Private Sector (4 page)

I actually knew that.

In a city packed with recognizable faces, Seymour, aka “Cy,” Berger had one of the better known. He’d been a two-term congressman and two-term senator who ruled the Hill before this embarrassing thing with a Senate page—actually, it was a flock of Senate pages, other senators’ wives, and assorted other ladies— had toppled him. Such was the scope of Cy’s political skill and influence, in fact, that he was known as the King of the Hill before one and then hordes of tearful women came out of the woodwork to testify that Cy had messed around in their panties. I recalled a few televised hearings, news of covered-up paternity suits, a second divorce from a cuckolded bride, and, finally, Senator Berger at a press conference announcing he was dropping out of his reelection race to “pursue private affairs.”

He might’ve worded it a bit differently, if you ask me.

In any case, Washington is a weird town with a different cultural take on political disgrace and professional ruin. So Cy did the

D. C. thing: He retreated into a powerful law firm where he earned ten times his Senate salary and after Jay Leno ran out of jokes about him, progressed into a sort of senior statesman, doing the Sunday morning talk-show circuit, backslapping his former colleagues for favors, and his private life became his
private
life once more.

But understand that Washington loves nothing more than a splashy political scandal, and for those two months Cy Berger had been
it
, the talk of the town.

The King of the Hill was retagged the Cock of the Walk, and the big joke making the rounds concerned this farmer who paid a fortune for a barnyard cock named Cy, a bird reputed to have miraculous prowess and endurance. The farmer brought Cy to his farm, placed him in the barnyard, and watched him go to work. He was astonished—Cy was not only tireless, he was indiscriminate.

He schtupped all 300 hens before lunch, then ran into the cow pasture, nailed 400 head of cattle, and had just leaped into the pig-pen when the farmer got tired of watching. But the next morning, when the farmer returned to the barnyard, to his dismay he found his prized cock on its back, legs stiffly pointed skyward, apparently dead from exhaustion. A flock of buzzards was circling overhead. Furious about being cheated, the farmer began loudly cursing, until Cy cracked an eye and whispered, “Hey, shut up, would ya. I’ve almost got the buzzards sucked in.”

Back to the situation, however. I said, “Good morning, Senator.”

“Drop the Senator shit. Cy’s fine.” Never seen him face-to-face, Cy was taller than I expected, heavyset, with a florid, ravaged face, salt-and-pepper hair, and a thick nose, migrating toward a bulbous nose. He was not handsome, not even attractive, almost ugly, actually. Yet something in his pheromones exuded the essence of power, and in Washington, this is the ticket to the goodies.

“May I come in?” he asked me.

I nodded.

He looked at Miss Weston, smiled warmly, and said to her, “Good morning, Sally. How are you today?”

“Fine, Cy. Thank you for asking.”

Back to me. He asked, “Did I interrupt something?”

“Miss Westin was just explaining that she’s my minder.”

“And do you have a problem with that?”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, I suppose I would.” He contemplated this and me, then said, “I’m the partner assigned to oversee the legal work you two will be doing. I’m also the one who persuaded the firm to participate in this Army program.”

So this was the guy. Naturally, I asked, “Why?”

“I thought it would be good for the firm’s image.”

“I’m not even good for my own image.”

He chuckled. “I’m sure you’ll have a lot to offer us.”

Wrong. But Cy casually picked a piece of lint off his trousers and mentioned to Miss Westin, “Sally, do me a favor and go inform Hal that Major Drummond’s here.” He explained for my benefit, “Hal Merriweather. He handles our personnel issues and has a tendency to be territorial and temperamental.”

It was slickly done, but experience gives you a certain sense for these things. And in fact, the instant she was gone, he closed the door, leaned against it, and examined me from head to toe. “Sean, right?”

“Right.”

“Well, Sean . . . We’re going to have to make a few adjustments here. Harry Bronson just spoke to me. And poor Sally looks fit to be tied.”

I was not expected to respond to this, and I didn’t. After a moment he went on, “See this office?” It was obvious I saw the office, so he continued, “Jimmy Barber was the best associate we’d seen in years. Yale Law, head of his class, law review, our top pick that year. He was fast-tracked to make partner in six years. Anyway, last summer one of those
60 Minutes
knockoffs slammed a cabinet secretary, how he’d taken free flights from a political donor who’d also paid his kid’s college bills and the rent for his mistress’s condominium.”

“The one with—”

“Yeah . . . same guy. In fact, I talked him into launching a libel suit. And I persuaded the management committee to assign it to Jimmy, as a final test, if you will, before partnership. Jimmy began with a thorough search through the cabinet officer’s financial records. He found receipts for the airfares and the tuition payments for their son. The mistress turned out to be a Peruvian girl the man’s wife sponsored for citizenship and was helping with her rent. His wife even signed the checks. So tell me, Sean, would you work it that way with a mistress?”

“Would you?”

That impertinent question just slipped through my lips. He stared at me for a long moment. But this guy had obviously been dispatched to administer a bureaucratic spanking, and he was my new boss, and attitude adjustment works best when it’s a two-way street. He was the authority figure and I was the wiseass, and somewhere in between we had to find a workable middle ground. I did add, however, “The question was theoretical of course.”

He laughed. “Well, I’ll be damned.” Then he observed, “No, I signed the checks myself. Waste of effort, though. My wives found out about my affairs on the evening news.”

“I’ll bet that was annoying.”

“Yes . . . it really was.” He then said, “But back to Jimmy, it turned out the network got its whole story from an ex-con. It further turned out that in his previous life, the cabinet member was the district attorney who got the source ten years without parole. More incriminating still, the network never verified the details, never even offered the cabinet member a chance to refute it.”

“So you had a strong case.”

“It did appear that way, yes.”

He then studied the carpet pattern a moment, as though it was too painful to continue. But of course he did continue, saying, “Fields, Jason, and Morgantheau handled the defense with Silas Jackler, their top gun. You’re probably aware, the hard part with libel of a public figure is the requirement to prove malicious intent. After weeks of footwork, Jimmy told us he’d located an inside source who participated in the production and said he was present when a junior editor asked his bosses if they shouldn’t at least verify the story. He was told to shut up. In fact, Jimmy’s source overheard one senior editor boast that he’d already bagged one congressman and wanted a new scalp to hang off his bedpost. Malicious intent, right?”

“Right. But I sure hope you carefully vetted this source.”

“Yes, you always should, shouldn’t you?” An eyebrow raised. “In fact, seconds after Jimmy examined our witness in court, Jackler introduced a ream of evidence showing the man had been fired by the network for cheating on his expense accounts, as well as statements from several witnesses who heard him swear he’d get revenge. Under Jackler’s cross, the witness crumbled and admitted

every bit of it.”

“Always a cinematic moment.”

“Indeed.” After a moment, he added, “Jimmy later confessed that he’d lied to us. He wanted to impress us with his detective work. Actually, his source found him, claimed he’d read about the suit in the papers and tracked down our firm to offer his services.”

“A plant?”

“Probably.”

“But so what, right?”

“Right. Our case was dismissed. We were even ordered to restitute the legal costs of the defendants. Word spreads pretty quickly around the industry—it was a great humiliation for the firm, and Jackler charges six hundred an hour. The greedy bastard hit us for ten million.”

Surely there was a point to this story, and I guessed, “This is the same firm I’ll be facing?”

“Same firm.”

“And you’re looking for blood?”

“Absolutely not.” He looked me in the eye and insisted, “We’re all professionals here, Sean. We
never
take it personally.”

We both chuckled at this little lie. I was starting to like this guy.

He then said, “But our cases are worth big money. The great corporations, the GEs and Pepsis of the world, they hire the best, pay a fortune for the service, and demand excellence. We don’t pick cherries off trees.”

Which was obviously the real point of our discussion. Motivational psychology 101: Cy was equating the stakes of corporate law with those of criminal law—money and reputations versus lives and fates.

Of course, one did not get where Cy had gotten without having a persuasive, even charismatic manner. I therefore spent a long and respectful moment contemplating his point. Nope—still bull-shit.

But I decided it was my turn, and I leaned against my desk and asked Cy, “Sally Westin? Why’s her name on your masthead?”

He sighed. “Sally’s story is . . . intriguing. Her grandfather was one of our founders. He died about twenty years ago but remains legendary. His fingerprints are all over the firm, the secret to our success, we believe. He was an eccentric old coot who believed in winning at all costs. He drove the other partners crazy, and from what I hear drove the associates even crazier. Every firm likes to brag about what it puts its associates through. Frankly, we make the others look like daycare centers. We work them twice as hard, put more pressure on their shoulders, and are less forgiving than any firm we know. We tell our aspirants their chances of making partner are one in seven, and law students being the perversely competitive creatures they naturally are, it draws them like flies.”

“And the connection to Sally Westin . . . ?”

“I’m getting to that. Sally graduated from Duke Law, barely in the top half of her class. We can afford to be very picky and we are. In practice we don’t interview at Duke—we draw only the top ten percent from the top five. We made an exception for her.”

The moment seemed appropriate to ask, “Why?”

“Guilt.”

“Guilt?”

“Yes. Sally’s father had also been an associate in this firm, back when old man Westin was our managing partner. It was one of those perverse instances of counter-nepotism. The old man nearly worked his son to death, gave him three times the workload of other associates, and hounded him relentlessly. This went on for seven years. Then he fired him.”

“Sounds like a lovely guy.”

“Last of the real coldhearted bastards.” After a moment, he added, “It was long before my time, but I’m told he was also a very shrewd and talented lawyer. The son moved to another firm but was a shattered man. Five years later, when Sally was two, her father was again rejected for a partnership.”

“Time to consider another profession.”

“Perhaps he did. But instead he killed himself.” He allowed me a moment to think about that, then explained, “But Sally works like a demon. I doubt if she’s gotten more than four hours of sleep any night since she started. Nor have we gone easy on her. That’s just not our way. All associates have to prove themselves.”

“And how’s she doing?”

He waggled a hand. “In a few months, we’ll decide which three of seven associates in her year group we’ll keep. Two are golden children . . . true prodigies. Also, since bankruptcy is now over half our business, we prefer our associates to possess both legal
and
accounting degrees. Sally lacks an accounting degree and, frankly, if she has a knack with numbers, she keeps it well hidden.”

He appeared to have more to say, and after a moment, he added, “I was the one who persuaded the management committee to assign her to work for me. If she strikes you as a bit stiff and intense, I thought it fair to explain why.”

Well, there are many motives for entering the field of law, intellectual or moral fascination, parental expectations, greed, and outright confusion heading the list. Miss Westin was apparently driven by ghosts. I wasn’t sure that was altogether healthy. Actually, were I running this firm, there’d be a bomb-sniffing dog and a metal detector by the door on the off chance Miss Westin wanted to even up the score a bit. But that’s just me.

Cy then said, “Don’t mention this to Sally. Or, for that matter, to anybody. We try to respect one another’s privacy, and only a very few of our senior partners know the tale. Our associates are bred to be competitive, and some would no doubt find ways to employ it as a weapon.” His expression turned grave and he added, “But you’re not in the hunt for a partnership, and you need to be aware that your behavior can affect her future.”

“I’ll try to be responsible for my own screwups.”

“Always a commendable attitude.” He shoved off from the door, flashed a smile, and placed a chummy hand on my shoulder.

He suggested, “And I’ll bet you’re wondering why the Army agreed

to use this firm.”

“Actually, I’m not.”

“Sure you are.” He gave me a knowing look and added, “I went to law school as a route into politics . . . Catholic University Law, in fact. A young Army officer named Tommy Clapper was in my studygroup. We got to be pretty good friends.”

“Is that right?”

As he walked out, he remarked, “We talk all the time.”

That aside, I found myself liking Cy, and I think he sort of liked me. I don’t mean we were butter and toast, but I was marooned here because I pissed off my boss, and he was stranded here because he pissed off the American people. Set aside that order of magnitude and it did strike me that we had a bond of fellowship. Also, there was something of the charming rogue in him. I like a man with a few serious flaws. I can relate.