Ariel's Island

by Pat McKee

  “Internal Counsel has advised us that you’ve likely committed several crimes and further employment would have severe adverse consequences for the firm.”

  Internal Counsel, affectionately known among Strange & Fowler lawyers as “ICE,” in part for his charming personality and warm demeanor, is a thin-lipped former prosecutor whose sole responsibility is to advise the partnership on ethical issues. His pronouncements are the firm equivalent of the scarlet “A” handed out by his Boston forebears.

  “The Brunswick DA and the US Attorney for the Southern District have both cleared me.”

  From the looks on their faces, that seemed to be news. They weren’t used to someone end-running ICE.

  “And in case you get any ideas about going to the State Bar, I’ll let them know that any unethical behavior in the Milano case was all Fowler’s.”

  Since they were unaware that the two law-enforcement agencies had cleared me of criminal conduct, it was also unlikely that they had any idea of the recordings. I wanted to keep the tapes in my back pocket and not reveal them unless I had to. The idea that Fowler was the author of any deception of the court in the Milano case didn’t seem to surprise anyone.

  I hadn’t yet sat down. Now more accustomed to the glare, I looked each one of them in the eye. There was a lot of shuffling of papers. I took a seat at the head of the table.

  It was now my turn. But other than some nervous throat clearing among the rest of the Committee, it was still me and hatchet man.

  “Let’s discuss my partnership.”

  “Look, Paul, you must’ve suffered from all you’ve been through. We’re prepared to give you a paid leave of absence from the firm so you can recover fully.”

  I was not taking that bait.

  “That’s a kind gesture, but I’m perfectly able to resume my duties.”

  Admit to these jackals that I am damaged goods? Not in my lifetime. They would be dividing my partnership percentage before I got back on the elevator. An extended leave would be just as bad. I needed to get back to the firm to protect my interests.

  Hatchet man took another approach.

  “We have serious doubts that Milano Corporation will be very supportive of a lawyer who’s connected with an attempt to divest its major shareholder—even if you contend it was someone else’s idea. Paul, you must understand that we have to have some distance from you to repair the firm’s relationship with Milano.”

  But I was ready for that as well.

  “Why do I have to do your homework? It’s obvious to me that you haven’t spoken a word with Placido Milano. I encourage you to do so. Placido will tell you that Milano Corporation’s business goes with me. He expects the firm to honor its commitment to make me a partner and to see to it that a significant portion of the profits from the corporation’s legal work goes to me. If you force me out, I’ll take Milano Corporation and millions in fees with me. The firm will have a hard time surviving the hit and the adverse publicity.”

  Hatchet man and I had battled to a draw. The Chairman of the Management Committee had yet to speak. He was a patrician handpicked by Fowler to maintain the elitist standards of the firm: his grandfather had been the head of surgery at Crawford Long Memorial; his father, an investment banker; the home he grew up in, incorporated into the High Museum of Art. He’d attended Westminster Schools, Harvard undergraduate, Yale law. He and I had nothing in common. In the years I’d spent at the firm, we’d spoken three times, each time in an elevator.

  He picked up a remote control and pressed a button. The glass wall frosted over, lights dimmed, and a screen descended behind me. The resume I submitted out of law school eight years ago was projected on it, and the antiquated courier type, the engraved personal letterhead—an extraordinary extravagance for a destitute law student, designed to appeal to Strange & Fowler’s ingrained snobbery—appeared as if they belonged to a lost manuscript recently discovered in the library of an obscure desert monastery.

  The Chairman spoke.

  “Paul, you will recognize the resume you submitted to the firm, on which we based our hiring decision.”

  I didn’t respond. I knew where this was going.

  The Chairman stood and scrolled the document to the end. He took a laser pointer and placed a red dot on the screen.

  “‘High School Education. Thornwood High School. Thornwood is an orphanage operated by the Presbyterian Church. I lost my father at age seven, my mother at age twelve. I graduated from Thornwood High School as Valedictorian.’

  “Mr. McDaniel, that is a laudable record. It is the record on which this firm hired you. It turns out this record is a lie, you are an impostor, your background a fraud.”

  He knew how to play on my insecurities, either by instinct or just as a result of the arrogance that was inherent in his nature, my fear that by the mere fact of our births I was simply not his equal. He continued to hammer his advantage.

  “I met your mother outside this office building just last week, abandoned by her successful son, reduced to begging on the street. I was able to assist her myself, to prevent her from being evicted from her trailer.”

  He said the word “trailer” with the same level of disgust that one would approach a steaming pile of dog crap on an antique rug.

  “You hid your white trash background from the firm with a romanticized version of your own story. And it is all untrue.

  “Now I’m afraid the firm must distance itself from you. The firm cannot tolerate your fraudulent resume, and I’m certain that Placido Milano would agree with the firm’s position. I have no question in my mind that Placido will not want Milano Corporation affiliated with someone who so blatantly misrepresented his background, someone who denied his own class, someone who so callously turned his back on his own mother.

  “We’ll allow you to resign rather than fire you, allow you to create your own narrative of your resignation, to pursue other interests, to start your own firm, whatever you would like to say. However, if you force us to fire you, we will go public with your fraud, with your heartless abandonment of your own mother. After that, it is unlikely you will be able to develop a successful practice contesting parking tickets.”

  The Chairman sat, a look of serene satisfaction on his face. I wanted to break his nose. I glanced around the room. The remaining members of the committee looked as though they’d just been told that I drank the blood of murdered babies.

  “Gentlemen, you seem to be predisposed to believe the worst. But everything in my resume is true. My father died of a work-related accident when I was seven. When I was twelve, I lost my mother when she was adjudicated unfit and deprived of her parental rights. I grew up in an orphanage and graduated as the valedictorian of my high school class. Since then, I’ve assisted my mother financially even at great sacrifice to myself, only to find my money was used to feed her addictions. It seems that she’s manipulated you as she’s manipulated me my entire life.

  “But in response to your specific concerns, I assure you this information is well known to Placido and Melissa Milano. Rather than causing the Milano Corporation to distance itself from me, it’s resulted in an even closer relationship.”

  The Chairman condescended to respond once more.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. McDaniel, given your questionable veracity, we are unable to accept your personal assurances.”

  I flipped open my laptop and placed it on the conference table. Ariel’s face appeared.

  “Ariel, please contact Placido and Melissa Milano.”

  I watched the faces of the committee, more puzzled than concerned, no cracks yet appearing in their uniform façade. Placido and Melissa Milano again made their Star Wars appearance, just as they’d done on Agent Grey’s computer at his cabin, holograms that looked as though they were in the same room with us. This little bit of magic got their attention.

  “Placido, Melissa, I’m he
re at the Strange & Fowler offices having a discussion with the Management Committee. They’re concerned that by stating I lost my mother and grew up in an orphanage I have misrepresented my background. They feel if you found out about this misrepresentation Milano Corporation would instantly distance itself from me.”

  Melissa spoke first.

  “Gentlemen, Paul has always been forthcoming with Milano Corporation concerning his challenging background and his rather difficult relationship with his mother. We find it laudable that, notwithstanding her problems with alcohol and drug use, he continues to assist her.”

  Then Placido.

  “Mr. McDaniel has shown the utmost loyalty and devotion to Milano Corporation. I want the Management Committee to understand that Milano Corporation values his loyalty and will return it. Our business follows Mr. McDaniel.”

  Placido paused to allow his words to sink in, then brought his appearance to an abrupt conclusion.

  “Any questions?”

  I looked around the room. Only the Chairman dared look up; his eyes bore into me, but he declined to speak.

  “Thank you.”

  The screen went blank. Placido and Melissa were no longer with us. Now it was my turn.

  “Milano Corporation values my loyalty. I find it reprehensible that Strange & Fowler doesn’t. I have given every effort, sacrificed every personal interest, all in favor of the firm. It was one of William Fowler’s last honest acts to reward my loyalty with the offer of partnership, an offer I have worked every waking hour to attain.

  “I wasn’t a trust fund baby. No one in my family has been anything but a blue-collar worker. But I’ve accomplished in less than one generation what has taken most of you three.

  “You can keep your partnership. I’m starting my own firm. I’m certain there are dozens of Strange & Fowler associates who’d jump at the opportunity to work for a firm that values their loyalty and rewards their efforts, that stands for ethics over pure profits. Milano Corporation will be our first client.”

  I turned and walked out, not waiting for a response.

  I called Placido first, Lillian second. She and Tracey were waiting for me in the lobby as soon as I got off the elevator.

  “Lillian, I need you. The work will be intense. You’ll be managing the business side of the firm. There’ll be a lot of demands and nothing will be certain, but I’ll double your salary to start.”

  “There’s no place for me here. I’m going with you.”

  Tracey stepped forward. “Paul, if you need me, I can help, too. I’ve been running a small law office for a while, and there aren’t many things I can’t handle.”

  I hadn’t thought about Tracey working for me. She had a secure job and a home hundreds of miles away. It wouldn’t be fair to uproot her on the promise of a job that may not work out, not when she had a good thing where she was.

  “Tracey, maybe when we get better established, but it’s too much of a risk now. Your mother’s right. She doesn’t have a place at Strange & Fowler any more. You have a secure job and an established home. There’s no reason to change that.”

  Tracey tried to hide her disappointment, to remain upbeat, not to appear hurt. I wanted to take back what I’d said as soon as I’d said it.

  Strange & Fowler had one more card to play. Less than an hour after I walked out of its offices, the firm filed a lawsuit against me in Fulton County Superior Court seeking a Temporary Restraining Order to keep me from “stealing valuable trade secrets, inducing highly trained employees to breach their contracts, and making defamatory statements to long-standing clients that irreparably harm business prospects and the name of Strange & Fowler.” Fifteen minutes after the lawsuit was filed Judge Wilbur Cotten, a former member of the firm and now Senior Judge, signed the Temporary Restraining Order. Strange & Fowler shut down my new law firm before I even had a chance to announce it.

  Judge Cotten’s law clerk forwarded me a copy of the order by email, not out of courtesy, but rather to make sure I knew as soon as possible that I was under an injunction. Ariel was on it before it hit my inbox.

  Twenty-Four

  Strange & Fowler’s pervasive influence in the legal community was in part a result of its ability to place its talented alumni in favorable positions around the Southeast. Associates who did not make the cut, partners who burned out before retirement, retirees who wanted to stay in the game, they all got lucrative jobs outside the firm as the result of Strange & Fowler connections. Alumni were placed in other, less demanding, positions with law firms, legal departments of corporate clients, as in-house counsel for professional sports leagues, colleges, universities, or in governmental spots anywhere from clerks to judges, governors, and senators. And each well-placed alum became yet another person in an influential position the firm could call on when it needed a favor.

  An inveterate drunk, Wilbur Cotten had risen to partnership in Strange & Fowler decades ago when drinking three martinis at lunch wasn’t a cliché but part of the everyday routine. When times changed and it became apparent that he was unable to handle the work and remain intoxicated at the level he desired, he was pushed into a judgeship, appointed to the bench by a governor who was grateful to return one of the numerous favors showered on his administration by the firm.

  Judge Cotten proceeded to have one of the least productive and most lackluster careers on the Fulton County Superior Court bench since Reconstruction, and this was against competition that included some of the most incompetent, injudicious, and venal judges in the history of the State. Not long ago he had gone on senior status, which sounds lofty but in reality means that his fellow judges moved him to a position where he had the opportunity to do less harm—and was expected to do even less work—than he’d done before.

  The only change lawyers reported in Judge Cotten’s routine since he’d become a senior judge was that they usually had to wake him whenever they went to his chambers for business—though they could still count on being invited for a shot of bourbon or gin afterward, depending on the time of year. Judge Cotten’s chief distinction was that he was the last judge in the State of Georgia to fly the Confederate battle flag in his courtroom. It wasn’t that long ago when it came down, and it had been removed by one of the law clerks while the judge was taking his afternoon nap. By that point in his career he paid so little attention to his courtroom that he didn’t even notice.

  The irony of such a meaningless judge making such a meaningful attack on my career was lost on Ariel, though there was no question that she understood the threat presented to my future by the injunction. The first thing Ariel did in response to that threat was to search all her target’s electronic devices and internet history. Ariel’s search of Judge Cotten’s digital life was unexpectedly fruitful.

  Judge Cotten’s most frequent waking activity was to troll a site called “Daring Judges,” a place where judges who want to cheat on their spouses can find other judges who want to cheat on their spouses. The motto on the homepage was a quote attributed to an anonymous moral degenerate, “Never fool around with anyone who doesn’t have as much to lose as you do.” Notwithstanding the effectiveness of this advice, the host of the site used extraordinary security measures to keep the judges’ activities secret, but none of these were an impediment to Ariel. One such measure was that to participate, a judge had to be invited by a current member. There was a sophisticated system to assure the anonymity of the judge making the invitation, and the invitation itself was impossible to copy or to trace—assuring that there was nothing left for an offended judge to report to anyone—unless the invited judge acted favorably on it. But if a judge did act favorably, the site opened up, and they were thus compromised by their positive response, giving the site owners some confidence that they would not be encouraged by a guilty conscience to turn in their fellow trysters, now having—as the motto assured—as much to lose as everyone else.

  Judge Cotte
n had issued invitations to more than a half-dozen potential members. His taste was cosmopolitan and unimpeded by preference for sex, age, or race. The object of a significant amount of his attention was Catherine Lawson-Breuer, one of the first African-American women in Georgia elected to the bench outside the City of Atlanta. Judge Cotten had an invitation issued to Judge Lawson-Breuer three times without success. On the fourth she accepted, whether by mistake or out of curiosity, resignation, or overt interest, it was impossible to tell. But the site indicated that both of them had recently attended a national legal education program in Las Vegas entitled, “Above Suspicion: Maintaining Judicial Independence.”

  “I suggest we tell Judge Cotten we will to go to the press if he fails to dissolve the injunction. I can pose as a journalist who has gotten a tip that he has been ‘daring’ with a judge at a weekend seminar on judicial ethics.”

  I had to explain to Ariel that there’s something problematic about blackmailing judges. Not to mention illegal and unethical. While Ariel couldn’t go to jail for it, I could, as well as lose my law license. Having just escaped near-certain death and long-term incarceration, I’d lost my taste for taking life-threatening or career-ending risks. And what if Judge Lawson-Breuer was only an object of Judge Cotten’s interest and not a participant in his affairs; what if she accepted the invitation not even knowing what it was and only by coincidence attended the same seminar? In matters that involved discerning the point at which the often-indistinct boundaries of ethical issues changed from permissible to forbidden, Ariel was as effective as a paperweight. But in this instance the question wasn’t even close, and I wondered whether Ariel’s extraordinary ability to glide through technological barriers without impediment made her oblivious to other more subtle barriers presented by morality. It certainly allowed her, when it proved necessary, to ignore the obvious limitations presented by the law.