Eric Dinnocenzo - The Tenant Lawyer (32 page)

In the past I had heard Alec make references to Mussolini’s actions toward Greece—it was one of the aspects of World War Two that he talked about most, along with the abject failure of the Maginot Line on the French-German border—but I had strong doubts about whether this was the proper setting for it.

“And what may I ask is your point?” Chris said.

“What I mean to say is, you can make an offer of ten thousand,” Alec said, “but such an approach sometimes in the end only makes a situation worse.”

“Well, that is all very entertaining.” Arnold looked over at Chris. “But we’ve made our offer. If you’re not willing to engage on reasonable terms, then there’s nothing we can do but each go forward.”

He was about to get up when I held up one finger and said, “There’s one more thing you’ll be interested in.” I reached into my briefcase, pulled out a manila folder, and placed it on the table in front of me. “In fact, it’s very interesting. Mr. Flanagan is the president of the city council and the construction company that is going to do the work is owned by John Miller, who happens to be a major landlord in the city. I went to the Registry of Deeds website and found something that you might want to see.” I slid the folder across the table to them. “Miller transferred real estate to Flanagan for one hundred dollars. It’s a recent transaction.”

Chris examined the copy of the deed and, maintaining a poker face, gently pushed it over to Arnold who, after reviewing it, pursed his lips together,
obviously
troubled by it. Breaking the silence that seemed to dominate the room, Chris said, “This doesn’t change the merits of the suit.”

“This changes everything,” I replied. “Arnold knows that. We want more than ten thousand. If you want to speak to your client, please do.”

“Obviously this is new information,” Arnold said in a measured tone. “We have to evaluate it.”

I placed my hands on the arm rests of my chair and then stood up. “I’ll wait to hear from you if you want to talk more. Just don’t take too long.”

I left the conference room with Alec trailing behind me, adrenaline pumping through my body. I could hardly believe that I had bested Arnold Landers and Chris Bloom in a negotiation.

“It went well, right?” I asked Alec on the elevator ride down. Of course I knew it had, but out of lingering insecurity I asked anyway.

“Yeah, it sure did,” Alec confirmed.

“Arnold seemed to get it, right?”

“Oh yeah.
Loud and clear.”

The elevator doors opened and we walked into the lobby.
“Mussolini and Greece?”
I remarked, shaking my head. “Jesus Christ, you’re like Pat Buchanan or something with your World War Two references.”

“It was a horrible blunder by Mussolini, making such a humiliating demand. Greece actually gained a large area of southern Albania where Italian operations were based as a result.”

“Jesus Christ,” I muttered.

We walked back to the car. Still on a high from the meeting, I didn’t want the day to end with a long drive back to Worcester and settling in for the night at my parents’ house. I wanted to go out for a drink at a bar where there were young people, where I could hear music playing and look at attractive women and feel I was in the mix of things. I didn’t want to try to pick up a girl or anything like that, not that I had any skills in that department, anyway. I was too emotionally raw and sensitive for that. I just wanted to be in a happening environment.

“Interested in having a drink?” I asked Alec.

“No, I should get back home. The wife is expecting me.”

“Okay,” I responded, as if it was no big deal. But I felt let down. Soon we were in my car on
Storrow
Drive, heading out of the city. I wondered when I would next return, and when I would go back to my apartment.

26

T
hree days later I was in the conference room doing an intake with a new client when
Lucelia
buzzed me on the intercom and told me in her clipped and unfriendly tone that Chris Bloom was on the line. Normally I had her put my calls into voice mail when I was meeting with a client, but this time I excused myself and took the call in my office.

“We’re willing to offer two hundred thousand,” Chris told me. “You can use that for whatever you want so long as it meshes with CDBG.”

“Two hundred thousand isn’t going to cut it.”

“It’s a risk for you to go up against this firm head-to-head. Two hundred is an awful lot of money, especially for community groups in Worcester.”

“Look, we both know what the risks are. I’m really not interested in the two of us posturing.”

“I don’t know your position,” Chris said with frustration. “You haven’t made a demand, and I’ve offered two hundred thousand. That’s a lot of money. You can’t just tell me to keep offering you more money. Give me a demand.”

I thought he made a fair point. Since he had put up a real number, it was indeed now incumbent upon me to give him one of my own, and it would have to be less than the full amount at stake. My only bargaining chip was the property transfer, and otherwise my case was pretty weak on the merits. If I demanded the full amount, our negotiations would end right there. Yesterday evening I had met with Father Kelly and the rest of the group in the church basement, and we had agreed to accept a bottom line of six hundred thousand. While the property transfer could get Miller and Flanagan into trouble criminally, the issue of whether or not it was a violation of CDBG rules to apply the funds to the skywalk was an altogether different matter.

“Nine hundred thousand,” I told Chris.

He exhaled loudly. “I’ll have to get back to you.”

That evening when I was about halfway home to my parents’ house, I muttered, “Oh, shit,” out loud in my car, realizing that I had forgotten to inform the colonel about the recent CDBG developments. Since he was the litigation director in the office, not to mention my direct supervisor, it was a fairly significant oversight on my part. I wondered if he’d be upset about it or, for that matter, if he’d think that I should have demanded a higher amount or forced the city to come up with a higher figure before giving one of my own. And he might be pissed that we were negotiating a settlement, considering the corruption going on. He might think we should go straight to the authorities.

“What’s up?” he said when I went into his office the next morning.

I took a seat in a chair across from his desk and explained what had happened so far with CDBG. He didn’t seem bothered that I had begun negotiating and wasn’t critical of my demand of nine hundred thousand, which was a relief. However, he did say, “We should probably report this to the U.S. Attorney.”

“Yeah, but who knows what would happen at that point? The whole thing could unravel and we might never see the money. It’s a slush fund, so HUD might want it back for all we know. Criminal investigations take a long time, so this could be hung up for a while, and then an indictment might not even be sought. Or if a criminal case was brought and was ultimately successful, the money could just end up going in some other direction. The U.S. Attorney won’t care if the money is used properly. They’ll only care about getting a conviction.” I paused. “All I’m saying is that we have control now, but we might lose control.”

The colonel leaned back in his chair. “I think we have to tell the authorities, though.”

“We’re in settlement talks so we’re close to wrapping this up. There’s no obligation in a civil suit when there is possible criminal wrongdoing that you have to put the civil suit on hold. And we both know you can’t use a threat of criminal action to obtain a settlement in a civil action.”

“Which we’ve come very close to doing.”

“Correct, which I pretty much did do.” I paused. “How about if we send a letter to the U.S. Attorney and at the same time just see if I can wrap this up?”

“I’ve never been in this situation before.”

“And what if they demand we keep quiet with a confidentiality clause?” I said, thinking out loud.

“We’d never sign it. It might be unenforceable, anyway, given the subject matter. We’re talking about federal funds. Besides, if we send out the letter now, that would be something of a moot point.”

We both sat there without speaking, mulling over the complexity of the situation.

“So, anyway, what do you think about a settlement figure? We all came up with a bottom line of six hundred.”

“Six sounds fine. You do know that there would have to be court approval of all of this, and it would have to oversee use of the funds. You can’t just take that much money and use it for what you want.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said, even though I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I left the colonel’s office with the understanding that I could proceed with settlement talks, even though he didn’t explicitly grant me permission to.

The following afternoon I received a call from Chris Bloom. He made an offer of $400,000 and I flatly told him that I couldn’t accept that amount. After going back-and-forth with him a bit, I told him that I could probably settle the matter for $750,000—thinking that by giving him that number I could ultimately get something over $600,000 out of him. He said he’d check with his client and get back to me. The next day he called me and we resolved the case for $700,000. He tried to push a confidentiality agreement, but I said it wasn’t an option, given that government money was at issue. Although it was apparent that he desperately wanted the agreement, he backed off when I resisted. He knew that a court would never accept such an agreement when government funds were involved. I also told him that a confidentiality agreement could make both me and his firm liable for obstruction of justice if it was ever determined that the city council should be prosecuted. I had no idea if that was true or not, seeing that I wasn’t a criminal lawyer, but then again, neither was he. In any event, what I said worked its intended purpose since it helped to get him to back off.

I didn’t tell him that I had sent a letter to the U.S Attorney.

After putting the phone back in its cradle, I sat there thinking, wow, I can’t believe this is over. It was the largest settlement I had ever obtained on my own. I thought about how the money could be used for the benefit of the population that I represented. After so many eviction cases where I just tried to keep my clients’ heads above water, I had accomplished something that would affirmatively make a difference in their lives. Jubilantly rising from my chair, I went to see the colonel to tell him the news.

“That’s good,” he said, his voice rising only slightly. “That’s good. Is that as high as they would go?”

“Yeah.”

“Good,” he said once again.

Next I called Father Kelly and told him the news. He reacted with joy. “We did it, Mark,” he said. “We did it!”

“Yeah,” I said, letting it all sink in. “We did,
didn’t
we?”

27

T
hat evening after dinner I stayed in my bedroom reading
Tis’
by Frank McCourt. I had meant to read it when it first came out but had never gotten around to it. He was one of my favorite authors, mostly because of his engaging voice and sharp sense of humor. Now that I didn’t have to commute daily to and from Boston, I had more free time on my hands than I used to. Most days when I returned home from work, I spent my time upstairs in my room, either reading or on my laptop. If I closed the door and tried hard enough, I could almost fool myself into thinking I was living on my own.

My body felt pleasantly relaxed from my three-mile jog after work. It had been a warmer day than usual, and I much preferred running outside to being indoors on the treadmill. Running on pavement gave me a better workout, and it was more interesting to cover a distance on foot with the scenery passing by. I missed my old routes in Boston, running down Commonwealth Avenue or along the Charles River. I was trying to save money for a new place of my own, understanding that I wouldn’t be able to afford to live in Boston without a roommate. I was torn about whether to do that or get my own place in Worcester. I absolutely hated the idea of having a roommate, but I considered that it might be preferable to the undesirability of living in Worcester. At the same time, I was in a kind of holding pattern, hoping that Sara might reconsider and take me back, though I was slowly realizing that was becoming less and less of a possibility.

I rested my book on my chest and glanced over at my cell phone on the night table next to my bed, wondering if I should call her. I had tried a number of times already, and each time she hadn’t answered. After leaving her voicemails the first two times I called, I subsequently just hung up when she didn’t answer. I knew she was avoiding me. Lately I had been thinking that we needed to be in contact so that we could figure out what we were going to do about our apartment. It seemed we would have to break the lease, and I wanted to retrieve my belongings, such as furniture, clothing, and CD’s. That aside, more than anything else I called her because I longed to hear her voice.

Thinking about our break up saddened me, and I was no longer in the mood to read. My mind wandered lugubriously to the apartment we shared. It wasn’t the biggest or fanciest place, by any means, but it had been ours and we had made it into our home: dinners together seated on the living room couch while watching TV; lying in bed at night, one of us draping an arm around the other; leaving the apartment together on weekend mornings to get breakfast. The rhythms of our life together originated there. Going back to it to collect my things would be tough.