Free The Simeon Chamber by Steve Martini Page B

Almost five years had passed, but she continued to cultivate the incident, freshening the embarrassment whenever the need arose, which occurred with more frequency as boredom caused Sam to stray increasingly from his practice.
    Jorgensen had appeared at the office one afternoon with a friend from college. It was a dead-bang, money-in-the-bank sure thing. The friend’s family had ties in Alleghany dating to the 1850’s.
    An old uncle knew the exact location of a strongbox filled with gold dust that had been stashed fifty years before by miners during a claim dispute. Without consulting Pat, Sam forked over fifteen hundred dollars of the firm’s money and formed a limited partnership. They dug for a week with backhoes through a dozen old claims in the tiny foothill community. When the money ran out, all they had to show for their trouble were forty-three empty holes. The holes soon began to fill —with surrounding buildings. By fall, three abandoned shacks, undermined by the man-made 79
    craters and encouraged by heavy rains, collapsed. Bogardus learned to his dismay that in the back country of the Sierra Nevada the instincts for gold digging run deep. The termite-riddled hovels suddenly became “historic structures,” their owners demanding damages in six figures.
    Pat’s irritation turned to ire when the first lawsuit arrived. As always, what was a crisis to Pat was a mere inconvenience to Sam. He tendered the suits to the firm’s malpractice insurance carrier. The company’s underwriter listened in stunned silence as Sam, in near-reverent tones, informed him of the loss. It seemed the law firm’s work in forming the limited partnership constituted a professional service. Contrite to the end, Sam owned up to his error in failing to secure waivers of liability from the Alleghany property owners.
    After burning the phone lines between its home office in Minnesota and its lawyers in Los Angeles, the carrier grudgingly settled the claims, paying a dime on the dollar. The property owners fueled their fireplaces with lumber from the abandoned shacks as they counted their blessings in cold, hard cash. Two days later the carrier canceled the firm’s malpractice coverage, leaving Bogardus and Paterson “bare.” In the end Sam merely shrugged. After all, insurance coverage only encourages lawsuits. It was not a theory he wished to restate now as he gazed across the table into Pat’s icy stare.
    “In case you’ve forgotten, we’re in the business of practicing law, not dealing in antiquities or half-baked treasure hunts. Give the papers back to the lady and tell her to find somebody else to listen to her story.”
    But it wasn’t just Alleghany. Pat was jealous. Sam now knew that Angie had finally struck a responsive cord. The old lady had used Jennifer Davies to drive a wedge between him and Pat.
    “What’s the problem? Are you saying I’m not carrying my load in the office?”
    “You know better than that.” Her eyes narrowed. “There’s an old saying—it takes more than an ampersand to make a partnership. If we don’t get your mother out of the middle of our business 81
    now it will never end. She’ll destroy the firm and you know it.”
    “I’ll tell you what. If you’re worried about losing money on the deal, I’ll compensate the firm for the time I spend on the Davies matter. Hour for hour I’ll pay the going rate. You won’t lose a thing.”
    “It’s not the money and you know it,” she fumed.
    “Then what is it?”
    “It’s you. Losing interest in the firm, your practice and …”
    Sam waited for her to complete the sentence. But she didn’t.
    Three years earlier they would have fought until one of them walked away, driven by pride. Their pleasure would have come from later reconciliation. It was a measure of how far apart they had drifted that the argument merely blew itself out and in the end they found themselves still seated, staring across the small cocktail table.
    “Let me play