"Yeah, it was beautiful until we got caught."
"Is this something you do in every tobacco trial?"
"We certainly try."
"Why'd you pick Mr. Dupree?"
"We studied him carefully, and decided he'd be easy. Small-town realtor, barely paying his bills, lots of money changing hands with the casinos and all, lots of his friends making big bucks. He fell for it immediately."
"Have you been caught before?"
"We've had to abort scams, but we've never been caught red-handed."
"Until today."
"Not really. Hoppy and Millie might suspect it was somebody working for the tobacco pompany, but they don't know who. So, in that respect, there's still some doubt."
"What's the difference?"
"None."
"Relax, Fitch. I think her husband may have been exaggerating her effectiveness. Nicholas and Millie are quite close, and she hasn't become an advocate for your client."
"Our client."
"Right. Our client. Nicholas hasn't seen the memo."
"You think Hoppy was lying?"
"Would you blame him? Your boys had him convinced he was about to be indicted."
Fitch breathed a little easier and almost smiled. He said, "It's imperative Nicholas talk to Millie tonight. Hoppy will go over in a couple of hours and tell her all about it. Can Nicholas get to her quickly?"
"Fitch, Millie will vote the way he wants. Relax.''
Fitch relaxed. He removed his elbows from the table and tried to smile again. "Just out of curiosity, how many votes do we have right now?"
"Nine."
"Who are the other three?"
"Herman, Rikki, and Lonnie."
"He hasn't discussed Rikki's past with her?"
"Not yet."
"That'll make ten," Fitch said, his eyes dancing, his fingers suddenly twitching. "We can get eleven if we can bump somebody and pick up Shine Royce, right?"
"Look, Fitch, you're worrying too much. You've paid your money, you've hired the best, now relax and wait on your verdict. It's in very good hands."
"Unanimous?" Fitch asked gleefully.
"Nicholas is determined to bring it back unanimous."
Fitch sprang down the steps of the sagging building and bounced along the short sidewalk until he hit the street. For six blocks he whistled and almost skipped in the night air. Jose met him on foot and tried to keep up. He'd never seen his boss in such good spirits.
ON ONE SIDE of the conference room sat seven lawyers who'd each paid a million dollars for the privilege of sharing this event. No one else was in the room, no one but Wendall Rohr, who stood on the other side of the conference table and paced slowly back and forth, speaking softly with measured words, to his jury. His voice was warm and rich, filled with compassion one second and harsh words for Big Tobacco the next. He lectured and he cajoled. He was comical and he was angry. He showed them photographs, and he wrote figures on a chalkboard.
He finished in fifty-one minutes, the shortest rehearsal so far. The closing had to be an hour or less, Harkin's orders. The comments from his peers were fast and mixed, some complimentary but most probing for ways to improve. No tougher audience could be found. The seven had combined for hundreds of closing arguments, arguments which had produced close to half a billion dollars in verdicts. They knew how to extract large sums of money from juries.
They had agreed to park their egos outside the door. Rohr took another beating, something he didn't do well, and agreed to perform again.
It had to be perfect. Victory was so close.
CABLE UNDERWENT similar abuse. His audience was much larger-a dozen lawyers, several jury consultants, lots of paralegals. He was videotaped so he could study himself. He was determined to do it in half an hour. The jury would be appreciative. Rohr would no doubt run longer. The contrast would be nice-Cable the technician sticking to the facts versus Rohr the flamboyant mouthpiece tugging at their emotions.
He delivered his closing, then watched the video. Again and again, throughout Sunday afternoon and deep into the night.
BY THE TIME Fitch arrived at the beach house, he had managed to work himself back into his usual state of cautious pessimism. The four CEO's were waiting, having just finished a fine meal. Jankle was drunk and kept to himself by the fireplace. Fitch took some coffee and analyzed the last-minute efforts of the defense. The questions quickly got around to the wire transfers he'd demanded on Friday; two million from each of the four.
Prior to Friday, The Fund had a balance of six and a half million, certainly more than enough to complete the trial. What was the additional eight million for? And how much was in The Fund now?
Fitch explained that the defense had had a sudden, unplanned expenditure of the grandest proportions.
"Stop the games, Fitch," said Luther Vandemeer of Trellco. "Have you managed to finally purchase a verdict?"
Fitch tried not to lie to these four. They were, after all, his employers. He never told them the complete truth, and they didn't expect him to. But in response to a direct question, especially one of this magnitude, he felt compelled to make some effort at honesty. "Something like that," he said.
"Do you have the votes, Fitch?" asked another CEO.
Fitch paused and looked carefully at each of the four, including Jankle, who was suddenly attentive. "I believe I do," he said.
Jankle jumped to his feet, unsteady but quite focused, and stepped into the center of the room. "Say it again, Fitch," he demanded.
"You heard me," Fitch said. "The verdict has been purchased." His voice couldn't resist a touch of pride.
The other three stood too. All four eased toward Fitch, forming a loose semicircle. "How?" one of them asked.
"I'll never tell," Fitch said coolly. "The details are not important."
"I demand to know," Jankle said.
"Forget it. Part of my job is to do the dirty work while protecting you and your companies. If you want to terminate me, fine. But you'll never know the details."
They stared at him during a long pause. The circle grew tighter. They slowly sipped their drinks and admired their hero. Eight times they'd been to the brink of disaster, and eight times Rankin Fitch had worked his dirty tricks and saved them. Now he'd done it for the ninth time. He was invincible.
And he'd never promised victory before, not like this. Just the opposite. He'd always anguished before each verdict, always predicting defeat and taking pleasure in making them miserable. This was so uncharacteristic.
"How much?" Jankle demanded.
It was something Fitch couldn't hide. For obvious reasons, these four had the right to know where the money went. They had installed a primitive accounting format for The Fund. Each company contributed equal amounts when Fitch said so, and each CEO was entitled to a monthly list of all expenses.
"Ten million," Fitch said.
The drunk barked first. "You've paid ten million dollars to a juror!" The other three were equally shocked.
"No. Not to a juror. Let's put it this way. I've purchased the verdict for ten million dollars, okay? That's all I will say. The Fund now has a balance of four-point-five million. And I'm not going to answer any questions about how the money changed hands."
Maybe a sack of cash under the table might make sense. Five, ten thousand bucks maybe. But it was impossible to picture any of these small-town hicks on the jury possessing brains big enough to dream of ten million dollars. Surely it wasn't all going to one person.