"Good," Hannah said, "we have two hours to prep Stu for oral argument."
Stu said to Hannah, "Did he know that we were going to have a car bring us another copy of the documents and another easel?"
"No," Micah said, "I didn't know that. I'm sorry. Sorry I'm late."
She and Stu kept talking as if he weren't there, and Micah sat down in the row behind them staring at the crowns of their heads against white antimacassars. He listened to Hannah go over the outline for oral argument. The client was a New York subsidiary of Von Grunwald. A Maryland company had bought a clothing factory from the sub and sued, claiming that the factory was worth less than what Von Grunwald represented. Stu wanted to move to transfer the case to New York for two reasons. One, he called Baltimore "ghetto hell" and didn't want to travel there to defend the client. Two, the client believed the plaintiff would abandon the case if forced to litigate in Manhattan where the attorneys' fees would be triple the cost in Baltimore.
Micah had done the research and helped Hannah draft their motion to transfer venue on inconvenient forum grounds. Under the federal cases, courts would look to several factors to determine if a suit should be transferred to a more convenient forum. The only factor in plaintiff's favor here was that plaintiff was located in Maryland and had chosen a Maryland forum. But all of the other factors weighed in favor of transferring the case to New York. The factory itself was in New York, the defendant was based in New York, the purchase agreement was executed in Manhattan with a New York choice of law clause, and most of the witnesses were there. Micah had pointed out to Hannah that even the plaintiff's accountant, who analyzed the factory's value, was on Park Avenue. It was one of his shining moments at the Firm.
Micah listened now to Hannah going over the factors and suggesting that Stu use a chart to show that New York had the most connections to the case. Micah felt his eyelids droop as Hannah droned on. The only thing that kept him slightly awake was the smell of their coffee. He reclined back and looked out the window at the highways and small towns flying by.
He woke up when the train arrived in Baltimore with a half hour to spare before the hearing. Baltimore's Penn Station was smaller than New York's, but Micah didn't have a chance to take in the scenery. Stu was anxious to get to the courthouse. On the icy train platform, pellets of rain stung Micah's face as he waited for Stu to lead. Stu donned a thick overcoat and umbrella hat. Hannah opened up a large golf umbrella. She noticed Micah didn't have one and dug out a small pink umbrella from her backpack.
"It's my spare. At least you won't get wet."
Micah said, "Thanks," popped it open, and followed them curbside to get into a cab. When they got to the Baltimore Federal Courthouse on Lombard Street, Stu and Hannah jumped out of the cab ahead of him.
Hanna said over her shoulder, "Junior associate always pays."
Micah had to find his wallet to pay the driver before climbing up the steps with the briefcase full of charts and extra copies of the briefs in case the judge asked for one. At the metal detectors, the U.S. marshals took him aside, questioning him because of the easel's telescopic legs. Stu was on the other side, rolling his eyes, pointing at his watch.
Hannah said, "You'll have to catch up with us." And they went ahead without him.
The marshals let Micah pass, and the massive lit bag felt like lead as Micah missed the elevator and tried to catch up on the stairwell. On the second floor outside the courtroom doors, Stu whispered to Hannah and hooked a finger at Micah.
Micah trudged over, set down the lit bag. "Made it."
"So, Grayson," Stu said, hands on his hips like an anemic Superman, "Hannah and I have discussed it, and we think you're ready to argue this thing. Are you?"
"You want me to argue?" Micah felt his heart race. "Are you all serious?"
"Yes."
"You're so bad, Stu," Hannah said, trying not to smile.
"No." Stu snickered. "Besides the fact that you're not admitted, I don't think the client wants a new associate arguing a thirty-five million dollar case. No offense, of course."
"No… of course." Micah followed Hannah and Stu into the courtroom. He imagined clocking Stu in the head with the lit bag.
At counsel's table in front of the bench stood the team of lawyers representing the plaintiff. Stu nodded politely at the other side and took out an outline that Hannah had drafted for him. Stu stood calmly on the other side of an ornate wood railing that separated counsel's tables from the seating area. He pored over the outline until the law clerk led the judge to the bench and said, "All rise." Stu mumbled something to Hannah.
"Mike," Hannah said, "Stu's not using the charts, so no easel. Just take notes."
Micah sat down in the first row of the seating area, separated from Hannah and Stu by the wood railing. The plaintiff's legal team and Hannah and Stu sat at counsel's tables, taking out laptops and pads and pens, shuffling files. Micah chewed on his lip, kicking at the lit bag on the floor, feeling like Stu's bell boy. He grudgingly took out his laptop when Stu took the microphone at the lectern first, standing before a female judge with a gray crew cut.
Stu introduced himself and Hannah, but didn't mention Micah. Then Stu spent twenty minutes going over the background facts and the forum non conveniens factors in detail, arguing that they pointed to New York as the most appropriate forum. In rebuttal, opposing counsel argued that plaintiff's choice of forum in Maryland should control.Micah typed notes and watched Hannah periodically whisper in Stu's ear. The legal tennis match went back and forth exactly as Micah expected until Stu emphasized one final point that got the judge's attention.
"Your Honor, plaintiff cannot dispute that New York is a more convenient forum particularly where its own accountant, the very same accountant that analyzed the fair value of the factory in question here, is located in Manhattan. That valuation is the crux of this case."
At the end of the hearing, the judge said, "Excellent argument, Mr. Greenbaum. I'm inclined to grant your motion, but I want to review the briefs again. Thank you, counsel."
Stu turned to Hannah. His one good eye gleamed as he whispered, "Brilliant work. You did it again, young lady!"
Micah mumbled, "Son of a bitch." He carried the lit bag again, down the courthouse steps, down the street to a cab, and through Baltimore's Penn Station, thankful to be going back to New York and a break from work over the Thanksgiving weekend. It was still early on Wednesday, and he dreamt of three straight days on his sofa watching football.
In the station waiting for the next train, Stu and Hannah smiled mischievously at an ad on the wall for Borgata Casino. Hannah shook her head though her eyes twinkled with excitement.
"Stu, we shouldn't. Not again."
Stu nodded. "I don't feel like the train. How about a limo? And let's throw the First Year a bone, let him come with us."
"Gotta get back," Micah said, "make sure your briefcase makes it safely to the office."
"Cute," Stu said to Micah and smiled, his eye twitching with irritation as he turned back to Hannah. "Have him call us a limo, before my benevolence wanes."
$ $ $
The limousine sped across a swath of concrete cutting through low, green forests. The low forests eventually became short brush and marshland and then small ocean-side towns. As they approached the city, Micah stared at billboards of comedians he'd never heard of and washed-up pop stars and the promise of "loose slots" and fortune. When the limousine rolled into Atlantic City, he expected sandy beaches and fresh ocean air like summer vacation. But the air stunk from the marsh and garbage washing up on the boardwalk.
They did a quick tour, driving past liquor stores, fast food restaurants, more billboards, check-cashing places, the old guard casinos on the boardwalk, Bally's, Caesar's, Sands, and the people in wheelchairs smoking outside the doors, then the pawn shops as they headed for the marina district. On one side of the highway were the older casinos, Trump Marina and Harrah's, 1970s light boxes overlooking a small harbor with dozens of docked sa
ilboats. The dim neon haze seemed more like desperation than fantasy. On Borgata Way, they slowed toward a shiny, wide aeronautical tower with a stylistic sign flashing "Borgata" in different colors. The young casino dwarfed its tired elderly sisters.
The entrance had orange and red glass chandeliers like coral hanging above marble floors, and Micah noticed a handful of guests checking in at a sleek front desk to the left. He'd never been in a casino before and marveled at the decor. Stu and Hannah made a beeline for a fifty dollar minimum blackjack table, and Micah reluctantly followed.
Hannah and Stu exchanged an array of hundred dollar bills for chips, and Hannah whispered, "Hippest casino in town. They don't bus in senior citizens like the other casinos."
"Is that right?" Micah looked around, took the glitz in. "Best in Atlantic City?"
"If he's going to be a New Yorker," Stu said, grabbing Hannah's knee, "he should call it, 'A.C.'"
"Are you going to play?" Hannah asked.
Micah shook his head. "I've never played before. I'll just watch and learn from you all." He couldn't imagine wasting fifty bucks a hand on a card game.
Stu grabbed the elbow of a passing cocktail waitress, "Round of scotch for my A-Team here." The waitress came back a few second later, setting out the glasses, and Stu toasted, "May the Devil know you've passed a full hour after you're already in Heaven!"
The three of them tipped the highballs. The scotch wasn't as good as Micah's favorite bourbon, but it quickly filled his empty stomach, and he ordered another. He watched Stu and Hannah losing hand after hand and Stu constantly feeding twenty-five dollar chips to Hannah and the cocktail waitress. This guy thinks he's a high rolling sheik, Micah thought, like Mohammed Al Bin Maktoum who rolled into Lexington to buy thoroughbreds at Keeneland.
Two scotches later, Micah was tired of watching them throw money away. He didn't know the rules, the double downs, the splits, the surrenders, and felt like an outsider while they made inside jokes and screamed with every dealer bust. He wanted to get back to Manhattan and sleep. He'd worked until 2 a.m. the night before and had woken up early for the train. Now, it was nearly four o'clock in the afternoon and they were still a couple of hours from New York.
Micah excused himself and went to the bathroom near the lobby. He came out of the urinals, and the casino floor was still fairly empty. But the noise gave the illusion of action. He roamed around, avoiding Stu and Hannah, thinking about calling Ashley. She was probably still upset that he'd decided to stay in New York for the weekend. He'd blamed it on work, but the truth was that he never liked holidays. Maybe because he didn't have real family to enjoy them. And other families reminded him of his own absence. He took out his cell phone, mulling it over. "No." She'd ask about the noise and where he was and why he was slurring. The last thing he wanted to tell her was that a partner had dragged him to a casino.
He ambled between loud slot machines with their ringing bells and theme music and colorful cartoon characters enticing players to give the one-arm bandits a try. He circled around the gaming floor past the regular table games, a lounge area, and an empty bar until he noticed another section for "High Limit" gambling. He walked over wondering just how "high" people would go. If Stu and Hannah weren't high rollers, who the hell was? That's when he saw someone he thought he recognized, maybe someone famous. A bearded man with mirrored sunglasses and an NYPD baseball cap. He was sitting at a private blackjack table. A muscular bodyguard in a black shirt and leather jacket hovered behind him. The guard was bald with cauliflower ears like a college wrestler.
Micah moved closer to the entrance to the High Limit room, certain for some reason that he wasn't allowed inside. He could see the table where the bearded man in sunglasses was hunched over stacks of multi-colored chips. The dealer was an impish Asian man whipping cards out of a dealing shoe while a big-breasted cocktail waitress buzzed around the players like a bloated mosquito. The bodyguard waved her away whenever she drifted too close.
After a few hands, the bearded man anteed up with half of his chips. Micah didn't know how much money it was, but he could see the impish dealer's eyes widen and the pit boss appear over the dealer's shoulder. The dealer neatly stacked the chips for the ceiling cameras, said loudly to the pit boss, "Ten grand, boss."
Micah felt his own palms moisten as the pit boss nodded, and the dealer began passing cards around the table. The bearded man's first card was the ace of spades. Micah watched intently as the dealer hurled out the second round of cards to players, one by one. Six, three, jack, then to the man's ace of spades . . . another ace of spades.
"Dealer has a three showing," the dealer said, going around the table asking for a "hit" or a "stay" sign. The dealer asked the bearded man, "Split the aces?"
The man nodded, pushed in the other half of his chip pile.
The dealer said, "Good luck," pulled one card out of the shoe, flipped it over on the first ace of spades. Jack of hearts. The dealer pulled the next card, dramatically turned it over on the man's second ace. Queen of hearts. Someone yelled, "Nice! Two blackjacks!"
Micah caught himself about to clap and heard the dealer say, "No blackjack on split aces. Only twenty-one. Still gotta beat dealer hand."
The dealer's up card was a three. He flicked over his down card. A six, making nine total. "Dealer takes a hit." The next card out of the shoe was a four. "Thirteen."
The bearded man in sunglasses was expressionless.
The dealer took another hit. Three of clubs. "Sixteen. Dealer takes hit."
Another player shouted, "Come on, big one. Monkey! Bust!"
The dealer played it up now, gently pulling a card from the deck, slowly flipped it over.
It was a five of spades.
"Five makes twenty-one. Push." The dealer tapped his knuckles on the table in front of the bearded man and swiped away his cards.
The bearded man pulled his sunglasses low, pinched the bridge of his nose between his eyes, clearly annoyed. Micah stared closely at his face, imagining him without the baseball cap. It finally hit him.
"Holy shit."
He pulled his cell phone from his suit jacket, moved away to a row of slots. He punched in Raphael's cell number. No answer. Micah nervously looked around as he left a message.
"Raph, I'm in Atlantic, er, A.C. You're not gonna believe this, but I just saw a high roller guy who's a dead ringer for our client… Carlos Mavros."
15 (9 months ago)
* * *
Raphael had just finished complaining about their holiday bonuses. Sullivan & Adler paid ten grand less than what the associates at Horvath had gotten. He'd found out on greedyassociates.com, and bitched for a good five minutes until the food delivery guy showed up with dinner, and his mood lifted like an infant spotting his bottle. He looked around his office at the different kinds of paper boxes from every Asian restaurant within a two-mile radius of Sullivan & Adler. Tonight there was a fresh batch from Shun Lee Palace, the best overpriced Chinese place in Manhattan. He inhaled the garlic and ginger and passed the food around. Elliott Needleman and Micah Grayson were sitting in his guest chairs, tearing open the chopsticks wrappers and sorting out who had what dish.
Raphael watched the Kentucky kid try to hold chopsticks.
"Mikey, you handle those things like me masturbating left-handed. I'm the Miyagi of chopsticks. Hold one in the web between your thumb and index finger." Raphael demonstrated, stuffing his face while typing on his keyboard. He took three bites while typing two sentences of a preliminary statement in a draft brief.
He looked up for applause and noticed that Micah had paused and closed his eyes.
Raphael, mouth stuffed with Mandarin filet mignon, mumbled, "Rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub, yay God!"
Micah smiled, opened his eyes, and started eating.
Raphael pointed to the shelves where he'd hung up some blinking Christmas lights and mistletoe in case a paralegal was feeling charitable. There was a yellowing paper box on the top shelf. "You see that take-o
ut box with red dragons on it? Shaolin Noodle King. Carbon-date that shit, and I bet it goes back to when I was a Fourth Year. The cleaning lady was gonna toss it, and I bitched at her because there was a few noodles left. She was really short, maybe a dwarf or maybe Guatemalan? I put it up on the top shelf so she couldn't reach it. Then Vader put me on a new case in Delaware and I totally forgot about it for weeks. You should've seen it. The noodles turned turd green and smelled like a skunk ate some bad tuna and took a shit in my office. I was hoping Max Goldberg would come in here and fart to give me a breath of fresh air. Then the smell went away like that, and it fossilized. It's like a rock now. Wanna see it?"
"No thanks. Can we talk about something else?" Micah gave up on the chopsticks and picked up a plastic fork. "What'd you fellas do for Thanksgiving?"
"Actually," Elliott piped up, "ours was quite nice. I took my wife and Emily to Macy's. We were there early, had some cocoa in a thermos and a blanket. Emily actually loved the snow more than the parade. How was yours?"
"I got stuck working in Baltimore on Wednesday so I had to change my plans. Ended up staying here in the city instead of going home to see my girlfriend."
Raphael asked, "How come you haven't introduced us to your girl yet, Mikey? You afraid I might steal her from you?"
"Yeah right. When she visits, we just try to spend as much time alone as we can."
"I bet." Raphael gyrated his hips. "She's hot, I've seen that picture on your desk. I like the red hair, too. Firebush!"
"Cut it out, Raph." Micah shifted in his seat, uneasy. "That's not what I meant."
"Why not? Is she a preacher's daughter or something?"
"Practically. So what'd you do this weekend?"
Raphael let it go and said, "Not much. I sat around with my parents in Westchester on Thursday, went back to work on Friday." He winked at Micah. "But I wish I'd spent it in A.C., like someone else in this room. Working in Baltimore, my ass."
PLUMMET: A Novel Page 11
