Unsaid: A Novel (27 page)

“Of course,” the woman answers as she lifts the phone and dials an extension. The woman speaks to someone in a tone too low to hear as she writes on a message pad. When she hangs up the call, she turns to David in embarrassment and says, “Mr. Colden, I’m sorry, but the meeting seems to have been canceled. I was asked to give you this.” The woman tears off the message and hands it through the window to David.

David quickly reads the message and then, without a word to Jaycee and before I understand what is happening, grabs his briefcase and leaves the office.

Jaycee runs after him and catches David at the elevator. “What happened?” she demands. “What did they say?”

David ignores her until they get to the ground floor. He stops at the first newsstand he finds, grabs a copy of the
Daily Chronicle,
and flips through the first few pages until he finds what he’s looking for. Jaycee stares at the paper over his shoulder. The headline in the middle of the page in large bold letters reads
CAPTIVE CHIMP KNOWS HER ABC’S
.

David hands Jaycee the message from the receptionist. It says, “Nice article in the
Chronicle
. Hope it was worth it.”

Jaycee looks up from the note. “But I didn’t—”

“ ‘A source familiar with the project,’ ” David reads from the article, “ ‘puts Cindy’s age at four. But the future for this chimp is uncertain.’ ”

“Listen to me. I’m telling you it wasn’t me,” Jaycee protests.

“Then who was it? Jannick?”

“I don’t know. Why would I leak the story now? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“That assumes that you’re rational, and when it comes to your relationship with that chimpanzee, I’m not sure you are.”

“What’s going to happen now?” The panic is clear in Jaycee’s voice.

“Now? Now the deal’s dead. Now they’re going to try to make an example of you. Now they’ll do whatever they must to transfer Cindy back to the NIS general primate pool.”

“So we’re back to where we were.”

“No, not we. You. I negotiated the best possible deal for you and you screwed it up. You played me. I’m done. I’m going back to my day job.” David shoves the newspaper into Jaycee’s hands and walks away.

“Why are you so quick to believe I’d lie to you?” Jaycee calls after him. “Because that’s what Helena did?”

These last few words stop David’s footsteps, but only for a moment. Then he walks toward the exit and into the cold New York air.

David tries to flag a cab going uptown, but they’re all filled. He starts to walk toward the nearest subway.

“It was Frank!” Jaycee shouts from a hundred feet behind him. A few people turn to watch Jaycee as she runs toward David with her cell phone open in front of her. “Frank gave them the story!”
She catches up to David and, out of breath by this point, just gives him the phone.

David puts the phone to his ear and instantly hears Frank’s voice. He sounds like he’s been crying. “I’m sorry, so sorry. I thought it would help Jaycee. I talked to the reporter before she got the deal, weeks ago after the project didn’t get renewed. When they didn’t run the story, I thought it was just dead. Jaycee wasn’t involved. I didn’t know it would come out now.”

David hangs up on Frank and hands the phone back in silence.

“Please. Help me,” Jaycee pleads.

An empty cab finally stops next to them. “You really need to pick better friends,” David says. “Get in.”

David paces in Max’s luxurious corner office while Max watches from behind his large desk.

“Look, I got Simon’s business.” David stops mid-stride and turns to face Max. “Now I need you to do a little quid pro quo for me. I want you to get this approved.”

“You want? I want to not have ex-wives.
Want
is an irrelevant word.” Max takes a hard look at David and then a deep breath. “David, I’ve always supported you.”

“You mean when it suited your needs.”

“Whatever. Do you really think this is wise? Are you asking yourself that? Your billables are not great at the moment. You’re just now getting your life together.”

“What life, exactly, is that? The twenty-four-hundred-billable-hours-a-year life? The life of profit allocations and the firm Christmas party?”

“No, the life that paid for your lovely house and feeds all those
nice animals. The life that taught you how to be a lawyer. The same life that allows you to be a country gentleman instead of a schlepper.”

“This isn’t about hours or business generation. Don’t try to hide behind that. I just brought in enough business with Simon to make my nut for each of the next five years.”

“And what do you think Simon would say if he knew what you wanted to do?”

“I bet he’d respect my position and be proud of us for our skill.”

“I seriously doubt that. Very seriously.”

David reaches over Max’s desk and grabs the phone. “Then call him and find out.”

Max takes the phone from David and returns it to its cradle. “Simon is the least of your problems. We represent pharmaceutical testing labs and surgical equipment companies. We represent vivisectionists, or have you forgotten?”

“So what?”

“They’re really going to love the fact that their law firm is defending someone who broke into a testing lab. And on the theory that it was justified to save a monkey from torture no less.”

“She’s not a monkey. She’s a chimpanzee. And we have compelling proof that this particular chimpanzee at least has acquired human language and can use that language to express the thoughts of a sentient mind.”

“Because she knows the symbol for Chiquita Bananas? Come on now.”

“Look at the video. You can’t make your case by distorting the facts—not with me.”

“I’ve got an even better idea. Why don’t we invite her into the summer associate program? We’ll get her a cage here in the office.
She won’t even need to go home. Think of the example she’ll set for the others.”

“Would you be serious?”

“I will if you will,” Max says in a steely tone.

“I am serious.”

“Then you are seriously out of your mind. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s no
CRUELTY-FREE
sign on the front door. And as sure as I am sitting here, some very large and very important company that we represent and that pays us lots and lots of money is going to end up on the opposite side of this issue and that, as they say, will be that—regardless of the outcome, which you must know will be a loss.”

“There’s no direct conflict of interest under the code. There’d be no basis for disqualification.”

“There doesn’t need to be any formal conflict or disqualification for clients to pull their business. You already broke the rules by representing her in negotiating the deal with the US attorney without the firm’s approval. We’ll overlook that one. But a public trial with press and television cameras? No way.”

“I can’t abandon her now. And you shouldn’t ask me to.”

“Don’t act like you’ve got some entitlement to moral superiority. Don’t pretend that you don’t know what you are! You knew that all along. Helena understood that, too, and she was willing to take the benefits. So if this is about Helena—”

I’ve seen David and Max argue many times. Max lived on argument, and his contrariness was part of his management technique—he needed to be convinced. And so, although David occasionally lost his cool with Max, it always reminded me of a fight between siblings with Max playing the role of the older tormenting brother.

But with Max’s last comment I felt the rules of engagement change.

“Don’t you dare!” David shouts at him. “Don’t you dare tell me what Helena did or didn’t understand. You, of all people, you bastard. You led me by the nose all these years and I followed you like I was an imprinted duck. Helena was the only thing that kept my life from becoming four walls and a computer—and you’d be just as happy now that she’s gone to act as if that part of my life never existed.”

“I’ve no idea what—”

“Come on, Max, be a decent man for just once! Stand up for something besides profits per partner. There’s got to be more. You can be more.”

“You’re becoming a cliché, you know that?” Max says condescendingly. “You go to Paris, have an emotional epiphany, and now the world is all Lifetime Television and the WE channel. Your naïveté disappoints me, David. I thought I trained you better than that.”

“I’m not naïve. I’m just empty. Just like you. That was the gift of your training.”

Max yawns wide. “Save the passionate speech for the jury. I’m not interested. Is there anything more you want to tell me about this or can we get back to real work now?”

David’s eyes narrow to seething slits. “I’m going to the committee on this—with or without you.”

Max leans back in his chair, rubs the bridge of his nose a few times, and then exhales slowly. When he speaks again, his tone is considerably softer and—had it not been Max—I would say warm. “I know it’s been hard for you. I’m trying to help you here. Why don’t you just let this sit for a little while? Take a week and then see how you feel. Don’t jump into this. The repercussions for you here, frankly, may be profound and beyond even my abilities to alter.”

“I don’t have that kind of time. I might’ve waited too long already. I’ll need to pick a jury in a week.”

“Get an adjournment. No judge is going to deny that in a criminal case with the prospect of new counsel.”

“I can’t adjourn. I need some kind of order protecting Cindy pending the outcome of the trial. In less than two weeks, Cindy will be transferred and beyond reach. We need to go forward now.”

Max shrugs. “You’re making a mistake here, partner. Trust me on this. With or without me, the committee will never approve taking this on.”

“I’m not sure their approval matters to me anymore.”

Max looks at David as if these words previously have never been uttered in all of humanity. “You’re bluffing,” Max says finally.

David slowly shakes his head.

Max spins his chair around to an ornate wooden file cabinet. He opens the second file drawer and removes a single file folder. The folder contains a document about half an inch thick. Max pushes the document across the table to David. “I strongly suggest you read your partnership agreement before you decide to do something stupid. Empty or not, people have long memories.”

David lifts the partnership agreement and weighs it in the palm of his hand. Then he gives Max a tight smile. “A lot’s changed. It feels pretty light to me.” David drops the agreement on the table and heads toward the door.

With one hand on the door handle, David turns back toward Max and is about to speak, but Max cuts him off. “ ‘He stops at the door and turns to his former mentor—someone whom he had once respected—to say something that will be both cruel and cutting.’ Oh! The melodrama.”

David’s voice is barely above a whisper when he speaks next.
“You’re so smart, Max. Always were. Always had all the answers. Played all the angles. So here’s a question for you. What do you think it’s going to feel like when you can no longer fool yourself into believing that all this is really enough? Maybe you’re not there yet. I think you are.”

“And I think you should watch your back,” Max answers weakly.

“It’s not my back I’m worried about. It’s what I see in front of me that gives me nightmares. You’re a sad, lonely, little man. And when those cigarettes finally kill you, the number of people who show up for your funeral will depend entirely on whether it rains that day.”

Max’s eyes glaze over for a moment, as if he’s been punched hard in the face. Then he sucks his lower lip and uselessly shuffles some papers on his desk, avoiding David’s stare.

When it becomes clear that Max isn’t going to respond, David leaves Max’s office and gently closes the door behind him.

Bless you, Max. Sometimes you never know how much something really means to you until you must defend it from someone’s attack.

Two long hours later, looking tired and deflated, Max returns to his office and finds a note written in David’s hand stuck on the end of his silver desk set.

Max crumbles the note into a ball and tosses it into the wastebasket.

Skippy’s cough pulled me away from Max and to Joshua’s exam room. When I heard that cough—a dry, non-productive rasp that comes from trying to clear an esophagus compressed by an enlarged heart—I understood that what had once been perhaps a matter of months has become a matter of weeks.

Prince, the gargantuan vet office cat, saunters into the exam room. Skippy was Prince’s one known nemesis. When Skippy would come to the office with me, as he did on most days, he would spend the first several hours chasing after Prince under legs (human and other), chairs, and desks until something or someone got knocked over and Joshua or I decided to intervene. Then Skippy and Prince would spend the next several hours glaring at each other from a human-imposed distance, with Skippy usually emitting a constant, low growl.

I often wondered how much of these antics were just for the benefit of those looking on or to give the two creatures something to do with their day. Perhaps Prince was the Questing Beast to Skippy’s Sir Pellinore—an unattainable grail-like quest the pursuit of which gave Skippy’s life greater meaning.

The clearest evidence to me of the advanced stage of Skippy’s illness is that he now makes no move toward Prince when the cat walks across his path at the animal hospital. Skippy doesn’t even growl at the cat. Prince waits for a few more moments, clearly confused by Skippy’s indifference, and then turns around and walks out of the room. I could swear that Prince’s head hangs just a little bit lower, his tail slightly less spirited, from the encounter.

“I thought maybe it was just a cold,” Sally tells Joshua.