Shorts - Sinister Shorts (11 page)

He did well, annihilating dozens of beer cans. Back in the house, he emptied a few more, trying to blot out the image of his boss, Keith Landers, the smirk on his face when he told Jeff the news, and how Jeff had felt that night, having to tell Sandra. The look on her face.

He downed another one.

Landers generally got to work early, starting at the office behind the model home, flirting with the receptionist, hanging there as long as he could. The office was well-situated for visitors, close to the parking lot, and had plenty of windows.

The next week, O'Shay consulted with a retired judge, someone who had looked favorably upon many of his cases, someone fair. O'Shay laid out Jeff Colby's situation.

The judge, holding court at Dudley 's on Main Street, nodded to a steady stream of hellos. His plate held three fried eggs, a pile of bacon, two pancakes, overdone, cheesy potatoes, plus toast. He called his order “heart attack heaven” and, stabbing a fork into an oozing egg, explained that his mother and father, both of them, lived well into their nineties and he planned to do the same. Slim, still walking five miles daily even though he was well into his eighties, he had O'Shay convinced that the usual rules did not apply to him.

“Okay, the way it happened was, this guy was faking an injury,” the judge said, shaking out salt and pepper, eyeballing the shakers when they didn't seem to be applying themselves liberally enough. “The usual back thing. An invisible problem only God really could judge. I suspected he was a fake. I believed his attorney knew it. However, they found this amazing doctor, really, more a magician. This guy could make gold out of dog hair, I'm telling you.” He bit into a strip of bacon, sighing with pleasure. “Aw, I hate doing business when I eat. If I didn't remember your mother, O'Shay…”

“Thanks for seeing me.”

“So, anyhow, a judge's duty is to weigh the evidence as presented. We're not really allowed leeway on that, you know? Instincts be damned. I have to say, like most people, I ignored that edict and did my own thing, but in this case, I had no choice.”

“Why?”

“Overwhelming physical evidence, boy, and a doctor who could make you cry like a baby. Plus another doctor, less sterling, but confident, groomed. X-rays. Hospital admissions. Even the insurance guy couldn't get past the avalanche of evidence. You have to know, most cases are not so well-developed. Lawyers have lives, right? No time to track down several experts when one might do.”

“Track down a dozen, check,” O'Shay said, spooning brown sugar onto his oatmeal. He noted the name of the magical doctor and his friend.

The judge slathered strawberry jelly onto his side order of sourdough toast. “Not just any experts and evidence, O'Shay. Unassailable experts, with knowledge that will blow their Italian loafers off.”

Back at the office, Rosa gave O'Shay the cold shoulder. After ten years, she felt he ought to listen to her. She knew him better than he knew himself, she believed, and she always let him know when she thought he was wrong about something, in her own way.

Do this, do that, he told her, and in return for his calm orders, she made his normally smooth life rough. The work she usually did on his files suddenly fell to him. Clients popped in unannounced all day until he reprimanded her sharply. She crossed her arms, grimly satisfied to have rattled him. He worked long into the night to get caught up.

The next morning, O'Shay arrived at the office slightly late. Rosa looked coolly upon his bleary eyes and awful mood. “Mrs. Olson called,” she said. Mrs. Olson was his most challenging client besides Colby, and that was saying a lot. He handled hundreds a year. This woman made him crazy. Usually Rosa shielded him from clients like her. Not today.

“She has a new chiropractor you need to talk to. I told her you'd call right away, and get back to her, too. She's hysterical, could really use some hand-holding. Oh, and her husband called after. Yelling about something. I took a message.” She handed him a pink slip of paper. “Really mad. I told him you'd call and explain everything.”

He wanted to do something to stop the onslaught, kind of like his daughter had when she was a teenager and found something awesomely offensive, “No!” she would cry, fingers forming a cross, as if fending off vampires. Instead, he said, “Fine. Close the door behind you.”

He did what had to be done. He befriended the prickly new chiropractor, talked down Mrs. Olson, empathized with Mr. Olson, whose wife made sure he shared every single pain she felt, and rolled through another six files.

Sandra Colby called. “I wanted to thank you for taking Jeff's case,” she said.

“You're welcome.”

“Because-he's not himself lately, you know? I don't think you're seeing him at his best. He's got such heart. He's an amazing, involved father, and really a sensitive husband. He cares too much is the problem. He puts on such a macho face, but that's because after all these years they've beat him down. I hardly recognize him sometimes.” By the time she got off the phone with him she was crying.

“You make me tired,” Rosa said, frowning, at lunchtime.

“I make me tired, too.”

“What's going on, O'Shay?” she asked, her frustration evident in the way she persisted with him.

“I'm really hungry.” He asked if she would arrange for a sandwich from the deli for him. She slammed the door on her way out.

Late in the afternoon, he tackled Jerome Castile, the insurance attorney representing Colby's company. “He's injured, with a ninety percent disability rating according to three doctors,” O'Shay said into the phone.

“Come on, his injuries are almost all in his head, and you know we don't have to pay out psych cases anymore. Our doc says a maximum of twenty percent disability rating. Ten thousand.”

“Trust me on this, Jerome. Lifetime medical, plus a ninety percent award.”

Castile laughed. “You know, I expected better from you. There's nothing special about this case. Ten and a year's medical.”

O'Shay gathered the X-rays, the hospital admissions papers, the medical records. He called a private detective. Finally, he called Colby.

“How's it hanging?” Colby asked.

“I need you to see a few people.” O'Shay had made appointments Colby needed to keep, and went over the injuries Colby needed to be very clear about.

“Got it, man,” Colby said. “I show up, shirt tucked in, fucked up like you wouldn't believe.”

“Right,” O'Shay said.

At home, Diana came after him. “You've always come on as such an idealist,” she said. “I felt kind of mean-spirited next to you, wanting things. A little angry you never made the kind of money I thought you should, being an attorney.”

He tried to hug her but she pulled away. “See, I consoled myself that I'd married a good guy. Now I hear you've taken on this client, and I hear he's been trying to wrestle money out of his employer for years. He's a fraud.”

“You heard? Where?”

“My sister.”

His wife's sister was also a local attorney. So the news had spread. He sighed. “He's a special case, honey.”

“Yeah, he's special. He's putting all your years of hard work in the dumper.” She gave up after a while, though, and O'Shay, so tired, read the newspaper in front of a cold fireplace. He crept off to bed after she had fallen asleep.

The next morning he ate bacon, eggs, and toast and got to the office before his wife got up and Rosa came in. He spoke with a few people, then called Colby. “I've got the experts,” he said, “but you know, these doctors aren't willing to wreck their standing in the community for your sake. They will say the right things, but they have to convince a judge who understands every nuance, do you understand me?”

“You mean they'll talk careful and he'll hear that they're holding back.”

“Right. Now, right now I can get you some money if we settle. That's the only sure thing right now. You probably should consider a deal.”

“How much?”

“Maybe…” O'Shay tried to name a figure he could get “… up to fifteen thousand.”

Colby snorted. “Half the price of a car and not even a luxury one at that,” he said. “No, I don't think that's going to get me out of the hole I'm in. I'm not sure you appreciate exactly how serious my case is. And I'm beginning to question how committed you really are to my cause, O'Shay.”

“Oh, I know it's serious, Mr. Colby. And I'm doing my best for you. I need you to believe that.”

“Then don't hand me a bag of peanuts and expect thanks. I got lifelong disability. I got to go for the big money, O'Shay. Take it to trial.”

“Jeff,” O'Shay said. “I'm obligated to tell you if we go to trial there's a definite possibility we'll lose and you'll get nothing.” A little of the old O'Shay poked through the Colby-induced fog of deceit and evil, and felt obliged to tell the truth.

Jeff Colby took a marker pen into the kitchen and marked the date of his trial on his calendar. The case was set for ten. Lander's office opened at nine. He needed to get cracking, but there was plenty of time to do the necessary shopping in advance.

“I can borrow from Daddy,” Diana said, “if it's money you're worrying about.”

O'Shay lay on a teak lounge in the backyard, admiring the fine job they had done with the plantings around the edge of their large lawn. A high fence plus fast-growing conifers made the yard very private. Sunshine spilled across the grass. He closed his eyes and smelled the blossoming lemon tree tucked at the back. “There's something ironic about invoking your dad in this case you think has so much to do with integrity. If I only understood irony better.”

“Don't get cute, Patrick. Just don't sell yourself cheap.”

He breathed the sunshine deeply. “I'll make sure we're well compensated.”

“Don't joke about this!” she said, swatting him. “This isn't funny!”

Easing his bare feet onto the patio, he left her behind and walked across the lawn. He picked up the lemons that had fallen to the ground, and the ones that were ripe, holding as many as he could in his two hands. Back in the kitchen, he squeezed them, added sugar, and brought a glass out to her, along with a nice lunch which he laid out on the patio table.

While they ate, he brought up the topic of some thoughts he had about what they might do next summer for vacation. He thought he needed a decent break this year. He might even take three weeks this August. What did she think about that?

She didn't stay silent for long. Diana loved planning trips.

The next morning, O'Shay met with Jerome Castile in person at the insurance company's offices. They had nice rugs, he noticed, and original art on the wall. He admired the fresh green ferns. He and Rosa had long ago settled for artificial. “Here's the thing,” he said, sinking into the soft leather cushion. “I have statistics illustrating a long pattern of patronage and unfair promotion practices at Dunkirk Enterprises.”

Jerome definitely looked startled.

O'Shay flipped through papers that looked official. “Here the owner, Mr. Landers, hired his son, then his cousin, then his brother-in-law. Then his daughter. Not to mention his wife.”

“It's a family business.”

“Thereby bypassing my client and other worthy long-term employees.”

“He gave the guy a chance at a better job, but he couldn't cut it. Nobody should be forced to keep an employee on when he can't do a decent job. Instead of firing him, they kept him on.”

“Doing work he is no longer physically able to do.”

The attorney took his time, flipped through his own irrelevant papers, and said, “Our clients have done nothing to be ashamed of, but more important, they've done nothing illegal.”

“Oh,” O'Shay said, “talk to them. They're locals, a major employer, and so far, they have such a fine reputation. A short conversation with the
Californian
will blow all that. Because it's the tip of the iceberg, isn't it? There's lots to write about.” He knew exactly how much more, since his own detective had done a fine job.

“You'd trash a major local employer who pays decent wages and provides good benefits for Jeff Colby, who's a notorious and classic disgruntled employee?”

“Yes.” Play the game with a hardball, always.

“I had heard such good things about you.”

“By the way, I have evidence that this cavalier disregard for fairness is a pattern with you people.”

“Don't tell me you're gonna try to add in a bad faith allegation.”

“Absolutely.”

“So how'd it go with the insurance guy?” Colby asked.

O'Shay, alienated from his staff, unable to talk to his wife, found talking with Colby a strange relief. “Not so well,” he said honestly. Almost immediately, he regretted his candor.

“More bad news?” Colby asked, his voice full of teeth.

“You never know until you are there in court.”

“But no big settlement.”

“No.”

“Huh.” Colby rubbed his chin and looked down, as if deciding something.

“Court at ten tomorrow. Be there on time?”

“Sure,” Colby agreed.

The next morning, O'Shay dressed carefully. He wore a silk navy suit paired with an Hermès tie. He wanted to look subdued but successful. He had three doctors he ordinarily would never use who would testify about Colby's dire injuries. He had a rolling cart in the trunk of his car full of medical reports, job descriptions, legal pleadings, and law books. He had things on Dunkirk Enterprises Jerome Castile knew he would spill to the press, if necessary. He had the requisite chutzpah.

Diana handed him his laptop at the door, refusing to kiss him. “Don't sell out,” she whispered, and he heard it, too, as he opened the garage door and left.

At the courthouse, early, O'Shay met with Castile one last time. He went to work on the insurance defense attorney, trying to reach an agreement that would set the Colby family up for life. They haggled; they fought; they got tough; they compromised; nobody gave enough. He tried again and lost. Bottom line was, the guy said he just didn't believe O'Shay would do what he was threatening to do. “You have a reputation to protect,” Castile said smugly, “in spite of this recent, definite lapse in judgment.”