Firm Ambitions Read online

  “In a loose-leaf notebook. In one of those clear plastic sheets with pockets. Nine cards per sheet.”

  “Could individual cards fall out?”

  “Fall out? Well, sure. It happens sometimes.”

  “Okay. Thanks, Richie.”

  “Rachel?”

  “Yeah?”

  He lowered his voice. “How do things look?”

  “I have some leads, a few ideas. We just have to keep plugging away.” I paused. Although Richie and I never talked about personal matters, I couldn’t stop myself. “What about you and Ann?”

  “What do you mean?” he said defensively.

  “Come on, Richie, you know what I mean.”

  He didn’t respond.

  I could feel my anger flare. “Dammit, Richie, why are you still at your office? Can’t you see that Ann needs you? Go home. Be with her, for God’s sake. Help her, talk to her, be there so she can talk to you, give her someone to lean on.” I paused, waiting for a response. There was silence on the other end. “God, Richie,” I said, totally exasperated with him, “don’t be such a—such a jerk.”

  I realized, even as I was struggling for the right words, that whatever I said was not going to make a difference, was not going to change him or his relationship with Ann or her relationship with him. Yelling at him served no purpose other than venting my own disappointment. I had enough problems trying to function simultaneously as Ann’s sister and her attorney. I surely wasn’t about to become Richie’s marriage counselor as well.

  “Look, Richie,” I said with a sigh, “I know it’s hard on both of you. I promise I’ll call as soon as I have something worth reporting.”

  Next I dialed Eileen Landau’s number. As the phone began to ring I turned in my chair toward the credenza and pulled a fresh legal pad out of the top drawer. I jotted down some quick notes about the Lou Brock rookie card. It didn’t sound like a promising lead, but then again, I still didn’t know enough to know what was and wasn’t promising.

  Eileen’s answering machine cut in after the fourth ring. I listened to her message, waited for the beep, and said, “Eileen, this is Rachel. I have a question about your Lladro figurine. Is there some way to identify the one that got stolen? A serial number or something? Call when you get a chance.” I gave her my office and home phone numbers and hung up.

  “Don’t tell me you found her fucking ballerina?” said a male voice.

  I spun around, startled.

  Tommy Landau was standing in the doorway. He was wearing what looked like a safari outfit, right down to the pith helmet.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He removed his helmet in an exaggerated show of manners and stepped into my office. “It’s time we had a chat about my case, Counselor.” He smiled, and then he belched. I could smell the alcohol on his breath. His face was moist with perspiration. He settled into the chair facing me across the desk and slowly exhaled. As he did, the animation seemed to drain from his face until I felt like I was staring into the torpid eyes of an alligator. It gave me the creeps.

  “That’s not the way it works, Tommy,” I said, trying to sound more in control than I felt at the moment. “You and I don’t ‘chat’ about your case. We don’t talk period. I’m Eileen’s lawyer. You’ve got your own lawyer. If you have something on your mind, tell your lawyer and have him tell me.”

  He tugged at his walrus mustache. “Relax, Counselor. You want to go get a drink?”

  “No.”

  He nodded slowly, as if he were evaluating my response. “I’m a little hungry. You want to get something to eat?”

  “No.”

  He studied me with hooded eyes. He seemed to be scowling, although it was hard to tell for sure. The structure of the upper half of his heavy face—thick eyebrows joined at the bridge of his nose—gave him a perpetual frown. “My grandfather was a judge,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “His father—my great-grandfather—bought him the position,” he continued, as if I hadn’t spoken, “although I suppose that’s the way it usually works.” He studied the inside of his pith helmet. “A few years ago I went to the law library at St. Louis U. I was curious about him. My grandfather, that is. Hizzoner. I read about fifty of his opinions.” He looked up from his helmet and stared at me. “You ever done that, Counselor?”

  “Read your grandfather’s opinions?” I answered, meeting his stare.

  “Any judge. Read fifty opinions by any one judge?”

  “No.”

  He snorted with contempt. “Try it sometime. You’ll see what’s really going on. You’ll see that it’s all a load of simple-minded, gussied-up bullshit.” He leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling. He shook his head and lowered his eyes to my level. “My grandfather spent his career shoving messy, fucked-up, real-life situations into tidy little imaginary cubbyholes. That’s exactly what law is all about, isn’t it?”

  He crossed his beefy arms across his chest. It didn’t sound like a real question and I didn’t feel like giving him a real answer.

  “The whole goddam law thing is a confidence game,” he continued in his monotone. “A fucking fraud. You know what my grandfather’s legal opinions reminded me of? That giant in the Greek myth—the dude with all the iron beds.” He belched. “The one who chopped off the feet of his tall victims. Stretched out his short ones. Made sure they all fit into his iron beds after he got through with them. What’s his name?”

  “Procrustes,” I said, watching him carefully.

  “Yeah,” he said with a snap of his fingers. “You get a gold star, Counselor. Procrustes. That’s what the law is, too. Forcing a messed-up piece of reality into one of those iron beds and pretending that it was a perfect fit all along. Total bullshit.”

  I fought the urge to debate him. Although his eyes were still dead, I could sense his rage.

  “That’s what you lawyers and judges do for a living, eh?” he said. “You shove real people into imaginary cubbyholes.” He paused and gave me a malicious smile. “Well, now someone’s trying to shove your sister into one of those cubbyholes. How’s she like it in there?”

  “What’s your point?” I said irritably. I could feel my anger building.

  “My point, Counselor,” he said, his voice a little louder, “is that I don’t like my goddam imaginary cubbyhole any more than your sister likes hers.” He pointed a thick forefinger at me. “You don’t understand me. You don’t understand my marriage. You don’t even understand your own goddam client. All you know is your cubbyholes. Well, if Eileen and I have problems, we’ll work them out on our own. We don’t need a bunch of bloodsucking shysters and dumbshit judges shoving us into cubbyholes.”

  “Look, Tommy, talk to your lawyer. If it’s marriage counseling you—”

  “Fuck marriage counseling!” he roared. “That’s just more cubbyholes.” He took a deep breath and put his hands on his knees as he exhaled. He nodded his head slowly. I could almost see his blood pressure dropping. “Eileen isn’t thinking straight,” he continued, his voice back to a monotone. “She doesn’t want a divorce. Her problem is she doesn’t know what she wants. If she ever does decide what she wants, she’ll be better off doing it while she’s married. I’ll take her back. I’ll even forgive her for sucking that greaseball’s dick. Tell her that. I want you to dismiss the divorce case. You understand?”

  “I’ve had enough.” Now I was thoroughly annoyed. “Go talk to your lawyer.”

  He glared at me. “I’m talking to you.”

  “I’m not listening. You’re going to have to leave now. I have a meeting to get to.”

  He was breathing audibly through his nose. He studied me, his eyes no longer dull. “I remember you from high school,” he said.

  “What?” I asked, incredulous.

  “I remember you from high school.”

&nbs
p; “I can’t believe this. Leave my office. We’ll pretend this meeting never occurred.”

  “You were a cheerleader.”

  “What?”

  “In high school. I told you I remembered.”

  “You must be remembering someone else. You went to Country Day. I went to U City. I’m at least five years younger than you.”

  “After I got booted out of Mizzou I came back to St. Louis. I started what you might call my own business. I had a few customers in your class. I knew who the great Rachel Gold was.” He smiled a crooked smile. “I even went to your homecoming game against Ladue. I watched you cheer on the side lines. You think I’m shitting you?”

  “It’s time for you to leave.”

  “All the cheerleaders wore gold panties under their black skirts. Gold panties with a black U and C on the butt. At least you did. Right?”

  “I’m not interested in this.”

  “I am. I remember that great little ass of yours.”

  I stood up. “Get out of my office.”

  He thrust his jaw toward me. “Lady, my point is that you can act as tough and snooty as you want, but to me you’re still just another little prick teaser shaking her tits and ass on the sidelines—a little prick teaser who never even got married, for chrissakes. You a dyke? What the fuck do you know about marriage in the first place?”

  I reached for the telephone and punched 911, forcing my self to stare into his eyes as the phone rang. It was answered on the second ring.

  “Officer, there’s a man named Tommy Landau trespassing in my office and he won’t leave. I need help immediately.” I gave him my address.

  Tommy stood up, shaking his head. “You’re pretty stupid for a Harvard lawyer,” he said as he turned to the door. “I’ll just talk directly to Eileen. I’ll tell—”

  “You keep away from her,” I shouted. “You try to threaten her and I’ll make sure they shove you into a goddam cubbyhole with iron bars.”

  He paused at the door, his back still to me, and then he walked out.

  I immediately dialed Deb Fletcher’s number. I checked my watch as it rang. It was twenty after six. Damn. One of the night secretaries answered on the seventh ring. Mr. Fletcher was gone for the night. “Call him at home,” I ordered. “Tell him Tommy Landau tried to threaten me. Tell him he’d better find his client before he ends up in jail.”

  Then, just to be safe, I called the Ladue police and told them to send a squad car by Eileen’s house. I grabbed my briefcase and headed for the door just in time to greet two squad cars responding to my 911 call.

  God, I hate divorce cases.

  ***

  Thanks to Tommy Landau, I set a personal land speed record. In just under twenty minutes I took a shower, put on my perfume, mascara, and blush-on, picked out an outfit, put it on, studied it in the mirror, decided that the neckline was too low and the hemline too high for a business dinner, took it off, returned to the closet, narrowed the choice to two, hesitated, pulled one out, held it at arm’s length, frowned, hung it back in the closet, took out the other one and put it on, checked the result in the mirror, nodded, returned to the closet, stared in dismay at my sorry collection of shoes (all is forgiven, Imelda), settled on a pair of silver sandals, found matching pairs of silver bracelets and earrings, grabbed the sandals in one hand and my comb and lipstick in the other, and ran barefoot downstairs.

  Benny checked his watch as I came into the kitchen. “Nineteen minutes and forty-seven seconds.” He was at the kitchen table with my mother.

  “Nineteen minutes and forty-seven seconds?” I repeated with a smile. “Not bad, eh?”

  “All depends,” he said.

  “Come on,” I said to Benny as I leaned against the counter to put on the first sandal. “Admit it.”

  “For getting dressed, not bad,” he said. “For having sex, hell, I can probably shave a full eighteen minutes off that time.”

  “Put on your sandals, Rachel,” my mother said, ignoring Benny. She had Gitel on her lap and was gently scratching the cat behind the ears.

  “So?” I said to Benny. “Who really owns Firm Ambitions?”

  “Now let me see,” my mother said when I finished fastening the second sandal.

  “Mother,” I argued with exasperation.

  “Rachel,” she parried, ending the debate.

  I straightened and turned slowly, as I had been doing for my mother since as far back as I can remember—specifically, all the way back to my first Purim carnival at the Jewish Community Center, which I attended dressed as Queen Esther. I was six years old and wore a costume my mother had made on her old black Singer sewing machine. In the years that followed, she would make all of my Halloween costumes and party dresses. Turn, she had ordered in the parking lot. Let me look at my precious queen.

  “You look gorgeous,” she said.

  “You think?”

  “Think?” She looked down at Gitel and shook her head. “‘Think,’ she asks her mother. I don’t think. I know.”

  It was a beautiful dress—French country-style, with a white floral pattern against a navy background. It had a scooped neckline, a button-front fitted bodice, and a long, sweeping skirt—very feminine, very soft, very unlawyerlike.

  “Did Ann get it for you?” my mother asked.

  “For my birthday last year.”

  “She has excellent taste.” She turned to Benny. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

  “More than beautiful, Sarah. She looks good enough to— well, to give Richard Nixon a chubbie.”

  “What an absolutely chilling thought,” I said.

  “Give Richard Nixon a what?”

  “You don’t want to know, Mom.” I checked my watch. “Come on. He’ll be here in ten minutes.” I pulled up a chair to the kitchen table. “Start with Firm Ambitions. Give me that ownership arrangement again.”

  “Okay,” Benny said. “As you recall, we had gone up the Capital Investments of Missouri daisy chain until we reached Capital Investments of Vermont.”

  “Right, and who owns that?”

  “Capital Investments, Limited.”

  I shook my head in amazement. “Which is what?”

  “The plot thickens,” Benny said with a mysterious grin. “Capital Investments, Limited, is a Cayman Islands corporation.”

  “No kidding,” I said. I leaned back and crossed my arms. “A tax dodge?”

  “Maybe,” Benny said with a shrug. “We had a few like that at Abbott and Windsor.”

  “Who are the shareholders?”

  Benny shook his head. “Don’t know.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “They won’t tell me. It’s one of the reasons people like doing business down there: you can operate incognito.”

  “There has to be a way to get that information,” I said.

  “I’m still working on it,” he said.

  “So what else have you found?”

  “I’m still working on the life insurance policy,” Benny said. “Large Marge told me to call back tomorrow morning. She should have more info on the change of beneficiary by then.”

  I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Isn’t this guy incredible, Mom?”

  My mother nodded without looking up. For the past few minutes she had been studying the information I had copied off the computer terminal screen at the office of Mound City Mini-Storage.

  “By the way,” Benny said, “score one point for Sarah Gold.”

  My mother glanced up at Benny. “What?”

  He winked at her. “You said I should ask large Marge who the agent on that insurance policy was, remember?”

  My mother nodded. “She knew?”

  Benny nodded. “The producing agent was none other than Christine Maxwell of Maxwell Associates.”

  “Interesting,” I said.


  “She settled out of court,” my mother said.

  “Settled what?” I asked.

  “The lawsuit over that boating accident,” my mother answered. “I found the newspaper article on microfilm. She sued the manufacturer of the boat and the manufacturer of the motor. She settled with both out of court.”

  “How much?” Benny asked.

  My mother shrugged. “According to the article, the settlement terms were confidential. I looked up her boyfriend, too. Remember at lunch I told you I read an article about his company and pollution?” She gave me a self-satisfied smile as she got up and walked over to the kitchen counter. “Read this,” she said as she handed me a sheet of slick microfilm copy paper. It was photocopy of an article from the January 27 issue of the Post-Dispatch. The headline read:

  MIDWEST REFINISHING, INC., NAMED #1

  ST. CHARLES POLLUTER FOR 2ND YEAR IN ROW

  The article was three paragraphs:

  For the second year in a row, one of the area’s largest metal refinishers has earned dubious distinction as St. Charles County’s top violator of permit limits for the disposal of toxic wastes. According to the annual report issued by the Mississippi Sewage Treatment Plant in St. Charles, Midwest Refinishing, Inc., topped the list of St. Charles water polluters by significantly exceeding its permit limits for the disposal of rinse water containing cyanide and other toxic chemicals. Efforts to reach Midwest Refinishing’s president, Shepherd Sandberg, were unsuccessful.The Mississippi Sewage Treatment Plant issues its annual report in accordance with regulations promulgated by the Environmental Protection Agency under the Federal Clean Water Act, which requires pretreatment of waste water containing certain toxic substances before it goes to the publicly owned treatment works.

  I put the article down and looked at Benny. “Have you read this?”

  He nodded.

  I glanced down at the article. “‘Rinse water containing cyanide and other toxic chemicals,’” I read aloud. I looked at Benny. “I think it’s about time for me to pay a visit to my old friend Chrissy,” I said.

  “I don’t like this,” my mother said. She was back to studying the list I had copied off the computer terminal screen at the office of Mound City Mini-Storage.