He does.
Gordon goes totally off.
It takes Casey a good ten minutes to get him to sit down. What Casey does is he sends an intern racing to the trendy little coffee shop downstairs to fetch a cappuccino grande with low-fat milk and a dash of nutmeg.
"Decaf," Casey stresses to the intern.
It's well known among the greater legal community of Southern California that Gordon has a serious cappuccino jones, that in fact he keeps an associate whose entire job consists of making sure that the attorney has two of them on the table before any meeting begins.
So Gordon's sitting in Casey's office huffing and puffing, face all red, little droplets of sweat bubbling on his forehead.
It's beautiful.
And Casey gets a clue as to how he'll take Gordon in the courtroom if it comes to that: whip him into a froth and let the jury see it.
The decaf cap arrives, Gordon takes a long, soothing sip and then says to Nicky, "Go ahead."
Jack's like, Go ahead and what? Go ahead and jump out the window?
It isn't what Nicky has in mind.
Nicky just lays his cool look on Jack and says, "As to one of my employees picking up Pamela's prescription, that's ridiculous. As to this alleged statement by the gate guard, I don't know with whom you talked, or whether you talked to anyone. All I can tell you is that I was home with my children and my mother that entire evening and morning, just as I told you on the recorded statement."
Gordon lays a document on the table. "This is the signed and notarized affidavit from Mr. Michael Derochik, the guard who was on duty the night of the fire, in which he affirms that he did not see Mr. Vale leave or enter the gate after 8:30 that evening."
Jack starts getting this feeling that Nicky's not going out the window.
It's Opportunity that just went out the window.
Nicky continues, "As to my finances, I advised Mr. Wade that because I am in an international business, there is great flux in the liquidity of my assets. The tide, as it were, ebbs and flows. If Mr. Wade would bother to check my accounts today, he will see that I have the money to meet both my personal and commercial responsibilities. As for losing my home, my mortgage payments are current, and I have ample funds to meet the upcoming payment on my home."
Motive is on the ledge.
But I still have Incendiary Origin, Jack thinks. Long as this is an arson fire, everything else follows. And I still have IO.
For about five seconds.
"Your samples that showed traces of accelerants?" Gordon asks. "Deputy Bentley took samples and sent them to the state crime lab, and the samples came up negative. Oh, there's traces of a little Class O combustible – which is probably the turpentine you'd expect from pine flooring – but kerosene? Now, I don't know where Mr. Wade got his so-called samples, but it wasn't from the Vale house, I can tell you that."
So there it is. Jack thinks that if he looks out the window to the ground, he'll see the smashed remains of Incendiary Origin, Motive, and Opportunity lying on the sidewalk.
"I'm filing suit today," Gordon adds. "Breach of contract, failure to reasonably investigate, and bad faith. If you'd like to settle, come with $50 million in your pocket or don't come."
"Fifty goddamn million?!"
Gordon smiles and nods. "Over and above what you owe on the policies."
"That's just goddamn extortion, is all that is."
"Like a church bingo pot," Paul Gordon tells Casey.
"You'll have your witnesses, we'll have ours."
They're standing out by the elevator when Gordon says, "Oh. Just to add a jalapeno to the chili? As to this story about Dr. Ng trying to contact my client and being rebuffed by an attorney – we have a signed statement from Dr. Ng denying that anything of the sort ever happened. So I don't know where Mr. Wade got his information, but you can bet that we'll sure as hell ask him under oath.
"But seeing as how Mr. Wade is a convicted perjurer with a history of planting evidence… well, Mr. Wade, you be thinking now about which you'd rather be, the husband or the wife."
Gordon starts to get into the elevator but does a dramatic about-face instead.
"Oh, I almost forgot," he says. "Mr. Wade is sleeping with Ms. del Rio, who stands to gain insurance benefits if they're denied to my client. We have investigator's photographs of them leaving his condominium together rather early in the morning. Which smacks of collusion to me. We also know how to make prosecutors aware of testimony in a civil trial.
"Fifty million to settle," Gordon says. "Over and above, of course, the claim itself. The offer is good for forty-eight hours, gentlemen. Give you some time to get the money together."
Gordon steps into the elevator. Has to push the Hold button, though, because Nicky Vale stops and puts his arm around Jack's shoulders.
Whispers into Jack's ear, "You should have learned the last time."
Which is when Jack realizes he's been set up.