Herman turned away from the mirror, unable to stomach any further
self-examination, grabbed his heavy briefcase, then lugged it down the hall to
the borrowed office, turned on the lights, and sat behind his desk. Across the
Avenue of the Stars the sound stages of Twentieth Century Fox movie studio were
already teeming with activity. The productions started very early, almost at
the crack of dawn. At 8
a.m.
trucks,
cars, and actors were already bustling between sound stages, well into their
morning labors. Lipman, Castle & Stein took a more gentlemanly approach to
the morning. He'd learned that agents and lawyers in show business started at
around nine-thirty with a leisurely power breakfast, usually at the Polo Lounge
in Beverly Hills, or Jerry's Deli in the Valley. Most of the hip Lipman crowd
came sharking in at 10:30 or 11:00 toting their expensive wafer cases—young,
lean, sculpted men and women with tanning-salon complexions and improbably
perfect teeth. Herman was a rolling, lumbering walrus in this sleek,
fast-moving school of piranhas.
He decided not to tell Susan about the tachycardia when she got in. She
would just insist he go back to the hospital. The doctors at Cedars-Sinai had
"converted" him once already last week, using medication. It had
taken four hours on an IV bag.
His condition
was called ventricular arrhythmia, which was more dangerous than the
supraventricular kind. The first episode had hit him six months ago without
warning. His second arrhythmia occurred four months later, and now this one
made two in ten days. Not a good sign. The cardio docs at Cedars were urging
that a "procedure" be performed. Procedure was their PR-friendly way
of saying operation. But Herman couldn't take two weeks off now. He had just
dragged three federal agencies and four private research labs kicking and
screaming into court. This case finally had a hearing date set for tomorrow,
and if he missed it he'd never get back in front of a judge before this year's
planting season. Once the new crop of genetically engineered corn went into the
ground, it guaranteed that millions more monarch butterflies would die. Herman
was determined to prevent this from happening. He felt as if he was the only
one left protecting one of God's great treasures. In the meantime he was
popping more and more pills, which seemed to be doing him less and less good.
The morning dragged by like mud oozing downhill. It was eleven o'clock
when Susan finally came through the door and dropped her briefcase on the chair
opposite his desk. Every time he saw her he was overcome by her style and
beauty. She had inherited all of her mother's physical perfection and mental
activity but none of her shallowness. Okay, maybe that was harsh, but, damn it,
that's the way he felt. His ex had a keen mind but no interest in using it.
Lillian was a wealthy country club brat who had rebelled against her
waspish upbringing by choosing Herman Strockmire Jr. over a field of more
acceptable, attractive suitors. He had always been puzzled by her choice, until
he finally realized it was just her spoiled way of giving her domineering
father the finger.
Take that, Daddy, you controlling, overbearing shitheel!
Lillian had said she loved Herman's idealism, that she had never met
anyone with thoughts as deep as his. . . thoughts about the environment, or
civil rights, or governmental abuse. She once complained that all her country
club
friends ever
worried about was their golf scores.
She fascinated him like a delicate crystal treasure. He used to marvel
at her classic, fine-boned beauty as she flitted around in their small, rundown
Boston apartment, fluffing pillows and promising to do the dishes that were
piling up in the sink.
Her allowance, given to her by her father each month, was more than
Strockmire Sr. took home from his mill job, and it helped Herman through the
last year of Harvard Law School. So, although he resented taking the money, it
allowed him to quit his side jobs and concentrate on his studies full time. He
had kept his mouth shut to get his diploma.
However, Lillian soon found out that a steady diet of idealism and heavy
thoughts, like her membership in the Vegan Society, was boring. Bottom line:
Herman was pretty much of a drag. "You're no fun," she'd pout.
"No fun and always brooding. Would it kill you to smile, for Chrissake?"
But Herman, fresh out of law school, was already overwhelmed with the
injustices he saw all around him. Injustices that nobody else seemed to care
about because there was no money to be made in fixing them. He passed on an
offer from an old-line Philadelphia law firm in order to pursue his passion for
important legal redress, filing a rash of lawsuits:
Miller v. USDA
—a
drug-testing case;
Billingsley v. CIA—
domestic espionage;
Clark
v.
FBI
—Fourth Amendment search and seizure. More and more, Herman found he
had powerful federal agencies on the other side of the "v." His IRS
tax audits became annual and punitive.
He loved Lillian, but it was hard not to brood when he was constantly
fighting city hall, overmatched, and behind the eight ball. Like most members
of spirited-but-pampered species, Lillian soon flitted away from him, as
beautiful and carefree as the monarch butterfly he now defended, leaving behind
one lasting treasure—his daughter, Susan.
Lillian had bestowed her physical genes on Susan as surely as the old
mill worker had cursed Herman Jr. with his. But Susan also had Herman's
single-mindedness and
sense of social outrage. Unlike her mother, she never became bored
with Herman's struggle. She often seemed more dismayed at the injustices they
fought against than he did.
Sometimes Herman Strockmire Jr. wondered how he and Lillian had made
such a remarkable creature. Both of them were so flawed: Herman—plodding,
overinvolved, and physically unremarkable; Lillian—beautiful, pampered, and
quick-tempered. In Susan, they had filtered out their worst traits without
losing any of their best. Talk about miracles.
"You heard from Roland yet?" Susan asked, carrying a stack of
pretrial motions across the office. She set them on the side table, kicked off
her shoes, then sat and put her nyloned feet up on his desk.
"Nope. Guess he's still up in San Francisco looking for the lab
where those pricks are hiding their research. Once I get the right data bank
I'll spring a discovery motion on them, and hopefully they won't have time to
digitally erase the evidence before I get ahold of it. Roland will find it for
me; he can't stand to lose."
Roland Minton was a twenty-two-year-old computer hacker with dyed purple
hair who worked for Herman as an electronic detective. He was one of four
full-time employees of Herman's law firm, The Institute for Planetary Justice.
Okay—smile if you must, but that's what it was, damn it.
"Dad, are you okay? You look terrible." Susan leaned forward
and studied him carefully.
Herman went for an airy grin and a casual wave of his meaty right hand,
then turned toward the window to avoid closer scrutiny. "Just stressed,
baby. Did you call to see which federal judge we got after Miller was
reassigned?" They had received the notification just yesterday. The chief
district court judge had reassigned the jurist on their case after jury
selection and only two days before the injunction hearing. They were waiting to
be notified of the new judge so they could look him up in the "Federal
Reporter" and read about his past decisions. Herman was also trying to
steer Susan onto
another subject to get her off his appearance, which he damn well knew was
worrisome.
"You have the number for the federal district court?" she asked.
"I'll call over there now. They said they'd have the name by ten
o'clock."
Herman flipped through a legal pad, found the number of the federal
building in L.A., and slid it across the desk toward her. She crossed to the
guest phone and dialed.
"Hello, I'd like the clerk's office, please," she said as she
searched for a pencil. "This is Herman Strockmire's office. We're seeking
injunctive relief and damages on behalf of the
Food Policy Research Center
and the Union of Concerned Scientists
v.
USDA, EPA, FDA, et al.
Case
number CO3769M. We were notified that the Chief Judge made a last-minute change
in the judicial roster, that Judge Miller is not going to be able to hear the
case, and that a new judge is being assigned." She dug into her purse.
"Yes . . . yes, I have a pencil. Go." She scowled and started to
write, broke the lead, stopped, and tossed the pencil onto the table.
"Thanks." She slammed down the receiver and muttered, "For
nothing."
"What's wrong? Who is it?"
"You're not going to believe it. We got her again."
"Awww, no. Come on. . . I thought she was taking a pregnancy
leave."
"She is, but I guess she made time in her prenatal schedule to
hammer us into the ground."
"Judge King? You sure?"
"How many Melissa Kings could there be on the Ninth Circuit Federal
bench?"
"One is plenty," Herman said, realizing this reassignment was
just one more anti-Strockmire missile from the federal government. With that
realization came an additional weight that descended on his shoulders and
chest, pulling him lower, squashing him, making him even more like his dead
father.
"Dad, we can't go in front of her."
"We have no grounds to request that she recuse herself.
What am I gonna say? She hates me and the way I practice law? That's not
grounds for recusal."
"But Dad . . ."
"Honey, we'll just have to try this thing on its merits, okay?
We'll note every one of her prejudicial rulings or statements, and if we have
to go to Circuit Court and get her reversed, then that's where we'll go. But if
I don't take this in now we'll miss the planting season next month."
Then the buzzer sounded. "Mr. Strockmire?" The voice of a
Lipman, Castle & Stein secretary came over the intercom. They were ice
queens who always managed to convey their extreme distaste at having a slob
like Herman in their sleek environs. He wasn't show biz; he didn't have a
personal trainer; he was soiling their palatial offices, like axle grease on
their white decorator carpet. "Your clients have arrived." The words
pronounced like a death sentence.
"Send them in," Susan said, checking her father to make sure
he was presentable. It was the habit of a lifetime. She had started trying to
fix his look way back when she was six or seven and realized that her beloved
daddy often resembled a five-foot stack of laundry.
"Dad, why didn't you use the numbers?"
"It was dark. I thought I was getting all threes. I must have
missed. I was trying not to wake you up."
She scurried around the desk and helped him out of the jacket, took a
look, then shook her head and put it back on. "Jeez, you look like Pee Wee
Herman on acid."
"That good?" He smiled ruefully.
The door opened and three glum people walked in. From their expressions
Herman could tell that his day had not yet hit bottom.
J
im Litke, M.D., Ph.D., and Valerie
Taylor, M.S., Ph.D., were co-presidents of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
True to their organization, they looked concerned. Their brows were furrowed
and pulled close together like caterpillars in a mating dance as they came
through the door ahead of J. Thomas Stinson, managing director of the Food
Policy Research Center. All three of them looked like they were about to bury
their best friend. They found seats in Herman's small, one-window office.
Herman was feeling worse by the minute. His arrhythmia was escalating
and he was becoming dizzy and lightheaded, but he didn't want to reach into his
briefcase for his pills for fear that he would appear weak. Nobody wanted
:
to have a sick, weak lawyer. Clients wanted their lawyer to be a meat eater. A
carnivore. A killer. So Herman tried to fix a killer look on his tired, sagging
ponim,
projecting confidence on the eve of trial. Herman of Bavaria,
sword raised, ready to lead his troops into the Valley of Death and come out
driving a Cadillac.
"Things are looking very good . . . surprisingly good," he
started to say. But a frog unexpectedly jumped up into his throat—so he more or
less gargled this fantasy at them. He cleared his pipes and went on. "We
should have the information we need to file our last discovery motions against
the defense first thing tomorrow. My senior investigator, Roland Minton, is in
San Francisco right now getting that data. He tells me it's going to prove
devastating." A lie, but a necessary one. Never let a client sense
concern.