This week's prompt is 'lawyer escapes a deal with the devil' from Stratego937, and we play it straight, with a young man of ambition who has his future ahead of him meeting his firm's most important client. Enjoy!
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A Client’s Offer:
Don’t screw this up.
That thought had been running through Abraham’s head since he’d gotten the call. Mr. Memphis, Mr. Devin Memphis, wanted to meet with him. Memphis was one of Lockley and Associates’ biggest clients. A very important client, he’d been told. The client.
No one had actually said what he was their client for, but if you made him happy, then your star was on the rise. He’d requested a meeting with Abe, which had surprised the young man. He was among the bottom rung of the prestigious law firm’s lawyers and worried that he’d never be anything but that. Most of the partners and higher-ups came from money, or at least had a more cosmopolitan background than him. Abe had lost count of the ‘hillbilly lawyer’ jokes he’d heard during his brief tenure here, but those had come to a sudden halt when the client had reached out to his boss to set up a meeting.
Even though he was early, Memphis was already waiting for Abe. He stood up from the table and shook the younger lawyer’s hands with a warmth and familiarity like they were old friends. Memphis was a tall man, lean and handsome, with intense brown eyes and a sympathetic manner that seemed to put everyone around him at ease. When the waitress came to take their drinks order, just a few friendly comments from him and she’d started spilling details of her life, turning red when she realized what she was doing. Memphis took her hand, patted it and assured her that everything was all right.
“Everyone likes to be heard,” Memphis said as the woman walked away. “They all want to know that someone out there is listening to them. There’s lots of of jokes about lawyers, but that’s why I’ve always liked you. No matter who your client is and what they’ve done, you listen to them. You fight for them. You make their cause your own and argue for them against anyone who wants to sit in judgment over them.”
He ordered a neat whiskery for himself and a Kentucky bourbon for Abe. It tasted like home, reminding the young lawyer of sneaking out out his family’s trailers, sharing a bottle with Norm and Daisy. They’d pass it around, getting drunk and talking about how they were going to get out of their town.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Memphis?” Abraham began. “I know you usually work with Frederick, so I’m not sure-”
“I wouldn’t worry about Freddie,” Memphis said, taking a second sip from his glass. “He and I have been working together since it was just Lockley and there were no ‘Associates’. Consider this just a... friendly meet and greet. He knows I like to sniff out the new hires and keep an eye out for potential. I heard about your work on the Shapiro case. That was some elegant legal maneuvering. It might not have worked out in the end, but that was an uphill battle no matter who was on it. What impressed me was that you came at the whole thing from a different angle. Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose, but the important thing is that we keep on going – eyes on the prize, as it were.”
“Thank you, sir.” Abe was proud of that case, though he hadn’t expected anyone upstairs to have noticed it.
“You’re a country boy, aren’t you? You’ve gone to some length to get rid of the accent, but I can still hear a touch of Old South in there.”
“Yes, sir. Born and raised across the Mason-Dixon line.”
“And, not to point too fine a point on it, but your family wasn’t that fond of mint julip, were they?”
“No, sir. Moonshine was the choice, that and a fine Kentucky bourbon when we could get our hands on it.” He looked down at his glass, old memories stirring.
Norm was killed by a drunk driver a year after graduation. Daisy got caught with her boyfriend’s meth and was in prison. Of the old gang, only Abe was left. His family wasn’t much better. His father was the town mechanic. When he wasn’t working, he was drinking. His mother was a teacher who’d never made it out of the town’s sole school and his sister was on her second husband and fourth child.
Abe had always wanted to be the one that made something of himself. That was why he started studying, why he transferred from community college to state and then to a law school. He’d wanted more, been desperate for it. His mother had asked him what he was willing to do for it. He’d told her ‘anything’.
“You didn’t want that life, did you?” Memphis asked, as if he could read it in Abraham’s eyes. “You packed up stakes, came north, ditched the accent and are trying to be the first in your family to have their name on something other than a police report.”
Abe nodded. He didn’t talk about his family, and Memphis’s knowledge was eerily prescient, but somehow he couldn’t stop himself. It was like he’d known the other man all his life. “I didn’t want to be... like them. I wanted to be something more.”
“So here you are. But you’re still not getting the fair shake, are you? The other boys in the office, they look at you and just see a country bumpkin. Might as well show up in overalls and a straw hat.”
Abe’s cheeks reddened as he remembered the sneers from other students at law school and from some of the other lawyers at the firm. “It happens,” he said.
“And I’m sure if you had the chance, you’d be able to prove them wrong.” The words could have been said with mockery, but they were completely sincere, like Memphis believed in Abraham, a man he barely knew. “How would you like that chance? A chance to prove yourself right.”
The younger man blinked. “You could do that?”
Memphis smiled, spreading his hands as if to remind his companion who he was. Lockley and Associate’s biggest client, a man of influence and means, who opened doors with nothing but a nod. “I guess you can, but why? I’m not even a junior partner. I get lightweight cases or those everyone thinks are DOA, like Shapiro.”
“I told you, Abraham – I’ve got an eye for talent. And I think you might have what it takes to go far, farther than even you think you can.” Memphis leaned back. “You remind me a little of me. Just a little, but it’s there. My father,” he frowned, “was a strict man. He had his favourite children. He’d excuse anything they did, make allowance after allowance for them no matter how much trouble they caused or insulted him. I tried to get him to see what they were, but...” he shrugged. “Some of us don’t get the chance to prove ourselves. We don’t get lawyers to plead our case or any opportunity beyond grabbing our hat when we’re thrown out. So I had to make something of myself on my own, rather than get dragged down with the rest of my family. I respect that, and I think you’ve got the same desires I myself have, the same need to prove everyone who’d want to drag you down wrong. So,” he smiled wider.
“Would you like to do business?”