A Patent Lie by Paul Goldstein Page A

“Which is more important to you, to be loved or to be admired?”
    Leonard said, “What kind of question is that?”
    Seeley laughed. “Why would I have to choose?”
    “It's always a choice,” Renata said.
    Seeley said, “I never thought about it. What about you?”
    Renata touched the empty champagne flute to her lips. “You really should think about it. You'd be amazed how much the answer will tell you about yourself.”
    “Right now,” Leonard said, “I just want Mike thinking about one thing—our case. He told me there's no way we can lose.”
    “Then you're in good hands,” Renata said.
    “Drink up, Mike. Can I give you a tour of the house?”
    Seeley was aware that Renata was watching him. “Thanks, I'm fine here.”
    Leonard said, “How do you like it? The house.”
    Seeley looked around. “It's a lot of glass.”
    “You mean, too much for earthquake country.”
    Seeley hadn't meant anything.
    “The structure is cantilevered,” Leonard said. “It was designed by a student of Frank Lloyd Wright. Do you want to hear a story? Wright designed a house a couple of miles from here on the Stanford campus, and when the owners discovered it was on top of the San Andreas fault they sent him a frantic letter. Do you know what Wright sent back? A telegram: ‘I built the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo’! This house is the same. The earth would have to split to its core before you even heard a rattle.”
    Seeley knew nothing about earthquakes, and didn't know if this was the usual California bravado or just his brother's.
    Leonard lifted the bottle and Seeley thought he was going to fill Renata's glass, but instead, he started back to the kitchen.
    “Make the steaks rare,” Renata called out. “Not dead.” She turned back to Seeley and, so Leonard could hear, said, “My husband used to be a fine doctor, but he doesn't know the first thing about broiling meat.”
    She placed her empty glass on the coffee table next to Seeley's still-full one, asking his permission with a look before lifting his glass.
    “To Henry James,” she said.
    It occurred to Seeley that Renata's drinks had started much earlier. The scariest drunken times for him were when he was aware that, behind his rigid mask of sanity, he was entirely out of control, and he wondered now if that was how it was for Renata. Stone-faced drunk, he had once called a sitting justice of the New York Supreme Court a toad. A pompous toad. Other lawyers had called the judge worse, but not to his face, and not in his chambers. The incident had brought him to the brink of being disbarred.
    “Your mother says you've had an amazing career, that you win all your cases.”
    Seeley wondered how much Leonard told her about their life growing up.
    “I didn't know she was keeping track.”
    “She subscribes to a couple of legal newspapers just so she can see how you're doing.”
    Seeley remembered Leonard telling it differently in Buffalo.
    “Whenever there's something about you, she clips it out for Leonard. She's tremendously proud of you, but I don't think she knows how to tell you.” She sipped at Seeley's champagne. “She told me about your wanderlust, how you left home when you were fifteen.”
    In the fireplace, a log dropped and sent up a shower of sparks.
    “She says you're like mercury, that you're impossible to grab hold of. First you go to New York, then you go back to Buffalo. She didn't say it, but I got the impression she thinks you waited until she left Buffalo before you moved back.”
    “I moved to New York because I wanted more challenging cases. I went back to Buffalo because I wasn't getting the kind of cases I wanted.”
    Renata emptied Seeley's glass. “Did Leonard tell you she's in Mexico with her church group? Somebody dropped out at the last minute and she took her place. I think she was afraid you wouldn't want to see her.”
    This was the kind of conversation women liked, and Seeley lacked the words, the grammar, even the tone of voice