Chapter 2

"Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous..."

-- William Shakespeare, Richard III

"So that's my story, Mr. Morrison," Early concluded. "And it's not yet finished."

Roland Morrison, as agreed, had sat quietly and listened throughout Early's recounting. But he was seething.

He took a sip from his water glass.

"Conroy, I'm sure that you know that Geraldine Morrison, whom you mentioned several times in your story, is my wife. She is a partner at Jenson, Sharone, and Anderson."

"Yes."

"What the hell do you mean by telling me a load of shit like that? I've met Susan Conroy at their social events. She made Partner last year. So she's your ex-wife?"

"No she's still my wife, technically," Early said. "We split up over her adultery with the male partners, or with the two of them I know about. Any adulterous partner past the first two is overkill, legally speaking. Neither one of us has gotten around to filing for dissolution, so far. It isn't important."

Morrison got up, his face deeply red from anger. "You've accused my wife of being party to adultery, and a participant in a scheme of sexual harassment. You've accused her of immoral, illegal, and unethical conduct. Conroy, if I were a younger man, I'd kick your ass from here to the street for saying shit like that about my wife. You can fucking well forget about any fucking job offer!" He grabbed his cane and stalked away.

Early watched him walk away. Roland Morrison almost got to the door and then stopped. He stood there, leaning on his cane for a long time, staring out through the glass doorway. Early topped off his wineglass and refilled Morrison's.

Morrison abruptly turned and came back. He stared down at Early Conroy, who met his gaze with his negotiator's face. Then Roland Morrison slumped back down in his chair and took a swallow of the wine.

"I don't get it, Conroy. You're not some kind of nut. You have a good reputation. Why would you get me down here, obviously under false pretenses, and tell me a load of crap like that? Why?"

Conroy took a sip of his wine. "A load of crap? Ok, tell me, what's untrue in my story, Roland? I have evidence for almost everything I said. I was married to Susan Conroy. She did want to make partner. We did split up over how she was going about making partner: by having sex with the male partners. Your wife is her mentor."

"Yes, but you said all that crap about having to fuck the partners to make partner. My wife never did that!"

"Really? Well, I would have said the same about Susan until I found solid evidence that it was true. I wonder what Geraldine would say if you asked her to tell you the truth about that. You're Catholics, aren't you? Would she go to church with you and swear in front of the altar that my story is bullshit? I wonder?

"Just something to think about, Roland. You see, this is what the past seven months have been about. I want something from your wife. If I asked her for it, she'd laugh in my face. I tried several times to see her, but she refused. She said she'd get a restraining order if I persisted. So I decided I would set things up so that you would ask her for me.

"I'm sorry we won't be able to work together, Roland. Right now, you're easy to beat, because you have so many inefficiencies that you can't compete. If you had hired me I would have brought you guys into the 21st Century and you'd be hard to compete against.

"Thanks for the dinner."

Later that night, his cell phone rang. It was past midnight, but Early was still up. He had trouble sleeping. Despite his efforts to get over it, including a very unsatisfactory course of counseling and analysis, he was still too tormented over the loss of the love of his life to be able to have an untroubled night.

"Mr. Conroy. This is Geraldine Morrison. I am sitting in my car in front of your apartment building because I don't know what else to do. An hour ago I would have run you down if you were crossing the street in front of me. You have turned my life into a living nightmare.

"Now I think you may be my only hope. May I come up?"

He buzzed her in. He remembered her from the office parties; a tall, stately, beautiful Reubenesque woman. Quite a contrast to the small, slender Roland Morrison. But it was obvious then that they were a couple who were still very much in love after many years together.

Now she was disheveled, her hair flying around her face, and her face streaked with dried tears and smeared makeup. Early knew the look. It had been the last memory he had of Susan's face.

He made coffee, which she accepted.

She sat in an armchair opposite his.

"Mr. Conroy, I have been driving the streets aimlessly for over an hour. I had been worried since he had told me whom he was going to see tonight. Your name had been thrown around for the past months, and I was concerned about what you were doing and why. But I couldn't say anything to Roland.

"What could I say about what I knew about you that wouldn't invite further question? You had tried those several times to meet with me and I had always refused you. I even threatened you with a protective order."

Early nodded.

"Well, when Roland came home from meeting you he was obviously troubled and agitated. When I asked him what was wrong, he turned on me. He demanded to know if I had whored myself to make partner at Jenson, Sharone, and Anderson. I denied it.

"I looked at his face and my first thought was one of bewilderment. I thought: how can he not believe me? When have I ever lied to him?

"And came the epiphany. When have I ever lied to him?

"Every day for the past seventeen years. Every day from the day when I came home and did not say that I had fucked Tim Jenson to become a partner. Every day when I did not say that I had fucked John Stickner to become a partner. Every day when I did not say that I had fucked the other three willing male partners to become a partner. Lies by omission. Lies when I let him think that I had always been faithful. And God help me, every day when I did not tell him about the times I consented to be fucked by the two handsome young male associates who wanted to become partners.

"And as I thought of all of those lies, Roland was reading my deceit in my face.

"He told me the story you'd told him about you and Susan. I'd heard her version after you left her. Of course neither she nor I knew then that you'd overheard her phone conversation with John Stickner.

"When Roland told me about that, I knew then why you were a man on a mission. That conversation blew up the entire subterfuge.

"Roland said that he'd brushed your story off, at first, but as he drove home he began to remember some little things that had happened. Times when I had been off on business meetings and came back in a strange mood. Those times when I suggested some new little sexual thing that I'd refused to do before. He put those other things together and realized that it was in a pattern that might confirm your account, and therefore condemn my own actions.

"We are both practicing Catholics. Since I was denying everything, he demanded that I come down to our church and swear before the altar of God that nothing like what you described had happened, and that I had never cheated on him while with Jenson, Sharone, and Anderson.

"Mr. Conroy, I could not do that. That would be a mortal sin. I had committed my other mortal sins and had stopped doing them. Once I did that, I unburdened myself to my confessor. But last night I just could not lie in the presence of Christ at the altar. So I refused. I tried to make up reasons, but Roland got more and more angry. He said that our marriage was over. He left. I think he's staying at his country club.

"I had to leave the house, too. I couldn't bear the silence when he's not there and might never come back. I drove around and around, and now I am here.

"This happened to you and Susan. Now it's happening to me. I know I have no claim to your sympathy after what I've done, but Mr. Conroy, please, I beg of you. Tell me what can I do to save my marriage?"

He looked at her, a beaten woman.

"Early. I go by the name, Early," he said.

"I think that you and I are going to be on a first name basis from now on."

"Jeri," she said. "Call me Jeri with a J.

"Ok, Jeri. You are asking me for answers. You already know the answers. The first thing you have to do is what Susan wouldn't do when it might have mattered: Tell the truth. To Roland, first. Make a clean breast of it, leaving nothing out. Tell him what you did and why you did it. Don't leave anything out and don't try to sugarcoat it. If Roland really loves you, then you have a chance. Getting it all out in the open might let you both begin the healing process.

"It will take a long time to gain his forgiveness. You may both need extensive counseling, and it is possible that he will never forgive you. There are no guarantees in this deep a matter of betrayal, Jeri. And it is betrayal most foul and deep, Jeri. Do you understand that?"

She nodded.

"Even if he does come around, things will never be the same between the two of you; I think you understand that. But almost anything would be better than what you have now, correct?"

Her gaze was intent on Early's face.

"Yes, I know that you are right, Early. I will have to go crawling on my knees to Roland and tell it all. God, I can't bear the thought of what he will think of me.

"But you said that I must tell the truth to Roland 'first.' What did you mean by that?"

"Jeri, I have lost the only woman that I have ever loved. She willingly took part in that horrible degrading scheme, and I can never forgive her for that, but the scheme was created and sold to her by the partners at Jenson, Sharone, and Anderson. I cannot ever have Susan and my happy marriage back, but I can have revenge. Part of my revenge will be to take down your law firm and ruin those partners.

"You are one of those partners, Jeri. So if I said that I'm sorry that I had to attack your marriage, I'd be lying. You were a party to the destruction of my marriage, a very active party. You were Susan's mentor and confidante and she relied on your guidance.

"You were the one who explained to her what she would have to do if she were ever nominated for partner. You were the one who explained how she would have to whore herself for the male partners. You were the one who helped sell her on the idea, because I do not think that Susan would have gone along with it unless she was convinced that it was somehow all right and that she could get away with it without damaging us.

"Any denials? Protestations of innocence?"

Jeri shook her head. "No. I had faced that decision myself. I had made my own Devil's bargain. I felt great guilt for it, but I did it and it worked. I became partner. The additional income went to Roland to put into his company.

"I tried to do everything possible to show him how much I loved him. He got a little suspicious when I started hinting at wanting to do things in our bed that I had always refused, but I wanted to do whatever he had ever dreamed of to add to our union. I guess he never quite forgot his suspicions because he sure remembered them tonight.

"So when it was Susan's turn, I told her she had to do it, and how to do it, and how to keep you from finding out. I told her that it would be something that she could make up for by loving you with all her heart.

"And that was sophistry, pure sophistry. I already loved Roland with my whole heart and soul. Susan loved you in the same way. How could we ever make up for our betrayal by loving you more? But we lied to ourselves, each in turn, because of our ambitions.

"Early, I can't tell you how shocked and horrified and guilty I felt when John Stickner called me up and told me that you were on to us. I went to that hasty meeting. I did what I could to try to make up some kind of cover story. It was a lawyerly thing to do something to protect our client and her case. When I first looked at Susan's face, I thought that I might die of self-hatred. She knew that she was lost. She knew that you would never be fooled by anything we could fabricate.

"She knew her marriage was over. And just as she knew that, I knew that if there was a just God, I would face the same fate one day."

Early nodded. "Well, what I told you is the first big step: tell Roland the truth. All of it. Hold nothing back. I can't say what Roland will do. I'm not even sure what I would have done if Susan had confessed it all when I gave her that last chance.

"Anyway, it's too late for us now, but you and Roland have just had this come out. Go to Roland and tell him all of it. Beg his forgiveness. Go to the church or any other good counselor to try to work through it. He loves you and you love him; maybe there's something that can be salvaged."

"You must also go to your priest, Jeri. As I understand your church, a confession of a sin cannot be pardoned or absolved if you have it in your heart that you will do it again. When you confessed your first dalliance with a partner you knew there would be others. To take Communion when you are not in a state of Grace is a mortal sin, Jeri."

She nodded. "I have to deal with that. I will. Right after I get Roland to see me and confess to him.

"But you said that you want to destroy the law firm. Early, there are over a hundred people working there. Most of them are innocent. You will be hurting them if you put them out on the street."

Early's face hardened. "That can't be a factor. I can't permit an evil place to continue because it employs innocent people. There were innocent people who worked in many organizations and bureaucracies that did evil. Should we have kept the shower rooms and furnaces of Dachau and Buchenwald running in the interest of full employment, Jeri?'

She shook her head.

"I am very single-minded in this, Jeri. I will not stand by and let them go on seducing young people and potentially ruining lives. If I can get what I want, I'll be happy to try to help the innocent. If we can find ways to mitigate the affects on the decent people, then we'll do what we can for them. But my main agenda is Delenda Est Jenson, Sharone, and Anderson! That is nonnegotiable."

"I have to accept that, Early," Jeri said. "I don't think that Roland will accept anything less, either. He is as furious at them as he is at me."

"You and Roland have been high earners for a long time. Could you walk away from the firm and be ok financially?

"I suppose we could. We have talked about retirement and setting up some little enterprise to do together in our retirement. Maybe buy something like an inn or country store, something like that. We both want to live away from the cities. If Rollie will forgive me and take me back, I will resign and start planning that."

"No, that's not good enough Jeri," Early said. "No conditions. I want your help regardless of how things go with you and Roland. In any event, you need to get out of the line of fire when I attack the firm.

"I don't think Roland is ready to retire from his business right now," Early continued. "He was going to hire me in to make him more competitive. Somehow I doubt he'll want to ever see me again, much less hire me, but he's still involved in his business. Right now I suspect he's going to be burying himself in it, now that you and he are in trouble.

"My question is to you. Will you help me?" he asked Jeri.

"Yes," Jeri said. "I will. I must. I need to stop this. What do you want from me?"

"I need to get proof of how that partnership fast- track system works. How an associate gets chosen. Then, exactly how the sexual requirement is made explicit. I want to be able to show the courts and the world what Susan and other young people were lured into doing that ruined their lives and poisoned their marriages. She bears her share of the blame, but it was the firm's process that lured her.

"I want to concentrate on the young women, because frankly, men are supposed to be such pigs that no one would be surprised that they'd fuck anyone decent-looking to get promoted."

"You'll need proof," Jeri said. "I know you're going to ask me to testify, and of course I will, but any one witness can be discredited. I've done it myself. Do you have anything other than my say-so?"

"Well," Early said, "There were other women who were approached and decided to leave the firm rather that do what was required. I think that if we are getting something substantial together and it looks as if it might work, some of them might be willing to testify. I know they were bought off and threatened with blackballing, so there must be a reservoir of anger."

"Sure, but what do we have that's substantial? It has to be more than my testimony. We have to have a better case than that before we can get anyone else to come forward."

Early put a diskette into his laptop and called it up. "I don't know whether this is legal enough to stand up in court," he said. "You're the lawyer.

"I have about 8 minutes of a recorded conversation. It was right after I laid down the law to Susan that Saturday morning."

He clicked on the icon, and the recording began.

Jeri listened with genuine interest. It was all new to her, and she monitored it with her lawyer's mind, looking for key legal points. Early had heard it hundreds of times and it held no interest for him now.

Jeri clicked back and replayed:

"Well he was here, looking at that kitchen and later sleeping in that bed. He listened to me lie and lie and lie in two calls over two days and never let on that he knew they were lies. God, when he said something offhand about knowing how lonely such a big bed could be, I thought there was something odd in his tone, but I didn't pick up on it. You were licking my nipple and I was distracted.

"The damage was done by then, only I didn't know it. The last thing he said last night was that he HAD loved me more than his own life. I should have heard that past tense and reacted to it, but you were sliding your cock in me just then and I wasn't thinking clearly."

She also replayed:

"Susan, this is very important. Did you outright admit that we had sex? The fucking and oral and anal and all that?"

Also:

"Bullshit, John. Now you listen and listen hard, because I'm not going to lose everything without retribution. I taped the conversations when you and Geraldine explained the arrangement and made the partnership offer and. I have the assurances on the record and your voice was on there too."

The recording cut off then, after 8 minutes 25 seconds, the max recording capacity of the cell phone.

Jeri said, "That's pretty damaging. Graphic. All that about licking her nipples and sliding his cock..." She saw the expression on Early's face and stopped. "I'm sorry, Early; I forgot.