It was the strangest thing, Phoebe said not long into the surprise call from Beverly, because the day before yesterday some guy had called her too, claimed he was Jeff Kerr looking for Claire. She knew immediately the guy was faking, but she strung him along anyway to see what he wanted. She hadn't talked to Claire in four years.

Beverly and Phoebe compared notes about their calls, though Beverly didn't mention the meeting with Swanson or the jury trial he was investigating. They reminisced about the college days in Lawrence, which seemed so long ago. They lied about their acting careers and the speed with which each was progressing. They promised to get together at the first opportunity. Then they said good-bye.

Beverly called back an hour later, as if she'd forgotten something. She'd been thinking about Claire. They'd parted on less than good terms, and this bothered her. It was a trivial matter they'd never resolved. She wanted to see Claire, to patch things up, if for no other reason than to relieve the guilt. But she didn't have a clue where to find her. Claire had disappeared so fast and so thoroughly.

At this point, Beverly decided to take a chance. Since Swanson had mentioned the possibility of a prior name, and since she remembered the mystery surrounding Claire's past, she decided to cast the bait and see if Phoebe would take it. "Claire, was not her real name, you know?" she said, acting quite effectively.

"Yeah, I know," Phoebe said.

"She told me once, but I can't remember now."

Phoebe hesitated. "She had the prettiest name, not that Claire was bad."

"What was it?"

"Gabrielle."

"Oh yes, Gabrielle. And what was her last name?"

"Brant. Gabrielle Brant. She was from Columbia, Missouri, that's where she went to school, at the university there. Did she tell you the story?"

"Maybe, but I don't remember."

"She had a boyfriend who was abusive and crazy. She tried to ditch him, and he began stalking her. That's why she left town and changed her name."

"Never heard that. What's her parents' name?"

"Brant. I think her father's dead. Her mother was a professor of medieval studies at the university."

"Is she still there?"

"I have no idea."

"I'll try to find her through her mom. Thanks, Phoebe."

It took an hour to get Swanson on the phone. Beverly asked him how much the information was worth. Swanson called Fitch, who needed some good news. He authorized a ceiling of five thousand dollars, and Swanson called her back with an offer of half that. She wanted more. They negotiated for ten minutes and settled on four thousand, which she wanted in cash and in hand before she'd say a word.

All four of the CEO's were in town for the closing arguments and the verdict, so Fitch had a small fleet of finely appointed corporate jets at his disposal. He sent Swanson to New York on the Pynex plane.

Swanson arrived in the city at dusk and checked into a small hotel near Washington Square. According to a roommate, Beverly was not in, was not working, but she might be at a party. He called the pizzeria where she worked, and was told she had been fired. He called the roommate again, and got himself hung up on when he asked too many questions. He slammed the phone down and stomped around his room. How the hell do you find a person on the streets of Greenwich Village? He walked a few blocks to her apartment, his feet freezing in the cold rain. He drank coffee where he'd met her before while his shoes thawed and dried. He used a pay phone for another fruitless chat with the same roommate.

MARLEE WANTED one last meeting before the big Monday. They met in her little office. Fitch could've kissed her feet when he saw her.

He decided to tell her everything about Hoppy and Millie and his great scam gone bad. Nicholas had to work on Millie immediately, to soothe her before she contaminated her friends. After all, Hoppy had told Napier and Nitchman early Sunday that Millie was now a fierce advocate for the defense, that she was in there showing copies of the Robilio memo to her comrades. Was this true? If so, what in the world would she do now when she learned the truth about Hoppy? She'd be furious, no doubt. She'd flip-flop immediately. She'd probably tell her friends what a heinous thing the defense had done to her husband in an effort to pressure her.

It would be a disaster, no question about it.

Marlee listened straight-faced as Fitch unraveled the story. She wasn't shocked, but quite amused to see Fitch sweat.

"I think we should bump her," Fitch declared when he was finished.

"Do you have a copy of the Robilio memo?" she asked, completely unmoved.

He picked one out of his briefcase and handed it to her. "Some of your work?" she asked after she'd read it.

"Yes. It's completely bogus."

She folded it and placed it under her chair. "A helluva scam, Fitch."

"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.

They hung together near Fitch in stunned silence, each having the same thoughts. Surely Fitch had worked his wizardry on ten of them. That would make sense. He'd gotten ten and offered them a million each. That made a helluva lot more sense. Ten fresh new millionaires on the Gulf Coast. But how do you hide that kind of money?

Fitch savored the moment. "Of course, nothing is guaranteed," he said. "You never know until the jury conies back."

Well, it damned sure better be guaranteed, at the rate of ten million bucks. But they said nothing. Luther Vandemeer backed away first. He poured a stiffer brandy and sat on the piano bench near the baby grand. Fitch would tell him later. He'd wait a month or two, get Fitch up to New York on business, and pick the story out of him.

Fitch said he had things to do. He wanted each of the four in the courtroom tomorrow for closing arguments. Don't sit together, he instructed.

P/S: Copyright -->www_novelfreereadonline_Com

***