Ariel's Island Read online

  “They didn’t.”

  My lady in the top corner was now nodding conspicuously whenever I made a point. But she was only one of six. Some of the others were cutting their eyes toward Cabrini, trying to gauge his response to my argument, but he was too much a professional to let them know I had even drawn a nod, much less drawn blood.

  “You are left with only one conclusion, that SyCorAx stole Milano’s secrets. All those print outs—stolen. All those formulas—stolen. Now I don’t have to prove how SyCorAx stole these secrets, how SyCorAx came in possession of something so protected that only Milano scientists had access to it. Only SyCorAx knows how it came in possession of these secrets, and so far it has refused to tell you. But I am confident what His Honor will tell you; His Honor will tell you that SyCorAx has to prove it got these secrets legitimately. SyCorAx has absolutely failed to do so. And with that failure, SyCorAx’s case fails as well.

  “So now the fate of Milano Corporation, the fate of millions who suffer from HIV, and the fate of others whose diseases have yet to find a cure, are up to you. I ask you to keep these patents out of the hands of SyCorAx, assure access to these drugs to all, and give hope to future generations that only Milano Corporation can bring. The health and welfare of millions of Americans cannot be entrusted to the Skinks and SyCorAxes of the world. I ask you to render your verdict for Milano Corporation. Thank you for your attention.”

  Cabrini’s rebuttal was short and ineffective; the Court’s charge, tedious and long. Yet the worst part of any trial for me is the jury’s deliberation. Before the jury goes out, there is always something else I feel I can do for my case, call another witness, make another motion, advance another argument, but once the jury withdraws, it is out of my hands and into the hands of a group of strangers picked because they know absolutely nothing of the virtue of my cause. Many lawyers find it comforting when their work is finally over. It scares the hell out of me. And, in spite of all I had done to win, when the jury went out in the case of SyCorAx, Ltd., v. Milano Corporation, it was the same as always.

  I chose to remain in the courtroom, hoping for an early verdict as everyone else departed. Legal lore has it that an early verdict is a defense verdict, though many a defense lawyer has been shocked by a quick and stunning award for the plaintiff. You just never know. A law-school colleague of mine who now does criminal defense work says that a long deliberation only means that the jury has called out for more donuts.

  The quiet courtroom betrayed the intensity of the battle that had taken place here over the last several days. Papers were strewn over counsel tables; flip charts dangled on easels before the now-deserted jury box, numbers and graphs hurriedly scribbled over torn pages; banker’s boxes of exhibits, computers, statute books, briefcases were all haphazardly lying about, no more need to maintain even the appearance of order.

  The bailiff drifted in and out. A massive headache came on and settled behind my eyes. The courtroom clock audibly clicked off the seconds. Minutes, then an hour, then another passed. I dozed on and off in my chair.

  A hard knock of a gavel and a geyser of adrenaline shot through me, instantly relieving me of my headache. The jury has come back. It had been a few minutes short of three hours. Too long for me.

  “All rise.”

  I was the only one in the courtroom.

  Judge Richards addressed me directly.

  “Mr. McDaniel, I have been informed by the bailiff that the jury has reached a verdict. Have your client in the courtroom in thirty minutes. The clerk will notify the Plaintiff. We will be adjourned until four o’clock.”

  By ten till four the courtroom had sprung back to life, spectators, reporters in back, law clerks, court reporter, the bailiff down in front, and Enzo by my side, tight-jawed. Cabrini and the SyCorAx executives were relaxed, smiling. The judge’s entry brought us all to our feet.

  “Bailiff, bring in the jury.”

  At this point my chest was constricted and my breathing was short, but I did my best to radiate confidence.

  “Has the jury reached a verdict?”

  “Yes, it has, Your Honor.” The foreperson was an elderly gentleman who sat in the front of the box. Every time I had spoken he had wrinkled his nose as if I gave off a bad smell. It was not a good sign. He had been elected by the other jurors to organize their deliberations and, in the end, to speak for them. I wondered what had happened to juror number three, the lady in the top corner of the box. Now when I tried to make eye contact with her she looked down. At that my knees got weak, and I held the back of my chair for support.

  “Please hand the verdict form to the bailiff, and the bailiff will bring it to me.”

  “The verdict appears in order. The clerk will publish the verdict.”

  “The case of SyCorAx, Ltd., v. Milano Corporation. We the jury find for the Defendant on all counts.”

  Those were the sweetest words I had ever heard. And then I could hear little else other than the judge adjourning the case and Enzo instantly on his cell phone, no doubt calling his father half-way across the world to tell him the news. Cabrini and his crew slunk out without a word, Cabrini not even offering me the handshake due the victor, acting more like a peevish futbol star than an officer of the court.

  All rules now relaxed in the decompression that ensued, I grabbed the foreperson before he left to ask what argument, what evidence, had carried the day. Lawyers are trained to believe that their every word and gesture in front of a jury has profound significance, that what they do and say determines their client’s fortune, and in the most extreme situations, their life and death. I was certain he would tell me it was my brilliant closing that won it.

  “Well, I have to tell ya, we just didn’t believe SyCorAx or that other fella Cabrini. They were just too slick.”

  He paused as though he was letting me in on a secret and leaned close.

  “But we sure had a hard time convincing one lady on the jury, a professor. She thought there was too much evidence in favor of SyCorAx. She finally agreed with the rest of us that we just couldn’t believe ‘em.”

  So much for Strange & Fowler’s expensive jury research.

  Perhaps perceiving some disappointment on my part, he volunteered that had Milano made a counterclaim against SyCorAx, several on the jury would have awarded Milano millions in damages for the indignity of having to respond to its outrageous charges. Then he shook his head.

  “But I don’t think the professor woulda gone along with that.”

  Two days after the verdict, my fortunes at the firm now secure, I drove out of a Porsche dealership with a new 911 Carrera, paid for in full by the bonus I got for winning the Milano case. Mom was comfortably residing at some fancy addiction center in the mountains, and I was heading down the coast, invited by William Fowler for a weekend at his home on Frederica Island. My victory gave me every reason to expect that he had called me to his beach house to offer partnership in the firm. But I had my doubts. I always had my doubts that someone like me, without the blue-blood background seemingly required of Strange & Fowler partners, could ever make the cut.

  Four

  Rain was coming down so hard my windshield wipers were useless. Navigating by the lights of the Frederica Island guard house, just on the mainland side of the bridge, I pulled under the portico, turned off the radio that was blaring the final riffs of Stairway to Heaven, and lowered my window. Cold water dripped on my arm as I leaned out to address the guard, motionless at his station.

  “I’m visiting William Fowler.”

  The guard disappeared. Several cameras aimed and focused from the ceiling; strobe lights flashed on the rear, sides, and front of my car. The guard returned holding a printed pass.

  “May I see some identification?”

  I produced my driver’s license. The guard studied my picture and my face, then handed me a pass. I placed it on the dashboard and noted the license
number, color, make, model, and VIN of my 911 had all been gleaned by the cameras and printed on the card. Contrary to the Orwellian chill that the intrusive security measures gave me, the guard’s mood changed from icy to warm once I was identified, and he welcomed me as though I had just become a member of the club.

  “Mr. McDaniel, my name is James. Mr. Fowler’s expecting you. Turn right at Third Street. Fowler Cottage is at the end on the right. You let me know if there is anything I can do for you while you are here on the island.”

  “Cottage.” The term fools the uninitiated. It’s one of many signs that Frederica Island is a place to itself. It was no mistake that the G-8 Economic Summit was held here, with the President of the United States hosting the leaders of the world’s richest nations in the cottages of Frederica Island, a few miles off the coast of Georgia. Frederica Island cottages are out of reach for all but a few. Even a small ocean-front home would cost millions to buy, if only one could. Cottages are passed down in prominent families for generations, the value of the island real estate going up each year as reliably as the interest on a trust fund.

  I realized as soon as I arrived that I had left the shabby world I came from and had entered another of privileged perfection. From the mainland I crossed a series of bridges that span the still-pristine Marshes of Glynn, celebrated by the poet Sidney Lanier as “a world of marsh that borders a world of sea,” separating the continent from the barrier islands. I turned onto a narrow two-lane causeway, which ran through a tunnel of grey-bearded live oaks and gnarled cedars leading over the tidelands. Three-hundred years ago this had been the site of the Battle of Bloody Marsh, where the British commander James Edward Oglethorpe, a regiment of Scottish Highlanders, and their native Muscogee allies had turned back the forces of the King of Spain, as though this island alone were worth the price of the blood and treasure of an empire. To this day the Scots’ sacrifice is commemorated every evening on Frederica Island by a kilted bagpiper saluting the setting sun. Today the storm must have made that otherwise pleasant duty a miserable one.

  I passed the guardhouse and crossed the cobblestone bridge over St. Simons estuary onto Frederica Island. The rain had slacked only a little as I turned onto Third. All that marked the entrance to Fowler’s cottage was a brass plaque at the gate in a high brick wall that was almost completely covered in thick green foliage. The wall, coupled with heavy, hanging live-oak limbs, made the cottage nearly invisible from the narrow road. I pulled into the circular drive behind a three-story Tuscan villa—rough stone, wrought iron, and clay tile, huge terra cotta pots of citrus trees and tropical flowers.

  Though my meeting with the senior partner of Strange & Fowler was supposed to be purely business, for me it was intensely personal. This meeting could transform my life.

  I had toiled, unremitted, at Strange & Fowler since law school—successful by every measure—and now with the victory of the Milano trial only days behind me, I was seeking my reward. For me the exorbitant salary, a share of firm profits, and the prestige of partnership seemed the contemporary equivalent of being dubbed a knight of the realm. Yet, even with success, I strained to subdue my own peculiar doubts. I harbored the insecurity that poverty breeds, always trying to prove, if to none other than myself, that I was the equal of anyone whose birth had given them a status I felt I could never achieve. With all the outward assurance I was able to muster, at this moment I was nearly overwhelmed with uncertainty, the feeling that I was an impostor—not just unworthy, but a fraud soon to be discovered.

  Fowler opened the door himself before I reached the porch. He greeted me with his arms wide, a broad grin, and a slap on the back, like I had just shown up at a frat party—and I was the one with the keg.

  “Paul, come on in and get out of the rain! I can’t have you catching pneumonia.”

  “Thank you, Sir. Some storm.” I tried my best to shake the rain off my jacket onto the steps and not onto the Persian rug in the dimly lit entry hall, which was illuminated only by spotlights on the gallery of gilt-framed portraits lining the walls.

  “I was afraid the weather was going to delay you. I should have known a little rain wasn’t going to slow you down. Not in that new car of yours.”

  “Yes, Sir. A present to myself for winning the trial.”

  “Well deserved. Let’s go to the study and have a drink. You like bourbon?”

  “Whatever you’re having is fine with me.”

  Fowler directed me to a room off the main entry hall and nodded to a wizened man, uniformed in grey and white, who was standing silent in the hallway nearby. He disappeared without a word.

  The study was small and stuffed. Its walls were lined to the ceiling in books, mismatched and worn: some with tattered dust jackets and others with scuffed leather bindings; some lying sideways, others on top of each other; many with markers sticking from their pages; all arranged in no order. Books selected by their owner to be read, not purchased by some vapid decorator for effect. Scattered among the books were at least a dozen framed photographs. In the corner was a modest desk. A cracked leather sofa and two upholstered chairs were arranged around a low table stacked with more books and pictures.

  One picture stood out. I picked it up. My drink appeared before me, golden liquid in cut crystal. I took a deep draft of the undiluted liquor and sank into the sofa, studying the photo.

  “Yes, that is President Walker. My wife took that picture of him and me right here in this room. The Walkers were our guests during the Summit. While he was here I reminded him that our grandfathers had worked together on an unusual project some years ago. He confessed that he had only heard the full story after he became President.”

  What I knew about Prescott Walker from newspaper stories and Beauregard Fowler from firm lore was that they were about as different as two human beings could be. Walker was a Connecticut Yankee, Fowler the son of an unreconstructed Rebel. Fowler must have read the question on my face. He continued.

  “They came from different worlds. Walker made his money on Wall Street, while my grandfather worked a cotton farm in South Georgia. With the little money my grandfather saved, he took a gamble on a company started by a druggist named Pemberton, one of his father’s fellow Confederates. The company made a drink that Pemberton eventually perfected and called Coca-Cola. My grandfather owned twenty percent of the company. Despite the rage against anything Northern that was bred in my grandfather’s breast, despite the disdain that the old money Walkers had for newly rich Southerners, by the time Fowler met Walker they found they had one very important thing in common: tremendous wealth. It was enough of a bond for the two of them to work together to save the sugar plantations in Cuba from Castro. Part of the plan was for my grandfather to help Walker get into the Senate, which he did just a year before Castro’s first unsuccessful attempt to overthrow Batista. Fowler and Walker were able to keep Coca-Cola’s Cuban plantations private, at least for a time, long enough for the company to find an alternative sweetener to cane sugar. So Coca-Cola continued to prosper, as did Walker, his Wall Street cronies, and his family, who, like my grandfather, were heavily invested in the company. The Walker and Fowler families have been linked ever since.”

  Fowler reached down to the table, picked up another silver-framed photo, and handed it to me. It was an aging snapshot of a thin, severe man in a dark suit seated at a desk, a demure servant girl stationed to the rear.

  “This your grandfather?”

  He nodded.

  “Taken at that desk in the corner, soon after he built this cottage. When he passed away I inherited the cottage. I’ve changed almost nothing, not even Oliver, who began working here as a young man late in my grandfather’s life. That’s Oliver’s mother behind my grandfather.” Fowler acknowledged the man who had fetched our drinks, who stood at the ready just outside our door. Oliver made a slight bow.

  “Paul, this cottage is a lot like Strange & Fowler. I inherited it, I h
ave changed little, and I intend to pass it along just that way. I would do anything for the firm. I expect all of my partners to have the same devotion.” He had been staring at his grandfather’s picture, but he turned his gaze directly at me. “They say that if you scratch the skin of any one of Atlanta’s founding institutions it will bleed Fowler blood.” I knew the Fowler family was tied to every major institution in the city, and I was certain it was no coincidence.

  “But we need new blood. That’s where you come in. The firm needs to promote men like you, smart and accomplished and unafraid to take risks. That’s why I personally reassigned the Milano case to you. And I watched how you handled yourself against Cabrini. Only a man with your combination of skill and confidence would have tried such a high-risk trial strategy.”

  “If it hadn’t worked out, I would have been burned in effigy at the next firm picnic.”

  “But it did work out. You marshaled a stunning victory. Nothing great is achieved without great risk. Not even my grandfather’s fortune was built without taking tremendous risks—risks that paid off handsomely, just like the risks you took in the trial, just like the risk I took in assigning you to handle the case.”

  Fowler usually didn’t hand out praise unless it was to impress a client, and I didn’t know how to respond. So I didn’t. I glanced away from his gaze, and when I looked back Fowler seemed to be staring right through me.

  “Paul, I want you to be a partner in Strange & Fowler. I have spoken to the Management Committee and they are in unanimous agreement. I have transferred one million dollars to an equity account established in your name.” It was an effort for me to keep my jaw from dropping, my eyes wide in amazement.

  The Equity Account. It sounds like a mere bookkeeping entry. But it represents a partner’s share of the profits of the firm. And in the instance of Strange & Fowler, these profits are from a firm that generates over a billion dollars in revenue annually. Even a small percentage of the profits on a billion dollars in revenue represents a very large amount of money.