“He’s mentioned you,” I said.
A few minutes of awkward chat followed as we walked toward where the cars were parked, and then Truslow got to what was clearly his main point. “You know, I’ve mentioned to Bill that I’d be very much interested in having you do some legal work for my firm.”
I smiled pleasantly. “I’m sorry, but I haven’t had anything to do with CIA or intelligence or anything of that sort since I left the Agency. I don’t think I’m the one you want.”
“Oh, your background has nothing to do with it,” he persisted. “It’s purely business, and I’m told you’re the best intellectual-property attorney in Boston.”
“You’ve been badly misled,” I said with a polite chuckle. “There are lots better than me.”
“You’re too modest,” he replied gently. “Let’s have lunch sometime soon.” He gave a lopsided smile. “All right, Ben?”
“I’m sorry, Alex. I’m flattered-but I’m afraid I’m not interested. My loss.”
Truslow looked directly at me with his sad brown eyes. They reminded me of a basset hound’s. He shrugged, and shook my hand again.
“Then it’s my loss, Ben,” he said, smiled forlornly, and disappeared into the back of a black Lincoln limousine.
I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that it wouldn’t end there. But I could not help thinking it odd that he would want to hire me, and by the time I understood why, it was too late.
PART I: THE CORPORATION
THE INDEPENDENT
Is Germany on the Verge of Collapse?
FROM NIGEL CLEMONS IN BONN
In the bleak months since the stock market crash that has plunged Germany into its worst economic and political crisis since the 1920s, many here have come to believe that this country, once Europe’s powerhouse, is on the verge of collapse.
In a violent demonstration yesterday in Leipzig, over one hundred thousand people protested the economic privation, plummeting standard of living, and sudden loss of thousands of jobs throughout the nation. There were even widespread calls for a dictator to restore Germany to its former greatness.
In recent days there have been food riots in Berlin, outbreaks of neo-Nazi and right-wing extremist terrorism, as well as an enormous rise in street crimes especially in what was formerly West Germany. The nation is nearing the end of a fiercely contested election of the next chancellor, and ten days ago the head of the Christian Democratic Party was assassinated.
Government sources here continue to blame the recent German crash on the global recession as well as on the fragility of the recently integrated national stock market, the Deutsche Börse.
Some observers pointedly recall that the last economic crisis of this magnitude, during the Weimar era, gave rise to Adolf Hitler.
ONE
The law offices of Putnam & Stearns are located in the narrow streets of Boston’s financial district, amid granite-fronted bank buildings: Boston’s version of Wall Street, with fewer bars. Our offices occupy two floors of a handsome old building on Federal Street, on the ground floor of which is a respectable old Brahmin bank famous for laundering money for the Mafia.
Putnam & Stearns, I should probably explain at this point, is one of the CIA’s “outside” law firms. It’s all perfectly legitimate; it doesn’t violate the Agency’s charter (which prohibits them from domestic shenanigans; international shenanigans are apparently okay). Fairly often, the CIA requires legal counsel in matters involving, say, immigration and naturalization (if they’re trying to spirit an intelligence defector into the country) or real estate (if they need to acquire property, a safe house, or an office or anything else that can’t be traced to Langley). Or, and this is Bill Stearns’s particular expertise, moving funds around, in and out of numbered accounts in Luxembourg or Zurich or Grand Cayman.
Putnam & Stearns, though, does a lot more than the CIA’s dirty work. It’s a general practice, white-shoe firm comprising some thirty lawyers, twelve partners, who practice a range of law from corporate litigation to real estate to divorce to estates to tax to intellectual property.
That last item, intellectual property, is my specialty: patents and copyrights, who invented what, who stole whose invention. You remember a few years back when a famous sneaker manufacturer came up with a gimmick that allowed the wearer to pump the shoe up with air, for a cost of a mere hundred and fifty dollars a pair. That was my handiwork-the legal work, I mean; I devised an ironclad patent, or as ironclad as you can realistically get.
For the last several months I had been keeping twenty-four large dolls in my office, which no doubt disconcerted my stuffier clients. I was helping a toy manufacturer out in Western Massachusetts defend his Big Baby Doll line of products. You probably haven’t heard of Big Baby Dolls. This is because the claim was settled against my client; I’m not proud of it. I did much better restraining a cookie company from using in its TV ads a little animated creature that suspiciously resembled the Pillsbury Doughboy.
I was one of two intellectual-property lawyers at Putnam & Stearns, which officially makes us a “department,” if you count the paralegals and legal secretaries and all that. This means the firm gets to advertise that we’re a full-service legal corporation, here to handle all your needs, even your copyrights and your patents. All your legal needs serviced under one roof. One-stop shopping.
I was considered a good attorney, but not because I loved it or took much interest in it. After all, as the old saw has it, lawyers are the only persons in whom ignorance of the law is not punished.
Instead, I am blessed with a rare neurological gift, present in less than 0.1 percent of the population: an eidetic (or photographic, as it’s colloquially known) memory. It doesn’t make me smarter than anyone else, but it certainly made my life easier in college and law school, when it came time to memorize a passage or a case. I can see the page, as if it were a picture, in my mind. This capability is not something I generally let people know about. It’s not the sort of thing that wins you many friends. And yet it is so much a part of who I am, and always has been, that I must constantly be mindful not to let it set me apart from others.
To their credit, the founding partners, Bill Stearns and the late James Putnam, spent nearly their entire earnings their first few years on interior decoration. The office, all Persian rugs and fragile antiques from the Regency period, exudes a stifling, hushed elegance. Even the ring of the telephone is muted. The receptionist, who’s (naturally) English, sits at an antique library table whose surface is polished to a high gloss. I have seen clients, real estate moguls who in their own lairs strut around barking orders to their minions, walk into our reception area as cowed and discomfited as chastened schoolboys.
It was a little over a month since Hal Sinclair’s funeral, and I was rushing to a meeting in my own office. I passed Ken McElvoy, a junior partner who had been enmeshed in some unspeakably dull corporate litigation for almost six months. He was carrying a huge stack of depositions and looked miserable, like some wretch out of Bleak House or something. I gave poor Dickensian McElvoy a smile and headed for my office.
My secretary, Darlene, gave me a quick wave, and said: “Everyone’s there.”
Darlene is the funkiest person in this firm, which isn’t hard to accomplish. She usually wears all black. Her hair is dyed a jet black; her eye shadow is midnight blue. But she’s fiercely efficient, so I don’t give her any grief.
I had called this meeting to resolve a dispute that had been carried out through the mail for more than six months. The matter concerned an exercise machine called the Alpine Ski, a magnificently designed device that simulates downhill skiing, giving the user not only the aerobic benefits you get from something like the NordicTrack, but at the same time, a serious muscular workout.