From Filth & Mud (4 page)

              Sarah was a hard-working, intelligent, and good lawyer. There were many lawyers who shared the first two characteristics, but few whom she’d consider good. The
good lawyer
category was reserved for those few attorneys who were equal parts advocate and counselor. Many of her colleagues were occupied with the confrontational advocacy part. They relished the head to head, mano a mano, test of strength that was litigation; at least they posed that way throughout motion practice, depositions, and pretrial conferences. Behind all that puffery, however, they were ready to settle. The reason that they repeatedly found themselves in winner-take-all quagmires was that they inevitably wooed their clients by over-promising positive outcomes.

Don’t worry. We’ll handle this. Those bastards won’t know what hit them. You’re in good hands. We aren’t really supposed to say this, but we’re experts in this field and we can guarantee that we’ll crush the other side. We believe that your case is worth millions. We’ll get you what you deserve.

These lawyers never learned that clients are like toddlers; if you promise them a cookie, they will remember that to the exclusion of everything else, and will expect you to deliver that cookie. The biggest no-no of all is throwing out a number. Once a client hears a number, for example $10 million dollars, then $10 million is what the client expects regardless of whether or not the lawyer preempted the figure with a caveat such as “possibly as high as…” or realizing his or her mistake, tries to backtrack a little by adding, “Perhaps not as high in this particular case”. It does not matter; the client now expects the full $10 million. So in the extreme likelihood and near certainty that the case were to begin settlement negotiations, the client will be perplexed that the lawyer who had promised $10 million dollars is now begging the client to take a much lower sum. At best, half of the promised amount and usually a quarter or less.

The failure was on the lawyers for mismanaging the client’s expectations because of a rush to secure their business. Failing to prepare clients for the 97% likelihood that their lawsuit would either settle or be dismissed outright was not malpractice by the definition of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, but just as bad in her eyes.

Sarah favored the counseling role of the attorney―not that she did not enjoy a good trial or oral argument―but she found that with performance art, the hard work took place prior to the event, offstage. Flawless preparation was where you honed the craft of flawless performance. Her curtain call would be a bench or jury verdict for her client. Sarah’s preparation began at the very first meeting with a potential client. She avoided all of the pitfalls of an overeager attorney that a confused, ignorant client could manifest. She began every meeting in her counseling role. She would listen intently to her client’s story. There was always one. She would ask rather light questions, probing her client’s veracity, willingness to divulge information and to see if he or she would stray from the prepared monologue. Clients always told one-sided stories. They liked telling their side of the story and often saw lawyers as a stranger whom they had to convince.

The first run through their stories always painted the client as the innocent victim and the other party as the evil bastard who owed them money. Black and white.
I am right, the other side is wrong! Now win me the case.
Sarah had a knack for getting past those barriers. She was a naturally kind-hearted, easy-talking, girl from everywhere. Her parents were both U.S. Navy career officers, which meant that there wasn’t a place on this earth that she hadn’t visited or lived in for some period of time.

Sarah was a California girl at heart, growing up in the laid back culture of San Diego most of her formative years. People described her as many things; smart, tough, bitchy, kind, and enchanting, but she was a surfer girl above all. She’d first taken to the water when she was a baby living in Okinawa, Japan. Her father was a promising young lieutenant assigned to the USS Humboldt. He was the ship’s Fire Control Officer, following in a proud, ten-generation long lineage of Deveraux’s men to serve in the Navy. Childers Deveraux was the first. He had served as a Negro deckhand and cannonier in the Continental Navy, and so the tradition passed on down to Sarah’s father, Jackson Childers Deveraux, the latest, and probably the last, to carry the Deveraux flame.

Sarah’s mother was a young orthopedic surgeon stationed at Kadena Air Base in the heart of Naha, Okinawa.  She had finished eight years of surgical residency after which she had entertained offers of employment from the finest medical institutions, including Massachusetts General Hospital, Johns Hopkins, and the National Institutes of Health. However, after so many years of monotonous hospital settings, Emilia Estrada was tired of being confined to one place. She wanted something different. She was the daughter of Brazilian immigrants, who’d come to the United States and lived the American Dream. Through hard work and dedication they created a successful, small chain of Churascarias. Emilia decided to join the Navy and escape halfway around the world.

This was one of those mornings where Sarah’s memories turned to the nostalgic. She was supposed to be preparing for a meeting with a troublesome client who had threatened to leave the firm unless its matters were reassigned to more competent counsel, and at Bodner James you couldn’t get more competent than Sarah. He was a key client of the firm, and he had to be pleased however possible. Sarah sighed heavily and poured herself into her work while she battled to keep her worries about Jacob from tearing her apart.

But this morning, Sarah could not get her mind off of home. Jacob was getting worse. He was deteriorating daily, and she feared that he would one day lose his battle with depression. She’d never mentioned the “d” word around him because he was a proud man, or at least he used to be… it seemed like a lifetime ago. Now he was just a shell. He had kept cocooning, a term she’d learned from him in his Marine Corps days. Cocooning, in Marine Corps jargon, meant stopping all action in hopes of preserving energy in a cold-weather environment. In cold weather, it was imperative to keep moving, expending energy, converting it into life-giving heat. Cocooning meant certain death.

Jacob agreed with her observation and seemed determined to break the cycle of doing less each day. However, she observed less and less activity from him as the days turned into weeks and the weeks subsequently gave way to months, and now the downward spiral had lasted a year and a half. She had stopped coming home early for mid-day lunches or early-afternoon surprises. She had attempted those in the past, but they had not gone well. She would habitually find Jacob despondent. The lunches were quiet affairs, and the afternoon visitations had the air of a conjugal visit at a correctional institution, minus the intimacy. Sarah had stopped dropping by altogether a year ago when she came home unannounced and had not found him. She waited the entire afternoon until Jacob showed up with the boys in tow as if he had spent the day sitting around the house. She began to worry when he started taking his trophy colt pistol with him.

And now John had him hooked on this security idea. She was not naïve. Jacob would do as John asked. He was chomping at the bit to feel relevant, to recapture a certain something he’d lost in Iraq ten years ago. She longed for the cocky Marine who she’d fallen madly in love with. Sarah had reached out to John in a fit of desperation about six months ago. Maybe she’d been too honest, but she was truly worried for her husband. She asked John for help, asked him to talk to Jacob, but she wasn’t sure that this was the answer. She worried about Jacob carrying a weapon again especially in his present condition. But she was hopeful that any action might stir some positive energy in him and break him out of his cocoon. She was prepared for whatever moth emerged. Maybe she’d lose him… she didn’t know. She was prepared for that, but she didn’t want her boys to lose their hero, the guy who would carry them up and down the stairs, one under each arm as the trio yelled “SUPERMAN!!!” at the top of their lungs.

She glanced up at the colonial era grandfather clock that stood vigilant against the far wall of her handsomely appointed office. Chronos observed every billable second that slipped steadily by. The inscription on the gold embossed plaque beneath the clock face, illegible from this distance yet omnipresent in her mind, had always inspired her work ethic. Yet now as she sat morose at her desk, the Shakespearean passage from Richard II felt like a portent of a coming maelstrom. Sarah uttered the words.
“I wasted time, and now doth time waste me”
.

- - - - - - -

A week later, Jacob arrived at XPS headquarters in D.C., fifteen minutes early, an old habit born on Parris Island. He admired the luxurious interior of the office suite, which spanned across the uppermost floor of one of the multitude of similar K-Street edifices. From here, they imposed their long shadows down over Capitol Hill, like indomitable, monied hedgerows. Jacob became instantly aware that his meticulously tailored, ironed, and starched, department-store suit wasn’t up to par, but he did not betray his realization. He’d just do what he had always done: look whoever in the eye and project total confidence.

Jacob sat by a crystalline water feature in the lobby of the suite, until exactly 10 a.m., when he was approached by a young man adorned in an impeccable suit that was not off-the-rack. He introduced himself as James Tepper, a talent agent for Executive Protection Services, Incorporated. Tepper, who looked barely out of his teens, puffed instinctively, something most men did around Jacob. Well most men, who weren’t of Jacob’s ilk.

Relax, kid. I’m not interested in how big your dick is!
The Marine in him almost blurted out.

Tepper revealed himself to be the twitchy sort throughout the introduction. He blinked incessantly and shifted his weight from foot to foot as if he was standing on the deck of a tempest-tossed toy boat. Tepper abruptly about-faced, mid-sentence, causing his lifted penny-loafer heels to click awkwardly. He broke toward the double doors of an adjacent conference room with an over-reaching stride that betrayed his feigned bravado more than his balance. Jacob surmised that Tepper had been an ROTC, college, frat boy who had managed to weasel his way out of any difficult military training or any actual service time. To the uninitiated, Tepper was bedazzled with all of the hallmarks of a steadfast military man, but in reality, he was a parade-ground pony, not a battle steed.

Jacob trailed his escort into the conference room, which was adorned in rich mahogany. A large, immaculately-polished table dominated the center of the room. Tepper offered that the table was an original Duncan Phyfe with rosewood, satinwood, and kingwood inlays. Jacob studied the oil paintings that hung like museum pieces on intricately detailed gallery panels that were faintly lit by the soft light of recessed bulbs. Tepper extended his arm in a pantomimed gesture and took the seat opposite of him.

“Please, Mr. Harrington, can I call you Jacob? Or do you go by Jake…?”

“Jacob is fine,” though Mr. Harrington would have been more appropriate for Tepper.
 

Like his shoes, Mr. Tepper’s seat was noticeably raised a few inches higher than was appropriate. Now that he was off of his feet, the power dynamic was back in Tepper’s favor. He relaxed and began his pitch. He talked to Jacob about the type of talent that XPS was seeking. A
solid
resume was apparently a good start. That was important. Military background? Check. Nice suit, a bit retro though, okay check. Clean-cut, Abercrombie look, a euphemism for
Caucasian
, check! Jacob fit the part. After twenty or so minutes of Tepper’s approvals, Jacob was informed that he was XPS’ perfect candidate. He could start immediately if he so chose.

“We don’t always do this, Jacob, but you came highly recommended by John. I think that you will be a great addition to our little operation.”

“And what is the operation exactly? To be honest I did some research and found very little about the company.”

“Well, Jacob, that’s because we like to keep it that way. Our clients know the quality and importance of our services, and they pay us rather handsomely for them. Our business grows by word-of-mouth testimonials that are shared by our elite level clients with other well-heeled individuals.” Mr. Tepper’s tone grew vastly more contrived with every word.

“And what will my part be in this operation exactly?”

“Well, Jacob, we like to start our contractors in the Client Protection Division. There you will have a chance to interact on a personal basis with our clients and provide them a mobile security concierge service. You will of course receive some training for your position, but a man of your experience should find most of this to be a tad elementary. So when can you start?”

“Thank you. Can you give me a day to talk it over with my better half?”

“Of course, please don’t feel like we need an answer immediately. We are patient and understand that family life is important. We consider ourselves a family as well.” Tepper struggled to deliver that last line.