Walls of Silence Read online

  “You go to the meeting now,” he said. “Tell them something came up and I’ll be back soon. Say sorry.” He made as if to leave the room.

  “What if they ask me about what’s happened?”

  Sheldon didn’t stop. “You’ve got amnesia,” he said. Then suddenly he pulled up and pursed his lips. “On second thought, they may find out you were there.” He paused. “Tell them that it may involve a client and we can’t say anything at the moment. Try not to piss them off.”

  THREE

  Conference Room B was at the core of our half floor of accommodation. There was no Conference Room A—Sheldon Keenes didn’t want outsiders to know how small we really were. A windowless, airless room, walls white to relieve the potential claustrophobia, while the white was itself relieved by a few prints of Victorian London, no doubt chosen by Sheldon to remind visitors that they were in the offices of an English law firm.

  Four sour-faced people, three men and a woman, returned my gaze. They formed a squad along one side of the saffron sweep of a yew boardroom table, a tray of coffee and cookies untouched in front of them.

  Who were these people? All I could see were zombies walking through wreckage. I could smell the gasoline, the coolant.

  One of the faces smiled.

  The smile dragged me back into the room. Lawyers from Schuster Mannheim. I needed to hold on to that.

  I sat down.

  From my lone position opposite the Schuster tribunal, I apologized for my tardiness and tried to make light of things, how we were at the mercy of clients, how life would be easier without them. But nobody was smiling now.

  “Sheldon said you were caught in traffic.” Ellis Walsh: forties, hotshot, no time for human frailty. Like JJ Carlson in some ways; but there’d been a depth to JJ, a piercing comprehension of the defects in the human condition.

  My eyes glazed over the hillocks of paperwork arranged neatly on the table. In the corner of the room there were four storage boxes, still lidded, filled with more of the same.

  “So where were we?” I asked.

  Walsh gaveled his Mont Blanc. “Didn’t Sheldon fill you in?”

  “No,” I said. Sheldon would be speaking to Charles Mendip, our senior partner, and wouldn’t be worried that I was up to my neck here. Sheldon would tell me that landing me in it was the act of a good teacher honing his pupil’s ability to perform under fire.

  “We were nearly finished on our respective banking platinum accounts,” Walsh said.

  I groaned inwardly. Thirty hours already spent sifting through records of all our banking clients, highlighting those we billed for more than a million dollars a year. These were the platinum accounts, the ones where the schmooze was laid on extra thick. These clients could ask for discounts and be given them. We had to entertain and patronize them till we dropped. Identifying them wasn’t difficult—my blue highlighter fingered them easily enough from the lineup. More difficult was the subjective work, the quizzing of the relationship partner, the associates, even the trainees, getting their assessment of the clients and whether they would be good for another million next year. Then we had to divine what kind of business they’d do: cross border mergers and acquisitions, share issues, litigation, office relocation, staff reduction. It didn’t matter that such crystal-ball-gazing exercise was meaningless: Clients didn’t behave predictably or, at times, even rationally.

  The people from Schuster Mannheim were trying to read the same tea leaves. This was the fifth such meeting and they had alternatedbetween brain-numbing boredom and almost hysterical controversy.

  But the meetings were essential: Schuster Mannheim and Clay & Westminster had agreed in principle to merge and each had to know in molecular detail what the other was bringing to the party.

  Party, party . . . It suddenly occurred to me that my friend, JJ Carlson, had never invited me to a party, toanygathering of his friends. I knew he had parties. He told me about them, unembarrassed about my uninvited status. He’d boast of the cream of Manhattan society he could pipe onto his birthday cake, year after year. And, man-oh-man, the fireworks, he’d declare, sparking the sky like a Baghdad blitz.

  Then I had an insight. One for the news-crews, if I were called upon to give my eyewitness account of the crash on TV.

  “There was no fire.”

  I must have said it out loud because the Schuster tribunal looked at me as if I were crazy.

  There was no fire: All those vehicles had piled into each other, JJ’s car among them. In the movies, the whole thing would have gone up in an effervescent ball of orange flame, cauterizing the mayhem. But there had been no fire. Would that have disappointed JJ? No fireworks. Man-oh-man.

  Walsh cleared his throat.

  “Sorry,” I said. They’d have to figure out the spaghetti in my head. I couldn’t.

  Walsh ran his finger down a list of clients, his Harvard ring glinting as it crossed the harsh beam of one of the ceiling spotlights.

  “Saracen Securities,” he said flatly. “One of yours—we’ve never done work for them. You sure you billed them more than a million?”

  Saracen Securities was a good client. One of Ernie Monks’s. Saracen Securities fired deals in salvoes at a whole slew of our offices: London, Paris, Frankfurt, and Istanbul. Complex deals, some of them somewhat shady, perhaps. One to watch, but not lose. Ernie certainly wouldn’t want to lose them.

  “The statement says we billed them nearly two million last year,” I said.

  “But do theypaytheir bills,” Walsh said.

  I didn’t bother answering.

  Fragile shoots of familiarity started to bud as I speed-read a mess of papers Sheldon had left on my side of the table.

  “Saracen Securities: a Turkish setup,” I said. “Acting mainly out of London,” I added. “It has no US operations or ambitions, that’s why you’ve never heard of it.”

  “Any potential conflicts?” Walsh asked. That was always the real question. Was a client of Schuster suing a client of Clay & Westminster? Big problem if it was. The combined firm might lose both clients. But Clay & Westminster didn’t do much litigation, so it hadn’t been an issue so far.

  “Unlikely,” I replied.

  One of Walsh’s acolytes pushed a piece of paper in front of him. Walsh frowned and pushed it back.

  “Delicate,” said Walsh. I tried to glimpse the document, but the table was too wide. The acolyte shoved it triumphantly under a sheaf of others.

  “What’s so delicate, may I ask?”

  Walsh hesitated. “There is a potential conflict.”

  I asked what kind of conflict. He said he wasn’t sure that he should say.

  “There’s an ethical wall around us,” I said, irritated now. “Just tell me. You know I can’t say anything to anyone but the advisers.” We were all sworn to secrecy and the most trivial of breaches would stop the deal in its tracks. The advisers to the merger: the merchant banks, the management consultants, the accountants, had all displayed a neurotic aversion to the attorneys discussing their respective client bases and had only agreed to it when those few involved in the process had signed in blood that they wouldn’t leak. My blood was on the agreement and Walsh wasn’t supposed to hold out on me.

  “Is Sheldon going to be back soon?” he asked.

  That was his way of saying that he would rather talk turkey to a partner than an associate. “I don’t know,” I said coldly, “but you know perfectly well that I’m mandated to discuss anything in these meetings.”

  Walsh sighed. “Our client is Reno Holdings,” he said. “Million-plusbiller. Reno ran its slide rule over Saracen about a year ago. Didn’t come to anything then, but a file was opened and they said they might look at it again when the emerging markets settled some more.”

  “So it’s not an active conflict.” It didn’t sound too serious, a bridge to fall off when we came to it. Did Ernie know that Reno fancied Saracen? Ernie didn’t like clients being taken over; he took that kind of thing personally.

 
Tonight at six. Not tomorrow. The Lubber’s Club. Drinks with Ernie.I was glad. Ernie would be a tonic. Soused with plenty of gin.

  “It’s not that simple,” Walsh said.

  What wasn’t? I’d lost the thread.

  Walsh stood and admired one of the wall prints. He ran his finger along the top of the frame, as if he was checking for Victorian dust.

  “Reno is a platinum client,” he continued.

  I found the thread. So Reno was platinum. So what? We were only discussing platinum clients anyway.

  Walsh wasn’t finished. “It’s a platinum client with big potential; worldwide aspirations and the backing to achieve them. We wouldn’t want them alienated.”

  He was playing the my-client’s-more-important-than-your-client game and he wasn’t supposed to.

  “Rather than argue about it here,” I said, “why don’t we just write a piece for our respective bosses and let them slug it out on the conflicts committee.” Walsh would hate that—he wasn’t the sort that liked to admit that he had a boss.

  “If you feel unable to progress the issue on your own, then of course we must do as you suggest.” Walsh smiled openly at the acolytes. He looked at the list again, and before I had any chance to backtrack and maybe debate the potential Reno Saracen conflict, he had already barked out the name of the next client.

  Sheldon Keenes appeared. Maybe he’d had a shower: His hair was back in place and the anxiety was washed from his face. He was a scrubbed cherub in a suit.

  “Sold the family silver, Fin?” he said cheerily. He sat next to me and took the client schedule. “Ah, Saracen Securities. Platinum-plus client, one of Ernie’s favorite cash cows. Bit murky, but bloody lucrative.”

  Ernie Monks, our own office Oscar Wilde. The senior partner’s right hand, his perimeter fence; there to protect Charles Mendip from the squalor of real human beings and their petty problems and aspirations, leaving him free to conduct affairs of state.

  I turned to Sheldon. “Ellis was just pointing out that their client Reno Something or Other had taken a look at it as a potential target.”

  Sheldon frowned. “Bit hairy-chested of them.” He rotated the signet ring on his little finger, as if Walsh’s Harvard ring, which stuck out like a scarab, had made him self-conscious about the size of his own.

  “What do you mean: hairy-chested?” Walsh asked.

  “Even if the owners agreed to sell,” Sheldon explained, “your clients would be buying a mystery wrapped in an enigma. Hell of a gamble. Ernie knows a bit about them, but even he would admit he doesn’t know much.”

  “You’re telling me you don’t know a whole lot about a client that pays two million in fees?” Walsh said pompously.

  Sheldon slanted a bushy blond eyebrow. “We can’t toss a client just because we don’t know his inside leg measurement.”

  My father had once told me to toss anyone I couldn’t get the measure of. He didn’t use the wordtoss,ormeasure,but his meaning was clear. And as he’d been sucking at a whiskey tumbler like a pacifier at the time, I knew thatnottossing someone or something had just cost him more than he could afford.

  “One for the conflicts committee, I guess,” Walsh said.

  Sheldon looked at his watch. “Listen; there’s been a slight change of plan. Charles Mendip is flying over from London tomorrow morning. I know he wants to see Jim and so I’d better get on with the arrangements. I suggest we adjourn this meeting and look at getting together tomorrow sometime, maybe after lunch.”

  Jim McIntyre was the senior partner of Schuster Mannheim. He and Charles Mendip had been pictured together in the press a lot lately. This was the biggest transatlantic law firm merger to date, and it was making a splash. The PR shots were clever, they had to be: Charles was six-foot-three and McIntyre was five-foot-four and this was supposed to be a merger of equals. And yet, McIntyre looked thebigger man; at ease with his place in the spotlight, unfazed. While, with Mendip, there was a sense of stoop and surprise, as if the shoot was unscheduled, as if he had been caught by his wife with another woman. He looked frightened of the camera, of McIntyre too. It was the first time I’d seen him frightened of anything.

  “Shall we say two o’clock tomorrow at our offices,” Walsh said. “It’s my turn to play host.”

  At least that meant I’d get out of the office for a while. Schuster Mannheim occupied a respectable slice of the GE Building in Rockefeller Center, loftily proud of their chunky brass doors, deco elevators, and marble floors, ever watchful for potential lebensraum in the levels as yet unannexed by them, although willing to concede that the Rainbow Room restaurant and the ice rink twenty floors down, sunk below street level, would remain the domain of tourists forever. Walsh had told me that, after the merger, the New York contingent of Clay & Westminster would be moving in, taking a corner of the fifty-third floor currently undergoing refurbishment for something more important: additional filing space or was it a library? Whatever. He made it sound like we would be refugees, with barely legal right of entry and even less right of welcome.

  The acolytes took the boxes and disappeared down the hallway toward the reception area. Anyone looking at them would have known we were working on something big and more than once we had been criticized by Schuster Mannheim and their advisers for our lack of security. It was okay for them; as prestigious tenants of Rockfeller Center, they had hideaways and secret elevators for their sensitive assignments.

  As Walsh made his way to the door, his cell phone rang. He seemed of two minds about whether he was going to answer it, then flipped it open. “Walsh.” He listened. His eyes narrowed and he gave both Sheldon and me a meaningful glance. He hung up after about a minute without having said anything. “Apparently an investment banker from Jefferson Trust has driven his car onto the FDR Drive and killed himself and some fifteen others,” Walsh announced as if he was telling us the time of the next Hoboken Ferry. He sat down again at the table.

  Sheldon followed suit and motioned me to do the same. I thought I was going to be sick. The body count had gone from ten to fifteen in the space of half an hour. “Dreadful business,” said Sheldon. “We have only just heard about it ourselves.”

  Walsh looked worried. “Jefferson Trust is one of your most important clients, isn’t it?” He seemed to be looking for something; maybe the client schedule. “I don’t know how much you billed them, but it was a lot.”

  Sheldon nodded. “About six million. Not too bad for a British law firm. They have been very active in Europe and the Far East, where we pick up most of the business. Naturally, we don’t do any domestic US work for them. But neither do you. It’s rather a glaring gap on your client list.”

  “Did you know the banker who died?” There was some emotion in Walsh’s voice, but I sensed this stemmed from the billing implications of the tragedy, not its human dimension.

  “We knew him,” said Sheldon. “We know lots of bankers at Jefferson Trust.”

  But JJ Carlson was one of a kind.

  “So the guy gave you work?” Walsh asked.

  Sheldon stood up. “I’m not sure I understand where this is leading, Ellis. But wherever it is, it’s a little premature and rather inappropriate, don’t you think? There’s been a terrible accident and people have been killed and hurt. Perhaps we should focus on that. Charles Mendip will be in New York tomorrow and, to the extent it has any bearing on things, I’m sure he will discuss this tragic turn of events with Jim McIntyre. You and I can then take our cue from them.”

  Sheldon extended his hand toward Walsh to indicate that he should shake it and then get the fuck out.

  “I’ve got a few more calls to make,” Sheldon said when Walsh had left the room. He went over to a phone on a small table in the corner. “Go back to your office. I’ll speak to you in a moment or two and then you can go home. You must be pretty shaken up.”

  I realized I was still sitting and staring at a print of St. Paul’s and feeling, for the first time in five years, something bordering on nostalg
ia for London.

  “Don’t worry, Fin.” Sheldon cupped his hand over the mouthpiece. “They’re not all like that little turd. Schuster Mannheim is a great firm, and we’ll make it even greater. You’re part of history in the making.”

  Sheldon had misread me. I wasn’tworriedabout anything. I was consumed. The image of the FDR consumed me, an image with all the hallmarks of history in the making.

  FOUR

  Paula was sitting on my desk when I returned to my office.

  “You were there, weren’t you?” she said, handing me a scorching cup. I smiled gratefully and took a suck at its contents through the little hole in the lid. Coffee, hot and sweet.

  I felt guilty. Not about leaving Paula’s question unanswered. It didn’t need an answer, she just knew, as she always seemed to. This was guilt on a less easily definable, but grander scale.

  I’d been there. I’d sat in the murder weapon, like it was a carnival ride. Then just watched what followed. I’d been flattered by an invite into JJ’s gilded world; finally I’d been asked to one of his parties.

  Bodies would be pulled from the wreckage now, broken, dripping, and distorted. And I was safe on the twenty-fifth floor of a tower block. Drinking coffee.

  There was a world around me, a world that might have an attitude about my role in all this. My clients, Charles Mendip, my mother. The police . . .

  Fucking hell. The police. I hadn’t spoken to the fucking police.

  I hurled my coffee into the wastebasket and reached for the phone.

  “I haven’t spoken to the police,” I whispered.

  “You’re kidding me,” Paula said.

  I shook my head. It hadn’t occurred to me.

  I was the witness to a major wreck, one planned and executed by a senior banker at Jefferson Trust, a major Wall Street investment bank. The police might be interested in these facts. The victims might be interested too. I was a lawyer and should know this.