Chapter 25: But Wait! There’s More!

November 20, 1991, Chicago, Illinois

“And Elyse dressed you down properly for being so insensitive?” Jessica asked as our trio walked to the hospital on Wednesday morning.

“She did. And I have the welts on my butt to show for it!”

“Welts?” Kara asked.

“Elyse decided I had been a very bad boy and needed to be punished! You know she has a flogger!”

Kara burst out laughing, then with an evil grin, swatted me on the butt.

“Ow! Damn it! It’s still tender!”

“Good!” she said primly. “Perhaps you’ll learn a lesson from this about toying with people!”

“I didn’t MEAN to hurt her,” I protested.

“And yet you did. What does your buddy Kant say about supposedly unintended consequences?”

I sighed, “Basically, if you know that the result could happen, even if it’s a small chance, you were OK with that result when you did whatever thing might cause it.”

“I bet you KNEW you could hurt her, didn’t you?” Kara asked, stopping, putting her hands on her hips.

“Yes, of course. But I was careful not to.”

“Until some sexy little Japanese thing shows up and you completely lose what little brain function you have!” Jessica said, her arms crossed.

“Oh, his ‘brain’ was functioning,” Kara smirked. “Just the small one.”

“Yes, like most men,” Jessica agreed. “But our husband is NOT like most men. Usually.”

“I messed up. I’m sorry!”

“So what are you going to do about it?” Jessica demanded.

“She doesn’t work today, so I can’t do anything today. She only works Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays.”

“Then I guess you’re having lunch out tomorrow. And you are going to make it right with her!”

“Yes, Babe. I promise.”

“I swear, at times you are such a MAN it’s not even funny. I thought you were different.”

“I said I was sorry. I got it. There’s no need to keep beating on me!”

Kara swatted me on the butt again and I grimaced.

“Elyse appears to have taken care of that quite nicely!”

She had, but the sex afterwards was some of the best she and I’d had in years. The thing was, saying THAT to Kara and Jessica at that moment would lead to me being found in a ditch, beaten bloody, with my balls in my mouth. I preferred to keep them where they were, and thus, perhaps uncharacteristically, safely kept my mouth shut!

November 21, 1991, Chicago, Illinois

“You have a LOT of nerve showing up here,” Crystal hissed. “Go sit in that booth in Angie’s section!”

“I came to apologize for being a cad,” I said.

“You think it’s that easy?”

“Crystal, I goofed. I’m sorry!”

“Goofed? Goofed? You did everything but throw her down on the table and fuck her in front of me!”

I didn’t like where this was going. It was almost a reprise of my conversation with Elyse.

“Shh! You’re making a scene! I kissed her hand. That’s all.”

“A scene? Hah! That was you! If what you did wasn’t a request to have sex with her, I don’t know what would be! And that was after you made me tell you I was interested. Well, you can FORGET IT. I wouldn’t let you touch me if my life depended on it!”

“May I at least sit in your booth?”

“No!” she spat angrily. “I don’t even want to talk to you!”

“I did say I was sorry. I’ll go sit over there, but I am sorry and if I can, I want to find a way to make it up to you.”

She turned on her heel and walked away. I went and sat in one of Angie’s booths and got a serious cold shoulder along with my lunch. Angie was maybe a year older than Crystal, and I guessed she was a UofC student as well. I’d made a complete mess of things. All I could do was return the following Tuesday and try again. If that didn’t work, then I’d go to another diner which I had frequented before this one had opened.

Back at the office, Penny started to ask me about Crystal, but I looked her off. She shrugged and went back to work. I knew I wasn’t in a mood to program, so I started on some paperwork. I hated doing it, but given that I was already in a foul mood, it wasn’t as if it could ruin my day. About an hour later, Keri buzzed me and said Jamie was on the line.

“Hey, what’s up?” I asked when she put him through.

“Well, they were pretty upset. They said they had a deal with the legal counsel for the insurance company and we were trying to change it after the fact. They said it was bad-faith negotiation and that they were going to complain to the judge about it.”

“Wonderful. Now what?”

“We have one out. We never authorized the insurance carrier to use the technically unrelated suit in their negotiations. We only authorized them to negotiate the original suit, in accordance with the insurance policy. It was BLS’ attorneys who raised the issue of our lawsuit and the insurance carrier agreed to include it in the negotiations without talking to us.”

“Which means what?”

“No bad faith on our part, and we also now have a stick to use against the insurance carrier. They should have come to us BEFORE they reached the agreement and told us about it. That’s actually a pretty big screw up on their part.”

“Why would they do it?”

“I’m guessing because BLS filed a motion to consolidate the cases. Remember, we had talked about doing that, but after I talked with Nelson, Reed, and Pulver, we decided against it because it would make things more difficult for Nelson. Well, the motion hasn’t been argued yet. I’m guessing that the insurance company lawyers saw the motion and assumed, wrongly, that we weren’t going to oppose it because we hadn’t filed a response yet. But our response isn’t due until next week.”

“What’s the bottom line?”

“We can’t get in trouble for bad faith negotiations because the insurance company acted without authority. We use that against the insurance company to tell them they have to go back to the bargaining table, AND we tell BLS we’ll settle our suit for twice whatever they negotiate with the insurance company, OR drop it if they drop us from theirs. Your dad got this exactly right. I think the two of you missed your true calling!”

I chuckled, “My dad is a hard-nosed businessman. I guess he’s been sued a dozen times and decided to play hardball. He didn’t realize I’d made the unilateral decision to not bring suit against BLS for stealing Jefferson away from us and thus gaining access to trade secrets. He also didn’t realize we hadn’t contacted the insurance carrier. I made a mistake, and he’s correcting it.”

“It’s going to be tough to make the case for theft of trade secrets. BLS will point to the fact that you circulated the non-compete agreements after he left.”

“Yes, and I’ll argue that our company policy, which you helped write, forbids disclosure of any systems, methods, programs, or anything like that. So yes, we didn’t make them sign non-competes, but the policy was there. You insisted on it.”

“Indeed. Remember what I said about going to trial, though. You’ll have twelve random people from Boston, most likely none of whom have even used a computer, sitting in judgment of the case. They’ll see two rich businessmen fighting like toddlers and decide to pay whoever they like the best.”

“Oh, come on,” I groaned. “Jamie, I know you went to law school. Evidence? I’m sure you’ve heard of that?”

“I have. And I’m telling you that you could have an airtight case and lose because they decide they don’t like the color of your suit, or your beard, or the way you talk. Or that you’re from Chicago and BLS is owned by a guy in Boston. I’m not kidding. Why the hell do you think I want to stay out of court? It’s a crapshoot!”

“Damn you’re cynical! Even more than I am.”

“Look, quite often, the legal system gets it right. It really does. But in a case like this, which is, and I say this with all due respect, ‘he-said-she-said’, you can’t predict how it’s going to turn out. Nobody can. That’s why BLS would agree to settle. That’s why the insurance company would agree to settle. You’re the idealist here. The rest of us are realists.”

“I hate you, Jamie,” I sighed. “And your whole damned profession. The only job a lawyer has is to protect you from other members of his profession! It’s like a gang collecting protection money so other members of their gang don’t torch your store!”

“That’s Steve Adams rant #12,” Jamie laughed. “Though you didn’t make the exception for Melanie and criminal defense attorneys that you usually do.”

I shook my head and relaxed.

“Let me know how it turns out, Counselor, and I’ll see you Saturday night!”

“Thanks, Steve.”

I hung up the phone and started chuckling.

“Wait, you were pissed!” Penny observed. “Why are you laughing?”

“Because Pete, Jamie, and some of the guys have a list of things I rant about and he told me that was ‘Rant #12’!”

Penny giggled, “Rant #1 is about how prudish Americans are. Rant #2 is about how parents treat teenagers like toddlers. Should I go on?”

“YOU knew? YOU?” I spat, but I was laughing.

“Terry showed me. I was laughing so hard I was crying. Pete has you pegged. I mean, to a ‘T’!”

“Deputy US Marshal or not, I AM going to kill him!”

Jamie’s jesting at the end of the call had put me in a much better mood. I tossed the paperwork back in the ‘In’ box and started working with Penny on some changes to the testing software we were supporting for Dante. Sam wasn’t up to speed on it yet, because she’d been doing some database work on the medical software. It was quicker if I helped Penny, and we knocked out the changes by the end of the day. Penny sent a note to Elizabeth Darnell, the new QA person we’d hired, letting her know it was ready for testing, and then we left. She with Terry, and I with Kara.

“She basically told me to get lost,” I said in response to Jessica’s question about how things had gone with Crystal.

“She probably needs some time to calm down. Try again on Tuesday.”

“That was my plan. If she still won’t talk to me, I’ll go someplace else for lunch on Tuesdays for a while.”

“Before I forget, when is Bethany arriving?” Jessica asked.

“Wednesday evening. Her parents will be here as well. I’m pretty sure they’re all coming together. Jesse is stoked, as you can imagine.”

“And you’re going to Milford the following weekend?”

“Yes. I need to have one of my face-to-face meetings with Doctor Mercer.”

“You haven’t mentioned anything about Stephanie, and she’s been pretty scarce.”

“Ed’s taking care of that,” I said. “He’s acting on Doctor Mercer’s orders to keep her away from me. Not that she wants much to do with me given the fact that I more or less ratted her out.”

“You had to, Tiger. You had to! If I suspected for one second that you even considered that offer, I’d be gone and you would never see your children ever again!”

“Jess, relax,” Kara said before I could say anything. “HE told us about it. We didn’t drag it out of him or anything. And it’s why he talked to Ed about it!”

“Sorry,” Jessica sighed. “I guess I’m just on edge from reading about the stuff that happened when Steve came back from Sweden. Him telling Stephanie that he would do it and the teasing and stuff. It makes my stomach turn.”

“How far along are you?” I asked.

“July. After Pete bounced Steve off the hood of his Mustang. And well-deserved, I might add.”

“That’s when I started to seriously formulate my rule about girls who were involved with other guys. It took some time, and it evolved, but bouncing off the hood of that car is where it started.”

“Too bad you didn’t hit your head. Hard. So much of what I’m reading is stomach-turning. Did Jennifer and Stephanie...”

“Keep reading, Jess. You need to see how things developed.”

“I’m not sure I can. I’m seeing some scary implications. Very scary.”

“I’m not trying to be a jerk, but read or don’t read. I can’t change the past. I’m not hiding anything from you about it.”

Well, the mob connections, but that was as much for her own good as mine. Only Elyse really had knowledge that something was going on, though it was possible Jennifer and Bethany had some inkling because of things that had happened in Milford. But those were so long in the past, and neither of them had said anything about the FBI investigation, so I felt pretty safe in that regard. Stephanie and Ed did know, but only tangentially. And of course, I’d done nothing in quite some time.

“I feel dirty reading some of it. You and Melanie seemed to have a pretty stormy relationship.”

I chuckled, “That’s one way to put it. I’m surprised you didn’t mention her suicide attempt. Or her Prom.”

“Your journals are worse than a TV soap opera! So much is going on, I can’t keep track of all of it, nor can I even remember all of it. And some things probably don’t need to be discussed.”

“I suppose. I assume you can see the parallels between when Jennifer left and when you left?”

“Yes, of course. May I ask why you never took Mikael up on his offer to share Katt?”

“Because of the developing sense of my rule, and because I was afraid she’d dump Mikael. Then later on, the rule was solid. You’ll see, but the offer was even made when I was there for their wedding!”

“Now that’s just bizarre!”

“What isn’t in my life?” I chuckled, then realized that I’d written Mikael’s request into my journal. “Uhm, I do need to tell you something.”

Kara grabbed my arm and squeezed.

“What?”

“I wrote it in my journal. You won’t get to it for months, but you will. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to upset you.”

“And what’s that?” Jessica asked pensively.

“When I was in Sweden, Mikael made the offer again. But this time it was because they were having trouble conceiving, and the tests show he’s the problem.”

We were just at the steps to the house, but Jessica stopped short.

“And I’m only hearing about this now because why?” she spat.

“Because of Carla. I turned Mikael down FLAT. I didn’t even discuss it with him. I said ‘no’, told him why, and that was the end of it. Katt apologized to me before I left for him even asking.”

“Did YOU know about this Kara?” Jessica said accusingly.

“Yes. And I strongly advised him not to tell you. Actually, I basically ordered him not to tell you.”

Jessica turned and went up the steps without a word.

“Why did you do that?” Kara asked.

“Because I wrote about it in my journal. Can you imagine her finding that six months from now? Without me having said anything?”