Sparring Partners(55)
“I’m sorry, Cody.”
Another guard peeks around the door and says, “Warden’s coming.”
Marvin snaps to attention and moves toward the door. He opens it and waits but Cody is frozen in place. Slowly, he wipes tears from his face as he stares at the moon.
“Gotta go, Cody.”
“Go where? Where am I going, Marvin?”
“I can’t answer that.”
“You think Brian might be there?”
“Got no idea.”
Cody slowly stands, wipes his face again, and takes one long last look at the moon.
SPARRING PARTNERS
(1)
The law firm of Malloy & Malloy was well into its third generation, and, from all outward appearances, was prospering nicely, in spite of a rather shocking scandal not far in its past. For fifty-one years, it had litigated from the corner of Pine and 10th, in downtown St. Louis, in a handsome Art Deco building stolen in a foreclosure by an earlier Malloy lawyer.
Inside the doors, though, things were not going well. The patriarch of the firm, Bolton Malloy, had been gone for five years now, sent away by a judge after pleading guilty to killing his wife, an extremely unpleasant woman no one seemed to miss. Thus, the scandal: one of the city’s best-known lawyers convicted of manslaughter and stripped of his license. His sentence was ten years, but he was already plotting an earlier release.
His sons were running the firm and running it into the ground. They were the only partners, equal in stature, authority, and earnings, but they disliked one another intensely and spoke to each other only when necessary. Rusty, the older by seventeen months, fancied himself a hard-charging trial lawyer; he loved the courtroom and dreamed of big, splashy verdicts that would attract even more cases and no small measure of publicity. Kirk, the quieter one, preferred a safer office practice with fat fees for estate and tax work.
Rusty bought season tickets for the Cardinals every year and attended at least fifty games. In the winter, he rarely missed a Blues hockey match. Kirk eschewed sports and preferred the theater, opera, even ballet.
Rusty adored blondes and had married three of them. Only the second produced offspring, his only child. Kirk was still with his first wife, a pretty brunette, but things were unraveling. They had three teenaged children who had been raised properly but were now pursuing different versions of breaking bad.
Bolton and his late wife had raised the boys staunchly Catholic, and Kirk still attended Mass every Sunday. Rusty had disavowed the church during its sex scandals and could become hostile whenever the Pope was praised. He claimed to have joined an Anglican church, but never attended.
Proud Irish, the boys dreamed of college at Notre Dame. Being a year ahead of his brother, Rusty got in first and strutted off to South Bend. By then, by their late teens, the boys were so jealous of one another and competitive that Kirk was secretly praying Rusty would not get accepted. When he got in, Kirk decided he would push hard for an Ivy and another jab at one-upmanship. He was wait-listed at Dartmouth then squeezed in at the last moment.
Notre Dame football versus Dartmouth athletics. The trash-talking was brutal. When Rusty informed the family that he was applying to Yale Law, Kirk went into orbit and decided to apply to Harvard. Neither quite made the cut, though both had solid undergraduate résumés. Rusty’s second choice was Georgetown. Kirk’s was Northwestern, which at the time was rated four notches higher by a leading magazine. Kirk, therefore, went to a superior law school, but Rusty would have none of it.
Bolton fully expected both sons to return to the family firm in downtown St. Louis, and after paying every dime of their undergraduate and law school costs, he was firmly in control of their futures. However, to toughen them up, he insisted they spend a few years in the trenches getting their noses bloodied in the real world. Rusty chose a public defenders’ office in Milwaukee. Kirk became an assistant prosecutor in Kansas City.
Malloy & Malloy had always been knee-deep in politics, with Bolton playing both sides of the fence and donating to the politicians and judges with the best chances of winning. He had never cared which party a candidate belonged to. All he wanted was access, and he wrote the checks and raised the money to get it. Here, though, the boys split again. Rusty was a die-hard Democrat who despised big business and tort reformers and insurance companies. His friends were other street lawyers, tough brawlers who saw themselves as the protectors of the poor and injured. Kirk hung out with a richer crowd, lunching on the upper floors of tall buildings and playing tennis at the country club. He was proud of his record of never having voted for a Democrat.
The firm was so deeply divided that the two factions had separated, literally. Upon entering the plush lobby from Pine Street, one was greeted by a comely receptionist behind a sleek modern desk. For those seeking Kirk, she nodded to the right where he held forth in his wing of offices. For Rusty, she nodded to the left to his domain. Each kept his staff and underlings—associates, secretaries, paralegals, and gofers—on “their” side of the building. Mixing with the “other side” was frowned upon.
To be fair, there was rarely the need to mingle. Rusty’s cases involved hardball personal injury litigation, and his staff was experienced in accident reconstruction, medical malpractice, pre-trial maneuverings, settlement negotiation, and the actual courtroom work. Kirk worked by the hour for the well-heeled, and his staff was adept at writing wills an inch thick and manipulating IRS regulations.