“Oh no.” Judy sighed. “Then get him somebodyawesome. You do so many favors that somebody has to owe you one. It doesn’t have to be you.”
“But I wasn’t going to charge him. He doesn’t have that much money.” Mary brought her up to date about the bone marrow transplant, since Judy already knew about Rachel’s cancer.
“Maybe you can get Simon a discount, out of professional courtesy?”
“Nowadays?”
“I can try and call some of my friends.”
“And piss Bennie off? I don’t want to put you in that position.”
“Mare, this sucks. But you shouldn’t take this case.” Judy touched her arm. “Tell Simon why. He’ll understand.”
“No, he wouldn’t, and even if he did, Feet wouldn’t. Neither would my father.” Mary couldn’t imagine telling Simon she was referring him out, much less Feet, The Tonys, or her father. The word would spread. She couldn’t let the entire neighborhood down.
“So what are you gonna do?”
“I don’t know,” Mary said, though she did. Her chest went suddenly tight. She felt as if a curtain had fallen between them. “I’m just surprised you would take her side.”
“I’m not taking her side,” Judy shot back, pained. “But I don’t want to see you get in trouble with Bennie—”
“I won’t get in trouble with her. She’s not my boss anymore, she’s my partner. And we used to get in trouble with her all the time. We were a united front.”
“Okay, then I meant square off against her. Cross swords with her. You know how tough she is.” Judy recoiled, stung. “Besides, we’re still best friends. We’re united. We just disagree.”
“Is that possible?”
“Of course,” Judy answered, finding a reassuring smile. “Don’t get allGodfatheron me. I’m your bestie. I love you.”
“I know.” Mary felt torn. “Sorry I snapped.”
“You need an emergency muffin.”
“I need to look at that rulebook again,” Mary said, getting an idea.
CHAPTER FOUR
Bennie sat at her desk and stared at her notes without really seeing them. She usually felt jazzed before a deposition because it was the first time she would encounter her adversary. Plenty of lawyers played nice, warming up the witness only to work him over at trial, but she wasn’t built that way. Her litigation strategy was to assert her dominance from the outset and never let up. There was a reason she had a coffee mug that readI CAN SMELL FEAR. Actually, she had two of them. One was a gift, and she’d bought the other one in case the first one broke.
But this morning, Bennie didn’t feel jazzed. She tried again to concentrate on her notes, which she’d handwritten on yellow legal pads with a ballpoint pen that made satisfyingly bumpy ridges on the paper. She loved computers as much as everybody else, but there was something about a fresh legal pad that got her juices going. Bennie Rosato loved everything about being a lawyer and she was born with what lawyers called a “justice bone,” which ached whenever somebody was being treated unfairly. For that reason, she’d been looking forward to her deposition today, but her mind kept wandering. Her fight with Mary gnawed at the edges of her brain.
Bennie’s gaze strayed around her office, with its messy bookshelves stuffed with binders, legal cases, clipped articles, and textbooks from law school, which looked older than usual, perhaps because she herself was vintage. Whatever. Across from her desk were two patterned chairs, and all four walls were covered with awards, citations, and certificates she’d gotten from public-interest law groups all over the country, and the American Bar Association. Acrylic and glass awards filled the entire shelf, and her gaze stopped on one of them, given for exemplifying ethics in the practice of law.
Believe it or not, it’s not a settled question.
Bennie got up from her desk in frustration. She crossed to her bookshelves and started digging through all the crap until she found a copy of the model rules, then flipped to the provisions regarding conflicts of interest and read aloud: “‘A lawyer who represents a corporation or other organization does not, by virtue of that representation, necessarily represent any constituent or affiliated organization, such as a parent or subsidiary—’”
Bennie stopped, surprised. This wasn’t the way she remembered the rule, but it must’ve been amended. She kept reading, “… ‘the lawyer for an organization is not barred… unless the circumstances are such that the affiliate should also be considered a client of the lawyer…’”
“Aha!” Bennie got the gist, reassured. Maybe the rule wasn’t as black-and-white as it used to be, but bottom line, each case had to be analyzed in its individual circumstances. So Bennie was right, and circumstances clearly prohibited Mary from representing OpenSpace against Dumbarton. It was good to be right, and Bennie never tired of it. She closed the book with a satisfying slap and slid it back onto the shelf, just as there was a knock on the door.
“Come in, Sam!” Bennie was expecting her old friend Sam Freminet, who’d sent her the client she was representing this morning.
“Good morning, honey!” Sam entered the office and kissed her on the cheek, and Bennie breathed in his spicy aftershave, since he always smelled better than she did. He looked better, too, his reddish hair in a short feathery cut, his small blue eyes bright behind his rimless glasses with earpieces of tan plastic, and a tan-patterned silk tie and tan suit of light wool, undoubtedly custom-tailored. Sam was one of the most prosperous bankruptcy lawyers in the city and he always dressed expensively, an irony that wasn’t lost on him.
“Good morning, Sam.”
“Why are you so frowny? Getting ready to destroy the enemy?”
