A Conflict of Interest (10 page)

“Fifteen million is fine, so long as he can put up the bond equivalent.”

“It sounds like we have a deal then.”

After hanging up with Assistant United States Attorney Christopher Pavin, I take a deep breath, then call Ohlig.

“That was fast, counselor.”

“Bad news, I’m afraid. Pavin said he was just about to call me when I called him. The grand jury just issued an indictment.”

I expect Ohlig to blame me for not letting him meet with Pavin sooner to head this off, or maybe just for him to curse Pavin’s name. I then flash on Eastman’s story about being fired after a prosecutor bait-and-switched him, and wonder if Ohlig is about to say that he’s going to find new counsel. He doesn’t say anything, however, so I continue. “I told Pavin we wanted to take him up on the Queen for a Day offer, but he said it was a good thing we didn’t because he would have added a count to the indictment for false statements.”

Ohlig still doesn’t respond. I wonder if he’s in shock, but by this point I know he doesn’t shock this easily. He isn’t saying anything because he knows nothing he’d say would serve any purpose.

“The good news is that we’ve agreed on a bail package,” I go on. “I can’t guarantee the judge will sign off, but you’ll likely only have to post a bond, and you’ll be spending tomorrow night in your suite at the Pierre.”

This is the point when clients ask how much money they’ll have to post, or get me to swear that there’s no way they’ll be going to jail. Some inquire what happens if they don’t show up.

Ohlig is still silent.

“You need to fly up tonight and be at my office tomorrow by seven
A.M
. We’ll go down to the FBI together. After you’ve gone through
processing, they’ll take you in for arraignment, at which time you’ll enter a not-guilty plea.”

“Do you like steak?” Ohlig says.

“What?”

“Do you like steak?”

“I guess.”

“I’ll meet you at Peter Luger’s tonight at nine.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“If there’s any possibility on earth I’ll be spending tomorrow night in jail, I want to make sure I get one last good meal in me.”

“Okay,” I tell him.

“Bring Abby too,” he says, and then hangs up.

P
eter Luger’s is a New York tradition, consistently ranked as the best steakhouse in the city, if not on earth, despite the fact that the decor is little more than old tables paired with barely comfortable chairs, the lighting is too bright, they take only cash or their own credit card and, worst of all, it’s in Brooklyn. Despite this, the place is always jammed, as it is tonight.

The waiter comes over and hesitates for a moment, catching each of our eyes before handing Ohlig the wine list.

“I don’t even need to look,” Ohlig says, pushing the list back at him. “Do you have an Amarone?”

“We have several, sir,” the waiter says.

“Whichever is the best one, we want it.”

The waiter quickly returns. He shows the bottle to Ohlig and after Ohlig nods, the waiter pulls the cork out and pours Ohlig a taste.

The wine is a deep purple, and its legs stick to the side of Ohlig’s glass when he swirls it. After taking a sip, he pronounces it exceptional, and directs the waiter to fill our glasses.

While the pouring occurs, Ohlig orders dinner for all of us. The steak for three, “Pittsburgh,” which he explains afterwards means charred on the outside but rare on the inside, with sides of hash browns “burnt to a crisp,” and, at Abby’s insistence, asparagus.

After the waiter leaves, Ohlig leans toward Abby. “Has Alex told you I knew his parents before he was born?”

“He’s mentioned it,” she says, “but I’d love to hear more.”

It’s a bit of a Rashomon moment for me. Ohlig’s version sticks to the script I’ve heard before, although he claims it was my father’s challenge that brought them to Central Park, whereas my father tells it the other way around. Ohlig also incorporates my mother’s claim about how she didn’t want to go at all, but was talked into it by a girlfriend who wanted company on the train.

Then he adds something I’d never heard before.

“We’d been playing for about a half hour, when on one of the changeovers I say to Alex’s dad, ‘Have you noticed that girl over there?’” For most of this story Ohlig has been holding Abby’s stare, but now he looks at me. “Your dad was a great guy about a lot of things, but about women he was a little bit clueless. So he says to me, ‘What girl?’ And I point to your mother and say, ‘Look, you’re getting killed on the court, you should try to salvage the day somehow. Go talk to her.’”

Ohlig has my rapt attention. I look over at Abby and see she has the same mesmerized expression, the way Charlotte stares at me when I’m reading her a bedtime story.

“I don’t mean to embarrass you, Alex, but your mother was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen. She looked just like Ali McGraw. Do you young’uns even know who that is?”

I nod that I do. Despite Abby’s prior comment about me being not much older than her, Ali McGraw must be before Abby’s time because her head moves the other way.

“She was a movie star,” I say, “in the early seventies. She starred in
Love Story.
”

“She wasn’t just a movie star,” Ohlig corrects me. “She epitomized female beauty at the time. She had these amazingly long legs, and dark hair, and she was Steve McQueen’s girlfriend to boot.”

Abby takes a long sip of her wine. She’s barely placed the glass back on the table before Ohlig’s filling it again.

“Were you involved with someone then?” she asks Ohlig.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, why didn’t you go after Alex’s mother?”

He pauses, as if he’s deciding between several different answers. “That’s a question I asked myself for many years. And then I met Pamela.” He shrugs and takes a sip of wine. “We all find the person we’re destined to be with in the end.”

After dinner, the three of us cram into the back of a Lincoln Town car, with Abby taking the middle seat. During the ride over the Brooklyn
Bridge back into Manhattan, I’m acutely aware of our legs touching, noticing her other leg is in contact with Ohlig’s. When we reach midtown, Ohlig places his hand on Abby’s knee, but even after several glasses of wine he seems to realize he should remove it quickly.

The doorman at the Pierre opens the car door and addresses Ohlig by name. For a moment Ohlig doesn’t move. I suspect it’s because he’s contemplating whether he can get away with kissing Abby good-night. Thankfully, he makes the right decision and doesn’t try.

“Good night, you two,” he says, peering into the window once he’s alighted. “I don’t mind telling you I’m a little concerned about having the only people who stand between me and prison traveling in the same car.” He straightens up and turns to the driver. “Make sure these two get home safely. My freedom depends on it.”

“Our next stop is going to be 80th and Park,” Abby says to the driver, giving him my address so he can drop me off next.

“No,” I say. “Go to eighty-eight and Riverside,” which is where Abby lives. “Then you can go through the park to drop me off.”

“That’s completely out of the way,” Abby says to me, not to the driver. “We’re already on the East Side,” but by this time the car has already turned west.

“I just want you to know that chivalry is not dead.”

“Tell that to Bob Ralston,” she says, referencing a mid-level litigation partner. “I had a case with him last year and he made me carry the bags.”

I laugh, and then we fall into a comfortable silence. In a way, it makes the back of the car more intimate.

We continue west on Central Park South, and then north up Central Park West. The car turns west at 72nd Street, just in front of the Dakota, and proceeds toward Riverside Drive.

After we turn east on 88th Street, Abby says, “This one on the right,” when the car approaches a Victorian brownstone with a stoop front. It’s the kind of place where a twenty-something struggling artist would live in a television sitcom. In reality, the monthly rent can only be afforded by hard-charging types in banking or law.

The car stops in front of her house, which is on my side of the car. Although Abby could easily exit on the street side, I open my door and get out first.

We’re standing face to face, neither of us moving. I wonder if she thinks I’m going to kiss her, just as I’m wondering if that’s what she’ll do.

“Good night,” I finally say, when I’m thinking clearly enough to prevent something from happening. “Tonight was fun, probably a lot more than tomorrow will be.”

“Sleep tight, Alex,” she says, and then flashes that smile of hers before turning around and walking up the stairs to her front door.

Elizabeth is watching television in the bedroom when I get home. “So, how was it?” she asks as I begin removing my suit.

“Good. A little weird, actually. The guy is going to be arraigned tomorrow and he acts like it’s somebody else’s freedom that’s in jeopardy.”

“Maybe he just has supreme confidence in his lawyer.”

“I truly don’t think that’s it. Although he does seem to like Abby a lot.”

“I guess that tells me all I need to know about her.”

“Be nice.”

“Have I ever met her?”

“I don’t know. Maybe at one of the firm parties. She comes up for partner this year and everyone thinks she’s going to make it, so I’m sure you’ll meet her at the new partner reception in February.”

Elizabeth is the least jealous person I know. I could say it’s because she trusts me, but it’s something more than that. It’s almost as if she thinks that merely recognizing the possibility that I could find someone else diminishes her, and she’d rather not even consider the possibility.

I lean over to kiss Elizabeth, and as I do so I feel a pang of guilt that my passion is fueled largely by my close proximity to Abby this evening (plus the three, or maybe four, glasses of wine), but somehow
I’ve also convinced myself that my restraint at Abby’s door entitles me to a reward.

“You smell like smoke,” she says.

“I should only smell like wine.”

“Either way, I’m tired, Alex.”

And she rolls over away from me.

T
he FBI’s offices are housed in what is perhaps the ugliest structure in the entire city. It’s a squat brown stucco building attached to the facility that temporarily houses inmates when they have court appearances. The joke is that the inmates have the more luxurious space.

Ohlig, Abby, and I arrive half an hour early. The last thing I want is to be late and have Ohlig declared a fugitive from justice.

The guard in the lobby tells us to go to the sixth floor. Once there, I try the knob of the windowless metal door next to the elevator, but it’s locked. On the adjacent wall is a phone with a handwritten note taped to it telling visitors to dial 0 for assistance. I do as directed and a woman’s voice tells me she’ll be right out. We wait five minutes before a small, African-American woman carrying a large gun in a shoulder holster appears.

“Good morning,” she says cheerfully. “I’m Special Agent Erica Cole.”

“Good morning. I’m Alex Miller and this is my colleague, Abigail Sloane, and, of course, this is Michael Ohlig.”

“Nice to meet all of you,” Agent Cole says, “but I’m only interested in you, Mr. Ohlig. Will you please follow me?”

“I’d like to accompany my client through booking,” I say, even though I told Ohlig only minutes before that wasn’t going to happen.

“Afraid not, counselor. Booking is one of those things that’s done alone.”

“Like death,” Ohlig says.

Agent Cole smiles at Ohlig’s quip and presses a buzzer that unlocks another steel, windowless door of equal size and depth as the one we entered through. When they’re out of sight, the door slams shut, making a loud clanking sound.

Twenty minutes later, Ohlig emerges back into the reception area, a different FBI agent now accompanying him. This one is a man, but just as short as Agent Cole, if not shorter.

As usual, Michael Ohlig looks completely unfazed, so much so it takes me a moment to realize he’s now handcuffed.

“Mr. Miller,” the FBI agent says to me, “I’m Special Agent Gregory McNiven. You can have a moment to talk to your client, but you’ll have to stay in the reception area. Mr. Ohlig is now officially in federal custody. We’ll take him down to Part One when the judge is ready for us. You can meet him there.”

“Can you take the handcuffs off, Agent McNiven?” I ask.

“Sorry, it’s policy. We’ll take them off when we’re in the courtroom.”

“Seriously?” Ohlig says, despite the fact I told him it was going to go exactly like this.

“Seriously,” McNiven replies, and you’ve never heard the word spoken like that until you’ve heard it from an FBI agent.

The Part One judge handles arraignments and other matters that are not yet assigned to another judge, such as discovery disputes from cases pending in other jurisdictions and emergency matters in cases not yet filed. The judges rotate in the position, and although they’re each supposed to take a turn, it always seems to me that a judge on senior status has the job whenever I’m making an application.

The Part One judge today is Milton Liebman, a barely living symbol to both the Constitutional framers’ wisdom and short-sightedness in bestowing lifetime appointments on federal judges. In his day, Liebman was one of the finest minds in the federal judiciary and the author of several seminal opinions protecting Constitutional liberties. It’s very possible that without the guarantee of lifetime tenure, Liebman wouldn’t have felt free to stake his job on the backs of such unpopular causes. On the other hand, Liebman is now over ninety, nearly completely deaf, and can barely hold a pen to sign an order.

There isn’t a specifically designated Part One courtroom, so the venue rotates too. Just like Air Force One’s the call sign for whatever
plane carries the president, the Part One courtroom is wherever the Part One judge sits.

As the oldest member of the court, Judge Liebman has the courthouse’s ceremonial courtroom. It’s a massive space, capable of seating over two hundred spectators, darkly paneled, and boasting a double-height ceiling with stained-glass windows. Some of the most celebrated trials in American history have occurred in this room, but now it’s mainly used for citizenship ceremonies, and on the rare occasions when Liebman is on the bench.