Frolic of His Own (71 page)

—Don't understand Christina look, that's the point. You're not protected by limited liability like you are with a corporation, state regulations on these partnership forms you're wide open, the firm's liable means you're liable, insurance protection's like throwing your drowning sailor a lifesaver, a firm with two hundred lawyers at five or six thousand a head there's over a million in premiums right there. All those massive firings a while ago firms like mine were hiring right out of law school fattening up on those billion dollar mergers and takeovers, wild real estate deals, fancy office space and computer networks for these multinational accounts whole thing dries up overnight and the government regulators step in catch some monstrous financial institution cooking their books and we're part of the act because we'd advised them so down go earnings and blue ribbon reputations paying out fines and settlements on these suits by the Justice Department and a few thousand bitter investors first thing you know you're . . .

—Harry?

—You're paying these million, five million dollar claims from your
own pocket, tens of millions in coverage but you've kept raising your deductibles to meet your premiums up twenty percent last year probably another twenty or thirty this one and zero for your legal costs fighting these malpractice suits growing like weeds wherever you . . .

—Harry! I mean why are you telling me all this about millions in deductibles and God knows else I can't even . . .

—Just told you Christina! Firm's liable means the partners are liable, big firm gets sued means you're not just accountable for your own work you're stuck for the work of other partners you've probably never even met.

—Well that's the most ridic, I mean you never told me all this I don't even . . .

—Didn't want to drag you through it, you don't even want to hear it all now do you? What I'm trying to tell you, risking everything you've got, home, pension rights, bonus profit shares everything you own, why our friend Sam there owns nothing but the clothes on his back, town house, cars, sailboat, summer place they're building right over here in Southampton put it all in his wife's name.

—Charming Harry, perfectly charming.

—What do you mean charming, what else could he . . .

—I mean our friend Sam Harry! I mean these malpractice suits springing up like weeds I mean you standing right there talking Oscar out of bringing a malpractice suit worried about Sam, about our friend Sam and this whole revolting self regulating conspiracy is that when he did it?

—Did what, I don't . . .

—Put everything in his wife's name so he wouldn't have to give Oscar anything but the shirt off his back and a box of dead fish how can you tell me this!

—Not talking about Sam I'm talking about us, things go sour we could be in the same . . .

—We? you're putting everything in my name is that how all this started?

—Started with me sitting down with Bill Peyton didn't it? Started with, tell you what it started with it started when I heard Mudpye had turned down partner, broke his neck to make partner they just handed it to him and he turned it down, had second thoughts and he turned it down. Breaking mine for senior partner I'm having a few second thoughts too, tell Bill Peyton I want to see the firm's balance sheets, bank borrowings, pension liabilities, insurance, problem clients, just take your friend Trish probably in for a few hundred thousand by now hasn't put up a dime what's she going to do, wait till they sue her?

—They may just wait until she sues them.

—Not funny Christina now look, I brought her in there and . . .

—My God I know it's not funny! I mean you look Harry, you brought her in there and all your fine venerable old senior partners could see was dollar signs, they knew she's a problem client Bill Peyton knew it everybody knows it, she'd sue the Queen of England if it occurred to her and you're going to talk to Bill Peyton about bank loans and balance sheets and these millions in deductibles on this insurance they've got on you? and you think you can trust . . .

—Not on me Christina no, on the firm, I've got half a million with them but that's just life insurance, these tens of millions I'm talking about are the firm, liability for the . . .

—For the firm while the firm takes your last drop of blood chewing pills, pouring drinks, car accidents my God do we have to go over all this again? Risking everything you own when Bill Peyton pulls a fast one and you think you can trust him talking about bank loans and balance sheets and God knows what you think you can trust any of them? All of it, the whole thing the whole atmosphere's mistrust, every breath you take no put it down here Lily, give him his coffee he needs it, nothing but mistrust, mistrust, mistrust, did you bring sugar?

—What it's all about Christina, if everyplace you looked here wasn't ridden with mistrust you wouldn't have one lawyer for every five hundred people mostly can't afford one anyway, whole country conceived in competition rivalry bugger thy neighbor, the whole society's based on an adversary culture what America's all about, you want to get into dialectical materialism supposed to be Marxist theory but we're the . . .

—I don't want to get into dialectical anything Harry, I mean my God we know that people will do anything and, listen. Listen! as those glass doors clattered closed —well thank God, Lily help him will you, give him your chair Harry give him your coffee he's pale as a sheet, my God without a coat look at him I mean he's probably caught pneumonia, can you tell me? what would drive any sane person out of the house at dawn in this weather, can you tell me?

—I went for a ride Christina. I wanted to go for a ride. Do you know what those men are doing in the trees out at the end of our drive?

—Men in the trees, will you pull that quilt up over his knees Lily? He's shivering, of course he feels perfectly ghastly, he probably doesn't remember a thing.

—Oh yes, yes, every second of it it was glorious! He came forward splashing coffee on the quilt —when Hooker brought up those six batteries of cannon? His officers riding out front with their sabres flashing setting up the firing line it was stunning, all the guns opening up at once raking the cornfield, those bayonets gleaming in the smoke and blood spattered all over the green corn they lost half their force, the Confederates lost half their force, it was glorious.

—While we're losing our minds here worrying about you in jail or a ditch somewhere catching pneumonia, for God's sake will you sit still and drink your coffee? Where are you going! Lily can get it for you.

—Going where Lily can't go for me. Hooker took over two thousand casualties Harry, two hours they never stopped for a second, twenty five hundred casualties in that bloody cornfield they never stopped for a second.

—My God look at him, a gallon of wine it still hasn't worn off if he drove like he's walking we're lucky he's alive, why he got up and put on that blue suit and a necktie to go for a ride he looks like he lost ten pounds overnight, he's white as a sheet.

—Because he's shaved, Christina. It's because he's shaved.

—Well no wonder he looks odd, I mean thank God he got rid of that asinine excuse for a beard, he looks like a schoolboy on his way to a funeral, that's what they're for aren't they? isn't that what funerals are for? her voice fallen abruptly to a tone as vague as the steps taking her aimlessly toward the windows, —all the hurt and anger and making up for these miserable notions of guilt, isn't that what funerals are for? to simply roll up all these confused feelings in a ball and, and simply fill the gaping hole that Father's left in our lives? I mean no wonder he looks numb babbling about blood on the corn and men in the trees, depriving him of that, it's like a last parting slap in the face from Father denying him that.

—Going too far Christina, probably never occurred to the old man the way he felt about these sentimental tributes and all your mealymouthed claptrap about the resurrection and the life just trying to spare everybody the embarrass . . .

—Harry he never spared anyone a thing in his life! He was the most, one of the most selfish men who ever lived, the law was the only thing that was alive for him people were just its pawns look at us! Look at poor Oscar and his whole, going back to that whole sad business about his mother it was simply coldblooded, Father was always coldblooded right to the end ordering up this cremation without even a fare-thee-well? a shiver shawling her own shoulders there gazing out over the frozen silence of the pond that would suffice, if he had had to perish twice, that poem about fire and ice whose was it, Yeats? that for destruction ice was great? but he had chosen for the fire, and then some line about desire? or hate?

—What? what did you say?

—No nothing, nothing I was, nothing.

—Clean getaway Christina, nothing that strange about it is there? Strip away the poetry and off to the crematory, time comes I hope you'll do as much for me.

—Don't joke about it! His whole world caving in around him and, Oscar? are you all right?

—Joke was on him, wasn't it? He'd paused there in the doorway doing up the front of his trousers, —the last laugh?

—What are you talking about.

—Bilk, that Neanderthal Senator Bilk, Father beat him to the wire on that impeachment didn't he? Stabbed him in the back with a cat's shinbone, you remember that Harry?

—Oscar just sit down, have you eaten anything?

—Have your choice of fathers, we just saw Holmes shot through the neck when the Twentieth Massachusetts was hit on three sides didn't we? so that smug autocrat could preen himself at the breakfast table at his son's expense, you've read that haven't you Harry? My Hunt after ‘The Captain'? Self serving piece of sentimental humanism at his son's expense published in the Atlantic before the blood was dry on those piles of amputated limbs he loved it, Doctor Oliver Wendell Holmes he loved every minute of it.

—Well we've simply got to eat something, where's Lily.

—Got to get started Christina, I'll eat something later when I, I thought you'd come in with me.

—Obviously I can't can I? I mean this law clerk coming up here with God knows what for us to sign I hardly know what I'm doing.

—Don't have to rush it do you? Get Bill Peyton out of the way we can clear up any questions but it all looks simple enough, death and taxes, same old things people spend their lifetimes trying to outsmart, this place goes to you and Oscar with whatever's in the estate unless he's made some eccentric bequests somewhere, client we had left everything to fight against circumcision but . . .

—Harry? do you know how it ended?

—Probably a good bank balance somewhere Oscar, Federal judge's salary over a hundred thousand a year and expenses nothing but whisky and cigarettes? He was up pulling on his jacket, —hell of an irony isn't it? Federal judge at a hundred thousand with this stream of hotshot lawyers pulling down half a million, a million shouting at him showing off to the client sitting there guilty as hell he collects win or lose?

—No, no I couldn't figure that out. All the crying and moaning and those bodies piled up in the Bloody Lane with that sort of spectre standing there ankle deep in pools of blood looking down on the two dead substitutes? Because that was the whole point wasn't it, because Grandfather never appeared on the battlefield that was the point, it was Bagby who stumbled on their corpses at the end of act two but then what happened. I got confused, how did they end it? Did John Israel show up at Quantness right at the end? because I got confused and . . .

—Oh, got to confess Oscar I dozed off, pretty strenuous day for all of us and I . . .

—The whole scene with Kane in prison that's right out of the Crito in my last act I'll get it, you can read it I'll get it.

—Can't right now, I've got to get started. Where's Christina.

—But, all right, you don't have to. That's all right Harry you don't have to, it doesn't really matter does it? He came down unsteadily on the sofa —I just thought, you're not really missing anything but, no that's all right.

—Not what I meant Oscar, look.

—No no it's all right, it doesn't really matter does it, just a lot of, it's all those ideas I had that got in the way it's all sort of stiff and old fashioned, characters making speeches and, those ideas that just got in the way that's what happened, it doesn't matter.

—Look, I don't want to read it till I can give it my full attention that's what I mean, few things I've got to clear up so we can take time to sit down and do it right, you follow me?

—Because I just thought maybe I, I thought with no funeral service or stone or anything maybe I could still try to . . .

—Far as that goes nothing to prevent you from putting up a stone or a monument for him is there? Put it right out here on your grounds overlooking the pond if you want to? Make a lot more sense than lined up with a lot of crosses and stone angels, far as that goes you can always arrange a memorial service any kind you want to, these secular times that's what most civilized people do anyhow isn't it?

—But a fifth of the net, you probably couldn't mount much of a production on a fifth of the net could you, when you don't even know how much it will amount to?

—Tried to explain that to you Oscar, what that in lieu of phrase is in there for, keeps things halfway fair so the judge has the discretion to make an award in lieu of damages when their creative accounting comes up with a fifth of nothing but I don't get the connection between the . . .

—It's all right Harry no, it's all right I just thought maybe, kind of a memorial service because he wouldn't see it, he wouldn't be there to see it done the way I always hoped he would but I thought maybe it could be kind of a way to make things up to him for . . .