The King of Torts

"Did business turn bad?" Clay said, chewing. Putting the sandwich in his mouth was easy; swallowing was becoming more difficult.

"No, the plant’s always been well run. The Hannas know what they’re doing. Got this crazy lawsuit down around Baltimore somewhere. Lawyers got greedy, wanted too much money, forced Hanna into bankruptcy."

"It’s a damned shame," said one of the old-timers. Coffee shop conversations were shared by all present. "Didn’t have to happen. The Hannas tried to settle the damned thing, made a good-faith effort, but these slimebags in D.C. had ’em at gunpoint. Hannas said, ‘Screw you,’ and walked away."

In a flash, Clay thought: Not a bad summary of events.

"I worked there forty years, never missed a paycheck. A damned shame."

Because Clay was expected to say something to move along the conversation, he said, "Layoffs are rare, huh?"

"The Hannas don’t believe in laying folks off."

"Will they hire them back?"

"They’ll try. But the bankruptcy court is in charge now."

Clay nodded and quickly turned back to his sandwich. The two younger men were on their feet, heading for the cash register. Ethel shooed them away. "No charge, fellas. It’s on the house."

They nodded politely, and as they left both dropped some coins into the Hanna Fund. A few minutes later, Clay said good-bye to the old-timers, paid his bill, thanked Ethel, and dropped a $100 bill into the water bottle.

After dark, he sat alone on the visitors side and watched the Reedsburg Cougars do battle with the Enid Elk. The home stands were filled almost to capacity. The band was loud, the crowd rowdy and eager for a win. But the football failed to hold his attention. He looked at the roster and wondered how many players listed there were from families hit by the layoffs. He gazed across the field to the rows and rows of Reedsburg fans and wondered who had jobs and who did not.

Before the kickoff, and just after the national anthem, a local minister had prayed for the safety of the players, and for the renewed economic strength of the community. He had ended his prayer with, "Help us through these hard times, O God. Amen."

If Clay Carter had ever felt worse, he could not remember when.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Ridley called early Saturday evening, quite upset. She had been unable to locate Clay for four days! No one at the office knew where he was, or if they knew they wouldn’t tell her. He, on the other hand, had made no effort to call her. Both had more than one phone. Was this any way to advance a relationship? After listening to the whining for a few minutes, Clay heard something buzz in the line and asked, "Where are you?"

"St. Barth. In our villa."

"How’d you get down there?" Clay, of course, had been using the Gulfstream.

"I chartered a smaller jet. Too small, actually, we had to stop in San Juan for fuel. It wouldn’t make it here nonstop."

Poor girl. Clay wasn’t sure how she knew the number of the air charter service. "Why are you down there?" he asked, a stupid question.

"I was so stressed out because I couldn’t find you. You can’t do that again, Clay."

He tried to link the two – his disappearance and her escape to St. Barth, but quickly gave it up.

"I’m sorry," he said. "I left town in a hurry. Patton French needed me in Biloxi. I was too busy to call."

A long pause as she debated whether she should forgive him right then or wait a day or two. "Promise me you won’t do it again," she whimpered.

Clay wasn’t in the mood for either whining or promising, and he found himself relieved that she was out of the country. "It won’t happen again. Relax, enjoy yourself down there."

"Can you come down?" she asked, but without any feeling. Sort of a perfunctory request.

"Not with the trial in Flagstaff getting close." He doubted seriously if she had an inkling about the trial in Flagstaff.

"Will you call me tomorrow?" she asked.

"Of course."

Jonah was back in town, with many adventures to report from the sailing life. They were to meet at nine at a bistro on Wisconsin Avenue for a late and long dinner. Around eight-thirty, the phone rang, but the caller hung up without a word. Then it rang again, and Clay grabbed it as he was buttoning his shirt.

"Is this Clay Carter?" a male voice asked.

"Yes, who is this?" Because of the sheer number of disgruntled clients out there – Dyloft and Skinny Ben and, now, especially, those irate homeowners up in Howard County – Clay had changed numbers twice in the past two months. He could handle the abuse at the office, but he preferred to live in peace.

"I’m from Reedsburg, Pennsylvania, and I have some valuable information about the Hanna company."

The words were chilling, and Clay sat on the edge of his bed. Keep him on the phone, he said as he tried to think clearly. "Okay, I’m listening." Someone from Reedsburg had somehow acquired his new, unlisted phone number.

"We can’t talk over the phone," the voice said. Thirty years old, white male, high school education.

"Why not?"

"It’s a long story. There are some papers."

"Where are you?"

"I’m in the city. I’ll meet you in the lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel on M Street. We can talk there."

Not a bad plan. There would be plenty of foot traffic in the lobby, just in case someone wanted to pull out a gun and start shooting lawyers. "When?" Clay asked.

"Real soon. I’ll be there in five minutes. How long will it take you?"

Clay was not going to mention the fact that he lived six blocks away, though his address was no secret. "I’ll be there in ten minutes."

"Good. I’m wearing jeans and a black Steelers cap."

"I’ll find you," Clay said, then hung up. He finished dressing and hustled out of his town house. Walking rapidly along Dumbarton, he tried to imagine what information he could need or even want on the Hanna company. He’d just spent eighteen hours in Reedsburg, and was trying, quite unsuccessfully, to forget about the place. He turned south on Thirty-first Street, mumbling to himself, lost in a world of conspiracies and payoffs and spy scenarios. A lady passed with a small dog in search of a suitable spot on the sidewalk to relieve itself.

A young man in a black biker’s jacket with a cigarette hanging from his mouth approached, though Clay barely saw him. As the two passed, in front of a poorly lit town house and under the limbs of an old red maple, the man suddenly, with perfect timing and precision, unloaded a short right cross that caught Clay directly on the chin.

Clay never saw it. He remembered a loud pop in his face, and his head crashing into a wrought-iron fence. There was a stick of some sort, and another man, two of them up there throwing punches and flailing away. Clay rolled to his side and managed to get a knee under himself, then the stick landed like a gunshot on the back of his skull.

He heard a woman’s voice in the distance, then he passed out.

The lady had been walking her dog when she heard a commotion behind her. There was a fight of some sort, two against one, with the man on the ground getting the worse of it. She ran closer and was horrified to see two men in black jackets hammering away with large black sticks. She screamed, they ran. She whipped out her cell phone and dialed 911.

The two men ran down the block and disappeared around the corner of a church on N Street. She tried to assist the young man on the ground, who was unconscious and bleeding badly.

Clay was taken to George Washington University Hospital where a trauma team stabilized him. The initial exam revealed two large head wounds caused by something blunt, a cut on his right cheekbone, a cut in his left ear, and numerous contusions. His right fibula was cracked neatly in two. His left kneecap was in pieces and the left ankle was broken. His head was shaved and eighty-one stitches were required to close the two large cuts. His skull was badly bruised but not fractured. Six stitches in his cheekbone, eleven in his ear, and they rolled him into surgery to put his legs back together.