11
DUNCAN WAS eating the best soup he’d ever had, a rich and meaty crab bisque spiced with a mild curry. Marco Mucci, the soup’s creator, was seated across from him. Mucci, a few years older than Duncan, was fast becoming one of the most acclaimed chefs in the city. The Times had given Alchemy three stars last year—previously unheard-of for a restaurant on Avenue B.
Alchemy was open only for dinner, so the dining room was empty except for a hostess who was handling the phone. The kitchen seemed active; Duncan could hear music blasting and the occasional raised voice. The hostess had let Duncan in, seated him at a table in the middle of the restaurant, and then gone in the back to get Mucci.
The first thing Marco’d asked was whether Duncan had eaten lunch. Duncan, who generally missed lunch at least once a week, and other times didn’t get to it until late afternoon, admitted that he hadn’t, and Marco had immediately retreated back to the kitchen, returning a minute later with two bowls of soup expertly cradled in his arm.
It’d been Blake’s idea for Duncan to reach out to the restaurant where Rafael worked, see if he could get a character witness. Duncan wasn’t happy about it: to him it smacked of giving up. But Blake had instructed him to concentrate on positioning Rafael for a decent plea. While Duncan wasn’t comfortable with Blake’s focus on making a quick deal, at the same time he prided himself on being nobody’s fool. Rafael’s story about the security guard planting the weed had never really added up. Rafael had no explanation for how he’d come to be accused of drug possession and now murder. Duncan wasn’t sure anyone was actually that unlucky.
“Thanks for taking the time,” Duncan said. “I’m sure you’re very busy.”
Marco waved his hand dismissively. “I’m just glad that Rafa’s got a good lawyer on this,” he said. “We were talking about taking up a collection here, but I doubt that would’ve been realistic. We’re trying to set something up to make sure people get out to visit him. Are you doing this as a volunteer?”
“Essentially, yeah. That’s great that people are supporting him.”
“Rafa’s been here for over a year. We’re going to have his back as much as we can.”
Duncan was surprised at this, considering what Rafael was accused of. “Are you always this supportive of your dishwashers?”
Marco frowned at the question, despite Duncan’s attempt to ask it lightly. “Rafael wasn’t just a dishwasher here anymore. He was doing dinner prep work on a regular basis. I don’t define the people in my kitchen by how much training they have or where they apprenticed. At the end of the day, a restaurant’s an art form—it’s a piece of theater, what we do every night. I look for energy, creativity, enthusiasm—and Rafa had all those things in spades. He actually liked coming to work, you know? I think he enjoyed hanging in the restaurant, being part of something.”
“He never had any problems here with anyone?”
“Not at all,” Marco said. “He found a home here, I think. A kitchen can be that for people. And it wasn’t just enthusiasm either—he’s a good cook. That’s why I got him into classes at the CIA.”
“The CIA?”
Marco smiled. “Sorry—kitchen shorthand. The Culinary Institute.”
“Other than that he’s a great employee,” Duncan asked, “what’s your sense of him as a person?”
Marco seemed surprised by the question. “Are you asking me if I think Rafa could kill somebody?”
Duncan shrugged. “Now that you mention it…”
“I know where Rafa comes from,” Marco said. “I grew up on Fourteenth Street. This is my neighborhood. Rafa’s not the first person from the Avenue D projects I’ve hired. A few have worked out; a few couldn’t hack basic responsibility. He’s one of the good ones. Whatever is going on with that shooting, I’m sure that Rafa didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“You’re convinced he’s innocent?”
“Of course,” Marco said, looking at Duncan curiously. “Aren’t you?”
THE QUESTION lingered as Duncan headed back to his office. Although he didn’t have the first idea how to explain away the evidence, he also didn’t see his client as a killer. Duncan just wasn’t ready to stop trying to prove Rafael’s innocence. He could imagine how disappointed Rafael himself would be if he knew that his lawyers were already focused on a plea. It seemed like a betrayal to give up so quickly on the idea of winning his freedom.
He’d have to go back to Blake, try to convince him that they needed to take a closer look at the DA’s case. Blake would listen to him, especially if he had a solid plan of attack.
Back at his office, Duncan took off his jacket and loosened his tie, unbuttoning the top button of his starched blue shirt. He’d put on a suit that morning only because he wanted to look like a lawyer when he went to talk to Mucci. Nonlawyers were always surprised to learn that Duncan only rarely wore a suit and tie; something about a casually dressed lawyer seemed to disappoint them.
The rest of his day was to be taken up with preparing to defend Preston Thomas’s deposition. Thomas, the CFO of Roth Properties, had drawn the short stick and was to be the first defense witness deposed in the wrongful-death lawsuit. Coming up right after Preston was Tommy Nelson, the general contractor’s site supervisor at the Aurora, and a key witness in the case. Omni had its own lawyers who’d be defending Nelson’s depo, although Lily was going to attend.
Duncan was culling out what he considered to be the most significant documents and indexing them into a three-inch binder. Thomas, whose deposition was next week, was scheduled to come in tomorrow for a prep session. Duncan’s plan for the rest of the day was to make an outline that would serve as his guide to take Thomas through the documents.
Thomas had been the developer’s main negotiator in working out the various contracts for the Aurora Tower, both on the investment end and on the construction end. In order to prepare Thomas for the deposition, Duncan was going through the paper trail from the various negotiations, all the e-mails and letters and drafts of contracts through which the assorted deals had been worked out.
Which amounted to a hell of a lot of paper. A hedge fund had been the biggest lender; there were also several investment banks involved in the financing, each of which drove its own separate bargain. Duncan was only skimming the financing documents; his focus was on the negotiations with the site’s general contractor, Omni Construction. If the plaintiffs were going to somehow make Roth liable for the accident, they’d presumably have to do so by showing how the developer had exerted pressure on Omni to cut corners.
As he quickly paged through the assorted financing material, Duncan noticed that at least a couple hundred million in construction loans was soon coming due. He knew that the banks were tightening up on big commercial loans, and given that high-end real estate’s luster had dimmed quite a bit recently, he suspected the lenders might be looking to take advantage of a moment when they could pull out. Duncan wondered idly if Roth Properties had all that money on hand if the loans didn’t get extended.
He was still a little disappointed that their client had to submit to discovery: Duncan had thought they’d had a good shot on their motion to dismiss. He’d drafted the motion, and had in the process thoroughly convinced himself of its merits. But judges generally didn’t grant motions to dismiss; it was very hard to get out of a civil lawsuit prior to submitting to discovery. What this meant as a practical matter was that even utterly meritless cases would often drag on for years, costing the defendants millions in legal bills. It also meant that the bulk of Duncan’s time, like that of every other big-firm litigator, was spent trudging through discovery, spanning everything from reviewing documents to conducting depositions. Discovery was the lifeblood of large litigation departments, its massive—and massively tedious—document churn the source of millions of dollars’ worth of billable hours each year.
Duncan spent the rest of the afternoon and into the evening writing the depo outline. He took a dinner break, realizing as he did so that he was only about two-thirds of the way through.
He was eating sashimi while reading Above the Law on his computer when Lily appeared in his doorway. They hadn’t talked since their fight at the Rainbow Room, but Duncan was fine pretending it had never happened. “Hey,” he said. “You want something to eat? I ordered two appetizers, an entrée, and a dessert. And the fish isn’t cooked,” he couldn’t resist adding.
“Trying to change weight classes?” Lily asked, ignoring Duncan’s dig while taking a stack of papers off one of his chairs and sitting down.
“I keep in fighting trim. I just eat half of everything, save the rest for tomorrow’s lunch. I mean, it’s not like I’m paying for it.”
“Fight the power,” Lily said. “Anyway, I’m eating at home, or at least I’m hoping I am.”
“Depending on what?”
“You,” Lily said. “The Blake asked me to make sure you didn’t need help on the Thomas depo. He said you’ve been a little tied up with your murder thing.”
Duncan tried to camouflage his reaction. This was not something Blake generally did. Blake assumed his associates were getting their work done without his checking in. “The Blake sent you to check up on me?”
“That’s certainly one way to look at it,” Lily said.
“If I needed your help I would’ve asked for it.”
“No, you wouldn’t have.”
“True. So what are the odds I’d do so when you come asking?”
“Pretty much zero. Like I said, I’m hoping to go home.”
“Go already,” Duncan said.
Lily stayed put, looking at Duncan, who deliberately looked over at his food. “You’re really doing a murder case?”
“Rafael was an existing client. Leaving him in the lurch might not have looked great. We have to worry about PR.”
Lily was obviously not buying it. “We’re defending a murderer as PR? That explains a lot about this firm’s reputation.”
“PR’s the only reason we’re doing pro bono generally. The partners got tired of hearing about Karen Cleary’s lawsuit.”
“And they think throwing in a little pro bono is going to make us girls forget about our oppression?”
“You didn’t even like Karen Cleary,” Duncan said. “You didn’t have any sympathy for her when she didn’t make partner.”
“I didn’t think she deserved to make partner, but the fact I didn’t like her had nothing to do with that. And I have to be concerned with her lawsuit, because like it or not it affects my career. On the one hand it helps me, because now all the partners are paranoid about pissing off the women; on the other it hurts me, because now all the partners resent that they’ve got to worry about pissing off the women.”
“What would you expect?” Duncan asked.
“Right. It’s not like I expect to be judged by my own merits or anything.”
“We don’t make the rules.”
“And sometimes we don’t even play by them,” Lily replied. After a moment she stood and pushed his office door closed, Duncan tensing up as she did so. “So, listen, Dunk, about the other night.”
“Don’t call me Dunk.”
“I know I flew off the handle at you a little, and I’m sorry.”
“Okay,” Duncan said neutrally, skittish about getting into this.
“It wasn’t you I was mad at. And I’m in no position to judge you for how you deal with who you are, especially in the workplace. Especially in this workplace.”
Duncan smiled. “You’ve judged me for that as long as I’ve known you.”
“It was different when we were together. Then it was at least sort of my business. If I looked like you do in terms of passing, if I didn’t have to deal with the bullshit, why would I? It’s not fair for me to expect you to make your life more difficult than it needs to be.”
“I’m not passing any more than I’m a tragic f*cking mulatto,” Duncan snapped. “This isn’t Imitation of Life.”
“I didn’t—Shit. I don’t know why I’m f*cking this up with you. It’s hard for me, you know? I look at you, and I see the person I was intimate with, not the guy I’m trying to make partner over.”
“I’d imagine you’re capable of seeing both those things at the same time,” Duncan replied. “It’s not like we didn’t go into it knowing the risk this was where it’d end up.”
“We knew. But then you throw the race thing in there, and it just gets … It’s not fair for me to expect you to be some kind of double agent or whatever.”
“Double agent?” Duncan said with a laugh, pretending he didn’t know exactly what she meant. He’d spent his entire life on the outside looking in, one way or another, even if he had grown pretty good at disguising it.
Lily gave him a look, leaving Duncan no doubt that she saw right through him. “Do you know what you said to me once?” she asked, Duncan’s stomach clenching at her expression. “You remember that time I was late—you know, late. And I’m freaking out a little, and what you said was that our kid would come out looking like America’s future. Did I ever love you when you said that, even though it was pretty clear that the last thing you wanted was to have some kind of crazy tri-racial baby with me. I was weak at the knees, kiddo. I was ready to sign on the dotted line.”
Duncan, uncomfortable, tried to derail her. “And then I said I’d put Golf Digest in the crib,” he said. “Just in case that Tiger Woods thing turned out to be genetic.”
Lily brushed off his attempt to change the mood. “I’m serious.”
Duncan sighed and rubbed at his face, not understanding why Lily wanted to revisit all this. “Look, yes, sure, I remember.”
“You remember what?” Lily demanded, her eyes cloudy.
“I remember saying that to you, about our theoretical kid. I remember the look you gave me, hearing it. I remember all of it, okay? And we came close, damn close, you and I, but we didn’t get there, not all the way. And I don’t quite know why not, and I don’t think you know either, but here we are.”
Lily swiped at her eyes. “So it wasn’t fair of me, the other night, saying you don’t understand what my version of this is like. Because I can’t understand what your version of it is like either. But okay, you’re right, that bridge is underwater. There’s no right way to do any of this, and I’m sorry if I’ve acted like there is.”
Duncan smiled at her, mostly out of relief that they’d finally been able to talk about this without it turning into a fight. “I appreciate your blessing,” he said.