Losing Faith (6 page)

“What do you want me to take from this little lit class, Sam?”

“That sometimes it’s not readily apparent whether you have the fish or the fish has you.”

“So you think Garkov has me?”

“I can’t think of any other reason you’d take him on as a client.”

The lawyer in Aaron knows that speaking about certain things can only lead to trouble later, and the commission of a crime, like blackmailing a federal judge, is one of them. But lying to Rosenthal isn’t something Aaron’s ever done before, either.

“Sam . . . just give me a little time to work things out on this, okay? And believe me, I wouldn’t be taking on Nicolai Garkov unless the alternative was far worse than anything you’ve imagined Donald Pierce will do.”

“That hardly puts me at ease, Aaron.”

“It’s not supposed to, Sam. It’s supposed to convey that I’m trying to protect you. You and the firm. Plausible deniability.”

Rosenthal shakes his head in disagreement. “Aaron, I can’t make you tell me, but I can tell you that you never have to shield me from anything. If you have a problem, it’s my problem too. Whatever is
going on, know that I’m with you. One hundred percent.”

Aaron doubts many things—not the least of which is his own judgment of late—but the loyalty of Sam Rosenthal is not one of them. At the same time, he doesn’t want to share what a colossal mistake he’s made if there’s any possibility he doesn’t have to.

“I’m just asking for a few days, Sam. If I can’t fix it by then, I’ll come to you. I promise.”

RACHEL LONDON LOOKS MUCH
happier arriving at Aaron’s office than Sam Rosenthal was when he left ten minutes earlier.

“Thanks for saving the day with Joe Malone,” Rachel says. “Sometimes you make me feel a little like Lois Lane.”

“My pleasure. How’d it work out?”

“Client gave the okay to start settlement talks.”

“Good. I think that’s the right call, especially if you can get him three years.”

“Yeah, I didn’t get that,” Rachel says, deadpan. “I got a year and a day, though,” she adds, breaking into a full-on grin. “And, needless to say, Malone jumped at it. All of a sudden, admitting guilt wasn’t such a moral quandary for him anymore.”

“Wow. Well done, Rachel.”

“I try.”

“That kind of good work calls for a reward. How would you like to work with me on the hottest case in the country right now?”

“I was hoping for a three-week paid vacation.”

“C’mon, Rachel, what fun can you have on a Caribbean island that competes with working around the clock for Nicolai Garkov?”

Rachel’s smile vanishes. “
He’s
the client?”

“Since about an hour ago.”

Rachel’s professional enough not to show concern, but Aaron can see the tell, the small crinkle at the side of her mouth, which she attempts to hide by turning her head toward her notepad.

“I . . . thought Roy Sabato was repping him,” she says.

“He was. Now we are.”

“And it’s before Judge Nichols now, right?”

Rachel was second-in-command during the Matthews trial, and so she saw firsthand how Aaron interacted with Faith, which gives her comment added weight. But Aaron dismisses the thought that Rachel has figured out his dirty secret and assumes she is referring solely to the harsh sentence Faith ended up handing down.

“You’re not afraid of her, are you?” Aaron says, trying to return to their previous banter.

Rachel, however, appears to be in no joking mood. She looks very much afraid.

“The truth, Aaron?”

“I expect nothing less.”

“This is going to give Donald Pierce a lot of ammunition.”

“Maybe, but the decision’s been made.”

“And that’s what worries me. You
know
you shouldn’t be doing it, and yet you still are.”

The statement equally applies to his affair with Faith. But unlike then, now he has little choice.

Through a soft smile he says, “So are you with me in this terrible mistake that I’m making?”

With Rachel, this is a rhetorical question. Her loyalty is a given.

“Of course,” she says. “Always.”

THERE WAS NO MORE
unwelcome a visitor Aaron could have imagined as he was getting ready to leave for the day than Donald Pierce.

Pierce hasn’t called ahead, most likely because he knew he would have been told that Aaron was unavailable, which was Aaron’s standing order to Diane whenever Pierce asked for a meeting.

It is undoubtedly for this same reason that Pierce does not stop at Diane’s desk. Rather, he just walks straight into Aaron’s office.

“I need to talk to you,” he says. “It’s important.”

Everything about Donald Pierce is thin—his lips, his eyes, the
few strands of hair still left on his head. He reminds Aaron of one of those little dogs that snarls and yips at everyone. The kind that seems crazy enough to strike at things twice its size.

Aaron debates saying that he’s in the middle of something, but that will lead to Pierce’s asking for time on Aaron’s calendar. Scheduled meetings are presumed to go on for at least a half hour, whereas a pop-in could be cut short by the next phone call.

“I’m on my way out, Donald,” Aaron says, laying the groundwork for his exit, “but we can talk for a second.”

To prove the point that this is going to be a short meeting, Aaron doesn’t offer Pierce a seat. Even worse, Aaron gets up and walks to his closet, retrieving his coat, which sends the unmistakable message that Aaron has allotted two minutes, if that, to whatever Pierce has to say.

Pierce gives the room a once-over—as if he’s imagining how he’ll redecorate when he becomes chairman of the firm—and then says, “I’ve already spoken with most of the other members of the COC. We’re all in agreement on this, Aaron. We should not be taking Garkov on as a client.”

“And why not? He’s got a Sixth Amendment right to counsel, doesn’t he?”

Pierce rolls his eyes. “I’m not a big believer in the whole everybody-deserves-to-be-represented thing, and even if everyone is entitled to a lawyer, that doesn’t mean that they’re entitled to Cromwell Altman. But let’s not cite the Constitution to each other. This firm’s mission isn’t to defend the innocent. It’s to make money for the partners. And taking on a goddamned terrorist like Garkov is going to cost our corporate group eight figures, easy. We’ll be radioactive as far as the big banks are concerned. Not to mention that when the representation becomes public, it’s going to send the associates flying to headhunters, and you can bet the press is going to be all over us.”

“Come on, Don. This firm has taken on lots of unpopular causes.
It’s what lawyers are supposed to do.”

“They’re not supposed to piss away tens of millions of dollars in corporate business.”

Just like with Rosenthal, Aaron knows Pierce is right. There is simply no logical argument for why Cromwell Altman would represent Garkov. Unlike with Rosenthal, however, Aaron doesn’t give even a passing thought to telling Pierce the truth. Instead, he falls back on the old adage that the best defense is a good offense.

“If you’re half the lawyer you’re always telling me you are, Don, then I would think that the big banks would be rushing to retain your services no matter who
I
decide to represent. So if you can’t hold on to your clients, don’t go blaming me.”

Before Pierce can respond, Aaron pushes past him and leaves for the day.

8

F
aith Nichols lives in a Tribeca loft designed by her architect husband, Stuart Christensen. She bought the place when she was single and furnished it in a shabby-chic style. Stuart spent the first year of their married life replacing all of Faith’s furniture and gutting the interior, right down to the studs. Now it’s minimalist with a capital M, which means that the space is very beautiful but somewhat difficult to live in.

More than once Faith has mused that her home is a metaphor for her life.

“Something smells good,” she says, catching a strong whiff of garlic.

“It’s pasta night,” Stuart calls out. “You know how I like my pasta, right?”

“Yes, I know,” she says with a forced laugh.

One of Stuart’s favorite jokes, which has been old for quite some time. She would say something like,
You like your pasta the way you like your women
, and Stuart would supply various punch lines—
spicy
,
hot
,
soaked in wine
, or in his bawdier moments,
filled with meat
. Tonight, she doesn’t even bother with their little game.

“Well, today I’ve made it so hot, you can’t keep your clothes on,” Stuart says anyway.

Faith smiles politely and then excuses herself to change out of her work clothes. Stuart once told her that when Frank Lloyd Wright designed a house, he would also design the furniture (which Stuart did in their place too, for the most part), and he would even instruct
the owners on what clothes to wear while inside it. Faith considers herself fortunate that she’s still able to select her own wardrobe, even as she appreciates the irony that her work attire is a black robe.

Faith reaches for the baggiest sweatpants and T-shirt in her closet. She could wear something a bit more formfitting, but she’d just as soon not pique Stuart’s interest tonight.

When she comes back to the dining table, Stuart is sampling his culinary creation. “Ahhh, ’atsa spicy-a pasta,” he says in a cartoon Italian accent.

“Please tell me there’s more wine,” Faith says, noticing her husband has a nearly full glass beside him.

He pushes the bottle toward her but doesn’t go so far as to get her a glass, even though he’s standing in front of the cabinet where the stemware is stored. She nudges him aside and pulls one down herself.

“I got the Garkov case,” she says in a flat tone as she pours.

Stuart’s mouth forms a twisted smile. Faith knows that he’s experiencing a bit of schadenfreude, which is about as unbecoming an emotional response as she can imagine.

It’s moments like this, which occur far too frequently, that she can’t believe she ever convinced herself that marrying Stuart was a good idea. She knew his faults—narcissistic, insecure, outsized sense of entitlement—but disregarded those alarm bells because she was thirty-nine and feared that he might be her last chance at not ending up alone.

“The nomination was always a long shot, Faith,” he says. “Truth is, I never believed it was actually going to happen.”

Faith isn’t surprised that Stuart has jumped to the conclusion that the Garkov case is going to hurt her chances. She’s tempted to put him in his place, which she could do simply by telling him that the assignment will likely help her cause. But the satisfaction she’d derive by knocking him down a peg is outweighed by her desire simply not to engage him at all.

The Garkov case doesn’t come up again during dinner. Instead, Stuart discusses a project he’s working on for a midtown law firm.
He looks annoyed when Faith can’t recall the firm’s name, which she knows he sees as some type of slight on his work, although that doesn’t make any sense to her.

“So, every little thing is about the budget,” he says. “You know,
Can we use cheaper materials on the secretarial stations? Can’t we go with fabric rather than leather on the associate chairs?
But when we start talking about the two founders’ offices, oh, now all of a sudden
no
expense is to be spared. One of them wants a state-of-the-art media center that he controls with a remote from his desk. You know, with a sliding panel that reveals three or four television screens and when it opens, the lighting simultaneously dims? And the other guy, he wants me to put in a safe that’s as large as a walk-in closet. I half-jokingly asked if he was going to be hiding bodies in there.”

Stuart’s rant is interrupted by Faith’s phone. She can tell that he’s immediately annoyed and that he blames her. She wants to tell him that it’s not her fault her phone is ringing, but she could let it go to voice mail and thereby demonstrate to Stuart his superior place in her life, and she’s not about to do that. She knows who’s calling, and for the record, that person
is
more important to her than Stuart.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Your Honor, it’s Jeremy. The senator asked that I call you right away. He regrets that he couldn’t do it personally but hoped that you’d understand. If it’s not too much of an intrusion, can I come to your place to explain where things stand in light of today’s case assignment? I’m in midtown now, so I could be there in half an hour.”

Faith instinctively looks up at her husband. He’s not going to be happy about this.

Who cares?
she thinks.

THE LITTMANS LIVE ON
Fifth Avenue, between Seventy-Fifth and Seventy-Sixth Streets, in a prewar art deco building. A plaque outside identifies the building’s architect as Rosario Candela, the gold standard of New York City residential architects.

The year that the twins were born, Aaron and Cynthia purchased a ninth-floor classic six—two bedrooms, living room, formal dining room, and small maid’s room off the kitchen—facing Central Park. They had previously lived downtown, in a much hipper area, but the twins’ arrival meant they had to think about schools and parks, and so the Upper East Side became their new home. As their neighbors moved or died, the Littmans annexed their apartments, like real estate conquistadors. Today their Manhattan castle stretches over three thousand rambling square feet, occupying most of the building’s ninth floor, which connects by a staircase to a converted two-bedroom on the eighth that now comprises their master suite.

Tonight Aaron has arrived home with flowers in hand. Nothing that extravagant, just a bouquet of what the florist on the corner on Madison recommended. He knows that it’s partly his guilty conscience that contributes to these romantic gestures, but they are about more than his making amends for transgressions of which Cynthia is unaware. He’s trying to be more like the man he wishes he were, and that man brings his wife flowers just because he loves her.

He calls out, “Cynthia?” but she doesn’t answer. His teenage daughters aren’t likely to drop their time on social media to acknowledge his presence, so it’s not until he has ascertained each of their rooms is empty that he’s sure he’s alone.