By New York standards, the firm had been small, only seventy-five attorneys as opposed to a Wall Street–Madison Avenue white-shoe firm—which would have hundreds, along with satellite locations in Chicago, Los Angeles, London, and Paris—but charged gold-shoe prices. They often took clients referred by the white-shoe firms that either weren’t as capable at fighting it out in the trenches with the New York District Attorney’s Office or didn’t want to scuff the polish on those shoes by getting involved in ugly cases.
With the aid of his clients’ deep pockets for hiring “expert witnesses” who would say anything for a price, Knight’s success rate had outshone that of even some of the firm’s more experienced attorneys, earning him the notice of the partners. The more acquittals he won, or cases he got dropped, or cases he pled down to a slap on the wrist, the more important cases he was assigned to and the higher his salary and bonuses climbed. With the sort of praise he was earning in firm meetings, he even dreamed of becoming the youngest partner in the firm’s ninety-year history.
Unfortunately, he did not handle success well. He discovered a penchant for beautiful women, expensive cars, and forty-year-old Glenfiddich single-malt Scotch whiskey, which at $2,500 a bottle was one of the world’s best and priciest. But even a great single-malt sometimes needed, at least in his mind, a snort or two (or three) of cocaine to balance the high.
He didn’t worry about where all that might be leading; he was young and had the world by the balls. However, those late nights, beautiful women, drugs, and Scotch started taking a toll. He found that it was getting increasingly tough to get up in the morning and into work without a couple more lines of coke to go with a pot of coffee. Before long, he was sneaking snorts at his desk and even in the men’s stalls of courthouse restrooms during breaks.
When he was almost caught snorting a line off his office desk by one of the partners, he started to worry a little. But he reasoned that he was under a lot of stress and needed cocaine to handle it for the time being; he’d tone it all down after he made partner. At least that’s what he told himself on mornings when no amount of eyedrops got the red out and blood appeared on the tissue when he blew his nose.
The pressure to perform just kept getting more intense, which meant more cocaine and more booze. Then he started making mistakes: arriving late for court and angering the judges; forgetting to file paperwork on time; rushing in late to meetings—once missing a meeting entirely as he slept one of his binges off. He called in and said he had the flu, but it had not saved him from being told to report to the office of one of the senior partners when he arrived at work late, the next morning.
“What’s going on with you?” the partner, a middle-aged Harvard grad with movie-star looks, asked bluntly after Knight sat down in the chair in front of the man’s massive desk.
“What do you mean?” he replied, feeling a wave of nausea rise in his throat that was partly from fear and partly from the excesses of the previous night.
“I think you know what I mean,” the partner said sternly. “Bruce, when you started here, we all were impressed with your work as an attorney and with you as a person. You had a great chance of making partner at an early age—”
Knight did not like how the man was speaking in the past tense about his dream. Had a great chance.
“—but the quality of your work has fallen off considerably,” the partner continued, “and to be honest, your reliability is in question, too. We take this very seriously; this firm has a ninety-year reputation for excellence. We are nothing without our clients, and if we fail them, they’ll go elsewhere.”
The partner leaned across the desk and locked eyes with Knight. “Do you have a drinking problem? Because if you do, we’ll get you help.”
Knight shook his head. “No … some social drinking after work, but nothing outrageous,” he said, having never wanted a drink more in his life than at that moment.
“What about drugs?”
“Drugs?”
“Yes, illicit drugs … speed, pot, coke, heroin. Are you doing drugs?”
Again Knight denied the accusation. “No … not since a little experimentation in college,” he replied, hoping that the man didn’t notice the sweat he could feel popping out on his forehead.
The partner remained quiet for a moment and then nodded. “Okay, I hope not. But whatever it is that has been affecting you and your work, it needs to stop now. I’m letting you know that you are officially on probation. We’ll be watching to see how you respond to this little chat.”
Knight left the office and almost collapsed in the hallway with fear. He vowed to quit the boozing. And no more coke. And he meant it. He wasn’t a bad guy; he called his parents back home in Columbus, Ohio, every week, gave to charities and even the occasional bum on the street. He’d just been enjoying life a little too much, and he could adjust … tone it down.
When he got back to his office that day, he reached into his desk drawer and withdrew the small bindle of coke. He got up and went to the bathroom, intending to flush the drug down the toilet. But as he stood there looking at the snowy white powder, he decided that it would be a waste of money. He’d have one last blowout that weekend and be done with it. To celebrate his upcoming sobriety, he dipped a fingernail in the powder, brought it to his nose, and sniffed.
The only problem was that once it was gone that weekend, he wanted more. At first he resisted the drug’s call. He even started working out at the firm’s gym, ate healthy, and went to bed early—without the beautiful women. But then there was that night he went out with an old law school buddy and twin brunettes, each wearing the same low-cut dress. “His” twin kept telling him how turned on she got after snorting cocaine and, well … the rest was history.
Knight tried to hide that “toning it down” wasn’t working by spending a lot of time at the courthouse and the firm’s law library. But he was sinking and he knew it. He considered going to the partners and accepting their offer of “help” with his addictions, but he also knew that would be the kiss of death for his dream of becoming a partner. They might pat him on the back and pay for rehab, even keep him on as one of the firm’s low-level attorneys, but they would never trust an addict—even a recovering addict—with important cases or the firm’s reputation again. So he just tried his best to hide his problem, knowing that sooner or later it would have to end.
It came sooner. After one particularly wild night, he slept through his alarm clock on the morning of an important pretrial hearing. There wasn’t time to shower or shave, and he put on the first suit he found lying on the floor, albeit a Brooks Brothers. He arrived in the courtroom ten minutes late to find an irate judge and a panicked, angry client.
It was then that it struck him that his lifestyle wasn’t just affecting him; it was playing Russian roulette with the lives of his clients. He’d sworn an oath to zealously protect the rights and freedom of the people who trusted him, and he was failing miserably.
There was still enough left of the boy from the Midwest who’d been raised to believe in old-fashioned values like honesty, integrity, and earning his paycheck. He got through the hearing, but when he returned to the office, he walked into the senior partner’s office and resigned.
After that there was only one thing left to do; he spent what little savings he had on a hedonistic cocaine-fueled monthlong binge that he half hoped would kill him. It didn’t. Then when the expensive cars and furniture were sold and the money was gone, he was evicted from his apartment and found himself living on the streets. He was too ashamed to go home to his parents or beg friends—most of whom no longer wanted to know him anyway—for a place to stay or a hand back up out of the gutter.
Instead, he learned where the homeless shelters were located, and when they were full, the heating grates and nooks and crannies of buildings where he could shiver the night away. He did odd jobs when he could, raided Dumpsters for food and things to sell or trade, and sold his blood. He couldn’t afford cocaine or Glenfiddic
h anymore, but by panhandling he could usually afford a bottle of the cheapest whiskey or rotgut wine and tried to drink himself to death.
A year later, he looked fifty-five, not thirty-five; his nose was perpetually red and his blue eyes had the haze of the perpetually drunk. He’d sunk about as low as he could get one night four years earlier when he climbed down from a subway platform, planning to end it all. …
Knight’s recollection of the dismal past was broken by the sound of someone entering the reception area. He jumped up from his desk to see who it was, worried that it might be a bill collector. Since he couldn’t risk losing a client, he opened the door of his office and stopped. His jaw dropped; he could not quite believe what he was seeing.
Standing in the doorway to the hall was the partner from his former firm. The look on the man’s face was one of scorn, but he brightened when he saw Knight. “Good afternoon, Bruce,” he said pleasantly.
“Uh, h-hello,” Knight stammered, and then just stood, mouth agape, wondering if he was dreaming.
The man tilted his head to the side and smiled. He pointed to the office behind his former employee. “Mind if we sit down and have a little talk? I may have some work for you … and if you don’t mind my saying so, it looks like you could use it.”
Knight finally shut his mouth and nodded. He couldn’t believe it. Work? From his old firm? “By all means,” he said, stepping aside to indicate that the man should enter. “I apologize, my receptionist needed to leave work early today so I am manning the fort by myself.”
“Of course, I understand,” the man replied as they entered the office.
“Would you care for a cup of coffee?” Knight asked, wondering if he had any coffee to make.
“No, thank you. It’s too late in the day for me. I’d be up all night.”
Knight laughed a bit too long and loud as he sat down at his desk and pointed to the worn chair across from him. “Please, have a seat.”
The man looked down at the chair, which had seen better days many years earlier. He declined to sit. “I won’t take much of your … valuable time,” he said, “but I’ve come to offer you a job for a client that I think you’ll find both lucrative and interesting.”
Lucrative. Knight’s heart skipped a beat and then started pounding like a drum. “I’m all ears,” he said, wondering if the smile on his face looked as desperate as it felt. “May I ask the client’s name?”
His former boss smiled back. “Of course. Her name is Nadya Malovo.”
10
WESTLUND GROANED IMPATIENTLY WHEN HIS CELL PHONE ON the nightstand next to the bed started playing an old Rolling Stones song. He usually wouldn’t have answered a call in the middle of having sex with a member of his congregation, but “Sympathy for the Devil” was the ringtone for his chief of security, Frank Bernsen, a little inside joke between the two of them. Bernsen knew better than to interrupt his boss when he was “entertaining” unless it was important.
“Pardon me, angel, but the Lord’s work calls,” he said, sitting up in bed and swinging his long hairy legs over the side. He grabbed the cell phone as he stood and walked toward the bathroom so that his guest wouldn’t hear the conversation. “Yes, brother, the Lord’s peace upon you,” he said loud enough for her to hear before closing the door.
“What’s up, bro?” he growled.
“We have a visitor,” said Bernsen, who was known as Frankie the Cat in another life, when he and Westlund both rode with a motorcycle gang. “Ellis. He says he wants to see you.”
“About what?”
“He won’t say, except that it’s between you and him. … But he’s pretty hot.”
Westlund frowned. This didn’t sound good the day before the Ellis trial. “Did you tell him that I’m … uh … busy?”
“Yeah, but he says he’ll wait in the chapel,” Bernsen said. “You want me to toss his ass out on the street?”
Westlund smiled at the thought. “Sounds good, bro,” he replied with a chuckle. “But I better hear what the man has to say. It may be nothing, or at least nothing I can’t talk him out of; if I still don’t like what I hear, we’ll figure out what to do about it then. Give me ten minutes and then send him up.”
“You don’t want me to come with him?”
“Nah, I can kick that punk’s ass blindfolded. Just frisk him; I don’t want any surprises.”
Westlund hung up and thought for a moment before returning to the bedroom. “I apologize, my love, but the blessing of our union will have to wait for a few minutes,” he said to the woman curled up on a set of red satin sheets.
“Do you want me to leave?” she said, disappointment verging on despondency welling in her eyes.
“No, not at all, sister,” Westlund replied, leaning over to stroke her face with his hand. “In fact, would you do me a favor and stay in here as quiet as Lazarus before the resurrection, and just listen at the door to what is being said?”
“Listen? Why?”
Westlund kissed her gently on the lips. “You’ll understand soon enough,” he said as he stood. “But I believe that Satan may have entered my visitor’s heart with the purpose of posing a threat to my ministry here in this evil city.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Why would anyone do that?” she demanded. Then tears sprang to her eyes and she buried her face in her hands. “I couldn’t stand it if something took you away from me.”
Westlund placed a finger on her lips. This one is always on the verge of a psychotic breakdown. “Shhhhh,” he whispered. “Just listen … would you do that for me? Would you do that for this love that God has given us?”
The woman nodded. “Of course,” she whispered back. “I love you. God sent you to me in my hour of need … I would do anything.”
“As I would for you,” Westlund replied. “Now I have to get dressed. … And, sister, my love … bless you, you are an angel.”
As Westlund pulled on a track suit, he thought about the day he introduced himself to the Ellises in Memphis, Tennessee, two years earlier, when he was going by the name of John LaFontaine. Doctor John LaFontaine of the Holy Covenant Church of Jesus Christ Reformed, he reminded himself with a chuckle.
Westlund was no believer, but he played the part well. That day after he’d knelt with the Ellises at their son’s bed to pray—just a simple Pentecostal prayer he’d picked up from the Internet—he patted the boy on the shoulder and stood. “I’ll keep you in my prayers tonight, too, son,” he said kindly.
The parents had risen with him and stood looking down on their son with hopeful expressions. “How do you feel, Micah?” Nonie Ellis asked.
The boy shrugged but smiled slightly. “A little better I think. Is Jesus going to help me not be sick?”
Westlund seized the moment to grab the boy’s hand. “If you believe, Micah. Jesus provides miracles!”
The preacher could feel the hope, and his opportunity, enter the room like a ray of sunshine through clouds. Even the father, who Westlund could tell was going to be a tougher sell than the mother, smiled and patted the boy’s leg. Meanwhile, Nonie shook his hand effusively and asked him if he could stop by again and pray with the family.
Westlund had scrunched up his face and shaken his head, noting that his was a “traveling ministry” and that he had “a lot of ground to cover in this evil city.” He then paused to allow the mother’s face to register her disappointment, before adding, “But I’ll do what I can to find some time.”
He’d then waited a few days before showing back up at the Ellis house. Long enough for the woman to start despairing, but not so long that her husband’s reticence took over again.
There was another reason for the delay. He’d done his homework and talked to the right people, and he knew that the more time that passed immediately after the brutal chemotherapy treatments stopped, the better the boy would feel as his body healed itself. And, if he timed it right, the child’s recovery and general feeling of well-being would coincide nicely with prayer sessi
ons and the laying on of hands.
As for the disease itself, the astrocytoma tumors, his “research” indicated that the chemotherapy would probably cause the tumors to shrink, at least at first, which would—along with the cessation of the treatments—alleviate the symptoms caused by the disease. He was aware that normal protocol would be for Micah to return to the hospital to be tested and, if circumstances warranted, to begin a new series of chemo sessions. So he also had to time his appearance on the worried parents’ doorstep, to “spread the Word of God” and pray over their sick child, so that he got to them before they returned to the hospital for the tests and resumption of treatment.
The Ellises weren’t the first victims of this particular con, and he’d perfected it along the way. Of course, it didn’t always work out. Sometimes he got the door slammed in his face. Or the parents would politely reject his offer to pray over the child. But if he chose his marks right and did his homework, more often than not he would find himself on his knees praying with desperate parents, and from there he was well on his way to worming into their confidence and their lives.
The next step was to convince them that their child could only be saved by renouncing Western medicine and placing “one hundred and ten percent” of their faith in praying for God’s mercy and compassion. Part of his “research” was identifying which parents had religious leanings, and then he relied on biblical scriptures related to Jesus’ healing the sick by laying his hands on them and invoking the Holy Spirit. There were several Christian denominations that practiced “faith healing,” especially Pentecostals, which he’d learned relied on an intermediary, such as a preacher, to serve as the conduit for the Holy Spirit.
When he returned to the little house in East Memphis, he brought with him “Sister Sarah,” a sometime girlfriend and shill who helped him with the con. “She knows what you’re going through, as well as the temptations and lies those who preach the gospel of Western medicine use to lure you into their web,” he told the Ellises. “But, as I’m sure she’ll tell you, she turned to faith and her child was saved.”
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