The Worst Friend Then You Can All Lose My Number novel · Chapter 17 of 24
Chapter 17: Cash or Court
The law firm's letter came to my office by courier on Tuesday at nine.
I didn't open it.
The man in the lobby asked for me by name, and followed me into the glass conference room without being asked.
He was fifty, in a gray suit, with a leather folder.
"I represent Ms. Merrin," he said. "I'd like ten minutes, privately."
"No," I said.
"It's in your interest."
"Then it can be in front of my boss."
My boss walked in with a cup of tea and sat at the head of the table.
She ran the whole freight floor, and she had never once raised her voice in four years.
"I'm listening," she said.
The lawyer opened his folder.
"My client is prepared to offer eighty thousand dollars," he said. "That's the full thirty-one thousand you fronted, plus compensation for distress. In return, you sign a statement withdrawing your public claims, and you agree never to speak about Ms. Merrin again."
I looked at the figure on the paper.
It was more money than I had ever seen written next to my name.
"She'll pay all of it?" I asked.
"By Friday."
"So she can pay it."
"She can arrange it."
"For three years she told me the hotels were my fault," I said. "And she can arrange eighty thousand dollars to make me stop saying so."
"This is a generous resolution."
"It's a bribe, and you wrote it on letterhead."
He didn't flinch.
He turned the folder around and slid a second paper across the glass.
"Then there's the other option," he said. "That's a formal demand. Ms. Merrin's reputation has suffered grave harm from false statements made at a public event. We are prepared to file for defamation against you, Mr. Lockett, Ms. Megan Farnsworth and Mr. Wicklund. We will ask for damages of two hundred thousand dollars."
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