The Speed of Life

by James Victor Jordan

  Ismael’s immigration problems were complicated when federal agents ransacked his apartment, seized his computer, and arrested him on charges of money laundering, smuggling, and racketeering. The indictment alleged that stolen diamonds brought into the United States by Ismael had a value vastly more than what he declared, and that he sold the stolen diamonds to diamantaires in New York City, who paid for them with the cash proceeds of narcotic sales.

  Could Agent Vega prove the diamonds were stolen? Not yet. How would the government prove that Ismael knew he was paid with drug proceeds? With circumstantial evidence still being developed by Agent Vega.

  Other than conjecture, there wasn’t an inculpating iota— not in Ismael’s apartment, not on his computer, nothing in a wiretap, and every cash deposit and wire transfer was duly reported on the proper Treasury Department forms.

  Sure, there were inferences. How does a man so young, so new to this hemisphere, develop business relationships within the closed circles of New York diamond dealers and off-shore financiers? His compliance with the laws and regulations governing banking transactions was too perfect. And Ismael’s protestations of innocence weren’t helped when Henry Smythe-Russell and Georges Bohem, senior partners at Collins, Dickens & Swift, appeared together at the arraignment to represent him. But inferences alone don’t convict. Or at least they shouldn’t.

  Why wasn’t Narcotics prosecuting the dirty-diamond dealers? Because the DOJ cast its net over Ismael first, the diamond merchants had time to manufacture customer lists of cash-paying sheiks, chieftains, warlords, and Russian oil tycoons whose identities could be confirmed but who would never talk to U.S. authorities. Knowing of Ismael’s arrest, the diamantaires would report the sales and pay income taxes.

  So Estella had said to Vega, “You’re supposed to have evidence that will get us a conviction before you make the arrest.”

  “Orders,” Vega said. “We’re working on it; we’ll get it for you.”

  Ismael wasn’t going anywhere. So why arrest him before the evidence of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt had been marshalled?

  “Who?” Estella asked. “Who gave you that order?”

  “Aurora Goldin,” answered Agent Vega.

  Ismael believed he’d be killed if he talked, so why would he? For asylum. Ismael was a pawn in jeopardy when Aurora gave the case to Estella.

  Estella doesn’t remember her job being this hard before she was raped. She’d thought that coming back to work would take her mind off the rape but if anything, her anxieties are now more severe. She drums her fingers on Agent Vega’s report as Smythe-Russell, a dead ringer for William Howard Taft, perhaps heavier, cajoles her about probable cause, the Constitution, coincidence, and circumstantial evidence. He threatens to file hundreds of pages of motions and writs if she doesn’t accede to his demands for lower bail, release of Ismael’s assets, and the DOJ’s information about every other person of interest, whether a target or not.

  Smythe-Russell wants more than the law requires, but Estella listens to him anyway, or pretends to, hoping that some opening, something Smythe-Russell says, something she thinks of will enable her to persuade Ismael to sing. But she does respect Smythe-Russell professionally and knows that his threat to bury her in pleadings and briefs is not idle.

  Collins, Dickens & Swift is an international law firm with a hundred lawyers in the Miami office. Hank Smythe-Russell could easily put a half-dozen associates on the case, keeping Estella and as many of her colleagues as she could recruit working day and night for weeks, months, or more if Ismael’s benefactor has the resources to fund such a war. And Smythe-Russell has all but said that he does and that he will.

  He has also let slip equivocations about Ismael’s innocence. Aurora doesn’t care about Ismael’s guilt; she just wants to know what he knows. And she appears to be willing to pay a heavy price in the in the form of the resources of her office to get what she wants.

  The prosecution of Ismael Erasmus was Estella’s first assignment upon returning to work after her medical leave. She appeared at his arraignment two days later and afterward went to Aurora’s office – its disheveled appearance a study in contrast with her impeccable wardrobe – to report what had transpired in court.

  Memoranda, transcripts, law journals, half-filled legal pads, and mail – opened and unopened – covered the surface of Aurora’s desk. Except for her own desk chair and one chair placed beside her desk, every surface was covered with pleadings, volumes of annotated codes, case books and treatises, boxes filled with files and trial exhibits. A seemingly random mixture of these items on the floor formed an obstacle course. Her window shades were drawn. Light from the overhead fluorescents sparkled in her tennis bracelet.

  Estella said, “Ismael Erasmus is a handsome, gentle young man, he has wide innocent eyes. He speaks English fluently with deference in a soft-lilting West African accent. If he testifies, a jury will believe him.”

  Aurora turned from her computer display to look at Estella.

  Estella said, “There’s reasonable doubt. How is that going to change?”

  Without disturbing a single box, a single stack of files, or even a single sheet of paper on the cluttered floor, Aurora made her way across the room to a cherry-wood table placed on an inside wall facing draped floor-to-ceiling windows. A mahogany case displaying 19th century flintlock dueling pistols hung on the wall above the table. The table held an electric-burner hot plate warming a glass pot filled with steaming water, from which she filled two tea cups with hot water, dropped a teabag into each one, put the cups on saucers.

  Reversing her direction, Aurora avoided eye contact with Estella, giving her the impression that her boss was contemplating weighty matters that didn’t include the prosecution of Ismael Erasmus. When she was once more sitting behind her desk, she said, “Every time we prosecute someone Andrew’s age are you going to presume innocence?” She nodded toward the empty chair.

  “I’ve been sitting all day,” Estella said, walking to the windows.

  “Hold his feet to the fire,” Aurora said. “How innocent can he be? In less than a year, he earned a million – in cash – that we know of.”

  “You understand the diamond trade?” Estella said.

  She drew open the curtains, revealing vistas of Biscayne Bay, the MacArthur Causeway, multimillion-dollar waterfront homes on the Venetian Islands, where her mother lived, where she had grown up. Behind the homes, yachts were moored to docks on the Intracoastal Waterway. Sunlight filling the room, as if blasted from an industrial laser. Although the orange afternoon light softened the dull-blue effect of the fluorescents illuminating Aurora’s office, she slipped on a pair of sunglasses.

  Aurora said, “When he entered the U.S., at customs at JFK, Erasmus declared $50,000 as the value of the diamonds. Within a week, before he left New York, he sold them for at least $1 million, paid in cash.”

  “Rough diamonds,” Estella said, “are likely to fracture, have flaws and undesirable color.” She walked to Aurora’s desk and picked up her teacup. “Instead of selling the rough diamonds for their uncut, unpolished value, suppose Ismael offered to split the proceeds of the sale of polished stones with renowned diamantaires. He takes all the risk. They don’t have to know him.

  “Suppose further that the rough diamonds fracture, the polished stones have poor color or obvious flaws, or both. Suddenly, Ismael’s fifty thousand is worth five, or less. On the upside, the rough diamonds could yield magnificent stones worth two-million dollars, or more.”

  “Stop!” Aurora said. “You’re giving me a headache. Where’s this coming from?”

  Estella slumps into Aurora’s desk-side chair, holds the naked ring finger of her left hand up to the light, as if wondering what a man who might offer her a diamond be like. “It’s a preview,” she says, “of the testimony of Ismael’s experts, courtesy of his lawyers Henry Holland Smythe-Russell IV and your transplanted-California friend, Georges Bohem.”

  “Hank Smythe-Russell an
d Georges Bohem are representing Ismael Erasmus? Isn’t that interesting?”

  “Interesting,” said Estella, “is not an adjective that describes my concern.”

  “For Hank, taking a case pro bono would be sacrilege, even if it had case-of-the-millennia publicity, which this case does not. The combined hourly fee of those two lawyers is more than $3,000. So who, who is paying their fee?”

  “You think they’ll tell us?” Estella said, with wide-eyed naivete that made Aurora laugh. “If you gave me an army, Erasmus will be acquitted.”

  “Why the drama?” Aurora said. “Hank will never catch us in the win-loss columns, and as far as I know, based upon what Gnossos Poppodopulis tells me, Georges Bohem is a bumbler of a trial lawyer, didn’t do very well for Andrew at the preliminary hearing, I’m sorry to say.”

  “Let’s consider those thoughts in order,” Estella said. “As to our record against Hank, that’s the way it’s supposed to be because we only prosecute when we believe with moral certainty that we can prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The chances of winning don’t figure into Smythe-Russell’s calculus when he’s deciding whether to take a case.”

  “Of course, of course,” Aurora said. “The deck is always stacked in our favor. So tell me, how will Hank create a reasonable doubt that Ismael didn’t know or reasonably suspect that the rough diamonds he sold were stolen?”

  “With inexhaustible resources.”

  “I understand. Everywhere he goes he’s trailed by at least two associates with billing rates of $500 an hour. I wonder if he goes to the john alone.”

  “Only Bohem came with him. No associates. And only Bohem addressed the court. Hank didn’t say a word on the record. He was second chair.”

  Aurora gives Estella a look of astonished incredulity, the kind of look reserved for such news as, the Sierra Club had endorsed Donald Trump for the presidency.

  Estella says, “I tried not to look at Bohem during the preliminary hearing, but I looked at him today. That man is George Clooney handsome.”

  “Sure, he’s a Clark Gable clone,” Aurora said. “I know what he looks like. But if you’re thinking of asking him out, don’t.”

  “Aside from the obvious reasons, why not?” Estella said nonchalantly.

  “Because you wouldn’t like his politics,” Aurora said. “And because if you did date him, our office would be disqualified from every case handled by Collins, Dickens & Swift.”

  “You’d said he’s a transactional lawyer with a mega book of business. The go-to outside counsel for the likes of GE, Google, Exxon, Oracle,” Estella said. “So I have a pretty good guess about his politics.”

  “What impression did Bohem make in court?” Aurora said.

  “Gnossos Poppodopulis must have been smoking something illegal when he told you that Bohem is a bumbler. Bohem can charm the scales off a snake. This morning he files four motions and almost persuades Judge Paz to hear two of them right then and there, ex parte: extensive discovery even though I gave them everything they were entitled to before the hearing, lower bail, release of Ismael’s assets, orders allowing depositions in London, New York, the Cayman Islands, and Sierra Leone. We have a week to respond. The hearing will be in two weeks. Look at these briefs,” Estella says, looking for a place to put them down. Aurora holds out her hand and Estella gives the legal papers to her. “Must be fifty pages. They’re good. Strong writing.”

  “You thinking of offering him a job?” Aurora says, looking up from the briefs.

  “The man is as smooth and cold as liquid-covered moons of Jupiter. At Andrew’s preliminary hearing, his objections during the direct examination were so quick, so precise, and so often granted that Gnossos was stammering. Bohem made it appear as if the man could no more frame a proper question than a first-year law student, a public display of trial-lawyer humiliation you don’t often see.”

  Aurora, paying close attention, said nothing. So Estella continued. “And my former friend, the Honorable Murray Rabin? At the preliminary hearing, he was so deferential to Bohem that it would have made me sick if I hadn’t been suppressing urges to laugh at Gnossos.”

  “Why would a lawyer with a book of business like Bohem’s,” Aurora said, “have an interest in defending a low-level criminal like Erasmus?”

  “Because Bohem wants to curry favor with whoever is paying the Erasmus fee?” Estella said. “Just how close were you and Bohem?”

  “He was engaged to my best friend. A long time ago.”

  “Is he single now?” Estella said.

  Aurora nodded at the blinking cursor on her monitor. “A bad time for sick humor,” she said.

  “Why are Andrew and Ismael Erasmus each being represented by this friend of yours?” Estella said.

  “I haven’t had the time to think it through,” Aurora said.

  “One of those briefs you’re holding is in support of a motion to dismiss the case against Ismael based upon—.” Estella takes the briefs from Aurora and reads from one of them, “‘A complete and total absence of evidence that the diamonds were stolen.’ If we have that evidence, I haven’t seen it,” Estella said. “In two weeks Judge Paz will order us to produce it, pronto.”

  Aurora said, “How did Ismael Erasmus, born in a third-world village of farmers and fishermen eking out subsistence livings, come by $50,000 to purchase rough diamonds and how does he acquire the knowledge and connections to maximize their in a hemisphere he’d not seen before he left home?” Her tone was smug. She carefully rearranged two piles of paper on her desk, as if they were important while this conversation no longer was.

  Estella said, “He was educated in England—”

  “For a few years.”

  Estella said, “When Ismael was fourteen, Stephen Hawking was his Ph.D. advisor at Cambridge. He speaks four languages fluently: English, German, Afrikaans, and his native Krio, and he has a conversational command of Russian. Now he’s a post-doc in theoretical physics.”

  “He’s quite a guy,” Aurora said.

  “If we give him asylum,” Estella said, “he’d become a national treasure.”

  “Got it,” Aurora said. “We’re prosecuting Albert Einstein.” Rising from her chair, she held up a hand, silencing Estella’s imminent objection. She paced behind her desk as if it were the jury box and she was delivering the closing argument. “Let’s say Erasmus is an Isaac Newton, a Bill Gates. No, he was a Cecil Rhodes on his way to founding the next De Beers diamond empire when we interrupted his plans. But will a jury believe that Osman Kallon rewarded Ismael for his chauffeuring services with diamonds worth two million dollars?”

  Aurora didn’t wait for an answer. “The evidence is circumstantial but substantial, proving beyond any reasonable doubt that Ismael Erasmus knowingly brought imported stolen diamonds.”

  “Stolen from whom?” Estella said. “From Kallon?”

  “The only reasonable inference,” Aurora said, “is that General Kallon arranged for Ismael Erasmus to pick up the stones in London, sell them in Manhattan, and wire the proceeds back to Sierra Leone. He didn’t think that Erasmus would keep the money. But he did.

  “No one’s heart, mine least of all, is going to bleed for the good general because he was ripped off by Ismael Erasmus, not once they understand how Kallon came to possess those diamonds. He stole the diamonds from the blood-soaked, amputated hands of defenseless third-world villagers, from the blood of their parents, daughters and sons. Blood,” she said with anguish, gaining momentum, her eyes tearing, “from the axed bodies of mothers throwing themselves over their babies— those people owned the diamonds Erasmus sold. Erasmus knew this just as everyone else in Sierra Leone did, just as the Germans living in the countryside during World War II knew that the trains rolling past their villages carried Jews, women and children included, to the death camps.

  “Kallon and Erasmus are war criminals with no ideological agenda, motivated only by profit for themselves gained by means of the inhumanity of genocide. The owners of those d
iamonds were drenched in their own blood, soaked in the blood of their loved ones. Those people, the countrymen and women of Ismael Erasmus, are the victims. Their diamonds were stolen and then sold by Ismael Erasmus, who was paid with drug money.”

  Aurora’s voice was strong, filled with conviction. “That’s what our experts will say. And after the jury hears from them, they’re not going to pay attention to mind-numbing lectures about clarity and flaws. They’re going to be out for blood— Ismael’s blood.”

  Before Estella could object, Aurora said, “Erasmus can plead guilty to jaywalking, be granted asylum, and have a reference of good character when he applies for citizenship if he gives me what I need to nail Ryan Hunter.”

  “Who?” Estella said. “Ryan Who?”

  “Ryan who must be paying the fees of my erstwhile friend, Bohem, and his sidekick shark, Hank Smythe-Russell.

  A photo in the Herald of a man – a benefactor of the arts and public education – climbing aboard one of his private jets to pursue eleemosynary interests in West Africa came to mind. He was older, maybe even Aurora’s age, early fifties but sexy and married to an heiress to a fortune in cement, timber, and professional sports franchises. “Orestes Ryan Hunter? You can’t—”

  Pointing to a stack of boxes, Aurora said, “Read the documents in those.” The boxes were embossed with the name Orion Trading in its crimson-and-gold logo.

  “You subpoenaed documents from Ryan Hunter?” Estella said.

  “That would have been unfriendly,” Aurora said, “putting Mr. Hunter to work gathering everything we wanted. We saved him the trouble.”

  “You had the FBI serve a search warrant?”

  “A public service for a prominent citizen, a reward for his charitable work.”

  “What’s the crime?” Estella said.

  “Money laundering. A billion dollars. Conservatively.”

  “Then you’re talking about the biggest case in this office since Manuel Noriega.”