11

   The suite was in a different hotel. Pace was moving around D.C. as if spies were trailing him. After a quick hello and the offer of coffee, they sat down for business. Clay could tell that the pressure of burying the secret was working on Pace. He looked tired. His movements were anxious. His words came faster. The smile was gone. No questions about the weekend or the fishing down there in the Bahamas. Pace was about to cut a deal, either with Clay Carter or the next lawyer on his list. They sat at a table, each with a legal pad, pens ready to attack.
   “I think five million per death is a better figure,” Clay began. “Sure they’re street kids whose lives have little economic value, but what your client has done is worth millions in punitive damages. So we blend the actual with the punitive and we arrive at five million.”
   “The guy in the coma died last night,” Pace said.
   “So we have six victims.”
   “Seven. We lost another one Saturday morning.”
   Clay had multiplied five million times six so many times he had trouble accepting the new figure. “Who? Where?”
   “I’ll give you the dirty details later, okay? Let’s say it’s been a very long weekend. While you were fishing, we were monitoring nine-one-one calls, which on a busy weekend in this city takes a small army.”
   “You’re sure it’s a Tarvan case?”
   “We’re certain.”
   Clay scribbled something meaningless and tried to adjust his strategy. “Let’s agree on five million per death,” he said.
   “Agreed.”
   Clay had convinced himself flying home from Abaco that it was a game of zeroes. Don’t think of it as real money, just a string of O’s after some numbers. For the time being, forget what the money can buy. Forget the dramatic changes about to come. Forget what a jury might do years down the road. Just play the zeroes. Ignore the sharp knife twisting in your stomach. Pretend your guts are lined with steel. Your opponent is weak and scared, and very rich and very wrong.
   Clay swallowed hard and tried to speak in a normal tone. “The attorneys’ fees are too low,” he said.
   “Oh really?” Pace said and actually smiled. “Ten million won’t cut it?”
   “Not for this case. Your exposure would be much greater if a big tort firm were involved.”
   “You catch on quick, don’t you?”
   “Half will go for taxes. The overhead you have planned for me will be very expensive. I’m expected to put together a real law firm in a matter of days, and do so in the high-rent district. Plus, I want to do something for Tequila and the other defendants who are getting shafted in all this.”
   “Just give me a figure.” Pace was already scribbling something down.
   “Fifteen million will make the transition smoother.”
   “Are you throwing darts?”
   “No, just negotiating.”
   “So you want fifty million—thirty-five for the families, fifteen for you. Is that it?”
   “That should do it.”
   “Agreed.” Pace thrust a hand over and said, “Congratulations.”
   Clay shook it. He could think of nothing to say but “Thanks.”
   “There is a contract, with some details and stipulations.” Max was reaching into a briefcase.
   “What kinds of stipulations?”
   “For one, you can never mention Tarvan to Tequila Watson, his new lawyer, or to any of the other criminal defendants involved in this matter. To do so would be to severely compromise everything. As we discussed earlier, drug addiction is not a legal defense to a crime. It could be a mitigating circumstance during sentencing, but Mr. Watson committed murder and whatever he was taking at the time is not relevant to his defense.”
   “I understand this better than you.”
   “Then forget about the murderers. You now represent the families of their victims. You’re on the other side of the street, Clay, so accept it. Our deal will pay you five million up front, another five in ten days, and the remaining five upon final completion of all settlements.
   You mention Tarvan to anyone and the deal is off. You breach our trust with the defendants, and you’ll lose one helluva lot of money.”
   Clay nodded and stared at the thick contract now on the table.
   “This is basically a confidentiality agreement,” Max continued, tapping the paperwork. “It’s filled with dark secrets, most of which you’ll have to hide from your own secretary. For example, my client’s name is never mentioned. There’s a shell corporation now set up in Bermuda with a new division in the Dutch Antilles that answers to a Swiss outfit headquartered in Luxembourg. The paper trail begins and ends over there and no one, not even me, can follow it without getting lost. Your new clients are getting the money; they’re not supposed to ask questions. We don’t think this will be a problem. For you, you’re making a fortune. We don’t expect sermons from a higher moral ground. Just take your money, finish the job, everybody will be happier.”
   “Just sell my soul?”
   “As I said, skip the sermons. You’re doing nothing unethical.
   You’re getting huge settlements for clients who have no clue that they are due anything. That’s not exactly selling your soul. And what if you get rich? You won’t be the first lawyer to get a windfall.”
   Clay was thinking about the first five million. Due immediately.
   Max filled in some blanks deep in the contract, then slid it across the table. “This is our preliminary deal. Sign it, and I can then tell you more about my client. I’ll get us some coffee.”
   Clay took the document, held it as it grew heavier, then tried to read the opening paragraph. Max was on the phone to room service.
   He would resign immediately, on that day, from the Office of the Public Defender and withdraw as counsel of record for Tequila Watson. The paperwork had already been done and was attached to the contract. He would charter his own law firm directly; hire sufficient staff, open bank accounts, etcetera. A proposed charter for the Law Offices of J. Clay Carter II was also attached, all boilerplate. He would, as soon as practicable, contact the seven families and begin the process of soliciting their cases.
   Coffee arrived and Clay kept reading. Max was on a cell phone across the suite, whispering in a hushed, serious voice, no doubt relaying the latest events to his superior. Or perhaps he was monitoring his network to see if another Tarvan murder had occurred. For his signature on page eleven, Clay would receive, by immediate wire, the sum of $5 million, a figure that had just been neatly written in by Max. His hands shook when he signed his name, not from fear or moral uncertainty, but from zero shock.
   When the first round of paperwork was complete, they left the hotel, and climbed into an SUV driven by the same bodyguard who’d met Clay in the lobby of the Willard. “I suggest we get the bank account opened first,” Max said softly but firmly. Clay was Cinderella going to the ball, just along for the ride because it was all a dream now.
   “Sure, a good idea,” he managed to say.
   “Any bank in particular?” Pace asked.
   Clay’s current bank would be shocked to see the type of activity that was coming. His checking account there had barely managed to remain above the minimum for so long that any significant deposit would set off alarms. A lowly bank manager had once called to break the news that a small loan was past due. He could almost hear a big shot upstairs gasping in disbelief as he gawked at a printout.
   “I’m sure you have one in mind,” Clay said.
   “We have a close relationship with Chase. The wires will run smoother there.”
   Then Chase it would be, Clay thought with a smile. Anything to speed along the wires.
   “Chase Bank, on Fifteenth,” Max said to the driver, who was already headed in that direction. Max pulled out more papers. “Here’s the lease and sublease on your office. It’s prime space, as you know, and certainly not cheap. My client used a straw company to lease it for two years at eighteen thousand a month. We can sublease it to you for the same rent.”
   “That’s four hundred thousand bucks, give or take.”
   Max smiled and said, “You can afford it, sir. Start thinking like a trial lawyer with money to burn.”
   A vice president of some strain had been reserved. Max asked for the right person and red carpets were rolled down every hallway. Clay took charge of his affairs and signed all the proper documents.
   The wire would be received by five that afternoon, according to the veep.
   Back in the SUV, Max was all business. “We took the liberty of preparing a corporate charter for your law firm,” he said, handing over more documents.
   “I’ve already seen this,” Clay said, still thinking about the wire transfer.
   “It’s pretty basic stuff—nothing sensitive. Do it online. Pay two hundred dollars by credit card, and you’re in business. Takes less than an hour. You can do it from your desk at OPD.”
   Clay held the papers and looked out a window. A sleek burgundy Jaguar XJ was sitting next to them at a red light, and his mind began to wander. He tried to concentrate on business, but he simply couldn’t.
   “Speaking of OPD,” Max was saying, “how do you want to handle those folks?”
   “Let’s do it now.”
   “M at Eighteenth,” Max said to the driver, who appeared to miss nothing. Back to Clay he said, “Have you thought about Rodney and Paulette?”
   “Yes. I’ll talk to them today.”
   “Good.”
   “Glad you approve.”
   “We also have some people who know the city well.
   They can help. They’ll work for us, but your clients won’t know it.” He nodded at the driver as he said this. “We can’t relax, Clay, until all seven families have become your clients.”
   “Seems as though I’ll need to tell Rodney and Paulette everything.”
   “Almost everything. They will be the only people in your firm who’ll know what’s happened. But you can never mention Tarvan or the company, and they’ll never see the settlement agreements. We’ll prepare those for you.”
   “But they have to know what we’re offering.”
   “Obviously. They have to convince the families to take the money. But they can never know where the money is coming from.”
   “That’ll be a challenge.”
   “Let’s get them hired first.”
   If anyone at OPD missed Clay it wasn’t obvious. Even the reliable Miss Glick was preoccupied with the phones and had no time for her usual expression of “Where have you been?” There were a dozen messages on his desk, all irrelevant now because nothing mattered anymore. Glenda was at a conference in New York, and, as usual, her absence meant longer lunches and more sick days around OPD. He quickly typed a letter of resignation and e-mailed it to her. With the door shut, he filled two briefcases with his personal office junk and left behind old books and other things he owned and once thought had sentimental value. He could always come back, though he knew he would not.
   Rodney’s desk was in a tiny workspace he shared with two other paralegals. “Got a minute?” Clay said.
   “Not really,” Rodney said, barely looking up from a pile of reports.
   “There’s a breakthrough in the Tequila Watson case. It’ll just take a minute.”
   Rodney reluctantly stuck a pen behind an ear and followed Clay back to his office, where the shelves had been cleared, and the door was locked behind them. “I’m leaving,” Clay began, almost in a whisper.
   They talked for almost an hour, while Max Pace waited impatiently in the SUV, parked illegally at the curb. When Clay emerged with two bulky briefcases, Rodney was with him, also laden with a briefcase and a stuffed paper shopping bag. He went to his car and disappeared. Clay jumped in the SUV.
   “He’s in,” Clay said.
   “What a surprise.”
   At the office on Connecticut Avenue, they met a design consultant who’d been retained by Max. Clay was given his choice of rather expensive furniture that happened to be in the warehouse and thus deliverable within twenty-four hours. He pointed at various designs and samples, all on the higher end of the price scale. He signed a purchase order.
   A phone system was being installed. A computer consultant arrived after the decorator left. At one point, Clay was spending money so fast he began to ask himself if he’d squeezed Max for enough.
   Shortly before 5 P.M., Max emerged from a freshly painted office and stuck his cell phone in his pocket. “The wire is in,” he said to Clay.
   “Five million?”
   “That’s it. You’re now a multimillionaire.”
   “I’m outta here,” Clay said. “See you tomorrow.”
   “Where are you going?”
   “Don’t ever ask that question again, okay? You are not my boss. And stop following me. We have our deal.”
   He walked along Connecticut for a few blocks, jostling with the rush-hour crowd, smiling goofily to himself, his feet never touching the concrete. Down Seventeenth until he saw the Reflecting Pool and the Washington Monument, where hordes of high school groups clustered for photos. He turned right and walked through Constitution Gardens and past the Vietnam Memorial. Beyond it, he stopped at a kiosk, bought two cheap cigars, lit one, and continued to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, where he sat for a long time and gazed down The Mall to the Capitol far away.
   Clear thinking was impossible. One good thought was immediately overwhelmed and pushed out by another. He thought of his father living on a borrowed fishing boat, pretending it was the good life but struggling to scrape out a living; fifty-five years old with no future whatsoever; drinking heavily to escape his misery. He puffed on the cigar and mentally shopped for a while, and just for the fun of it made a tally of how much he would spend if he bought everything he wanted—a new wardrobe, a really nice car, a stereo system, some travel. The total was but a small subtraction from his fortune. What kind of car was the big question. Successful but not pretentious.
   And of course he would need a new address. He’d look around Georgetown for a quaint old town house. He’d heard tales of some of them selling for six million, but he didn’t need that much. He was confident he could find something in the million-dollar range.
   A million here. A million there.
   He thought of Rebecca, though he tried not to dwell on her. For the past four years she had been the only friend with whom he’d shared everything. Now there was no one to talk to. Their breakup was five days old, and counting, but so much had happened that he’d had little time to think about her.
   “Forget the Van Horns,” he said aloud, blowing a thick cloud of smoke.
   He’d make a large gift to the Piedmont Fund, designating it for the fight to preserve the natural beauty of Northern Virginia. He’d hire a paralegal to do nothing but track the latest land grabs and proposed developments of BVH Group, and wherever possible he’d sneak around and hire lawyers for small landowners unaware that they were about to become neighbors of Bennett the Bulldozer. Oh, what fun he would have on the environmental front!
   Forget those people.
   He lit the second cigar and called Jonah, who was at the computer store putting in a few hours. “I have a table at Citronelle, eight o’clock,” Clay said. It was, at that moment, everybody’s favorite French restaurant in D.C.
   “Right,” Jonah said.
   “I’m serious. We’re celebrating. I’m changing jobs. I’ll explain later. Just be there.”
   “Can I bring a friend?”
   “Absolutely not.”
   Jonah went nowhere without the girl-of-the-week. When Clay moved out he would move out alone, and he would not miss Jonah’s bedroom heroics. He called two other law school pals, but both had kids and obligations, and it was pretty short notice.
   Dinner with Jonah. Always an adventure.

12

   In his shirt pocket he had brand-new business cards, the ink barely dry, delivered fresh that morning from an overnight printing firm, declaring him to be the Chief Paralegal of the Law Offices of J. Clay Carter II, Rodney Albritton, Chief Paralegal, as if the firm had an entire division of paralegals under his control. It did not, but it was growing at an impressive rate.
   If he’d had the time to purchase a new suit, he probably wouldn’t have worn it on his first mission. The old uniform would work better—navy blazer, loosened tie, faded jeans, scuffed black Army boots. He was still working on the streets and he needed to look like it. He found Adelfa Pumphrey at her station, staring at a wall of closed-circuit monitors but seeing nothing.
   Her son had been dead for ten days.
   She looked at him and pointed to a clipboard where all guests were expected to sign in. He pulled out one of his cards and introduced himself. “I work for a lawyer downtown,” he said.
   “That’s nice,” she said softly, without so much as glancing at the card.
   “I’d like to talk to you for a couple of minutes.”
   “About what?”
   “About your son, Ramon.”
   “What about him?”
   “I know some things about his death that you don’t.”
   “Not one of my favorite subjects right now.”
   “I understand that, and I’m sorry to be talking about it. But you’ll like what I got to say, and I’ll be quick.”
   She glanced around. Way down the hall was another uniformed guard, standing by a door, half-asleep. “I can take a break in twenty minutes,” she said. “Meet me in the canteen, one floor up.”
   As Rodney walked away he told himself that, yes, he was in fact worth every penny of his fat new salary. A white guy who had approached Adelfa Pumphrey with such a delicate matter would still be standing before her, nervous, shaking, grasping for words because she wouldn’t budge. She wouldn’t trust him, wouldn’t believe anything he said, would have no interest in anything he had to say, at least not within the first fifteen minutes of conversation.
   But Rodney was smooth and smart and black and she wanted to talk to someone.

   Max Pace’s file on Ramon Pumphrey was brief but thorough; there wasn’t much to cover. His alleged father had never married his mother. The man’s name was Leon Tease, and he was currently serving a thirty-year sentence in Pennsylvania for armed robbery and attempted murder. Evidently, he and Adelfa had lived together just long enough to produce two children—Ramon and a slightly younger brother named Michael. Another brother had been sired later by a man Adelfa married and then divorced. She was currently unmarried and trying to raise, in addition to her two remaining sons, two young nieces who belonged to a sister who’d been sent to prison for selling crack.
   Adelfa earned $21,000 working for a private company hired to guard low-risk office buildings in D.C. From her apartment in a project in the North East, she commuted downtown each day by subway.
   She did not own a car and had never learned to drive. She had a checking account with a very low balance and two credit cards that kept her in trouble and ruined any chance of a good credit rating. She had no criminal record. Other than work and family, her only outside interest appeared to be the Old Salem Gospel Center not far from where she lived.

   Since they had both grown up in the city, they played “Who-do-you-know?” for a few minutes. Where did you go to school? Where were your parents from? They found a couple of tenuous connections. Adelfa worked on a diet cola. Rodney had black coffee. The canteen was half-filled with low-level bureaucrats prattling about everything but the monotonous work they were supposed to be doing.
   “You wanted to talk about my son,” she said after a few minutes of awkward chitchat. Her voice was soft and low, strained, still suffering.
   Rodney fidgeted slightly and leaned in lower. “Yes, and, again, I’m sorry to talk about him. I got kids. I can’t imagine what you’re going through.”
   “You’re right about that.”
   “I work for a lawyer here in town, young guy, very smart, and he’s on to something that can get you some big money.”
   The idea of big money didn’t seem to faze her.
   Rodney kept going. “The boy that killed Ramon had just walked out of a drug treatment facility where he’d been locked down for almost four months. He was a junkie, a street kid, not much of a chance in life. They’d been giving him some drugs as part of his treatment. We think one of the drugs made him crazy enough to pick a random victim and start shooting.”
   “It wasn’t a drug deal that went bad?”
   “No, not at all.”
   Her eyes drifted away, then became moist, and for a moment Rodney could see a breakdown coming. But then she looked at him and said, “Big money? How much?”
   “More than a million bucks,” he said with a straight poker face, one he’d rehearsed a dozen times because he doubted seriously if he could deliver that punch line without going wild-eyed.
   No visible reaction from Adelfa, at least not at first. Another wayward gaze around the room. “You jivin’ me?” she said.
   “Why would I do that? I don’t know you. Why would I walk in here and feed you a line? There’s money on the table, big money. Big corporate drug money that somebody wants you to take and keep quiet.”
   “What big company?”
   “Look, I’ve told you everything I know. My job is to meet you, tell you what’s goin’ on, and to invite you to come see Mr. Carter, the lawyer I work for. He’ll explain everything.”
   “White dude?”
   “Yep. Good dude. I’ve worked with him for five years. You’ll like him, and you’ll like what he has to say.”
   The moist eyes had cleared. She shrugged and said, “Okay.”
   “What time you get off?” he asked.
   “Four-thirty.”
   “Our office is on Connecticut, fifteen minutes from here. Mr. Carter will be waiting on you. You got my card.”
   She looked at the card again.
   “And one very important thing,” Rodney said, almost in a whisper. “This’ll work only if you keep quiet. It’s a deep secret. You do what Mr. Carter advises you to do, and you’ll get more money than you ever dreamed of. But if word gets out, then you’ll get nothing.”
   Adelfa was nodding.
   “And you need to start thinking about moving.”
   “Moving?”
   “As in a new house in a new town where nobody knows you and nobody knows you got lots of money. Pretty house on a safe street where kids can ride their bikes on the sidewalks, no drug dealers, no gangs, no metal detectors at school. No kinfolk wanting your money. Take some advice from somebody who grew up like you. Move. Leave this place. You take this money back to Lincoln Towers and they’ll eat you alive.”

   Clay’s raid on OPD had so far netted Miss Glick, the very efficient secretary who hesitated only slightly at the prospect of having her salary doubled, and his old pal Paulette Tullos who, though she was well maintained by her absent Greek husband, nonetheless jumped at the chance to earn $200,000 a year as opposed to a mere $40,000; and, of course, Rodney. The raid had provoked two urgent and as of yet unanswered phone calls from Glenda, and a whole series of pointed e-mails, also being ignored, at least for now. Clay vowed to himself to meet with Glenda in the very near future and offer some lame reason for stealing her good people.
   To counterbalance the good people, he had hired his roommate, Jonah, who, though he had never practiced law—he’d passed the bar exam on his fifth attempt—was a friend and confidant who Clay hoped might develop some legal skills. Jonah had a big mouth and liked to drink and so Clay had been very sketchy with the details of his new firm. He planned to gradually tell Jonah more and more, but he started slow. Smelling money from somewhere, Jonah had negotiated a starting salary of $90,000, which was less than that of the Chief Paralegal, though no one at the firm knew what the others were earning. The new CPA firm down on the third floor was handling the books and payroll.
   Clay had given Paulette and Jonah the same careful explanation he had given to Rodney. To wit: He had stumbled upon a conspiracy involving a bad drug—the name of the drug and the name of the company would never be disclosed to them or to anyone else. He had made contact with the company. A quick deal was struck. Serious money was changing hands. Secrecy was crucial. Just do your jobs and don’t ask a lot of questions. We’re going to build a nice little law firm where we make lots of money and have some fun along the way.
   Who could say no to such an offer?
   Miss Glick greeted Adelfa Pumphrey as if she were the very first client to ever enter the shiny new law firm, which in fact she was. Everything smelled new—the paint, the carpet, the wallpaper, the Italian leather furniture in the reception area. Miss Glick brought Adelfa water in crystal that had never been used before, then returned to her task of arranging her new glass-and-chrome desk. Paulette was next. She took Adelfa into her office for the preliminary workup, which was more than semiserious girl talk. Paulette took a bunch of notes about family and background, the same info Max Pace had already prepared. She said the right words to a grieving mother.
   So far everyone had been black, and Adelfa was reassured by this.
   “You may have seen Mr. Carter before,” Paulette said, working her way through the rough script she and Clay had put together. “He was in court when you were there. He was appointed by the Judge to represent Tequila Watson, but he got rid of the case. That’s how he got involved with this settlement.”
   Adelfa looked as confused as they’d expected her to be.
   Paulette pressed on. “He and I worked together for five years in the Office of the Public Defender. We quit a few days ago and opened this firm. You’ll like him. He’s a very nice guy and a good lawyer. Honest, and loyal to his clients.”
   “Y’all just opened up?”
   “Yes. Clay has been wanting to have his own firm for a long time. He asked me to join him. You’re in very good hands, Adelfa.”
   The confusion had turned to bewilderment.
   “Any questions?” Paulette asked.
   “I got so many questions I don’t know where to start.”
   “I understand. Here’s my advice to you. Don’t ask a lot of questions. There’s a big company out there that’s willing to pay you a lot of money to settle a potential lawsuit you might have arising from the death of your son. If you hesitate and ask questions, you could easily end up with nothing. Just take the money, Adelfa. Take it and run.”
   When it was finally time to meet Mr. Carter, Paulette led her down the hall to a large office in the corner. Clay had been pacing nervously for an hour, but he greeted her calmly and welcomed her to the firm. His tie was loose, his sleeves rolled up, his desk covered with files and papers as if he were litigating on many fronts. Paulette hung around until the ice was completely broken, then, according to the plan, excused herself.
   “I recognize you,” Adelfa said.
   “Yes, I was in court for the arraignment. The Judge dumped that case on me, but I got rid of it. Now I’m working the other side of the street.”
   “I’m listening.”
   “You’re probably confused by all this.”
   “That’s right.”
   “It’s actually quite simple.” Clay straddled the edge of his desk and looked down at her hopelessly perplexed face. He locked his arms across his chest and tried to give the appearance that he’d done this before. He launched into his version of the big bad drug company narrative, and while it was more drawn out than Rodney’s and more animated, it told the same story without revealing much in the way of new facts. Adelfa sat in a sunken leather chair, hands folded across the lap of her uniform pants, eyes watching, never blinking, not sure what to believe.
   As he wrapped up his story he said, “They want to pay you a bunch of money, right now.”
   “Who, exactly, is they?”
   “The drug company.”
   “Does it have a name?”
   “It has several, and several addresses, and you’ll never know its true identity. That’s part of the deal. We, you and I, lawyer and client, must agree to keep everything a secret.”
   She finally blinked, then recrossed her hands and shifted her weight. Her eyes glazed over as she stared at the fine new Persian rug that consumed half the office. “How much money?” she asked softly.
   “Five million dollars.”
   “Good Lord,” she managed to say before she broke down. She covered her eyes and sobbed and for a long time made no effort to stop. Clay handed her a tissue from a box.

   The settlement money was sitting in Chase Bank, next to Clay’s, just waiting to be distributed. Max’s paperwork was on the desk, a pile of it. Clay walked her through it, explaining that the money would be transferred first thing the next morning, as soon as the bank opened. He flipped pages and pages of documents, hitting the high points of the legalities, collecting her signatures where necessary. Adelfa was too stunned to say much. “Trust me,” he said more than once. “If you want the money, sign right there.”
   “I feel like I’m doing something wrong,” she said at one point.
   “No, the wrong has been done by someone else. You’re the victim here, Adelfa, the victim and now the client.”
   “I need to talk to someone,” she said once as she signed again.
   But there was no one to talk to. A boyfriend came and went, according to Max’s intelligence, and he was not the type to seek advice from. She had brothers and sisters scattered from D.C. to Philadelphia, but they were certainly no more sophisticated than Adelfa. Both parents were dead.
   “That would be a mistake,” Clay said delicately. “This money will improve your life if you keep it quiet. If you talk about it, then it will destroy you.”
   “I’m not good at handling money.”
   “We can help. If you’d like, Paulette can monitor things for you and give advice.”
   “I’d like that.”
   “That’s what we’re here for.”
   Paulette drove her home, a slow ride through rush-hour traffic. She told Clay later that Adelfa said very little, and when they arrived at the housing project she did not want to get out. So they sat there for thirty minutes, talking quietly about her new life. No more welfare, no more gunshots in the night. No more prayers to God to protect her children. Never again would she worry about keeping her kids safe the way she had worried about Ramon.
   No more gangs. No more bad schools.
   She was crying when she finally said good-bye.

13

   The black Porsche Carrera rolled to a stop under a shade tree on Dumbarton Street. Clay got out and for a few seconds was able to ignore his newest toy, but after a quick glance in all directions he turned and admired it once again. His for three days now, and he still couldn’t believe he owned it. Get used to it, he kept telling himself, and he could manage to act as though it were just another car, nothing special, but the sight of it after even a brief absence still made his pulse quicken. “I’m driving a Porsche,” he would say to himself, out loud, as he buzzed through traffic like a Formula One driver.
   He was eight blocks from the main campus of Georgetown University, the place he’d spent four years as a student before moving on to its law school near Capitol Hill. The town houses were historic and picturesque; the small lawns manicured; the streets covered by ancient oaks and maples. The busy shops and bars and restaurants on M Street were just two blocks to the south, easy walking distance. He had jogged these streets for four years, and he’d spent many long nights with his pals prowling the hangouts and pubs along Wisconsin Avenue and M Street.
   Now he was about to live here.
   The town house that held his attention was on the market for $1.3 million. He’d found it cruising through Georgetown two days earlier. There was another on N Street and another on Volta, all within a stone’s throw of each other. He was determined to buy one before the end of the week.
   The one on Dumbarton, his first choice, had been built in the 1850s and carefully preserved ever since. Its brick facade had been painted many times and was now a faded bluish color. Four levels, including a basement. The real estate agent said it had been immaculately maintained by a retired couple who had once entertained the Kennedys and the Kissingers and just fill in the blanks with all the other names one might want. Washington Realtors could drop names faster than those in Beverly Hills, especially when peddling property in Georgetown.
   Clay was fifteen minutes early. The house was empty; its owners were now doing time in assisted living, according to the agent. He walked through a gate beside the house and admired the small garden in the back. There was no pool and no room for one; real estate was precious in Georgetown. There was a patio with wrought-iron furniture and weeds creeping in from the flower beds. Clay would have a few hours to spare for the gardening, but not much.
   Perhaps he would just hire a lawn maintenance company.
   He loved the house and the ones next to it. He loved the street, the coziness of the neighborhood, everybody living near each other but respecting each other’s privacy. Sitting on the front steps, he decided he would offer one million even, then negotiate hard, bluff and walk away, and in general have a great time watching the Realtor run back and forth, but in the end he would be perfectly willing to pay the asking price.
   Staring at the Porsche, he drifted away again to his fantasy world where money was growing on trees and he could buy anything he wanted. Italian suits, German sports cars, Georgetown real estate, downtown office space, and what was next? He’d been thinking about a boat for his father, a larger one of course, to generate more revenue. He could incorporate a small charter business in the Bahamas, depreciate the boat, write off most of its costs, thus allowing his father to make a decent living. Jarrett was dying down there, drinking too much, sleeping with anything he could find, living on a borrowed boat, scrambling for tips. Clay was determined to make his life easier.
   A door slammed and interrupted his spending, if only for a moment. The Realtor had arrived.

   Pace’s list of victims stopped at seven. Seven that he knew of. Seven that he and his operatives had been able to monitor. Tarvan had now been pulled for eighteen days, and from the company’s experience they knew that whatever the drug did to make people start killing usually stopped working after ten days. His list was chronological, with Ramon Pumphrey being number six.
   Number one had been a college kid, a student at George Washington who had walked out of a Starbucks coffee shop on Wisconsin Avenue in Bethesda just in time to be spotted by a man with a gun. The student was from Bluefield, West Virginia. Clay made the five-hour drive there in record time, not hurried at all but rather as a race car driver speeding through the Shenandoah Valley. Following Pace’s precise instructions, he found the home of the parents, a rather sad-looking little bungalow near downtown. He sat in the driveway and actually said out loud, “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
   Two things motivated him to get out of the car. First, he had no choice. Second, the prospect of the entire $15 million, not just one third or two thirds. All of it.
   He was dressed casually and he left his briefcase in the car. The mother was home but the father was still at work. She reluctantly let him in, but then offered some tea and cookies. Clay waited on a sofa in the den, pictures of the dead son everywhere. The curtains were drawn. The house was a mess.
   What am I doing here?
   She talked about her son for a long time, and Clay hung on every word.
   The father sold insurance a few blocks away, and he was home before the ice melted in the tea glass. Clay presented his case to them, as much of it as possible. At first there were some tentative questions—How many others died because of this? Why can’t we go to the authorities? Shouldn’t this be exposed? Clay fielded them like a veteran. Pace had prepped him well.
   Like all victims, they had a choice. They could get angry, ask questions, make demands, want justice, or they could quietly take the money. The sum of $5 million didn’t register at first, or if it did they did a wonderful job of deflecting it. They wanted to be angry and uninterested in money, at least initially. But as the afternoon dragged by they began to see the light.
   “If you can’t tell me the real name of the company, then I won’t accept the money,” the father said at one point.
   “I don’t know the real name,” Clay said.
   There were tears and threats, love and hatred, forgiveness and retribution, almost every emotion came and went during the afternoon and into the evening. They’d just buried their youngest son and the pain was numbing and immeasurable. They disliked Clay for being there, but they thanked him profusely for his concern. They distrusted him as a big-city lawyer who was obviously lying about such an outrageous settlement, but they asked him to stay for dinner, whatever dinner might be.
   It arrived promptly at six. Four ladies from their church hauled in enough food for a week. Clay was introduced as a friend from Washington, and was immediately subjected to an all-out cross-examination by the four. A hard-nosed trial lawyer couldn’t have been more curious.
   The ladies finally left. After dinner, as the night wore on, Clay began to press them. He was offering the only deal they would get. Shortly after 10 P.M., they began signing the paperwork.

   Number three was clearly the most difficult. She was a seventeen-year-old prostitute who’d worked the streets most of her life. The police thought she and her killer had once had a business relationship, but there was no clue as to why he would shoot her. He did so outside a lounge, in front of three witnesses.
   She went by the name of Bandy, without the need of a last name. Pace’s research had revealed no husband, mother, father, siblings, children, home address, schools, churches, or, most amazing, police record. There had been no funeral. Like two dozen others each year in D.C., Bandy had received a pauper’s burial. When one of Pace’s agents had inquired at the city coroner’s office, he had been told, “She’s buried in the tomb of the unknown prostitute.”
   Her killer had provided the only clue. He had told the police that Bandy had an aunt who lived in Little Beirut, the most dangerous housing ghetto in South East D.C. But after two weeks of relentless digging, the aunt had not been found.
   With no known heirs, a settlement would be impossible.

14

   The final Tarvan clients to sign the documents were the parents of a twenty-year-old Howard University coed who’d dropped out of school one week and been murdered the next. They lived in Warren-ton, Virginia, forty miles west of D.C. For an hour they had sat in Clay’s office and held hands tightly, as if neither of them could function alone. They cried at times, pouring out their unspeakable grief. They were stoic at other times, so rigid and strong and seemingly unmoved by the money that Clay doubted they would accept the settlement.
   But they did, though of all the clients he’d processed Clay was certain that the money would affect them the least. With time they might appreciate it; for now, they just wanted their daughter back.
   Paulette and Miss Glick helped escort them out of the office and to the elevators, where everybody hugged everybody again. As the doors closed, the parents were fighting tears.
   Clay’s little team met in the conference room where they let the moment pass and were thankful that no more widows and grieving parents would visit them, at least not in the near future. Some very expensive champagne had been iced for the occasion, and Clay began pouring. Miss Glick declined because she drank nothing, but she was the only teetotaler in the firm. Paulette and Jonah seemed especially thirsty. Rodney preferred Budweiser, but he sipped along with the rest.
   During the second bottle, Clay rose to speak. “I have some firm announcements,” he said, tapping his glass. “First, the Tylenol cases are now complete. Congratulations and thanks to all of you.” He’d used Tylenol as a code for Tarvan, a name they would never hear. Nor would they ever know the amount of his fees. Obviously, Clay was being paid a fortune, but they had no idea how much.
   They applauded themselves. “Second, we begin the celebration tonight with dinner at Citronelle. Eight o’clock sharp. Could be a long evening because there is no work tomorrow. The office is closed.”
   More applause, more champagne. “Third, in two weeks we leave for Paris. All of us, plus one friend each, preferably a spouse if you have one. All expenses paid. First-class air, luxury hotel, the works. We’ll be gone for a week. No exceptions. I’m the boss and I’m ordering all of you to Paris.”
   Miss Glick covered her mouth with both hands. They were all stunned, and Paulette spoke first, “Not Paris, Tennessee.”
   “No, dear, the real Paris.”
   “What if I bump into my husband over there?” she said with a half-smile, and laughter erupted around the table.
   “You can go to Tennessee if you’d like,” Clay said.
   “No way, baby.”
   When she could finally speak, Miss Glick said, “I’ll need a passport.”
   “The forms are on my desk. I’ll see to it. It’ll take less than a week. Anything else?”
   There was talk about weather and food and what to wear. Jonah immediately began debating which girl to take. Paulette was the only one who’d been to Paris, on her honeymoon, a brief tryst that ended badly when the Greek was called away on emergency business. She flew home alone, in coach though she’d gone over in first class. “Honey, they bring you champagne in first class,” she explained to the rest. “And the seats are as big as sofas.”
   “I can bring anyone?” Jonah asked, obviously struggling with the decision.
   “Let’s limit it to anyone who doesn’t have a spouse, okay?” Clay said.
   “That narrows the field.”
   “Who will you take?” Paulette asked.
   “Maybe no one,” Clay said, and the room went quiet for a moment. They had whispered about Rebecca and the separation, with Jonah supplying most of the gossip. They wanted their boss happy, though they were not close enough to meddle.
   “What’s that tower over there?” Rodney asked.
   “The Eiffel Tower,” Paulette said. “You can go all the way to the top.”
   “Not me. It don’t look safe.”
   “You’re going to be a real traveler, I can tell.”
   “How long are we there?” asked Miss Glick.
   “Seven nights,” Clay said. “Seven nights in Paris.” And they all drifted away, swept along by the champagne. A month earlier they had been locked in the drudgery of the OPD. All but Jonah, who’d been selling computers part-time.

   Max Pace wanted to talk, and since the firm was closed Clay suggested they meet there, at noon, after the cobwebs had cleared.
   Only a headache remained. “You look like hell,” Pace began pleasantly. “We celebrated.” “What I have to discuss is very important. Are you up to it?” “I can keep up with you. Fire away.” Pace had a tall paper cup of coffee that he carried around the room as he moved about. “The Tarvan mess is over,” he said, for finality. It was over when he said it was over, and not before. “We settled the six cases. If anyone claiming to be related to our girl Bandy ever surfaces, then we’ll expect you to deal with it. But I’m convinced she has no family.”
   “So am I.”
   “You did good work, Clay.”
   “I’m getting paid handsomely for it.”
   “I’ll transfer in the last installment today. All fifteen million will be in your account. What’s left of it.”
   “What do you expect me to do? Drive an old car, sleep in a rundown apartment, keep wearing cheap clothes? You said yourself that I had to spend some money to create the right impression.”
   “I’m kidding. And you’re doing a great job of looking rich.”
   “Thank you.”
   “You’re making the adjustment from poverty to wealth with remarkable ease.”
   “It’s a talent.”
   “Just be careful. Don’t create too much attention.”
   “Let’s talk about the next case.”
   With that Pace took a seat and slid a file across. “The drug is Dyloft, manufactured by Ackerman Labs. It’s a potent anti-inflammatory drug used by sufferers of acute arthritis. Dyloft is new and the doctors have gone crazy over it. It works wonders, patients love it. But it has two problems: First, it’s made by a competitor of my client’s; second, it’s been linked to the creation of small tumors in the bladder. My client, same client as Tarvan, makes a similar drug that was popular until twelve months ago when Dyloft hit the market. The market is worth about three billion a year, give or take. Dyloft is already number two and will probably hit a billion this year. It’s hard to tell because it’s growing so fast. My client’s drug is doing a billion and a half and losing ground fast. Dyloft is the rage and will quickly crush all competition. It’s that good. A few months ago my client bought a small pharmaceutical company in Belgium.
   This outfit once had a division that was later swallowed by Ackerman Labs. A few researchers got shoved out and shafted along the way. Some lab studies disappeared then surfaced where they didn’t belong. My client has the witnesses and the documents to prove that Ackerman Labs has known of the potential problems for at least the past six months. You with me?”
   “Yes. How many people have taken Dyloft?”
   “It’s really hard to tell because the number is growing so fast. Probably a million.”
   “What percentage get the tumors?”
   “The research indicates about five percent, enough to kill the drug.”
   “How do you know whether a patient has the tumors?”
   “A urinalysis.”
   “You want me to sue Ackerman Labs?”
   “Hang on. The truth about Dyloft will be out very shortly. As of today, there has been no litigation, no claims, no damaging studies published in the journals. Our spies tell us Ackerman is busy counting its money and stashing it away to pay off the lawyers when the storm hits. Ackerman may also be trying to fix the drug, but that takes time and FDA approvals. They’re in a real quandary because they need cash. They borrowed heavily to acquire other companies, most of which have not paid off. Their stock is selling for around forty-two bucks. A year ago it was at eighty.”
   “What will the news about Dyloft do to the company?”
   “Hammer the stock, which is exactly what my client wants. If the litigation is handled right, and I’m assuming you and I can do it properly, the news will murder Ackerman Labs. And since we have the inside proof that Dyloft is bad, the company will have no choice but to settle. They can’t risk a trial, not with such a dangerous product.”
   “What’s the downside?”
   “Ninety-five percent of the tumors are benign, and very small. There’s no real damage to the bladder.”
   “So the litigation is used to shock the market?”
   “Yes, and, of course, to compensate the victims. I don’t want tumors in my bladder, benign or malignant. Most jurors would feel the same way. Here’s the scenario: You put together a group of fifty or so plaintiffs, and file a big lawsuit on behalf of all Dyloft patients. At precisely the same time, you launch a series of television ads soliciting more cases. You hit fast and hard, and you’ll get thousands of cases. The ads run coast to coast—quickie ads that’ll scare folks and make them dial your toll-free number right here in D.C., where you have a warehouse full of paralegals answering the phones and doing the grunt work. It’s gonna cost you some money, but if you get, say, five thousand cases, and you settle them for twenty thousand bucks each, that’s one hundred million dollars. Your cut is one third.”
   “That’s outrageous!”
   “No, Clay, that’s mass tort litigation at its finest. That’s how the system works these days. And if you don’t do it, I guarantee you someone else will. And very soon. There is so much money involved that the mass tort lawyers wait like vultures for any hint of a bad drug. And believe me, there are plenty of bad drugs.”
   “Why am I the lucky guy?”
   “Timing, my friend. If my client knows exactly when you file the lawsuit, then they can react to the market.” “Where do I find fifty clients?” Clay asked. Max thumped another file. “We know of at least a thousand. Names, addresses, all right here.” “You mentioned a warehouse full of paralegals?” “Half a dozen. It’ll take that many to answer the phones and keep the files organized. You could end up with five thousand individual clients.” “Television ads?” “Yep, I’ve got the name of a company that can put the ad together in less than three days. Nothing fancy—a voice-over, images of pills dropping onto a table, the potential evils of Dyloft, fifteen seconds of terror designed to make people call the Law Offices of Clay Carter II. These ads work, believe me. Run them in all major markets for a week and you’ll have more clients than you can count.”
   “How much will it cost?”
   “Couple of million, but you can afford it.”
   It was Clay’s turn to pace around the room and let the blood circulate. He’d seen some ads for diet pills that had gone bad, ads in which unseen lawyers were trying to frighten folks into dialing a toll-free number. Surely, he wasn’t about to sink that low.
   But thirty-three million dollars in fees! He was still numb from the first fortune.
   “What’s the timetable?”
   Pace had a list of the first things to do. “You’ll have to sign up the clients, which will take two weeks max. Three days to finish the ad. A few days to buy the television time. You’ll need to hire paralegals and put them in some rented space out in the suburbs; it’s too expensive here. The lawsuit has to be prepared. You have a good staff. You should be able to get it done in less than thirty days.”
   “I’m taking the firm to Paris for a week, but we’ll get it done.”
   “My client wants the lawsuit filed in less than a month. July the second, to be exact.”
   Clay returned to the table and stared at Pace. “I’ve never handled a lawsuit like this,” he said.
   Pace pulled something out of his file. “Are you busy this weekend?” he asked, looking at a brochure.
   “Not really.”
   “Been to New Orleans lately?”
   “About ten years ago.”
   “Ever heard of the Circle of Barristers?”
   “Maybe.”
   “It’s an old group with a new life—a bunch of trial lawyers who specialize in mass torts. They get together twice a year and talk about the latest trends in litigation. It would be a productive weekend.” He slid the brochure across to Clay who picked it up. On the cover was a color photo of the Royal Sonesta Hotel in the French Quarter.

   New Orleans was warm and humid as always, especially in the Quarter.
   He was alone, and that was fine. Even if he and Rebecca were still together she would not have made the trip. She would’ve been too busy at work, with shopping to do on the weekend with her mother. The usual routine. He had thought about inviting Jonah, but that relationship was strained at the moment. Clay had moved out of their cramped apartment and into the comfort of Georgetown without offering to take Jonah with him, an affront, but one that Clay had anticipated and was prepared to deal with. The last thing he wanted in his new town house was a wild roommate coming and going at all hours with whatever stray cat he could pick up.
   The money was beginning to isolate him. Old friends he once called were now being ignored because he didn’t want all the questions. Old places were no longer frequented because he could afford something better. In less than a month, he had changed jobs, homes, cars, banks, wardrobes, eating places, gyms, and he was most definitely in the process of changing girlfriends, though no substitute was on the horizon. They had not spoken in twenty-eight days. He’d been under the assumption that he would call her on the thirtieth day, as promised, but so much had changed since then.
   By the time Clay entered the lobby of the Royal Sonesta his shirt was wet and clinging to his back. The registration fee was $5,000, an outrageous amount for a few days of fraternizing with a bunch of lawyers. The fee said to the legal world that not everyone was invited, only the rich who were serious about their mass torts. His room was another $450 & night, and he paid for it with an unused platinum credit card.
   Various seminars were under way. He drifted through a discussion on toxic torts, led by two lawyers who’d sued a chemical company for polluting drinking water that might or might not have caused cancer, but the company paid a half a billion anyway and the two lawyers got rich. Next door a lawyer Clay had seen on television was in full throttle on how to handle the media, but he had few listeners. In fact, most of the seminars were lightly attended. But it was Friday afternoon and the heavyweights arrived on Saturday.
   Clay eventually found the crowd in the small exhibition hall where an aircraft company was showing a video on its upcoming luxury jet, the fanciest of its generation. The show was on a wide screen in one corner of the hall, and lawyers were packed together, all silent, all gawking at this latest miracle of aviation. Range of four thousand miles—“Coast to coast, or New York to Paris, nonstop of course.” It burned less fuel than the other four jets Clay had never heard of, and went faster too. The interior was roomy with seats and sofas everywhere, even a very comely flight attendant in a short skirt, holding a bottle of champagne and a bowl of cherries. The leather was a rich tan color. For pleasure or for work, because the Galaxy 9000 came with a cutting-edge phone system and a satellite receiver that allowed the busy lawyer to call anywhere in the world; and faxes and a copier, and, of course, instant Internet access. The video actually showed a group of harsh-looking lawyer types huddled around a small table, with their sleeves rolled up as if they were laboring over some settlement, while the comely blonde in the short skirt got ignored along with her champagne.
   Clay inched closer into the crowd, feeling very much like a trespasser. Wisely, the video never gave the selling price of the Galaxy 9000. There were better deals, involving time-shares and trade-ins, and leasebacks, all of which could be explained by the sales reps who were standing nearby ready to do business. When the screen went blank, the lawyers all began talking at once, not about bad drugs and class-action suits, but about jets and how much pilots cost. The sales reps were surrounded by eager buyers. At one point, Clay overheard someone say, “A new one is in the thirty-five range.”
   Surely it wasn’t thirty-five million.
   Other exhibitors were offering all sorts of luxury items. A boat-builder had a group of serious lawyers interested in yachts. There was a specialist on Caribbean real estate. Another was peddling cattle ranches in Montana. An electronics booth with the latest absurdly expensive gadgets was particularly busy.
   And the automobiles. One entire wall was lined with elaborate displays of expensive cars—a Mercedes-Benz convertible coupe, a limited edition Corvette, a maroon Bentley, which every respectable mass tort lawyer had to have. Porsche was unveiling its own SUV and a salesman was taking orders. The biggest gathering was gawking over a shiny royal blue Lamborghini. Its price tag was almost hidden, as if the manufacturer was afraid of it. Only $290,000, and a very limited supply. Several lawyers appeared ready to wrestle for the car.
   In a quieter section of the hall, a tailor and his assistants were measuring a rather large lawyer for an Italian suit. A sign said they were from Milan, but Clay heard some very American English.
   In law school, he had once attended a panel discussion on large settlements, and what lawyers should do to protect their unsophisticated clients from the temptations of instant riches. Several trial lawyers told horror stories of working families who had ruined their lives with their settlements, and the stories were fascinating studies in human behavior. At one point, a lawyer on the panel quipped, “Our clients spend their money almost as fast as we do.”
   As Clay gazed around the exhibition hall, he saw lawyers spending money as fast as they could make it. Was he guilty of this?
   Of course not. He’d stuck to the basics, at least so far.
   Who wouldn’t want a new car and a better home? He wasn’t buying yachts and planes and cattle ranches. Didn’t want them. And if Dyloft earned him another fortune, he would not, under any circumstances, waste his money on jets and second homes. He would bury it in the bank, or in the backyard.
   The frenzied orgy of consumption sickened him, and Clay left the hotel. He wanted some oysters and Dixie Beer.

15

   The only nine o’clock session on Saturday morning was an update on class-action legislation currently being debated in Congress. The topic drew a small crowd. For $5,000, Clay was determined to soak up as much as he could. Of the few present, he appeared to be the only one without a hangover. Tall cups of steaming coffee were being drained around the ballroom.
   The speaker was a lawyer/lobbyist from Washington who got off to a bad start by telling two dirty jokes, both of which bombed. The crowd was all-white, all-male, a regular fraternity, but not in the mood for tasteless jokes. The presentation quickly went from bad humor to boredom. However, at least for Clay, the materials were somewhat interesting and mildly informative; he knew very little about class actions so everything was new.
   At ten, he had to choose between a panel discussion on the latest in Skinny Ben developments and a presentation by a lawyer whose specialty was lead paint, a topic that sounded rather dull to Clay, so he went with the former. The room was full.
   Skinny Ben was the nickname of an infamous obesity pill that had been prescribed for millions of patients. Its maker had pocketed billions and had been poised to own the world when problems began developing in a significant number of users. Heart problems, easily traceable to the drug. Litigation exploded overnight and the company had no desire to go to trial. Its pockets were deep and it began buying off the plaintiffs with huge settlements. For the past three years, mass tort lawyers from all fifty states had been scrambling to sign up Skinny Ben cases.
   Four lawyers sat at a table with a moderator and faced the crowd. The seat next to Clay was empty until a feisty little lawyer rushed in at the last moment and wedged himself between the rows. He unpacked his briefcase—legal pads, seminar materials, two cell phones, and a pager. When his command post was properly arranged and Clay had inched as far away as possible, he whispered, “Good morning.”
   “Morning,” Clay whispered back, not at all anxious to chat. He looked at the cell phones and wondered who, exactly, might he want to call at 10 A.M. on a Saturday.
   “How many cases you got?” the lawyer whispered again.
   An interesting question, and one Clay was certainly not prepared to answer. He had just finished the Tarvan cases and was plotting his Dyloft assault, but, at the moment, he had no cases whatsoever. But such an answer was quite insufficient in the current environment where all numbers were huge and exaggerated.
   “Couple of dozen,” he lied.
   The guy frowned, as if this was completely unacceptable, and the conversation was iced, at least for a few minutes. One of the panelists began talking and the entire room became still. His topic was the financial report on Healthy Living, manufacturer of Skinny Bens. The company had several divisions, most of which were profitable. The stock price had not suffered. In fact, after each major settlement the stock held its own, proof that investors knew the company had plenty of cash.
   “That’s Patton French,” the lawyer next to him whispered.
   “Who’s he?” Clay asked.
   “Hottest mass tort lawyer in the country. Three hundred million in fees last year.”
   “He’s the luncheon speaker, isn’t he?”
   “Right, don’t miss it.”
   Mr. French explained, in excruciating detail, that approximately three hundred thousand Skinny Ben cases had been settled for about $7.5 billion. He, along with other experts, estimated that there were maybe another hundred thousand cases out there worth somewhere between $2 billion and $3 billion. The company and its insurers had plenty of cash to cover these lawsuits, and so it was up to those in the room to hustle on out there and find the rest of the cases. This fired up the crowd.
   Clay had no desire to jump into the pit. He couldn’t get past the fact that the short, pudgy, pompous little jerk with the microphone made $300 million in fees last year and was still so motivated to earn even more. The discussion drifted into creative ways to attract new clients. One panelist had made so much money that he had two doctors on his payroll full-time to do nothing but go from town to town screening those who’d taken Skinny Bens. Another had relied solely on television advertising, a topic that interested Clay for a moment but soon dissolved into a sad debate as to whether the lawyer should appear on television himself or hire some washed-up actor.
   Oddly missing was any discussion about trial strategies—expert witnesses, whistle-blowers, jury selections, medical proof—the usual information lawyers exchanged at seminars. Clay was learning that these cases seldom went to trial. Courtroom skills were not important. It was all about hustling cases. And making huge fees. At various points during the discussion, all four panelists and several of those tossing up softball questions couldn’t help but reveal that they had made millions in recent settlements.
   Clay wanted to take another shower.
   At eleven, the local Porsche dealer held a Bloody-Mary reception that was wildly popular. Raw oysters and Bloody Marys and nonstop chatter about how many cases one had. And how to get more. A thousand here, two thousand there. Evidently, the popular tactic was to round up as many cases as possible, then tag team with Patton French who’d be happy to include them in his own personal class action in his backyard over in Mississippi, where the judges and juries and verdicts always went his way and the manufacturer was terrified to set foot. French worked the crowd like a Chicago ward boss.
   He spoke again at one, after a buffet lunch featuring Cajun food and Dixie Beer. His cheeks were red, his tongue loose and colorful. Without notes he launched into a brief history of the American tort system and how crucial it was in protecting the masses from the greed and corruption of big corporations that make dangerous products. And, while he was at it, he didn’t like insurance companies and banks and multinationals and Republicans, either. Unbridled capitalism created the need for people like those hardy souls in the Circle of Barristers, those down in the trenches who were unafraid to attack big business on behalf of the working people, the little people.
   At $300 million a year in fees, it was hard to picture Patton French as an underdog. But he was playing to the crowd. Clay glanced around and wondered, not for the first time, if he was the only sane one there. Were these people so blinded by the money that they honestly believed themselves to be defenders of the poor and the sick?
   Most of them owned jets!
   French’s war stories poured forth effortlessly. A $400 million class-action settlement for a bad cholesterol drug. A billion for a diabetes drug that killed at least a hundred patients. For faulty electrical wiring put in two hundred thousand homes that caused fifteen hundred fires killing seventeen people and burning another forty, $150 million. The lawyers hung on every word. Sprinkled throughout were indications of where his money had gone. “That cost ‘em a new Gulf-stream,” he cracked at one point and the crowd actually applauded. Clay knew, after hanging around the Royal Sonesta for less than twenty-four hours, that a Gulfstream was the finest of all personal jets and a new one sold for about $45 million.
   French’s rival was a tobacco lawyer somewhere in Mississippi who had made a billion or so and bought a yacht that was 180 feet long. French’s old yacht measured only 140 feet, so he traded it in for a 200footer. The crowd found this funny as well. His firm now had thirty lawyers and he needed thirty more. He was on his fourth wife. The last one got the apartment in London.
   And so on. A fortune earned, a fortune spent. Small wonder he worked seven days a week.
   A normal crowd would have been embarrassed by such a vulgar discussion of wealth, but French knew his audience. If anything, he energized them to make more, spend more, sue more, hustle for more clients. For an hour he was crass and shameless, but seldom boring.
   Five years in OPD had certainly sheltered Clay from many aspects of modern-day lawyering. He had read about mass torts but had no idea its practitioners were such an organized and specialized group. They didn’t seem to be exceptionally bright. Their strategies centered around gathering the cases and settling them, not real trial work.
   French could’ve gone on forever, but after an hour he retired to a standing ovation, albeit an awkward one. He’d be back at three for a seminar on forum shopping—how to find the best jurisdiction for your case. The afternoon promised to be a repeat of the morning, and Clay had had enough.
   He roamed the Quarter, taking in not the bars and strip clubs but the antique shops and galleries, though he bought nothing because he was overcome with the urge to hoard his money. Late in the day, he sat alone at a sidewalk cafe in Jackson Square and watched the street characters come and go. He sipped and tried to enjoy the hot chicory, but it wasn’t working. Although he had not put the figures on paper, he had mentally done the math. The Tarvan fees less 45 percent for taxes and business expenses, minus what he’d already spent, left him with around $6.5 million. He could bury that in a bank and earn $300,000 a year in interest, which was about eight times what he’d been earning in salary at OPD. Three hundred thousand a year was $25,000 a month, and he could not, sitting there in the shade on a warm New Orleans afternoon, imagine how he could ever spend that much money.
   This was not a dream. This was reality. The money was already in his account. He would be rich for the rest of his life and he would not become one of those clowns back at the Royal Sonesta griping about the cost of pilots or yacht captains.
   The only problem was a significant one. He had hired people and made promises. Rodney, Paulette, Jonah, and Miss Glick had all left longtime jobs and put their blind faith in him. He couldn’t just pull the plug now, take his money and run.
   He switched to beer and made a profound decision. He would work hard for a short period of time on the Dyloft cases, which, frankly, he would be stupid to turn down since Max Pace was handing him a gold mine. When Dyloft was over, he’d give huge bonuses to his staff and close the office. He’d live the quiet life in Georgetown, traveling the world when he wanted, fishing with his father, watching his money grow, and never, under any circumstances, ever getting near another meeting of the Circle of Barristers.

   He had just ordered breakfast from room service when the phone rang. It was Paulette, the only person who knew exactly where he was. “Are you in a nice room?” she asked.
   “Indeed I am.”
   “Does it have a fax?”
   “Of course.”
   “Gimme the number, I’m sending something down there.”
   It was a copy of a clipping from the Sunday edition of the Post. A wedding announcement. Rebecca Allison Van Horn and Jason Shubert Myers IV. “Mr. and Mrs. Bennett Van Horn of McLean, Virginia, announce the engagement of their daughter, Rebecca, to Mr. Jason Shubert Myers IV, son of Mr. and Mrs. D. Stephens Myers of Falls Church....” The photo, though copied and faxed more than a thousand miles was quite clear—a very pretty girl was marrying someone else.
   D. Stephens Myers was the son of Dallas Myers, counsel to Presidents beginning with Woodrow Wilson and ending with Dwight Eisenhower. According to the announcement, Jason Myers had attended Brown and Harvard Law School and was already a partner in Myers & O’Malley, perhaps the oldest law firm in D.C., and certainly the stuffiest. He had created the intellectual property division and had become the youngest partner in the history of Myers & O’Malley. Other than his round eyeglasses, there appeared to be nothing intellectual about him, though Clay knew he couldn’t be fair even if he wanted to. He was not unattractive but clearly no match for Rebecca.
   A December wedding was planned at an Episcopal church in McLean, with a reception at the Potomac Country Club.
   In less than a month she had found someone she loved enough to marry. Someone willing to stomach a life with Bennett and Barb. Someone with enough money to impress all the Van Horns.
   The phone rang again and it was Paulette. “You okay?” she asked. “I’m fine,” he said, trying hard. “I’m real sorry, Clay.”
   “It was over, Paulette. It had been unraveling for a year. This is a good thing. Now I can forget her completely.”
   “If you say so.”
   “I’m okay. Thanks for calling.”
   “When you coming home?”
   “Today. I’ll be in the office in the morning.”
   The breakfast arrived but he’d forgotten that he’d ordered it. He drank some juice but ignored everything else. Maybe this little romance had been brewing for some time. All she needed was to get rid of Clay, which she’d been able to do rather easily. Her betrayal grew as the minutes passed. He could see and hear her mother pulling strings in the background, manipulating their breakup, laying the trap for Myers, now planning every detail of the wedding.
   “Good riddance,” he mumbled.
   Then he thought about sex, and Myers taking his place, and he threw the empty glass across the room where it hit a wall and shattered. He cursed himself for acting like an idiot.
   How many people at that moment were looking at the announcement and thinking of Clay? Saying, “Dumped him in a hurry, didn’t she?”
   “Boy, that was fast, wasn’t it?”
   Was Rebecca thinking of him? How much satisfaction did she get in admiring her wedding announcement and thinking of old Clay? Probably a lot. Maybe a little. What difference did it make? Mr. and Mrs. Van Horn had no doubt forgotten about him overnight. Why couldn’t he simply return the favor?
   She was rushing, that much he knew for certain. Their romance had been too long and too intense and their breakup too recent for her to simply drop him and take up with another. He’d slept with her for four years; Myers for only a month, or less, hopefully not longer.
   He walked back to Jackson Square, where the artists and tarot card readers and jugglers and street musicians were already in action. He bought an ice cream and sat on a bench near the statue of Andrew Jackson. He decided that he would call her, and at least pass along his best wishes. Then he decided he would find a blond bimbo and somehow flaunt her in front of Rebecca. Maybe he would take her to the wedding, of course in a short skirt with legs a mile long. With his money, such a woman should be easy to find. Hell, he’d rent one if he had to.
   “It’s over ol’ boy,” he said to himself, more than once. “Get a grip.”
   Let her go.

16

   The office dress code had rapidly evolved into an anything-goes style. The tone was set by the boss who leaned toward jeans and expensive T-shirts, with a sports coat nearby in case he went to lunch. He had designer suits for meetings and court appearances, but for the moment both of those were rare events since the firm had no clients and no cases. Everyone had upgraded their wardrobes, much to his satisfaction.
   They met late Monday morning in the conference room—Paulette, Rodney, and a rather rough-looking Jonah. Though she had acquired considerable clout in the short history of the firm, Miss Glick was still just a secretary/receptionist.
   “Folks, we have work to do,” Clay began the meeting. He introduced them to Dyloft, and relying on Pace’s concise summaries, gave a description and history of the drug. From memory, he gave the quick and dirty review of Ackerman Labs—sales, profits, cash, competitors, other legal problems. Then the good stuff—the disastrous side effects of Dyloft, the bladder tumors, and the company’s knowledge of its problems.
   “As of today, no lawsuit has been filed. But we’re about to change that. On July the second, we start the war by filing a class action here in D.C. on behalf of all patients harmed by the drug. It will create chaos, and we’ll be right in the middle of it.”
   “Do we have any of these clients?” Paulette asked.
   “Not yet. But we have names and addresses. We start signing them up today. We’ll develop a plan for gathering clients, then you and Rodney will be in charge of implementing it.” Though he had reservations about television advertising, he had convinced himself flying home from New Orleans that there was no viable alternative. Once he filed suit and exposed the drug, those vultures he’d just met in the Circle of Barristers would swarm to find the clients. The only effective way to quickly reach large numbers of Dyloft patients was by television ads.
   He explained this to his firm and said, “It’ll cost at least two million bucks.”
   “This firm has two million bucks?” Jonah blurted, saying what everyone else was thinking.
   “It does. We start working on the ads today.”
   “You’re not doing the acting, are you, boss?” Jonah asked, almost pleading. “Please.” Like all cities, D.C. had been flooded with early-morning and late-night commercials pleading with the injured to call lawyer so-and-so who was ready to kick ass and charged nothing for the initial consultation. Often the lawyers themselves appeared in the ads, usually with embarrassing results.
   Paulette also had a frightened look and was slightly shaking her head no.
   “Of course not. It’ll be done by professionals.”
   “How many clients are we looking at?” Rodney asked.
   “Thousands. It’s hard to say.”
   Rodney pointed at each of them, slowly counting to four. “According to my numbers,” he said, “there are four of us.”
   “We’re adding more. Jonah is in charge of expansion. We’ll lease some space out in the suburbs and fill it with paralegals. They’ll work the phones and organize the files.”
   “Where does one find paralegals?” Jonah asked.
   “In the employment sections of the bar journals. Start working on the ads. And you’ve got a meeting this afternoon with a real estate agent out in Manassas. We’ll need about five thousand square feet, nothing fancy, but plenty of wiring for phones and a complete computer system, which, as we know, is your specialty. Lease it, wire it, staff it, then organize it. The sooner the better.”
   “Yes sir.”
   “How much is a Dyloft case worth?” Paulette asked.
   “As much as Ackerman Labs will pay. It could range from as little as ten thousand to as much as fifty, depending on several factors, not the least of which is the extent of the damage to the bladder.”
   Paulette was working with some numbers on a legal pad. “And how many cases might we get?”
   “It’s impossible to say.”
   “How about a guess?”
   “I don’t know. Several thousand.”
   “Okay, let’s say that’s three thousand cases. Three thousand cases times the minimum of ten thousand dollars comes to thirty million, right?” She said this slowly, scribbling the entire time.
   “That’s right.”
   “And how much are the attorneys’ fees?” she asked. The other three were watching Clay very closely.
   “One third,” he said.
   “That’s ten million in fees,” she said slowly. “All to this firm?”
   “Yes. And we’re going to share the fees.”
   The word share echoed around the room for a few seconds. Jonah and Rodney glanced at Paulette, as if to say, “Go ahead, finish it off.”
   “Share, in what way?” she asked, very deliberately.
   “Ten percent to each of you.”
   “So in my hypothetical, my share of the fees would be one million?”
   “That’s correct.”
   “And, uh, same for me?” Rodney asked.
   “Same for you. Same for Jonah. And, I must say, I think that’s on the low side.”
   Low side or not, they absorbed the numbers in muted silence for what seemed like a very long time, each instinctively spending some of the money. For Rodney, it meant college for the kids. For Paulette, it meant a divorce from the Greek she’d seen once in the past year. For Jonah, it meant life on a sailboat.
   “You’re serious, aren’t you, Clay?” Jonah asked.
   “Dead serious. If we work our butts off for the next year, there’s a good chance we’ll have the option of an early retirement.”
   “Who told you about this Dyloft?” Rodney asked.
   “I can never answer that question, Rodney. Sorry. Just trust me.” And Clay hoped at that moment that his blind trust in Max Pace was not foolish.
   “I almost forgot about Paris,” Paulette said.
   “Don’t. We’ll be there next week.”
   Jonah jumped to his feet and grabbed his legal pad. “What’s that Realtor’s name?” he asked.

   On the third floor of his town house, Clay had put together a small office, not that he planned to do much work there but he needed a place for his papers. The desk was an old butcher block he’d found in an antique store in Fredericksburg, just down the road. It consumed one wall and was long enough for a phone, a fax, and a laptop.
   It was there that he made his first tentative entry into the world of mass tort solicitation. He delayed the call until almost 9 P.M., an hour at which some folks went to bed, especially older ones and perhaps those afflicted with arthritis. A stiff drink for courage, and he punched the numbers.
   The phone was answered on the other end by a woman, perhaps Mrs. Ted Worley of Upper Marlboro, Maryland. Clay introduced himself pleasantly, identified himself as a lawyer, as if they called all the time and there was nothing to be alarmed about, and asked to speak to Mr. Worley.
   “He’s watching the Orioles,” she said. Evidently Ted didn’t take calls when the Orioles were playing.
   “Yes—would it be possible to speak to him for a moment?”
   “You say you’re a lawyer?”
   “Yes ma’am, from right here in D.C.”
   “What’s he done now?”
   “Oh, nothing, nothing at all. I’d like to talk to him about his arthritis.” The first impulse to hang up and run came and went. Clay thanked God no one was watching or listening. Think of the money, he kept telling himself. Think of the fees.
   “His arthritis? Thought you were a lawyer, not a doctor.”
   “Yes ma’am, I’m a lawyer, and I have reason to believe he’s taking a dangerous drug for his arthritis. If you don’t mind, I just need him for a second.”
   Voices in the background as she yelled something to Ted who yelled something back. Finally, he took the phone. “Who is this?” he demanded, and Clay quickly introduced himself.
   “What’s the score?” Clay asked.
   “Three-one Red Sox in the fifth. Do I know you?” Mr. Worley was seventy years old.
   “No sir. I’m an attorney here in D.C., and I specialize in lawsuits involving defective drugs. I sue drug companies all the time when they put out harmful products.”
   “Okay, what do you want?”
   “Through our Internet sources we found your name as a potential user of an arthritis drug called Dyloft. Can you tell me if you use this drug?”
   “Maybe I don’t want to tell you what prescriptions I’m taking.”
   A perfectly valid point, one Clay thought he was ready for.
   “Of course you don’t have to, Mr. Worley. But the only way to determine if you’re entitled to a settlement is to tell me if you’re using the drug.”
   “That damned Internet,” Mr. Worley mumbled, then had a quick conversation with his wife who, evidently, was somewhere near the phone.
   “What kind of settlement?” he asked.
   “Let’s talk about that in a minute. I need to know if you’re using Dyloft. If not, then you’re a lucky man.”
   “Well, uh, I guess it’s not a secret, is it?”
   “No sir.” Of course it was a secret. Why should a person’s medical history be anything but confidential? The little fibs were necessary, Clay kept telling himself. Look at the big picture. Mr. Worley and thousands like him might never know they’re using a bad product unless they were told. Ackerman Labs certainly hadn’t come clean. That was Clay’s job.
   “Yeah, I take Dyloft.”
   “For how long?”
   “Maybe a year. It works great.”
   “Any side effects?”
   “Such as?”
   “Blood in your urine. A burning sensation when you urinate.” Clay was resigned to the fact that he would be discussing bladders and urine with many people in the months to come. There was simply no way around it.
   The things they don’t prepare you for in law school.
   “No. Why?”
   “We have some preliminary research that Ackerman Labs, the company that makes Dyloft, is trying to cover up. The drug has been found to cause bladder tumors in some of the folks who use it.”
   And so Mr. Ted Worley, who just moments earlier had been minding his own business and watching his beloved Orioles, would now spend the rest of that night and most of the next week worrying about tumors growing wild in his bladder. Clay felt rotten and wanted to apologize, but, again, he told himself that it had to be done. How else might Mr. Worley learn the truth? If the poor man indeed had the tumors, wouldn’t he want to know about them?
   Holding the phone with one hand and rubbing his side with the other, Mr. Worley said, “You know, come to think of it, I do remember a burning sensation a couple of days ago.”
   “What are you talking about?” Clay heard Mrs. Worley say in the background.
   “If you don’t mind,” Mr. Worley said to Mrs. Worley.
   Clay charged in before the bickering got out of hand. “My firm represents a lot of Dyloft users. I think you should consider getting tested.”
   “What kind of test?”
   “It’s a urinalysis. We have a doctor who can do it tomorrow. Won’t cost you a dime.”
   “What if he finds something wrong?”
   “Then we can discuss your options. When the news of Dyloft comes out, in just a few days, there will be many lawsuits. My firm will be a leader in the attack on Ackerman Labs. I’d like to have you as a client.”
   “Maybe I should talk to my doctor.”
   “You can certainly do that, Mr. Worley. But he may have some liability too. He prescribed the drug. It might be best if you get an unbiased opinion.”
   “Hang on.” Mr. Worley covered the receiver with his hand and had a contentious chat with his wife. When he returned he said, “I don’t believe in suing doctors.”
   “Nor do I. I specialize in going after the big corporations that harm people.”
   “Should I stop taking the drug?”
   “Let’s do the test first. Dyloft will likely be pulled off the market sometime this summer.”
   “Where do I do the test?”
   “The doctor is in Chevy Chase. Can you go tomorrow?”
   “Yeah, sure, why not? Seems silly to wait, doesn’t it?”
   “Yes, it does.” Clay gave him the name and address of a doctor Max Pace had located. The $80 exam would cost Clay $300 a pop, but it was simply the price of doing business.
   When the details were finished, Clay apologized for the intrusion, thanked him for his time, and left him to suffer while he watched the rest of the game. Only when he hung up did Clay feel the beads of moisture just above his eyebrows. Soliciting cases by phone? What kind of lawyer had he become?
   A rich one, he kept telling himself.
   This would require thick skin, something Clay did not possess and was not certain he could develop.

   Two days later, Clay pulled into the Worleys’ driveway in Upper Marlboro and met them at the front door. The urinalysis, which included a cytological exam, revealed abnormal cells in the urine, a clear sign, according to Max Pace and his extensive and ill-gotten medical research, that there were tumors in the bladder. Mr. Worley had been referred to a urologist whom he would see the following week. The examination and removal of the tumors would be by cystoscopic surgery, running a tiny scope and a knife in a tube through the penis into the bladder, and while this was purported to be fairly routine, Mr. Worley saw nothing ordinary about it. He was worried sick. Mrs. Worley said he hadn’t slept the last two nights, nor had she.
   As much as he wanted to, Clay could not tell them that the tumors were probably benign. Better to let the doctors do that after the surgery.
   Over instant coffee with powdered creamer, Clay explained the contract for his services and answered their questions about the litigation. When Ted Worley signed at the bottom, he became the first Dyloft plaintiff in the country.
   And for a while it seemed as if he might be the only one. Working the phones nonstop, Clay succeeded in convincing eleven people to show up for the urinalysis. All eleven tested negative. “Keep pushing,” Max Pace urged. About a third of the people either hung up or refused to believe Clay was serious about what he was saying.
   He, Paulette, and Rodney divided their lists between black and white prospective clients. Evidently blacks were not as suspicious as whites because they were easier to persuade to go see the doctor. Or perhaps they enjoyed the medical attention. Or maybe, as Paulette suggested more than once, she had the better gift of gab.
   By the end of the week, Clay had signed up three clients who tested positive for abnormal cells. Rodney and Paulette, working as a team, had seven more under contract.
   The Dyloft class action was ready for war.

17

   The Paris adventure cost him $95,300, according to the numbers so carefully kept by Rex Crittle, a man who was becoming more and more familiar with almost all aspects of Clay’s life. Crittle was a CPA with a mid-sized accounting firm situated directly under the Carter suite. Not surprisingly, he too had been referred by Max Pace.
   At least once a week, Clay walked down the back stairs or Crittle walked up them, and they spent a half an hour or so talking about Clay’s money and how to properly handle it. An accounting system for the law firm was basic and easily installed. Miss Glick made all the entries and simply ran them down to Crittle’s computers.
   In Crittle’s opinion, such sudden wealth would almost certainly trigger an audit by the Internal Revenue Service. Notwithstanding Pace’s promises to the contrary, Clay agreed and insisted on perfect records with no gray areas when it came to write-offs and deductions. He had just earned more money than he’d ever dreamed of. No sense trying to beat the government out of some taxes. Pay them and sleep well.
   “What’s this payment to East Media for half a million dollars?” Crittle asked.
   “We’re doing some television ads for litigation. That’s the first installment.”
   “Installment? How many more?” He peered over his reading glasses and gave Clay a look he’d seen before. It said, “Son, have you lost your mind?”
   “A total of two million dollars. We’re filing a big lawsuit in a few days. The filing will be coordinated with an advertising blitz that East Media is handling.”
   “Okay,” Crittle said, obviously wary of such large expenditures. “And I’m assuming there will be some additional fees to cover all this.”
   “Hopefully,” Clay said with a laugh.
   “What about this new office out in Manassas? A lease deposit of fifteen thousand bucks?”
   “Yes, we’re expanding. I’m adding six paralegals in an office out there. Rent’s cheaper.”
   “Nice to see you’re worried about expenses. Six paralegals?”
   “Yes, four have been hired. I have their contracts and payroll information on my desk.”
   Crittle studied a printout for a moment, a dozen questions clicking through the calculator behind his glasses. “Could I ask why you need six more paralegals when you have so few cases?”
   “Now that’s an interesting question,” Clay said. He blitzed through the pending class action without mentioning either the drug or its maker, and if his quick summary answered Crittle’s questions it wasn’t obvious. As an accountant, he was naturally skeptical of any scheme that urged more people to sue.
   “I’m sure you know what you’re doing,” he said, suspecting Clay had, in fact, lost his mind. “Trust me, Rex, the money is about to pour in.” “It’s certainly pouring out.” “You have to spend money to make money.” “That’s what they say.”

   The assault began just after sundown on July 1. With everyone but Miss Glick gathered in front of the television in the conference room, they waited until exactly 8:32 P.M., then grew quiet and still. It was a fifteen-second ad that began with a shot of a handsome young actor wearing a white jacket and holding a thick book and looking sincerely at the camera. “Attention arthritis sufferers. If you are taking the prescription drug Dyloft, you may have a claim against the manufacturer of the drug. Dyloft has been linked to several side effects, including tumors in the bladder.” On the bottom of the screen the bold words: DYLOFT HOT LINE—CALL 1-800-555-DYLO appeared. The doctor continued: “Call this number immediately. The Dyloft Hot Line can arrange a free medical test for you. Call now!”
   No one breathed for fifteen seconds, and no one spoke when it was over. For Clay, it was a particularly harrowing moment because he had just launched a vicious and potentially crippling attack against a mammoth corporation, one that would undoubtedly respond with a vengeance. What if Max Pace was wrong about the drug? What if Pace was using Clay as a pawn in a huge corporate chess match? What if Clay couldn’t prove, by expert witnesses, that the drug caused the tumors? He had wrestled with these questions for several weeks, and he had quizzed Pace a thousand times. They had fought twice and exchanged sharp words on several occasions. Max had eventually handed over the stolen, or at least ill-gotten, research on the effects of Dyloft. Clay had had it reviewed by a fraternity brother from Georgetown who was now a physician in Baltimore. The research looked solid and sinister.
   Clay had ultimately convinced himself that he was right and Ackerman was wrong. But seeing the ad and flinching at its accusation made him weak in the knees.
   “Pretty nasty,” said Rodney, who’d seen the video of the ad a dozen times. Still, it was much harsher on real television. East Media had promised that 16 percent of each market would see each ad. The ads would run every other day for ten days in ninety markets from coast to coast. The estimated audience was eighty million.
   “It’ll work,” Clay said, ever the leader.
   For the first hour, it ran on stations in thirty markets along the East Coast, then it spread to eighteen markets in the Central Time Zone. Four hours after it began, it finally reached the other coast and hit in forty-two markets. Clay’s little firm spent just over $400,000 the first night in wall-to-wall advertising.
   The 800 phone number routed callers to the Sweatshop, the new nickname for the shopping center branch of the Law Offices of J. Clay Carter II. There, the six new paralegals took the calls, filled out forms, asked all the scripted questions, referred the callers to the Dyloft Hot Line Web Site, and promised return calls from one of the staff attorneys. Within two hours of the first ads, all phones were busy. A computer recorded the numbers of those callers unable to get through. A computerized message referred them to the Web site.
   At nine the next morning, Clay received an urgent phone call from an attorney in a large firm down the street. He represented Ackerman Labs and insisted that the ads be stopped immediately. He was pompous and condescending and threatened all manner of vile legal action if Clay did not buckle immediately. Words grew harsh, then calmed somewhat.
   “Are you going to be in your office for a few minutes?” Clay asked.
   “Yes, of course. Why?”
   “I have something to send over. I’ll get my courier. Should take five minutes.”
   Rodney, the courier, hustled down the street with a copy of the twenty-page lawsuit. Clay left for the courthouse to file the original. Pursuant to Pace’s instructions, copies were also being faxed to the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times.
   Pace had also hinted that short-selling Ackerman Labs stock would be a shrewd investment move. The stock had closed the Friday before at $42.50. When it opened Monday morning, Clay placed a sell order for a hundred thousand shares. He’d buy it back in a few days, hopefully around $30, and pick up another million bucks. That was the plan, anyway.

   His office was hectic when he returned. There were six incoming toll-free lines to the Sweatshop out in Manassas, and during working hours, when all six were busy, the calls were routed to the main office on Connecticut Avenue. Rodney, Paulette, and Jonah were each on the phone talking to Dyloft users scattered around North America.
   “You might want to see this,” Miss Glick said. The pink message slip listed the name of a reporter from The Wall Street Journal. “And Mr. Pace is in your office.”
   Max was holding a coffee cup and standing in front of a window.
   “It’s filed,” Clay said. “We’ve stirred up a hornet’s nest.”
   “Enjoy the moment.”
   “Their lawyers have already called. I sent them a copy of the lawsuit.”
   “Good. They’re dying already. They’ve just been ambushed and they know they’ll get slaughtered. This is a lawyer’s dream, Clay, make the most of it.”
   “Sit down. I have a question.”
   Pace, in black as always, fell into a chair and crossed his legs. The cowboy boots appeared to be of rattlesnake.
   “If Ackerman Labs hired you right now, what would you do?” Clay asked.
   “Spin is crucial. I’d start the press releases, deny everything, blame it on greedy trial lawyers. Defend my drug. The initial goal, after the bomb goes off and the dust is settling, is to protect the stock price. It opened at forty-two and a half, which was very low; it’s already at thirty-three. I’d get the CEO on television to say all the right things. I’d get the PR folks cranking out the propaganda. I’d get the lawyers preparing an organized defense. I’d get the sales people to reassure the doctors that the drug is okay.”
   “But the drug is not okay.”
   “I’d worry about that later. For the first few days, it’s all spin, at least on the surface. If investors believe there’s something wrong with the drug, they’ll jump ship and the stock will keep falling. Once the spin is in place, I would have a serious talk with the big boys. Once I found out that there were problems with the drug, then I’d bring in the number-crunchers and figure out how much the settlements will cost. You never go to trial with a bad drug. Each jury can fill in the blank for a verdict, and there’s no way to control the costs. One jury gives the plaintiff a million bucks. The next jury in another state gets mad and awards twenty million in punitive damages. It’s a huge crap-shoot. So you settle. As you are quickly learning, mass tort lawyers take their percentages off the top, so they’re easy to settle with.”
   “How much cash can Ackerman afford?”
   “They’re insured for at least three hundred million. Plus they have about a half billion in cash, most of it generated by Dyloft. They’re almost maxed out at the bank, but if I were calling the shots I’d plan on paying a billion. And I would do it fast.”
   “Will Ackerman do it fast?”
   “They haven’t hired me, so they’re not too bright. I’ve watched the company for a long time, and they’re not particularly sharp. Like all drugmakers, they’re horrified of litigation. Instead of using a fireman like me, they do it the old-fashioned way—they rely on their lawyers, who, of course, have no interest in quick settlements. The principal firm is Walker-Steams in New York. You’ll hear from them very shortly.”
   “So no quick settlement?”
   “You filed suit less than an hour ago. Relax.”
   “I know, but I’m burning up all that money you just gave me.”
   “Take it easy. Within a year you’ll be even richer.”
   “A year, huh?”
   “That’s my guess. The lawyers have to get fat first. Walker-Steams will put fifty associates on the case with meters churning at full blast. Mr. Worley’s class action is worth a hundred million bucks to Ackerman’s own lawyers. Don’t ever forget that.”
   “Why don’t they just pay me a hundred million bucks to go away?”
   “Now you’re thinking like a real mass tort boy. They’ll pay you even more, but first they have to pay their lawyers. That’s just the way it works.”
   “But you wouldn’t do it that way?”
   “Of course not. With Tarvan, the client told me the truth, which seldom happens. I did my homework, found you, and wrapped up everything quietly, quickly, and cheaply. Fifty million, and not a dime to my client’s own lawyers.”
   Miss Glick appeared in the door and said, “That reporter from The Wall Street Journal is on the phone again.” Clay looked at Pace who said, “Chat him up. And remember, the other side has an entire PR unit cranking out the spin.”

   The Times and the Post ran brief stories of the Dyloft class action on the front pages of their business sections the following morning. Both mentioned Clay’s name, which was a thrill he quietly relished. More ink was given to the defendant’s responses. The CEO called the lawsuit “frivolous” and “just another example of litigation abuse by the legal profession.” The Vice President for Research said, “Dyloft had been thoroughly researched with no evidence of adverse side effects.” Both newspapers noted that Ackerman Labs’ stock, which had dropped by 50 percent in the three preceding quarters, had taken another blow by the surprise lawsuit.
   The Wall Street Journal got it right, at least in Clay’s opinion. In the preliminaries, the reporter had asked Clay his age. “Only thirty-one?” he’d said, which led to a series of questions about Clay’s experience, his firm, etcetera. David versus Goliath is much more readable than dry financial data or lab reports, and the story took on a life of its own. A photographer was rushed over, and while Clay posed his staff watched with great amusement.
   On the front page, far left column, the headline read:


The Rookie Takes on Mighty Ackerman Labs

   Beside it was a computerized caricature of a smiling Clay Carter. The first paragraph read: “Less than two months ago, D.C. attorney Clay Carter was laboring through the city’s criminal justice system as an unknown and low paid public defender. Yesterday, as the owner of his own law firm, he filed a billion-dollar lawsuit against the third-largest pharmaceutical company in the world, claiming its newest wonder drug, Dyloft, not only relieves acute pain for arthritis sufferers but also causes tumors in their bladders.”
   The article was filled with questions about how Clay had made such a radical transformation so quickly. And since he couldn’t mention Tarvan or anything related to it, he vaguely referred to the quick settlements of some lawsuits involving people he’d met as a public defender. Ackerman Labs got in a few licks with its typical posturing about lawsuit abuse and ambulance chasers ruining the economy, but the bulk of the story was about Clay and his amazing rise to the forefront of mass tort litigation. Nice things were said about his father, a “legendary D.C. litigator” who had since “retired” to the Bahamas.
   Glenda at OPD praised Clay as a “zealous defender of the poor,” a classy remark that would get her lunch in a fancy restaurant. The President of the National Trial Lawyers Academy admitted he had never heard of Clay Carter, but was nonetheless “very impressed with his work.”
   A law professor at Yale lamented “yet another example of the misuse of class-action litigation,” while one at Harvard said it was “a perfect example of how class actions should be used to pursue corporate wrongdoers.”
   “Make sure this gets on the Web site,” Clay said as he handed the article to Jonah. “Our clients will love it.”

18

   Tequila Watson pleaded guilty to the murder of Ramon Pumphrey and was sentenced to life in prison. He would be eligible for parole in twenty years, though the story in the Post did not mention that. It did say that his victim had been one of several gunned down in a spate of killings that had seemed unusually random even for a city accustomed to senseless violence. The police had no explanations. Clay made a note to call Adelfa and see how her life was going.
   He owed something to Tequila, but he wasn’t sure what. Nor was there any way of compensating his ex-client. He rationalized that he had spent most of his life on drugs and would probably spend the rest behind bars anyway, with or without Tarvan, but this did little to make Clay feel honorable. He had sold out, plain and simple. He’d taken the cash and buried the truth.
   Two pages over another article caught his attention and made him forget about Tequila Watson. Mr. Bennett Van Horn’s pudgy face was in a photo, under his monogrammed hard hat, taken at a job site somewhere. He was intently staring at a set of plans with another man who was identified as the project engineer for BVH Group. The company had become embroiled in a nasty fight over a proposed development near the Chancellorsville battlefield, about an hour south of D.C.
   Bennett, as always, was proposing one of his hideous collections of houses, condos, apartments, shops, playgrounds, tennis courts, and the obligatory pond, all within a mile of the center of the battlefield and very near the spot where General Stonewall Jackson was shot by Confederate sentries. Preservationists, lawyers, war historians, environmentalists, and the Confederate Society had drawn swords and were in the process of shredding Bennett the Bulldozer. Not surprisingly, the Post praised these groups while saying nothing good about Bennett. However, the land in question was privately owned by some aging farmers, and he appeared to have the upper hand, at least for the moment.
   The article ran long with accounts of other battlefields throughout Virginia that had been paved by developers. An outfit called the Civil War Trust had taken the lead in fighting back. Its lawyer was portrayed as a radical who was unafraid to use litigation to preserve history. “But we need money to litigate,” he was quoted as saying.
   Two calls later and Clay had him on the phone. They talked for half an hour, and when he hung up he wrote a check for $100,000 to the Civil War Trust, Chancellorsville Litigation Fund.

   Miss Glick handed him the phone message as he walked by her desk. He looked at the name twice, and was still skeptical when he sat in the conference room and punched the numbers. “Mr. Patton French,” he said into the phone. The message slip said it was urgent.
   “And who’s calling, please?”
   “Clay Carter, from D.C.”
   “Oh yes, he’s been expecting you.”
   The image of such a powerful and busy lawyer as Patton French waiting for Clay’s phone call was difficult to imagine. Within seconds the great man himself was on the phone. “Hello, Clay, thanks for calling me back,” he said so casually Clay was caught off-guard. “Nice story in The Journal, huh? Not bad for a rookie. Look, sorry I didn’t get to say hello when you were down in New Orleans.” It was the same voice he’d heard from behind the microphone, but much more relaxed.
   “No problem,” Clay said. There were two hundred lawyers at the Circle of Barristers gathering. There had been no reason for Clay to meet Patton French, and no reason French should know Clay was even there. He had obviously done his research.
   “I’d like to meet you, Clay. I think we can do some business together. I was on the Dyloft trail two months ago. You beat me to the punch, but there’s a ton of money out there.”
   Clay had no desire to crawl into bed with Patton French. On the other hand, his methods of extracting huge settlements from drug companies were legendary. “We can talk,” Clay said.
   “Look, I’m headed to New York right now. What if I pick you up in D.C. and take you with me? I got a new Gulfstream 5 I’d love to show off. We’ll stay in Manhattan, have a wonderful dinner tonight. Talk business. Back home late tomorrow. Whatta you say?”
   “Well, I’m pretty busy.” Clay vividly remembered his revulsion in New Orleans when French kept mentioning his toys in his speech. The new Gulfstream, the yacht, a castle in Scotland.
   “I’ll bet you are. Look, I’m busy too. Hell, we’re all busy. But this could be the most profitable trip you’ll ever make. I’m not taking no for an answer. I’ll meet you at Reagan National in three hours. Deal?”
   Other than a few phone calls and a game of racquetball that night, Clay had little to do. The office phones were ringing nonstop with frightened Dyloft users, but Clay was not fielding the calls. He hadn’t been to New York in several years. “Sure, why not?” he said, as anxious to see a Gulfstream 5 as he was to eat in a great restaurant.
   “Smart move, Clay. Smart move.”
   The private terminal at Reagan National was packed with harried executives and bureaucrats hustling through, coming and going. Near the reception counter, a cute brunette in a short skirt held a handmade placard with his name on it. He introduced himself to her. She was Julia, with no last name. “Follow me,” she said with a perfect smile.
   They were cleared through an exit door and driven across the ramp in a courtesy van. Dozens of Lears, Falcons, Hawkers, Challengers, and Citations were either parked or were taxiing to and from the terminal. Ramp crews carefully guided the jets past each other, their wings missing by inches. Engines screamed and the entire scene was nerve-racking.
   “Where you from?” Clay asked.
   “We’re based out of Biloxi,” Julia said. “That’s where Mr. French has his main office.”
   “I heard him speak a couple of weeks ago in New Orleans.”
   “Yes, we were there. We’re seldom at home.”
   “He puts in the hours, doesn’t he?”
   “About a hundred a week.”
   They stopped beside the largest jet on the ramp. “That’s us,” Julia said, and they got out of the van. A pilot grabbed Clay’s overnight bag and disappeared with it.
   Patton French was, of course, on the phone. He waved Clay aboard while Julia took his jacket and asked him what he wanted to drink. Just water, with lemon. His first view inside a private jet could not have been more breathtaking. The videos he had seen in New Orleans didn’t do justice to the real thing.
   The aroma was that of leather, very expensive leather. The seats, sofas, headrests, panels, even the tables were done in various shades of blue and tan leather. The light fixtures and knobs and gadget controls were gold-plated. The wood trim was dark and deeply polished, probably mahogany. It was a luxury suite in a five-star hotel, but with wings and engines.
   Clay was an even six feet tall, and there was room to spare above his head. The cabin was long with some type of office in the rear. French was way back there, still talking into a telephone. The bar and the kitchen were just behind the cockpit. Julia emerged with his water. “Better have a seat,” she said. “We’re about to taxi.”
   When the plane began moving, French abruptly ended his conversation and charged forward. He attacked Clay with a violent handshake and toothy smile and another apology for not getting together down in New Orleans. He was a bit heavy, graying nicely with thick, wavy hair, probably fifty-five but not yet sixty. Vigor oozed from every pore and breath.
   They sat across from each other at one of the tables.
   “Nice ride, huh?” French said, waving his left arm at the interior.
   “Pretty nice.”
   “You got a jet yet?”
   “No.” And he actually felt inadequate because he was jetless. What kind of a lawyer was he?
   “It won’t be long, son. You can’t live without one. Julia, get me a vodka. This makes four for me, jets, not vodkas. Takes twelve pilots to keep four jets going. And five Julias. She’s cute, huh?”
   “She is.”
   “Lots of overhead, but then there’s lots of fees out there. Did you hear me speak in New Orleans?”
   “I did. It was very enjoyable.” Clay lied a little. As obnoxious as French had been from the podium, he’d also been entertaining and informative.
   “I hate to dwell on money like that, but I was playing to the crowd. Most of those guys will eventually bring me a big tort case. Gotta keep ‘em pumped up, you know. I’ve built the hottest mass tort firm in America, and all we do is go after the big boys. When you sue companies like Ackerman Labs and any of those Fortune 500 outfits, you gotta have some ammunition, some clout. Their cash is endless. I’m just trying to level the field.”
   Julia brought his drink and strapped herself in for takeoff.
   “You want some lunch?” French asked. “She can cook anything.”
   “No thanks. I’m fine.”
   French took a long swig of the vodka, then suddenly sat back, closed his eyes, and appeared to be praying as the Gulfstream sped down the runway and lifted off. Clay used the break to admire the airplane. It was so luxurious and richly detailed that it was almost obscene. Forty, forty-five million dollars for a private jet! And, according to the gossip among the Circle of Barristers, the Gulfstream company couldn’t make them fast enough. There was a two-year backlog!
   Minutes passed until they leveled off, then Julia disappeared into the kitchen. French snapped out of his meditation, took another gulp. “Is all that stuff in The Journal true?” he asked, much calmer. Clay had the quick impression that with French the mood swings were rapid and dramatic.
   “They got it right.”
   “I’ve been on the front page twice, nothing ever good. No surprise that they don’t like us mass tort boys. Nobody does, really, which is something you’ll learn. The money takes the sting out of the negative image. You’ll get used to it. We all do. I actually met your father once.” His eyes squinted and darted when he talked, as if he was constantly thinking three sentences ahead.
   “Really?” Clay wasn’t sure he believed him.
   “I was with the Justice Department twenty years ago. We were litigating over some Indian lands. The Indians brought in Jarrett Carter from D.C. and the war was over. He was very good.”
   “Thank you,” Clay said, with immense pride.
   “I gotta tell you, Clay, this Dyloft ambush of yours is a thing of beauty. And very unusual. In most cases, word of a bad drug spreads slowly as more and more patients complain. Doctors are slow as hell in communicating. They’re in bed with the drug companies, so they have no incentive to raise the red flag. Plus, in most jurisdictions, the doctors get sued because they prescribed the drug in the first place. Slowly, the lawyers get involved. Uncle Luke has suddenly got blood in his urine for no reason, and after staring at it for a month or so he’ll go to his doctor down in Podunk, Louisiana. And the doctor will eventually take him off whatever new miracle drug he had prescribed. Uncle Luke may or may not go see the family lawyer, usually a small-town ham-and-egger who does wills and divorces and in most cases wouldn’t know a decent tort if one hit him. It takes time for these bad drugs to get discovered. What you’ve done is very unique.”
   Clay was content to nod and listen. French was content to do the talking. This was leading somewhere.
   “Which tells me that you have some inside information.” A pause, a brief gap in which Clay was given the opportunity to confirm that he did indeed have inside information. But he offered no clue.
   “I have a vast network of lawyers and contacts from coast to coast. No one, not a single one, had heard of problems with Dyloft until a few weeks ago. I had two lawyers in my firm doing the preliminary workup on the drug, but we were nowhere close to filing suit. Next thing I see is news of your ambush and your smiling face on the front page of The Wall Street Journal. I know how the game is played, Clay, and I know you have something from the inside.”
   “I do. And I’ll never tell anybody.”
   “Good. That makes me feel better. I saw your ads. We monitor such things in every market. Not bad. In fact, the fifteen-second method you’re using has been proven as the most effective. Did you know that?”
   “No.”
   “Hit ‘em fast late at night, early in the morning. A quick message to scare them, then a phone number where they can get help. I’ve done it a thousand times. How many cases have you generated?”
   “It’s hard to say. They have to do the initial urinalysis. The phones have not stopped ringing.”
   “My ads start tomorrow. I have six people in-house who do nothing but work on advertising, can you believe that? Six full-time ad folks. And they’re not cheap.”
   Julia appeared with two platters of food—a shrimp tray and one covered with cheeses and various meats—prosciutto, salami, and several more Clay could not name. “A bottle of that Chilean white,” Pat-ton said. “It should be chilled by now.
   “Do you like wine?” he asked, grabbing a shrimp by its tail.
   “Some. I’m no expert.”
   “I adore wine. I keep a hundred bottles on this airplane.” Another shrimp. “Anyway, we figure there are between fifty and a hundred thousand Dyloft cases. That sound close?”
   “A hundred might be on the high side,” Clay said cautiously.
   “I’m a little worried about Ackerman Labs. I’ve sued them twice before, you know?”
   “I didn’t know that.”
   “Ten years ago, back when they had plenty of cash. They went through a couple of bad CEOs who made some bad acquisitions. Now they have ten billion in debt. Stupid stuff. Typical of the 1990s. Banks were throwing money at the blue-chips, who took it and tried to buy the world. Anyway, Ackerman is not in danger of bankruptcy or anything like that. And they’ve got some insurance.” French was fishing here and Clay decided to take the bait.
   “They have at least three hundred million in insurance,” he said. “And perhaps half a billion to spend on Dyloft.”
   French smiled and almost drooled over this information. He could not and did not try to hide his admiration. “Great stuff, son, wonderful stuff. How good is your inside dirt?”
   “Excellent. We have insiders who’ll spill the beans, and we have lab reports that we’re not supposed to have. Ackerman cannot get near a jury with Dyloft.”
   “Awesome,” he said as he closed his eyes and absorbed these words. A starving lawyer with his first decent car wreck could not have been happier.
   Julia was back with the wine, which she poured into two priceless small goblets. French sniffed it properly and evaluated it slowly and when he was satisfied he took a sip. He smacked his lips and nodded his head, then leaned in for more gossip. “There is a thrill in catching a big, rich, proud corporation doing something dirty that is better than sex, Clay, better than sex. It’s the biggest thrill I know. You catch the greedy bastards putting out bad products that harm innocent people, and you, the lawyer, get to punish them. It’s what I live for. Sure, the money is sensational, but the money comes after you’ve caught them. I’ll never stop, regardless of how much money I make. People think I’m greedy because I could quit and go live on a beach for the rest of my life. Boring! I’d rather work a hundred hours a week trying to catch the big crooks. It’s my life.”
   At that moment, his zeal was contagious. His face glowed with fanaticism. He exhaled heavily, then said, “You like this wine?”
   “No, it tastes like kerosene,” Clay said.
   “You’re right. Julia! Flush this! Bring us a bottle of that Meursault we picked up yesterday.”
   First, though, she brought a phone. “It’s Muriel.” French grabbed it and said, “Hello.”
   Julia leaned down and, almost in a whisper, said, “Muriel is the head secretary, Mother Superior. She gets through when his wives cannot.”
   French slapped the phone shut and said, “Let me trot out a scenario for you, Clay. And I promise you it is designed to get you more money in a shorter period of time. Much more.”
   “I’m listening.”
   “I’ll end up with as many Dyloft cases as you. Now that you’ve opened the door, there will be hundreds of lawyers chasing these cases. We, you and I, can control the litigation if we move your lawsuit from D.C. to my backyard in Mississippi. That will terrify Ackerman Labs beyond anything you can imagine. They’re worried now because you’ve nailed them in D.C., but they’re also thinking, ‘Well, he’s just a rookie, never been here before, never handled a mass tort case, this is his first class action, and so on. But if we put your cases with mine, combine everything into one class action, and move it to Mississippi, then Ackerman Labs will have one, huge, massive corporate coronary.”
   Clay was almost dizzy with doubt and with questions. “I’m listening,” was all he could manage.
   “You keep your cases, I keep mine. We pool them, and as the other cases are signed up and the lawyers come on board, I’ll go to the trial judge and ask him to appoint a Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee. Do it all the time. I’ll be the chairman. You’ll be on the committee because you filed first. We’ll monitor the Dyloft litigation, try and keep things organized, though with a bunch of arrogant lawyers it’s hard as hell. I’ve done it dozens of times. The committee gives us control. We’ll start negotiating with Ackerman pretty soon. I know their lawyers. If your inside dope is as strong as you say, we push hard for an early settlement.”
   “How early?”
   “Depends on several factors. How many cases are really out there? How quickly can we sign them up? How many other lawyers jump in the fray? And, very important, how severe are the damages to our clients?”
   “Not very severe. Virtually all the tumors are benign.”
   French absorbed this, frowning at first at the bad news, then quickly seeing the good. “Even better. Treatment is cystoscopic surgery.”
   “Correct. An outpatient procedure that can be done for about a thousand dollars.”
   “And the long-term prognosis?”
   “A clean bill. Stay away from Dyloft and life returns to normal, which for some of these arthritis sufferers is not pleasant.”
   French sniffed his wine, swirled it in his goblet, and finally took a sip. “Much better, don’t you think?”
   “Yes,” Clay said.
   “I did a wine-tasting tour in Burgundy last year. Spent a week sniffing and spitting. Very enjoyable.” Another sip as he pondered and prioritized the next three thoughts, without spitting.
   “That’s even better,” French said. “Better for our clients, obviously, because they’re not as sick as they could be. Better for us because the settlements will come faster. The key here is getting the cases.
   The more cases we get, the more control we have over the class action. More cases, more fees.”
   “I got it.”
   “How much are you spending on advertising?”
   “Couple of million.”
   “Not bad, not bad at all.” French wanted to ask where, exactly, did a rookie get $2 million for advertising? But he controlled himself and let it pass.
   There was a noticeable reduction in power as the nose dipped slightly. “How long to New York?” Clay asked.
   “From D.C., about forty minutes. This little bird does six hundred miles an hour.”
   “Which airport?”
   “Teterboro, it’s in New Jersey. All the private jets go there.”
   “So that’s why I haven’t heard of it.”
   “Your jet’s on the way, Clay, get ready for it. You could take away all my toys, just leave me a jet. You gotta have one.”
   “I’ll just use yours.”
   “Start off with a little Lear. You can buy them all day long for a couple of million. You need two pilots, seventy-five grand each. It’s just part of the overhead. Gotta have it. You’ll see.”
   For the first time in his life, Clay was getting jet advice.
   Julia removed the trays of food and said they would be landing in five minutes. Clay became entranced by the view of the Manhattan skyline to the east. French fell asleep.
   They landed and taxied past a row of private terminals, where dozens of handsome jets were either parked or being serviced. “You’ll see more private jets here than in any other place in the world,” French explained as both looked out the windows. “All the big boys in Manhattan park their planes here. It’s a forty-five-minute drive into the city. If you really have the fuzz, you have your own helicopter to take you from here to the city. That’s only ten minutes.”
   “Do we have a helicopter?” Clay asked.
   “No. But if I lived here, I would have one.”
   A limo fetched them on the ramp, just a few feet from where they stepped off the plane. The pilots and Julia stayed behind, tidying up and no doubt making sure the wine was chilled for the next flight.
   “The Peninsula,” French said to the driver.
   “Yes sir, Mr. French,” he replied. Was this a rented limo or one owned by Patton himself? Surely, the world’s greatest mass tort lawyer wouldn’t use a car service. Clay decided to let it pass. What difference did it make?
   “I’m curious about your ads,” French said, as they moved through the congestion of New Jersey. “When did you start running them?”
   “Sunday night, in ninety markets, coast to coast.”
   “How are you processing them?”
   “Nine people working the phones—seven paralegals, two lawyers. We took two thousand calls Monday, three thousand yesterday. Our Dyloft Web site is getting eight thousand hits each day. Assuming the usual hit ratio, that’s about a thousand clients already.”
   “And the pool is how big?”
   “Fifty to seventy-five thousand, according to my source, who so far has been pretty accurate.”
   “I’d like to meet your source.”
   “Forget it.”
   French cracked his knuckles and tried to accept this rejection. “We have to get these cases, Clay. My ads start tomorrow. What if we divide the country? You take the North and East, give me the South and West. It’ll be easier to target smaller markets, and much easier to handle the cases. There’s a guy in Miami who’ll be on television within days. And there’s one in California who, I promise you, is copying your ads right now. We’re sharks, okay, nothing but vultures. The race is on for the courthouse, Clay. We have one helluva head start, but the stampede is coming.”
   “I’m doing the best I can.”
   “Give me your budget,” French said, as if he and Clay had been in business for years.
   What the hell, Clay thought. Sitting in the back of the limo together, they certainly seemed like partners. “Two million for advertising, another two million for the urinalyses.”
   “Here’s what we’ll do,” French said without the slightest gap in the conversation. “Spend all your money on advertising. Get the damned cases, okay! I’ll front the money for the urinalyses, all of it, and we’ll make Ackerman Labs reimburse us when we settle. That’s a normal part of every settlement, to make the company cover all medicals.”
   “The tests are three hundred dollars each.”
   “You’re getting screwed. I’ll put some technicians together and we’ll do it much cheaper.” Which reminded French of a story, one about the early days of Skinny Ben litigation. He converted four former Greyhound buses into traveling clinics and raced all over the country screening potential clients. Clay listened with fading interest as they crossed the George Washington Bridge. Another story followed.
   Clay’s suite at The Peninsula had a view of Fifth Avenue. Once he was safely locked inside, away from Patton French, he grabbed the phone and began searching for Max Pace.

19

   The third cell phone number found Pace at some undisclosed location. The man with no home had been in D.C. less and less in recent weeks. Of course he was off putting out another fire, nixing another round of nasty litigation for another wayward client, though he didn’t admit this. Didn’t have to. Clay knew him well enough by now to know that he was a fireman in demand. There was no shortage of bad products out there.
   Clay was surprised at how comforting it was to hear Pace’s voice. He explained that he was in New York, whom he was with, and why he was there. Pace’s first word sealed the deal. “Brilliant,” he said. “Just brilliant.”
   “You know him?”
   “Everybody in this business knows Patton French,” Pace said. “I’ve never had to deal with him, but he’s a legend.”
   Clay gave the terms of the offer from French. Pace quickly caught up and then began thinking ahead. “If you refile in Biloxi, Mississippi, Ackerman’s stock will take another hit,” he said. “They’re under tremendous pressure right now—pressure from their banks and their shareholders. This is brilliant, Clay. Do it!”
   “Okay. Done.”
   “And watch the New York Times in the morning. Big story about Dyloft. The first medical report is out. It’s devastating.”
   “Great.”
   He got a beer from the mini-bar—$8.00 but who cared—and for a long time sat in front of the window and watched the frenzy on Fifth Avenue. It was not entirely comforting to be forced to rely on Max Pace for advice, but there was simply no one else to turn to. No one, not even his father, had ever been presented with such a choice: “Let’s move your five thousand cases over here and put them together with my five thousand cases, and we’ll do not two but one class action, and I’ll plunk down a million or so for the medical screenings while you double your advertising plan, and we’ll rake forty percent off the top, then expenses, and make us a fortune. Whatta you say, Clay?”
   In the past month he’d made more money than he’d ever dreamed of earning. Now, as things spun out of control, he felt as if he was spending it even faster. Be bold, he kept telling himself, this is a rare opportunity. Be bold, strike fast, take chances, roll the dice, and you could get filthy rich. Another voice kept urging him to slow down, don’t blow the money, bury it and have it forever.
   He had moved $1 million to an account off-shore, not to hide but to protect. He would never touch it, not under any circumstances. If he made bad choices and gambled it all away, he’d still have money for the beach.
   He would sneak out of town like his father and never come back.
   The million dollars in the secret account was his compromise.
   He tried calling his office but all lines were busy, a good sign. He got Jonah on his cell phone, sitting at his desk. “It’s crazy as hell,” Jonah said, very fatigued. “Total chaos.”
   “Good.”
   “Why don’t you get back here and help!”
   “Tomorrow.”
   At seven thirty-two, Clay turned on the television and found his ad on a cable channel. Dyloft sounded even more ominous in New York.

   Dinner was at Montrachet, not for the food, which was very good, but for the wine list, which was thicker than any other in New York. French wanted to taste several red burgundies with his veal. Five bottles were brought to the table, with a different glass for each wine. There was little room for the bread and butter.
   The sommelier and Patton lapsed into another language when discussing what was in each bottle. Clay was bored with the entire process. A beer and a burger would’ve been preferable, though he could see his tastes changing dramatically in the near future.
   When the wines had been opened and were breathing, French said, “I called my office. That lawyer in Miami is already on the air with Dyloft ads. He’s set up two screening clinics and is running them through like cattle.
   Name’s Carlos Hernandez, and he’s very, very good.”
   “My people can’t answer all the calls,” Clay said.
   “Are we in this together?” French said.
   “Let’s go over the deal.”
   At which French whipped out a folded document. “Here’s the deal memo,” he said, handing it over while he went for the first bottle. “It summarizes what we’ve discussed so far.”
   Clay read it carefully and signed at the bottom. French, between sips, signed as well, and the partnership was born.
   “Let’s file the class action in Biloxi tomorrow,” French said. “I’ll do it when I get home. I’ve got two lawyers working on it right now. As soon as it’s filed, you can dismiss yours in D.C. I know the in-house counsel for Ackerman Labs. I think I can talk to him. If the company will negotiate directly with us, and bypass their outside counsel, then they can save a bloody fortune and give it to us. And it will greatly expedite matters. If their outside lawyers take charge of the negotiations, it could cost us half a year in wasted time.”
   “About a hundred million, right?”
   “Something like that. That could be our money.” A phone rang somewhere in a pocket and French whipped it out with his left hand while holding a wineglass with his right. “Excuse me,” he said to Clay.
   It was a Dyloft conversation with another lawyer, somebody in Texas, obviously an old friend, one who could talk faster than Patton French. The banter was polite, but French was cautious. When he slapped the phone shut he said, “Dammit!”
   “Some competition?”
   “Serious competition. Name’s Vic Brennan, big lawyer in Houston, very smart and aggressive. He’s onto Dyloft, wants to know the game plan.”
   “He got nothing from you.”
   “He knows. He’s unleashing some ads tomorrow—radio, television, newspaper. He’ll pick up several thousand cases.” For a moment, he consoled himself with a sip of wine, one that made him smile. “The race is on, Clay. We have to get those cases.”
   “It’s about to get crazier,” Clay said.
   French had a mouthful of Pinot Noir and couldn’t speak. “What?” his face said.
   “Tomorrow morning, big story in the New York Times. The first bad report on Dyloft, according to my sources.”
   It was the wrong thing to say, as far as dinner was concerned. French forgot about his veal, which was still in the kitchen. And he forgot about the expensive wines covering his table, though he managed to consume them over the next three hours. But what mass tort lawyer could concentrate on food and wine when the New York Times was just hours away from exposing his next defendant and its dangerous drug?

   The phone was ringing and it was still dark outside. The clock, when he could finally focus on it, gave the time as five forty-five. “Get up!” French growled at him. “And open the door.” By the time he unlocked it, French was pushing it open and marching past with newspapers and a cup of coffee. “Unbelievable!” he said, flinging a copy of the Times on Clay’s bed.
   “You can’t sleep all day, son. Read this!” He was dressed in hotel garb, the complimentary terry-cloth robe and white shower shoes.
   “It’s not six yet.”
   “I haven’t slept past five in thirty years. There are too many lawsuits out there.”
   Clay wore nothing but his boxer shorts. French gulped coffee and read the story again, peering down his flat nose through reading glasses perched on the tip.
   No sign of a hangover. Clay had gotten bored with the wines, which all tasted the same to him anyway, and finished the night with bottled water. French had battled on, determined to declare a winner among the five burgundies, though he was so sidetracked with Dyloft his heart wasn’t in it.
   The Atlantic Journal of Medicine was reporting that dylofedamint, known as Dyloft, had been linked to bladder tumors in about 6 percent of those who had taken it for a year.
   “Up from five percent,” Clay said as he read.
   “Isn’t that wonderful?” French said.
   “Not if you’re in the six percent.”
   “I’m not.”
   Some doctors were already pulling the drug. Ackerman Labs offered a rather weak denial, shifting blame, as always, to greedy trial lawyers, though the company appeared to be hunkering down. No comment from the FDA. A doctor in Chicago ran on for half a column about how great the drug was, how happy his patients were with it. The good news, if it could be called that, was that the tumors did not appear to be malignant, so far anyway. As Clay read the story, he got the feeling that Max Pace had seen it a month ago.
   There was only one paragraph about the class action filed in D.C. on Monday, and no mention of the young lawyer who’d filed it.
   Ackerman’s stock had tumbled from $42.50 Monday morning to $32.50 at the close on Wednesday.
   “Should’ve shorted the damned thing,” French mumbled. Clay bit his tongue and kept a secret, one of the few he’d held on to in the past twenty-four hours.
   “We can read it again on the plane,” French said. “Let’s get out of here.”

   The stock was at $28 by the time Clay walked into his office and tried to say hello to his weary staff. He went online to a Web site with the latest market movements and checked it every fifteen minutes, counting his gains. Burning money on one front, it was comforting to see some profits on the other.
   Jonah was the first to stop by. “We were here until midnight last night,” he said. “It’s crazy.”
   “It’s about to get crazier. We’re doubling the TV ads.”
   “We can’t keep up now.”
   “Hire some temporary paralegals.”
   “We need computer people, at least two. We can’t add the data fast enough.”
   “Can you find them?”
   “Maybe some temps. I know one guy, maybe two, who might be able to come in at night and play catchup.”
   “Get them.”
   Jonah started to leave, then turned around and closed the door behind him. “Clay, look, it’s just me and you, right?”
   Clay looked around the office and saw no one else. “What is it?”
   “Well, you’re a smart guy and all. But do you know what you’re doing here? I mean, you’re burning money faster than it’s ever been burned. What if something goes wrong?”
   “You’re worried?”
   “We’re all a little worried, okay? This firm is off to a great start. We want to stay and have fun and make money and all that. But what if you’re wrong and you go belly-up? It’s a fair question.”
   Clay walked around to the edge of his desk and sat on the corner. “I’ll be very honest with you. I think I know what I’m doing, but since I’ve never done it before, I can’t be certain. It’s one huge gamble. If I win, then we all make some serious money. If I lose, then we’re still in business. We just won’t be rich.”
   “If you get the chance, tell the others, okay?”
   “I will.”
   Lunch was a ten-minute sandwich break in the conference room. Jonah had the latest numbers: For the first three days, the hot line had fielded seventy-one hundred calls and the Web site had averaged eight thousand inquiries per day. Information packets and contracts for legal services had been mailed as quickly as possible, though they were falling behind. Clay authorized Jonah to hire two part-time computer assistants. Paulette was given the task of finding three or four additional paralegals to work in the Sweatshop. And Miss Glick was directed to hire as many temporary clerks as necessary to handle the client correspondence.
   Clay described his meeting with Patton French and explained their new legal strategy. He showed them copies of the article in the Times; they’d been too busy to notice.
   “The race is on, folks,” he said, trying his best to motivate a weary bunch. “The sharks are coming after our clients.”
   “We are the sharks,” Paulette said.
   Patton French called late in the afternoon and reported that the class action had been amended to add Mississippi plaintiffs and filed in state court in Biloxi. “We got it right where we want it, pal,” he said.
   “I’ll dismiss here tomorrow,” Clay said, hoping he was not giving away his lawsuit.
   “You gonna tip off the press?”
   “I wasn’t planning on it,” Clay said. He had no idea how one went about tipping off the press.
   “Let me handle it.”
   Ackerman Labs closed the day at $26.25, a paper profit of $1,625,000, if Clay bought now and covered his short sale. He decided to wait. The news of the Biloxi filing would hit in the morning, and it would do nothing but hurt the stock.
   At midnight, he was sitting at his desk chatting with a gentleman in Seattle who had taken Dyloft for almost a year and was now horrified that he probably had tumors. Clay advised him to get to the doctor as soon as possible for the urinalysis. He gave him the Web site and promised to mail out an information packet first thing tomorrow. When they hung up, the man was on the verge of tears.

20

   Bad news continued to follow the miracle drug Dyloft. Two more medical studies were published, one of which argued convincingly that Ackerman Labs cut corners on its research and pulled every string it had to get the drug approved. The FDA finally ordered Dyloft off the market.
   The bad news was, of course, wonderful news to the lawyers, and the frenzy heated up as more and more latecomers piled on. Patients taking Dyloft received written warnings from Ackerman Labs and from their own doctors, and these dire messages were almost always followed by ominous solicitations from mass tort lawyers. Direct mail was extremely effective. Newspaper ads were used in every big market. And hot lines were all over the television. The threat of tumors growing wild prompted virtually all Dyloft users to contact a lawyer.
   Patton French had never seen a mass tort class come together so beautifully. Because he and Clay won the race to the courthouse in Biloxi, their class had been certified first. All other Dyloft plaintiffs wanting in on a class action would be forced to join theirs, with the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee raking off an additional fee. French’s friendly judge had already appointed the five-lawyer committee—French, Clay, Carlos Hernandez from Miami, and two other cronies from New Orleans. In theory, the committee would handle the large and complicated trial against Ackerman Labs. In reality, the five would shuffle paperwork and cover the administrative chore of keeping fifty thousand or so clients and their lawyers somewhat organized.
   A Dyloft plaintiff could always “opt out” of the class, and take on Ackerman Labs alone in a separate trial. As lawyers around the country collected the cases and put together their coalitions, the inevitable conflicts arose. Some disapproved of the Biloxi class and wanted their own. Some despised Patton French. Some wanted a trial in their jurisdictions, with the chance of a huge verdict.
   But French had been through the battles many times before. He lived on his Gulfstream, jetting from coast to coast, meeting the mass tort lawyers who were collecting cases by the hundreds, and somehow holding the fragile coalition together. The settlement would be bigger in Biloxi, he promised.
   He talked every day to the in-house counsel at Ackerman Labs, an embattled old warrior who had tried to retire twice but the CEO wouldn’t allow it. French’s message was clear and simple—let’s talk settlement now, without your outside lawyers, because you know you’re not going to trial with this drug. Ackerman was beginning to listen.
   In mid-August, French convened a summit of the Dyloft lawyers at his sprawling ranch near Ketchum, Idaho. He explained to Clay that his attendance was mandatory, as a member of the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee, and, just as important, the rest of the boys were quite anxious to meet the young upstart who broke the Dyloft case. “Plus, with these guys you can’t miss a single meeting, else they’ll stab you in the back.”
   “I’ll be there,” Clay said.
   “I’ll send a jet,” French offered.
   “No thanks. I’ll get there.”
   Clay chartered a Lear 35, a handsome little jet about one-third the size of a Gulfstream 5, but since he was traveling alone it was quite adequate. He met the pilots in the private terminal at Reagan National, where he mixed and mingled with the other hotshots, all older than he, and tried desperately to act as if there was nothing special about hopping on board his own jet. Sure it was owned by a charter company, but for the next three days it was his.
   Lifting off to the north, he stared down at the Potomac, then the Lincoln Memorial, and, quickly, all the landmarks of downtown. There was his office building, and in the distance, not too far away, was the Office of the Public Defender. What would Glenda and Jermaine and those he’d left behind think if they saw him now?
   What would Rebecca think?
   If she’d just held on for another month.
   He’d had so little time to think about her.
   Into the clouds and the view was gone. Washington was soon miles behind. Clay Carter was off to a secret meeting of some of the richest lawyers in America, the mass tort specialists, those who had the brains and brawn to go after the most powerful corporations.
   And they wanted to meet him!

   His jet was the smallest one at the Ketchum-Sun Valley airport at Friedman, Idaho. As he taxied by Gulfstreams and Challengers he had the ridiculous thought that his jet was inadequate, that he needed a bigger one. Then he laughed at himself—there he was in the leather-lined cabin of a $3 million Lear, and he was debating whether he should get something bigger. At least he could still laugh. What would he be when the laughing stopped?
   They parked next to a familiar plane, one with the tail number 000MT. Zero, Zero, Zero, Mass Tort, the home away from home of Patton French himself. It dwarfed Clay’s ride, and for a second he looked up in envy at the finest luxury jet in the world.
   A van was waiting, with what appeared to be an imitation cowboy behind the wheel. Fortunately, the driver was not much of a talker, and Clay enjoyed the forty-five-minute ride in silence. They twisted upward on roads that became narrower. Not surprisingly, Patton’s spread was postcard perfect and very new. The house was a lodge with enough wings and levels to host a good-sized law firm. Another cowboy took Clay’s bag. “Mr. French is waiting on the deck out back,” he said, as if Clay had been there many times.
   Switzerland was the topic when Clay found them—which secluded ski resort they preferred. He listened for a second as he approached. The other four members of the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee were lounging in chairs, facing the mountains, smoking dark cigars and working on drinks. When they realized Clay was present, they hopped to attention as if the judge had entered the courtroom. In the first three minutes of excited conversation, he was called “brilliant,”
   “shrewd,”
   “gutsy,” and, his favorite, “a visionary.”
   “You gotta tell us how you found Dyloft,” Carlos Hernandez said.
   “He won’t tell,” French said as he mixed some vile concoction for Clay to drink.
   “Come on,” said Wes Saulsberry, Clay’s newest friend. Within just a few minutes, Clay would learn that Wes had made about half a billion on the tobacco settlement three years earlier.
   “I’m sworn to silence,” Clay said.
   The other lawyer from New Orleans was Damon Didier, one of the speakers at a session Clay had attended during his Circle of Barristers weekend. Didier was stone-faced and steely-eyed and Clay remembered wondering how this guy could ever connect with a jury. Didier, he found out soon enough, had made a mint when a river-boat packed with fraternity boys sunk into Lake Pontchartrain. Such misery.
   They needed patches and medals, like war heroes.
   This one here they gave me for that tanker explosion that killed twenty. I got this one for those boys who got burned on the off-shore drilling rig. This big one here was for the Skinny Ben campaign. This, the war against Big Tobacco. This, the battle against HMOs.
   Since Clay had no war stories, he just listened. Tarvan would blow them away, but he could never tell it.
   A butler in a Roy Rogers-style shirt informed Mr. French that dinner would be served in an hour. They moved downstairs to a game room with pool tables and big screens. A dozen or so white men were drinking and talking and some were holding pool cues. “The rest of the conspiracy,” Hernandez whispered to Clay.
   Patton introduced him to the group. The names, faces, and hometowns quickly blurred. Seattle, Houston, Topeka, Boston, and others he didn’t catch. And Effingham, Illinois. They all paid homage to this “brilliant” young litigator who’d shocked them with his daring assault on Dyloft.
   “I saw the ad the first night it was on,” said Bernie somebody from Boston. “Never heard of Dyloft. So I call your hot line, get a nice guy on the other end. I tell him I’ve been taking the drug, feed him the line, you know. I go to the Web site. It was brilliant. I said to myself, ‘I’ve been ambushed.’ Three days later I’m on the air with my own damned Dyloft hot line.”
   They all laughed, probably because they could each tell similar stories. It had never occurred to Clay that other lawyers would call his hot line and use his Web site in order to steer away cases. But why did this surprise him?
   When the admiration was finally over, French said there were a few things to discuss before dinner, which, by the way, would include a fabulous selection of Australian wines. Clay was already dizzy from the fine Cuban cigar and the first double vodka bomb. He was by far the youngest lawyer there, and he felt like a rookie in every way. Especially when it came to drinking. He was in the presence of some professionals.
   Youngest lawyer. Smallest jet. No war tales. Weakest liver. Clay decided it was time to grow up.
   They crowded around French, who lived for moments like this. He began, “As you know, I’ve spent a lot of time with Wicks, the in-house guy at Ackerman Labs. Bottom line is they’re going to settle, and do it quickly. They’re getting hit from every direction, and they want this to go away as soon as possible. Their stock is so low now they’re afraid of a takeover. The vultures, including us, are moving in for the kill. If they know how much Dyloft will cost them, then they can restructure some debt and maybe hang on. What they don’t want is protracted litigation on many fronts, with verdicts landing everywhere. Neither do they want to fork over tens of millions for defense.”
   “Poor guys,” someone said.
   “Business Week mentioned bankruptcy,” someone else said. “Have they used that threat?”
   “Not yet. And I don’t expect them to. Ackerman has far too many assets. We’ve just completed the financial analysis—we’ll crunch the numbers in the morning—and our boys think that the company has between two and three billion to settle Dyloft.”
   “How much insurance coverage is on the table?”
   “Only three hundred million. The company has had its cosmetics division on the market for a year. They want a billion. The real value is about three -fourths of that. They could unload it for half a billion and have enough cash to satisfy our clients.”
   Clay had noticed that the clients were rarely mentioned.
   The vultures squeezed around French, who continued: “We need to determine two things. First, how many potential plaintiffs are out there. Second, the value of each case.”
   “Let’s add ‘em up,” drawled someone from Texas. “I got a thousand.”
   “I have eighteen hundred,” French said. “Carlos.”
   “Two thousand,” Hernandez said as he began taking notes.
   “Wes?”
   “Nine hundred.”
   The lawyer from Topeka had six hundred, the lowest. Two thousand was the highest until French saved the best for last. “Clay?” he said, and everyone listened intently.
   “Thirty-two hundred,” Clay said, managing a grim poker face. His newly found brethren, however, were quite pleased. Or at least they appeared to be.
   “Attaboy,” someone said.
   Clay suspected that just under their toothy smiles and “Attaboys!” were some very envious people.
   “That’s twenty-four thousand,” Carlos said, doing the quick math.
   “We can safely double that, which gets close to fifty, the number Ackerman has pegged. Fifty thousand into two billion is forty thousand bucks per case. Not a bad starting place.”
   Clay did some quick math of his own—$40,000 times his 3,200 cases came to something over $120 million. And one third of that, well, his brain froze and his knees went weak.
   “Does the company know how many of these cases involve malignant tumors?” asked Bernie from Boston.
   “No, they don’t. Their best guess is about one percent.”
   “That’s five hundred cases.”
   “At a minimum of a million bucks each.”
   “That’s another half billion.”
   “A million bucks is a joke.”
   “Five million a pop in Seattle.”
   “We’re talking wrongful death, here.”
   Not surprisingly, each lawyer had an opinion to offer and they did so simultaneously. When French restored order, he said, “Gentlemen, let’s eat.”

   Dinner was a fiasco. The dining room table was a slab of polished wood that came from one tree, one grand and majestic red maple that had stood for centuries until it was needed by wealthy America. At least forty people could eat around it at one time. There were eighteen for dinner, and wisely they had been spread out. Otherwise, someone might have thrown a punch.
   In a room full of flamboyant egos, where everyone was the greatest lawyer God created, the most obnoxious windbag was Victor K. Brennan, a loud and twangy Texan from Houston. On the third or fourth wine, about halfway through the thick steaks, Brennan began complaining about such low expectations for each individual case. He had a forty-year-old client who made big bucks and now had malignant tumors, thanks to Dyloft. “I can get ten million actual and twenty million punitive from any jury in Texas,” he boasted. Most of the others agreed with this. Some even one-upped by claiming that they could get more on their home turf. French held firm with the theory that if a few got millions then the masses would get little. Brennan didn’t buy this but had trouble countering the argument. He had a vague notion that Ackerman Labs had much more cash than it was showing.
   The group divided on this point, but the lines shifted so fast and the loyalties were so temporary that Clay had trouble determining where most of them stood. French challenged Brennan on his claim that punitive damages would be so easy to prove. “You got the documents, right?” Brennan asked.
   “Clay has provided some documents. Ackerman doesn’t know it yet. You boys have not seen them. And maybe you won’t if you don’t stay in the class.”
   The knives and forks stopped as all seventeen (Clay excluded) started yelling at once. The waiters left the room. Clay could almost see them back in the kitchen, hunkering low behind the prep tables. Brennan wanted to fight someone. Wes Saulsberry wasn’t backing down. The language deteriorated. And in the midst of the ruckus, Clay looked at the end of the table and saw Patton French sniff a wineglass, take a sip, close his eyes, and evaluate yet another new wine.
   How many of these fights had French sat through? Probably a hundred. Clay cut a bite of steak.
   When things settled down, Bernie from Boston told a joke about a Catholic priest and the room erupted in laughter. Food and wine were enjoyed for about five minutes until Albert from Topeka suggested the strategy of forcing Ackerman Labs into bankruptcy. He had done it twice, to other companies, with satisfactory results. Both times the target companies had used the bankruptcy laws to screw their banks and other creditors, thus providing more cash for Albert and his thousands of clients. Those opposed voiced their concerns, to which Albert took offense, and soon there was another fight.
   They fought over everything—documents again, whether or not to press for a trial while ignoring a quick settlement, turf, false advertising, how to round up the other cases, expenses, fees. Clay’s stomach was in knots and he never said a word. The rest seemed to enjoy their food immensely while carrying on two or three arguments simultaneously.
   Experience, Clay told himself.
   After the longest dinner of Clay’s life, French led them downstairs, back to the billiards room where the cognac and more cigars were waiting. Those who had been swearing at each other for three hours were now drinking and laughing like fraternity brothers. At the first opportunity, Clay sneaked away and, after considerable effort, found his room.

   The Barry and Harry Show was scheduled for 10 A.M. Saturday morning, time for everyone to sleep off the hangovers and choke down a heavy breakfast. French had made available trout fishing and skeet shooting, neither of which drew a single lawyer.
   Barry and Harry had a company in New York that did nothing but analyze the finances of target companies. They had sources and contacts and spies and a reputation for peeling back the skin and finding the real truth. French had flown them in for a one-hour presentation. “Costs us two hundred grand,” he whispered proudly to Clay, “and we’ll make Ackerman Labs reimburse us. Imagine that.”
   Their routine was a tag team, Barry doing the graphics, Harry with the pointer, two professors at the lectern. Both stood at the front of the small theater, one level below the billiards room. The lawyers, for once, were silent.
   Ackerman Labs had insurance coverage of at least $500 million—$300 million from their liability carrier, and another $200 million from a reinsurer. The cash-flow analysis was dense and took both Harry and Barry talking at once to complete. Numbers and percentages spewed forth and soon drowned everyone else in the room.
   They talked about Ackerman’s cosmetics division, which might fetch $600 million at a fire sale. There was a plastics division in Mexico that the company wanted to unload for $200 million. The company’s debt structure took fifteen minutes to explain.
   Barry and Harry were also lawyers, and so were quite adept at assessing a company’s likely response to a mass tort disaster like Dyloft. It would be wise for Ackerman to settle quickly, in stages. “A pancake settlement,” Harry said.
   Clay was certain that he was the only person in the room who had no idea what a pancake settlement was.
   “Stage one would be two billion for all level-one plaintiffs,” Harry continued, mercifully laying out the elements of such a plan.
   “We think they might do this within ninety days,” Barry added.
   “Stage two would be half a billion for level-two plaintiffs, those with malignancy who don’t die.”
   “And stage three would be left open for five years to cover the death cases.”
   “We think Ackerman can pay around two-point-five to three billion over the next year, then another half-billion over five years.”
   “Anything beyond that, and you could be looking at a chapter eleven.”
   “Which is not advisable for this company. Too many banks have too many priority liens.”
   “And a bankruptcy would seriously choke off the flow of money. It would take from three to five years to get a decent settlement.”
   Of course the lawyers wanted to argue for a while. Vincent from Pittsburgh was especially determined to impress the rest with his financial acumen, but Harry and Barry soon put him back in his place. After an hour, they left to go fishing.
   French took their place at the front of the room. All arguments had been completed. The fighting had stopped. It was time to agree on a plan.
   Step one was to round up the other cases. Every man for himself. No holds barred. Since they accounted for half of the total, there were still plenty of Dyloft plaintiffs out there. Let’s find them. Search out the small-time lawyers with only twenty or thirty cases, bring them into the fold. Do whatever it takes to get the cases.
   Step two would be a settlement conference with Ackerman Labs in sixty days. The Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee would schedule it and send notices.
   Step three would be an all-out effort to keep everyone in the class. Strength in numbers. Those who “opted out” of the class and wanted to have their own trial would not have access to the deadly documents. It was as simple as that. Hardball, but it was litigation.
   Every lawyer in the room objected to some part of the plan, but the alliance held. Dyloft looked as if it would be the quickest settlement in mass tort history, and the lawyers were smelling the money.