Chapter 10

Opening up an envelope he received in the mail Mark noted the size of the check from the law firm of Peters and Montgomery for the training he had done. It would be nice if he could count on receiving these checks regularly but he knew his bread and butter way of making a living was in selling energy units. He would just endorse and deposit this check in his investment account with his discount broker.

Stopping at JG Electronics to drop off a contract on a new energy unit order he ran into Mike Strickland who was the factory representative for the turbine component in the energy units Mark was selling. Mike was a personable guy and insisted on taking Mark and Jack out to lunch. JG Electronics was a good customer of Mike’s company.

During the lunch, Mark asked Mike if anything new was going on with the electricity-generating turbines.

“Funny you should ask that. It has been all over the news that we and some of our competitors have been working on increasing the output of these energy units without increasing their size. In about thirty days we are going to be announcing that our new model named “Mercury,” will produce double the present output. We can do this by tweaking the configuration of the fan blades and installing a second turbine the blades turn. Going from three to four blades and extending them to a nine-foot diameter gives us the added torque necessary to do this. This will be a game-changer in home energy units. There will be an increase in the overall cost but only about thirty percent since the base, poll-mount, pole, and labor to install all remain the same. We think our sales will double. For the average homeowner, the payback should drop from around ten years to around seven years because of the increased output. There should be an increase in your sales because of this.”

Both Mark and Jack said they were happy to hear this good news.

This new model could enable Mark to double his sales. Jack would need to add another crew to do the installations. Mark was already thinking about how he could revise his ads to announce these improvements.

After work that evening Mark was back at home when he received a phone call. The caller ID showed it was Conway who was calling. Answering the call he heard Claudia’s voice. He also knew he needed to be careful in what he said in talking to her.

“Congratulations on the baby, how are he and you doing?”

“Scott is doing fine and Tom and I are so happy. We thought that it would never happen but now that it did we are proud parents.”

“That is great to hear but can I ask why you are calling?”

“The reason that I am calling is that I haven’t seen you in a while and I was thinking of periodically coming into Austin. If you are available I would like to see you and talk to you.”

Mark wasn’t sure how he should respond especially if what he suspected was true. It was possible that Claudia wanted another child and was looking for Mark to donate his sperm. He knew he received pleasure in making this donation but it was something he needed to think about.

“I am pretty busy selling these energy units right now. If you will text me when you plan on being in town, I will let you know if I am available.”

Ending the conversation he wondered what he would do if he did receive such a text from her. Her phoning him gave all indication she wanted to see him. He did know he enjoyed making love with her, especially with the body she had.

One day Mark received a phone call from Sandra Holmes who said she was a Casualty Director for a large insurance company that had a mega claim office located in Dallas. She said Larry Williams had recommended Mark to her and explained why she was calling.

“While most of the lawsuits we handle are settled before trial, some do go to a verdict. We usually follow what our defense attorney is recommending but there are times we would like a second opinion on how the trial is going. This is especially true in low-limits cases with questionable liability because if a verdict comes in for more than the policy limits, we probably will get sued. Our insured in return for not being pursued by the other side for this excess amount over his policy limits will sign with the other side and sue us for acting in bad faith in not settling the case. They will do that despite when they reported the accident they may have told us they weren’t at fault for the accident. Let me say that our company named in a lawsuit is not good for business and defending those types of lawsuits is expensive.”

“What I would like to do is to hire you when we have such a low-limits case being tried in the Austin area. We want you to attend one day of trial after the voir dire is done and the actual testimony is being given. Larry says you are excellent at reading body language so I want you to give us your impression of how the jury is reacting and who they may be favoring. This will tell us if we should reassess our position in any way. There should be no written reports but later in the day or first thing the next morning, phone the file handler and tell them what your thoughts are from what you have seen. Will you do this?”

Mark said he could do this. They agreed on a fee for doing this which would be more than what he makes in the way of commission for selling an energy unit. Since most lawsuits are settled she estimated that these types of assignments would be about one every two months but there was a trial like this starting next week.

Sandra gave him the date which was next Tuesday of a case that was scheduled for trial. She asked him if the case did go to trial to attend the second day of trial and to phone in his opinion on how it was going. She said Mark will be contacted if the case settles and there is no trial.

With all of this going on Mark signed in to the Truman high school web page and said he was no longer available to substitute teach. He could always go back to doing it if his situation changed. He made a mental note to call Jill soon and ask her out.

Receiving no call to the contrary, Mark went to the courthouse to monitor this trial that was proceeding. In watching the goings-on he could see it was about a man who was struck by a car and suffered a broken arm. It also become clear as the trial continued that his man ran out into traffic at mid-block from between parked cars in an attempt to cross the street.

After the trial ended for the day Mark turned his phone back on since this judge asked that it be turned off and not just be silenced when in the courtroom. Mark phoned his impressions of the trial to the file handler. Mark said he thought most of the jury was going along with the defense attorney in that the plaintiff was completely at fault for causing his injury by what he did in running into the street. While there were no witnesses, the factual situation and the statements made at the scene did not support the plaintiff who did not come across well to the jury when he testified.

Ending that call he noticed that while in court he had received three text messages and they were from Claudia, Gloria, and Marci.

Claudia’s message said she was planning to be in Austin next Thursday and asked if she could visit with Mark. Gloria’s and Marci’s messages were pretty similar in that they both said they were planning on attending a continuing education conference here in Austin next week. They would be here on Wednesday and would like to stay with him. All three asked if he could text them his confirmation.

Mark was taken back in reading these messages. He now realized that there could be too much of a good thing. All he could think about was what he could do to extract himself from a sticky situation.

Later he thought for Claudia he would just tell her he had something going on at work that day and couldn’t see her. He thought that if she asked to see him twenty-eight days later that would confirm he was being used as a sperm donor.