Page 29 of Pro Bono

When the next call came, he went down the hall to the elevator and pressed the down button. He arrived at the B level, and when the door slid open, Copes and Minkeagan stepped inside. He held the Close Door button, handed each of them a phone and charger, and said, “Use it to call me or each other. Nobody else. I set them to automatically dial. You’re One, you’re Two, I’m Three.”

“What about the guns you took?” Minkeagan said.

“You agreed you won’t break any more laws. It’s illegal for you to possess firearms in this state, and they wouldn’t help us claim the money.”

Minkeagen’s eyes seemed to turn icy, but Copes said quietly, “Let it go.” But then Copes looked at Warren. “For now.”

Warren pressed the button for six, and the elevator began to rise. “Throw away the phones you’ve been using.” When it stopped, he pushed the B button and got out. “I’ll call you when I’m ready to see the papers.” The door closed again and the elevator containing the two men headed back down.

Martha looked up as he entered, and said, “Now are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“I’m going to try. I’ve told you the important part, which is that Vesper Ellis is alive and well. The main carryover problem is that I dragged the police in right away and persuaded them that it was a kidnapping. Now, among other things, I’m trying to keep the police on our side after I wasted their time and tested their trust and strained my credibility.”

“That’s all you’re going to tell me?”

“If you know specifics, your legal situation will be drastically worse than it is now. Women’s prisons are better than men’s, but still no place that you want to be. I wouldn’t be your friend if I were to drag you deeper into this.”

“What gave you the idea you’re my friend? I’m an employee.”

“The employee thing is not a good defense. But let’s move on to today’s issues. We need to get back to work on Vesper Ellis’s problems. What I think we need to do is get the paperwork ready to file the lawsuits against Great Oceana and Founding Fathers. We can fill in everything but the date. I’ll write the body of each suit today. I’ll include the specific withdrawals and transfers approved by her husband after he was dead, and the misstatements of values and prices and so on that I flagged in the monthly reports from both companies.”

“What can I do?” she said.

“Look for anything in the reports that I missed. Remember the statute of limitations. There’s no point in digging up any felony more than three years old, or misdemeanor more than one year old. We’ve already got enough to prove this wasn’t some normal set of mistakes or a couple faulty procedures. It’s a pattern of theft, but I don’t want to miss any dramatic examples.”

“Right. What about the other companies?”

“We’ve narrowed the problem down to two of the five companies, so we can just put the other three sets of reports in the safe and return them to her later.” He paused. “Am I forgetting anything?”

“Not that I know of, except that as soon as you file suits against two big firms, there will be plenty of work to keep us busy.”

“Right. So let’s do as much as we can in advance. Conference adjourned.”

By the end of the business day, the two lawsuits had taken something like their final form. Warren inserted statements in several appropriate places that the list of acts included in the suit was not exhaustive, and that it was the responsibility of the fiduciary entity to produce timely and accurate accounting for all investments.

When this stage was reached, it was already past working hours, and Martha had left. He was just preparing to follow when he heard the ring of the phone on Martha’s desk. He looked at his phone and pressed the lighted button. “Charles Warren and associates,” he said.

A woman’s voice said, “I’m calling from Great Oceana Monetary Fund. Mr. Foshin, Vice President for Legal Matters, would like to meet with Mr. Warren.” Warren prepared himself to enter the unreal back-and-forth that often happened with these calls.

“This is Charles Warren. When would Mr. Foshin like to meet?”

“If possible, sometime tomorrow, or if that’s too soon, the next day.”

“I have an opening at ten.”

“Oh, I’m afraid ten is already taken for a meeting.”

“That’s too bad.”

“This is something that was arranged long before he received your correspondence. There are twenty attorneys attending, and some of them are flying in from our offices in London, New York, Chicago, Hong Kong, Bangkok.”

Warren had known how big Great Oceana was before he’d ever heard of Vesper Ellis. The fact that the woman was trying to use this intimidation tactic made him realize he had struck a nerve. Warren said, “Okay. Why don’t you give me some times when Mr. Foshin can come to our office?”

She was taken aback. “I …” She paused. “Let me look.” She went silent again as though she were looking at a schedule. “That meeting is expected to keep him busy until one, and he’s got to make a plane at four, meaning his driver will have to pick him up here at two, the way the airport has been.” She was about to make the case for Warren going to their giant offices, where they would have a chance to surround and overwhelm him with a mob of lawyers.

“Well, okay then,” Warren said. “I guess maybe we’ll have better luck another day, possibly after the lawsuit has been filed and the Great Oceana legal staff has had a chance to go over it. He might prefer that.”

“I’m not able to comment about substantive legal matters. Let me just check with him. Do you mind being on hold while I do that?”

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