Wyland tapped his pencil impatiently on Dr. John Brands desk, as he hungrily stuffed a donut down his throat. The pencil eraser made little scuff marks on the brilliant sheen of the Mahogany desk. The donut left crumbs on the grey carpet, and on Wyland's shirt.
He was staring at Sofia and Jonathan through the office glass as they finished talking to John. Sofia was looking better now, though she still had the look of one who really needs to head home and pour herself a stiff drink.
Jonathan looked grim and defiant, and a bit confused. The rest of the meeting with Wyland was already fading from his memory. It was a jumbled, rambling session of mostly jibberish, and impassioned pleas from Wyland to remember things he couldn't even know how to speak if he did remember them. How does one speak such a noise? Were there words, or just the noise? Had he spoke them to Wyland? Why was Wyland looking at him with such a look of concern? Jonathan's brain felt like gritty mush.
Sofia nodded in agreement to some unknown statement from John, shook his hand, and they turned towards the door.
Wyland stared at her butt on the way out, appreciating the way the conservative grey skirt and pumps shaped her cheeks and forced each one up, then back down in an alternating rhythm as she strode out.
John walked into his office and brushed some tiny piece of lint from the breast of his very expensive suit, and said "So, Blake, whatd'ya think?"
With a very serious, almost innocent face, Wyland replied, "well, she's a lovely lady." John let out a guffaw. Snickering, he said "I agree, not that it'll matter to you. I was talking about the case."
Wyland tried to ignore the slight insult, although he knew John was right, and he tried to scrunch up his face until it was stern throughout. He was breathing heavily, and his brow was furrowed in anger. The two men looked at each other, John standing and smiling, Wyland sitting and frowning.
Wyland relented and looked away, then sighed, then looked back into John's eyes and said, with as much pleading as possible, "why did you give me this case? This might be a winnable case."
John casually strode to his executive leather chair, pulled it out silently, and sat down, also silently. Then he said "just like in England, right? The magistrates wouldn't even look at it, the media were the only people listening, and they were just speculating the whole time. I expect the same here, except we already have the gag order, so no media to worry about." John was still smiling.
Wyland, still pleading, "But if I do get before a judge..."
"Then, you will lose." John's face was suddenly stone.
Wyland's face went beet-red, and he slapped his hand on the desk, palm down, as hard as he could. His palm suddenly started to sting, but it didn't matter, he was angry. "Damn it, John! No bullshit! Why would anybody need to lose this case?!? Blaise is a worthless pile of crap, there's no need to protect him!"
John looked down, his voice now sputtering against Wyland's anger. "I...I... there's, well...uh." He had never seen Wyland this upset. He laughed lightly and blinked rapidly while staring off into space. He finally replied, himself now pleading, "there are larger considerations here. We don't care about Blaise at all. We just can't have a precedent go the wrong way. There's too much on the line. The First Amendment, for starters. The danger to corporations, the reinterpretation of libel suits, national security... I mean, fuck, man! Think of how we would have to deal with hear-say if this went through?! And you know every jackass whose grandma died in some weird way would cry 'curse'."
Wyland's face was now covered in an angry sweat, and he was livid. He stood up now, leaning over the desk, and shouted "that's bullshit and you know it! This is goddamned murder, and it's provable!"
The rest of the office had gathered around John's office, drawn by the commotion and the unfamiliar sound of Wyland screaming. John tried waving them away with his hands. Wyland ignored them, and stared at John, trying to burn a hole right through John's soul with his own eyes, as if that might uncover the truth.
John rubbed his eyes and lowered his voice. "Alright, alright. Calm down, there's still more. You know cases are routed to us by powerful interests. This is the same story as before, we give you the case, you sincerely defend it, and you lose in the end. We need plausible deniability from anyone who looks at you in the courtroom. You have to try and win this, but we also know you will lose. That's why were paying you to do this, and it goes high up, trust me. I'll double your hourly, and full expenses. You have to do this."
Silence penetrated the room as Wyland leaned back, still angry, but the wind was knocked out of his sails. John, in a quiet, calming voice, said "Look, Wy..."
John never called him "Wy."
Soberly, he looked at Wyland. "It must have occurred to you the other reason we gave you this case." Wyland's head cocked sideways in confusion. "I've seen your record. I'm one of the few who has. I've seen you in court. You're a good lawyer from the outside. There is no good reason why you lose every single goddamned case. Some of your older stuff, the defendants could have won by defending themselves, while drunk; While fucking the god-damned judge's daughter right in front of him on the bench, they could have won. But by having you defend them, they lost."
"Every. Single. Time." He emphasized this with a closed fist pounding the table to the rhythm of the syllables.
John laughed softly and shook his head. "I mean, c'mon, man, you can't get a woman to save your life, despite health, wealth and OK looks. You can't win a case. That time, in Vegas, you dropped two hundred dollars on nickel slots without winning once."
A deeper silence now. The cool hum of the air conditioning was the only sound the men could hear. Tears started welling up in Wyland's eyes.
John now spoke in a whisper. "Me... the partners and I gave you this case, because we want you to crack it. We need you to lose, and you will, but there's something else there. You are of great value to us for losing cases, but don't you think, maybe..."
He rubbed his eyes, again, looked right at Wyland, leaned towards his face, and as calmly as possible, said, "Don't you think, I say this as a friend, Wy, that maybe something similar is your problem? Maybe this is a curse?"
Wyland stared at John, dumbfounded. It had crossed his mind, but to hear someone say it out loud... he shook his head. Nothing matched, it was all confusion and hear-say. Wyland was still alive, he never heard or felt anything like what Jonathan, or Dick Yarrow, or the Duke of Northstead reported. How could he have been cursed?
But then again, it had all started suddenly. He had been an A student his first two years of law school, and had no trouble with women. And then, everything changed. He failed two classes the following year. His girlfriend, whom he had hoped to one day marry, dumped him and refused to speak to him ever again. He hadn't ever won a case, and failed the bar before passing it with a bit of "help". Now, he had trouble even convincing a prostitute to sleep with him. Why? What changed?
Old memories, faces, test sheets, smiles from pretty young women, congratulatory praise from professors, then, one failure after another after another. All this went though his mind as he sat staring at John with a stupidly bovine look on his face. A tear fell off the tip of his nose.
"I..." Wyland forced out a choked response, "I'm going to England."
Wyland got up and left the office.
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