by Alan Hruska
“That’s right. We’re not. Class reps, yes; other members, no. So unless something happens to change things, the judge won’t take it now. It’s beyond the scope of the direct.” Alec turns to Creighton. “On the other hand, Brett, there is something you can do now that might help us when we offer it later.”
“Oh, shit!” exclaims Harvey, riveted on the TV.
Alec, swiveling, gets poleaxed by the image on the screen: a photograph of Carrie’s child, Sarah. Not hearing the words, he leaps to the set and juices the sound. A newscaster is saying, “We repeat. If you have any information regarding the whereabouts of this child, please call this number immediately.”
Reciting the number to himself, Alec storms off without noticing the surprised looks in his wake. The telephone booths in the club lobby are empty. He directs a club operator to dial the number at once.
FBI agents’ voices, especially on the phone, are often indistinguishable from machines. This particular agent has been programmed to achieve a single objective: not to impart information about the child, but to obtain it about the identity and location of the caller. Alec hangs up on the man in mid-question, and has a call placed to Maine. The phone rings eight times without anyone picking up. The club operator asks whether Alec would like her to continue ringing. Alec thanks her and says no.
Too damn late, he thinks. Carrie’s in flight, or they already have her.
Watching Rosenkranz questioning Creighton, Alec tries not to think about Carrie and Sarah. Tries to focus on what’s going on.
Si, Brett. Brett, Si. Cerebral tennis by players who return everything with style. Although, as between two self-assured men, Brett has an advantage. His charm is inbred. After all, it was Brett’s forebears who barred Si’s from the best jobs, neighborhoods, and clubs. And Brett’s condescension begins to get under Si’s skin, until the blister becomes visible to the jury.
“If I’ve done my arithmetic right,” says Si, with a trace of acidity, “in this warehousing business of yours, the risk of loss to you was five hundred times the anticipated gain. Is that correct?”
Brett smiles. “With basic honesty in the operation—”
“Is the arithmetic right, Mr. Creighton?”
“You have the numbers right, Mr. Rosenkranz, but, as is often the case, the numbers tell only part of the story.”
“Well, let’s get the rest of the story. When you took U.S. Safety into a business with this high an exposure to loss, did you once consider the best interests of your individual stockholders? Did you warn them of the risk?”
Justice Kaye glances at Alec, who’s looking innocent. Si may have just opened up the subject of the stockholders’ identity as well as given Brett the platform for a speech.
“Mr. Brno?” the judge asks.
“No objection, your Honor.”
Si, staring at Alec, senses the trap he’s walked into.
Creighton, sensing from the judge and his own counsel that it’s appropriate to proceed, says, “As I just started to testify, we thought the risk—”
Si interrupts. “How did you happen to hire Mr. Whitman Poole as manager of this warehousing business?”
“Objection, your Honor,” Alec says, rising. “The witness should be allowed to complete his answer to the prior question.”
Si scoffs. “It wasn’t responsive, your Honor. If Mr. Brno wants the witness to make speeches, he may try that on cross-examination. Provided it’s within the scope of my direct.”
“I agree,” says the judge. “Objection overruled. You may answer the pending question, Mr. Creighton. Do you have it in mind?”
“Yes, your Honor,” Brett says. “Mr. Poole was highly recommended by one of our board members, Dr. Lionel Harding, who is the president of Princeton University.”
“Mr. Poole was, in fact, Dr. Harding’s college roommate, right?”
“That is true.”
“And had Dr. Harding told you,” Si asks, “that Poole had been fired by both Alcoa and the Jones and Laughlin Steel Corporation?”
“Dr. Harding believed—and we certainly did—that Mr. Poole’s separation from those companies had been voluntary.”
“Did you check? Did you or anyone in your company call either of those companies to find out?”
Hesitant for an instant, Brett says, “No.”
Si gapes at the admission, lets it hang in the air. He does not ask why—the cardinal sin of examining a hostile witness. And he does not otherwise give Brett a chance to explain his answer.
“Did there come a time, Mr. Creighton, when your board became alarmed at the exposure building up as a result of this huge quantity of diesel being stored in your tanks and all the warehouse receipts you had issued to cover it?”
“I wouldn’t say alarmed, no.”
“You called in Mr. Poole to explain the situation, did you not?”
“As part of his monthly report, naturally.”
“And you learned that the oil had been supplied by a company owned by one Sal Martini, is that correct?”
“No. Mr. Poole told us that there were many companies storing oil at our facilities.”
“All of which, you learned, were owned by Sal Martini?”
“Almost all. We learned that from the banks, as it happens. Who knew they were loaning money on Martini’s oil from the beginning.”
“The same Salvatore Martini who was twice convicted for frauds very similar to this one?”
Alec is on his feet, but Creighton keeps talking. “As I’ve been trying to tell you, Mr. Rosenkranz, if Poole was honest—and we had every reason then to believe he was—it doesn’t matter who supplied the oil. That’s why the banks were willing to deal. Except for fire, which is covered by insurance, there’s almost no risk that a bailed commodity, such as diesel, will be lost.”
“No risk? How lovely.” Si laughs, then grandly announces, “I have no further questions of this witness.”
“Counsel?” the judge says to Alec, as Si sits down.
“I do have some questions, your Honor, thank you,” Alec says, staying on his feet. “Mr. Creighton, did Dr. Harding review Mr. Poole’s résumé with the board?”
“Yes, he did.”
“And did Dr. Harding tell you that Poole’s separation from his two prior employers had been voluntary?”
“He either stated that explicitly or made it very plain in context that that had been the case.”
“And did you rely on that?”
“We did.”
“Now, Mr. Creighton, I want you to take a few moments before answering the next question. I want you to think about it and be sure. The question is, did you or your company have any reason whatever to doubt Mr. Poole’s honesty when you hired him?”
“None whatever,” Creighton says without pause. “Dr. Harding, who himself is a man of complete rectitude and one of the most distinguished educators in the country, had known Mr. Poole since their days together as undergraduates, and vouched strongly for his character and integrity.”
Alec, glancing at the jury, allows that answer to sink in. It was a question he had had to ask, although the answer was predictably self-serving. And the jurors’ reactions range from cool to noncommittal. Early days, thinks Alec, continuing.
“Mr. Rosenkranz asked you some questions about risk and risk ratios. If the person running the warehouse business is honest, what is the risk of losses on warehouse receipts?”
“Essentially zero, as I’ve already said.”
“Why is that?”
“We’re warehousing oil. Its market price may go down, but our warehouse receipts are based on the quantity of oil, not its value on the market, so we have no risk of market loss. Also, we’re not talking here about the safekeeping of, say, diamonds—small, valuable objects that are relatively easy to hide and walk away with. We’re talking about the storage of vast quantities of material. No significant tonnage can be removed from under the nose of an honest manager without his knowing it. Certainly not without his detect
ing it immediately thereafter. Systematic checks of the tanks—the most basic form of security—would disclose any loss at once.”
“How are such checks done?”
“As you’ve shown everyone. You stick those rods down into the tanks.”
“And did you rely on Mr. Poole for having such checks done?”
“Of course.”
“And did he tell you they were performed?”
“Regularly. And that there was no shortage, no problem.”
“Until the Martini fraud was detected, did you or your company have any reason to doubt Mr. Poole’s reports?”
“We did not.”
“Did the banks eventually ask your permission to check out the storage tanks at Bayonne, New Jersey?”
“They did.”
“What did you tell them?”
“That our manager had the tanks checked every week, but that we had no problem with their checking on their own. It was in this same exchange that we got the details of Martini’s involvement.”
“Why were the banks suddenly so nervous that they asked to check the tanks on their own?”
“The market price of diesel had started to fall. I just mentioned, my company, U.S. Safety, had no market risk. Our obligation was to return the tonnage that had been stored there. But the banks had loaned money on the security of that tonnage. When the market price fell, their security was devalued.”
Alec, pulling two copies of a document from his stack, says, “your Honor, may I hand to the court and the witness copies of our first exhibit, which has been pre-marked as defendants’ exhibit one for identification.”
Si rises. “I object to this, your Honor.”
“Approach!” the judge says.
As both counsel arrive at the bench, they’re surprised by the appearance of Marius Shilling, elbowing his way between the two. Justice Kaye says, “Now, what’s this all about?”
Si says, “Looks like merely a couple of lists—prior stockholders, present stockholders—but it’s a straight sympathy play, your Honor. Has nothing to do with the merits. They want to show that the financial institutions sold out and that the company is now owned by individuals—and that’s totally irrelevant. It’s also completely beyond the scope of my direct examination.”
“Counsel?”
“Mr. Rosenkranz just opened it up, your Honor. He asked the witness whether he’d ever considered the best interests of his individual stockholders—”
“I remember,” Kaye says, wagging his head negatively.
Shilling asserts, “And we should be allowed, in any event, to identify the parties, your Honor.”
“This is a class action,” says the judge. “You can identify the named plaintiffs, but not necessarily other class members. Certainly not when the obvious purpose is to sway emotions. I’m going to exclude this.”
Alec whispers directly into Shilling’s large ear, “Show nothing! Act like it doesn’t matter!” Then, turning, going straight back to the lectern, “Thank you, Mr. Creighton. No further questions.”
Nor has Si, although he thinks about it for a second. And as Alec sits, the bailiff hands him a note, which he scans as the judge leaves the courtroom. In his secretary’s scrawl: “U.S. Attorney wants you to call him ASAP.”
SEVENTY-SEVEN
Alec, on a pay phone in the courthouse corridor, spreading dimes out on the shelf, gets put through to Sancerre.
“You’re in serious trouble, Alec,” is the not-too-friendly greeting. “A witness you know to be material to a criminal investigation, and who was hiding from us, is living in a house in Maine on which—guess who holds the lease?”
“Where is she?”
“Heading to the city. But, Alec, you know I could prosecute you for this. Obstruction of justice.”
“What about your lying to her on TV about the danger to her daughter?”
“Standard procedure. But you lied to us! That’s illegal! We’re the government!”
“All right, Ray. Stop screwing around. What do you want?”
“She says she’s not going to help us without talking to her lawyer first.”
“And you’re saying you’ll prosecute me unless I sell out my client by pushing her to cooperate with you. You want to put that in writing, Ray?”
“Calm down, fella.”
“I’m in the middle of a trial, Ray. I’ve got to get back.”
“Want to see her?” Ray asks.
Alec seems distracted. The jury looks bored. Si, staring only at the jury, punctuates his next question with a roar.
“And did there come a time,” asks Si, “when you had to fire the man named Whitman Poole?”
A little blimp named Simpkin, the assistant marketing director for Alcoa, eyes Si slyly and then the jury. “I did,” he pronounces.
“For what?” Si asks.
“For turning our best sales region into our worst. In six months,” he adds petulantly. “And for turning in some rather dubious entertainment expense reports.”
“Dubious in what way?”
“It appears that the person being entertained by Mr. Poole on company money was none other than Mr. Poole.”
Si, nodding with satisfaction, announces he has no further questions, and Alec hesitates, as Judge Kaye looks down from the bench. Both Simpkin and the next witness, Quince, had been placed on the list at the last minute, way after the deadline for informing opposing parties of prospective witnesses. The purpose of the deadline is to give each side the chance to depose the witnesses before trial. Alec’s motion to bar the testimony of Simpkin and Quince was denied, as he expected. But when he asked for the right to depose them, the judge denied that motion on the ironic ground that there wasn’t enough time before trial. Alec, rising, and about to fly blind, glances back at Ben Braddock, who smiles. Like the good old days, Alec can almost hear Braddock thinking, when there was no pretrial discovery at all. When trial lawyers had to earn their livings by using their wits.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Simpkin. My name is Alec Brno, and I represent U.S. Safety and its directors in this action. First, may I ask, did you interview and hire Mr. Poole for his initial job with Alcoa?”
“I hired him. A number of us interviewed him.”
“Right. And did you promote him two years later to branch manager, and then regional manager?”
“Yes.”
“So it would be fair to say that, for a period of at least two years, you trusted Mr. Poole and were happy with his performance.”
“Ye-es,” Simpkin answers, finding no way to deny it.
Alec can’t resist sneaking a glance at Braddock, whose impassivity is all the assurance he needs. “No further questions, your Honor.”
Si looks uncertain, then shakes his head.
“Thank you, Mr. Simpkin,” says the judge. “You may step down.”
Thaddeus Quince, sales manager for Jones and Laughlin, is called and walks to the stand. A precise, fussy man, he inspects the chair in the witness box before sitting upon it.
Si runs Quince through the same drill he employed with Simpkin. And the answers are the same, because Poole did to J&L exactly what he had done to Alcoa: perform adequately enough at first to get some promotions, then mail it in, along with some phony expense reports.
Alec’s turn.
He asks whether Quince, before interviewing Poole, had read his résumé.
“I had his CV, yes.”
“CV meaning curriculum vitae?”
“Of course.”
“Meaning résumé?”
“Yes,” says Quince, impatiently.
“And did Mr. Poole’s résumé list his prior employment at Alcoa?”
Now Quince becomes a bit wary. “Yes, it did.”
“Did you call Mr. Simpkin or anyone at Alcoa regarding Mr. Poole?” Alec holds his breath.
“No, I did not,” Quince says.
Alec can imagine Braddock thinking, Thou shalt never, ever, ask a “why” question of any adverse witness on cross-
examination!
“Why not?” asks Alec.
“Because,” Quince says, looking down his long nose, “such calls, in my experience, are worthless. You never get straight information. Prior employers are too worried about getting sued—and too anxious to be rid of anyone they dislike—to queer his chances of employment with anyone else.”
“No further questions,” Alec says, as if the answer just uttered had been self-evident.
Si’s face is a storm cloud of disgust. Justice Kaye dismisses the witness. With court breaking for the day, amid the commotion of lawyers packing lit bags and reporters snagging interviews, Ben Braddock pulls Alec off to one side. “You violated the one rule of cross-examination that is absolutely inviolate. The wrong answer to that question could have lost the case. You have an explanation?”
“It worked?”
“Not good enough.”
“The CV thing, and the way he looked at the chair before he sat down. Fastidious. Grandiose. Guys like that—they never admit they fucked up.”
Braddock’s face betrays a faint smile before he bursts out with a laugh and walks away.
A high brick building of styleless mass houses the Manhattan office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on an otherwise residential stretch of 3rd Avenue. No signs indicate the function of the building. No formal entrance welcomes the public onto its floors. Yet the people working there are responsive to public needs, especially those asserted by a U.S. Attorney with the realistic ambitions of Ray Sancerre.
At a security desk inside, Alec stands facing two humorless young men in dark suits, white shirts, and dark ties. Together they wait, in silence, for the word to come down from upstairs that the person corresponding to the name Alec has given them is indeed expected at seven p.m.
The word is finally delivered. An escort is formed by two other dark suits to bring Alec to the thirteenth floor, no nonsense being indulged here about skipping unlucky numerals. Led into a small room of minimal furnishings, with the door closed behind him, Alec is surprised to find Carrie alone. She goes right into his arms and breathes in his ear, “I love you, and this room is wired.”
“Are you okay?” he asks.
