If I Should Die Before I Die Read Free

her, or anyone, forget it. And when, after the Magister kids had announced their suits, she hired Roy Barger to represent her, it was—you could feel it—time to take the gloves off. Roy Barger may have been a streetfighter by reputation, but he was also, or had become, a street-fighter for the rich, and his relationship with the media was strictly love-hate.
    By the morning I’m talking about, you’d begun to hear people say that Margie’s shadowy past had to be hiding something, didn’t the fake von prove it? Wasn’t Alsatian half-German anyway? Maybe she was a Nazi; maybe she was Jewish. In any case, she was foreign, and who knew what she’d been giving Bob III all that time along with the prescribed medication? Whereas the Magister kids, all right, so they’d been born with the proverbial silver spoons, but they were at least Americans, weren’t they? Their father’s children, weren’t they entitled to something?
    Evenly divided, maybe even tilting toward the kids.
    And either way, the Firm was caught squarely in the middle. And trying hard to duck.
    Which is what brought the Counselor into it.
    Douglas McClintock, senior partner, was clearly steaming.
    â€œWhat in hell can we accomplish if Charles isn’t here?” he asked, still standing behind his desk.
    â€œDo you want me to leave?” I said, starting to rise from my chair.
    â€œNo, I didn’t say that,” McClintock answered, waving with one hand as though to brush away the suggestion. He is a small, humorless Scotsman, more or less contemporary to the Counselor and absolutely impeccable. Steel-rimmed glasses, thinning gray hair that looks lacquered to his skull, economical gestures, blue serge, conservative tie over a white and cuff-linked shirt. Every bit the high-level corporate attorney, in sum, with the polished no-nonsense manner to go with it.
    â€œNo offense, Revere,” he went on. “This isn’t directed at you. But how can we have a strategy session without Charles?”
    â€œI thought the strategy had already been decided,” I said.
    â€œOh?” he said. “Then you tell me what that is.”
    He sat down, steepling his hands on the desk top.
    â€œDo you want it straight?” I said. “Or beating around the bush?”
    â€œStraight, please,” glancing at his watch.
    â€œAll right,” I said. “The Magister situation has you—the Firm—caught in the middle. You’re counsel to Magister Companies, but you also represent Robert Magister’s estate and are one of its executors. The companies are without a head right now, the estate is being sued, you … the Firm in any case … are going to have to testify in court as to the circumstances in which the will was drawn up, and you can’t afford to take sides because if you pick wrong, you risk losing one of your biggest clients, which is Magister Companies.”
    â€œIn point of fact,” McClintock put in, “the companies aren’t without leadership.”
    â€œSure,” I said. “The board’s appointed Young Bob acting chairman.” Robert Worth Magister IV, the oldest son, seemed to be stuck with “Young Bob” even though he was closing in on fifty. “But the board only serves at the whim of the stockholders, and if there’s ever a stockholders’ vote, you, as executor, are going to have to choose.”
    â€œUnless we resign as executor.”
    â€œUnless you resign as executor,” I repeated. “But I gather that’s one option you don’t want. It’s too bad Magister named you.”
    â€œI always advised him against it,” McClintock said, “but he insisted on us taking care of his personal affairs. He told me that if we wanted to keep the companies as our client, we could damn well draft his wills out of our retainer.”
    Maybe, as they say, that’s how the rich get richer: by