Shift Delete

by Gary L. Rashba

  Lippnow was neither rival, enemy nor foe. As far as Parovsky was concerned, Darrel Lippnow was simply a jerk who had it coming to him. Things always came easy to him, aided by his propensity to lie, cheat and steal. Maybe he had changed over the years; many had certainly passed. Maybe some epiphany had turned him into a decent person. But Parovsky couldn’t let go, and directed his anger and insecurities to doing him harm.

  Darrel Lippnow was a playboy extraordinaire, spending weekends either on the golf course or racing around Long Island Sound on a speedboat, sipping single malt Scotch and smoking Cuban cigars. Anything to look the part.

  He worked hard, some might call him a workaholic, but a lot of this was to fill empty hours. He was a regular at the snooty country club that was a virtual “who’s who” of local doctors, lawyers and captains of industry. Lippnow made many a connection in what was in effect a fraternity of professionals. One new client or referral per year from the country club connections more than covered the expensive yearly dues, which he wrote off his taxes anyway.

  Lippnow’s teenage children lived with his ex-wife Amy. She had been his sweetheart since high school, stuck with him in a long-distance relationship when they each went off to separate colleges, and had somehow stayed together. At American University Lippnow pledged a fraternity of rich WASPS—even though he was Jewish, entering a world of upturned collars on Ralph Lauren Polo shirts, pastel-colored cashmere sweaters, wool overcoats with silk scarves, ornamented by pretty blond-haired sorority girls, groupies and jealous wannabees, all willing to do anything to be part of this “in’’ crowd.

  When Amy came down to visit Darrel in Washington on occasional weekends, logistics could be complicated by the fact that he had a regular “sex toy,” as he called her, who would visit his room in the fraternity house whenever the house threw a party. Her friends knew where to find her, and would come to pick her up when they were leaving the party. The poor girl thought she was in a relationship that needed lots of work. She knew he had had a girlfriend—that’s what Lippnow told her-but not that they were still very much together, even broaching the topic of getting married after college.

  Darrel filled in the blanks with lies, explaining away his frequent disappearances from campus with stories about visiting home, visiting friends at other northeast colleges, interviewing for summer internships at law firms or just busy studying for exams. These were the days before cell phones when one could still lose himself when wanted. When Amy came to visit was more challenging, but he managed to choreograph her visits well enough that they never crossed paths with sex toy. There were dirty looks and the occasional obscene middle finger gesture from his sex toy’s friends who spotted him holding hands with Amy somewhere on or off campus. Amy turned a blind eye, attributing what she figured was infidelity to the difficulty of being apart, and she would forget about it when he wined and dined her, often followed by a bouquet of roses sent to her dorm room after their weekend together.

  Darrel and Amy married when he was in law school in a wedding few would forget. His family hired out a municipal park where crews assembled a transparent dance floor over a little brook running through the park, brought in colored lighting that accentuated the already beautiful natural surroundings and a laser light show that rivaled the best rock concerts many people had seen, with two hearts dancing through the dark sky until they converged, linking together with a gold wedding ring. Showmanship was a Lippnow specialty. There were hundreds of guests that could only be described as a who’s who of politics and industry, including one United States senator and two congressmen, the mayor of New York City plus the state Republican chairman.

  Despite having been together for so many years, only when they were married and finally—formally through the institution of marriage—building a life together, did Amy begin to see Darrel for what he was: a jerk who cared about himself more than anything.

  “It’s not the same Darrel,” she would complain to her friends.

  “Actually, it is...” was the oft-heard response. Another case of someone blinded by love, or what they thought was love.

  She assumed and expected the lying, cheating, reckless driving, drinking, and then throwing money or pulling favors to make things right—problems and issues she had put up with for years, would disappear instantly when they were married.

  He drove an expensive metallic black Range Rover Evoque Coupe jeep which he cavalierly parked on the sidewalk, almost begging to be ticketed, which he would inevitably have canceled by friends in high places-the power of political campaign contributions, which served to elevate his feelings of self-importance. He wore a Bell&Ross Airborne skull-and-crossbones wristwatch that was well beyond most people’s budgets for a timepiece—or even a car, but it conveyed the image he had of himself as a rebel who didn’t have to follow rules. There really was no question when he first stumbled across the Bell&Ross in a watch shop on a gambling trip to Las Vegas. Without even asking the price, he pulled out his American Express credit card and walked out of the shop wearing the bulky $35,000 watch on his wrist. He named his speedboat Black Beard and flew a mini black and white skull-and-crossbones pirate flag off the stern. His Range Rover bore the vanity license plate: “BLK BRD.”

  As a lawyer, Lippnow obviously understood the importance of the law, but he felt the government sometimes hindered commerce and was therefore ready to “cut corners,” as he described it, or even blatantly violate laws that interfered with his financial pursuits.

  Lippnow’s two teenage boys enjoyed the occasional weekend when their father had time for them. Riding All-Terrain Vehicles around his extensive property, boating and jet skiing in the warmer months, and a great Home Cinema set-up for the evenings. He owned an arsenal of weapons that was kept locked in a vault in the basement of his house. The boys enjoyed going out with their dad and his semi-automatic assault rifles, hunting rifles and handguns to hunt deer and other game and fowl on his property, or just for the thrill of blasting off a few hundred rounds at nothing in particular.

  “Rich boys and their toys,” Amy would say to herself, shaking her head in disgust as the boys told her about all their fun adventures with their father while she was the one stuck with the daily grind of raising adolescents, getting them to school, ferrying them to after-school activities and chasing them to do their homework. Darrel’s behavior with the boys mirrored his failed relationship with Amy, on whom he showered expensive gifts rather than actually being there for her, until she finally had had enough and sought the divorce.

  It was a familiar story. He was busting his butt putting in long hours at the law firm where he worked as a new associate, expected to put in sixty-hour weeks, in competition with other young lawyers in his class who were unencumbered. Darrel was working twelve, fourteen and on occasion even sixteen hour days, which he had to do to justify his $60,000 salary right out of law school while most of his contemporaries from college were making do on far less than half of that, if they even had jobs. At the time, Elliot Parovsky was struggling to figure out what the hell to do with his liberal arts degree with a major in Communications.

  Lippnow’s long work days—necessary to justify the high salary that afforded them their comfortable lifestyle, caused resentment in Amy.

  It was a no-win situation with Amy clamoring for him to spend more time with her, and his need to spend time at the office and to be somewhat sociable by going out for the occasional after-work round of drinks with the other lawyers. His conflicting roles put him in bad graces with her and left him somewhat of an outsider with his co- workers.

  The unplanned—or perhaps not—pregnancy during his early days as a lawyer only made matters worse. Home with the baby all day, Amy craved time with her husband, and needed his help. After working long, stressful days, it didn’t endear him to come home to have the baby thrust into his arms while hearing accusations that he was intentionally coming home late to avoid helping out.


  Lippnow maintained an unbending focus on his goals. At the firm, he would only agree to work international business matters; he had no intention of risking being tunneled into some specialty area like tax or bankruptcy law. While the firm was the one calling the shots, they respected his passion and acquiesced. He quickly proved himself by demonstrating business acumen far beyond his age—his reward for growing up in his father’s lumber yard that grew into a Do-It-Yourself empire.

  Lippnow was assigned to work on international business issues involving Letters of Credit, export permits and End User Certificates for several deals involving an Eastern European small arms factory. These were the heady days of the 1990s with Eastern Europe and the former states of the Soviet Union reawakening after a 50 year smothering embrace. The situation created vast business opportunities with lots of money to be made for those with the wherewithal to enter these unknown, untried markets.

  The matters handled by the law firm didn’t seem particularly complicated, and after asking a few questions, Lippnow realized that he could be doing such transactions on his own. A bit presumptuous, his overseeing partner thought, but with his entrepreneurial spirit and business acumen, the young lawyer quickly proved himself by putting a deal together that outsourced work to an eastern European factory and then orchestrated a factory buyout that made big money for the firm. When his audacious request for a cut of profits was denied, he quit and struck out on his own. He didn’t see it as courageous, but rather a matter of principle.

  “You’re a Lippnow,” his father had always told him, meaning that he was expected to be a hard-working businessman who made a lot of money, just as his father had done with his lumber business.

  Since by chance his first international transactions were with the Eastern European arms industry, that is where Lippnow now had some contacts and therefore focused many of his efforts, although as a sole practitioner firm, he initially couldn’t turn any work away.

  He met with some officials in Washington, learned the relevant laws and regulations and before he knew it he was completing his first deal. A family friend who was an exec at one of the “beltway bandit” defense contractors had connected Lippnow with the company’s ballistics lab, to whom he was now supplying Eastern-bloc small arms ammunition for their efforts to protect against, defeat or counter these capabilities.

  His first big break was a derivative of a deal he had worked while still employed at the law firm. While assisting with the sale of new light weaponry from an Eastern European factory to an African country, Lippnow thought to ask about the aging rifles, carbines, machine guns, shotguns, revolvers and pistols the army was replacing with its new AK- 47s, thinking about how additional profit could be made on the deal, beyond just the sale of new equipment. When his request for a share of the profits was denied by the law firm, he held off on acting on his idea. Now that his own firm had hung its shingle, Lippnow approached the African AK-47 customer to buy up its stocks of surplus weapons and connected with the world of dealers selling all sorts of surplus military equipment to gun traders, collectors, gun enthusiasts and anti- government militias, for all he knew, or whack jobs like that cult out in Waco ,who were armed to the teeth and all died in a showdown with the ATF and FBI back in the 1990s. But this wasn’t his problem. By selling off the surplus, Lippnow pleased the customer by offsetting a fraction of the cost of the new weapons while cementing his relationship with the generals by sweetening the deal for them with a share of his profits.

  After paying off an obese, highly decorated African general once to ensure a tender for surplus weapons went his way, the general accepted the small gym bag of cash and in all seriousness asked Lippnow, “Do you know what the problem is in my country?”

  Lippnow tensed up, being careful not to say something wrong that could result in him finding himself in prison or persona non grata.

  “No General. What is it, sir?” he asked politely.

  In all seriousness, the general replied: “Corruption.”

  When he wasn’t working deals for his clients, he was working for himself. His father had grown his lumber business by buying up surplus goods, factory overruns, wholesale and retail liquidations and distributor close-out sales. Darrel applied the same model to real estate, buying repossessed apartments and properties during a depressed real estate market, holding them as landlord and ultimately selling them as the real estate market rebounded. The occasional tip from family connections in city hall about plans to gentrify an area didn’t hurt his profit margin.

  While Amy expected the change would be for the better once he had left the pressure cooker law firm, the opposite proved true, with even more work required as Darrel toiled to establish and then build up his firm. Amy knew this was good for the family, but selfishly wanted him to spend more time at home.

  The only thing he didn’t have time for was his family.

  19. INTO THE ABYSS

  It was a brisk morning when Parovsky headed out for an early morning jog along the Potomac River. Like most locals, he hardly noticed the city’s glorious sites as he jogged past them, like the white Italian marble exterior Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, the 169m tall obelisk Washington Monument towering in the distance and the Greek temple-like Lincoln Memorial before he crossed the Arlington Memorial Bridge onto the Virginia side to loop back home through Georgetown. He wasn’t focused, so he paid attention to his footing as he ran, while at the same time distracted and mesmerized by his breath made visible by the cold air. His head was awash with too many competing thoughts, and he wishfully hoped the morning run might help him make some order with all that he was grappling with. There was Layla, Alex, career aspirations while under a glory-hungry boss, long-forgotten insecurities unleashed by mere thoughts of his college days, and even more trepidation of possibly attending the college reunion that awakened memories of that long-forgotten period. And Lippnow. Just thinking of Lippnow aggravated Parovsky’s jealous dislike for him into perceived slights and worse. His mind got the worst of him; Parovsky seemed to be blaming Lippnow for everything real and imagined that he hadn’t accomplished in life.

  Add to that his parents’ constant reminders that they would be happy to see him “settle down”—their euphemism for getting married and raising a family. He chuckled to himself while imagining telling them that he was simultaneously keeping company with a married Lebanese woman and a Russian shiksa!

  After crossing the bridge, he had to focus on the here and now as he dodged traffic to cross the George Washington Memorial Parkway to get back on a running path along the river bank. It was too early to head south to the George Washington Memorial Park at the edge of Ronald Reagan National Airport, where he liked watching aircraft come in so low directly overhead that he felt he could reach up and touch them. Flight seemed to offer a sense of complete freedom unmatched by anything terrestrial.

  Despite the frigid weather outside, Elliot Parovsky’s apartment building’s parking garage was hot and stuffy. He quickly put the key into his Acura’s ignition, started her up and cranked the heating as he pulled out of the garage, blinking his eyes a few times as they adjusted from the garage’s darkness to the light of day.

  Even before he had time for his first cup of morning coffee at the office, his phone extension rang. It was DCA’s CISO calling him in for a meeting.

  CISO—Parovsky derogatively never referred to her or even thought of her by her name—sat behind her spartan desk wearing her ever-present Bluetooth earpiece on her left ear, which seemed to be permanently affixed to her head from the moment she arrived early each morning working to her afternoon departure, whether in meetings, lunches or whatever her schedule held in store. Parovsky stood before her, shifting uncomfortably as he waited, pretty sure that she knew he stood there before him but starting to wonder. Should I make a noise? Cough? Or is she doing this intentionally as one of those power things?

  Her desk was spotless save for her lapt
op computer and a photo cube with pictures of small children. He didn’t know if CISO had small children, or if they were grandchildren. But he didn’t really care. Prominently displayed on the wall by her desk was a signed photograph of her shaking hands with the president, and a framed certificate from Fortune Magazine noting her place in its “50 Most Powerful Women in Business” issue.

  CISO looked up at him and without apologizing for keeping him waiting, she began.

  “That the Snowden offer came through DCA has brought new prestige to our agency. People always see us as the ones that say ‘no’ all the time. No Drop Box or other data sharing services, no personal email access, no this, no that, obviously not understanding IT security threats one iota. When someone is attacked, it’s our fault! Yet here we are—probably for the first time with a true scoop, like a real Intel agency. I’m putting a letter of commendation in your file.”

  He hadn’t expected that. Taken aback, and feeling slightly repentant after all his negativity towards her, all he could come up with was, “Thank you, ma’am” while his mind flooded with thoughts. A letter of commendation! Promotion? Raise?