Basic indeed. Iris was talking about one of Percy’s old hernias.
David’s role was limited. He was there as a warm body, a real lawyer taking up space, but with little to do but scribble and read. He was reviewing an FDA study on lead poisoning in children.
Occasionally, Wally would politely say, “Objection. Calls for conclusion.”
The lovely Ms. Karros would stop and wait to make sure Wally was finished, then she would say, “You may answer, Ms. Klopeck.” And by then, Iris would tell her all she wanted to hear.
Judge Seawright’s strict two-hour time limit was obeyed. Ms. Karros asked her last question at 10:58, then graciously thanked Iris for being such a good witness. Iris was going for her purse where the Xanax was kept. Wally walked her to the door and assured her she had done a superb job.
“When do you think they’ll want to settle?” she whispered.
Wally put a finger to his lips and shoved her out.
Next up was Millie Marino, widow of Chester and stepmother of Lyle, the inheritor of the baseball card collection and Wally’s initial source of information about Krayoxx. Millie was forty-nine, attractive, somewhat fit, reasonably well dressed, and apparently unmedicated, a far cry from the last witness. She was there for her depo, but she was still not a believer in the lawsuit. She and Wally were still bickering over her late husband’s estate. She was still threatening to pull out of the lawsuit and find another lawyer. Wally had offered to guarantee, in writing, a million-dollar settlement.
Ms. Karros asked the same questions. Wally made the same objections. David read the same memo and thought, Only six more after this one.
After a quick lunch, the lawyers reconvened for the deposition of Adam Grand, the assistant manager of an all-you-can-eat pizza house whose mother had died the previous year after taking Krayoxx for two years. (It was the same pizza house Wally now frequented, but only to secretly leave copies of his “Beware of Krayoxx!” brochures in the restrooms.)
Nadine Karros took a break, and her number two, Luther Hotchkin, handled the deposition. Nadine, though, apparently loaned him her questions because he asked the same ones.
During his insufferable career at Rogan Rothberg, David had heard many tales about the boys in litigation. The litigators were a breed apart, wild men who gambled with huge sums of money, took enormous risks, and lived on the edge. In every large law firm, the litigation section was the most colorful and filled with the biggest characters and egos. That was the urban legend anyway. Now, as he glanced occasionally across the table at the solemn faces of his adversaries, he had serious doubts about the legend. Nothing he had ever experienced in his career was as monotonous as sitting through depositions. And this was only his third one. He almost missed the drudgery of plodding through the financial records of obscure Chinese corporations.
Ms. Karros was taking a break, but she missed nothing. This early round of depositions was nothing more than a little contest, a pageant to provide her and her client the opportunity to meet and examine the eight contestants and select a winner. Could Iris Klopeck withstand the rigors of an intense two-week trial? Probably not. She was stoned during her depo, and Nadine had two associates already working on her medical records. On the other hand, some jurors might have great sympathy for her. Millie Marino would make an impressive witness, but her husband, Chester, could potentially have the strongest link to heart disease and death.
Nadine and her team would finish the depos, watch them again and again, and slowly eliminate the better ones. They and their experts would continue to dissect the medical records of the eight “victims” and eventually select the one with the weakest claim. When they picked their winner, they would race to court with a thick, cold-blooded, and well-reasoned motion to separate. They would ask Judge Seawright to take the single case they wanted, place it on his Rocket Docket, and clear all obstacles between it and a trial by jury.
Minutes after 6:00 p.m., David bolted from the Marriott and almost ran to his car. He was punch-drunk and needed his lungs full of cold air. Leaving downtown, he stopped at a Starbucks in a strip mall and ordered a double espresso. Two doors down was a party store that advertised costumes and favors, and, as had become his habit, he wandered over for a look. No party store was safe from him, or Helen, these days. They were searching for a set of Nasty Teeth, in the wrapper, with names of corporations in fine print. This one had the usual inventory of cheap costumes, gag gifts, decorations, glitter, toys, wrapping paper. There were several sets of vampire teeth, made in Mexico and sold by a company called Mirage Novelties of Tucson.
He was familiar with Mirage, even had a small file on the company. Privately owned, sales last year of $18 million, most of its products along the same lines of what David was now inspecting. He had files on dozens of companies that specialized in cheap toys and gadgets, and his research was growing daily. What he had not found was another set of Nasty Teeth.
He paid three bucks for a set of fangs, to add to his growing collection, then drove to the Brickyard Mall, where he met Helen at a Lebanese restaurant. Over dinner, he refused to describe his day—the same ordeal was planned for tomorrow—so they chatted about her classes and, not surprisingly, the coming addition to their family.
Lakeshore Children’s Hospital was nearby. They found the ICU, then found Soe Khaing in a visitors’ room. He had relatives with him, and introductions were made, though neither David nor Helen caught a single name. The Burmese were visibly touched that the Zincs would stop by and say hello.
Thuya’s condition had changed little in the past month. The day after their visit to the family’s apartment, David had contacted one of the doctors. After he e-mailed the paperwork signed by Soe and Lwin, the doctor was willing to talk. The boy’s outlook was bleak. The level of lead in his body was highly toxic, with substantial damage to his kidneys, liver, nervous system, and brain. He was in and out of consciousness. If he survived, it would take months or years to gauge the level of impaired brain activity. Normally, though, with this much lead, children did not survive.
David and Helen followed Soe down the hall, past a nurse’s station, and to a window where they could see Thuya strapped to a small bed and hooked to an astonishing assortment of tubes, lines, and monitors. His breathing was aided by a respirator.
“I touch him once a day. He hear me,” Soe said, then wiped the moisture from his cheeks.
David and Helen stared through the window but could think of nothing to say.
CHAPTER 22
Another aspect of big-firm life that David had learned to despise was the endless meetings. Meetings to evaluate and review, to discuss the firm’s future, to plan everything, to greet new lawyers, to say good-bye to old ones, to stay current on the law, to mentor rookies, to get mentored by senior partners, to talk about compensation, labor issues, and an endless list of other incredibly boring topics. The Rogan Rothberg culture was nonstop work and nonstop billing, but there were so many useless meetings that the making of money was actually often impeded.
With that in mind, David reluctantly suggested his new firm have a meeting. He’d been there four months and had settled into a comfortable routine. He was worried, though, about the lack of civility and communication among the other members of the firm. The Krayoxx litigation was dragging on. Wally’s dreams of a quick jackpot were fading, and revenue was down. Oscar was increasingly more irritable, if that was possible. In gossiping with Rochelle, David learned that the partners never sat around the table to think strategically and to air complaints.