Losing Faith

by Adam Mitzner

  The building itself is a particularly ugly brown, squat structure located in lower Manhattan. It is attached to the U.S. courthouse by an elevated bridge, which enables inmates to be shuttled back and forth without going outside. The facility houses approximately eight hundred inmates. Some, like Garkov, are awaiting trial. Others have already been convicted and are serving their sentences elsewhere, and are housed at the MCC during a court proceeding.

  Attorney visits at the MCC can occur twenty-four hours a day and take place on the third floor. Aaron’s been here enough times that he knows the schedule, which probably hasn’t changed since the place opened. Inmates are awakened at six a.m., and breakfast is over by seven. At eight thirty, each inmate has to be back in his nine-by-seven cell (which he shares with another inmate) for the morning count, which occurs at nine.

  It takes Aaron twenty minutes to go through security, and he arrives on the third floor a little after seven. He’s directed into the visitors’ room, a large space with ten tables, none of which are presently occupied.

  Garkov arrives shortly before eight. He’s wearing the orange prison jumpsuit, which is too short around the wrists and ankles. The MCC must not get many seven-foot-tall inmates. The guard who has accompanied him into the room unlocks Garkov’s handcuffs but leaves the ankle shackles.

  Aaron expected to see a seething-mad Nicolai Garkov. Instead, the man before him looks relaxed and confident.

  “Well . . . you look good, Nicolai,” Aaron says.

  “American prisons are like fancy hotels compared to the places I’ve been in.”

  Aaron doesn’t doubt that’s true. That being said, they still aren’t places where he’d spend an extra minute that he didn’t have to.

  “Do you remember what we discussed when we first met?” Garkov says.

  Ever since law school, Aaron always hated the Socratic method. No useful information was ever imparted by asking questions you already knew the answer to.

  “My recollection is that we discussed a great many things,” he says.

  “I asked that you not try to bluff me, because I always have the winning hand.”

  He comes to a full stop. As if that clarifies everything.

  “We’re asking Judge Nichols to reconsider her decision,” Aaron says. “Rachel is making the application as we speak. Beyond that, I’m not certain what you expect me to do to get you out of here.”

  Garkov gives a theatrical sigh. “Aaron . . . you see, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. I think you do know what I expect you to do. You are to tell Judge Nichols that if she doesn’t put me back home tomorrow . . . well, I don’t like to make threats, but as I’m sure you can appreciate, we’re no longer talking about my going public with your indiscretions. She’s increased the stakes by her little stunt, and so I’m not only calling that bet but raising. Public humiliation—the end of your careers—that’s nothing compared to what I will do to the two of you. And don’t kid yourself. I can get to you both just as easily from in here.”

  Aaron has never kidded himself about that fact. Nor is he anything but certain that he’s quickly running out of time.

  WEDNESDAY IS ONE OF two motion days in Faith’s court, Friday being the other. Faith likens it to the theater. Everyone dresses up and plays their parts: the lawyers in their fancy pinstripe suits and Hermès ties get to stand in front of a judge and try to persuade, and she wears the robes and makes judicial pronouncements.

  And like a play, it’s all scripted. The lawyers often read their arguments, and Faith has already decided how she’ll rule on 99 percent of the cases before she hears a single word. As she often tells her clerks, it’s the bad lawyer, not the good one, who says something persuasive in a five-minute oral argument, because it means that point didn’t get through in a twenty-page written brief she’s already reviewed.

  This morning’s smattering of cases is particularly mundane. Six motions to dismiss regarding pleading deficiencies, two discovery disputes, and a request for summary judgment on a trademark case that she already denied, but for some reason the plaintiff saw fit to make it again.

  At half past noon, the last of the arguments is completed, and Faith hurries off the bench. She immediately goes into her office and shuts the door behind her.

  Finally, some alone time, she thinks.

  It’s short-lived, however.

  Two quick knocks on her door are followed by Sara’s opening it and sticking her head in. “Judge, there’s a lawyer from Cromwell Altman here on an order to show cause on Garkov.”

  Damn. Faith expected Aaron to make this filing, but she was hoping it would come at the end of the day—preferably after she’d left.

  “Okay. Come in, Sara.”

  Sara enters clutching a stack of papers a foot high, which she drops on Faith’s desk with a loud thud. On top is the legal brief, fifty pages, VeloBound, with a clear cover. The title shows through: Motion to Reconsider Bail Revocation. Underneath that is another VeloBound volume, this one twice as thick. By the more than one hundred side tabs, Faith knows it’s the compendium of the cases cited in the brief.

  “My God, what a waste,” Faith says. “A dozen lawyers must have worked all night on papers that I’m not even going to give a second thought.”

  Faith realizes a beat too late that she shouldn’t have said this out loud. In front of her clerks, she likes to project that she’s always open-minded.

  “Okay, Sara, I guess you should send Mr. Littman back.”

  “It’s not him,” Sara says. “It’s the woman lawyer from Cromwell Altman. Rachel London.”

  Faith can feel the heat rise in her. It was bad enough that Aaron showed up with Rachel in court yesterday, but now she can’t help but feel that he’s truly rubbing her face in the fact that she was quickly replaced by a younger model. She knows that her jealousy is misplaced—Faith was the one who ended the affair, not him.

  “Have Ms. London come back then,” Faith says, trying her best not to let on to Sara that anything is amiss.

  When she enters chambers, Rachel London seems even younger to Faith than she did in court. Faith knows that, as a junior partner, Rachel must be older than thirty, but forty-two has never seemed as old to her as it does right now.

  Close-up, Rachel appears more striking than she did at a distance in court. She’s wearing a body-hugging black dress, no doubt from some high-end designer, like the clothes Faith wore back when she was buying them with her law firm partnership money. Smooth skin, not a wrinkle on her, and undyed hair, both of which Faith knows will undoubtedly change in the coming decade. She glances down at Rachel’s left hand, trying not to be so obvious about it. No ring. Maybe Aaron finds having an affair with a single woman to be less trouble.

  “Sara,” Faith says, “can you give us a moment?” Sara looks crestfallen, but Faith doesn’t care. “And shut the door on your way out, please.”

  Lawyers don’t speak until judges ask them to, and so Rachel just stands there. Faith doesn’t even offer her a seat. The power imbalance between them is further accentuated by Faith when she turns away, pretending to be reading something, solely to make Rachel wait.

  Well past the time when Faith assumes that Rachel has become uncomfortable, Faith reestablishes eye contact. A half-dozen snide comments cross Faith’s mind before she decides on: “So, I see that Mr. Littman has you doing his dirty work now, Ms. London?”

  Rachel offers the awkward smile of someone who doesn’t get the joke. “Mr. Littman apologizes for not making this application in person, Your Honor,” she says. “Unfortunately, there was an emergency at the last moment that required his attention.”

  Bullshit, Faith wants to retort so very badly. Aaron’s just too much of a coward to face me.

  “What makes you—or Mr. Littman, for that matter—think that I’m going to reconsider my decision regarding Mr. Garkov’s bail?”

&n
bsp; “Your Honor, my purpose here is not to argue the merits, but to set the earliest possible date for oral argument. Our grounds are set forth in our papers. Stated succinctly . . .”

  Faith has already tuned her out. She doesn’t want to hear a legal argument. Interrupting Rachel, she says, “Stop right there. I don’t care one bit about your application, Ms. London. You go back and tell Aaron that I said he’s making a very serious mistake here. Very serious.”

  It surprises Faith that she’s said this—the one-two punch of denying a motion without any consideration, followed by her not-so-thinly-veiled threat. Even her reference to Aaron by his first name was not something an impartial judge would ever do.

  The shock on Rachel’s face drives the point home.

  “Excuse me, Your Honor . . . ?” Rachel says. “I-I don’t think I ­understand.”

  “Oh, I think you probably understand very well, Ms. London.”

  Faith stares at Rachel, almost daring her to say something. It’s an unfair fight. Faith is a federal judge, empowered to put Rachel in jail for contempt at her whim, and Rachel is still hoping to get Faith to consent to the application before her.

  As if she just remembered the reason for this visit, Faith reaches for the briefs Sara delivered. Without saying a word, or even reading the papers, Faith reaches for a pen, and across the signature block writes: “DENIED.”

  “You go back and you tell Aaron what we discussed, Ms. London.”

  Then Faith hands Rachel the rejected order-to-show-cause application.

  SARA MUST HAVE STARTED toward Faith’s office the moment Rachel passed by her desk, because she’s knocking on the open door before Faith has had a chance to get up to close it.

  “What is it, Sara?” Faith barks.

  “Uh . . . nothing . . . I wanted to know when I should calendar the motion.”

  Faith realizes that she has to get this part over with, and so as much as she wants to be alone, she says, “Never. I denied the application.”

  Sara doesn’t say anything, which is the clearest indication of how unnerving she finds Faith’s action. It’s a rare judge who doesn’t even give a litigant an opportunity to be heard.

  “Judge . . . is everything okay?”

  “I’m fine, Sara,” Faith says coldly, a clear signal that Sara should back off.

  Reading signals is not Sara’s strong point, however, and so she continues: “You’ve seemed a little distracted lately.”

  Faith isn’t listening. She just wants to leave.

  “I’m going home,” she says. “Please don’t bother me with anything else, Sara. Whatever comes up can keep until tomorrow.”

  With that, Faith picks up her purse and then grabs her coat out of the closet. She walks by her law clerk without uttering another word.

  16

  Let’s just say that Nicolai Garkov is not happy about his present circumstances,” Aaron says to Sam Rosenthal.

  They’re in Aaron’s office, with the door shut. Diane has been told not to allow anyone entry and to hold all of Aaron’s calls.

  “I’ve reached out to Senator Kheel,” Rosenthal says. “He tells me that if Garkov’s convicted and she sentences him to life, she’s got the nomination locked.”

  “I don’t think Garkov is bluffing,” Aaron says, “and he’s not a patient man, either. He wants out of there right now. Rachel’s at Faith’s chambers now on an order to show cause, trying to get a hearing date tomorrow on a motion to reconsider the bail. But I have no reason to believe that’s going to succeed, and every reason to believe that when it doesn’t, Garkov will take matters into his own hands.”

  “Meaning what, exactly?”

  Diane’s knock prevents Aaron from answering. After Aaron says, “Come in,” she pokes her head through the door.

  “I know you said you didn’t want to be disturbed,” Diane says, “but Rachel London is here. She told me that you’ll want to hear what she has to say right away.”

  Aaron looks over to Rosenthal. “Talk to her,” Rosenthal says, getting up to head back to his office. “You know where to find me.”

  AARON FOLLOWS DIANE OUT of his office, where he sees Rachel waiting. She looks like she’s seen a ghost.

  “I gather it didn’t go well,” he says.

  Rachel turns to look over her shoulder, where Diane is hovering. Aaron understands that she means that this conversation is best had behind closed doors, and so he ushers Rachel inside his office and then closes the door behind them.

  They’re still standing, just inside his office, when Rachel says, “She denied the application.”

  “Damn it,” Aaron says. “Did she give you a reason?”

  Rachel sighs. “I . . . I don’t know what happened, to be honest. She called me back to her chambers and said that I was supposed to tell you that you were making a very serious mistake. Emphasis on very. Then, after she denied the application, she told me to make sure that I told you that.”

  Aaron’s response is a slow nod. He understands, he’s saying, but he’s not explaining it to her. That’s apparently not good enough for Rachel, however.

  “What the hell’s going on here?” she asks.

  “Were you alone when you met with her?”

  “Yes, but that’s not an answer to my question, Aaron. I thought she had it out for Garkov . . . but it now sounds like she has it out for you.”

  Aaron’s confident demeanor doesn’t crack, but his silence tells her that there are things he’s not sharing.

  “Aaron, after everything you’ve done for me, I want you to know that you can trust me. I know people say that all the time, but I mean it. You can trust me the way that I trust you . . . which is to say, completely.”

  The truth is that he does trust her. Almost as much as he does Sam Rosenthal. But unlike with his mentor, he sees no reason to embroil his protégée in his mess.

  And so, rather than explain what was behind Judge Nichols’s tirade, he says, “I know I can, Rachel. But don’t worry about me. Worry about getting Garkov out of jail.”

  FAITH SPENDS THE REST OF the afternoon at home, drinking wine and channel surfing. Stuart comes home at seven and is still annoyed with her apparently, because he doesn’t engage her at all, which is the first bright spot in her day.

  Faith’s normal routine is to be at the gym at eight, but when she pours herself the last of the wine, she realizes that she’s not in any condition to work out. At the same time, she can’t stomach the idea of spending any more time in Stuart’s company. The horrifying specter of the fact that he might want to have sex tonight pushes her over the edge.

  “I’m going to the gym,” she announces.

  “Okay,” he says. He obviously hasn’t been keeping track of how much wine she’s consumed. “I’m kind of tired anyway. I may just call it a night early.”

  Good. There’s nothing she wants more than for Stuart to be asleep when she comes back.

  About five minutes later, while Stuart is in the bathroom, she calls out that she’s leaving. She doubts he even noticed that she never changed into her gym clothes.

  ALONG FIFTY-SIXTH STREET, A row of black Lincoln Town Cars line up starting at 6:00 p.m. The Cromwell Altman version of mass transit. Every night Aaron gets into the first one and simply tells the driver where he wants to go. Somehow a client is always billed for the ride, but Aaron has no idea how that’s determined.

  Tonight, however, even though the air has a strong chill, a reminder that winter is hanging on, he walks past the cars without stopping and proceeds north to Madison Avenue. The various designer clothing boutiques in the Sixties give way to the art galleries that populate the Seventies.

  If he were heading home, he would turn west on Seventy-Fifth, ­toward Fifth Avenue, but he keeps walking uptown. He enters Central Park at Ninety-Seventh, and when he reaches the West Side, he walks up to 102nd befo
re going farther west to Amsterdam.

  In the middle of the block on 102nd and Amsterdam is a convenience store that Aaron has never before entered. He steps inside and, after determining that it has no other customers, approaches the counter, where an older man of Indian descent greets him.

  “Do you sell prepaid phones?” Aaron asks.

  The man points to a few hanging on the wall behind him, beside the rows of cigarettes. “How much time do you want?” he asks.

  “Twenty-five bucks’ worth,” Aaron says.

  Aaron looks nervously over his shoulder. He wants the sale to be completed before any other patrons come in.

  The man behind the counter fumbles around for a phone. “No twenty-five. I got a ten and a fifty.”

  “The ten is fine,” Aaron says. He slaps a ten-dollar bill on the counter, then realizes that there’s going to be tax and pulls out two singles, laying them on top. He doesn’t want to wait for the change, but he knows he shouldn’t do anything out of the ordinary, even if the entire transaction is nothing but unusual.

  Once he’s out of the store, Aaron moves as quickly as he can without breaking into a sprint back toward the park. Right before entering, he tears open the packaging and discards the cardboard and plastic in a garbage can on the corner.

  When he’s smack in the middle of the park, he activates the phone. Then he dials Faith’s mobile number.

  His heart rises and falls with each ring, until the fourth one, which he knows will lead directly to voice mail. He waits to hear her recorded voice. “This is Faith Nichols and you’ve reached my personal voice mail. If this is related in any way to a court proceeding, please do not leave a message, and instead call my chambers at—”

  He hangs up and instantly calls again, hoping Faith might recognize the quick succession as some type of signal. When the second call also goes to voice mail, he realizes that his reasoning might be sound but his conclusion off—she might already know it’s him, and that’s precisely why she isn’t answering.