Sailing Off the Edge of the World

CHAPTER 1

Only those who have no imagination appear as they seem, as they are inside; the rest of us, if we have any skill at all, present ourselves to the world as our own best invention. 

Example—I’ve been editing my autobiography for years, leaving out the bad parts while giving myself star billing in events I’d often only witnessed, sucking the marrow from the meat of other people’s triumphs or tragedies for my own ends. I fancied myself the author of my own existence, of reality itself. It’s like how people say that some of us create our own luck. 

So far, no one’s caught me at my little game. But, deep down, I know it will take more than skill or manufactured luck to keep up the charade. Time is short for me to accomplish what I must here in Washington, before someone in a position to do something about me finds out they’ve let a dead-eyed shark into their swimming pool. Hell, for all I know, it may already be too late.

In less fanciful terms I merely polished up my past, elevating a third-tier law school experience in Maryland to one of those lesser-known, yet still well regarded, schools on the west coast. If pressed, my subterfuge came complete with a forged transcript and other documents to support the story. On the whole I thought it less likely I’d bump into a fellow alum here in Washington if I chose a school three thousand miles away, but let’s face it, the world is getting smaller every day. I can be pretty naive at times, I guess, for a reality creator such as myself. 

Again: it has worked well so far, this authorship of a life. So far, I’ve found success at selling this version of myself in Washington on K Street; whichever version I happened to be, whichever self I needed to become as circumstances warranted, that is who appears before you. But when this method finally stops working, as my gut tells me it will, well… I guess I’ll be the first person to find out the bad news.

But look at how serious I take my subterfuge: I even changed my own name. Well, not changed; altered is perhaps more accurate. I dropped my surname and added an S to my middle—Paul Johns. Somehow this sounded more like the real me than my given name, which had come from a father I’d been meaning to forget, as he had forgotten me, for as long as I could remember. 

I’ve always surprised at how easily I  get away with such deceptions, which I display like shiny objects. People are understandably reluctant to press about one’s past. It seems rude, somehow. It’s like the news anchors on TV—they can sell any story, make any set of alleged facts sound true. That’s show biz.

And, if you think newsreaders are good at fudging the truth, consider the litigator in the courtroom. As a lawyer, at the necessity of cultivating such an ability goes without saying. A zealous defense, let’s say, calls for serious salesmanship. You’ve all watched courtroom dramas. The real version is much more dry and boring, but it’s still mostly performance art. Ask any lawyer. They’ll tell you, unless, of course, you’re one of the profane who isn’t in the club; if you’re one of the regular folks whose ignorance of how the privileged world of power truly works predicates the successful functioning of such a world, allowing those with all the toys to hold onto them. 

Participating in such a scheme doesn’t make me proud, no, far from it. My biggest problem is figuring out how I get myself some of those toys, which are still out of reach for a young associate such as myself. I would worry about how to keep all the spoils I sought later. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, here.

Still, with all that bright, glimmering falsehood piled in my corner, I hadn’t made much progress at Cantor and Miller. Despite his advocacy in getting me the position, working with Ben Schiller in criminal law had gotten me nowhere fast. Yes; I’m impatient. I will admit that seeing all the wealth around me in D. C. has done a number on my head. 

But in the space of a brief phone call, I suddenly didn’t need to worry about Ben anymore, nor his advocacy and the security it provided at work, and maybe not even work at all. Luck, from wherever its source, can be a fickle lady indeed:

Ben’s wife Pamela, whom I knew well enough to have been in bed with her on a number of occasions, was the first to call with the news. She said my advocate at Cantor & Miller had suffered a heart attack at dinner the previous evening. 

Early this morning Ben died... in the hospital, she added, sounding numb. It was too late.

I found it difficult to tell over the phone whether she had been numbed by the suddenness, or simply felt relieved at the brief drama of his life’s end. Given our situation—the affair we’d been having—a little of both were possible. 

Do you want me to come over there?

God, no, she said, aghast, and hung up.

Right—Ben and I weren’t that close. My presence would have seemed odd. Or, perhaps merely as a bringer of guilt. 

Either way I got it, taking no offense. Had she made love with her husband one more time before he died? I’m not a monster. I can imagine how rotten a feeling it must be for someone now with neither a spouse nor a sympathetic lover.

The worst part of it all? For me? Ben had brought me into the firm. Worse yet, my hiring had been over the objection of at least one of the other junior partners, or so I’d heard. Now that Ben was dead, I would be let go. And soon, too.

Either way, I would also have to stop seeing Pamela. It was one thing to dabble in a rather lazy affair with another man’s wife, but it would be another entirely to frolic with his widow. Besides, I genuinely liked Ben, and had enjoyed our time working together. I would have to find another job soon, so there would be little time to console her. 

The phone rang again. Pamela. 

I’m sorry for hanging up. What you suggested seemed—awful.

Understood. You’re in shock. We both are.

Yes—I can’t believe this. I can’t believe any of it. I’m dreaming. Am I dreaming?

I didn’t know, but my own dream would end the second I got to the office. And that’s the whole of what was really on my mind.

On the surface, it also felt hypocritical to start talking about how much we would both miss Ben, so we moved on to more practical matters. 

Can you look into Ben’s life insurance today?

I said I would, and asked if she had immediate concerns about her finances.

After a hearty laugh she said, Other than the two mortgages and empty savings account? Not at all. 

That sounded like Ben, who liked spending big and living large. 

A surge of panic—I hoped she wasn’t about to ask to borrow money. As a junior associate I didn’t have any to give, but it would be awkward all the same to tell her I couldn’t help.

No question about it: I would have to break this off sooner rather than later. It was a matter of timing, really. I’d wait until a few days after the funeral; that seemed a decent enough interval. From her tone, I already suspected she would be more than amenable to my motion before the relationship court. There had been little love between us, only raw animal passion. And if I’ve learned anything from relationships, sex alone offers an inadequate hook on which to hang a pair of hats.

I had been at my desk only twenty minutes when Mr. Cantor’s assistant rang to say he wanted me in his office immediately. It certainly hadn’t taken them long to decide to fire me. Sometimes I get tired of being right all the time.

Mr. Cantor, one of the two founding partners at Cantor and Miller, did seem to like me, however, and so maybe I had him in my corner. And while I saw him enough at work and had been to his town house for the obligatory New Year’s Eve party, we didn’t really know each other. But in any case, around the office it was Miller, known as The Guillotine, who  performed any bloodletting. I was surprised and curious, then, that it was Mr. Cantor who had called to give me the boot. 

The door to his office was open. I went in and stood waiting for him to notice me. 

He seemed surprised by my appearance in his doorway. As though he had to search for my name: Yes—Paul?

I hoped he couldn’t see my jangled nerves. I had risked everything to get this job, and now here it was slipping away already. You asked for me, Mr. Cantor.   

His eyes held a curious sheen. A moment to finish this, please. 

With that he went back to reading his messages, a small snowdrift on his desk which had accumulated during his recent vacation. He had a deep tan, the kind you only get from days at the shore. His voice had a Virginia softness about it that invited one to listen close and with care. It was the voice of a man who expected to be heard the first time. He exuded dignity, money, power. Everything I wanted.

While my boss made me wait like a servant, I surveyed the photos on the wall behind his desk, which included a black and white photograph of a navy destroyer. Ben had told me how proud Mr. Cantor was of having been a naval officer. I would remember to speak with admiration of our men in uniform and the armed services they provide. Cantor’s appearance even suggested a military bearing. He kept his hair cut in a near-flattop, was in trim shape, rose each day at 5am, he said, as he had done as a young enlisted man. Discipline makes the difference, he had been heard to repeat like a meditation mantra. 

On the wall across from me hung documents of more recent times, a collage of signed photographs of Mr. Cantor with various congressmen and senators, a personal history of power-playing going back twenty-plus years. But no matter where my vision fell, I did not find a photo of Elizabeth Cantor, his wife. 

After several minutes of watching him grunt and scrutinize his messages, I cleared my throat to remind my employer I was still there. We both knew what this was about, so I saw  little reason to drag it out. Put the blindfold on; let me have a last cigarette, ready, aim… fired. 

Mr. Cantor screwed the cap onto his pen and laid it down with great care, like a jeweler putting a fine ring back into its case. He performed even the most ordinary tasks with great deliberation, indeed, a discipline and economy of movement I studied with great interest.

His mouth, dry, crackled as he at last spoke. I’m sorry to have to tell you this news. He paused to take a sip of water from a tumbler at his elbow. But, our friend and colleague Ben Schiller, well—he passed away this morning.

It wouldn’t do to say his widow had already telephoned from the hospital, so I feigned surprise. As I sunk down onto the sofa I asked about the details with what I hoped sounded like the right note of shock tinged with sadness.

Heart attack. Mr. Cantor, appropriately rueful, leaned back and lit a cigarette, even though smoking had long been disallowed in the building. But hearing of such an outcome only makes me want another one of these. Do you smoke?

On occasion.

You should quit altogether, then, as rich menthol smoke plumed from his nostrils and he put away the pack, if you aren’t hooked.

I’m stunned to hear about Mr. Schiller. And I was sorry, even though I was more concerned about where I would find another job than the death of my friend Ben. He'd been a heart attack waiting to happen. But Ben was the past, and I now needed a new advocate at the firm. Who better than a full partner? What do you need me to handle?

Mr. Cantor smiled. I like a man who doesn’t dwell on sentiment, not when there is business waiting to be conducted. I’d say Jenkins needs your attention first.

I’ll let the court know that we’ll need to reschedule the trial, an embezzlement case. 

I considered asking about Mrs. Schiller, but doing so could invite trouble—rumors of the affair may have reached Mr. Cantor. A law firm is in many ways like a small town, where gossip spreads like a bad cold in a classroom of children.

You worked with Ben doing criminal defense for almost a year now, isn’t it? 

I noticed Mr. Cantor used the past tense. How quickly Ben had slipped into history, and I guessed I was about to follow right after him. This was bad—the mourning period for Ben, all of five minutes, seemed officially over. He’d never been a particularly big earner at the firm, so I supposed public expressions of grief would be kept to a minimum. Yes, it will be a year in April. 

Mr. Cantor tamped out his cigarette and waved a hand to clear away the smoke. A whole year, he said, without irony. How about that.

Here it comes, I thought. I could feel sweat gathering on my upper lip, but I didn’t dare wipe it away. 

With Ben gone—well. There really isn’t a position here for you doing criminal work, Paul.    

I could almost hear the firing squad loading their rifles. I hadn’t considered that, I said, lying. I guess I’m still overwhelmed by his passing.

A tragedy—we’ll all miss Ben. Certainly. 

No one more than me.

And of course the firm must carry on best it can. Mr. Cantor smiled without reassurance, and I smiled back because that’s what men do in these situations. It lets the other fellow know you aren’t going all warm and gooey over a trivial event in the grand scheme like the death of a colleague. Like the old joke says, even five hundred dead lawyers at the bottom of the ocean would make but an excellent start.

At last Eric Cantor got down to business:

I’m sure you know TateAir is our biggest client and, as luck would have it— He paused to again drink water, three big swallows. I think you, among all of us here at the firm, may be in a unique position to do our client a good turn.

The firing squad seemed to stand down. Could I take off my blindfold now? I’m afraid I don’t understand. 

Cantor seemed amused. Sure you do. 

Confusion and relief swirled in my head like bats in an attic. I let myself relax for the first time and ease back into the red leather couch facing his desk. I could see almost all the way to Georgetown through the large window behind my boss. The nation’s capitol lay all around us. We were at the center of the world, or at least everyone in DC acted that way.

As you’ve no doubt heard, my friend Jack Tate, at seventy-three, has had an epiphany of some sort. The result is a wish to sell his airline; the wisdom of doing so is not for us to say. What you may not have heard is that we’ve found a buyer.

The deal would be sweet for the firm. Rumors had swirled about who would benefit most. I told him I had not heard of a buyer, probably the first true thing I’d said. What would a stakeholder ask? 

Is it the buyer we want?

He chuckled and said, yes, he thought so. But, here’s the rub: like a cross-country pilot, we’ve run into a bit of a headwind. And it’s at the FAA. 

My anxiety began to return. Perhaps I had taken my blindfold off too soon. I knew now where this was leading, but I feigned ignorance. What can we do about that?

Mr. Cantor eyed his half-cigarette in the cut glass ashtray, licked his lips, thought better of lighting another. Now, as we do compile dossiers on our young lawyers—their hobbies, the clubs they belong to, things like that—I happen to know you have a connection at the agency. 

I can’t help feeling a little odd at being surveilled.

As though background checks aren’t a part of everyone’s life now. It’s good business. We never know when an outside interest of one of the associates might enhance our value to a client.

I already knew where this was going, but still played dumb. And in my case—?

Mr. Cantor, with a quizzical frown, leaned across his desk. Is your sister not married to an FAA functionary named Arthur Peck? I believe that she is, answering his own question. Yes, I do believe she is.

Arthur was a mid-level bureaucrat at the FAA. One didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to see where this was going. The firm’s private investigators had done their job and turned up a shiny penny. The thought of it all chilled me to the bone—what about the rest of my history? I had never mentioned Arthur to Ben, not that I recalled. They just knew, Mr. Cantor and Ben. Maybe they went over my dossier together. The more I thought about it, of course they did.

The thought then crossed my mind that Ben might also have known about the affair. Well, if he did, he never let on. It started about five minutes after I showed up, so I felt like only a player in an ongoing drama. His demeanor had been uniformly warm up until our last lunch.

Maybe he didn’t give a damn what she did. They’d been married for over twenty years, and you wonder in some marriages if those things don’t matter so much, not after all that time. 

Further, he had a history of heart problems; she said it had been years since they’d slept together. But of course she would say that. Such a rationalization, true or not, assuaged the guilt Pamela had at times displayed.

I felt guilty as hell, too. Sure. Ben, a friend. How could I not? I owed him my whole career. And yet…

There was another possibility, though. Maybe Cantor had known about Arthur all the time, and that’s why he let Ben hire me. Perhaps there had been no need for me to tell all those lies about where I had gone to law school and done my clerkship. 

Or maybe it was my willingness to lie which had convinced them I was their man. Someone who would lie on his resume wouldn’t think twice about compromising his brother-in-law. 

I was starting to wonder who had fooled whom.

Mr. Cantor seemed a little disappointed he had to lay all this out to me in such minute detail. Good connections, Paul, are quite valuable in this town. Like strands of gold.

I’m aware of this.

Of course you are. He smiled. It’s not like a mission in the jungle. All we’d like you to do is wrangle information out of Mr. Peck regarding the holdup of the TateAir merger. Simple as that.

My brother-in-law would take some handling, at least with the lip service he paid to his ‘duty’ as a public servant, one rather proud of his position. I would have to tread carefully. Arthur’s scrupulous about conflicts of interest. 

As we knew about your relationship to him, this is another fact of which we’re aware.

Clarity descended like an angel—Cantor and Miller needed a double-agent who could manipulate an underpaid bureaucrat into granting their petition. Having already demonstrated my willingness to do pretty much whatever it took to get this job, I wondered: 

Maybe they’re on to me. Have been the whole time. 

Herein lay a bit of trouble with little fabrications such as the ones I’ve engineered about myself. One is never quite sure who knows which truth. 

Mr. Cantor, with a wave of his hand, hoped to make any objections disappear as he had done with the smoke from his cigarette. Now, I can see your inner sense of conflict. But, we don’t peddle influence here. 

So what is it you want me to do?

We require our client’s point of view put before the people who need to hear it—the right people. Certainly, Mr. Peck wouldn’t object to such a fair-minded, by-the-book proposal?

No, I don’t think he could justify doing so.

Cantor’s veil of conviviality cooled into the stony gray face of a statue. Well, he has found enough reasons for doing so thus far. And we’ve got to do, you and I, is chip away at this pernicious resistance—it simply won’t do.

I mulled the situation: The second I bring up the merger, Arthur will object. He’s married now, though. And my sister, well, she wants a house in a place like Potomac, they could never afford. Not on his bureaucrat’s salary. 

I told Cantor I felt quite certain Arthur would be something of a problem,  but he was also a person who sometimes expressed feelings that the world hadn’t quite appreciated him fully. It’s the disappointments we suffer in life, even the imagined ones, that make us vulnerable.

Now that’s a piece of information we didn’t have. His grin split his face like a triumphant rising sun. An important one. 

Our tone became officious. I can’t guarantee any miracles—

—no—

—but I’ll certainly speak to him about it. 

Just make sure he knows why we believe this merger is good not only for the airline industry, but for the public. And the country. 

Mr. Cantor came around from behind his desk and joined me on the couch. You’ll be working  with Enid Pearl over in M&A. She’s handling the tax side of things, but I think she could use a little help from someone like you—a person who knows how things operate in the real world. 

A coldness settled in