More Than Friends (31 page)

He went down the hall at a clip, gearing up to give John Stewart hell if he had secreted Vicki Cornell away. She was head and shoulders above Tom or Alex or any of the other associates. He knew that when he gave her an assignment it would be done well and on time. He relied on that.

John Stewart was leaning back in his desk chair with his fingers laced over his middle. He looked as though he had been expecting Sam.

"What's the story on Vicki?" Sam asked, forgoing any polite preliminaries. They would have been a waste of breath. John Stewart had been ignoring him since the day Michael had come out of his coma. Without moving a muscle, J.S. said, "I needed Vicki's help on a case of my own."

Sam was incredulous. "You had her just drop the work she was doing for me? Didn't she tell you what she was working on?"

"She told me. I told her to give it to Tom."

"Tom doesn't know this case. You had no right doing that."

"I had every right. I'm the managing partner in this firm. I have the final say in things like this."

"You had no right" Sam thrust a hand through his hair, on the near edge of panic. Tom Mackie didn't know his ass from a hole in the ground when it came to writing briefs. Sam didn't know what he was going to do. "Do you understand the potential of the Kneeland case, J.S.? Bill came to us from one of the mega firms If I get a ruling for a new trial, we'll be handling it. That's big bucks coming in."

"Oh? You're concerned about money?" John Stewart asked. "This is something new. Your billable hours have been pitiful."

"What are you talking about?"

John Stewart must indeed have been waiting for him, because he had the papers right there on his desk. He picked up the sheaf, dropped it again. "Billable hours. Way down for the last month. That's not the way this firm runs."

"Dunn v. Hanover brought in six million dollars. That's money for the firm before it's money for me."

"Not all profit, I might add. You didn't get a penny all those years when you did the work, and we haven't seen a cent of the six million yet."

"Right, because the defendant's insurance company has to pick up the tab, and insurance companies take forever to fork money up. But it's coming, and it'll go a hell of a long way toward putting this firm in the black for the year. Now you're complaining that my billable hours are down? What kind of crap is that?"

Innocently John Stewart said, "It's right here on the time sheets."

"Time sheets covering a period of intense personal crisis. Or have you missed that?"

"How could I miss it? You haven't been in this office more than four hours a day, if that."

"And when I'm not here, where am I? I'm at the hospital, or the rehab center, visiting your grandson."

"Or at the college taking your wife to lunch. Is that what you do with the draw you take from this firm each month?"

Sam was about to rake a second hand through his hair when he caught himself. He wasn't a lowly employee. He wasn't some raw kid who needed a taking-down. He was an experienced lawyer and a full partner in the firm. He could do what he wanted, when he wanted, with whom he wanted.

But there was more. He could feel it, could smell it in this office, and it wasn't the smell of the antique map of Boston that hung in its precious gold-leaf frame on the wall.

"Spit it out, J.S. What's on your mind?"

"What's on my mind is your role in this firm. I let you be voted in as a partner because John David convinced me it might be good to have a litigation department here, but I don't think so anymore. I don't care whether you bring in ten million on one case, you don't have the kind of image we want."

"You're angry about Teke."

John Stewart raised his chin. "I think that what you and she did was disgusting, though not surprising. Litigators are a different breed. They work with scum; they learn from scum."

"My clients aren't scum. I have a solid white-collar practice."

"I seem to recall that last spring you defended a prostitute who murdered one of her clients."

"It was self-defense. She was acquitted."

"It was not a white-collar case."

"I was appointed by the court to represent her. It took three days of my time. Where's your social conscience?"

J.S. shot a bored look at the ceiling. "Then there was the case that you tried last summer, where you defended a fellow who was charged with illegally distributing drug paraphernalia."

"Clean needles," Sam stated impatiently. "He was trying to save an addict or two from contracting

AIDS. Jesus, J.S." you're something else."

J.S. gave a shrug so subtle that it barely disturbed the smooth shoulder line of his Brooks Brothers suit. "The fact is that I am the sole living founding partner, the oldest partner, and the managing partner of Maxwell, Roper and Dine. And I want your resignation from the partnership."

Sam was dumbfounded. "What?"

"Your resignation."

"You're putting me on."

J.S. moved his head from side to side.

"I've given you twelve years of solid productivity," Sam argued. J.S. pursed his lips in the direction of the records on his desk.

"That's debatable, but what isn't is that we have irreconcilable differences. We look at the world, and the operation of a law firm, in very different ways."

"So?" Many a firm's partners had differences.

"I want your resignation."

"Well, you can't have it," Sam said in a flash of anger. "I'm a full partner here. I've invested twelve years of sweat and blood in this place. It's my firm, too. I'll fight."

"Fight all you want," J.S. said with maddening calm. "My reassignment of Vicki is just the start. I can make life very unpleasant for you, and if you're still hanging around after all that, I'll bring your partnership to a vote."

"You wouldn't win."

"I might."

"You wouldn't," Sam insisted, staring at J.S. in disbelief. Then he straightened and looked out the window but saw nothing of the view that was so prized. What he saw was another blow to the gut of the life he had thought so super little more than a month before. It boggled his mind. He was at the height of

his career, and J.S. wanted to kick him out of the firm. Yes, they had their differences, but the fact was that Maxwell, Roper and Dine provided him with an established and respected base from which to operate. The thought of being forced to change that base at a time when the rest of his life was in turmoil was one upsetting thought too many.

"First things first," he said, and turned on his heel. "I have a brief to write by Monday morning. We'll have to discuss this another time."

Annie stopped at the supermarket on the way home and emerged with nine bags, a record for her, but the wave of the future, if her resolution to make one efficient, all-inclusive food trip per week held out. She had barely climbed from the car when Sam pulled into his side of the garage. The minute she saw the harried look on his face she knew something was wrong.

He started talking off his frustration and didn't finish until he had carried in every one of the nine bags, plus his own things, which consisted of an armload of books and two large portfolios filled with the Kneeland trial transcripts, the notes he had given to Vicki Cornell at the start of the week, and the half-finished, very raw brief that he had found on her desk. By that time Annie was staring at him, unable to believe what she was hearing.

"J.S. wants you out of the firm?"

Sam gave an agitated snort. "That's the long range plan. The short-range one is to sabotage my work. Well, he almost succeeded there. I'll have to work all weekend, because this brief has to be filed by Monday or else. But I don't want to work all weekend. I want to take us all out for dinner tomorrow night. I want you and me to take off for the day

Sunday, maybe head over to Rockport and visit Pete, or drive north to Ogunquit. That's out of the question now. I'm not even sure how much of Jon's game I can make."

Annie was well familiar with the sixteen-hour-a day, seven-day weeks that Sam put in when he was on trial and knew that without support in the office, he would put in the same kinds of weeks around important motion-filing times. Vicki Cornell had been a godsend. She shaved six hours off those sixteen, freeing Sam to work on other cases. She also freed him from the intense pressure that Annie saw signs of now. Annie had an unwelcome thought. Vicki Cornell was young and talented. She wondered if Sam ever wondered what she looked like undressed.

"What a bastard he is," Sam ranted on, pushing his hand through his hair for the third time in as many minutes. "He could have told me on Wednesday, or left some kind of memo saying that he needed Vicki. Then I might have made other arrangements. I could have put Tom to work, and even though he wouldn't have given me anything finished, at least I'd have had something sketchy to refine."

"Why didn't Vicki say anything?"

"Probably because he snagged her while I was out of the office and sent her right off."

"She could have left a message for you, or called in from wherever she was."

"Yeah." Sam looked disgusted. "If she'd done that, she'd have put herself smack in the middle of a war between J.S. and me. Vicki Cornell wouldn't do that. She's ambitious. That's one of the things that makes her good, but it also means that she isn't about to antagonize J.S. He swings a lot more weight in this city than I do."

"You underestimate yourself," Annie said. She truly believed it and was relieved to say it, because she felt guilty on another score. She was actually pleased that Vicki had let Sam down. She wanted him to think less of the woman.

"J.S. has been around longer," Sam insisted. "His contacts are more dug in, and they're loaded." He sank back against the counter.

"Whoever said "When it rains, it pours' got it right." Annie thought of John Stewart's threat to vote him out. Of all Sam had told her, this angered her the most. "Do you think he would ever actually bring your partnership to a vote, or is it all hot air?"

"He'd do it in a minute and with great pleasure. He didn't want me there in the first place. He feels his initial qualms have been validated. I'm not part of the 'image' he has of himself and his firm."

Annie was offended on Sam's behalf. "Will J.D. stop him?"

"Who knows? J.D. is a loose cannon. Some of the things he says are straight out of John Stewart's mouth. Others aren't. I don't know which way he'll turn or when he'll go off. The irony of it is that if my partnership comes to a vote, J.D. will be the swing man. Of the five partners, J.S. and Martin Cox will stand against me, and Will Henry will stand with me. That's two to two. Enter J.D." Annie pictured such a meeting, such a vote. She pictured Sam standing up, pleading his case, and the thought of that rankled. "Damn it, you've done well for that firm. You've upheld your end of the bargain. They've made money on you for every one of the twelve years you've been there. To hold a vote to decide your future is an insult. I think you should resign."

He braced his hands on the edges of the counter by either hip. "I thought of that while I was driving

home. I nearly missed my turn off."

"Resign, Sam," Annie repeated with greater conviction, and began un bagging groceries. "It's the only solution to an untenable situation."

"Resigning is easier said than done."

"I might agree if you had a corporate practice," she said.

"Corporations want full-service firms. They want the security of numbers. When they form an affiliation with a law firm, it's akin to a marriage. Continuity is the name of the game, but that isn't so with a litigator. Your clients are rarely repeat clients. They don't keep you on retainer. New clients come as new indictments are handed down. Your practice is portable. You could hang out your shingle anywhere you wanted and do fine."

"In a slow economy?" he asked doubtfully. "I have a family to support."

"Your practice is immune to the economy. Look at what you've done this year. Here we are approaching Thanksgiving, and you probably have your next six months booked solid. True?"

He shrugged. "Four months."

"Six months. I've lived through enough years of your work to know that. You're too modest, Sam. You've established a fine reputation, and that was before the Dunn case. New clients have come out of the walls since that one. If you ever let it out that you were looking to move, you would be bombarded with offers from other firms, and you'd be able to name your price. They'd fight over you. Signing you on would be a coup."

She stopped what she was doing. He was watching her quietly. "Thank you," he said. "After what I've done to you, the vote of confidence means more than you know."

Whenever he looked at her that way she started to melt, and this was no exception. Betrayal or not,

she was a sucker for honesty, for vulnerability, for humility. In a strong individual like Sam, those traits were intimate.

"I've never questioned your legal ability," she murmured.

"Just my ability to be faithful. Do you still? Do you worry that I might do what I did again?"

She took the egg tray from the refrigerator and began to fill it. "With Teke, no, but I wonder sometimes. You're a dynamic man. You work with women all the time."

"No more so than I ever did."

"I never thought twice about it before. It never occurred to me that you might be interested."

"I'm not," he vowed as he had numerous times before. He curved a hand around the back of her neck, brushing a thumb along her jaw. "I miss you, Annie."

She kept on with the eggs, but the warmth she felt increased. It spread from her mind to her chest, crinkling and curling. With each brush of his thumb, it moved lower. She fought it. Something said she shouldn't give in, but she couldn't think what it was. Pride?

Punishment? Distrust? Anger? None made sense at that moment; still, she fought the urge to turn and bury herself in his arms.

"Annie?" he whispered, coming closer.

"Don't, Sam," she managed in a strained voice.

"I love you. Let me show you how much."

Warmer and lower, still she fought its pull. "It's just sex."