Page 47 of Pro Bono

“You know what I mean. All of this is incredibly harsh.”

Gaby Nagata studied him. “I don’t really know anything about your individual situation. Those are the standard forms that everybody needs to sign on retirement. If you think you can negotiate better terms based on your particular circumstances, fine. I wish you luck.”

“How often does that happen?”

“I’ve never seen it happen. If it does, they probably have Legal write a one-of-a-kind agreement, but I think they would send it here afterward so we could archive it.”

“So I may as well sign this, I suppose?”

“If you get a different agreement, presumably they’ll send it here to supersede this one. In the meantime, if you sign, you’ll be sure to at least get this bonus, the pension money, and so on.”

He took the pen she had used as a pointer and went from page to page signing his name or initialing various provisions. When he was finished, Ms. Nagata quickly used her fingertips to slide each page to the side until she had seen them all, then closed the folder over them. Then she stood and the smile returned. She said, “That’s all I’ll need. Good luck in your next position.”

“Thank you.” He walked to the door and went out to the waiting area, and saw Dennis and Stacey stand up from their chairs to join him.

They resumed their formation and the two men followed Stacey to another room, this one a small office inhabited by a man at a desk. He had a plastic tray on his desk, and he pushed it to the front so Ollonsun could reach it. He had a printed list. “Mr. Patrick Ollonsun. We’ll need your company ID.” When Ollonsun put it on the tray he checked it off his list and said, “Office keys.” When Ollonsun had disconnected them from his keychain and put them on the tray, he went down the list. When he had gone through the list, he handed the paper to Ollonsun and said, “Please note the paragraph at the top. “The items you didn’t have today must be returned by mail or messenger, or their cost will be deducted from your final paycheck.”

Ollonsun took the list, folded it and pocketed it, then followed Stacey out the door to the elevator. This time she pressed 20. When the elevator stopped and opened again, Stacey led them to a waiting area. Ollonsun had never been up here before. He had always imagined it as an opulent, old-fashioned place that was mostly silent, with polished woodwork and antique furniture preserved from the original offices. It was not that way at all. There were dozens of men and women moving from one office or conference room to another, sometimes outsiders carrying briefcases, called in from other places for some meeting or proposal or report, but most of them twentieth-floor dwellers. He could see that the proximity to the centers of power gave them a kind of electric energy so they moved faster and kept their eyes ahead.

After a short time one of the women on the concourse veered to their waiting area. “Hello,” she said, speaking only to Stacey Ramsdahl. “Is this Mr. Ollonsun?” Stacey said, “Yes.” She said, “Okay. Follow me.”

They followed her to one of the offices off the concourse, and all three of them followed her inside. The others sat and there was a free chair, so Ollonsun sat too. The woman said, “Mr. Ollonsun, I’m Hannah Soames,one of the senior attorneys in the Legal Division. Mr. Foshin, the head of Legal, assigned me to take this meeting with you. I assume you’ve been to Human Resources already, signed your exit papers, and so on.”

“Yes,” he said. “But I would like to discuss the terms on those papers.”

Hannah Soames stared at him as though he were a strange substance that she’d just noticed on the bottom of her shoe. She said to Stacey Ramsdahl and Dennis, “Give us a few minutes, please.” The two got up, glided out, and closed the door. When they were gone, she said, “What would you like to discuss?”

“In the first place, nobody came to let me know I was being let go, or talked to me about the size of my severance package, or how long I’d have health insurance for my family. All of these things are important. I don’t want to have to turn this over to my attorneys. I would have assumed we had room to bargain a bit.”

“Mr. Ollonsun,” she said, “I get the impression that you sincerely don’t understand what’s happening. The company has investigated and verified the accusation that you’ve been stealing from one of our clients.”

“Verified? That can’t be,” he said. “This isn’t about the Ellis account, is it? I saw that she’d made an inquiry, I looked into it, and found that nothing was missing. I reported that to the head of client services.”

“It’s time for you to drop the pretense. Legal didn’t just verify the Ellis complaint. Forensic accountants have looked into all your current clients’ accounts, found several other looted accounts without even going into the archive of closed accounts, minors’ trust accounts, etcetera, and realized that we had to come to an agreement with her attorney. We’ve paid her back and settled her lawsuit for three million dollars.”

“But—”

“The company will have to reimburse and settle with an unknown number of other current clients, and the heirs of deceased clients, and doa great deal of reorganizing and restructuring to catch people like you in the future before they steal twice. The reason we’re discussing any payment of any kind to you is that it’s been decided it will be better for Great Oceana to let you retire, sever any connection the company has with you, and set the situation in order with as little publicity as possible.”

“Okay, but there’s still the question of the numbers. If I’m cooperating and helping with the cover-up, that should be worth something.”

“Those are the numbers that would be appropriate for an employee at your level who is voluntarily retiring at your age.” She added, “Let me make this as clear as I can. The other choice wasn’t to negotiate what it would take to make you go away. It was to turn you over to federal law enforcement agencies along with the evidence of your crimes.”

“You’re threatening me?”

“On a personal note, I don’t like you, but because you are a human being, I will give you the very best advice I can. Take the money and run. In fact, do it now, before the bosses have second thoughts.”

Ollonsun stood up, turned around, and walked out the door.

Stacey Ramsdahl and her companion Dennis stood up from their seats in the waiting area and went with him. They ushered him to the elevator, to the parking level, to the car, and drove him to the building where he had worked for almost eighteen years. Dennis pulled up to the curb.

Stacey Ramsdahl said, “We’ll walk you to your car.”

Ollonsun said, “That won’t be necessary. I’ve got to go back upstairs and pack up the personal belongings I have in my office.”

She said, “Don’t go back up. They’ve already cleared out the room for you. That man who let us into your office is a locksmith and he’s changed the lock. Your personal things will be delivered to your home. You’ll probably have them by tomorrow afternoon.”

“I think I should check before I leave.”

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