The King of Torts

$43,240! That was the grand sum he would receive from a sleazy pharmaceutical giant that deliberately put into the marketplace a drug that caused four tumors to grow in his bladder? $43,240 for months of fear and stress and uncertainty about living or dying? $43,240 for the ordeal of a microscopic knife and scope in a tube slid up his penis and into his bladder where the four growths were removed one by one and retrieved back through his penis? $43,240 for three days of lumps and blood passed through his urine?

He flinched at the memory.

He called six times and left six hot messages and waited six hours until Mr. Mulrooney called him back. "Who the hell are you?" Mr. Worley began pleasantly.

Oscar Mulrooney, in the past ten days, had become an expert at handling such calls. He explained that he was the attorney in charge of Mr. Worley’s case.

"This settlement is a joke!" Mr. Worley said. "Fortythree thousand dollars is criminal."

"Your settlement is sixty-two thousand, Mr. Worley," Oscar said.

"I’m getting forty-three, son."

"No, you’re getting sixty-two. You agreed to give one-third to your attorney, without whom you would be getting nothing. It’s been reduced to twenty-eight percent by the settlement. Most lawyers charge forty-five or fifty percent."

"Well, aren’t I a lucky bastard. I’m not accepting it."

To which Oscar offered a brief and well-rehearsed narrative about how Ackerman Labs could only pay so much without going bankrupt, an event that would leave Mr. Worley with even less, if anything at all.

"That’s nice," Mr. Worley said. "But I’m not accepting the settlement."

"You have no choice."

"The hell I don’t."

"Look at the Contract for Legal Services, Mr. Worley. It’s page eleven in the packet you have there. Paragraph eight is called the Preauthorization. Read the language, sir, and you’ll see that you authorized this firm to settle for anything above fifty thousand dollars."

"I remember that, but it was described to me as a starting point. I was expecting much more."

"Your settlement has already been approved by the court, sir. That’s the way class actions work. If you don’t sign the acceptance form, then your portion will stay in the pot and eventually go to someone else."

"You’re a bunch of crooks, you know that? I don’t know who’s worse – the company that made the drug or my own lawyers who’re screwing me out of a fair settlement."

"Sorry you feel that way."

"You’re not sorry about a damned thing. Paper says you’re getting a hundred million bucks. Thieves!"

Mr. Worley slammed the phone down and flung the papers across his kitchen.

Chapter Twenty-Four

The December cover of Capitol Magazine featured Clay Carter, looking tanned and quite handsome in an Armani suit, perched on the corner of his desk in his finely appointed office. It was a frantic last-minute substitution for a story titled "Christmas on the Potomac," the usual holiday edition in which a rich old Senator and his newest trophy wife opened their private new Washington mansion for all to see. The couple, and their decorations and cats and favorite recipes, got bumped to the inside because D.C. was first and always a city about money and power. How often would the magazine have the chance at the unbelievable story of a broke young lawyer who got so rich so fast?

There was Clay on his patio with a dog, one he’d borrowed from Rodney, and Clay posing next to the jury box in an empty courtroom as if he’d been extracting huge verdicts from the bad guys, and, of course, Clay washing his new Porsche. He confided that his passion was sailing, and there was a new boat docked down in the Bahamas. No significant romance at the moment, and the story immediately labeled him as one of the most eligible bachelors in town.

Near the back were the pictures of brides, followed by the announcements of upcoming weddings. Every debutante and private school girl and country club socialite in metropolitan D.C. dreamed of the moment when she would arrive in the pages of Capitol Magazine. The larger the photo, the more important the family. Ambitious mothers were known to take a ruler and measure the dimensions of their daughters’ pictures and those of their rivals, then either gloat or hold secret grudges for years.

There was Rebecca Van Horn, resplendent on a wicker bench in a garden somewhere, a lovely photo ruined by the face of her groom and future mate, the Honorable Jason Shubert Myers IV, cuddling next to her and obviously enjoying the camera. Weddings are for brides, not grooms. Why did they insist on getting their faces in the announcements too?

Bennett and Barbara had pulled the right strings; Rebecca’s announcement was the second largest of a dozen or so. Six pages over, Clay saw a full-page ad for BVH Group. The bribe.

Clay reveled in the misery the magazine was causing at that very moment around the Van Horn home. Rebecca’s wedding, the big social bash that Bennett and Barbara could throw money at and impress the world, was being upstaged by their old nemesis. How many times would their daughter get her wedding announcement in Capitol Magazine? How hard had they worked to make sure she was prominently displayed? And all of it now ruined by Clay’s thunder.

And his upstaging was not over.

Jonah had already announced that retirement was a real possibility. He’d spent ten days on Antigua with not one girl but two, and when he returned to D.C., in an early December snowstorm, he confided in Clay that he was mentally and psychologically unfit to practice law any longer. He’d had all he could take. His legal career was over. He was looking at sailboats himself. He’d found a girl who loved to sail and, because she was on the downside of a bad marriage, she too needed some serious time at sea. Jonah was from Annapolis and, unlike Clay, had sailed his entire life.

"I need a bimbo, preferably a blonde," Clay said as he settled into a chair across from Jonah’s desk. His door was locked. It was after six on a Wednesday and Jonah had the first bottle of beer opened. They had compromised on an unwritten rule that there would be no drinking until 6 P.M. Otherwise, Jonah would start just after lunch.

"The hottest bachelor in town is having trouble picking up chicks?"

"I’ve been out of the loop. I’m going to Rebecca’s wedding, and I need a babe who’ll steal the show."

"Oh, this is beautiful," he said as he laughed and reached into a drawer in his desk. Only Jonah would keep files on women. He burrowed through some paperwork and found what he wanted. He tossed a folded newspaper across the desk. It was a lingerie ad for a department store. The gorgeous young goddess was wearing practically nothing below the waist and was barely covering her breasts with her folded arms. Clay vividly remembered seeing the ad the morning it first ran. The date was four months earlier.

"You know her?"

"Of course I know her. You think I keep lingerie ads just for the thrills?" "Wouldn’t surprise me." "Her name is Ridley. At least that’s what she goes by." "She lives here?" Clay was still gawking at the stunning beauty he was holding, in black and white. "She’s from Georgia." "Oh, a Southern girl." "No, a Russian girl. The country of Georgia. She came over as an exchange student and never left." "She looks eighteen." "Mid-twenties." "How tall is she?" "Five ten or so." "Her legs look five feet long." "Are you complaining?" In an effort to appear somewhat nonchalant, Clay tossed the paper back on the desk. "Any downside?" "Yes, she’s rumored to be a switch-hitter." "A what?" "She likes boys and girls." "Ouch." "No confirmation, but a lot of models go both ways.