The Color of Law_ A Novel - Mark Gimenez [70]
“Relocation costs?”
“He said I had to leave town. He said my life would be better that way. He said I didn’t really have a choice, that if I pressed charges against Clark, his father would destroy me. He said they would bring out my prior sex life at trial, make me look like a whore.”
“What was his name, this lawyer?”
“I don’t think he told me.”
“What did he look like?”
“Like a lawyer. Old. Bald. Creepy. The way he looked at me and talked to me—my God, I’d been raped! He acted like it was just business.”
Scott ended the call and he knew. Lots of old lawyers he knew were bald and most were creepy. But he knew one such lawyer who would view paying off a rape victim as just business.
“You knew about Hannah Steele?”
“Of course.”
Scott had driven directly back to the office, parked in the underground garage, taken the elevator straight to the sixty-third floor, and hurried down the hall to Dan Ford’s office. He was now staring in disbelief at his senior partner, who was looking at Scott with a bemused expression.
“Scotty, you think this is the first time something like this has happened—college girl claiming a rich boy raped her? Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t, but she wanted money, she got money, everyone’s happy.”
“She didn’t seem so happy when I talked to her.”
Dan shrugged. “Seller’s remorse.”
“And you just bribed her to drop her complaint? Threatened to destroy her by bringing out her sexual history at trial?”
“Bribed her? Threatened?” Dan laughed. “How many girls have you paid off for Tom Dibrell? How many times have you threatened to bring up their sexual histories at trial if they didn’t settle? Do you still use my ‘every swinging dick’ line?”
When Dan had first taught him that tactic, it had seemed so clever, so goddamn lawyerly clever. As it had when Scott used it on Frank Turner, famous plaintiffs’ lawyer, negotiating a settlement with Tom’s last girl—what was her name, Nadine? Now, after talking to Hannah Steele, it didn’t seem so clever.
Scott sat down on the sofa and said weakly, “Tom’s girls didn’t claim rape. They claimed sexual harassment.”
Dan dismissed Scott’s comment with a wave of his hand.
“Semantics. Sexual harassment, rape—bottom line, someone got screwed. Scotty, my boy, you did exactly what a lawyer’s supposed to do, exactly what I taught you to do: you settled a legal dispute for your client. Just as I did.”
Even more weakly: “Doesn’t make it fair.”
Dan laughed again. “Fair? Fair ain’t got nothing to do with the law, son. Fair is where you go to see farm animals and ride the rides.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about Hannah?”
“You didn’t need to know, Scotty. Why didn’t you tell me you hired a PI to go digging into Clark’s past?”
“Dan, I really believe Clark beat and raped Hannah.”
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, so do I. Of course, I believed all the others, too.”
“The others? There were more?”
“Seven, counting Hannah.” Dan shook his head. “That little fuckup cost his dad almost three million, just buying off girls. Plus, of course, my fee: twenty-five thousand dollars.”
“Twenty-five thousand dollars to buy off a rape victim?”
Another bemused look from his senior partner. “As I recall, you charged Dibrell fifty thousand to buy off his last girl.”
Scott’s face felt hot. “I thought it was just business.”
“It is, Scotty. It’s just business. Clark’s girls were just business, Dibrell’s girls were just business, and this is just business.”
“Not to Shawanda. It’s her life.” Scott met Dan’s gaze. “I can’t drop it, Dan.”
“Sure you can…because I’m asking you to. Scotty, are you going to say no to Mack McCall—to me—for a goddamn heroin junkie? For a prostitute?”
“No…for her daughter.”
“Her daughter?”
“Yeah. She needs her mother and her mother needs me. And I might be able to save her life.”
“Don’t start believing your own bullshit, Scott.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your campaign speech.