Vignette: Tobias...Bigelow?
#7 of Notebook
(Content Note: brief description of rape.)
Tobias came to the rather large arches over the intimidating law firm building, quite stressed out. He had no idea what this was about; the letter only said he was about to pay a lot of money to someone, unless he could answer certain questions correctly. Given what he'd been up to lately, the odds of that happening were quite low. He wished he could at least hire his own lawyer, so he wouldn't be bringing a figurative knife to gun fight.
When he got to the solid oak, gold-trimmed door of Gary Harthford MJ, he stood for a moment, finding himself unable to knock. He adjusted the collar on his sweater and then fidgeted with the sleeves before he finally brought his knuckles in contact with the door.
"Enter," barked a rather sharp tenor voice.
He opened the door to find an office that had a desk sandwiched between multiple printers, one of which was quietly printing pages one per second. Behind it was a surprisingly tall and intimidating crow. His eyes were still on a computer screen when he asked flatly, "Tobias Banes?"
The wolfdog nodded.
The bird introduced himself. "I'm representing Cathrine Filbert, aka 'Sparkle.' You owe her some money."
"What?" Tobias asked, confused. "I paid her already."
"You did. But you broke the rules, and now she's quite upset. She wants to sue you for Pain and Suffering for raping her. I'm here to offer forgetting the whole thing for six grand, which will pay for her therapy and living expenses for a year."
That was more than Tobias even made in a year. He was so confused, he couldn't help but smile. "What? That's impossible! You can't sue for that!"
"Have a law degree, do you?" he countered.
"But isn't it... common sense?"
Gary was quite cold. "Well, that answers that question. When you hired her, you agreed to stay within certain rules, and later, you changed your mind. You decided to give her a roofie when she specifically told you not to. She's been hurt. Quite badly hurt. Can't do her job now. And it's your fault. You broke the contract, so you pay her damages. That's how the law works."
"That's ridiculous!" blurted Tobias, considering this more and more unbelievable. "I paid her, she does what I want! What do you think that money was for!?"
"It certainly wasn't for what you did. So last chance: want to settle?"
"Screw that!" Tobias gloated, and turned to leave.
"Very well. I'll have to release the video I suppose, and see what your friends think of it."
"Nice try," Tobias snorted, "there's no video of that."
But when he was half-way to the door, he suddenly heard himself groaning from the computer's speakers. He stopped cold and turned around immediately to see the bird looking at his screen and shaking his head. "You seem really out of it," he commented.
After playing a very lewd sounding 5 seconds, the lawyer pressed a key, and it stopped. "Did you say something, Mr. Banes?" he asked, looking at the wolfdog for the first time in the entire conversation.
"Th-th-there was no video," he insisted, shuffling back toward the desk.
"On the contrary: Sparkle, for her own protection, records certain parts of the evening. I guess you didn't see that in the rules either, if you think your transaction is based on 'common sense'."
"Let me see those rules," he nervously replied.
Gary slid a piece of paper across his desk with tremendous force, enough so that it went past the edge and swished onto the floor.
Tobias, with the entire world feeling quite surreal, picked it up, and started looking through it. The first thing he noticed was his signature on the bottom, even though he didn't remember signing it. He didn't think he was that drunk...
"Clause 9," Gary added.
Sure enough: she could monitor or record anything if she thought something would go awry, but it would remain private unless it became evidence in a lawsuit.
"I have another question: do you know Henry James, Harriet Stone, Sal Aham, and Cathrine Banes?"
Tobias' heart skipped at the mention of his mother. "Of course I do," he snapped, "you already knew that."
"I just wanted to confirm it before I sent them all this video. Thanks." He smiled pleasantly, but his eyes were cold as ice.
"You can't do that! This is blackmail!"
"On the contrary," replied Gary, his voice and sharp tone seeming to stab Tobias, "it's about to enter the public record. Once I file this lawsuit, anyone can examine it, and I can distribute it to anyone I wish. I'm about to take the first filing to the courthouse in about an hour -- unless you agree to pay up."
Tobias now felt hot in his sweater, and was visibly shaking, unable to contain his nervousness. He just wanted this to all go away. "Okay, I'll pay it. Six grand?"
"That was my initial offer," dryly replied the bird, getting a small smile on his face for the first time. "But since you proved to have the mentality of a rapist in addition to your astonishing ignorance of the law, I think you really need to learn your lesson. Now it's eight grand."
"WHAT!?"
"Would you prefer nine?"
"No! No!" Tobias took a deep breath and shushed himself, "n-n-no, eight is fine. Just fine, really!" he put on a badly masking smile.
"I'm glad we could reach an agreement. I'll wire the money from your bank account on Monday." The bird leaned over to add softly, "and it had better be there."
"It will, it will!" insisted Tobias.
"Good. Once I get the money and your signature on the agreement, you get --" He pulled out a disc from his computer. "-- this. Come back next week and we'll close the deal. See you then." He turned back to his screen without another word.
Tobias, now trembling, walked out of the office. He had tomorrow, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to get eight grand. He didn't have that just lying around! How in the world was he going to get that kind of money?