THE BEST PART OF ME
CHAPTER 19 - Family
"Harvey Specter, what an insurmountable pleasure. I wondered how long it would take for you to show up in my office. What do you think? Do I have more partners and associates than Pearson Specter Litt?"
Harvey didn't flinch at Hardman's condescending words. He was a weasel and he was behaving exactly to type. "I'm just going to cut through the bullshit here, Hardman, and ask you what the hell this is all about?"
Daniel Hardman smirked as he sat behind his ostentatiously polished walnut desk, rows and rows of expensive legal books lining the shelves behind him and his trademark bonsai trees adding a touch of green to the stuffy, vintage-looking office. "Ah, I suppose you're talking about my representation of Mr Dawson."
Harvey cocked his head to one side, rolling his eyes. "I'm talking about what the hell you want with Donna."
Hardman grinned and folded his hands in front of him, lacing his fingers together as his elbows rested on the desk. "Let me fill you in then," said Hardman. His eyes were lit up by this new game he was playing. He was going to enjoy this. His hatred for Harvey and everyone else at Pearson Specter Litt was still as strong as ever.
"I was approached to represent Mr Dawson a few weeks ago. It appears that on the very same night you negotiated a deal to sell off Eagle Star Insurance to Hingis Turley Investments, Mr Dawson bought some stock. Actually …" Hardman laughed sardonically as his eyes grew wide with pleasure. "… as it turns out Mr Dawson bought a hell of a lot of stock and he went on to sell for five million dollars."
Harvey gulped. He knew instantly what this meant.
Hardman continued. "So, as you can imagine the State of New York were very interested to find out how someone like Mr Dawson could raise the capital for such a venture. So, they investigated and they came up with the hair-brained idea that he … somehow … acquired prior knowledge of the Eagle Star sell-off. After talking to Mr Dawson myself, I worked out that his then girlfriend, through the legal firm she still works for, was the only one who could have given him that kind of information. It's a small world where Donna Paulsen is concerned and in order to defend my client, I'm afraid I'm going to have to come after her for her part in this."
"This is bullshit and you know it, Hardman. Donna did no such thing and if this son-of-a-bitch got information from her then he'd have to have tricked her or … stolen it"
"Yes, yes, that's what I thought. At first …"
"You what? What the hell game are you playing here?"
"I realised that Donna has done so much in the past that would suggest this would fit with her normal pattern of behaviour, like … oh, I don't know ... destroying a very important memo, perhaps?" Hardman grinned again, clearly enjoying every moment of their interaction. "Eagle Star was one of my biggest clients and back then Mr Dawson was a mere insurance broker. Our paths never crossed in all the time I worked with Eagle Star, so I agree it does seem rather strange that a guy who only ever picked up the phone to buy and sell insurance would suddenly have that kind of information at his fingertips. So, I'll admit, I found it entirely believable when he told me that it was Donna who gave him the tip."
Harvey clenched his jaw and balled his fists, fighting the urge to beat the crap out of Hardman's smug face. He knew this was all his doing. "Hardman, I swear to god that if this is all down to you …"
"You'll do what, Harvey?" He smirked again and dismissed him with a flick of his hand. "You don't have a shred of power in this city anymore, so please, go away. I have work to do."
"This isn't the last you'll be hearing from me," said Harvey as he walked towards Hardman's office door.
Hardman laughed, "of course it won't be. But one last thing before you go."
Harvey turned around in the doorway. He was angry, agitated and feeling defeated. This wasn't how he'd planned his visit and he was surprised Hardman's colleagues weren't scraping him off the walls by now.
"Tell Donna that the prosecution will be calling to speak to her before Dawson goes to trial in a fortnight. I think you may know the prosecutor … a … erm … oh, what's her name again?" Then his head snapped up and an ear-to-ear grin spread across his face. "Oh that's right. Anita Gibbs."
Harvey stalked back into the office again, his physical presence easily overpowering Hardman, who shrank into his puffy leather chair. His eyes narrowed as he leant his palms on the desk between them. "If I find out you're behind this, I will hurt you."
Hardman swallowed hard but his hateful expression didn't falter. "I must say, as much as I've always found Donna to be utterly delightful in person, even after she assaulted me, I did wonder why you let her hang around you for so many years. When I saw she'd jumped ship to Louis Litt's desk last year I thought 'maybe Harvey has finally realised what a tramp she is'. Surely the sex couldn't have been that good?"
It was as if a match had been lit. Harvey lunged forward and with one gigantic swoop of his arms, he scattered everything from papers and pens to laptop and bonsai tree off Hardman's desk, sending them crashing to the floor. He then grabbed Hardman by the lapels of his suit jacket and pulled him to his feet, the desk separating their bodies but their faces inches apart. Hardman gulped audibly, but his eyes remained fixed on Harvey, refusing to look away.
"If Donna's name leaves your lips one more time I swear I'll kill you. Retract that subpoena."
"Sorry it's too late even if I wanted to."
"You will find a way, or so help me god I will finish you."
He let go of Hardman and the older man fell back into his chair, his breathing rapid and his face ashen. "I see you're still under the illusion that those people you work with are substitute for a real family. Would you defend your mother's honour so valiantly?"
Harvey came at him again and Hardman wheeled back in his chair, hitting the bookshelves behind him. "Donna is my family," he said before he left Hardman's office leaving his former boss to stare after him, visibly shaken by their encounter.
X X X
Harvey went straight from Hardman's office to the District Attorney's office. Daniel Hardman and Anita Gibbs in one day – he couldn't believe his luck.
It had been six months since he'd last walked the halls of the third floor of the DA's office. He felt his stomach lurch as he thought back to that time. Those encounters with Gibbs. The pain of Mike's trial. The sinking feeling when he realised Mike had cut that deal. The frantic wrestling with his own guilt. Her begging him not to turn himself in. The memories, even after a quarter of Mike's sentence was already complete, were still raw. But he didn't want those feelings to ever go away. They were what would remind him never to make such a stupid mistake again.
She was busy working at her desk when he entered her office. That same room with the public service-issued filing cabinet, cheap furnishings, limp half-dead pot-plant. Nothing had changed.
"Mr Specter, what can I help you with?" asked the woman who had played a major part in destroying the life of his friend. She didn't even bother looking up from her paperwork. "This better not be about Mike Ross."
"No, it isn't about Mike."
Anita Gibbs's eyes looked up from under her glasses quizzically. She didn't know why Harvey was here. "Care to elaborate then?"
"This is about Donna."
Gibbs's eyes narrowed as she tried to put two and two together, but still came out blank. "Miss Paulsen? Your secretary?" she asked.
"She's been subpoenaed to appear at one of your trials in a fortnight."
"I haven't subpoenaed her," said Gibbs as she sat back in her chair and removed her glasses. Her posture told him she was intrigued, yet clueless as to what this was about.
"No, Daniel Hardman the opposing council has."
"Which case?"
"Stuart Dawson. The Eagle Life Insurance fraud case."
Anita Gibbs rose from her chair and clattered open the top draw of her metal filing cabinet, flipping through file after file before pulling out a manila folder and thumbing through its contents. She pushed her glasses back onto her nose as she skim-read through the documents. "I haven't gone through this case yet."
"Things busy?" scoffed Harvey.
"You could say that," said Gibbs, ignoring his glib tone of voice. "Okay, right … I see here that the defendant reports Miss Paulsen gave him insider information about Eagle Star Insurance's takeover." She twisted her mouth and nodded as she continued to read. "News to me. Okay, I would have arranged to interview her probably later this week with this new statement. We don't have any evidence against Miss Paulsen. Mind, people who work for you really do have a thing for fraud, don't they?"
Harvey's face flushed red and he swallowed down his anger. "Donna doesn't know what any of this is about and she doesn't know anything about goddamn mergers, takeovers, stocks and shares or anything else. She's just my secretary for Christ's sake." He imagined Donna's being pissed at him if she were in the room. She was far from being 'just a secretary,' but he needed Gibbs to buy into the defence he was starting to form in his mind.
"Well, we'll find that out in court, won't we Mr Specter?"
Harvey paused and reflected. His usual tactics of bulldozing someone through threat of force wasn't going to work with Gibbs. He needed to play a different hand. "Look, this isn't about Donna. Daniel Hardman is hurting her to get to me."
"I find it hard to believe that someone would find it worth their while to go to these lengths to hurt you, Mr Specter. Why would subpoenaing your secretary to give evidence in court hurt you?"
He knew she was confused. He knew it didn't sound entirely plausible. But he knew he was right. "She's more than my secretary, okay. She's my family and she's going to be the mother of my child."
Anita Gibbs almost choked on the stuffy air of her claustrophobically tiny office. "Hmm … congratulations?" she said wide-eyed before coughing and looking back to the file. She couldn't be less interested in Harvey Specter's personal life, but she was now wondering if there was a juicier story behind her straight-forward Dawson fraud case.
"What is it?" asked Harvey as he saw Anita Gibbs's expression change into a very serious frown.
"The information on Dawson was sent to us anonymously."
It was just like it had been with Mike. "You're kidding?" stated Harvey in disbelief.
"Yep. Looks like lightening really does strike twice at your firm with people connected to you."
"What does it say?"
"I can't divulge that information with you as you're not involved in this case."
"I'm Donna's attorney."
"And Donna hasn't been charged with a crime. Yet."
"What the hell are you talking about? Daniel Hardman has just told me he's going to come after her, and he will. I need to prepare her. She's six months pregnant for Christ's sake!"
Anita Gibbs's expression softened and she let out an audible sigh. She despaired of women like Donna Paulsen, allowing themselves to fall into the murky affairs of men like Harvey Specter, but she couldn't hold the woman to fault for who she fell in love with. "Okay, I'll tell you what I can, but I won't be able to tell you everything."
Harvey nodded his gratitude, surprised that this woman he didn't like or trust, appeared to be helping him. He took a seat in front of her.
Gibbs twisted her mouth and squinted at him. "I can't believe I'm doing this. You better not tell anybody! I've a goddamn reputation to keep here."
The corners of Harvey's mouth tweaked upwards ever so slightly into the faintest of smiles. "My lips are sealed."
"The e-mail we received gave specifics about Dawson's transactions. Cashflow, bank balances, investments. We wouldn't have heard anything about this if it hadn't landed in our contact database."
"How did it reach you?"
"We have an anonymous online contact form. We get tip offs that we have to investigate, sometimes they're malicious, but this particular tip off was very specific. In fact, it was so detailed we barely had to investigate the content. I questioned Mr Dawson and he made no mention of Miss Paulsen during our interview."
"What?"
"I said he didn't once mention Miss Paulsen. He plead his innocence, but he didn't implicate anybody else. We haven't brought her in for questioning because, well, this is the first time I've heard her name. I hadn't looked over the paperwork yet."
"So let me get this straight. Donna was implicated in this after you interviewed and charged Dawson?"
"Certainly looks that way. It could be that he just wasn't telling me about her when I spoke to him. What was their relationship?"
"They were together."
"Romantically?"
"Yes, and believe me they didn't part on good terms so if she had been involved in all this he wouldn't have hesitated in passing the buck." He rubbed the back of his neck as he processed the state of the game. "No, Hardman has put him up to this."
"Fine, well I'll bear this all in mind for the trial. But, Mr Specter, I will need to speak to Miss Paulsen at some point."
"You can speak to her all you like so long as I'm there with her. No creeping around street corners trying to catch her on her own or bringing her in here without me."
"As if I'd do such a thing, Mr Specter."
"Oh we both know you'd do that and more."
Gibbs reclined in her chair again, her soft brown hair curling around her neck. "Despite what you may think of me, Mr Specter, my job is to bring people who have broken the law to justice. Work you did once upon a time before the appeal of flashy suits and fast cars took hold of you and you jumped ship to corporate. When people are guilty of a crime – like Mr Ross – then they go down. You were given a second chance because you got away with your part in the Mike Ross fraud. If Miss Paulsen is guilty then I'm afraid to say she'll be going down too."
Harvey stiffened at the unimaginable prospect of Donna going to jail.
"But there is no evidence at this point in time to suggest Miss Paulsen is guilty of anything other than an association with you. Maybe, now that you're about to become a father, you should reassess your behaviour, particularly the way you practice law."
"I make enemies the same reason you do."
Gibbs laughed. "I make enemies with those I bring to justice for committing crimes. You make enemies because of the cutthroat world you've chosen to live in. Just make sure nobody else suffers from the choices, or rather the errors in judgement, which you make."
Harvey had no comeback. Deep down he knew Gibbs was right. This was down to him and he had failed to protect the woman he loved – his family – yet again.