Hidden Agenda is available in the Kindle Store, the iTunes Store, and
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Store. Newsday describes attorney Willa Jansson as "an unusually deep and complex character for crime
fiction—tough-minded, sexual, vulnerable, lonely, morally alive."
Who is Bud Hopper? That's the question troubling Willa
Jansson (Where Lawyers Fear To Tread,
A Radical Departure) when a
mysterious Republican pulls strings to get her a
job at a staunchly conservative law firm. How in the world did Hopper convince
them to hire a
graduate of "Merely" Malhousie Law? And how did he persuade them to
ignore Willa's last position, with notorious San Francisco liberals? When
her new boss is killed in exactly the same way as her
last, it's clear to Willa that Hopper is out to frame her. But
who's going to take her word over a friend of the President's?
Find out why the New York Times called Willa "Among
the most articulate and surely the wittiest of women sleuths," and John
Leonard, of National Public Radio's "Fresh Air," said, "I'm in
love with Willa!"
Hidden Agenda
By Lia Matera
Copyright 1988 Lia
Matera
Electronic Edition
2011
eISBN
978-1-937697-03-7
This ebook may not be
re-sold, reproduced, copied or distributed for commercial or non-commercial
use.
First Bantam Books Edition
1988
First Ballantine Books
Edition 1992
The law firms and
business institutions depicted in this book are imaginary. So are the lawyers,
bankers, and other characters. Any resemblance they may bear to actual
individuals or institutions is purely coincidental.
Author's Note
This book differs
in some ways from the print version, published by Bantam in 1988 and reprinted
by Ballantine in 1992. In those editions, I sometimes used specific dates and
events to highlight the passage of time. Two decades later, it seems simpler to
express this as years in the interim. I also removed or reworked references
that fell behind the times, and I added some fresh observations.
Hidden Agenda
Chapter One
It began with a phone call at seven in the
damned morning. I could hear the buzz of long-distance cable. "This is
Willa Jansson," I admitted grudgingly.
"And this is Thomas Spender." His tone said, Bully for me! "We met in January of
your last year of law school."
I frowned down at my bare toes, kicking aside some underwear.
If he was waiting for me to say, "How nice," he would wait a long
time. My last year of law school was not a cherished memory.
"In the midst of that, um . . . imbroglio."
Imbroglio. The word
crackled across my sleepy synapses. I remembered somebody using that word,
somebody from— "Wailes Roth—"
"—Fotheringham and Beck. Yes, indeed. You remember
our interview."
Despite plans to work for a respectably radical law firm in
San Francisco, I'd interviewed with two morticians (that's what they'd looked
like, anyway) from an august Wall Street firm. Thomas Spender, Esquire, began
to take shape in my memory: plump and pinstriped, the spawn of some Republican
Central Committee petri dish.
"Let me get to the point, Ms. Jansson. We, uh, heard
that your law firm— I believe you worked for Julian Warneke's firm?"
He spoke the name with bemused contempt. "And that firm is now, uh,
somewhat defunct?"
Somewhat defunct—the murder of two partners and a
secretary will do that. "The firm doesn't exist anymore," I
confirmed. Anyone who read the newspaper knew that.
"The reason I mention it is, I find we still have your
law school résumé on file. And we, um, thought you might care to send us an updated vita."
I edged closer to my bedroom window and pulled up the shade,
flinching from the morning light. I was surrounded by laundry, books, papers,
dust balls: it was my room, all right. Not a dream.
"Send you an updated résumé?" Since when did the
biggest, piggiest law firm on The Street have to solicit résumés? And why from
me? I'd done well in law school, but Malhousie wasn't in the top ten. And
Wailes Roth was the kind of firm that Stanford and Yale Law grads grovel
before, after clerking at the Supreme Court.
"Let me tell you what made us think of you, Ms. Jansson.
In spite of the publicity about the Warneke, um—" I guessed he
didn't want to use the word imbroglio
again. "That was rather unfortunate, of course, but… Tell me, do you know
Bud Hopper?"
"No."
"Jolly decent fellow." The Manhattan accent was
temporarily anglicized. "Apparently a very high muck-a-muck in the
Department of the Interior. He has the President's ear, you might say."
I bit back silk-purse jokes.
His pause made me worry I hadn't bitten hard enough.
"Anyway, Bud has some friends in INS—the Immigration and
Naturalization—"
"I know what it stands for." I meant to think this,
not say it. I'm useless before coffee.
"Of course you do." He spoke with
walrus-to-the-oysters heartiness. "I understand you wrote an excellent
little law review article about alternative immigration restriction
scenarios."
"My student article?" In which I did not use the
phrase "alternative immigration restriction scenarios." Honest.
"Bud tells me some very senior White House aides looked
at that article. In fact…" His tone was both superior and congratulatory.
"Bud tells me the President's people even kicked around one or two of your
thoughts when they made their limited amnesty recommendation to Congress."
I almost groaned. The latest Republican plan allowed bosses
to continue exploiting their existing cheap foreign labor while slamming the
door on future immigration. "I'm sure you misunderstood your friend."
"Now, now. No false modesty. I haven't had a chance to
peek at the article myself, but Bud Hopper certainly seemed to think it was a
good piece of student work." He added brightly, "Good enough for this
administration."
I sat down, almost missing the edge of the bed. Lately I'd
been pining over a cop. If my parents learned I'd also contributed, however
unwittingly, to the Republican body politic, they would wander the streets in
sackcloth and ashes.
"And," he continued, "a few of the partners
here were sufficiently impressed when I mentioned it to suggest that I call you
this morning and invite you to update your résumé."
"Mr. Spender, thank you. But I don't think I'd like to
move to New York."
"No, no, Ms. Jansson. It's our San Francisco office that
needs a new associate."
"I didn't know you had an office here."
"A recent addition to our, um, constellation. Quite
small, for the time being—an extension of our Los Angeles office, really.
Two partners and four associates, but we plan a very accelerated expansion. And
naturally, we would be prepared to lateral you in."
I briefly considered the verb. Was it better than being
verticaled? "Lateral me?"
"Give you credit for your two years with the Warneke
firm."
"In what sense?"
"Salary and seniority," he said indulgently.
"I believe our third-year people are nudging toward two hundred thousand.
But it jumps quite nicely in the fifth year, and continues climbing until one
makes partner in the seventh year, assuming one does. Partners, of course, are
on a different scale altogether."
Nudging toward two-hundred thousand? And jumps quite nicely?
Warneke Kerrey Lieberman & Flish, the law firm of my left-wing dreams,
barely paid more than a janitorial service.
"Let me give you the name of a contact person in our San
Francisco office," Spender continued, in the same indulgent tone. "In
case you decide to give us a call."
And, with the breathless obedience of a President's wife, I
purred, "Let me get a pencil."
Chapter Two
"Mother," I hedged, watching her proofread her
latest tract. "I think it's important for women to assume their rightful
positions in the power structure. Don't you?"
Her eyes continued moving back and forth over the flyer. Its
recycled paper was so cheap it looked like it had bug legs in it. She wasn't
really listening. In our family, liberal sentiments are white noise.
I kept trying. "Especially since"—since
what?—"it's almost an election year."
"'Manipulate the media,'" she read aloud.
When the Yippies had their fifty year reunion, my mother
would be wheeling her walker to the punch bowl.
"So I've joined a new firm," I concluded, rather
forlornly.
Mother put the topmost sheet back on the stack. The print was
misaligned and blotchy, as usual. I could see it announced the formation of yet
another media alliance.
"A new firm? Labor law again? Or legal aid?"
"Not exactly." How to break the news that I'd be
representing banks and holding companies instead of migrant workers and labor
unions? "But I did get the job because of that immigration article I
wrote."
Mother's blue eyes lit with pride. "The Agricultural
Labor Relations Board? That's wonderful, Baby. I know they've been cutting back
on—"
"Well, no. What I was saying before about women joining
the power elite?" I looked around the under-furnished, cushion-scattered
Haight-Ashbury flat. From every wall, posters urged me to Feed the Hungry and Learn the
Lessons of Vietnam. I sighed. "The firm's called Wailes Roth
Fotheringham and Beck."
Mother looked uncertain: Judeo-WASP names, all. No named
partners of color? "What kind of law does it—?"
"It's definitely a power structure kind of firm,
Mother." Seeing her jaw drop, I hurried on. "But the point is, it's
been a bastion of the old-boy network for seventy-five years, and I think it's
time women began to…" Make a lot of
money, I concluded silently.
Mother ostentatiously straightened her spine. It always meant
trouble when she remembered her yoga. "Did he put you up to this?"
He had not
returned my phone calls for two months. Not since the Civil Service Commission
verbally censured his conduct in a murder case—the murder of my former
boss, Julian Warneke. The complained-of conduct had been, at least in part, an
errand of mercy on my behalf: San Francisco Homicide Lieutenant Don Surgelato
had shot and killed an unarmed murder suspect. If the "suspect" (read
"murderer") had lived, my mother's association with an underground
organization would have been revealed. She'd have ended up in jail.
Not that Mother minded that. It was something she did now and
then, to catch up on her correspondence with other friends in jail.
I was the one who hated to see her behind bars, and my
gratitude toward the lieutenant (unexpressed, because he would not return my
phone calls) stopped just short of disconsolate love.
San Francisco's legal establishment had a different reaction.
Led by my former criminal procedure professor, it now rancorously lobbied for
the lieutenant's suspension from the force.
And my mother, damn her, had personally organized two
"Suspend Surgelato" rallies on the Hall of Justice steps.
"He has
probably never even heard of Wailes Roth." I restrained an impulse to
screech at her. I didn't need another baleful lecture on family shui. "I'm
just tired of—"
"Your moral principles?" Outrage glowed on her
finely wrinkled cheeks.
"Rotten pay. Legal aid, the ACLU, and Ag
Board—they don't pay enough to keep you in bus fare in a city like San
Francisco. I'm sick of being underpaid. And I'm sick of being told I'm lucky
because there are thousands of lefties out there drooling over my job."
"Money!" She might have been saying rat poison! "Willa June, there's a
great deal more to life than— What about helping your fellow human
beings? Don't you believe—"
"There'll be pie in the sky when I die?" I reprised
my only ideological argument: "Women have to keep infiltrating the power
structure, Mother."
For a moment my mother, mostly in the habit of approving my
actions, seemed to waver.
Unfortunately, my argument was transparently self-serving.
Mother might be a bleeding heart, but she was no dummy.
"Oh, Willa. You've sold out! I never, ever thought it
would happen to you."
And she crossed herself, in silent prayer for my radical
soul.
Chapter Three
William K. Mott was compact and funereal, with black hair
brushed straight back and a long, frown-creased face. He wore a midnight blue
suit, a white shirt and a burgundy tie. He carefully unfolded a pair of
horn-rimmed half glasses as he squinted down at my résumé.
"Malhousie," he murmured with mild distaste. Merely
Malhousie (as it was sometimes called) was at the bottom of the list of
"better" law schools. It verged on good enough, but it was hardly top
drawer. It wasn't Stanford, Harvard, or Yale, but it wasn't Temple, Memphis
State, or People's College, either.
To nudge toward two hundred thousand, I would gladly hear my
alma mater disparaged. "I was near the top of my class. And a Stanford
undergraduate." And then, because Mott continued to look unimpressed:
"I was also editor-in-chief of law review for a while." I felt a stab
of guilt; at the time, I'd scorned the fervid ambition of those seeking that
position. It had become mine only through mishap and inadvertence.
Half glasses settled low on his nose, Mott continued
examining my résumé. I looked nervously around the office. It was decorated in
gray, navy, and plum with abstract landscapes in matching shades. Behind Mott
was a framed photograph of Gerald Ford that might have been labeled "What,
me worry?" On his desk was a tidy stack of files beside an open briefcase.
His gray leather office chairs probably cost more than my former boss's entire
five-office suite. Behind Mott, wall-to-ceiling windows overlooked the colorful
bustle of the financial district. Coit Tower, glamorously spotlighted, rose in
the background. My old office had a view of a parking garage.
Mott finally commented, "Top five, editor-in-chief,
mm-hm, mm-hm. And of course the article Bud Hopper mentioned. Tell me, what
kind of work did you do for Mr. Warneke?"
"Litigation." I was glad to focus on what I'd
done—not who I'd done it for. "Law and motions, primarily. But also
depositions, administrative hearings, contract negotiations."
He glanced up from the résumé. "Any trial
experience?"
"One jury trial," I admitted reluctantly. He wouldn't
approve of the cause of action. And besides, I'd lost the case.
"Second-seating Mr. Warneke?"
"No." I could feel myself shrink deeper into the
leather. "This was shortly after his, um… death."
"Ah, yes." He frowned at my résumé again, fumbling
with the buttons of a sleek telephone. A moment later, a Lauren Hutton clone
glided into the office. "Robert will want to see Ms. Jansson next, I
think, Jaclyn." Mott laced his fingers on the desk top. As I stood to
leave, he explained, "I maintain this office for my occasional jaunts
north, but my primary locus is Los Angeles. Robert LeVoq"—he smiled
weakly—"is actually the senior partner here." He added grimly,
"I am the managing partner."
He and Jaclyn exchanged a glance that fizzed like damp
fireworks.
Chapter Four
Robert LeVoq was talking into a speaker phone, feet on his
desk, a pad full of geometric doodles before him. He looked to be in his
mid-thirties. He had brown hair, boyishly styled, and chipmunk cheeks that
added to a first impression of youthful charm. He wore a daringly pale suit
with patterned socks of the same shade. There was a frat boy sparkle in his
close-set eyes.
"Marty, Marty. No way," he bellowed in the
direction of his speaker. He waved me into the office, glancing first at my
breasts, then at my legs, then at my hair. He nod said, a cute little blonde.
(He would learn different, if he hired me.) "We're ready to go on this one
right now."
A New York voice crackled from the speaker. "Bobby, what
the hell difference does it make to you? If you're ready now, you'll be ready
next month. If you're ready
now."
"Ready?" "Bobby" laughed, a rolling
chuckle that sounded rehearsed. "Tell your client to enjoy the Maserati
while he can still afford it, buddy. And forget the continuance." LeVoq winked
at me as I sat opposite him. "Look at it this way, Marty. Your wife'll
have a better time in Italy without you." He clicked a button, terminating
the call. "We don't take vacations—why should they?"
No vacations? I hoped he was kidding. "I'm Willa Jansson.
Mr. Mott sent me."
He pumped my hand, holding it a trifle too long and glancing
again at my breasts. "Bob LeVoq. Sit down. Jackie," he said to the
Lauren Hutton clone, "wait a sec."
While LeVoq stacked the scatter of file folders on his desk,
I looked around. The office was almost as big as Mott's. It was done in cream,
black, and red, accented with abstract torso sculptures of big-hipped women. It
too had a view of Coit Tower.
LeVoq handed Jaclyn the files. "Give these to Melinda,
would you? And tell her we're still on calendar with Transport Trust."
Jaclyn took the stack, a slight frown on her model-perfect
brow. Seeing it, LeVoq chuckled again. As Jaclyn turned to leave, he leaned
across the desk and extended his arm as if to pat her fanny. At the last
second, he flicked a crumpled ball of paper off his desk instead. And laughed.
"Sooooo." His voice made the transition to
businesslike. "Tell me about your last case."
Damn. "I defended a boy who refused to register with the
selective service."
LeVoq's plump-cheeked face showed neither approval nor
disapproval. He looked, in fact, sincerely eager to discuss it. "What were
the legal issues?"
"Whether a violation of the Selective Service Act can be
justified by a moral objection to—"
"Legally
justified? There's a clear statutory duty to register with the selective
service at age eighteen. Period." His voice boomed, his hand waved: he was
revving into litigator mode. "If you don't register, you're in clear
violation."
"The statute doesn't allow for individual gestures of
conscience, that's true. But juries do, sometimes."
LeVoq laughed, obviously enjoying the discussion more than I
was. "So you're saying there was no way you could have won on the merits?
But you went ahead anyway." He sat forward, crossing his arms atop a stack
of manila folders. "You know, Wilma, I always tell my people: To hell with
the merits. If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law's against
you, argue the facts."
And if the clichés are against you, it must be a job interview.
I smiled and nodded.
"Who'd you appear before?"
"Judge Rondi." I tried to suppress a shudder.
LeVoq snickered. Apparently he'd appeared before the old
fascist, too. "Oh well, it shouldn't matter who the judge is. What
matters—" He looked over my shoulder, a sly, almost contemptuous
gleam in his eye. "Melinda. Meet Wilma."
I swiveled in my chair. A tall woman in a blue-trimmed black
suit was standing at LeVoq's office door. Her shoulder-length brown hair had
bowl-cut bangs, and her face, like mine, was makeup free. She appeared capable
of intelligent good humor—her mouth, showing a considerable overbite, had
laugh lines around it. But right now, her straight brows were pinched, and her
jaw was clenched. "Have you done anything on Transport Trust?"
"Get back to me tonight. We'll brainstorm." He made
a gesture to match his airy tone.
Melinda weighed a hefty stack of file folders on her palm.
"Sixty pages of interrogatories, a document production request that's
going to send Transport through the ceiling, and one day left to file a motion
to quash." She slapped her other hand on top of the files. "I've been
asking for months if you want me to take over this case. What's the point of
turning it into a paper war, anyway? I thought you were going to phone Marty and
settle out."
"He just asked me to stip to a continuance." The
sly gleam returned to LeVoq's eyes. "I figured, hell, if he's not ready…
It gives us an advantage. We'll be there in time, don't worry."
"We? What are you doing tonight, Bob?"
He smiled sweetly. "You can reach me at home if you have
any questions."
She flushed in unattractive splotches. Her lips moved
soundlessly. If my lip-reading was correct, the self-censorship was entirely
appropriate.
"Say hello to Wilma." LeVoq's voice was sunshine.
If he'd noticed the silent Anglo-Saxon, he showed no sign of minding.
The woman looked me over. "You're interviewing?"
"Yes. Willa Jansson."
"Well, I hope to god
they hire you. We could use the extra body."
Chapter Five
"They" turned out to be two entire floors of a Los
Angeles skyscraper—a hundred attorneys and their support
staff—which everyone referred to as "the California office."
Back in law school, I'd heard my fellow students complain
about day-long, out-of-town interviews. I'd listened with a sense of smug
superiority. I'd known from my first day that I would work for Julian Warneke.
Julian was my parents' lawyer when they broke into a military installation to
swat missile nose cones with a ball-peen hammer, when they blocked the entrance
to Dow Chemical to protest napalm, when they vandalized Monsanto to decry
genetically engineered seeds, when they defied restraining orders on picket
lines of unions they didn't even belong to. Julian defended my parents—or
rather, put on a political show on their behalf—so often that he'd become
sort of an honorary uncle.
All through law school, as I'd watched students don itchy
suits and fret over their résumés, I'd felt relief and even (I must admit) mild
contempt. And now it was my turn to smile all day like a beauty contestant, to
field pompous questions designed to make me look stupid (as anything about
Articles 7 and 9 of the Uniform
Commercial Code will do), to explain why I'd graduated later than most
(without mentioning the years I'd gypsied around, since anything
"hippie" was suspect these days), and basically to bootlick for the
big bucks.
I felt like I'd walked onto the set of Invasion of the Body-Snatchers to play a pod-grown Republican.
At the end of the day, I was treated to dinner at an ersatz
Roman temple called the L.A. Athletic Club. Accompanying me were four men and
one woman. Two of the men looked like Bob LeVoq, only more so. They boasted
that the attorneys' lounge had two cross-country ski machines (Parris Black
Minch, the firm downstairs, had only one). The two older partners looked more
like real-life (as opposed to daytime TV) lawyers. One of them, a middle-aged
man in a red vest, told me a little about the San Francisco office while the
others conferred passionately over the wine list.
"The majority of San Francisco's work comes from
California Bank and Trust. The office bills them, oh, four and a half, five
million a year. The bank complains, but they know we're worth it." He
glanced at Milward somebody-or-other, the oldest partner at the table.
Milward sipped his water (bottled Italian, no bubbles) and
smiled primly.
The woman on my left said, "I hear CBT just sent a RICO
case to Millet Wray and Weissel." She was looking longingly at the
appetizers. Her suit was no-give silk, so form-fitting she was probably afraid
to smell the shrimp much less eat it.
Jonathan red-vest looked annoyed. "We don't handle all
their matters, but we do get most of them. Hannah Crosby sent over a
multimillion-dollar collection case yesterday. So I think one can assume"—there
was a sarcastic edge to his voice—"that the bank is happy with Bob's
work."
The woman studied her menu. "Hannah is certainly happy
with Bob's… 'work.'"
One of the lounge skiers snickered.
Jonathan weighed his butter knife as if tempted to fling it.
"Bob's a rainmaker. We need a rainmaker in that office." He glanced
at me. "We like our San Francisco people to focus on client development.
You'll be expected to actively court clients—bar functions, client
seminars, business lunches, things like that."
"Oh, of course." I loathed the idea. Everyone
continued looking at me. Expecting me to list my previous rainmaking? "Is
Mr. LeVoq the only partner in the San Francisco office?"
For a moment, no one answered. The silk-bound woman stared at
Milward with undisguised curiosity.
And Milward, the apparent tribal elder, replied, "Other
than Bill Mott? For now, yes." He looked around the table, quelling
challenge. The skier and the woman exchanged speaking looks. Milward went
quietly back to perusing his menu.
Nodding with satisfaction, Jonathan continued. "There
are some very good people up in S.F. Bob's from Boalt, Melinda's from
Georgetown, Aasgar's a local boy—UCLA. And the two new people."
"Harvard and Columbia," the woman supplied.
Milward inquired, without looking at me, "You went
where?"
"Malhousie." And at lightning speed, I added,
"Stanford undergrad."
Chapter Six
With the job came a fifteen-by-twenty office, four leather
chairs, two oak desks, some potted palms, and a natty secretary named Andrew McNee.
McNee was a muscular fifty-five-year-old with a crew cut, a clipped mustache,
and an irritable expression. He stepped into my taupe-and-peach office
unannounced, and found me fondly petting my leather chair.
"Welcome to Wailes Roth, Ms. Jansson."
"Call me Willa."
"I prefer to be called Mr. McNee."
I guessed he'd object to keeping his head lower than mine,
too. "All right."
"I should mention that I'm gay," he added, with
crabby dignity.
As I had no intention of falling in love with him, I took the
news well. "All right," I said again.
"I don't like my associates to think that I'm trying to
hide it." He looked like a rich country squire in his tweed suit, plain
wool vest, and brogues. He was too well dressed to be heterosexual—men don't bother looking that good for
women.
"Oh, um, thank you. Do you know, is there a coffee
machine around here?" After two months of unemployment, it had been
torture, getting up at seven. If I didn't get some coffee soon, I'd slide off
my chair.
McNee pointed to my telephone, which resembled a space
shuttle control panel. "Buzz Rhonda. She'll bring you any potable or
comestible you desire."
Rhonda was McNee's secretary. McNee, I gathered, did all the
document production and correspondence, and Rhonda did the Xeroxing and filing.
I wondered what Mother would think of my secretary (once
removed) fetching my coffee. She was a great one for preserving employee
dignity. At restaurants, she always tried to bus her own table. "I can get
my own coffee if—"
"Buzz Rhonda," McNee repeated, ending the matter.
A law firm with room service. I could live with it.
I was pouring coffee out of my third silver carafe of the day
and painstakingly reading some loan documents when a balding man with perfect
posture brought me an armload of case files.
"Nineteen receivables cases," he said smugly.
"Basically a full caseload." Colin Aasgar was the third most senior
attorney in the office, after Bob and Melinda. "Take a look at them
tonight, and we'll discuss them in the morning."
It was seven-thirty p.m.
I already had my jacket on. I was starving, and more urgently, I needed a
joint. I considered telling Aasgar that I already had a full caseload thanks to
Bob and Melinda. But I could see that he already knew it. His smile would have
shamed a B-movie Nazi.
"Shouldn't take but a few hours to parse them," he
drawled. "Come to my office at around seven."
He hovered a moment, apparently waiting for me to say
something I'd regret later. I slipped off my suit jacket.
For the next three hours, I read the tiny print whereby banks
wrap their tentacles around debtors' assets. I read bankruptcy notices. I read
Complaints by unsecured creditors, claiming they'd be ruined if the bank
foreclosed on their supplier/distributor/client's assets; Complaints by
debtors, claiming the bank had engineered their bankruptcies by "tortious
business interference and premeditated under-collateralization"; and
Complaints by debtors' employees, claiming the company had filed bankruptcy for
the sole purpose of thwarting their union. Everybody wanted millions in bad
faith damages from the bank. The bank merely wanted everything the debtors
owned.
For what Wailes Roth was paying me, I'd do anything but break
the debtors' thumbs.
