The Inglorious Arts
Page 5
“Whoa,” he says, reeling back. “If any of that were true—”
“It’s all true!”
“Pretty bleak picture. Especially for me.”
“Oh, someone good for you will want you. And will never know, as I do, how much you feel you’re missing.”
He shakes his head, and she moves toward the hall. He says, “This is miles ahead of where we should be right now, don’t you think?”
She stops and turns. “Which is another reason I didn’t want to talk about it.”
Following her to the reception area, retrieving her coat, Alec says, “You’re misreading me.”
Her look suggests otherwise.
“In any event, you are my sister-in-law, and you’re Sarah’s aunt—we’ll be seeing something of you, I hope.”
“Yes.”
Jesse accepts help putting on her coat, and they walk to the elevators.
Alec says, “Carrie had warmer coats than yours. They’d fit you with a little tailoring. And they’re still in the closet.”
“See!” Jesse says, stamping her foot, green eyes glaring.
“Oh for Christ’s sake, Jesse! I am not trying to dress you up like Carrie. I’m simply trying to give you some warm coats.”
“Go to Goodwill, Alec. They’ll be happy to have them. You should have given them away years ago.”
The elevator arrives, and she gets in.
“Have fun in Cleveland,” she says, her tone mollifying.
“It’s five below there.”
She looks at him sympathetically. “I’m not misreading you, Alec. Or myself.”
FIVE
Larry Rilesman looks like a wrestler gone to seed. It’s the thick glasses, thick waist, and jacket buttoned to hide it. Though still bristling with a grappler’s propensity to pounce, he appears to have lost the capacity.
Or so thinks Alec Brno, seated in the man’s office, glancing away now toward views of Lake Erie and the river of slime that runs into it. “Isn’t that—”
“The Cuyahoga, yes,” says Rilesman. “Don’t go near it with a match.”
“There was a Time magazine article—”
“ ‘The river that oozes, rather than flows,’ they said. Three years ago, when it burst into flame.”
“You’re not from Cleveland,” Alec says.
“I’m from Akron. From the largest firm there, in fact, though it’s small by your standards. I’ve been here less than a year.” Rilesman kicks back from his desk. “I’ve got a surprise. There’s a board meeting in session. My predecessor—did you know him?”
“No.”
“He regularly attended. Not me.”
“What’s the surprise?” Alec asks, already uneasy, having predicted the man’s response.
“We’re on the agenda.” Rilesman consults his watch. “Oops. In one minute.”
“You might have said.”
“Well, it just happened this morning. While you were flying in. But you guys are good at this, right? Wall Street litigators! Wake you up at four in the morning, you can lecture the Supreme Court?” Rilesman, smiling apologetically, launches to his feet. “Sorry. We’re late. You can prepare on the walk down the hall.”
Alec thinks, Great, ten seconds of prep for a presentation on a case I barely know. Before a board that thinks I had all day to work on it. Another asshole creating a test. Wants me to look ridiculous. Why? Maneuvering for his Akron firm? A simple ego play? Well, fuck him!
The door opens on a meeting of directors: fourteen men, prominent and powerful, vested and tanned. And, of course, seated, few bothering to look up. The Allis-Benoit CEO, Robert Curtis, rises cordially: an actual person, roundheaded, topped and bearded in sandy hair, who only happens to look like a puma. “You all know Larry Rilesman, our general counsel. This is Alec Brno, a young partner of Kendall, Blake, Steele & Braddock. The firm has chosen him to lead us. Out of darkness, one hopes, into the promised land.”
Alec smiles, takes the indicated seat alongside Rilesman at one end of the table, and waits for the inquest to begin.
Curtis says, “We’ve been tutored repeatedly on the nature of the case, so no need to repeat all that, Alec. What we’d like to know is how you’re going to win it.”
Alec looks at each man, one by one. Takes a few seconds, but that doubles his time to think. He then says, “I would hope to win it by never having to try it.”
There’s a murmur of incomprehension.
“You don’t like trials?” says a stately man at the other end of the table, with a shiny, freckled bald pate.
“On the contrary,” Alec says. “Trials are great fun. For the lawyer. Not, however, for the client who goes bankrupt as a result.”
“You’re saying we’d lose?” says the bald man.
“The case, no. I know how to win the case. What I can’t do is stop the facts from emerging. That a trial would make public. Which I don’t think your company would survive.”
Alec has their attention, because no one has a clue as to the meaning of what he’s said.
Rilesman, smoothing the flat top of his crew cut, says, “You had better explain.”
Alec gives the man a look of disdain. He doesn’t like being trapped into a meeting he wasn’t prepared for, but he knows that’s Rilesman’s fault, not the directors’. “Has anyone computed the damages if you lose?” He looks around again, this time at interested faces. “I see not. Well, damages are $6 billion. Not payable alone to Mid-Atlantic Power & Light. But to them plus the 125 other public utilities who will also sue. Two billion straight up; $6 billion trebled. Add to that sum your prospective damages in the coal contracts case, you have an exposure of $8 billion. That’s more than three times the net worth of your company. I was able to do that arithmetic in ten minutes, because, as your lawyer, I have the numbers that make it easy. When those numbers come out at trial, how long will it take the financial press to do the same math? And your customers to look elsewhere for their heavy electrical equipment?”
After a moment of silence, made awkward since no one had previously presented these facts, Curtis says, “Even if we ultimately win?”
“Ultimately, right.” Alec smiles. “By the time we win—trial and appeals—there may not be much left of the company.”
“If anything,” Curtis says.
“Which is why I think our primary goal is to prevent a trial.”
Curtis again recognizes the bald man with the questions. “Stanton?” And Alec realizes it’s Stanton Ellis, the retired CEO of U.S. Steel.
“Do you know Donald Strand?” Ellis asks.
“Haven’t met him, no,” Alec says.
“Well, if you think you’re going to get him to settle this case without a full payment of damages, you’re dreaming, young man.”
“Not my intention to settle, Stanton. The goal is to make him drop the case.”
“Donald? Drop the case? Just give it up?”
“That’s the plan, yes. May not work. But it’d better. Because no other option will save you. If you pay him damages in settlement, then every other utility in the country must be paid a proportionate amount under the most-favored-nations provision of the standstill agreement. Donald Strand must be made to publicly abandon the lawsuit.”
Ellis laughs, not with humor but derision. “And how will you pull off that feat of magic, Houdini?”
“Only one way,” Alec says. “By making it evident he’s likely to lose more by trying the case than by voluntarily dismissing it.”
“Brilliant. And that trick?”
“Two parts. First, the obvious: We show him before the trial starts that he’ll lose if he goes on with it. Since he doesn’t have any evidence of an actual agreement to fix prices, he relies on a theory of implied agreement. Can’t hold up if we were, in fact, cutting prices. And we will gather such proof. Make it stand out in pretrial discovery. Rub their noses in it.”
“What’s the second part?” asks Curtis, now intrigued.
“We sue them. C
ounterclaim for an attempt to monopolize. Gives them something to lose—and therefore us something to trade.”
“Do we have such a claim?”
“Probably.”
“They’re a public utility, Alec. They’re a legal monopoly.”
“In the market in which they sell. Not, however, in the market in which they buy. Technically it’s called monopsony, and the attempt to monopsonize is the attempt to control the prices of the things you buy. It’s just as illegal under the antitrust laws as classic monopolization, which is controlling the prices of the products you sell.”
“And we have the proof to support such a claim?” asks Ellis.
“Not yet, no.”
Curtis says, “Can you even file a counterclaim without proof?”
“No.” Alec again surveys the table, every face looking hostile and confused. “I’d hope to get it on my deposition of Donald Strand.”
Stanton Ellis is not amused. “You expect Donald Strand to admit it?”
“Expect?” Alec mulls over the odds. “I’d say I had a shot at it.”
“You do realize that Strand has sued so many companies, he’s virtually a professional witness.”
“Look, gentlemen,” Alec says. “You know I’ve been on the case two days. I haven’t had time to do much more than read the pleadings and some financial reports. But Mid-Atlantic Power & Light is the biggest and most profitable public utility in the country. They didn’t get that way without acquisitions or without squeezing suppliers. If we’re susceptible to a claim of price-fixing, they’re susceptible to a claim of attempting to monopsonize. We’ll get the proof.”
Bob Curtis breaks the silence brought about by Alec’s response. “I got a call this morning, Alec. I’d planned to mention it later, but I think perhaps better to share it now. The call was from your senior partner, Ben Braddock. Most here know Ben, or at least know who he is. Know he’s quite probably the greatest trial lawyer of this century. He certainly is for large, complicated litigation. The purpose of his call was to tell me about you. That I will not share while you’re here, but will, with the board, later. There is a point, however, Ben and I also discussed, which I do wish to emphasize now, because I believe this will be the first case you’ve handled for us. It’s what going out of business truly means. We’re a large institution. Heavy electrical equipment is our core business, but by no means our only business. We employ more than 60,000 people. Almost all of them support not only their own families but, in combination, the families of everyone with a business or professional connection to these workers. Shopkeepers, tradesmen of all sorts, medical people, housekeepers, etc., etc. Closing the doors of our company would have sad and drastic consequences to literally hundreds of thousands of people, workers and children alike. Putting all those people out of work—that’s a lot of human misery. And there is no ‘white knight’ in the wings to bail us out. We have a great history but, by the usual market standards, no longer a great business. Our ROI is relatively low. Our manufacturing plants need tremendous overhauls and modernization. For that we need not only what’s left of our capital, but the ability to borrow far more. I’m impressed with your quick understanding of our problem, but I want you to know there is no solution to it, other than the one that we hope you can bring us. If you can bring us any at all.”
“I do understand this,” Alec says.
“Good,” says Bob Curtis. “Then we’ll let you get on with it and wish you well.”
SIX
Sarah has prevailed upon Cissy to accompany her to a Saturday afternoon basketball game at Collegiate, where Trinity is the visiting team. Neither girl is that fond of basketball. Nor, as Cissy points out, has any apparent reason for being there, except to gawk at Tino Angiapello, which he will know and use. Sarah just shrugs. “He can’t use it if I don’t let him.”
“A guy like that,” Cissy says, “it’s like an announcement you’re ready to sleep with him.”
“Oh, that? That might be interesting.”
Cissy looks at her friend as if she’s suddenly gone dim-witted.
Sarah says, “Well, you’ve got to start somewhere.”
“True,” Cissy says. “But one shouldn’t be quite so obvious about it.”
At which point both teams come out for their warm-ups. For Trinity, it’s a gaggle of ganglies, splendid in blue and white, boys who go into their layup routine as if they were the NBA champion Lakers. Tino’s the flashiest, and the one not merely a boy. His passes and dunks rouse the audience of parents and students. They jam the stands: four rows of benches, sectioned by aisles. Tino, now jump shooting, scans the crowd between baskets. Then spots Sarah.
It’s like breaking the fourth wall, his coming into the stands, sitting beside her.
Sarah, not liking all the attention, says, “Shouldn’t you be practicing, or something?”
“It’s called warm-ups.”
“Whatever, you should be doing it.”
“Hey,” he says, “you come to see me or not?”
“Obviously,” she says, with a tone of belligerence.
“Good. Because I don’t have your phone number.”
“Okay,” she says.
“So, wait for me after the game?”
“Where?”
“Here’s good.”
“Okay,” she says again, and watches him sprint back onto the court.
She turns to Cissy, who gives her a double-take with wide eyes. “You okay?”
Sarah says, “I think I’m dizzy.”
She calms a bit when the game actually starts. Tino is too busy to look at her, so she has plenty of time to observe him. She’s never done this before, focused on one boy this long, this intently. He moves with the grace of a cheetah. He also bends all space on the court, since the other team always rushes to cover him, and he either passes to the teammate left open or scores with a move of his own. Her reaction to all this mastery is novel, at least for her, and definitely surprising. She sees him as vulnerable. She wants to protect him. Which produces in her the need to exhibit all the opposite affects.
At halftime, Sarah notices that Cissy is no longer there. If she had said anything during the game about leaving, Sarah has no conscious memory of it. By the middle of the second half, the game has already turned into a rout, and Tino has thirty-one points. She knows this because it’s actually announced when the coach substitutes him out and the Trinity fans rise in ovation.
Once on the bench, Tino’s attention goes to Sarah’s place in the stands. She averts her eyes quickly, and he smiles. He has the look of a young man comfortable in another conquest.
The bleachers clear out within minutes after the game, although some kids with a basketball fool around on the court. Tino comes out promptly, still a bit wet from his shower. Sarah waits in splendid isolation on an otherwise empty top bench. Grinning, he takes two steps at a time and plunks down beside her.
“What’s so funny?” she says.
“You and me. We’ve just met, and we’re already hot.”
“Then you’d better cool down.”
“You waited for me,” he points out.
“I have something to ask you.”
“Oh?”
“How come you didn’t mention that your last name is the same as my birth name?”
“Ah,” he says, as if registering a new set of facts.
“But you knew that!”
“Yes,” he says sheepishly.
“Are we related?”
“Not by blood. I was adopted.”
“But you’re an Angiapello! A member of that family!”
“Right. Legally. So, on that basis, we’re second cousins,” he notes carefully. “I thought you’d figure it out.”
“What I figured out—you came looking for me at the Soup Burg… that was no accident.”
He hesitates only a moment. “Right, yeah.”
“You followed me… or learned about me—”
“I did.”
“Why th
e fuck, Tino?”
“You’re angry.”
“Spotted that, did you?”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I should have told you.”
“Told me what?”
“About our uncle,” he says.
“ Our uncle?”
“Well, mine,” he says, “legally. He was your dad’s cousin. Older cousin. He thought we should know each other. And he knew where you went to school.”
“And hung out afterward?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow.” The more she thinks about this, the creepier it becomes. “What does he want with me?”
“I don’t really know.”
“But whatever it is, you’re his guy, is that it?”
“No,” Tino says, offended. “Not if it means harm to you.”
“You know this already?”
“Yes,” he says.
She gets to her feet. “Good.”
“Where we going?” he asks, rising too.
“I’m going home.”
“I’m not invited?”
She studies his face, as if it were lacking what she might hope to find there. “You got a lot to prove to me, man.”
SEVEN
Most judges’ desks and walls bristle with snapshots and memorabilia: news clips of past glories, smiling grandkids, handshakes with powerful men. Judge Porter’s chambers on Foley Square exhibit nothing more personal than his suit jacket hanging in the closet. A room this barren makes you feel that its occupant would rather be elsewhere. Which, with this judge, Alec thinks, is probably true. Mark Porter likes trying cases, not gabbing about them in chambers. But he’s allowed this pretrial conference. Alec was his student during his one semester teaching at Yale; Caddy Breen is his friend; Freddy Musselman was his colleague on the Harvard faculty. When any one of them asks for a meeting, the judge assumes a meeting is required.
Alec had a more difficult time convincing his own client. Rilesman’s last words were, “I don’t like it—too risky—but I’ll make this one your call.”
Alec said, “Larry, everything regarding the handling of this case is my call. I will keep you informed, as I’m doing now. I will listen to your advice. And if I don’t take it, you can fire me whenever you want. But until you do, I run the litigation.”