Do This For Me Read online

  “No, I—”

  “Do you need a reason, other than because I’m asking you to do it? A reason other than,” I smiled at him, “because I said so?”

  “This kind of thing is why we travel in pairs,” the girl murmured.

  “Get cracking,” I said. They bent their heads and started dialing.

  Renfield came back. “I can’t cancel. He already checked in.”

  “Can you reroute him? Kick him into coach? Order him the vegan meal?” She shook her head. How frustrating.

  Renfield left. Darryl arrived. He managed logistics for our trials: organizing temporary offices in cities across the country, managing the movement of people, equipment and tons and tons of paper. He was short, stout, goateed. The Weimaraner on his sweatshirt peered out at me balefully.

  “Darryl!” I waved him in. “What moving company do we use here in New York?”

  “Citywide,” he replied.

  I wrote my address on a legal pad, tore off the sheet and held it out to him. “Have them send a large truck and two dozen men to this address immediately. Tell them to call me when they arrive.”

  He looked dubious. “What if they can’t—”

  “Then the firm will never hire them again,” I said.

  Darryl left. Over on the sofa, each paralegal held a phone to one ear. Neither was talking.

  “What’s going on?”

  The girl jumped a little. “Um, we’re on hold?”

  “Yeah, hi,” said the boy. “I’d like to cancel my credit card?”

  This was taking too long. I needed more hands.

  “Who’s the paralegal who’s addicted to Adderall?” I asked.

  “Therese,” the girl said instantly.

  “It’s a boy.”

  “Alex.”

  “Curly hair?”

  “Oh,” she said. “That’s Cameron.”

  “Renfield!” I shouted. “Get me Cameron!”

  The boy paralegal caught my eye. “They’re asking why I want to cancel the Visa.”

  “Say you prefer MasterCard.”

  “I prefer MasterCard,” he said into the phone.

  “Yes, hello!” said the girl paralegal. “I’d like to suspend my Internet service?”

  Renfield brought in the list of antiscience groups I’d asked for. I skimmed the page. The Institute for American Science, American Priorities USA and the Galileo Institute.

  The Galileo Institute. You had to admire the chutzpah.

  “I, uh, lost my cell phone?” The boy paralegal glanced at me. I nodded. “Can you shut it off right away?”

  A few minutes later, Cameron shot through the door. He was tall, scarecrow thin, wrists and ankles sticking out of his clothes. Corkscrew blond hair and round blue eyes. He’d helped me prepare for an emergency hearing a few weeks earlier, and I’d been impressed by his enthusiasm and resourcefulness—not to mention his imperviousness to fatigue.

  He was definitely an oddball, though. He loped across the room, hopped onto one corner of my desk and bent toward me confidentially.

  “Greetings, Boss. I heard you were in desperate need of my services.”

  I handed him the list and the American Express card I shared with Aaron. “Call each of these organizations. Tell them you’re Doctor Aaron Moore, and you want to make a donation of twenty-five thousand dollars to help combat the fake media’s pernicious lies about so-called man-made climate change.”

  Cameron glanced at the sheet of paper. “These people are psychopaths.”

  “Technically they’re delusional paranoiacs,” I said. “And therefore ideal for my purposes.”

  “Whoakay.” He slid off the desk and pulled out his phone. The other paralegals made room for him on the sofa.

  I turned to my computer. I had eleven new e-mails. I answered three and deleted eight. The phone rang four times. I reviewed my list of what mattered most to the person who used to matter most to me.

  Social connectedness. Public persona.

  I called up Gmail and typed in Aaron’s address. I tried a few passwords. None worked. Same with Twitter. What other accounts did he have? Facebook. Instagram. I tried them. Couldn’t get in.

  “Renfield!” I hollered. “I need that guy who was in here earlier!”

  “Darryl?” she hollered back.

  “No! The nerdy guy!”

  “This is a law firm! You wanna be a little more specific?”

  “The IT guy!”

  “Do I want it canceled completely?” The girl paralegal looked at me. I gave her a thumbs-up. “Yes, I do,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Cameron said into his phone. “I’m that Aaron Moore.”

  A few minutes later, the IT-type arrived. I gestured to a chair. I tried a welcoming smile. He looked concerned. “Are you okay?”

  So much for pleasantries. “If I give you an e-mail address, can you figure out its password and the passwords of any related social media accounts?”

  “That’s illegal,” he said.

  “The question is illegal?”

  “No, but doing it is.”

  “I didn’t ask you to do it. I asked you if you could.”

  He considered a moment, then shrugged. “Probably.”

  “Good,” I said. “Will you?”

  “No!”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s illegal.”

  “Please.” I laughed. “Who’s the lawyer here?”

  “That’s right, Betty,” Cameron said. “Twenty-five large.”

  “Do this for me,” I said. The IT-type shook his head. My phone rang four times. “What’s your name?”

  “Chase.”

  “Do you enjoy being employed, Chase?”

  He scoffed. “You can’t fire me for this.”

  Probably not. But I was crazed with fury and on a mission—I wasn’t going to let the norms of civilized behavior slow me down.

  So I leaned over my desk, locking my eyes on his. “Can’t, Chase? I can’t? I am a partner of this firm. This vast, powerful firm.” I reached wide with my arms, embracing the office, the floor, the entire building. “A firm that employs the finest legal minds in the world. A firm that consistently tops the national rankings in every metric that matters. I didn’t get here through can’t, Chase. None of us got here through can’t. I think it’s safe to say that at this firm, we don’t do can’t.”

  “Disconnect it immediately,” said the girl paralegal.

  “Because I don’t need it anymore,” said the boy paralegal.

  “Yes, sir!” Cameron cried. “You’re talking to the Bug Doctor!”

  Chase looked uneasy, but he held firm. “Just because you’re a partner doesn’t mean you can—”

  “Oh, but Chase. It does. It does mean that. Unlike you, I’m not an employee. I am an owner. I own this firm. See this?” I picked up my stapler. “I own this stapler, Chase. I own all the staples in this stapler.” I waved it in the air. “I own all the staples in all the staplers in this entire building.”

  “Publicize my donation on your website?” Cameron’s eyes flicked over to me. I nodded. “You betcha, Wayne!”

  “They’re my staples, Chase. All of them. And I can take them away. I can take everything away.”

  Cameron read my credit card number into his phone. The girl paralegal and the boy paralegal ended their calls, turned to each other and high-fived. I had managed, through my urgency and intensity, to get them into the spirit of the thing. I was good at that—at rousing people to extraordinary effort, convincing them that what they were doing was necessary, meaningful. Even when they had no clue what was going on.

  I watched the IT-type. I waited.

  Finally, he relented. “Give me the e-mail address.”

  I stepped back from my desk
. Chase sat down at my computer and typed a string of numbers into the address bar. The screen filled with flashing Cyrillic script.

  “Don’t look,” he muttered. I turned away. The phone had stopped ringing. I wandered to the window and surveyed the city.

  I felt fantastic!

  All my life, I’d taught myself never to surrender to anger. Sure, I faked it sometimes. Anger can be a handy rhetorical strategy, a useful bargaining technique. But I always kept the real thing at bay. I thought anger, like any strong emotion, would cloud my judgment. That if I gave way, some primal part of me would take over, and I wouldn’t be able to wrest my true self back.

  It wasn’t like that at all! I was in my element, doing what I do best. Giving orders. Strategizing under pressure.

  I was leaning in. With a vengeance.

  Renfield brought in a stack of expense reports. I sat in an armchair and started reviewing them. One of my partners, Wally Fanucci, stuck his grinning red face through the doorway.

  “Moore!”

  “Fanucci!”

  “Gaia Café! Huzzah!”

  “Thanks.”

  “Hell yeah! Way to stick it to those pasture-raised sonsabitches.” Wally surveyed the busy room, gripping the doorframe with a meaty hand. “Another case blow up?”

  I wasn’t ready to explain. “Something like that.”

  He made the sign of the cross and disappeared.

  A few minutes later, Amanda walked in. She looked at the paralegals on the sofa and the IT-type behind the desk. “Is this the ACLU meeting?”

  I’d forgotten about my twelve thirty. “Renfield! Where are those useless do-gooders?”

  She poked her head through the door. “Emily called. They’re ten minutes away.”

  “You’re in.” The IT-type pushed away from the desk. “And I was never here.”

  Cameron ended a call. “Done, Boss.”

  “I’m done, too,” said the boy paralegal.

  “What’s next?” said the girl.

  What’s next? I thought.

  Anything. I could do anything.

  “How hard would it be to hire a couple dozen clowns on short notice?”

  “For a woman who can charge seventy-five grand to her Amex?” Cameron said. “It would be child’s play.”

  “Then I want clowns. As many clowns as possible, meeting my husband’s flight.”

  All three of them started typing furiously. I turned to Amanda. “I got involved in this lawsuit a few months ago. I think you’ll find it very rewarding.”

  She looked so lost. “It involves clowns?”

  “No. The ACLU.” The IT-type had arranged Aaron’s accounts in a series of cascading windows on my screen. His e-mail was on top.

  Seeing it—something so private, now exposed—made me hesitate. What if Tom Nicholson was wrong? What if Aaron thought I was asking about something else?

  What if it was all a big mistake?

  I scrolled down his in-box. It took no time at all to find an e-mail from DNicholson, sent yesterday afternoon:

  Flight just landed. Be at the hotel in 45. Can’t wait to see you. xoD

  Were there more? Her husband said there were. I didn’t want to see them. I couldn’t. I—

  “Raney?” said Amanda.

  I looked up from the screen. “Does anyone know how to delete a Gmail account?”

  “That’s pretty dire, Boss,” Cameron said. “Are you sure you want to?”

  “Do not ask her that,” the boy paralegal muttered.

  The girl paralegal came around the desk and walked me through the process. Two minutes later, Aaron’s account was gone.

  “Permanently?” I asked.

  She nodded, eyes grave.

  The phone rang. Renfield poked her head in. “Jim Schleifman’s on one.”

  Jim was the client I was supposed to speak to about settlement—(e) on the morning’s to-do list, before I scrapped the list in favor of a scorched-earth campaign against my husband’s existence. Still, clients were clients. I hit speakerphone. “Big Jim!”

  “Raney!” he shouted. He always shouted. “What the hell?”

  “Sorry, Jim. The morning got away from me.”

  “Happens to the best of us. Give me the good news.”

  I told him the plaintiffs in his case wanted thirty million. He swore viciously. I said I could get them to twenty-seven. He swore harder. I had an idea. The boy paralegal was staring into space. I hit the mute button and snapped to get his attention.

  “There’s a car in the long-term lot at JFK. I want it towed.” I gave him the make, model and license plate number. Then I unmuted the phone and explained to Jim why twenty-seven was a good deal. After another torrent of profanity, he assented. I called one of my associates, Jisun, and asked her to start drafting the papers.

  “I have some questions about the Hyperium memo,” Amanda said. “But…maybe now isn’t a good time?”

  I clicked over to Aaron’s Twitter account. “Now is always a good time.”

  The boy paralegal put a palm over his phone. “They won’t tow unless someone is there waiting.”

  “Renfield will order you a car.” He left.

  I turned back to my computer. Aaron had 3.2 million followers.

  Popular guy.

  “I’m wondering how much detail you want regarding the liability of the Hyperium subsidiaries that are named as defendants,” Amanda said. “Should I…”

  A box at the top of Aaron’s feed asked:

  What’s Happening?

  I clicked on it and began to type.

  Anybody know where I can find a reasonably priced hooker to take a dump on my face?

  I deleted it without posting.

  “…and I wasn’t sure whether you wanted a full analysis of…”

  I know the big debate is cows vs. horses. But trust me: for depth of penetration, nothing beats a sheep.

  I deleted that one, too.

  “Don’t worry about corporate structure at this point,” I told Amanda. “We can ask them about it tomorrow.”

  My tweets were too wacky, too out there. Aaron was widely admired, even beloved. If he started tweeting about appalling sexual fetishes, everyone would know he’d been hacked.

  I needed something more subtle.

  “I was also wondering whether you’d like me to separate out the analysis of—”

  “That congressman,” I said. “With the Twitter scandal. Who was that?”

  “Uh, all of them?” Cameron said.

  “I mean the guy who sent crotch shots to random women. Then he ran for mayor.”

  “Anthony Weiner!” they all said at once.

  “Weiner!” I snapped my fingers. “What did he do, exactly? The first time, I mean.”

  “I think he meant to send the pictures as direct messages, but accidentally posted them to his public feed,” Amanda said.

  “Accidentally posted them to his public feed.” I started typing. “To answer your question, keep the analysis high level. At this point, I only need to know whether there’s any credible basis for dismissing the complaint.”

  I finished typing a new tweet. I read it.

  I thought, I can’t post that.

  I thought, Love, Aaron.

  I thought, xoD.

  I hit Tweet.

  Aaron Moore

  @RealAaronMoore

  Hey @DavidHKoch Thanx for the $$! You & Chas shd be pleased w/ final NCSC report. Scrubbed the heck outta that data!

  12.02 PM - 18 Sept 2017

  I counted to fifteen. Then I typed:

  Sorry folks—not for public consumption.

  I hit Tweet a second time.

  I was pierced with doubt.

  This was a waste of time. Nobody was going to believe that the env
ironmental movement’s newest hero was secretly in the pay of Republican supervillains. It was too implausible.

  I should have stuck with sheep sex.

  The ACLU people arrived. Emily bounced into the room, hugging Renfield and throwing herself into a chair. She used to work at the firm, so she was very much at ease here. Her boss, David, followed her in. He was a mild-mannered guy, an ACLU lifer. He always seemed a little uncomfortable when he visited our offices. Hesitant, peering around, as if he expected to pass an open doorway and spot a herd of plutocrats smoking cigars and deciding the next election.

  That would never happen. We keep those doors locked.

  “Your chairs suck, Raney,” Emily complained. “Ten seconds and my ass is on fire.”

  “Should I buy new ones, or throw more money at your useless expert?” I held up the report they were here to discuss.

  David looked stricken. “Are there problems with the draft?”

  Emily laughed. “No worries. ‘Useless’ is high praise in this room.”

  I introduced them to Amanda. David glanced back at the sofa. The girl paralegal was typing rapidly. Cameron was staring at the ceiling, one knee jiggling up and down.

  “Em, give Amanda an overview of the lawsuit. Then we can talk about the report.”

  “So here’s the deal,” Emily said. “Anybody who’s accused of a crime is constitutionally entitled to an attorney, right? Well, New York’s system of appointing counsel to the poor is fucked, and we’re going to sue the shit out of them.”

  She launched into an explanation of the right to counsel, Gideon v. Wainwright and flaws in the state’s indigent defense system. I checked Aaron’s Twitter account. A box at the top of his feed said, “View 67 new Tweets.”

  I clicked on it. A series of messages unscrolled on the screen.

  Science Times

  @ScienceTimes

  Is this a joke? RT @RealAaronMoore: Hey, @DavidHKoch Thanx for the $$! You & Chas shd be pleased w/ final NCSC report…

  Faru Marzeen

  @Amazing_Faru

  Whats @RealAaronMoore doing tweeting at #greatsatan @DavidHKoch re upcoming climate change report? Scrubbing data? WTF?