The King of Torts

"What percentage?"

"About eight percent."

"Who knows about the report?"

"Very few people. I have a copy of it."

"Why am I not surprised?" Clay took a long pull on the bottle and looked around for Marshall. His pulse was racing. He was suddenly bored with Mustique.

"There are some lawyers on the prowl, but they haven’t seen the government report," Pace continued. "One lawsuit has been filed, in Arizona, but it’s not a class action."

"What is it?"

"Just an old-fashioned tort case. A one-shot deal."

"How boring."

"Not really. The lawyer is a character named Dale Mooneyham, from Tucson. He tries them one at a time, and he never loses. He’s on the fast track to get the first shot at Goffman. It could set the tone for the entire settlement. The key is to file the first class action. You learned that from Patton French."

"We can file first," Clay said, as if he’d been doing it for years.

"And you can do it alone, without French and those crooks. File it in D.C., then blitz with ads. It’ll be huge."

"Just like Dyloft."

"Except you’re in charge. I’ll be in the background, pulling strings, doing the dirty work. I have lots of contacts with all the right shady characters. It’ll be our lawsuit, and with your name on it Goffman will run for cover."

"A quick settlement?"

"Probably not as quick as Dyloft, but then that was remarkably fast. You’ll have to do your homework, gather the right evidence, hire the experts, sue the doctors who’ve been peddling the drug, push hard for the first trial. You’ll have to convince Goffman that you are not interested in a settlement, that you want a trial – a huge, public spectacle of a trial, in your own backyard."

"The downside?" Clay asked, trying to appear cautious.

"None that I can see, except that it’ll cost you millions in advertising and trial prep."

"No problem there."

"You seem to have the knack for spending it."

"I’ve barely scratched the surface."

"I’d like an advance of a million dollars. Against my fee." Pace took a sip. "I’m still cleaning up some old business back home."

The fact that Pace wanted money struck Clay as odd. However, with so much at stake, and with their Tarvan secret, he was in no position to say no. "Approved," he said.

They were in the hammocks when Valeria returned, soaked with sweat and appearing somewhat relaxed. She stripped everything off and jumped in the pool. "A California girl," Pace said softly.

"Something serious?" Clay asked, tentatively.

"Off and on for many years now." And he let it go at that.

The California girl requested a dinner that included no meat, fish, chicken, eggs, or cheese. She didn’t do alcohol either. Clay arranged grilled swordfish for the rest of them. The meal was over quickly, with Ridley anxious to run and hide in her room and Clay equally as eager to get away from Valeria.

Pace and his friend stayed for two days, which was at least one day too long. The purpose of the trip had been solely business, and since the deal had been struck Pace was ready to leave. Clay watched them speed away with Marshall driving faster than ever.

"Any more guests?" Ridley asked warily.

"Hell no," Clay said.

"Good."

Chapter Twenty-Six

The entire floor above his firm became vacant at the end of the year. Clay leased half of it and consolidated his operations. He brought in the twelve paralegals and five secretaries from the Sweatshop; the Yale Branch lawyers who’d been in other space were likewise transferred to Connecticut Avenue, to the land of higher rents, where they felt more at home. He wanted his entire firm under one roof, and close at hand, because he planned to work them all until they dropped.

He attacked the new year with a ferocious work schedule – in the office by six with breakfast, lunch, and sometimes dinner at his desk. He was usually there until eight or nine at night, and left little doubt that he expected similar hours from those who wanted to stay.

Jonah did not. He was gone by the middle of January, his office cleared and vacated, his farewells quick. The sailboat was waiting. Don’t bother to call. Just wire the money to an account in Aruba.

Oscar Mulrooney was measuring Jonah’s office before he got out the door. It was larger and had a better view, which meant nothing to him, but it was closer to Clay’s and that was what mattered. Mulrooney smelled money, serious fees. He missed on Dyloft, but he would not miss again. He and the rest of the Yale boys had been shafted by the corporate law they’d been trained to covet, and now they were determined to make a mint in retribution. And what better way than by outright solicitation and ambulance-chasing? Nothing was more offensive to the stuffed shirts in the blue-blood firms. Mass tort litigation was not practicing law. It was a roguish form of entrepreneurship.

The aging Greek playboy who’d married Paulette Tullos and then left her had somehow gotten wind of her new money. He showed up in D.C., called her at the swanky condo he’d given her, and left a message on her answering machine. When Paulette heard his voice, she raced from her home and flew to London, where she’d spent the holidays and was still in hiding. She e-mailed Clay a dozen times while he was on Mustique, telling him of her predicament and instructing him on exactly how to handle her divorce upon his return. Clay filed the necessary papers, but the Greek was nowhere to be found. Nor was Paulette. She might come back in a few months; she might not. "Sorry, Clay," she said on the phone. "But I really don’t want to work anymore."

So Mulrooney became the confidant, the unofficial partner with big ambitions. He and his team had been studying the shifting landscape of class-action litigation. They learned the law and the procedures. They read the scholarly articles by the academics, and they read the down-in-the-trenches war stories from trial lawyers. There were dozens of Web sites – one that purported to list all class actions now pending in the United States, a total of eleven thousand; one that instructed potential plaintiffs on how to join a class and receive compensation; one that specialized in lawsuits involving women’s health; one for the men; several for the Skinny Ben diet pill fiasco; several for tobacco litigation. Never had so much brainpower, backed by so much cash, been aimed at the makers of bad products.

Mulrooney had a plan. With so many class actions already filed, the firm could spend its considerable resources in rounding up new clients. Because Clay had the money for advertising and marketing, they could pick the most lucrative class actions and zero in on untapped plaintiffs. As with Dyloft, almost every lawsuit that had been settled was left open for a period of years to allow new participants to collect what they were entitled to. Clay’s firm could simply ride the coattails of other mass tort lawyers, sort of pick up the pieces, but for huge fees. He used the example of Skinny Bens. The best estimate of the number of potential plaintiffs was around three hundred thousand, with perhaps as many as a hundred thousand still unidentified and certainly unrepresented. The litigation had been settled; the company was forking over billions. A claimant simply had to register with the class-action administrator, prove her medicals, and collect the money.

Like a general moving his troops, Clay assigned two lawyers and a paralegal to the Skinny Ben front. This was less than what Mulrooney asked for, but Clay had bigger plans. He laid out the war on Maxatil, a lawsuit that he would direct himself. The government report, still un-released and evidently stolen by Max Pace, was one hundred forty pages long and filled with damning results. Clay read it twice before he gave it to Mulrooney.