Anne remembered, from rereading the dep the other day.
“Dietz came a little later, from another web company called Environstar. Dietz was smart and he worked hard, put in the hours, and he had good ideas, for an asshole. Above all, he wrote good code.”
“Okay.”
“Chipster took off, and we developed our product, our web application, partly on the code he wrote. But a year down the line, Dietz told me he’d stolen the base code from Environstar.” Gil held up the CD. “This is the code he stole.”
“Did Environstar prosecute?”
“No, they had stolen code to start their own company. Everybody steals in software, mainly because it’s never finished, it just goes through about three hundred versions, from 1.0 to 37.9, and people change jobs, over time. But that’s not the point. This is about me, not Dietz. Be a smart girl and tell me what I did next.”
Anne thought a minute. Last week she would have had a different answer, but she was looking at Gil with new eyes. And learning to plan—in advance. “You did nothing. You used the base code, developed it, and made a fortune. You shut up about its origin and you grew your company.”
“Yes! God, and so smart, too! A whip!” Gil hunched over the desk. “I like women with brains. I’m not like the others.”
“Because he came later, and he wasn’t a founder, technically. And I didn’t have to keep him.”
Anne was catching on. “No, because you’d found out about the stolen code. So you had something on him. If he left you, you’d expose him.”
“I love it when you talk dirty. Do you talk dirty, Anne? I have often wondered about that, late at night.” Gil leaned even farther over the table, but she stood up and walked around the back of her chair, really sorry that she was half-naked.
“Gil, what does the CD have to do with the Chipster case?”
“It will make it go away. I didn’t have it before, but I finally paid off the right programmer. Now I have the proof I need. Bye-bye Beth, hello IPO.” Gil licked his lips. “I called Dietz directly after we spoke today. I told him to tell his wife to call off the dogs or I’ll go public—with the CD.” He laughed, but Anne was struggling to get up to speed and avoid attempted rape.
“If you expose him, you’re liable too, maybe even criminally.”
“He won’t call my bluff, he’s too scared. I can afford the hottest lawyer in town. He can’t afford dick.”
Anne ignored it. “But how does that get rid of the lawsuit?”
“Beth doesn’t know he stole the code. They met after he came to Chipster.”
“How do you know she doesn’t know? Maybe he told her.”
“No, she never would have sued me if she’d known, it was too risky. And she would have mentioned it during our little affair, but she didn’t. Now he’ll tell her the whole truth and nothing but, and she’ll understand that suing me for revenge was not a good idea.”
Anne blinked. “Gil, you won’t win now. She’ll just drop the suit. Withdraw it.”
“No, no, no.” Gil wagged his finger, rising from his seat. “Not what I want. Not what I asked my old friend Dietz for. I want the suit to go forward and the plaintiff to have a sudden memory loss. Trial amnesia, when she takes the stand. Then I want you to kick her lousy ass, get me my jury verdict, and restore my good name, so I look good to my Board. Not just settle.
“You mean she’ll deep-six her own lawsuit? Like a fighter, who throws a fight?”
“Exactly. Well put. God, I’m so glad you’re not dead. Be my GC and wear that tiny little top. Also the shoes. The shoes are—”
“I won’t do it!”
“Okay, you win. No tiny top. Ha!”
“Stop, it, Gil. You’re not funny.” Anne shook her head. “No, I won’t try a sham case. I won’t play a role, or pretend. I won’t do it.”
“You have to. You can’t withdraw from the case this late.” Gil walked to one chair, then the next, closer to Anne. “We’re both riding this rocket, and it’s going up, up, up, baby.”
“How do you know Beth will do it?” Anne asked, suppressing a tingle of fear as Gil moved closer, around the table.
“I don’t for sure, but she will. The smart money’s on Bill. He’s the brains of that operation. She’s just the pussy.” Suddenly Gil lunged across the chairs, his hands reaching awkwardly for Anne’s stars.
“That’s it, get out!” she shouted, ducking away from his grasp, around the table and toward the door. “Get out!”
But Gil seemed not to have heard her. “And boy, did Dietz have some choice words to say about you! He said, ‘I’m thrilled that little whore is dead!’”
“I don’t want to hear it!” she shouted, but her thoughts were racing. It must have been what Dietz and Matt had fought about. Why Matt had gotten slugged.
Gil tripped on a chair leg and caught the back of the chair, trying to right himself. “Dietz told his lawyer. They even got into a fight over it. Dietz said he would have shot you himself, for what you were doing to wifey. This is the man whose side you’re taking against me.”
“Get out! All I have to do is yell, and my friends will come running.”
“Don’t shoot!” Gil threw up his hands, and just then the conference doors flew open. Standing in the door was a furious Bennie, and Anne was hoping she was furious at Gil, not her.
“Get out of my law firm, Mr. Martin,” she ordered, her mouth tight.
After the women got Gil into the elevator, down the alley, and outside into a cab, they recovered in the reception area while Anne told them the whole story of the CD and what Gil had done. They listened, draped over the soft navy chairs and loveseat. Judy had changed into her denim overalls and Mary was still in her hooker outfit, but barefoot. Her platform shoes formed a vaguely pornographic mound on the Oriental rug.
“This is an interesting situation, very interesting,” Bennie said, when the account was finished. She crossed one muscular leg over the other, in her shorts. “By the way, you’re fired.”
Anne hoped she was kidding again. “Have we heard anything about Kevin? Have they arrested him yet?”
“Rafferty said they’re still staked out at the Daytimer. There’s nothing to do but wait. They’ll pick him up as soon as he gets back. Rafferty will call right away.”
Anne wasn’t liking this at all. Gil gone crazy and still no Kevin. “What about Beth Dietz? Did the cops tell her?”
“Rafferty said he would and we’ll know for sure as soon as he calls back.”
Anne sighed, flopping into a chair across the glistening glass coffee table. “What do I do now? How do I defend Chipster? Do I defend Chipster at all? The man is a pig!”
“A slimebucket,” Judy said.
“A liar,” Mary added.
“A client,” Bennie said firmly, and Anne looked over.
“I’m having a deja vu, Bennie. We had this conversation once already.”
“I guess we’ll keep having it until you understand it, Murphy. Your obligation as a lawyer is to represent your client fully and to the best of your ability. To say nothing false and to elicit nothing false. You have to be his advocate.”
“But he grabbed my stars!”
Bennie seemed unfazed. “I’ll try
“It was the earrings that drove him wild,” Judy added.
Bennie waved everybody into silence. “Murphy, you gonna defend him or do I take over?”
Anne hated the sound of it. It was no-win. “I’ll keep the bastard.”
“Then do it and do it well. Fact is, we really don’t know if Beth Dietz will go along with this scam or not. She may not.”
Anne nodded. “If they have a lousy marriage, she may not care if her husband gets ratted out. This lawsuit is her chance to get Gil back for breaking up with her, and she may not give it up.”
