Margaret Page #10

aggressively enough

if you weren't there?

What's going on?

My family is

all there still,

but Rodrigo is

studying in London,

and Hector is in Geneva.

- huh.

I'm sure they will go back

eventually because

they will like to do

something for their country.

But it's a worry.

It's very bad there now.

Yeah? I haven't

really been following it.

It's a big mess. Last year I

helped to found an organization

to work with children whose

families have been killed

or the parents

have been kidnapped.

We try to find homes for them,

preferably in Colombia,

because if we lose our

young people, that's it.

That's the future.

Yeah. I wish I knew

more about it.

You think Lisa would be

interested in acting?

No. I don't.

I think she has a lot of

contempt for it, actually.

Anyway, maybe it's the age.

She would prefer the world

with no plays? No films?

Oh. Who knows?

Would you like to see

a picture of my mother?

Sure.

These are all my

aunts and uncles.

See? Big family.

Mmm.

So after I talked to

you guys the other day,

I called this P.l.

I know to see if he could...

You called a what?

A what?

Private investigator,

to see if he could

find anything out

about your bus driver.

Really?

Yeah.

Dave! I can't believe

you called...

Wait, let me tell you

what he said.

So he calls

someone he knows who

used to work as

a cop at the MTA.

And you know the MTA

have their own police?

The MTA police?

They have their

own uniforms...

Yeah? Yeah?

Just a minute!

Jesus Christ!

What the f*** do we care about the

MTA police and their uniforms?

Okay, so this guy gets a look

at your guy's file.

It turns out he's

had two previous

accidents less

than two years apart.

What?

But that he's never been

disciplined or cited,

just moved around

to different shifts.

Are you kidding me?

Why does this

not shock me?

If you read the papers,

you'll know that

they're going

through a protracted

labor dispute at

the MTA right now.

And according to my P.l.,

management doesn't want to aggravate

the situation by firing this guy.

This is making me sick.

I know, but what it means,

Lisa, is that we have a case.

We do?

We can now sue

for what's called

"negligent retention."

Which just means they should have

known this guy was a bad risk,

and they negligently retained him

until, finally, he killed somebody.

You can prove that?

Sure, because

we can just subpoena their

personnel records,

which we already know

contain damaging information.

But you wouldn't be

our lawyer, right?

No.

Why not?

I'm not a personal

injury litigator.

It's not his area.

I don't know enough about it.

I would lose.

But you could

recommend someone?

Sure, sure.

I know a very good guy.

His name is Russel Deutsch.

He's not a sleazebag.

Very, very experienced.

You gotta get that

crazy cousin on board,

she's gonna be

your beneficiary.

She's not gonna want

to come to New York.

I can tell you that

right now.

If you win, she stands to get

anywhere from $300,000 to $500,000.

She's coming to New York.

You're awesome!

First thing we do is we file

a summons and a complaint

against the MTA. They

get 20 days to respond,

and when they do, we can

make our discovery requests.

Accident reports, personnel

records, etcetera.

But now, you gotta realize, this

is going to take some time.

The law says you have to have

a court date within one year.

Usually it takes

around six, depending.

Six years?

Yes, depending.

Now, I mentioned

to Dave,

I have a friend who writes for

the Metro section of The Times.

Yes, now, if it could

really happen,

this changes everything

in our favor.

If they think there's gonna

be adverse publicity,

especially in

The New York Times,

they're gonna want

to settle right away,

as soon as possible,

and as quietly as possible.

So they'd make it a condition

that we didn't...

It usually works, you get the

money, but you can't talk about it.

Nobody knows the terms.

So what good

does that do?

You get the money.

Is that bad?

This is how our society punishes

people for doing bad things.

By getting money from their

employers' insurance companies?

Yes. It's called

"punitive damages."

Could we insist they fire the driver?

As part of the settlement?

Sure, why not?

Is that something

people do?

Sure. It's one of

your conditions.

And you think

we're gonna win?

They're gonna settle?

Oh, they're gonna settle.

Oh. Hi.

I want to talk to you.

I take it that's

my report card?

It sure is.

I had a friend who used to

live on this block, at 262?

Oh.

That's so nice. Yeah, I

don't know if you know her.

Cheryl Rowan?

She's a physiotherapist?

No, I don't know her.

I think about

What?

Nothing.

Lisa says you're

in a play, Joan?

Oh, yeah.

It's really good,

you should go see it.

Well, the play is great, and

it has this really nice cast.

She's being modest. She's

gonna win every award in New York.

Oh, all that stuff's

a long way off.

I don't go to

the theater very much.

No, it's just nice, because you can

work a long time in the theater

and play a lot of great parts and

not get a lot of recognition.

And even though

you don't necessarily

do it for that as

your primary motive,

it is nice when people do

notice something you've done.

Mmm-hmm.

I was on a television

show a few years ago.

I'd been doing

theater all my life,

and suddenly all my relatives

started calling to congratulate me

because they thought I'd finally made it.

All it was was this dumb show

that paid the bills for a while.

That show was

so stupid.

Well, it wasn't

that bad.

Anyway, I realize this is

horribly embarrassing for Lisa,

but I just really wanted

to meet you, Emily,

because you've frankly become

such a big part of Lisa's life,

and I don't want

to be intrusive,

but this whole court case seems to

be suddenly dominating everything

and I can't get Lisa to

tell me anything about it.

That's not true.

Well, I can't.

I want you

to know, Lisa,

I'm very, very proud of you for

pursuing this the way that you have.

But I can't let you

pursue it to the point

where it's taking

over your life

or interfering

with your schoolwork.

See, it's come down to

a question of homework.

Lisa's on a half

scholarship at her school.

I know she feels a real sense of

responsibility about what happened.

Yeah, I do.

I know you do. I know you do. But

you can't not do your homework

and you can't throw away your

scholarship because of it.

I'm not. My grades slipped a little.

They'll get better.

Anyone can do their homework.

You just sit down and do it.

I've been distracted.

I'll stop.

All right. We didn't need a

big conference about it.

It's not a big

conference.

I just wanted to

know what was going on.

And I wanted

to meet Emily.

I know it's

a little awkward.

Lisa? Do you think Emily

would like to see the play'?

I thought you could both come, and

then we could go out afterwards.

All right.

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