and look of fatigue. “What the hell is this?” he said pleasantly. No one responded. He walked to the table, picked up a letter, then dropped it. He was about to say something when the front door burst open and a tall, thick, burly, tattooed Philistine stomped in and yelled at the entire room, “Which one is Figg!?”

With no hesitation, Oscar and David and even Rochelle pointed at Wally, who was wild-eyed and frozen. Behind the intruder was a tart in a yellow dress, DeeAnna Nuxhall from divorce court, and she yelled, “That’s him, Trip, the short fat one!”

Trip went straight for Wally as if he might kill him. The rest of the firm scrambled away from the table, leaving Wally to fend for himself. Trip made a couple of fists, hovered over Wally, and said, “Look, Figg, you little weasel! We’re getting married Saturday, so my girl here needs her divorce tomorrow. What’s the problem?”

Wally, still seated and hunkering down in anticipation of a beating, said, “Well, I would like to get paid.”

“She promised to pay you later, didn’t she?”

“I sure did,” DeeAnna added helpfully.

“If you touch me, I’ll have you arrested,” Wally said. “You can’t get married if you’re in jail.”

“I told you he was a smart-ass,” DeeAnna said.

Because he needed to hit something but was not quite ready to slap Wally around, Trip backhanded a stack of Krayoxx letters and sent them flying. “Get the divorce, okay, Figg! I’ll be there tomorrow, in court, and if my girl doesn’t get her divorce then, I’ll stomp your chubby little ass right there in the courtroom.”

“Call the police,” Oscar barked at Rochelle, who was too frightened to move.

Trip needed something with more drama, so he grabbed a thick law book off the table and tossed it through a front window. Glass shattered and rattled across the porch. AC yelped but retreated to a hiding place under Rochelle’s desk.

Trip’s eyes were shiny and glazed. “I’ll snap your neck, Figg. You got that?”

“Hit him, Trip,” DeeAnna urged.

David glanced at the sofa and saw Wally’s briefcase. He eased closer to it.

“We’ll be in court tomorrow, Figg. You gonna be there?” Trip took another step closer. Wally braced for the assault. Rochelle moved in the direction of her desk, and this upset Trip. “Don’t move! You’re not calling the cops!”