Martin Jenkins had not
been this nervous since the time during high school when he had been pulled
over after having a few beers. He knew
that all of his hopes and dreams would take a nosedive if he were picked up for
being a minor under the influence.
During those long moments as the officer just sat in his car, he tried
to calm himself while his heart was beating at near cardiac arrest levels. When the officer let him off with a warning,
he felt like the luckiest man alive.
Now, eight years later,
he had successfully climbed the ladder to become an associate with Erwald,
Grunz & Thomas, an established firm in Fort Worth. It had not been an easy journey. The party atmosphere of college and
fraternity life gave way to the panic of law school. After a poor first semester, he learned to
borrow outlines from better students and scored a clerkship with Erwald, Grunz
& Thomas after his second year.
The clerkship led to a job offer.
Erwald, Grunz &
Thomas, known as EGT, was the picture of
a conservative Texas law firm. Its
clients were traditional Texas businesses--railroads, insurance companies, oil
and gas producers. Many of them had
been with the firm for generations. The
firm's partners were white, male and belonged to the same private clubs. While the firm hired a few female
associates, they did not thrive in the boys club and eventually left. There were no casual Fridays at EGT. Associates
learned early that the EGT uniform consisted of a dark suit with a white shirt,
red tie and black shoes. Most of the
partners could be observed wearing their dark suits at the office on Saturday
and donning similar apparel at church on Sunday. Failure to live up to these
unwritten expectations could end the path to partnership.
Martin Jenkins found that
practicing law was every bit as difficult a transition as law school had been. Although
he came in earlier than any of the other associates and stayed later, his
supervising attorney, Arnold Longstreet, seemed indifferent to his work. When he asked for help, the response was
often, "Your law license looks the same as mine." Although he turned out a large quantity of
work, it wasn't the sort of thing that he imagined when he decided to go to law
school. He spent endless hours reviewing
documents and doing research for the firm's largest client, McMurtry
Petroleum. He had just completed a memo
on the tax attributes of a derivative tied to the oil depletion allowance and
he wasn't sure he understood what he had written ten minutes later.
Now late on the Wednesday
before Thanksgiving, he had been summoned to the office of the senior partner,
Marcus Erwald, III. He fidgeted as he
sat on the couch which was designed more for appearance than seating. He wanted to check his phone, but he didn't
want to be caught looking down when the firm's leader and leading biller
summoned him. Instead, he looked at the imposing portrait of Marcus Erwald,
Jr., the firm's first managing partner and father of the current occupant of
the corner office on the 18th floor. After
what seemed like an eternity but was probably less than five minutes, the stern
gatekeeper, Miss Bleucher, looked up and said, "Mr. Erwald will see you
now." He was always referred to as
Mr. Erwald within the firm as though to speak his given name would invite fire
from the sky.
Mr. Erwald's office was
dominated by floor to ceiling windows which offered a panoramic view of the
Fort Worth skyline. The inner walls were
decorated with antique law books and memorabilia from the big man's college
heyday as a defensive linebacker at TCU.
At six feet four inches tall, Mr.
Erwald dominated the room even while sitting down. The
spartan oak table that he sat behind, which held only a telephone, a blotter
and a blank legal pad, served to emphasize his bulk and power. Even after 6:00 p.m., Mr. Erwald's shirt
appeared freshly pressed and his tie was precisely knotted. He leaned back in his chair and said,
"Come in son, have a seat."
Martin positioned himself in one of the client chairs in front of the
desk, balancing equal parts trepidation and awe at the sight of the inner
sanctum.
"Martin, you've been
here a little over a year now, so I know that you're aware how important
McMurtry Petroleum is to this firm."
Jenkins nodded.
"This firm owes its
existence to the McMurtry family. My
father represented Ernest McMurtry's grandfather and his father. I inherited the relationship from my father. Keep Ernest McMurtry happy and we have a
firm. Lose his business and no more
bonuses, no more ski trips to Switzerland, no more fishing in the Cayman
Islands."
Jenkins didn't think it
was appropriate to point out that he did not get to take skiing vacations in
Switzerland or fishing junkets to the Cayman Islands.
"I think you
understand that as lawyers, it is very important that we preserve our clients' confidences
not just the attorney-client privileged conversations, but everything we know
about them."
Jenkins' face began to
turn red and he gulped, "Yes sir."
He tried to remember if he had
let any details slip to his fellow associates.
Most of what he did was so dull that they had no interest talking shop
in their off hours. Not only that, but
the few associates who had ever met Ernest McMurtry, IV described him as exceedingly
dull and tedious, better suited to pouring over financial statements than
carrying on his grandfather's wildcatting exploits.
"Good," Mr.
Erwald said. "So you'll understand
if I request your commitment to the highest level of secrecy before bringing
you in on a new project."
Jenkins began to breathe
again. He was not about to be fired for
betraying client secrets. "Yes
sir," he replied. "I would
consider it a great privilege."
"You may see some
things that could be unsettling," the partner continued. "Once you've seen them, they can't be
unseen. You have to keep them inside
even when you're in bed with your wife."
"I'm not married,
sir," he said, "but I completely understand." However, as he said this, his mind was
racing. What could be so deeply confidential that it required being stared down
by the most imposing lawyer in Fort Worth.
Was the firm laundering money?
Could be but that would earn them only a slap on the wrist if they were
caught. Were they bribing government
officials? Small potatoes. What could be worse?
Mr. Erwald looked
absentmindly for a moment then asked, "Do you dance?"
Jenkins blurted out,
"Doesn't everyone?" before he had a chance to think about his answer.
"So what do you
say? Are you up for a special
project? It will keep you occupied
through the Christmas holidays, so you'd best put any plans you had on
hold."
"Yes, sir,"
Jenkins said, being the only words that seemed to come to his lips.
"Good," said
Mr. Erwald. "Report to the main
conference room this Saturday evening, seven sharp. And do not, under any circumstances, tell
anyone about this conversation or where you will be. I'll know if you do. Run along now."
Jenkins got up and
started to extend his hand, but noticed that Mr. Erwald did not
reciprocate. Instead, he turned and left
the room with as much haste as he could without falling down.
The next day was
Thanksgiving. Jenkins spent it with
some of his fraternity brothers drinking beer, eating turkey and watching
football on TV. After a large quantity
of beer had been drunk, someone got the idea to play football in the street in
front of the building. Although they
were nominally playing touch, Jenkins wound up hitting the pavement multiple
times.
The next day, he stumbled
into the office, hung over and bruised up and down the length of his body. After four hours of halfway trying, he
managed to bill seven hours and decided to call it a day.
Saturday morning he got
up early and went for a long run to work the rest of the toxins out of his
system. After the first mile, he began
to hit his rhythm and started to feel good.
Then his mind began to work overtime.
Just what awaited him at 7:00 p.m.?
Could he call in and tell Mr. Erwald that he was sick? The flu had made an early debut that
year. No, he told himself, failure was
not an option. No matter what awaited
him, he would face it head on.
On Saturday evening, he
put on his best gray Brooks Brothers suit, starched white shirt and red
tie. He polished his black Giorgio
Brutini wingtips then drove to the office.
His heart beat faster as
he rode the elevator to the firm's offices.
What was he getting himself into?
Was there still time to back out?
Would this help his bonus?
The firm occupied three
floors of the American Bank Building.
The seventeenth floor was dominated by a massive conference room. It filled the entire floor except for a small
reception area. As Jenkins exited the
elevator, he observed that the door to the conference room was closed and the
shades were drawn. He could hear voices
and movement within. He knocked
hesitantly on the door and waited.
There were no answer.
Summoning his nerve and
fighting the urge to flee, he opened the door.
There he saw . . . the partners . . . in tights with black tshirts. Scowling at him from the left side of the
room was his supervising attorney, Arnold Longstreet, his copious stomach
protruding over the waistband of his tights.
In the center of the room, Mr. Erwald was giving direction to a woman in
an oversized dress. However, it wasn't
a woman. It was Ernest McMurtry, IV,
the scion of the firm's largest client, someone Jenkins had only seen from
pictures in the Society pages of the newspaper.
Mr. Erwald turned around
and noticed Jenkins standing there, his mouth hanging open. "Don't just stand here," he
said. "Remember that I told you
that we would do anything for a client?
Well, twenty-five years ago there was a crisis in the McMurtry
family. Ernest the Fourth, wanted to
dance the Nutcracker; not watch the damn thing with his wife like respectable
Fort Worth families do, but actually dance it.
While his father knew that he was straight as a West Texas highway, he
was afraid that their society friends might think he was a sissy boy. He was ready to kick Ernest out of the
business and the family which would have left the company without a plan of
succession. That could have been
catastrophic for the firm.
"I was just a junior
partner back then. However, when I
played for the Horned Frogs, Coach Shofner
used ballet for conditioning and to reduce injuries so I knew real men could do ballet. I suggested that we stage our own very
private showing of the Nutcracker put on by the partners. Partners who don't make their billing targets
get to be sugarplum fairies. Ernest has
been a toy soldier, a rat and for the last ten years, Mother Ginger."
"The problem was
finding someone to find Clara. Since we
have no female partners and never will, we had to find someone young and hungry
enough to play the girl's part. For the
last six years Simmons here has played the part."
Jack Simmons, a junior
partner nodded toward him.
"Unfortunately
Simmons has done too much tailgating and lost his young, girlish figure. So we needed a new Clara this year. Here's the deal. You dance the role of Clara and keep your
mouth shut and in four years you make partner.
Guaranteed. So what do you
say?"
Jenkins smiled and said,
"Let's get dancing."