The Way of All Fish Page 6

  “True.”

  “So, Jimmy,” said Karl, “I think we should have a talk with her lawyers.”

  Jimmy pushed the file folder toward him. “I don’t know where it’ll get you. But go ahead. The firm is Snelling. Or, to be precise, Snelling, Snelling, Borax, and Snelling.”

  “I wonder how Borax got in there,” said Candy.

  “Duke Borax?” said Karl.

  “I don’t know. You know him?”

  Karl shook his head. “Heard his name.” He rose. “We gotta be going. Where is this firm?”

  Jimmy rose, saying, “Spurling Building. It’s on Twenty-third, near Fifth. Across from Madison Square Park. Hold on.” He flicked through his Rolodex, where he still kept contact information. He gave them a number.

  Candy had gotten up and was casing the room with grave deliberation.

  “Looking for something?” said Jimmy.

  “You don’t have a fish tank?”

  9

  The Spurling Building was a black marble and glass monolith that reflected a blue-shadowed light onto its surroundings.

  Candy and Karl pushed through its big revolving door to an outer lobby that served no purpose other than to announce it as spare Manhattan real estate. They passed through thick glass doors to an inner lobby that told them it was fifteen by fifty feet of the same. Black-suited security guards disguised to look like civilians, for some unfathomable reason, stood placidly and loosely at attention, their hands hooked in front of their groins, Bluetooth studs in their ears with tiny mikes near their lips. Hell, nobody’d ever guess they were security, would they? There were even two “guardesses,” as Candy called them, gussied up by Tory Burch, a lot of meaningless gold on their dark suits, belt buckles, and pocket flaps.

  “What does this place think it is, fuck’s sake? They got more security than the Pentagon.”

  Candy and Karl stood before one of the banks of elevators. Karl had found Wallace Hale on the fancy name locator riveted to the black marble wall. “Fifteenth floor,” he said.

  “Low-rent district; this building must have fifty floors.”

  They got out five seconds after they got on, with the uncomfortable feeling that they’d been compressed and decompressed. “Even my hangnails curled up,” said Candy.

  Here was another set of heavy glass doors, with the name of the firm in gold: Snelling, Snelling, Borax, and Snelling.

  The two receptionists, Karl Lagerfeld runway twins; makeup by Bobbi Brown, as natural as birch bark; hair long, straight; the other short, straight; both razor-cut by Sweeney Todd.

  “Good afternoon, gentlemen. May I help you?” The one with long hair smiled as if honestly happy to see them.

  “Yeah, we’d like to see Mr. Hale,” said Candy. “And no, we do not have an appointment, we just—”

  Karl gave his shoe a kick. “He was highly recommended.” He smiled but couldn’t compete with the long-haired receptionist.

  She said, “If you’d just have a seat.” She gestured toward a suite of chairs by Philippe Starck, Mies van der Rohe, and the Eameses (all of whom had probably just left), situated in a waiting room that no doubt had won the Architectural Digest award.

  “Shit, and I thought our place was cool.”

  “Ours is cool. This one is full of fucking lawyers, C. They probably make three, four times what we do. Keep in mind, we’re a lot more selective.”

  Candy picked up a magazine in some foreign language he’d never heard of and leafed through it until he came on a gorgeous palm tree–lined stretch of white beach peopled by muscled men and bikini-clad women, or rather half-clad, as most were topless.

  “Where the fuck’s this?” He showed Karl the photo.

  “South of France,” said Karl, sticking a piece of gum in his mouth and offering the pack to Candy, who slid out a stick.

  “Are you just sayin’ that, or do you really know?”

  “Shit like that’s always the South of France.”

  A slim, beautifully engineered woman with black hair and a red dress as dark as dried blood, almost as dark as her hair, bled her way across the carpet and told them she was Mr. Hale’s secretary and that he could give them fifteen minutes. It was like Christmas, she seemed to be saying.

  They followed her to a burled-wood door that turned out to be not a section of the paneled wall after all. She ushered them through it. “He’ll be finished with his call in a minute.” She left.

  Wally Hale played with his blue silk tie and laughed into the phone. Wally Hale was one of the two who had stepped out of the elevator.

  “Are we busted?” whispered Karl.

  Wally put down the phone and stood up. “Gentlemen.” He smiled. “Have a seat.”

  Side-of-his-mouth mutter, Candy said, “He don’t recognize us.”

  “Mr. Karl, Mr. Candy, what can I do for you?”

  They sat and tried to get their bearings. Since they spent a lot of their time shooting people, getting their bearings wasn’t as hard for them as it might have been for your average citizen. They sat with well-trained, expressionless faces.

  Karl shoved the folder between himself and the chair arm, cleared his throat and said, “We got a client—”

  They always had a client. Candy waited. Karl was good at coming up with crap. They were both good at it.

  “—a client who’s in a world of trouble, you could say.”

  Wally nodded, smiling over a world of trouble. “And you—”

  “Oh, incidental to that, it was one of your clients that recommended you. Cindy Sella.”

  “Cindy! Ah.” The smile seemed to want to evaporate but hardened like lacquer.

  Karl said, “Just to get it straight, you ain— Ah, you aren’t an intellectual property attorney?”

  “No. We handle contract law, mergers and acquisitions—”

  “Yeah. We’re in contracts, too.”

  “You’re attorneys?” Wally looked a little doubtfully from one to the other. “Contract law?”

  Karl nestled in his seat. “I mean book contracts, that kind of thing.”

  Candy, discreetly chewing his Doublemint, said, “It’s how come we know Cindy. Well, I don’t have to tell you she’s having her share of trouble with her ex-agent.”

  Wally was apprehensive. “You know him?”

  Candy and Karl looked at each other. “Us? No. Just heard about him. From her. So how come Cindy chose a lawyer in mergers and acquisitions?”

  “That’s not all I do. To answer why, well, family. Our parents were friends.” Wally swiveled his chair, then he swiveled his thumbs.

  What a crock, thought Karl, smiling. Interesting that the precious fifteen-minute allowance had walked out the door with the Duchess of Fuck-All. Wally must want something.

  “So you’re acting . . . as what for Cindy Sella?”

  Karl said, “Just advisers, consultants. You know.”

  No, he didn’t. Wally readjusted his smile and said, “Let’s hear about this client of yours, the one that’s in a world of trouble, as you said.” To let them know he wasn’t asleep.

  Karl sorted through troubles, most having to do with bodily harm. Too bad Wally here wasn’t a criminal lawyer. “Let’s say he wasn’t one of the smartest guys in the room.” He looked at Candy. They sneaked a laugh. Neither one knew what he meant by that, but something would turn up.

  “Hey, you’re not telling me he worked for Enron?” Wally smiled and showed little paddles of very white teeth. “I thought that bird had flown.”

  That bird had flown. Jesus, this guy was a fucking disaster.

  “Our client’s in the import business.”

  “What does he import?” It couldn’t, the tone said, be good.

  Karl opened his mouth, but it was Candy who spoke. “Fish,” he said, treading on Karl’s answer.

  “You mean exotic or tropical fish?”

  “That is correct.” Candy crossed his legs, regarded his well-polished Italian loafer with the tassel.

  With
a pristinely raised eyebrow, Wally Hale asked, “And the trouble is with, possibly, Fish and Wildlife and, possibly, some offense to CITES?”

  Whatever that was. Karl was regarding Candy with a similarly raised eyebrow. Instead of verbally replying, Candy made an o of thumb and finger and winked.

  “So where’s he getting the fish from?”

  “Mostly Indonesia and the Philippines. Some from Europe.”

  Karl sat, expressionless.

  “Where you got your greatest coral reefs: the Philippines. Now.” Warming even more to his subject, Candy leaned forward in his chair, crossed his arms on Wally Hale’s desk. “Your coral reefs, as we all know, are endangered, an endangered species—”

  Karl needed to know what he’d have found out if he’d ever listened to Candy reading to him from National Geographic. “What spec—”

  Candy threw up his hands, cutting him off with a smile. “Yeah, I know what you’re going to say. Why’d we ever take this client on in the first place?”

  Karl raised his chin, ran his hand down his tie, smoothing it. “It was your call, C., if you remember.”

  “Family. He’s family. First cousin, once removed.”

  Wally, growing either more interested or more perplexed by the second, said, “The firm doesn’t really do much by way of environmental protection; we’re not exactly hand in glove with the EPA.” He half-laughed to see how it would play. It did and it didn’t.

  Karl gave the other half of the laugh and said, “Yeah, neither is our client.”

  Candy made a tsking noise and moved his finger like a metronome before Wally. “Come on, Wally. What about that clear-cutting thing in Kentucky. That Adirondack Dewitt deal?”

  Wally was back to smiling. “Yeah. That wasn’t me, exactly— Hey, Rod!” Wally was looking at the connecting door.

  Richard Gere entered. The three o’clock appointment was all here now.

  Wally introduced them. They shook hands; Richard smiled. His other name was Rod Reeves, even more of a movie name than Richard Gere.

  Rod sat, or rather, flung himself down in one of the Eames (probably) chairs, white and with a kind of dripping Dali look, with underpinnings of crossed wood and narrow steel tubes. It looked made especially for Rod, he seemed so at home in it. “So?” Rod asked this as if to be updated on whatever had passed, be it their conversation or the latest report from the Warren Buffett newsletter, was his, Rod’s, royal privilege.

  “They’re friends of Cindy Sella,” said Wally.

  Which, as far as Candy and Karl were concerned, gave it all away, what they were interested in.

  Rod sat right up, hard to do if you’d been reclining in that chair. “Oh?” He and Wally exchanged a look.

  Wally summed up the conversation thus far. “You want us to take on this client in trouble with customs or in violation of EPA statutes—”

  “The Philippines?” Rod looked as if he knew every inch of them. “Coral reefs. Some of the best diving in the world.”

  “They take crowbars to the reefs to pry them apart,” said Karl.

  Candy was surprised that Karl had heard even a little of the article.

  “Crowbars? What for?” said Wally.

  “To get at the fish,” Candy said. “After they’ve been stunned with cyanide.”

  “Cyanide?” Three pairs of eyes swiveled toward Candy until Karl caught himself and nodded, as if he’d forgotten for only a second about the cyanide.

  “Cyanide fishing? You never heard of it? They spray cyanide into the water, stun the fish, then net them.”

  “The cyanide doesn’t kill them?”

  Candy chuckled. “I don’t think there’d be much of a market for dead fish, do you?”

  Rod asked, “What or who is the market?”

  “You’d be surprised. We’re talking high-up people, places. You didn’t read about that shooting at the Clownfish Café off Lex the other night? Shot up this huge fish tank. Frankie, he had a fortune in fish—”

  Rod laughed. “The shooters were looking for somebody, not for a fish.” He laughed again.

  “You’re half right. And do you know who the target was?”

  Rod and Wally looked blank.

  “You didn’t know your client Cindy Sella was at the Clownfish that night?”

  They both jutted forward as if working opposite ends of a circular saw. “What? What the hell does Cindy Sella have to do with it?”

  “You mean you didn’t know she was writing this book about the fish cartel in New York? You never heard her talk about how much she hates fish being mistreated? You been to her place? You seen her aquarium? No?”

  The answer was, obviously, no. They looked bug-eyed, which wasn’t good for the hotshot-lawyer image.

  “Those shooters? Probably one of the Bluefin Alliance. Sending another message. You don’t mess with these guys, Wally. Rod. We’re talking big, big, very big business. It’s not your Mexican cartels, no, at least not yet—”

  Karl broke in. “Come on, C., there’s no way these two know about this.” He tossed Wally and Rod a glance just this side of contemptuous. “This is the best-kept secret in New York.” He turned to the lawyers. “Check it out with your colleagues. They won’t know anything about it.”

  Candy said, “But my God, Wally! You’re Cindy Sella’s attorneys, and you didn’t know she was into this?”

  Karl was beset with pleased astonishment. They were so far away from option clauses they might as well have been on the moon. Or fishing in Indonesia.

  Wally said, “How much are these fish going for?”

  “ ‘These fish’? Do some research before you bring this up with Cindy. If you’re talking your platinum arowana. That’d set you back a hundred large. If you can find one.”

  Their jaws dropped, reminding Candy of the bass on Hess’s wall. Hess. Fucking tree toad. “Maybe you should try and talk her out of it.”

  “What?”

  Jesus. His fish, Oscar, had a longer attention span than these guys. “The book she’s writing.”

  Wally flattened his palms against air. “Wait a minute. If this fish cartel, or whatever the hell it is, is so under the radar, then where’s Cindy getting her information?”

  Candy shrugged. “I don’t know. You’re her lawyers, not us.”

  “Hess never mentioned—” Rod shut his mouth like a doll. His teeth clicked.

  Candy and Karl loved it. Karl said, “You mean Bass Hess? That half-assed ex-agent of hers? Why would he tell you anything?”

  “He wouldn’t,” Wally snapped. “Nothing was mentioned in discovery.”

  Oh, shit, thought Candy. “You mean this frivolous lawsuit has gone to discovery?”

  Wally was shuffling papers. Rod had gone to lean against the wainscot woodwork behind his desk as if he needed support from both the wall and Wally. He crossed his arms, hugging himself. Then he said, “Haven’t I seen you before?” The look slid from Candy to Karl and back.

  Without missing a beat, Karl said, “Probably. I’ll bet it was that public defender’s pro bono bash back in March. You know, nearly every attorney in town was there.”

  Candy’s face nearly wrapped around itself, trying not to laugh. You listen, you learn. Woody Allen was right: 80 percent of life was just showing up. The other 20 percent was paying attention when you got there.

  Wally and Rod exchanged a look. Wally drew a pad toward him, picked up his Mont Blanc. “We need your client’s name if we’re going to take this on.”

  So do we, thought Candy. “We got to talk to the client about this. We’ll get back to you.”

  They rose. It had been clear for some time now that Wally and Rod didn’t want Candy and Karl running loose. Cindy’s so-called attorneys wanted to keep them as close to the vest as a poker hand.

  Wally came around his desk, trying not to look hurried about it; Rod pushed off from the wall, and the two walked the other two to the door.

  “We’ll be in touch.” Candy held out his hand, and Wally shook
it. Karl and Rod did the same, and all the hands crisscrossed. It looked as if the four of them were about to make a tower of fists like kids on a playground, which, thought Candy, was essentially how it was. He smiled.

  Wally said as he ushered them into the chilly area of the reception desk, “I’ll give Cindy a call, talk her through it.”

  Talk her through it? You couldn’t even talk yourself through it fifteen minutes ago. Candy merely shrugged. “Go ahead, but she’ll probably play dumb. She won’t tell you anything.”

  Wally looked offended. “She told you, didn’t she?”

  Connect the dots, asshole. “That’s because we have this client that imports fish; because we were in the Clownfish when the shooting started; because—”

  “Right, right,” said Wally impatiently. “I still think Rod and I had better get in on this before it, you know, gets out of hand.”

  Karl and Candy looked at each other. Karl said, “By all means, Wally.”

  Out of no-man’s-land and back on the rowdy Manhattan pavement where every passerby hugged close enough to pick your pocket, they both started laughing. The stony expressions they had used so well on attorneys, receptionists, and security guards cracked like ice crust on a pond.

  “That was some tale, C. How’d you ever come up with that?”

  “National Geographic. I read it to you.”

  “The cyanide, I remembered that. How much of that shit was true?”

  “All of it. That’s the great thing about truth. You don’t have to make it up.”

  Karl stepped over the curb, looking for a cab, which was like finding an unlit star in the Milky Way, especially at six P.M., which it was.

  Candy said, “But you sure nailed that party. Rod was beginning to look as if he’d seen us. ‘Pro bono bash.’ Righteous. As if they’d ever have anything to do with that shit.”

  “Yeah, only, where’s this get us?”

  “It got the foot in the door so good that even when we take it away, the door won’t close. That’s how curious they are; that’s how nervous. Where the fuck’s a cab?”

  “In Jersey. Come on, let’s walk.” Karl was back on the sidewalk, walking.