“Cashier’s check, payable jointly to me and Nadine Johnson.”
“Frank, you make damn sure Nadine understands that if she talks about her little roll in the hay with Tom to anyone-even her goddamned psychiatrist! — the agreement requires that she return every penny and that you return your fee. And Tom’s likely to strangle her.”
Frank laughed. “She talks, I’ll strangle the bitch myself she costs me three hundred thirty thousand.”
“What are you taking, a third?”
“Standard contingency fee.”
“Three hundred thirty thousand bucks, not a bad day’s work, Frank.”
“It’s a dirty job, Scott, but someone’s gotta do it.”
Scott shook his head. Plaintiffs’ lawyers. Scott was figuring on making maybe $50 million over his career, but plaintiffs’ lawyers, those bastards make that every year, taking 33 percent, 40 percent, sometimes 50 percent of their clients’ damage awards, almost always settlements like this because a corporation can’t afford to roll the dice with a Texas jury, not when the jurors might pull another Pennzoil v. Texaco and come back with an $11,120,976,110.83 judgment, the largest jury verdict in the history of the world. Which made Texas a plaintiffs’ lawyers’ playground. To date, Franklin Turner, Esq., had amassed over one billion dollars in verdicts and settlements, the bastard.
“Hey, Scott, what do you think about that black halfback we got from Houston? He gonna break your records?”
Frank had been in the Mustang marching band at SMU. Tuba.
“They’ve been trying for fourteen years now, Frank. No one’s come close.”
“One day, Scott, one day.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah…Good doing business with you, Frank.”
Scott reached over with the 9-iron and hit the disconnect button on the speakerphone. A successful ten- minute negotiation, for which he felt duty bound to bill his best client $50,000. The way he figured, Tom Dibrell was prepared to pay $2 million to settle with Nadine; his lawyer had skillfully held the settlement to only $1 million; so, even with a $50,000 legal fee, he was actually saving Dibrell $950,000. Studying his reflection in the window, he practiced his full golf swing and held his pose like a pro. Scott Fenney had found that he possessed the necessary skills to excel at three games in life: football, golf, and lawyering.
FOUR
Five o’clock. The end of another day of crisis, conflict, and confrontation. A lawyer’s life. It isn’t for everyone, or even every lawyer. Lawyering either gets into your blood, or it doesn’t. If you don’t wake up itching for a fight, if you shy away from personal confrontation, if you’re not the competitive type, if you don’t possess the intestinal fortitude to go mano a mano with a famous plaintiffs’ lawyer and beat him at his own game, then the manly sport of lawyering just isn’t for you. Go into social work.
Lawyering is a lot like football. In fact, Scott always figured his football career was the best pre-law curriculum the school offered; it certainly made the transition to the law an easy one for him. Whereas football is legalized violence, lawyering is violent legalities: lawyers use the law to pummel each other’s clients into submission. And just as football coaches want smart, mean, and tough players, rich clients want smart, mean, and tough lawyers. And they want to win. At all costs. Lie, cheat, steal, just win the goddamned case! In football and the law, winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing. Winners reap the rewards; losers lose. A. Scott Fenney, Esq., leaned back in his chair, locked his hands behind his head, and surveyed his world here at the Ford Stevens law firm: he was a winner. And his reward was a perfect life. An absolutely perfect life.
He heard the phone ring at Sue’s desk. In seconds, she was standing in the door, purse in hand.
“Mr. Fenney, it’s the federal court.”
Scott shook his head. “I’ll call her back tomorrow.”
“It’s not the clerk. It’s the judge. Judge Buford.”
Scott snapped forward in his chair. “Judge Buford’s on the phone?”
Sue nodded.
“What the hell does he want with me?”
Sue shrugged, and Scott’s eyes fell to the single blinking light on his phone. On the other end of that line was Judge Samuel Buford, the senior judge on the federal bench for the Northern District of Texas. Appointed by Carter, he had presided over every civil rights case in Dallas for the last three decades. He was now something of an icon in conservative Dallas despite being a liberal Democrat. As a federal judge he made less than a second-year associate at Ford Stevens, but lawyers who made a million bucks a year still addressed him as “sir,” even outside his courtroom-and Scott had never spoken to him outside his courtroom. Scott took a deep breath, picked up the phone, and punched the blinking button.
“Judge Buford, sir, what a surprise.”
“Scott, how you doing, son?”
“Uh…fine, Judge. Just fine. Uh…how are you doing, sir?”
“Well, I’m not doing so good, Scott, that’s why I called you. I’ve got a big problem, and I need a top-notch lawyer to solve it. I figure you’re Tom Dibrell’s lawyer and-”
“Does this involve Tom?”
“Oh, no, Scott. It’s just that being Dibrell’s lawyer, you’re accustomed to high-profile work, and your appearances in my courtroom have always been excellent. But, most important, you have the right attitude. Listening to your speech at the bar luncheon today, I knew you were just the lawyer for the job. Scott, I can’t tell you how it made me feel, knowing there’s still someone who understands what being a lawyer is all about. So many young lawyers these days, seems all they care about is getting rich.”
“Yes, sir, it’s a crying shame, Judge.”
“You know, Scott, seeing you up there, everyone applauding you, made me recall that game of yours against Texas-damn, son, that was the best running I’ve ever seen. What did you get that day, a hundred fifty yards?”
“One hundred ninety-three, Judge. Three touchdowns. We still lost.”
“Hell of a game.”
“I didn’t know you were a big football fan, Judge.”
“I’m a Texan, born and raised, Scott, that makes me a football fan. Did you know I went to SMU?”
Scott chuckled. “Of course, I know, Judge. Every student at the law school knows about Samuel Buford-top grade point average in the history of the school, law review editor, clerk to Supreme Court Justice Douglas, Assistant Solicitor General under LBJ…”
“Whoa, son, you’re making me feel old.”
“Oh, sorry, sir.”
“You did pretty well yourself, Scott, top of your class.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“So, Scott, you up for helping out an old judge?”
“Always happy to help in any way, sir.”
Just then his mind’s peripheral vision caught a movement, like a linebacker moving in to nail him from his blind side.
“Tough job, Scott, requires a tough lawyer, a lawyer who doesn’t quit, who can handle pressure, who can take a hard hit and still get up-you proved all that on the football field. You know, Scott, pound for pound, I always figured you were the toughest player I’d ever seen, except maybe for Meredith.”
Before he was the star quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys, Don Meredith had been the star quarterback at SMU from 1957 through 1959, a country boy out of Mount Vernon, one of the greatest athletes ever produced by the State of Texas, and generally regarded as the toughest quarterback ever to play the position. Meredith was still a living legend in Dallas, although he lived in Santa Fe.
“But, Scott, this job also requires a lawyer who believes like you do, that lawyers are supposed to protect the poor and defend the innocent and fight for justice.”
“Absolutely, sir.”
