Chapter Two

Nuances. What, did this guy go to Princeton?   "OK I'm all ears.  To the limits of my initial consult, which is free until I get to the point where I decide if I want to take the case.  Then we talk fees."

Jamie still doing the talking.  "Nuance one."  (I guess he liked the term.)  "The ex is a white Bahamian.  Family been there for centuries.  He says he owns everyone who matters.  I've talked to some of those Nassau lawyers you mention.  They want nothing to do with  Mr. Sloan.

"Nuance two.  Mr. Sloan is a very dangerous man, but Marie and I think that he keeps his word. "  She nodded.  "We give him the money, we get back Chloe.  Marie's daughter.

"Nuance three.  We don't have a million dollars."

"Does he need the money?"

"Yeah, it's an old family and he owns a bunch of land, but being a junkie is expensive.  He lives in an old hotel down there, beautiful but shabby, you know?  Like that old Humphrey Bogart movie."

"To Have and Have Not?"

"Yeah.  He has this life down there, characters float through, they're all busted down one way or another.  No place for a kid."

Marie finally intervenes.  "No place for my kid, in any case, Mr. Payne."  She'd lost the sad look.  She looked straight at me.  Knew she was heart-stopping and I'm sure she had stopped plenty.

"I prefer Mac. But whatever.  I assume the objective is to get Chloe back from the Bahamas, unharmed, for  a lot less than a million dollars.  I'll take the case if we can agree on a fee, and if you want me to take it.  Did you check me out like you said you would?"

I figured they had, because Jamie had called the office before they came over and asked for a couple of references.  Gracie had given him the names of two old friends, rich business guys who almost never used me but owed me favors.

"We did, and you checked out.  So about the fee?"

"Some guys charge by hour plus expenses, " I said, starting my standard spiel.  "Some add a success fee.  The ones who make the most, and the ones with the steadiest work, figure how to take the sting out for their clients.  Mostly by getting someone else to pay the fee.  Deal guys get paid from the deal, plaintiff guys take a contingency, and almost everyone looks for an insurance policy that will pick up the tab.  No one likes to pay a lawyer from his own pocket, and the guys who work exclusively for clients who pay themselves either have very rich clients or they aren't making any money.

"Me, I like alternative billing.  Which means I want to get paid for the value of what I bring to the party.   But I get that you don't have a million dollars, so we have to work together to make this worth everyone's time.

"Here's what I will do.  You put ten thousand dollars down.  It will mostly go to expenses, if I am right about how this will go.   In the meantime I will keep track of my time, and charge it to the deposit at one hundred bucks an hour.  Don't get excited, that's less than a plumber, it's not where I want to wind up.

"When the $10K is gone, we talk, and if at that point we all decide it isn't going to work, we all walk away, with me only covered at a hunny an hour.  Or you can put in another ten, and we continue.  And so on.

"There is often a deep pocket that appears in a case like this, an insurance company or a bank or a rich relative.  For them, and for all the rest of the world, my fee is five hundred an hour.  If they step up I get it, first, at that rate, based on my time from the start.

"Plus I get a piece of the story, and I represent you in selling it.  If there's a book deal or a TV show that comes out of it, I own fifty percent of  it."

"Bullshit."  This from Marie.  "You aren't going to own my daughter's story."

"No, I'm going to own fifty percent of the economics.  You and she are going to own the other half and have approval of the content."

"What if we say no?"

"Then I've cut a bad deal."

"Well this sounds like a bad deal for us, Mr. Payne."  I hated to disappoint her.  Those eyes.  "And when  Jamie said we don't have a million dollars, he meant it.  We're artists who haven't hit the big time and since he's 34 and I'm 36, we may never.  In the meantime we'll have to scrape to come up with the first ten and I don't know where the second will come from."

"Then we take that risk together."

They look at each other.  From him - "We'd like to talk about it, Mac."

"Feel free," I said, standing up and buzzing Gracie at the same time.  She came in.  My guardian angel, dexterous, steady.  "Gracie, would you show Mr. Doggett and Ms. Sloan the way out?  And" - I looked at each of them, and wondered why they hadn't made the big time - "please let me know if you want to go forward."

Marie fixed me  like she'd pin a bug.  "We don't need to wait.  Gracie, please email me the bank instructions.  We'll wire it today."

I guess that was scraping.  Whatever.  We were on.