Side, some more sleep, back to Shea, poker with the guys at Jimmy’s, and finally a nightcap at the Polo Grounds for SportsCenter. I’m down to a hundred bucks, but I had me a weekend.
Now I’m looking at five days before the next furlough. At the steps of the office I take a good breath, shake my head hard and straighten up. Walking through the oak doors the weekend slips away and the lights inside me dim. I’m a suit again.
CARTER CALLS ME into his office straight away to prep me on a new case. This part of the job isn’t so bad. Every case sounds good the first time you hear it, and I can tell by looking at him that he likes this one.
“How was your weekend, Reasons? Did you get laid?”
“No, sir.”
I call all the lawyers sir or ma’am. They like it, think it’s my military upbringing. Actually it just gives me a kick.
“Young guy like you, good build, what’s the problem?”
“I don’t know, sir. Maybe once I’m a lawyer they’ll come around.”
Carter starts to laugh, stops and squints hard. “Reasons, I can never tell when you’re dicking with me. This wouldn’t be one of those times, would it?”
“No, sir.”
Carter’s not a bad guy. It’s just that he was born with a stick up his ass and nothing’s happened in thirty years to dislodge it. His one goal in life is to make partner, and he thinks the way to do it is to spend a hundred hours a week in the office. He’s probably right. Every case for Carter is a war of attrition—whoever files the most motions wins. That means a lot of shit work for his staff, so he’s not too popular among the paralegals. I get farmed out to him a lot because he doesn’t like working with the girls. He says he likes to swear too much and was raised better than to do it around them. The real reason is he’s afraid he’ll try to fuck one of them. Nobody who wants to make partner in this firm starts down that path. All in all, he’s not so bad. He’ll order in beer if it’s going to be a late night, and wrapping up a big case can mean a long lunch at a titty bar.
“Reasons, we pulled a good one. What does the name Garrett mean to you?”
“Garrett. Wayne. Played third base for the Mets in the seventies. Had a high of sixteen homers in seventy-three.”
“Not quite. Try Garrett, Winston. CEO of Pyramid Publishing. On the board at the Met. Net worth of about twenty million.”
“Wow. Who’s he suing?”
“He’s not suing anybody. His wife is.”
“His wife, sir?”
“Regina Garrett. Big socialite. Always popping up in the paper. A month ago she threw a cocktail party to honor some French designer. Small party, but top-shelf. Real A-list crowd. Had the thing catered by Prego’s, a little Italian outfit. They do appetizers, cheese and crackers, that kind of thing. Well, an hour into the party, six people come down with food poisoning. Not serious, no one kicked the bucket, but apparently a real mess. People losing it out both ends, some not making it to the bathroom. You get the picture.”
“Yes, sir. What caused the poisoning?”
“They traced it to the bean dip. It seems the caterer mixed together two seasonings, cilantro and pegrini. They’re okay by themselves, but combine ’em and the effect on the human digestive system is explosive. Vomiting, diarrhea, the works. Now you and me, maybe we get steamed, demand our money back, that’s the end of it. But to these society types, this kind of thing is the Hindenburg. Their good name, social standing, all that on the line. And I take it this Regina Garrett is no lamb to start with. She wants a hundred thousand dollars to cover her anguish and the damage to her reputation, and a letter of apology sent to each of the guests. What do you think?”
“I don’t know, sir. It sounds a little lightweight to me.”
“That’s because, Reasons, you don’t see the larger picture. This isn’t just about some bad bean dip. Mr. Garrett’s company, Pyramid, is the third-largest publishing house in the city. They probably do five million dollars in legal fees a year. We shine on this one, he’s indicated he’ll steer some of that our way. Now what do you think?”
I think it’s crossed over from lightweight to bullshit.
“I think it sounds like a winner, sir.”
“Good. We depose Prego in half an hour. Mrs. Garrett we do at noon. I want you to sit in on both of them.”
“Yes, sir.”
GIUSEPPE PREGO WALKS into the conference room looking like a man with two weeks to live. The moment I see him I know we’re working the wrong side of this case. He keeps turning his hat in his hands, patting his head with a kerchief. He looks at both lawyers with worry but with deep trust, his whole manner suggesting that some huge mistake has occurred, but he, Giuseppe Prego, is now here to talk to the good people involved and set the matter straight. I like him off the bat. In a deep accent he tells his side of the story.
His American dream started when he opened a twenty-four-hour deli in Gramercy Park in 1970. He and his wife worked round the clock, every day but Christmas. In the eighties they began catering small parties for friends and built a solid reputation for gourmet appetizers. They impressed a few upscale clients with their distinctive hors d’oeuvres and found a profitable niche working just the kind of intimate affair thrown by Regina Garrett. The way Prego tells it he made the bean dip for the party, all right, but not with pegrini.
“You must understand. I work with food twenty-five years. Anybody who work with food know you can’t mix cilantro and pegrini. Never.
“That night, I deliver the hors d’oeuvres myself. I show them all to Mrs. Garrett in the kitchen. She say fine, fine, except the bean dip. She say it not look ‘friendly’ enough. I want to say, ‘Friendly’? What is ‘friendly’? This is cilantro bean dip. People will not talk to it, they will eat it. I want to say this but I don’t, of course. I say, ‘Mrs. Garrett, you want it to look friendly, you put some parsley on top, just a little, the green on the black look nice—you know, friendly.’ I ask her you want me to do it but she say no, she will do it. So I leave, go back to my store. Then later she call up yelling about people sick and about pegrini. I say, ‘Pegrini, what pegrini?’ She hang up and then two days later a lawyer come into my store with papers. Twenty-five years in the same store and I never get papers from a lawyer.”
He says his niece Rosa will back him up. She stayed to work the party and saw Mrs. Garrett dumping a green seasoning into the bean dip before sending her out with the tray.
When he finishes, Prego stands and shakes the hand of everyone in the room. His lawyer, the stenographer, even me and Carter. He looks hugely relieved, dabbing at his face again as he leaves. I’d bet two weeks’ salary the man hasn’t told a lie in his life.
REGINA GARRETT STROLLS in at twelve-fifteen for her noon deposition. One look at her and it’s clear why her hubby kicked all that ass in the business world. If she waited at home for me, I’d stay in the office too. For old Winston’s sake I hope he has something going on the side.
She shows up for the session in a fur, perches her ninety-five pounds on a chair and looks all of us up and down. If her features were a little softer she’d look just like the Grinch. The
