The table in the Franklin room was highly polished. The newer leather chairs were neatly arranged around the table. A fine selection of hors d’oeuvres was prettily arrayed on the sideboard. The firm’s best vintage Burgundy reposed in a crystal decanter. Most tellingly, Warwick was already in the room.
In short, a major client was expected.
Warwick’s solo presence was not an unalloyed pleasure. Small talk was out of the question. I decided to use our happy little time together to press for a bonus for Vinnie Price.
This is not the time, Warwick responded testily. They’ll be here any minute. And in any case I would prefer it if you stuck to the procedures.
Before I could launch into a tirade about the vacuous and petty nature of the bureaucratic procedures in question, there was a knock on the door. Patricia, our mouselike receptionist, peered in.
A Mr. FitzGibbon and a Mr. FitzGibbon for you, sir, she said, addressing only Warwick.
Send them in, Warwick directed, ignoring a golden opportunity to make fun of Patricia’s simplicity. Not something I’d have overlooked, were I running the firm. A brace of FitzGibbons? I would have asked. A matched pair?
Moments later FitzGibbon pere entered the room, full of red-faced bluster and bonhomie. The real FitzGibbon. The paradigm.
Immediately following came the pale reflection.
I’d like you to meet my son Ramon, FitzGibbon said, with just the hint of a smile.
Pleased to meet you, I said, extending my hand to Mr. Security.
I’m sorry Raul couldn’t be here too, said FitzGibbon to Warwick. Other business.
Warwick nodded.
A deeply understanding nod.
Ramon took my hand with obvious reluctance. The touch was brief. His grip was wet and weak. I noticed a handkerchief peeking out from his right jacket sleeve. A germophobe, I guessed. I watched to see if he tried surreptitiously to unsleeve the handkerchief and wipe his hand. But I was distracted by Warwick. He was busily seating the guests, pouring the wine and passing the hors d’oeuvres with a grandly false air of festivity. If the handkerchief was unsleeved, I didn’t see it.
Moments later, FitzGibbon’s in-house counsel arrived. Marvin Threadgill, Esq. A tiny, well-appointed fellow. Polite to a fault. Good at what he did.
It was hard not to dislike him.
There followed an hour or so of back and forth. Threadgill and Warwick talked about investments. Projects. Tax shelters. Other business matters that I knew less about than I let on.
FitzGibbon looked as bored as I felt.
I did my best to participate. From time to time Warwick would call in a tax associate. A securities lawyer. To explain an arcane point or two.
They would stand uncomfortably during their audience, eyeing the food and wine. Feeling diminished. Until Warwick was through with them, which he indicated with an extra-loud ‘o-kay then’ that never failed to send them scuttling from the room.
I was about to fake an attack of gout when we finally got to the reason I was there.
I’ve got to take a call from the Governor, said Warwick to FitzGibbon. I thought Rick could take a moment to give you the update on Jules, nodding at me and sidling for the door.
No, no, said FitzGibbon, Charles, please. The Governor can wait a minute or two.
FitzGibbon winked at me. Warwick sat back down, with an almost imperceptible grimace.
There was much I could have said, but the presence of Ramon made me uncomfortable. I could argue that FitzGibbon was our client, for attorney-client privilege purposes, since he was paying the bills. But Ramon unquestionably was not our client. Anything I said, then, was not protected. The cops, the ADA, a judge could ask, if they knew to do so, any question they liked about what was said in that room.
And I certainly wasn’t about to ask Ramon to leave. FitzGibbon and he seemed joined at the hip. So I felt obliged to give the sanitized version. Which was probably the wiser course in any event.
There’s not that much to tell you, at this point, I said. Clearly they’re convinced that he did it. He hasn’t been charged yet, but it seems like that will happen any day. I sounded out the ADA. They don’t seem interested in a plea. But Jules isn’t either. He continues to insist that he’s innocent. Fortunately, there’s no physical evidence or eyewitnesses to tie him to it. But the circumstances certainly are suggestive. I’m not going to tell you it’s going to be easy. We have our work cut out for us.
There was silence from the FitzGibbon side of the table. I thought I saw a slightly ironic smile on FitzGibbon’s face. But it could have been the teeth. Ramon kept looking around the room. For assassins, I presumed.
Warwick felt obliged to fill the silence. Well, Rick, he said, a little too cheerfully, why don’t you tell Eamon the progress you’re making in your investigation?
FitzGibbon nodded absently.
I’m looking at a few things, I said. But frankly, I don’t want to raise expectations, or mislead you in any way. So I’d prefer to save the details for when I have something more concrete to tell you.
Warwick gave me a dark look. He’d given me my opening to impress FitzGibbon with how diligent and skilled I was. I’d dropped the ball. I could just hear him afterwards: Rick, he’d say, you have to pay more attention to the dynamic in the room. They were looking to hear something from you. That man pays the firm a great deal of money. He expects exemplary service. Blah, blah, blah.
That had not been my take on FitzGibbon. I had read things in his face. Boredom, mostly. Vacuity. But the desire for some self-serving blather about the great job I was doing wasn’t one of them. And anyway, I didn’t care. I had a job to do, damn it, and I was going to do it right.
We escorted our esteemed guests to the elevator, executed the obligatory round of hearty handshakes, which Ramon deftly managed to avoid.
I went to my office. I looked at the pile of message slips. The blinking message light.
I ignored them.