Bearing Witness

by Michael A. Kahn

  “Your offer is one hundred fifty thousand dollars?” I asked, keeping my tone neutral.

  “Actually, it isn’t an offer yet. If your client is willing to accept that amount in settlement of all claims, I’m prepared to sit down with Conrad Beckman and urge him to do the deal.”

  I leaned back in my chair and studied him. “One hundred fifty thousand.”

  He nodded. “It’s a generous offer, Rachel. It’s at least as much as she could hope to recover in an age discrimination case.”

  I shook my head. “But this is no longer an age discrimination case, Stanley.”

  He shrugged indifferently. “Call it whatever you want, Rachel. One hundred fifty thousand dollars is a lot of money.”

  “Your client will spend four times that amount just getting ready for the trial.”

  He nodded slowly, his lips pursed. “Perhaps.”

  “Don’t you see, Stanley? Your client will spend a million dollars to defend a claim where its exposure could exceed one hundred million dollars, but it’ll only offer a hundred fifty thousand to settle it.”

  “Correction, Rachel,” he said, wagging his finger in good-natured chiding. “My client is willing—or at least I hope it is willing—to offer one hundred fifty thousand dollars to settle a claim that it believes is frivolous.” He leaned forward, his eyes suddenly cold. “If that offer is declined, I can assure you that my client is prepared to spend whatever it takes to defend this case.” He leaned back and shook his head. “One million, two million—it won’t matter. War is war.”

  I gazed at him a moment. “I’ll convey your offer, Stanley.”

  “Talk to your client, Rachel.” There was a trace of sympathy in his voice. “Pass on what we’ve discussed. This is her last best chance. Help her understand that.”

  ***

  I talked to Ruth that afternoon. We met in her breakfast room, seated across from each other at the table. I told her what Stanley Roth had said. I told her that $150,000 was a lot of money. I told her that Stanley Roth claimed that it was her last best chance. I told her I didn’t know whether that was true.

  I also told her that I assumed Conrad Beckman was fully apprised of the meeting in advance and had approved the $150,000 “offer.” I told her that I thought there was some give in the number and that we might be able to goose it to $200,000. I told her that it was my best guess that there was a direct causal link between Conrad Beckman’s deposition on Friday afternoon and my meeting with Stanley Roth on Sunday morning. I wasn’t sure what the actual link was—at least not yet—but I’d place my bet on Max Kruppa’s American Express receipt.

  I also warned her.

  I warned her that we still didn’t have any hard evidence of a bid-rigging conspiracy. Circumstantial evidence, yes—but nothing direct. The American Express receipt and the calendar entries, while harmful to Beckman Engineering, fell outside the statute of limitations. Same with the letter in German from Max Kruppa, whatever it said. All of which meant that we still had a difficult path ahead of us, and it was possible that $150,000 would be more than the jury verdict we might end up with.

  Ruth listened carefully and nodded as I explained the situation. When I was finished, she asked me one question:

  “Are you still willing to represent me if I say no?”

  I smiled and placed my hand on top of hers. “Absolutely.”

  “The money isn’t important, Rachel. I don’t have fancy tastes, and my Sidney, God bless him, left me more than enough to live on.” She paused and shook her head. “This is just not right. What they’re doing is stealing money from the government. We caught them, and all they want to do is sweep that dirt under the carpet. They want to buy me off cheap and then go back to business as usual like they’re a bunch of choirboys. It’s not right.” She looked at me earnestly. “Don’t you agree?”

  A wave of fatigue washed over me. Yes, I agreed with her. But the lawsuit had worn me down. I was outnumbered and outgunned by Roth & Bowles. There were lots of them to one of me, and they’d been pummeling me for months.

  Nevertheless, Ruth was right. The offer was too low. She shouldn’t settle cheap—at least not until we’d run down all of the leads. Of course, I wasn’t thrilled about being the one to run down those leads. At that very moment, I was sick to death of the case. I would have gladly passed this baton to another lawyer. Let someone else lug this load to the finish line.

  But there was no one else. It was just Ruth and me. We’d started this obstacle course on our own, and we were going to have to try to finish it that way, too, or fall down trying.

  I gave her a weary smile. “Yes, Ruth. I agree.”

  “Good.” She nodded firmly. “We’re doing the right thing, Rachel. I just know we are.”

  I sighed. “I hope so.”

  ***

  There was a moment of silence. I waited, holding the telephone receiver against my ear.

  “Is there a counteroffer?” Stanley Roth said, his voice spiked with irritation.

  “No, Stanley. My client has strong feelings. I don’t think further settlement discussions will be worthwhile unless your client is willing to place a seven-figure number on the table.”

  Another long silence.

  “You are making an enormous mistake, Rachel.”

  “I hope not.”

  An exasperated sigh at the other end. “I have done what I can, Rachel. You and your client will have to live with the consequences of your unfortunate decision.”

  “All of us will, Stanley, including your client. That’s the chance we’re willing to take.”

  “Chance has nothing to do with it. Good-bye, Rachel.” A pause. “I am sorry for you.”

  “Don’t be. I’m a big girl.”

  “Not big enough for this.”

  Click.

  Chapter Twelve

  The girls and I had a wonderful time. Jonathan dropped them off at two-thirty that Sunday afternoon. I sat them down at the kitchen table and poured each a tall glass of fresh-squeezed lemonade. Leah, in fourth grade, had long auburn hair and her father’s dazzling green eyes. Her younger sister Sarah, age eight, could almost pass for my daughter with her dark curly hair and almond-shaped hazel eyes. They sipped their lemonade and listened carefully as I went over the menu. I’d planned what seemed a safe meal to serve a family that kept kosher at home: pasta with pesto sauce, steamed asparagus, grilled salmon, Italian bread, and chocolate ice cream. Their eyes got big when they realized that we were going to knead our own bread and roll our own pasta and churn our own ice cream. They were adorable, and their excitement over our dinner plans swept away any lingering sour notes from my meeting with Stanley Roth.

  During the rest of the afternoon they turned my kitchen into a cookfest filled with precious images. There was little Sarah kneeling on a kitchen chair, her sleeves rolled up, splotches of white flour on her nose and cheeks, as she kneaded the bread dough. And Leah cranking the handle of my old-fashioned pasta machine and watching wide-eyed as the long ribbons of fettuccini emerged. And the two of them hanging loops of fresh pasta onto the arms of the wooden drying rack while Ozzie watched curiously from below, his tail occasionally wagging. There was Leah, pursing her lips thoughtfully as she sampled a spoonful of chocolate ice cream that I had scooped out of the ice cream maker. And Sarah, a dish towel tied around her neck for a bib, standing on a chair in front of the kitchen sink and licking the dasher paddles clean, her face smudged with chocolate ice cream. And, finally, the three of us scrambling to get the table set before Jonathan arrived. We used a blue tablecloth and good china and a pretty glass vase for the irises I’d picked up at the grocery store on the way back from Ruth Alpert’s house.

  The girls barely had time to wash up and comb their hair before their daddy arrived. He bestowed a long-stemmed rose on each of us—white for the girls, red for me. He also brought a fancy chilled
bottle of white grape juice for the girls and a chilled bottle of sauvignon blanc for us. With proud, solemn expressions, the girls showed their father to his seat and then joined me at the counter to help serve our feast.

  Dinner was delicious and, with one exception, proceeded without a hitch. In all of the commotion I’d forgotten about the salmon. I remembered halfway through the salad course. It was too late to start the grill, so we improvised. We served the pasta as a separate course and changed our entrée from mesquite-grilled salmon to oven-broiled salmon. It worked out fine. By the time we finished our bowls of chocolate ice cream, we were stuffed and content.

  For one last time, Jonathan filled his wineglass and mine with the sauvignon blanc and his daughters’ with grape juice. Holding aloft his glass for a toast, he looked around the table and said, “Ladies, that was unquestionably the most scrumptious meal I have ever eaten in my life.”

  The girls basked in the praise, their eyes shining with pride. Leah looked over at me. I gave her a wink.

  Jonathan helped clear the table and clean up as the girls went into the den with Ozzie to play with my old Barbie doll stuff. As we washed the dishes, I told him about Conrad Beckman’s deposition and Stanley Roth’s settlement offer.

  “You’ve got them rattled,” he said.

  “A hundred fifty thousand dollars doesn’t sound too rattled.”

  “It is for that company.”

  “Maybe.” I was suddenly sick of talking about my lawsuit. “Tell me about the Spider investigation.”

  He rinsed the soapsuds off the plate and handed it to me. “I’ve divided the group into two teams.”

  “What do you mean?”

  As he scrubbed the inside of the ice cream churn, he explained that one task force was now focused on the more traditional law enforcement role of solving hate crimes and preventing future ones through surveillance, informers, and undercover operations. He was heading up the other group, which was handling the financial probe.

  “Which is what?” I asked.

  “You can’t run an organization like Spider without a lot of money. Cutting off the flow of money is like cutting off the flow of oxygen: you’ll kill it. That’s my goal.”

  “What’s their source of funds?”

  “It’s a mystery.”

  “Really?”

  He nodded. “We can trace the little stuff—the contributions they get through direct-mail solicitations, the plugs during Robb’s radio broadcasts. But his operation requires a big additional source of revenues. That’s the missing piece.”

  To find it, Jonathan explained, he’d been serving subpoenas on area banks. It was a two-pronged strategy. First, bank records might reveal one or more sources of funding. Second, and just as important, the threat of disclosure might put pressure on the sources of funds, who might be anxious to keep their connection to Spider confidential. If so, one or more might be willing to cooperate with the investigators in exchange for anonymity.

  “What have you found so far?” I asked, fascinated. We’d finished the dishes and were now having tea at the kitchen table. We were within earshot of the girls, who were still playing Barbie dolls in the den.

  Jonathan paused to stir honey into his tea. “We located Spider’s main account,” he explained, taking a sip. “It’s at Sunset Bank in South County. Over the past year there’ve been six big deposits into that account totaling nearly half a million dollars.”

  “Wow. From whom?”

  “From a trust account at Patriot Bank & Trust on South Grand.”

  “A trust account?” I said.

  He nodded.

  “Who owns the account?”

  Jonathan shook his head. “Don’t know.”

  “Is the bank the trustee?”

  “No,” he said. “Paulie Metzger.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “A criminal defense lawyer.”

  I shook my head. “I’ve never heard of him.”

  “Paulie’s a fringe player,” Jonathan explained. “Strictly a ham ’n’egger, a little storefront office on the far south side. He’s in his late sixties now—maybe even seventy. Has a reputation as a real sleazeball, which he definitely deserves. Back in my prosecutor days, I convicted one of his clients on a firearms possession charge. The trial took seven hours, including jury deliberations, and after a full day with Paulie, I felt like I needed to get fumigated.”

  “Sounds like Prince Valiant.”

  Jonathan nodded, pursing his lips. “Paulie is going to make a special command performance before my charm school.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “The grand jury?”

  “Yep.”

  “Here?”

  “Down in Jeff City. Probably in two or three weeks. That’ll give us enough time to see whether our subpoenas turn up more sources of funds.”

  ***

  I stood on the porch with Jonathan. The girls were already in the car.

  “That was a wonderful meal, Rachel,” he said, taking my hands in his. His green eyes sparkled in the porch light. “Thank you.”

  I smiled. “We had fun making it.”

  I couldn’t read his thoughts, but I assumed they were in the same realm as mine, and just as muddled. We had started off as litigation adversaries and gradually became wary allies. But when our relationship shifted unexpectedly from professional to romantic a few months back, it quickly pushed us to this confusing edge. Because of Jonathan’s religious beliefs, we could be friends but not lovers. We couldn’t take that next step without first becoming husband and wife, and that was a huge next step—for both of us. As much as I might fantasize about making love to Jonathan Wolf or just snuggling with him in front of the fireplace on a winter night, the prospect of becoming Mrs. Jonathan Wolf—with all the traditional Orthodox observances that might entail, from keeping kosher to the monthly visit to the mikva—gave me pause. More than anything, the two of us needed time to discuss it, to sort these issues out.

  Unfortunately, time was the one thing neither one of us had these days. Meanwhile, our bodies remained oblivious to the bigger religious questions. I had trouble keeping my hands off him, and I knew he had the same problem with me. Even washing dishes together felt like foreplay, which only made our situation all the more frustrating. I was still guilty about my lapse at the restaurant the other night. Although playing footsies under the table had been fun, it wasn’t fair to him. I’ve always despised women who do that to men.

  “Good night, Rachel.” He leaned over and gave me a gentle kiss on the lips.

  I ended it just as gently, resisting the sudden urge to turn it into a from-here-to-eternity kiss. “Good night,” I whispered.

  As he walked toward his car, I waved to the girls and they waved back.

  Oh, well, I told myself as I watched them drive off, we’ll manage somehow—at least for now. If the couples in my beloved Jane Austen novels could manage, so could we.

  Chapter Thirteen

  As expected, the bombing runs began Monday morning. There was an irate letter from Kimberly Howard emerging from my fax machine as I walked into the office. Twenty minutes later, while I was sipping my first cup of coffee and skimming through Kimberly’s angry demands—and immediate production of all previously undisclosed documents shown to Mr. Beckman at his deposition, including but not limited to—a Roth & Bowles messenger arrived with a stack of five motions to quash, one filed in each jurisdiction where I’d served a subpoena. By noon, two more packages arrived by messenger delivery; they included a set of interrogatories, a set of requests for production of documents, a set of requests for admission, and a motion to shorten the time to respond to each.

  I didn’t study any of them carefully. When you’re outnumbered the way I was outnumbered, there’s no sense trying to match the other side’s firepower. Roth & Bowles, like most large firms, had a massive but lum
bering war machine. They fought litigation battles the way the redcoats fought the colonists, and the only way to resist was the way the colonists had. The Memphis maneuver had been a classic example: get in and out quietly before the B-52s start darkening the skies overhead.

  Moreover, I had the sense that Kimberly was starting to overplay her hand. While Catherine Wagner was surely no friend of mine, she was nevertheless a U.S. district judge, and U.S. district judges are never eager to resolve discovery squabbles among lawyers. Jacki had checked with Judge Wagner’s docket clerk last Friday, as she does every Friday, and learned that Her Honor was starting a two-week criminal docket this morning that included a carjacking case with two defendants and a kidnapping case where the U.S. Attorney was asking for the death penalty under the new federal statute. According to the docket clerk, neither criminal case was likely to end in a plea. That meant that Judge Wagner was going to have plenty of other things on her mind for the next two weeks. As a result, there was a good chance that Kimberly’s latest motions and demands would sink without a trace into the court files.

  Benny called at 2:10 p.m. from the law school, where he’d just finished teaching his civil procedure class. “I did some poking around in the library this morning,” he told me. “Dug up some interesting shit on San Carlos de Bariloche. When’s your self-defense class?”

  “Six, and then I’m having dinner at my mom’s house.”

  “How ’bout I drop by around five? It won’t take long.”

  “Perfect.”

  “It’s a resort town.”

  ***

  “A resort town?” I sat back in my chair, surprised. “Where?”

  “In the Andes Mountains,” Benny said. “On the western border of Argentina, near Chile, about eight hundred fifty miles southwest of Buenos Aires. It’s supposed to be a real a picturesque postcard spot: gingerbread houses, fondue shops, chalet-style hotels, pine forests. Surrounded by jagged, snowcapped mountain peaks. The town overlooks a huge clear lake.”