“All week, Lotty and Max and I have been fuming over why Chaim Salanter doesn’t sue him for slander,” I said. “Now that he’s assaulting me, I’d like to explore the possibility of suing him myself.”
There was a long silence at the other end of the line. “I was just reading the online transcript of Lawlor’s remarks about you,” Freeman explained. “I’m no expert on L and S law, but I don’t think his broadcast meets the requirement for slander. He was offensive, but he doesn’t accuse you of anything worse than being a liberal, which you are.”
“But he attacked Gabriella,” I protested.
“Vic, no one should make a decision about a lawsuit when they’re in the heat of strong emotion. You know that as well as I do. I can talk to someone I know who does libel and slander law, but if you sue, your legal fees and court costs could go to half a million. Since Lawlor has some of the deepest pockets in America, he could keep a suit going until you were in so deep you’d have to scrub toilets in Soldier Field to pay your bills.”
My face contorted into a horrible scowl, as if looking like a gargoyle could somehow menace Wade Lawlor. Freeman was right. Which made it all the more infuriating that the Salanters, with pockets as deep as the Grand Canyon, wouldn’t take on Lawlor and GEN.
“Out of curiosity, what did you do to get on Lawlor’s radar at all?” Freeman asked.
“I tweaked him a little at his anniversary party, but I didn’t threaten him.”
“If you show him you care, he’ll sink his teeth deeper into your calf. He’s like any other bully. If he sees you’re not paying attention, he’ll go away fast enough.”
“That’s exactly what Chaim Salanter and his daughter say, but Lawlor, and Helen Kendrick, for that matter, keep gunning for both Salanter and for the Malina Foundation.”
“Don’t do anything rash before next Tuesday,” Freeman said dryly. “I’m going to Martha’s Vineyard for a long weekend and I don’t want to have to find someone to post emergency bail for you.”
I promised I wouldn’t do anything either reckless or criminal in the next four days, but I hung up with a little resentment. It wasn’t Freeman’s fault that people like me gave him a seven-figure income that allowed him to lease a plane for weekend jetaways, but I still wished I could get ahead of the game for once. I was tired of racing around in Chicago’s hot sticky heat. Big security firms bill their clients the same way lawyers like Freeman do—at four hundred an hour and up, but solo ops like me or Miles Wuchnik don’t command those kinds of fees.
One of my clients—mercifully, not one who’d been on my case about being a feature in Wade’s World—had once offered me the use of her Michigan weekend retreat. When I called, she told me her place was free this weekend. Not only that, I was welcome to bring the dogs. When I got home, I invited my neighbor to join us. Mr. Contreras was delighted; he packed a hamper with enough provisions to keep us through Labor Day and we set off early enough the next morning to avoid the backups on the roads.
We spent three days swimming, hiking, and rebuilding our relationship while sitting around my client’s gas-fueled barbecue grill. Mitch had a glorious time rolling in the rotting buffalo fish on the beach, but we just poured shampoo on him and sent him into the lake. I kept in touch with clients by text but resolutely stayed away from the television. We came home late Sunday, tired but refreshed. No emergency calls from my cousin, no horses’ heads in my bed. All good.
Monday morning I went early to the cleaners to pick up my good clothes. My lovely scarlet frock would never be the same. They’d done their best, but they couldn’t get out the grass stains without tearing the delicate silk.
“It’s just a dress,” I scolded myself for wanting to cry. It may be, as the Romans said, that clothes make the man, but for women, or at least for this woman, clothes are a projection of the self: I felt personally damaged.
At least the gold cotton dress had come out okay: you couldn’t see the blood unless you stuck your nose into the fabric. I couldn’t imagine Dick doing that, so I slipped it on for my trip to his office.
While I did my makeup, I gave in to temptation and looked up the new Wade’s World segments on YouTube. He’d attacked Sophy Durango and Chaim Salanter, along with his usual venom about filthy immigrants and vile health-care reform. Nothing new about me. Maybe I’d been a one-day filler on his show.