“Our numbers are coming together nicely and we’ve made progress, at least on the death cases. I’ve spent hours with the PLC and we’re ready to enter into a formal settlement agreement, round one, of course. Let’s get the big cases out of the way and then slog through the small ones.”
“That’s our plan, Jerry,” Walker said, in full agreement, and Jerry finally managed to breathe. “I’m taking heat from Reuben Massey to get this stuff out of the way. He chewed me for breakfast this morning and I was planning to call you. Massey has instructed me to get down there with our in-house team and our Florida firms and hammer out a settlement along the same lines as what we have already discussed. I suggest we meet in Fort Lauderdale a week from today, sign the agreement, present it to the judge, and move on. The non-death cases will take longer, but let’s get the big ones closed. Agreed?”
Agreed? You have no idea, Jerry thought. “A great idea, Nick. I’ll set it up down here.”
“But I insist that all six PLC members be in the room.”
“I can arrange that, no problem.”
“And can we get a magistrate or someone from the judge’s office to be present? I’m not leaving there until we have a deal, in writing and approved by the court.”
“Excellent idea, Nick.” Jerry was grinning like an idiot.
“Let’s get it done.”
After the call, Jerry checked the market. Varrick was trading at $36, and the only plausible reason for its uptick was the good spin about the settlement.
The phone conversation had been recorded by a company specializing in truth and deception. It was a firm Zell & Potter used frequently to secretly record conversations in an effort to determine the level of veracity on the other end. Thirty minutes after Jerry hung up, two experts entered his office with some graphs and charts. They had camped out in a small conference room down the hall with their staff and machines. They had measured the stress of both voices and had easily determined that both men were lying. Jerry’s lies had been planned, of course, in an effort to prompt Walker.
Walker’s voice-stress analysis showed a high level of deception. When he spoke of Reuben Massey and the company’s desire to get rid of the litigation, he was telling the truth. But when he spoke of the big plans for a settlement summit next week in Fort Lauderdale, he was clearly being deceptive.
Jerry gave the impression of taking the news in stride. Such evidence was never admissible in court because it was so wildly unreliable. He had often asked himself why he even bothered with voice-stress analysis, but after using it for years, he almost believed it. Anything to give him a slight edge. Such recordings were highly unethical anyway, and even illegal in some states, so it was easy to bury the information.
For most of the past fifteen years, he had kept Varrick on the run with one lawsuit after another. And in doing so, he had learned much about the company. Its research was always better than that of the plaintiffs. It hired spies and invested heavily in corporate espionage. Reuben Massey loved hardball and usually found a way to win the war, even after losing most of the battles.
Alone in his office, Jerry typed an entry into his private daily log: “Krayoxx is evaporating before my eyes. Just spoke with N. Walker who plans to be here next week to sign a deal. 80–20 chance he doesn’t show.”
Iris Klopeck shared Wally’s letter with several friends and family members, and the imminent arrival of $2 million was already causing problems. Clint, her deadbeat son, who routinely went days without offering her as much as a rude grunt or two, was suddenly showing all manner of affection. He was cleaning his room, washing dishes, running errands for his dear mother, and chattering away nonstop, his favorite topic being his desire for a new car. Iris’s brother, fresh from his second stint in prison for stealing motorcycles, was painting her house (with no charge for the labor) and dropping hints about his longtime dream of owning a used motorcycle business. He knew of one on the market for only $100,000. “A steal,” he said, at which her son whispered behind his back, “He should know a steal when he sees one.” Percy’s wretched sister Bertha was letting it be known that she was entitled to a chunk of the money because she was “blood.” Iris loathed the woman, as had Percy, and Iris had already reminded Bertha that she had not attended Percy’s funeral. Bertha was now claiming she had been hospitalized on that day. “Prove it,” Iris said, and so they bickered.
On the day Adam Grand received his letter from Wally, he was hustling around the all-you-can-eat pizza house when his boss barked at him for no apparent reason. Adam, the assistant manager, returned the favor, and a nasty row ensued. When the shouting and cursing ended, Adam either quit or was fired, and for several minutes both men argued over the exact nature of Adam’s departure. Not that it mattered—he was gone. And that didn’t matter to Adam either, because he was about to be rich.
Millie Marino had the good sense to show her letter to no one. She read it several times before the words began to sink in, and she felt a twinge of guilt for doubting Wally’s ability. He still failed to inspire confidence, and she was still angry over her late husband Chester’s will and estate, but those issues were now of fading importance. Chester’s son, Lyle, would be entitled to his portion, and for that reason he had been monitoring the litigation. If he knew how close they were to pay dirt, he might become a nuisance. So Millie put the letter under lock and key and told no one.
On September 9, five weeks after being shot in both legs, Justin Bardall filed a lawsuit against Oscar individually and Finley & Figg as a partnership. He alleged Oscar used “excessive force” in the shooting and, in particular, deliberately fired the third shot into the left leg after Bardall was seriously wounded and no longer posed a threat. The lawsuit demanded $5 million in actual damages and $10 million in punitive damages for Oscar’s malicious conduct.
The lawyer who filed the case, Goodloe Stamm, was the same lawyer hired by Paula Finley to handle her divorce. Evidently, at some point Stamm tracked down Bardall and convinced him to sue, in spite of his criminal activities and the fact that he was about to spend time in prison for attempted arson.
The divorce was proving to be more contentious than Wally or Oscar had expected, especially in light of the fact that Oscar was basically walking away with nothing but his car and clothes. Stamm kept chirping about the big Krayoxx money and smelled a conspiracy to hide it.
Oscar was furious over the $15 million lawsuit and blamed everything on David. Had it not been for the wage case filed against Cicero Pipe, he and Bardall would have never met. Wally managed to broker a truce, and the yelling stopped. He contacted their insurance company and insisted it provide a defense and coverage.
With the big settlement so close, it was much easier to make peace, to smile, even to joke about the image of that little thug Bardall limping into court and trying to convince a jury he, an incompetent arsonist, should be made rich because he failed to burn down a law office.
CHAPTER 34
The e-mail was prefaced with the standard warnings of confidentiality and protected with encryption codes. It was written by Jerry Alisandros and sent to about eighty lawyers, one of whom was Wally Figg. It read:
I regret to inform you that tomorrow’s settlement conference has been canceled by Varrick Labs. This morning I had a lengthy phone conversation with Nicholas Walker, chief in-house counsel for Varrick, during which I was advised that the company has decided to temporarily postpone settlement negotiations. Their strategy has changed somewhat, especially in light of the fact that the Klopeck trial is scheduled to begin in Chicago in four weeks. Varrick now thinks it’s wise to sort of test the waters with an initial trial, see how the facts play out, determine liability, and roll the dice with a real jury. While this is not unusual, I had some very harsh words for Mr. Walker and his company’s rather abrupt change of plans. I suggested they had negotiated in bad faith, and so on, but there is little to be gained by arguing at this point. Since we did not quite reach the point of agreeing on the specifics of a settlement, there is nothing to enforce. It looks as though all eyes will be on the courtroom in Chicago. I’ll keep you posted. JA