safaris so he can take his grandson to see a bunch of elephants. No problem. Then he decides that the entire family would enjoy such a trip, so our lobbyists arrange the damned thing. Twenty-eight people, two private jets, fifteen days in the African bush drinking Dom Perignon, eating lobster and steak, and, of course, gawking at a thousand elephants. The bill was close to three hundred grand and he never had a clue it was paid for by me.'
'A bargain.'
'An absolute bargain. He buried the EPA and they fled Bowmore. They couldn't touch us. And, as a side benefit, Senator Rudd is now an expert on all issues dealing with Africa. AIDS, genocide, famine, human rights abuses-you name it and he's an expert because he spent two weeks in the Kenyan outback watching wild game from the back of a Land Rover.'
They shared a laugh and made the first advance upon the noodles. 'Did you ever contact him when the lawsuits started?' Barry asked.
'No. The lawyers took over with a vengeance. I remember one conversation with Gabbard about Rudd, but it was the combined wisdom back then that politics would not mix with the litigation. We were pretty confident. How wrong we were.'
They ate for a few minutes, but neither seemed thrilled with the food.
'Our boy's name is Ron Fisk,' Barry said as he handed over a large manila envelope.
'Here are the basics. Some photos, a background check, no more than eight pages, at your request.'
'Fisk?'
'That's him.'
Brianna's mother was in the area, her twice-yearly drop-in, and for such visits Carl insisted that they use the mansion in the Hamptons and leave him alone in the city. Her mother was two years younger than Carl and fancied herself attractive enough to catch his eye. He spent less than an hour a year in her presence, and each time caught himself practically praying that Brianna had a different set of genes. He loathed the woman. The mother of a trophy wife is not automatically a trophy mother-in-law, and she is usually much too enamored with the topic of money. Carl had loathed each of his mothers-in-law. He detested the very notion that he had a mother-in-law in the first place.
So they were gone. The Fifth Avenue penthouse was all his. Brianna had loaded up Sadler MacGregor, the Russian nanny, her assistant, her nutritionist, and a maid or two and headed out in a small caravan to the island, where she could invade their fine home up there and abuse the staff.
Carl stepped from his private elevator, came face-to-face with Abused Imelda, cursed at the sight of her, ignored his valet, dismissed the rest of the staff, and when he was finally alone in the wonderful privacy of his bedroom, he put on his pajamas, a bathrobe, and heavy wool socks. He found a cigar, poured a single malt, and stepped out onto the small terrace overlooking Fifth Avenue and Central Park.
The air was raw and windy, perfect.
Rinehart had cautioned him against fretting the details of the campaign. 'You don't want to know everything,' he said more than once. 'Trust me. This is my profession, and I'm very good at what I do.'
But Rinehart had never lost a billion dollars. According to one newspaper article, about Carl no less, only six other men had ever lost a billion dollars in one day.
Barry would never know the humiliation of falling so fast and so hard in this city.
Friends become harder to find. Carl's jokes were not funny. Certain portions of the social circuit seemed to be closed (though he knew this was ever so temporary). Even his wife seemed a bit colder and less fawning. Not to mention the cold shoulders from those who really mattered-the bankers, fund managers, investment gurus, the elite of Wall Street.
As the wind reddened his cheeks, he looked slowly around at the buildings up and down Fifth Avenue. Billionaires everywhere. Did anyone feel sorry for him, or were they delighted at his fall? He knew the answer because he had taken so much delight when others had stumbled.
Keep laughing, boys, he said with a long pull on the malt. Laugh your asses off, because I, Carl Trudeau, now have a new secret weapon. His name is Ron Fisk, a nice, gullible young man purchased (offshore) by me for chump change.
Three blocks to the north, at the top of a building Carl could barely see, was the penthouse of Pete Flint, one of his many enemies. Two weeks earlier, Pete had made the cover of Hedge Fund Reports, dressed in an ill-fitting designer suit. He was obviously gaining weight. The story raved about Pete and his fund and, in particular, a spectacular final quarter last year, thanks almost solely to his shrewd shorting of Krane Chemical. Pete claimed to have made a half-billion dollars on Krane because of his brilliant prediction that the trial would end badly. Carl's name wasn't mentioned; it wasn't necessary. It was common knowledge that he'd lost a billion, and there was Pete Flint claiming to have raked in half of it. The humiliation was beyond painful.
Mr. Flint knew nothing about Mr. Fisk. By the time he heard his name, it would be too late and Carl would have his money back. Plus a lot more.
Chapter 15
The winter meeting of the Mississippi Trial Advocates (MTA) was held each year in Jackson, in early February while the legislature was still in session.
It was usually a weekend affair with speeches, seminars, political updates, and the like. Because the Paytons currently had the hottest verdict in the state, the trial lawyers wanted to hear from them. Mary Grace demurred. She was an active member, but it wasn't her scene. The gatherings typically included long cocktail hours and war stories from the trenches. Girls were not excluded, but they didn't exactly fit in, either. And someone needed to stay home with Mack and Liza.
Wes reluctantly volunteered. He, too, was an active member, but the winter meetings were usually boring. The summer conventions at the beach were more fun and family oriented, and the Payton clan had attended two of them.
Wes drove to Jackson on a Saturday morning and found the mini-convention at a downtown hotel. He parked far away so none of his fellow trial lawyers would see what he was driving these days. They were noted for their flashy cars and other toys, and Wes, at the moment, was embarrassed by the ragged Taurus that had survived the trip from Hattiesburg.
He would not spend the night, because he could not afford a hundred bucks for a room.
It could be argued that he was a millionaire, in someone's calculation, but three months after the verdict he was still squeezing every dime. Any payday from the Bowmore mess was a distant dream. Even with the verdict, he still questioned his sanity in getting involved with the litigation.
Lunch was in the grand ballroom with seating for two hundred, an impressive crowd.
As the preliminaries dragged on, Wes, from his seat on the dais, studied the crowd.
Trial lawyers, always a colorful and eclectic bunch. Cowboys, rogues, radicals, longhairs, corporate suits, flamboyant mavericks, bikers, deacons, good ole boys, street hustlers, pure ambulance chasers, faces from billboards and yellow pages and early morning television.
They were anything but boring. They fought among themselves like a violent family, yet they had the ability to stop bickering, circle the wagons, and attack their enemies. They came from the cities, where they feuded over cases and clients, and they came from the small towns, where they honed their skills before simple jurors reluctant to part with anyone's money. Some had jets and buzzed around the country piecing together the latest class action in the latest mass tort. Others were repulsed by the mass tort game and clung proudly to the tradition of trying legitimate cases one at a time. The new breed were entrepreneurs who filed cases in bulk and settled them that way, rarely facing a jury. Others lived for the thrill of the courtroom.
A few did their work in firms where they pooled money and talent, but firms of trial lawyers were notoriously difficult to keep together. Most were lone gunmen too eccentric to keep much of a staff. Some made millions each year, others scraped by, most were in the $250,000 range. A few were broke at the moment. Many were up one year and down the next, always on the roller coaster and always willing to roll the dice.
If they shared anything, it was a streak of fierce independence and the thrill of representing David against
