The Bourne ultimatum by Robert Ludlum

unwritten partnership.”
    “Damn you, what did he learn ?”
    “Well, as I say, his hourly rate was beyond belief, I mean it really invaded the corpus of my own well-deserved retainer, so I think we should discuss an adjustment, don’t you?”
    “Who the hell do you think you are ? I sent you three thousand dollars! Five hundred for the telephone man and fifteen hundred for that miserable keyhole slime who calls himself a private detective—”
    “Only because he’s no longer on the public payroll of the police department, Randolph. Like me, he fell from grace, but he obviously does very good work. Do we negotiate or do I leave?”
    In fury, the balding imperious professor of law stared at the gray-faced old disbarred and dishonored attorney in front of him. “How dare you?”
    “Dear me, Randy, you really do believe your press, don’t you? Very well, I’ll tell why I dare, my arrogant old friend. I’ve read you, seen you, expounding on your esoteric interpretations of complex legal matters, assaulting every decent thing the courts of this country have decreed in the last thirty years, when you haven’t the vaguest idea what it is to be poor, or hungry, or have an unwanted mass in your belly you neither anticipated nor can provide a life for. You’re the darling of the royalists, my unprofound fellow, and you’d force the average citizen to live in a nation where privacy is obsolete, free thought suspended by censorship, the rich get richer, and for the poorest among us the beginnings of potential life itself may well have to be abandoned in order to survive. And you expound on these unoriginal, medieval concepts only to promote yourself as a brilliant maverick—of disaster. Do you want me to go on, Doctor Gates? Frankly, I think you chose the wrong loser to contact for your dirty work.”
    “How ... dare you?” repeated the perplexed professor, sputtering as he regally strode to the window. “I don’t have to listen to this!”
    “No, you certainly don’t, Randy. But when I was an associate at the law school and you were one of my kids—one of the best but not the brightest—you damn well had to listen. So I suggest you listen now.”
    “What the hell do you want ?” roared Gates, turning away from the window.
    “It’s what you want, isn’t it? The information you underpaid me for. It’s that important to you, isn’t it?”
    “I must have it.”
    “You were always filled with anxiety before an exam—”
    “ Stop it! I paid . I demand the information.”
    “Then I must demand more money. Whoever’s paying you can afford it.”
    “Not a dollar!”
    “Then I’m leaving.”
    “ Stop ! ... Five hundred more, that’s it.”
    “Five thousand or I go.”
    “ Ridiculous !”
    “See you in another twenty years—”
    “All right. ... All right , five thousand.”
    “Oh, Randy, you’re so obvious. It’s why you’re not really one of the brightest, just someone who can use language to make yourself appear bright, and I think we’ve seen and heard enough of that these days. ... Ten thousand, Dr. Gates, or I go to the raucous bar of my choice.”
    “You can’t do this.”
    “Certainly I can. I’m now a confidential legal consultant. Ten thousand dollars. How do you want to pay it? I can’t imagine you have it with you, so how will you honor the debt—for the information?”
    “My word—”
    “ Forget it, Randy.”
    “All right. I’ll have it sent to the Boston Five in the morning. In your name. A bank check.”
    “That’s very endearing of you. But in case it occurs to your superiors to stop me from collecting, please advise them that an unknown person, an old friend of mine in the streets, has a letter detailing everything that’s gone on between us. It is to be mailed to the Massachusetts Attorney General, Return Receipt Requested, in the event I have an accident.”
    “That’s absurd. The information, please .”
    “Yes, well, you should know that you’ve involved