Guilt

There was a look in his eyes that she didn't like very much. Then a half-smile to back it up. He motioned with his head – follow me. On the floor next to one of the bookcases across the room was a cardboard box that had originally held a case of wine.

As the associate in charge of the summer clerk program, Avery received all the hopefuls' resumes, which a four-person committee reviewed once every two weeks. In the meanwhile, Avery 'filed' the resumes in the cardboard box, which currently was two or three inches deep in them.

He dropped Christina's in on top.

'Okay,' he said, 'you're in the hopper. Next it goes to the committee.' He reached out a hand and touched her sleeve. 'After this it gets pretty objective, Chris. We'll just have to see what happens.'

All that to drop her envelope in a box! She had been finessed.

Christina was so angry that she didn't even feel her reaction until she'd kissed Joe goodbye by the elevator banks and ridden the twenty-one floors back down to the lobby that opened on to Market Street. There, she stopped still, her heart suddenly pounding.

Though it was short notice, Victor Trang had been only too happy to come down for an afternoon meeting with Mr Dooher, who was representing the Archdiocese.

As usual, Trang wasn't exactly loaded down with litigation and he was heartened by the almost immediate response represented by Dooher's call. Also, late in the day, he welcomed the excuse to leave his one-room office in the darkened back corner of a turn-of-the-century building near the Geneva Avenue off-ramp of the Junipero Serra Freeway – as bleak a setting as San Francisco offered.

As soon as possible, would he like to come downtown to the no-doubt elegantly appointed twenty-first floor of the One California Building and discuss this matter? Why, yes. He allowed as to how he could find the time.

He'd only brought the matter up with Dooher on the previous Thursday, and thought that this quick a reply boded well for an equally quick settlement, which was why he was in the game.

Mark Dooher wasn't drinking anything, but his secretary came in and served excellent French roast coffee in an almost-translucent white china cup with a thin band of gold at the rim. Trang was sitting before a mahogany coffee table on an Empire-style couch, looking across Dooher's spacious office and out through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

The office, hanging here exposed above the city, was intimidating. The message it conveyed was clear – Dooher hadn't gotten here by losing very often. The weather had been dismal all day, and now wisps of dark clouds blew by in the strong wind, alternately obscuring then revealing the view – the Bay Bridge and Treasure Island, freighters and tugs on the water. The hills across the Bay, in the distance, were hulking shapes of gunmetal gray.

Trang took a sip of his coffee, nodded, and smiled at his host. He was thirty-three years old. He'd been a U.S. citizen for fifteen years, and was used to Caucasian faces, but this one was unreadable – open, honest, apparently friendly, civilized and well groomed. It was the kind of face that scared him the most, and the man who owned it sat kitty-corner to him, hands crossed, elbows on his knees, leaning slightly forward, getting right to the point.

'First, the Archbishop wanted me to convey to you that there is no intentional policy of toleration toward this kind of behavior in the Archdiocese. If Father Slocum had this relationship with Mrs Diep…

'He did, and with her daughter, too.'

'If, as I say, if this went on with Father Slocum, it was wrong and we deplore his actions. But,' Dooher continued, 'the larger issue – the whole question of officially looking the other way – that's a very sensitive area.'

Trang nodded. 'That's true,' he said, 'but it's equally true that many people have been substantially damaged.'

Dooher winced at the legal phrase. Without 'damages', there is no recovery. Trang was putting him on notice that he was here to talk turkey. 'Some people may have actually suffered damages, Mr Trang. For the moment, I thought we might stick with Mrs Diep. She's your primary client, isn't she?'

Trang put his coffee cup down and smiled. For the first time, he had a sense that this was going to work. And if it did, he would be on his way. 'Only until I file the amended complaint.' Another smile. 'Which I believe you've seen.'

'Yes, of course. That's what I wanted to see you about. Needless to say, we'd prefer you don't make that filing.'

Trang barely concealed his excitement. The Archdiocese was going to offer a settlement! He lifted his shoulders an inch. 'Naturally, if we could reach some understanding here…

Dooher smiled, nodded, and stood. 'Good,' he said, 'I think we can.' He walked over to his desk, where he picked up a leather folder and opened it. 'I have here a check in the amount of fifteen thousand dollars as a settlement for Mrs Diep's claims.'

Trang's stomach went hollow. Ten seconds before, he'd been thinking in the millions, and now…

'Fifteen thousand?'

'It's a generous offer, considering,' Dooher was saying. 'I know Mrs Diep feels that she's been wronged, but let's not pretend that she wasn't a willing participant in this whole unfortunate scenario. This is as far as we're going to go. I know the Archbishop. If I were you, I'd take it. That's honest advice.'

Trang forced himself to remain seated, to keep his voice calm. 'We were asking-'

'I know, I know, but look, Victor – do you mind if I call you Victor? – let's not pussy-foot around. You and I know what you've been doing. You've been out beating the bushes trying to find witnesses or victims or whatever you want to call them, to accuse priests of things that didn't happen, or are very difficult to prove. It's going to get ugly and it's going to take forever and PS you're going to lose. You're going to waste five years of your young life.' Dooher was standing by the windows. 'Come here a minute. Come here.'

Obediently, Trang rose and crossed the room. The height was dizzying. The floor upon which they stood seemed to end, unsupported, in space. Dooher stepped to the window, his shoes nearly touching the glass. He motioned Trang up next to him, stood too close to him, threateningly close.

Dooher picked up the thread of the discussion. 'You know, not a day goes by that I don't stand here looking down over the city reflecting on the frivolity of our fellow men. All these buildings, all this scrambling activity…' He leaned right into the window.'… All that humanity down on the street, tiny and busy as ants, doing so much that is frivolous. You know what I'm saying?'

'You are warning me about the dangers of bringing a frivolous lawsuit.'

A beam lit Dooher's face. 'That's exactly right, Victor. That's what I'm doing. Because I must tell you – this may be old news to you – that the courts are overworked as it is and extremely sensitive to frivolous lawsuits. Extremely sensitive. They smell frivolous and you got fines and even suspensions like you wouldn't believe. Bad stuff, very bad. Especially for sole practitioners such as yourself. Courts have been known to put 'em right out of business.'

Trang straightened himself, moved away from the windows. 'This lawsuit isn't frivolous.'

'Mrs Diep's may have some merit. We agree. Hence the fifteen thousand. Look.' Dooher laid a hand on his shoulder, seeming to push him out over the city. 'I was going to play hardball with you, Victor, and not make any offer. But when I told Jim Flaherty – the Archbishop – that you would be fined and have to pay our fees, and possibly be suspended from the Bar and so on… well, he insisted I convey to you this warning and offer the really generous settlement. Myself, I hate to give away strategy, but His Excellency doesn't want you to suffer, and if you go ahead with this lawsuit, you're going to.'