way too hard. It’s three in the
morning, and I’ve been parked across the street from Manny’s apartment since eleven, and everyone
in Bed-Stuy is asleep but him. Is it that immigrant work ethic or is something boiling in their blood.
Quien sabe, ay?
Wait just a second-here comes Manny. Just in time, because my stomach couldn’t take any more bad
coffee tonight.
Even now, our boy is still hopped up, bouncing to the music pumping through his headphones.
If you ask me, nothing’s ruined the city more than headphones and iPods and computers. It used to be
New York offered the kind of random interaction you couldn’t get anywhere else. You never knew when
you might have a moment with the beautiful girl waiting next to you for the light to change.
Or maybe you’d say something to a guy, not a gay thing, just two people traveling through this world
acknowledging each other’s existence. Now everyone walks around obliviously listening to their own little
music downloaded from their own little computers. It’s lonely, brother.
Plus, it’s dangerous. You step off the curb and don’t hear the crosstown bus till you’re under it, and you
certainly don’t hear the Chinese guy pedaling around the corner on his greasy bike.
Well, now you can add the sad cautionary tale of Manny Rodriguez. He’s so caught up in his own tunes he
doesn’t hear me walk up behind him and pull out my gun. He doesn’t sense anything’s the slightest bit
amiss until a bullet is crashing through the back of his skull and boring into his brain. The poor guy doesn’t
know he’s been murdered until he’s dead.
Beach Road
Chapter 51
Kate
THE BLUEBACK LAYING out the formal complaint against Randall Kane hits my desk at Walmark,
Reid and Blundell around 2:30 p.m. I shut my door and clear my calendar for the rest of the day.
I’m well aware that this choice assignment is not based entirely on my skill as a litigator. For the high-
powered CEO charged with crossing the line, walking into court with a female lawyer is pretty much
textbook. And I don’t have a problem with that. There are still so many more disadvantages than
advantages to being a woman, career-wise, that in those rare instances where it plays in your favor, I
believe in going with the flow.
Once I read the language at the top of the complaint, I’m confident this is something we can win not
only in court but in the media. It’s sprinkled with phrases like “hostile work environment,” which
usually refers to off-color jokes and pages of the
Sports Illustrated
swimsuit issues pinned to cubicle walls.
Then I read the affidavit from the first of Randall Kane’s alleged victims. She’s a thirty-seven-year-old
mother of three who spent nine years as Kane’s executive secretary. In her written statement, sworn under
oath and the penalty of perjury, she describes how on more than thirty occasions, she repelled Kane’s
physical and verbal sexual advances, and how when she finally quit and filed a complaint, he used all the
corporate resources at his disposal to destroy her life.
By the time I finish reading the complaint, I realize that
Randy
Kane’s problems aren’t going away with a scary letter or pretrial motion. And there are eleven other
women whose sworn testimonies are essentially identical, right down to the phone call they receive
from Kane’s corporate lackey telling them they’ll never work again if they keep this up. Three of the
women recorded the calls.
I close the file on my desk and ponder the East River. Kane apparently isn’t just an unfaithful husband.
He’s a scumbag and possibly a serial rapist who just happens to be worth a billion dollars. He deserves to
pay a high price for his actions, and if I help him avoid it, I’m no different from that in-house lackey of his
making obscenely threatening phone calls.
For a decade I’ve punched all the right tickets, from Law Review at
morning, and I’ve been parked across the street from Manny’s apartment since eleven, and everyone
in Bed-Stuy is asleep but him. Is it that immigrant work ethic or is something boiling in their blood.
Quien sabe, ay?
Wait just a second-here comes Manny. Just in time, because my stomach couldn’t take any more bad
coffee tonight.
Even now, our boy is still hopped up, bouncing to the music pumping through his headphones.
If you ask me, nothing’s ruined the city more than headphones and iPods and computers. It used to be
New York offered the kind of random interaction you couldn’t get anywhere else. You never knew when
you might have a moment with the beautiful girl waiting next to you for the light to change.
Or maybe you’d say something to a guy, not a gay thing, just two people traveling through this world
acknowledging each other’s existence. Now everyone walks around obliviously listening to their own little
music downloaded from their own little computers. It’s lonely, brother.
Plus, it’s dangerous. You step off the curb and don’t hear the crosstown bus till you’re under it, and you
certainly don’t hear the Chinese guy pedaling around the corner on his greasy bike.
Well, now you can add the sad cautionary tale of Manny Rodriguez. He’s so caught up in his own tunes he
doesn’t hear me walk up behind him and pull out my gun. He doesn’t sense anything’s the slightest bit
amiss until a bullet is crashing through the back of his skull and boring into his brain. The poor guy doesn’t
know he’s been murdered until he’s dead.
Beach Road
Chapter 51
Kate
THE BLUEBACK LAYING out the formal complaint against Randall Kane hits my desk at Walmark,
Reid and Blundell around 2:30 p.m. I shut my door and clear my calendar for the rest of the day.
I’m well aware that this choice assignment is not based entirely on my skill as a litigator. For the high-
powered CEO charged with crossing the line, walking into court with a female lawyer is pretty much
textbook. And I don’t have a problem with that. There are still so many more disadvantages than
advantages to being a woman, career-wise, that in those rare instances where it plays in your favor, I
believe in going with the flow.
Once I read the language at the top of the complaint, I’m confident this is something we can win not
only in court but in the media. It’s sprinkled with phrases like “hostile work environment,” which
usually refers to off-color jokes and pages of the
Sports Illustrated
swimsuit issues pinned to cubicle walls.
Then I read the affidavit from the first of Randall Kane’s alleged victims. She’s a thirty-seven-year-old
mother of three who spent nine years as Kane’s executive secretary. In her written statement, sworn under
oath and the penalty of perjury, she describes how on more than thirty occasions, she repelled Kane’s
physical and verbal sexual advances, and how when she finally quit and filed a complaint, he used all the
corporate resources at his disposal to destroy her life.
By the time I finish reading the complaint, I realize that
Randy
Kane’s problems aren’t going away with a scary letter or pretrial motion. And there are eleven other
women whose sworn testimonies are essentially identical, right down to the phone call they receive
from Kane’s corporate lackey telling them they’ll never work again if they keep this up. Three of the
women recorded the calls.
I close the file on my desk and ponder the East River. Kane apparently isn’t just an unfaithful husband.
He’s a scumbag and possibly a serial rapist who just happens to be worth a billion dollars. He deserves to
pay a high price for his actions, and if I help him avoid it, I’m no different from that in-house lackey of his
making obscenely threatening phone calls.
For a decade I’ve punched all the right tickets, from Law Review at
Similar Books
