The door was opened by the most beautiful and delicate little girl Habakkuk had ever seen. She stared up at him with a visage of intense concentration. "May I help you, sir?" the little lady asked formally.
Hak knelt down in front of her, bringing them eye to eye. "Possibly," Hak began. "Are you the lady of the house?"
The girl gave him that look that all little girls seem to master young, one that said, "Are you nuts, Mister?", before turning and yelling into the house, "Mom, some man's at the door!"
As Habakkuk stood up, the adult version of the little lady pulled the door fully open. "Can I help you," she asked suspiciously. Hak had thought that Eva was beautiful, that Gloria was sexy. Here was a woman, he thought, that put a lie to both those thoughts. He realized that he was staring and tried to focus.
"Are you Meredith Larkin?" said Hak as he offered his card to the lady.
A look of panic widened the woman's eyes as she looked at the card. The words "Attorney-at-Law" seemed to leap up at her. She hesitantly replied in the affirmative. "What's this about?" she asked with trepidation.
Habakkuk could feel the fear that was overtaking the woman and tried to be as reassuring as possible. "I'm not here to add to your problems," he told her. "In fact, I'm hoping that you will let me help you." He gave her his brightest smile.
"What do you mean?" she asked cautiously.
"Well, as you can see from my card, I'm an attorney. You're being sued by your former neighbor and tenant for adverse possession of your property. I'd like to represent you in that case." As she shook her head and began to close the door, Hak added, "Pro-bono, of course."
The closing door paused, and then reopened. "Why? Why would you do that?"
Letting his smile beam, he responded, "That's a fair question, but a long answer. Maybe we could sit down while we discuss it, either in the house or out here on the porch?"
Still suspicious, Meredith agreed to sit on the porch, unbending enough to offer Hak a coffee, which he accepted. Once she had returned with the drinks, Hak launched into his story. "The lead attorney on the plaintiff's side is a former friend, named Robert Garcia. I've vowed to destroy him in court in every case he appears in or to which he is connected. That's really the long and short of it."
"Why? Again, why would you do that? What's he done to you?" Meredith wondered how honest a vengeful man would be.
Habakkuk sat quiet for a moment. Then he said, "I can understand your suspicions and I can tell that you're going to ask, 'Why?' until I've told the whole story." He sipped his coffee. "Did you grow up around here?" he asked. When she replied that she had, he inquired, "Have you ever heard of Rita Mason? The Feminist Church?"
Meredith's face lit up in recognition. "The Castration Revelations?" She laughed. "Oh, God. I remembered that. That woman was nuts!"
Hak looked down. "She was my mother."
Meredith's face fell. "Oh, God, I'm sorry." Hak mumbled that she wasn't as sorry as he was. "But, wait," she questioned, "Your card says your last name is Jameson, not Mason."
"I adopted the name of the man who help me escape the hell my mother raised me in. He was my social worker." Hak began his story, telling of the steps his mother had taken to "save" him from toxic masculinity, about how she viewed him as the spawn of Satan.
"Your own mother!" Meredith whispered sympathetically. "How horrible."
Hak lead her through his life. The humiliations of childhood; the salvation afforded by Mr. Jameson; being an emancipated minor; college; Eva and his marriage (he left out the plastic and real Ernies -- it was a bit much to tell a stranger); law school while Eva got her master's; and the jealousy of Bobby and the destruction of his marriage.
"And she never loved you." Meredith murmured thoughtfully.
"So," Hak summed up, "I tried to raise above it. I'm not a violent man, but I can't be attacked and let it stand. So, I oppose Bobby in court, offering him the humiliation that will bother him the most. So far, he hasn't been in the courtroom, but when I find out he associated with a case, I make it my business to help the other side. I haven't won every time, but that's because I've basically been on the sidelines. The lawyers don't seem to like me butting in, even if it's to help." He shrugged.
"But this time he's going to court and I've heard that you haven't gotten a lawyer yet. Why is that?" He looked at the woman, seeing a sadness settle on her face.
"Money! Why else?" She picked up a napkin she'd brought out with the coffee and dabbed her eyes. "When my husband died, we had more debt than savings, and working two jobs I just make enough to keep up with the bills. I can't afford a lawyer." Here the woman broke down and sobbed openly, the frustrations of the last year overwhelming her. The little girl, who had been listening through the window, threw open the door and ran into her mother's arms, hugging her fiercely.
Habakkuk silently vowed to save this woman and child, whatever it took.
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The divorce had been finalized in the last month. Habakkuk had held off his revenge until the divorce, and the financial decisions, had been made. As he suspected, his trust and investments made the court deny him spousal support, even though he was unemployed, and his wife still had her job. But the tape of his wife sneering as she told him how she had targeted him in college for his money, had him pay for her education (including student loans) and planned to fund her PhD when she raped him in divorce court, convinced the judge that what they had come into the marriage with was what they should take out of it. His investments remained his. Eva was as penniless now as she had been in college, although she retained her retirement from the school district. Hak had no claims on her income or benefits.
On the other hand, she had no claims on his house, so she continued to live with the Garcias. She bragged about how good the sex was in every face-to-face meeting they had with their lawyers. She also let Hak know that she was even bringing the real, human Ernie home, since Hak had destroyed her plastic "Ernie" dildo.
That actually pleased Hak, since she had made the mistake of bringing him in before the divorce papers were actually filed, allowing Hak's PI to gather evidence. The divorce filing was amended to include Ernest Johnson as one of the adulterous partners.
The only revenge that he had begun was against his old pal Bobby. Robert Garcia had been fired immediately from Jameson, Atkins, and Fisher once it was determined that he was the source of the emails "outing" Hak and his childhood traumas. He had finally been hired as a junior associate by an ambulance chasing firm, Stiller and Meyers. Hak, still technically unemployed (although he had helped Ed Fisher with some of the criminal cases, behind the scenes and unpaid), offered his service pro-bono to the companies being sued by Stiller and Meyers, if Bobby was assigned to the case. A clerk at the firm was willing, for a fee, to keep Hak appraised of Garcia's workload.
While Hak was working alone, Howard Jameson was happy to offer Hak the services his firm could offer in support. That help was considerable.
Hak had succeeded in successfully defending the companies in all the cases he became involved in. Two companies rejected his offer, and several more times he was rejected by the company's law firm, even though his services would have been free. When Stiller and Meyers finally realized that Hak Jameson had been instrumental in their defeats, they had approached him with an offer of employment.
He had laughed and rejected their first, and all subsequent, offers. When they learned that he was acting as an unpaid agent, they finally questioned why. When learning that they were being targeted because of Garcia, they made an offer he accepted: he wouldn't work unpaid against them if they released Bobby from their employment. He did reserve the right to go against them with any paying clients.
One of the law firms that had twice refused his assistance was Strum and Deutsch. Subsequently, they lost both cases, each with not only enormous judgements but added punitive damages. The companies, each of whom had wanted to accept Habakkuk's offer but had given in to the law firm's refusal, had each subsequently fired Strum and Deutsch.
The law firm blamed their dismissal on Hak and were only too happy to hire Garcia. Unlike Stiller and Meyers, S&D were a highly professional and well-respected group of lawyers. Their clients were huge firms who paid 6- and 7-figure retainer fees every year, above the actual cost of S&D's legal services. Still, the loss of a client stung, and they looked forward to humiliating Hak in court as punishment.
Garcia was relegated to the position of paralegal while the powers that be looked for a case that wouldn't endanger their large accounts. The case against Meredith Larkin fit the bill perfectly. The client wasn't one of their corporate clients but instead was the cousin of one of the senior partners. The case was being done as a favor to the cousin, who was trying to acquire Meredith's property for herself.
Bobby was overjoyed to be finally assigned a case, and as lead to boot. Finally, he would be able to show his bosses what a great lawyer he could be. His confidence waned when two junior partners were added as associate counsel, and it soon became clear that Garcia was only lead on paper.
