“Grams Joy is fine.” I handed him my paper napkins, eyeing him curiously. “Already bossing Jillian’s mom around. Listen, are you—”
His phone buzzed for the third time in a minute.
“You should take that.”
“No, no.” He glanced around us, looking as white as a sheet.
“Whoever is trying to call you is not going to go away.”
“Really, Ari, I’d rather hear about your week.”
“It was good, eventful, and it passed. Now answer.” I pointed to what I assumed was the cause of his strange behavior.
With a heavy sigh and a healthy dose of resignation, Dad finally pulled his phone out and pressed it to his ear so tightly the shell whitened to ivory.
“Conrad Roth speaking. Yes. Yes.” He paused, his eyes dancing manically. His biryani bowl slipped from between his fingers, collapsing over the ancient stone. I tried to catch it in vain. “Yes. I know. Thank you. I do have representation. No, I won’t be making a comment.”
Representation? A comment? For an audit?
People floated along the bows. Tourists crouched to take pictures of the garden. A swarm of children spun around the columns, their laughter like church bells. I stood up and began cleaning up the mess Dad had made on the ground.
It’s fine, I told myself. No company wants to be audited. Let alone a hedge fund.
But even as I fed myself this excuse, I couldn’t fully swallow it. This wasn’t about business. Dad didn’t lose sleep—or his wits—over work.
He hung up. Our eyes met.
Before he even spoke, I knew. Knew that in a few minutes, I’d be falling, falling, falling. That nothing could stop me. That this was bigger than me. Than him, even.
“Ari, there’s something you should know . . .”
I closed my eyes, taking a sharp, before-you-jump-into-the-water breath.
Knowing nothing would ever be the same again.
CHAPTER TWO
CHRISTIAN
Present
Principles. I had very few of them.
Only a handful, really, and I wouldn’t call them principles, per se. More like preferences. Strong partialities? Yeah, that sounds about right.
It was my preference not to deal with property and contract disputes as a litigator, for instance. Not because I had a moral or ethical issue representing either side of the aisle, but simply because I found the subject morbidly boring and entirely unworthy of my precious time. Tort and equitable claims were where I thrived. I liked messy, emotional, and destructive. Throw salacious into the mix, and I was in litigation heaven.
It was my preference to drink myself into a mini coma with my best friends, Arsène and Riggs, at the Brewtherhood down the street, as opposed to smiling, nodding, and listening to another mind-numbing story about my client’s kid’s T-ball game.
It was also my preference—not principle—to not wine and dine Mr. Shady McShadeson here, also known as Myles Emerson. But Myles Emerson was about to sign on a hefty retainer with my law firm, Cromwell & Traurig. And so here I was, on a Friday night, a shit-eating grin smeared across my face, tucking the company credit card into the black leather check holder as I treated Mr. Emerson to foie gras tarts, tagliolini with shaved black truffles, and a bottle of wine with a price tag that could put his kid through four years of an Ivy League education.
“Gotta say, I’m feeling real good about this, fellas.” Mr. Emerson let out a burp, patting his third-trimester-size belly. He held an uncanny physical resemblance to a bloated Jeff Daniels. I was glad he was feeling dandy, because I sure as hell was in good spirits about charging him a monthly fee starting next month. Emerson owned a large janitorial company that mainly catered to big corporations and recently had had four lawsuits filed against him, all for breach of contract and damages. He needed not only legal aid but also duct tape to shut his trap. He’d been bleeding so much money over the past few months I’d offered to put him on a retainer. The irony wasn’t lost on me. This man, who offered people cleaning services, had hired me to clean up after him. Unlike his employees, though, I charged an astronomical hourly rate and wasn’t prone to getting screwed out of my paycheck.
It did not occur to me to refuse to defend him in his multiple and deplorable cases. The obvious parallel involving the poor cleaners who went after him, some of them making below minimum wage and working with forged legal documentation, went right over my head.
“We’re here to make things easier for you.” I stood up, reaching to shake Myles Emerson’s hand while buttoning my blazer. He nodded to Ryan and Deacon, the partners at my law firm, and made his way out of the restaurant, ogling the rears of two of the waitresses.