by Ron Liebman
Of course I didn’t know it at the time, but this would be an absolute groundbreaking first for a major law firm. Going public? It had been talked about from time to time but never actually pulled off. Carl was set on pulling it off. Elevating his law firm to the ranks of GE, Westinghouse, Samsung. You name it.
It would be a transformation. No, more than that. It would be a major fucking coup. The financial press would be in a frenzy to chronicle Carl’s Midas touch as he transformed the base-metal profession of lawyering into the priceless gold ingots of publicly traded stock. The market would own Dunn & Sullivan, trading its shares, and Carl’s massive ownership, when transformed into stock certificates, would catapult him into the stratosphere of the mega-rich. Carl Smith. Tycoon. And, that was Carl’s exit strategy.
No, a scandal was the last thing Carl needed.
“Yeah, so . . .” Miller said.
His large rib cage straining his shirt buttons, his walrus mustache, those blue-tinted steel-rimmed glasses, the widow’s-peak receding hairline, even the way he sat forward—all of it telegraphed an unmistakable menace.
Here it comes, I told myself, bracing for impact.
“. . . I need you on some of my work. Effective immediately.”
I didn’t say anything. My mind was in overdrive, searching for the exit ramp that would allow me to veer away from this guy.
Miller was reciting a long list of tasks and projects he wanted done.
And then . . .
“Are you paying attention here? Pick up your goddamn pen and start taking notes.”
“Yeah, well,” I said. “Here’s the thing . . .”
That’s as far as I got.
“Here’s the fucking what?”
“Richard, I’m actually immersed in a case that Carl Smith has assigned to me.”
I stopped there, thinking how could I say what I was about to say without pushing down the plunger on the dynamite detonator?
Turns out I already had.
Mad Dog sprang to his feet. He stormed around the side of my desk. Towering over me, he aimed his index finger at my sternum.
“You do not tell a senior partner of this law firm that you are too busy for an assignment. You got that?”
I swallowed my instinct. The one telling me to stand up and ram this asshole’s head through my far wall. That was another life. A long time ago. That was no longer me.
Miller was waiting for a response.
“Okay.”
Miller nodded once, apparently now satisfied, then abruptly turned and headed for my door. Over his shoulder he told me that he’d have the files sent to me immediately, adding:
“And get associate help. You’re gonna need it.”
And then he was gone.
I stayed seated. More shaken than relieved. Second-guessing myself for so easily capitulating.
This wasn’t just a moment of weakness, my unconditional surrender.
I wanted to fit in here, even though I think I knew deep down that someone like me doesn’t. Not really. As I said, I considered myself the consummate team player. I wanted this. I got it. I wanted to keep it.
Other than perhaps being a judge, a lawyer like me can’t do better than being a partner in one of the country’s best law firms. I told myself it wasn’t the money. Or the stature. But was I kidding myself?
Was this what my father’s taunt was about? Carney Blake among his betters? While I didn’t think of them as my betters, was his message right for all the wrong reasons? That I didn’t belong and maybe I was trying too hard to do just that?
I turned to my window (I’d been doing that a lot lately) and looked back down at the saxophonist, still there, still silently playing music.
Watching him, I felt like I was deaf.
And when I think back on that time, I was blind as well.
14.
Good shot, Senator.”
Actually, the shooter was a congressman. But that was of no concern to the hunting guide who had also fired at the flock of geese fooled into landing near a clump of strategically placed decoys. So far as he was concerned, the guy was just another muckety-muck. He called them all Senator.
And it had been the guide’s shot that had struck that unfortunate and apparently nearsighted bird, now lying belly-up among its plastic replicas in the final twitching throes of a death spiral. The congressman’s shot had gone wild. The guide’s job was to ensure that the lawmaker took credit for the kill.
The congressman high-fived the day’s other public official, another congressman, though of the opposite political party, absolutely ecstatic with his nonexistent marksmanship.
“How about that?” he exclaimed to his legislative colleague, bouncing on his feet with the excitement of a teenager in front of his first car. “Bring ’em on,” he then told the guide, standing stone-faced beside him.
The congressman and his colleague were both outfitted in head-to-toe unsullied, laundry-pressed camo, immaculate versions of what the others in the hunting blind were wearing. They were both in their sixties, portly and jowled, unwitting specimens of the overindulged life furtively enjoyed by so many of those whose hot air got them elected to Congress.
They were guests of Peter Moss and his law firm, the host for the day’s outing. Peter had organized the shooting and for the first time had included his fifteen-year-old son, Josh, still on Christmas break from his boarding school.
Actually, the real host, at least in terms of paying for the hunting, the eating and drinking, the rooms from the night before, possibly even an honorarium for each of the congressmen if they would accept one, was the last participant in this hunt. It was his blind, his farm, and his money.
The guy was the CEO of a natural-gas-exploration company that was into “fracking” U.S. lands—a deep drilling process that injected fluids laden with carcinogenic and otherwise toxic chemicals under extreme high pressure deep into the earth’s surface to fracture rocks and release trapped gas.
His company was Peter Moss’s client. Trouble was brewing for this industry on Capitol Hill. Peter’s job was to crush the newly proposed regulatory scheme designed to protect the environment by limiting—or, heaven forbid, shutting down—all future fracking on public lands. Even if it was causing sinkholes and earthquakes from the subterranean pocket voids where the gas had been.
The two congressmen were members of the House energy subcommittee that had oversight over the fracking industry. Under House rules they could socialize with civilians (lawyers, lobbyists, corporate fat cats), but they were required to pay for their own meals and lodging. And these two did. But only at a fraction of the cost of what the hunting party would spend on this outing.
Peter’s law firm would pick up the bill, pay for everything, and then charge a tiny part of it to each congressman as his “share” of the festivities. Peter would then lay off the full charge to the client.
This client was only too happy to pay for the outing, no matter the cost. The same was true when Peter would present his outsize legal bill, stating only “for services rendered” with no further detail.
While it was certainly true that corporate America was tightening its belt when it came to paying legal fees, this was different. The exception that proved the rule. There would be no team of young lawyers toiling for hours over documents, no midnight-oil legal research, no multidraft court pleadings. No ticking time clocks. None of that was needed.
Sometime after this weekend’s shooting festivities, Peter would make a trip, alone, up to Capitol Hill. A whisper in the ears of a couple of congressmen, then with a collective bipartisan stroke of the pen a troublesome law would be changed. And that was that.
And while never a word was spoken, both congressmen knew that a job would most likely be waiting for them at Peter’s law firm should they ever actually lose an election. Former members of Congress had prio
rity access through Washington’s revolving door.
The “farm,” a manicured estate dating back to Revolutionary times, was located on Maryland’s famed Eastern Shore, the flatlands surrounding the vast Chesapeake Bay, roughly an hour and a half’s drive from Washington, D.C. The area was a mecca for waterfowl shooting, situated as it was directly under the flight path of Canada’s migratory goose and duck populations.
“Get down. Get down.”
That was the guide again. His trained ears had picked up the sound of the next incoming flock.
Peter carefully peered over the blind’s concealing shrubbery and saw the vector of incoming geese. Still high, out of range, but heading this way.
He placed his hand on Josh’s shoulder and gently guided him to the required crouching position. He held his forefinger to his lips, letting his son know that this was the crucial time, that absolute silence was necessary as the guide attempted to call in the still-high-flying birds, closer now, having spotted the decoys and provisionally interested. The guide was using one of his six-inch cylindrical wooden goose callers that he kept tied around his neck with rawhide strips. This was a delicate process. It required absolute stillness in the blind. Even the two congressmen shut up for once.
“Grab your gun,” Peter whispered to Josh, watching as he did so, making sure the boy left the safety on until ready, as he’d been taught.
Crouched in this blind, keeping a watchful eye on his son, Peter Moss was practicing law.
As far as Peter was concerned, lawyering was made up of a mix of ingredients. Like a potent drink. Understanding the law, knowing how to use the law, how to argue it when necessary—all were part of the mix. So were assertiveness, aggression, creativity. Put all that into a cocktail shaker. Add a splash of deviousness. Shake and pour. There you go.
To Peter, putting those two congressmen in that goose blind was actually the essence of lawyering. So was the way he had positioned the GRE case, something he thought of more as an offensive weapon than a lawsuit.
Days after GRE had hired Moss and his law firm to defend it against asset seizures, Peter had contacted Dipak Singh. He had invited his adversary to Washington, hinting at a settlement. The prospect of flipping the Indian judgment into quick money put Dipak on a plane. Remember, he was dangerously low on funds. And while he might have been lured to Washington under false pretenses, there would be something in this for him.
Peter Moss wanted Dipak to hire Dunn & Sullivan as the plaintiffs’ lawyers. In fact, he would pay Dipak handsomely (under the table, as I said) to do just that.
How did Dipak react to this unorthodox request from his client’s adversary for him to have his own American counsel handpicked? By the opposition? He didn’t give it a moment’s thought. The prospect of cash in his pocket turned him into Helen Keller.
Keep in mind Dipak had a good case. His clients were indeed grievously injured by the negligence and disregard of GRE. To win his case in India, he had to do what he had to do. No choice, really. Though to him it came quite easily. It was in his bones given his family’s long history of acquired stature in a society that often too easily condoned crooked paths. Right and wrong were relative concepts to this young lawyer. And despite his outward appearance, Dipak was no legal eagle.
He would be paid by the enemy to handpick counsel for his own side? Fine. Keep it a secret? Also fine.
And Peter Moss, for his part, would make a handsome fee on his defense of GRE for his law firm. But there was more.
Handing off the prosecution of this polluted case to Dunn & Sullivan—knowing Carl Smith as he did—was indeed a monkey trap, but it was something more as well. The coconut was a time bomb.
Sooner or later that bomb would explode, and if Peter’s timing was on target, he would have a damaged Dunn & Sullivan in his crosshairs, like some wounded waterfowl, hobbled and ready for the kill. “Kill” in this case meaning Peter’s hostile takeover of whatever parts of Dunn & Sullivan he wanted to absorb into his own law firm.
And speaking of wounded birds.
“Now!” the guide shouted as those in the blind rose, shotguns at the ready, and opened fire at the flock of lowering geese, all of whom were desperately trying to reverse course and get the hell out of there.
Both congressmen’s shots went wild. The guide squeezed off two quick rounds, one dead bird for each of them. Peter didn’t fire and instead kept watch on his son, whose shot struck a bird but off center, the buckshot obliterating one of its wings. The bird fell to earth smack in the middle of the decoys. It righted itself, trying to fly off, and when that wasn’t possible, it frantically tried scampering away, repeatedly stumbling, then righting itself, then stumbling again.
One of the foremost rules of waterfowl hunting was that wounded prey must be caught and put out of their misery.
This was Peter’s son’s bird. It was his job to deal with it.
“Let’s go, Josh,” Peter told the boy as he guided him out of the blind and onto the decoy field and the wounded goose.
Peter’s son was hesitant. He stood watching the crippled goose’s wild and frenzied escape attempt. He turned to his father.
“Dad?” was all he said, but his meaning was clear enough. Do I have to?
“Go,” Peter told him. “Get him, Josh.”
Shooting a wounded bird at point-blank range was considered unsportsmanlike. Peter’s son would need to kill the bird with his bare hands.
Each time Josh managed to get near the goose, it would right itself and scamper away, its eyes displaying the abject terror it instinctively felt. Josh would chase the goose, the goose would again right itself, lurch, and wobble a few feet away before again collapsing.
“Get ’em, boy!” the guide yelled from the blind. This being the first bit of real entertainment of the day for him.
After three or four more tries, Josh managed to grab the goose by its long neck. He held the bird out at arm’s length, his eyes showing as much fear as the bird’s. Peter caught up to him.
“Wring his neck,” he told the boy. “Just swing the bird around a couple of wide arcs until it’s dead. Go on. The bird is suffering. Do it.”
But he couldn’t. Josh stood with the squirming, bloody bird in his hands, his eyes welling with tears. He just couldn’t do it.
“Here,” Peter told Josh as he grabbed the bird. He then swirled the bird a few times around until he was certain its neck was broken. He then led his son back to the blind, dropping the goose carcass on the ground just outside the entrance. Before Josh stepped back into the blind, he turned to face his father.
“Dad, I’m . . .” he said, trying as best he could to hold back tears.
“It’s okay, Joshie,” was all Peter said as he turned his boy and guided him back into the blind.
And what was Peter feeling?
Like so many men and women who defined themselves by their careers, there wasn’t much to Peter Moss other than his work. A man is what he does.
Moss would say that he loved his wife. And he thought he did, though he never dwelled on it. When it came to his son, that love was more intrinsic. Rooted. Peter’s love for Josh was genuinely paternal. No question about it. But the essence of Peter—his unassailable self-image—required this son someday to become this father. It was a sort of reverse narcissism. And Josh just didn’t seem wired for the job.
As he followed his son back into the blind, this simple episode, Josh’s excruciating discomfort with this blood sport, told Peter something. To do what Peter Moss did, you needed to be a killer—not actually, of course, but in the vocational way that society accepts. To him that was the essence of advocacy.
Josh could very well someday become a lawyer, just not one like his father. Peter admired and emulated the lawyers who drove the buses; the rest were just passengers along for the ride.
This boy was going to disappoint him.
/> So be it, Peter thought.
But that thought wouldn’t take. Despite his love for his son, Peter simply couldn’t help relegating Josh to some lesser role in the world’s order.
How sad.
15.
While I was staring out my window lost in thought, and while Peter Moss was “practicing law” out in the goose blind, Carl Smith was sunning himself.
This was Carl’s last day at his Naples, Florida, home, here for the holidays without his wife, though not alone. He had just gotten off the phone with the New York investment bankers responsible for underwriting the Dunn & Sullivan IPO.
Carl slid his iPhone under a towel on the small table beside his chaise lounge. It was late morning and already too hot to leave it directly in the sun. He reapplied sunscreen over his tan though skeletal body, pasting his motley collection of graying hairs to his bony chest, then rubbing the cream onto his essentially hairless legs.
He grabbed his sunglasses from the side table and watched William Cunningham as he worked out on the poolside equipment Carl had bought for him: a bench press, a lat machine, an assortment of free weights. William had a big, blond, hairy chest and muscular arms and legs. Nice, Carl thought as he watched his young lover go through his routine.
Each morning since the two of them had come down here, William would slip out of bed just after dawn, careful not to wake Carl, and go out for his nine- or ten-mile run. Later in the morning, as Carl hung by the pool, either on the phone or reading documents, William would lift weights. Carl hadn’t so much as put a toe in the water, either in his pool or in the ocean of this waterfront home.
While he couldn’t convince Carl to run, or even walk, with him in the early mornings, William knew that Carl liked watching him exercise. He could sometimes see the growing bulge in Carl’s swim trunks. That’s why he went out of his way to flex between reps; it turned Carl on, and William liked that—it made for better sex in the afternoon when they both went indoors to escape the noonday sun. It also made for a more generous Carl when they went shopping later in the day.