Page 55 of Pro Bono

“I’m actually doing it because I know that if you’d asked him, he would have given it to you. All I ask is that you remember you have kids in the house. If it’s not locked up, they’ll find it. Don’t think they won’t.”

“I’ll be sure to do that,” he said. “And I know these things are expensive. Let me pay you for it.”

“No. I told you, all I ask is that you store it safely.” She paused. “You know, it’s getting late.” She hadn’t looked at the time, and there was no clock visible from there. “You’d be smart to get on the road.”

“I would, but I’d hate to miss seeing Richard.”

“He’s on the soccer team, so he won’t be back from practice until it’s nearly your bedtime. And any afternoon when you head for Los Angeles after around four thirty you’re in rush hour traffic. Fran will be upset ifyou’re not there in time for dinner. And I advise you to think about how you tell her about the gun. I remember she was not a fan of firearms.”

Talbert had no choice but to pick up the gun and the box of bullets and put them in different pockets of his sport coat and walk to the door. When he came close, he leaned toward her intending to give her a hug and a kiss on the cheek, but she turned away. “Thank you again, Tina. Love to Richard.” He stepped out past her. He went two steps and heard the door shut behind him.

He walked to his car quickly, eager to start it and get out of her sight. When he had turned the first corner and was making progress toward the freeway entrance, he tried to feel better, but he couldn’t.

After a mile or two he thought about the way she might feel if he used the gun on himself. It was selfish to do it when he knew she would probably feel guilty and would certainly face some sort of official inquiry about the gun. But that would be in the future, and it would only happen if the future came and he wasn’t in it.

24

When Warren walked in the door, he could hear Vesper and Martha in his office talking. He went to the printer on Martha’s desk, scanned the signed settlement agreement, and sent it to Martha and himself, and then walked through the conference room to the back room and put the original into the safe. A moment later he heard Martha’s voice say, “Holy crap, Charlie.”

Vesper and Martha both came into the conference room. Martha said, “I knew it would be good. You had them tied up and boxed in. I just didn’t think it would be that good or this quick.”

“They were pretty eager to step on this before the word got published somewhere. They also didn’t want to have the SEC, the FTC, the FBI, and the rest of the alphabet descend on them before they could clean up the mess and institute safeguards. The easiest part of this was to pay Vesper, so they’re getting that out of the way.”

“Congratulations, Charlie,” Martha said. “I’m proud of you.” She walked toward her desk in the outer office.

Vesper closed the door, turned to him, and said, “You not only got both companies to give the money back, but together you got them togive me five million bucks. I insist that you take the pay you earned. I looked it up online and the article said it was thirty-three to forty percent.”

“I told you before we got started that I was doing it pro bono publico—for the public good. If nobody fights back when people are being robbed, it just keeps happening. The Bar Association recommends every lawyer do at least fifty hours of pro bono work every year, and I was behind this year anyway. I also think it’s only the fair thing to do after Copes and Minkeagan snatched you to get to me.”

She shrugged. “I’ll have to strain my brain to come up with ways to thank you.”

“After we’re sure this case is really over, buy me dinner. Or tell your friends I’m a good lawyer.”

“I’ll think about it some more.”

Pat Ollonsun came home late for the second evening. He was exhausted. He usually arrived home in the late afternoon, when both Christina and Zelda were at home and unavoidable. They seemed to be in every room at once.

As soon as Christina came to know what he had been doing he would lose her. She would be making airline reservations with her phone on speaker to keep her hands free to pack two suitcases at the same time.

He didn’t want to wake her up with the sound of the garage door opening, so he coasted onto the house’s little parking lot behind the garage and turned off the engine. He listened to the road noise and closed the car door when he heard a motorcycle go by on Mulholland. He went in the back door into the dark kitchen. He could see the blue light abovethe dishwasher door, showing it was running, so Chris had cleaned up after dinner and moved on.

Maybe she was in Zelda’s suite helping Zelda with her homework. That was another advantage to marrying a woman from a rich family. They were certain to have expensive educations, so they knew how to do just about anything the kids were learning, or could teach themselves to do it.

He went up the back stairs from the kitchen. The second set of stairs was an old-fashioned thing to have in a modern house, but the houses in this complex had been designed for people who were likely to have live-in servants. He climbed the stairs as quietly as he could, stepping slowly and shifting as much of his weight as he could to the railings. He made it to the second floor, looked down the hall, and saw that Zelda’s suite at the far end of the house was dark, and so was the master suite at the near end. He was relieved. They both were asleep. It was still possible that they had been interpreting his absences as minor variations in the market-dictated hours of a financial advisor.

He took off his shoes and walked quietly to the master suite, opened the door, and stepped into his walk-in closet. He took off his coat and pants in the dark, and then heard, “Pat?” behind him. He turned. “You startled me,” he said. “I hope I didn’t wake you up.”

She said, “Are you kidding? Do you think I’ve been sleeping peacefully when my husband has been missing?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I haven’t been missing. I slept beside you last night. I just had to get to work early today and stay late tonight. I’ve been dealing with some things that took a lot of time and attention.”

“What the hell, Pat? Francesca called me before dawn to tell me all about how you and Ron had fought off robbers. You could have told me yourself, but you didn’t. I don’t know what I did to deserve to behumiliated in front of my sister, but I guess I’ll find out in the fullness of time.” She flipped the switch and they were bathed in searing light. She stopped a foot from him and stared at his face. “Jesus. You look terrible. Have you taken an hour from this oh-so-important business to go see a doctor?” She was wearing a gray silky nightgown that clung to her, and he could not ignore how beautiful she looked, and how angry.

“I haven’t seen a doctor, but my face looks worse than it is. I’ve kept it clean, and I’m sure it’s all superficial.”

“Pat, you could have all kinds of things—a fracture of an eye socket, a concussion, even a brain bleed. You don’t know.”

“I guess you’re right. I’ll go to the doctor tomorrow.”

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