67
DUNCAN WAS antsy. He was spending his day supervising the production of the last batch of Roth documents to the DA’s office—a tedious task made worse by the fact that his mind was elsewhere. He’d made plans to meet up with Candace at eight o’clock. She’d called that afternoon, saying she had a break regarding Fowler’s murder, and now the day was dragging to a crawl as he waited to find out her news.
A little after five o’clock Blake called, telling Duncan to come up to his office right away. Duncan was a little surprised: he rarely met with Blake without knowing what it was about.
“Close the door,” Blake said as Duncan walked in. Duncan did so, alarm bells ringing loudly in his head now. Blake glared at Duncan as he made his way to a seat.
“Did you go to bed with Leah Roth?”
Duncan had been expecting bad news, but he hadn’t been expecting this. He was completely caught off guard and sure that it showed. “Excuse me?” he said after a moment, just to have said something.
“Answer the question.”
“Since when is my personal life a concern of the firm’s?”
“If you’ve slept with one of my clients, it’s very much my concern.”
Duncan was still scrambling for how to respond. The only way that Blake would know about this, he realized, was if Leah had told him. This was her move, her play to take him out. “Leah and I have spent some time together socially,” Duncan said. “She was actually who initiated it.”
“Last chance: if you’re going to deny sleeping with her, do so now.”
Duncan wasn’t going to lie, but he wasn’t going to confirm it either. “Jesus, Steven, why are you asking me about this?”
“Having sex with a firm client is a serious business,” Blake said. “As I certainly would expect you to know without being told. Leah called to say she didn’t want you working on any more of their cases. When I asked why, she said she wasn’t comfortable with you because you’d had a brief personal relationship, and she’d come to have doubts about whether you were trustworthy.”
“This has nothing to do with whatever relationship she and I had,” Duncan said, trying to force a smile. “It actually concerns the Nazario case, and the so-called conflict we had there.”
Blake held up a hand. “I don’t want to hear it,” he said.
“But I just want to explain my perspective—”
“I don’t give a shit about your perspective. You understand? You broke the rules, and that’s the only thing this is about.”
“I’ll talk to Leah. I’m sorry you had to get mixed into this, but I can straighten it out.”
Blake shook his head. “You don’t get it, Duncan. This is well past that. Leah Roth is the likely future CEO of one of this firm’s anchor clients. You’ve jeopardized the firm’s relationship with her and her family, and that cannot and will not be tolerated.”
Duncan refused to believe this was going where he thought it was. “What’re you saying, Steven?”
“I’m saying, yes, that you’re fired.”
“THEY FIRED you?” Candace said incredulously.
They were at Rudy’s, a dive bar on Ninth Avenue, one of the last remnants of the old Hell’s Kitchen. Duncan was already there when Candace arrived, and from the looks of things he’d been there for a while.
They were seated in one of the dark red booths along the wall. Duncan was a bit of a mess: his shirt untucked, his eyes a little glassy. She couldn’t tell how much of it was alcohol and how much was shock.
“I’m fired, all right,” Duncan said.
“What happened?”
“Long story short, I pissed off Leah Roth.”
“How’d you manage that?”
“By talking to you. She knew that you’d been over to my apartment. She thought I was betraying her, I guess, by not standing down on Nazario.”
“And just like that she was able to get you tossed from your firm?”
“Her family’s got some pull,” Duncan deadpanned.
Candace thought there had to be more to the story than that, but decided not to press it. “Her family has pretty much cut my balls off at the paper too,” she said. “Though I realize that’s not the same thing.”
“No, it’s not,” Duncan said. “So what’s your big news about Fowler, anyway?”
Candace felt bad talking business under the circumstances, but Duncan looked like he really wanted to know. “A source tells me that Jeremy Roth was being blackmailed by somebody relating to his embezzling from the Aurora. The source doesn’t know who the blackmailer was, but it must’ve been Sean Fowler.”
Candace could see Duncan’s mind working as he added it up, his excitement growing as he did so. “That would explain the money.”
Candace nodded. “Fowler gets too greedy, so Jeremy has him whacked. The eyewitness, Chris Driscoll, is in on it. Hell, maybe he’s the murderer.”
Duncan took a sip of whiskey, then chewed on an ice cube. “Can you print it?”
“Not even close,” Candace said. “I don’t even have enough to print the blackmail part, and if I did I wouldn’t be able to connect it to Fowler.”
“Even though we know he had the money?”
Candace shook her head. “Way too speculative. Especially about the Roths. I’ve been ordered to stand down on them.”
“Why?”
“The paper’s broke, and skittish about getting sued again. This would have to be completely rock solid before they’d let me print it, and it’s not even close to that.”
“I talked to Rafael’s new lawyer the other week, but the guy’s a putz. I can’t imagine he’s got what it takes to put this together.”
Candace looked confused for a moment; then her eyes widened. “Shit, you don’t know.”
“Know what?”
“Nazario’s pleading out.”
Duncan cocked his head. “What are you talking about?”
“He’s pleading on the murder. I figured you would know already. He’s got a date to go before the judge.”
Duncan looked ashen. “No f*cking way. Rafael had no interest in taking a plea. He didn’t do it, and he’s a fighter. Why would he be taking a deal?”
“Beats me. I’ve never even met him.”
Duncan finished his drink, rattling the ice in his glass. “Rafael can’t take a plea. He’s the last loose end we’ve got.”
“There’s that, plus that he didn’t do it.”
“Right,” Duncan said, fuming. “I really didn’t see a way for this day to get any worse, so thanks for that.”
Candace reached out and touched Duncan’s arm. He looked up at the contact, the look they exchanged catching him off guard.
“So what are you going to do?” Candace said, feeling self-conscious as she moved her hand. She wasn’t going to go to bed with Duncan, she thought. Not tonight.
“Drink more whiskey. Hey, you have a job—you can buy a round.”
Candace obediently went to the bar and got Duncan a drink. Her own beer was still half-full. “I was asking a little more long-term,” she said upon returning.
“If Blake’s really determined to burn me, no other first-rate firm’s going to take me on. I’m f*cked, basically.”
“You’re a Harvard Law grad. I’m sure somebody will hire you.”
“I was a Blake baby, a few months away from making partner. You know what B and W’s profits per partner are?”
“What’s a Blake baby? Second thought, I don’t want to know,” Candace said. “They really fired you just for talking to me?”
“Not just that, but that I wasn’t following orders. And Leah offered me a job, which I pretty clearly didn’t want, and I think that confirmed that she couldn’t trust me. I’m assuming now that she’s had me fired the job offer is off the table.”
“Leah,” Candace said, and sure enough Duncan looked away. Her instincts told her that Duncan’s involvement with Leah Roth had gotten a little personal.
“If Rafael takes a plea they’re going to get away with it, aren’t they?” Duncan said, his anger returning as he changed the subject. “All of it.”
“They have gotten away with it, Duncan. I hate that as much as you do, but it’s true.”
“Not if I can get Rafael not to plead.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“By becoming his lawyer again.”
It took a while for Candace to realize that Duncan was serious. Of course, that he was serious now didn’t mean he still would be in the cold light of morning. But it was also clear that Duncan had been thrown past the point of no return, and he didn’t have anything else to focus his anger on.
“What about the so-called conflict you had?” Candace asked. “Could the Roths stop you from representing him?”
“I don’t see how,” Duncan replied. “They’d have to argue that I was using privileged material that I learned from representing them.”
“Even if you do become Nazario’s lawyer, are you sure you can win the case?”
Duncan laughed. “Hell, no,” he said. “The first problem’s Driscoll. He’s got to be in on it, but proving that’s another story. I don’t think Driscoll’s likely to break down on the stand and confess just because I ask him some tough questions. Right now I can’t prove that Jeremy Roth and Chris Driscoll have ever been in the same room. It’s entirely possible they haven’t been.”
Duncan took a gulp of whiskey. “Am I going to end up holding your ponytail tonight?” Candace said.
Duncan looked at her. “That sounds—well, I’m not exactly sure what that sounds like.”
Candace ignored the innuendo. “You should at least eat something if you’re going to pour that much booze down your throat,” she said.
THEY ENDED up going for pizza at John’s on Forty-fourth Street, Duncan insisting that he was only interested in eating something unhealthy. Candace figured he was at least entitled to that.
“So I realize nobody wants to get fired,” Candace said after they’d ordered. “But is there really nothing in this that’s a positive for you?”
“Meaning what? Now I have time to work on my poetry?”
“I thought everyone at the big law firms was dying to get out.”
“So what you’re really saying is, you think I should have sense enough to want to do something else?”
“Did you go to law school wanting to do what you’ve been doing?”
“I didn’t have the slightest idea what I was getting myself into when I went to law school,” Duncan said. “That’s true of pretty much everybody there, or else the place would be empty.”
“So why did you go?”
“You want an actual answer?” Duncan asked. Candace nodded, finding that she meant it. “In part it was that my parents both did stuff that’s kind of similar to law—Dad’s a union organizer, Mom was a social worker. But they were pretty working-class people, and I always had this understanding that I was supposed to go to the next step, you know, in the sense that I had the opportunity to get a different sort of education, and so on. Law seemed like the backstage pass to the world.”
Candace was surprised to hear this—she’d assumed Duncan’s background was similar to her own. “Small-town boy makes good, huh?” she said.
“I was born in Detroit, so not exactly.”
Candace smiled. “Detroit as in what suburb?”
“Detroit as in Detroit,” Duncan said. This was hardly the first time that someone had assumed that when he said Detroit what he really meant was Bloomfield Hills or Grosse Point.
Candace looked surprised. “I didn’t know any white people still lived in Detroit.”
“I’m not, actually,” Duncan said without hesitation. “White, I mean. My dad’s black.”
Candace felt herself flush. “I’m so sorry if I—”
“No need to apologize,” Duncan said, raising his hands. “I know what I look like.”
Candace was impressed, though she wondered if there was something patronizing about this response. “I actually remember thinking you were, I don’t know, something, first time I saw you. So you’re biracial, working-class, and from Detroit, and yet you became Steven Blake’s right-hand guy and consigliere to the Roths.”
Duncan wagged a finger at her, apparently playfully. “Don’t do that thing where that suddenly makes me interesting,” he said.
“Okay, so I admit that I’d assumed you were some preppy shitbird from Connecticut.”
“It’s easy to say money doesn’t matter when you come from it. I’m the first person in my family who really had a chance to get paid, and I took it. If my dad had been a New York corporate lawyer, I’d probably be doing something else.”
Candace smiled. “I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be a reporter,” she said.
“Are there even going to be newspapers in ten years?” Duncan replied.
“Maybe not, but there’ll still be reporters. I’m not married to the actual print newspaper, personally, although a lot of people in the newsroom would view that as treason.”
The waiter brought their pizza, pepperoni and black olives. Candace, who generally ate healthy, had to admit it looked really good. Duncan grabbed a slice, took a huge bite. “Grease meets alcohol,” he said. “A match made in heaven.”
AFTER THEY’D finished eating, the two of them stood outside the restaurant. “So,” Candace said. “You going to be okay? Tonight, I mean.”
“I’ll get through,” Duncan said. “What’s the alternative, really?”
Before she fully knew she was going to do it, Candace stepped forward and hugged Duncan, who, caught off guard, took a moment to respond. “I need your help,” she said, speaking softly into Duncan’s ear. “Rafael needs your help. Stay in the game.”
Candace leaned back, looked Duncan in the eye, their faces close, then quickly turned to go before he could say anything. Duncan stood, watching her walk away, his catastrophe of a day momentarily forgotten. He wished Candace was coming back to his apartment with him. But the day he’d been fired was not the day to start something, not if he wanted it to have a chance of working. So Duncan headed up Eighth Avenue toward his apartment, knowing he was in for a long and lonely night.
WAKING THE next morning was an extended exercise in disorientation. There was the hangover, for one thing, although under the circumstances the blurring it caused was almost welcome. At least he’d managed to refrain from asking Candace to come home with him, although the temptation had been strong. It was too soon, and his life was too much of a mess, and their professional interaction was too important. But he thought there was at least a chance she would’ve said yes.
Duncan got up and made coffee, starting his morning as he would any other. But it wasn’t, and the day stretched empty before him. He’d been at the same job for seven years, working close to three thousand hours a year. And then one five-minute conversation had taken it all away.
Duncan was far better off than most people who suddenly lost their job; he knew that. He’d paid off most of his student loans; he had fifty grand invested in mutual funds, over a hundred grand of equity in his apartment. He’d listed his mother’s house with a Realtor, and had also inherited six figures from her life insurance. But his mortgage payments were over three grand a month, and everything else cost so much more in New York as well. He could easily go more than a year before he would really start running out of money, but if Steven Blake was determined to burn him it might take longer than that for anyone to offer Duncan a job.
Candace’s question lingered: Did he really want to try to get back on the corporate law treadmill? The fact was, representing Rafael Nazario had excited Duncan in a way no other part of practicing law had in years. He’d felt a sense of purpose, of actually helping somebody, that he couldn’t pretend his typical case gave him.
Duncan had been completely serious about the idea of representing Rafael again, though the reality of the prospect was daunting. He didn’t have an office, a secretary, letterhead—let alone malpractice insurance. All those things had been provided by the firm. The idea of renting some office and setting out on his own seemed impossible.
But he also knew he couldn’t let Leah Roth win. She’d tried to destroy him, presumably believed that she had. Duncan’s pride wouldn’t let him accept such a thorough defeat. He would expose the truth, bring her down. It was just a matter of how.
Dressed in boxer shorts and a Knicks T-shirt, Duncan took his coffee to his desk. He sat down in front of his laptop and got to work.