John Grisham - The Litigators

Massey flipped his right hand in circles. “Keep going. Spill it.”

“For $5 million, the lawsuit will go away. I’ll handle it through my office. It will be a confidential settlement, no details whatsoever.”

“Five million? For what? For a drug that did no harm?”

“No. Five million to soothe a big headache,” Koane replied. “He was a senator for almost thirty years, an honest one, so his estate is not too impressive. The family needs a little cash.”

“Any news of a settlement will trigger an avalanche with the tort boys,” Nicholas Walker said. “You can’t keep this quiet. There are too many reporters watching.”

“I know how to manipulate the press, Nick. We shake hands on a deal now, sign the papers behind locked doors, and wait it out. The Maxwell family and their lawyer will have no comment, but I’ll make sure there’s a nice leak to the effect that the family has chosen not to file suit. Look, there’s no law, not even in this country, that they have to sue. People walk away from lawsuits all the time for all sorts of reasons. We cut the deal, sign the papers, promise them the money in two years, plus interest. I can sell it.”

Massey stood and stretched his back. He walked to a tall window and surveyed the fog and mist seeping through the woods. Without turning around, he said, “What do you think, Nick?”

Thinking out loud, Walker said, “Well, it would certainly be nice to get the Maxwell matter out of the way. Layton’s right. His pals in the Senate will forget about him quickly, especially if there’s no lawsuit on page 2. Five million sounds like a bargain, in the scheme of things.”

“Judy?”

“Agreed,” she said without hesitation. “The priority is getting the drug back on the market. If making the Maxwell family happy speeds this along, I say go for it.”

Massey slowly returned to his seat, cracked his knuckles, rubbed his face, sipped his coffee, obviously a man in deep thought. But he was anything but indecisive. “Okay, Layton, do the deal. Get rid of Maxwell. But if this settlement blows up in our faces, I’m terminating our relationship immediately. Right now, I’m not happy with you and your firm, and I’m looking for a reason to shop around.”

“No need to do that, Reuben. I’ll make Maxwell go away.”

“Super. Now, how long before Krayoxx is back on the market? How long and how much?”

Koane gently rubbed his forehead and removed a few tiny beads of sweat. “I can’t answer that, Reuben. We need to go one step at a time and run out some clock. I’ll shove Maxwell under the rug, then let’s meet again.”

“When?”

“Thirty days?”

“Great. Thirty days is $540 million in lost revenue.”

“I got the math, Reuben.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“I got it, Reuben, okay?”

Massey’s eyes were flashing, and his right index finger was jabbing through the air, in the direction of his lobbyist. “Listen to me, Layton. If this drug is not back on the market in the very near future, I’m coming to Washington to fire you and your firm, then I’ll hire a whole new bunch of ‘government affairs specialists’ to protect my company. I can get a meeting with the vice president and the Speaker of the House. I can have drinks with a dozen or so senators. I’ll take my checkbook and a truckful of cash, and if I have to, I’ll take a carload of hookers to the FDA and turn ’em loose.”

Koane offered a fake smile as if he’d heard something funny. “No need for that, Reuben. Just give me a little time.”

“We don’t have a little time.”

“The quickest way to get Krayoxx back on the market is to prove it’s not harmful,” Koane said coolly, wanting to divert the chatter away from being fired. “Any ideas?”

“We’re working on it,” Nicholas Walker said.

Massey stood again and returned to his favorite window. “Meeting’s over, Layton,” he growled, and did not turn around to say good-bye.

As soon as Koane was gone, Reuben relaxed and felt better about the morning. Nothing like a human sacrifice to get a hard-nosed CEO in good spirits. As Nick Walker and Judy Beck checked their e-mails on their smartphones, Reuben waited. When he had their attention, he said, “I suppose we should discuss our settlement strategy. What’s the timeline now?”

“The Chicago trial is on track,” Walker said. “There is no trial date, but we should hear something soon. Nadine Karros is watching Judge Seawright’s calendar, and there’s a nice gap in late October. With some luck, it might happen then.”

“That’s less than a year after the lawsuit was filed.”

“Yes, but we’ve done nothing to slow it down. Nadine’s putting up a stiff defense, going through all the motions, but no real obstacles. No motion to dismiss. No plans for summary judgment. Discovery is proceeding nicely. Seawright seems to be curious about the case and wants a trial.”

“Today is June 3. They’re still filing lawsuits. If we start talking settlement now, can we string it out until October?”

Judy Beck responded. “No problem at all. Fetazine took three years to settle, and there were half a million claims. Zoltaven took even longer. The tort bar is thinking about one thing — the $5 billion we charged off last quarter. They’re dreaming of that much money hitting the table.”

“It will be another frenzy,” Nick said.

“Let’s get it started,” Massey said.

Wally was sitting in divorce court on the sixteenth floor of the Richard J. Daley Center, downtown. On tap for the morning was Strate v. Strate , one of a dozen or so miserable little divorces that would forever (hopefully) separate two people who had no business getting married in the first place. To untangle things, they had hired Wally, paid him $750 in full for an uncontested divorce, and after six months were now in court, on opposite sides of the aisle, anxious for their case to be called. Wally waited too, waited and watched the procession of scarred and warring spouses trek meekly to the bench, bow at the judge, speak when their lawyers told them to, avoid eye contact with each other, and after a few somber minutes leave, unmarried again.

Wally was in a group of lawyers, all waiting impatiently. He knew about half of them. The other half he’d never seen before. In a city with twenty thousand lawyers, the faces were always changing. What a rat race. What a grinding treadmill.

A wife was crying in front of the judge. She didn’t want the divorce. Her husband did.

Wally could not wait until these scenes were history. One day soon he would spend his time in a swanky office closer to downtown, far away from the sweat and stress of street law, behind a wide marble desk with two shapely secretaries answering his phones and fetching his files and a paralegal or two doing his grunt work. No more divorces, DUIs, wills, cheap estates, no more clients who couldn’t pay. He would pick and choose the injury cases he wanted and make big money in the process.

The other lawyers were watching him warily. He knew this. They mentioned Krayoxx from time to time. Curious, envious, some hoping Wally would strike gold because that would give them hope. Others, though, were eager to see him fall flat because that would prove their drudgery was what they were meant to do. Nothing more.

His cell phone vibrated in his coat pocket. He grabbed it, focused on the name and number of the caller, then jumped from his seat and sprinted from the courtroom. As soon as he cleared the doors, he said, “Jerry. I’m in court. What’s up?”

“Big news, Brother Wally,” Alisandros sang. “I played eighteen holes of golf yesterday with Nicholas Walker. Ring a bell?”