Justice Denied: A Personal Requiem

By Roger E Lawrence

This is a true biographical story of a young lawyer, Roger Lawrence, who came from a solid middle-class background. He had a consuming fire to grab the brass ring and join the country's power elite. The story ommences with the first day of his trial for fraud; fraud that the State will allege involves the sum of hundreds of millions of dollars. Roger's accusers are the IRS*. They know that their case against him and his co-defendants is false and full of obvious and fatal flaws. The trial is for Roger Lawrence and others, but they are only the minor players in a war of titans. The IRS's real target is an elusive and mysterious man who lives in small town USA

Dara Wilder is their true adversary. He has singlehandedly deprived the IRS of more than a hundred million dollars in tax revenues by taking advantage of an ill thought out tax credit program developed by the Federal government to encourage the country's poor research and development efforts. The program has been wildly successful. The nation's monied elite and top corporations have found in this program a way to, with the stroke of a pen and money borrowed from the country's most powerful banks for an hour or so, dramatically reduce their taxes. In country club-like catered affairs in the boardrooms of prestigious law firms, they are making tens of millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars that would otherwise go to the IRS.

Through Roger Lawrence and Michael Richards, an ex-IRS and now private practice tax accountant, Wilder learned that he did not have to spend a dime to incur hundreds of millions of dollars of research and development expenditures. The public and corporate citizens would pay him thirty (30%) per cent and require no repayment, shares or involvement of any kind. It was free money. Wilder did one deal after another with dizzying speed and soon became one of the country's largest research and development organizations. All without spending a dime. Left unchecked, his next gambit was to raise billions, at the government's expense, by offering to commercially mine the Moon.

*IRS is not the actual taxation agency

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Oct 16, 2020
• ISBN: 9781777239923

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A Personal Requiem

Roger E Lawrence

Justice Denied: A Personal Requiem

Copyright © 2020 by Roger E Lawrence

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Tellwell Talent

www.tellwell.ca

ISBN

978-1-7772399-4-7 (Hardcover)

978-1-7772399-1-6 (Paperback)

978-1-7772399-2-3 (eBook)

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

DEDICATION

THIS BOOK IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED TO:

Donna Anne Crawford the one true love of my life who gave me everything and deserved so much more of me.

There once was a time in Camelot…

JUSTICE DENIED: A PERSONAL REQUIEM SUMMARY SYNOPSIS

Note: The names of the main characters in the novel and herein are of real persons while names of others have been changed. No consents have been sought or obtained. Fair comment and truth are the bases for any potential need of a legal defence.

This is a true biographical story of a young lawyer, Roger Lawrence, who came from a solid middle class background. He had a consuming fire to grab the brass ring and join the country’s power elite. The story commences with the first day of his trial for fraud; fraud that the State will allege involves the sum of hundreds of millions of dollars. Roger’s accusers are the IRS*. They know that their case against him and his co-defendants is false and full of obvious and fatal flaws. The trial is for Roger Lawrence and others, but they are only the minor players in a war of titans. The IRS’s real target is an elusive and mysterious man who lives in small town USA*

Dara Wilder is their true adversary. He has singlehandedly deprived the IRS of more than a hundred million dollars in lost tax revenues by taking advantage of an ill thought out tax credit program developed by the Federal government to encourage the country’s poor research and development efforts. The program has been wildly successful. The nation’s moneyed elite and top corporations have found in this program a way to, with the stroke of a pen and money borrowed from the country’s most powerful banks for an hour or so, dramatically reduce their taxes. In country club-like catered affairs in the boardrooms of prestigious law firms, they are making tens of millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars that would otherwise go to the IRS.

The IRS has seen the flood of special tax forms come in from these closings; closings are occurring with alarming frequency from all cities across the nation. The IRS had been apprised of the program as the politicians drafted it and brought it into law. The IRS had not wanted to be involved in the program and declined any administrative or watchdog role offered to it. Now after only a few months of the program’s life, the Federal Treasury had a gaping hole in it and it was, as if the IRS saw itself hemorrhaging. The blood was green, but they saw red. The program had to be brought to an abrupt end and some means developed to recover the lost tax revenues, now estimated to be in the billions of dollars.

The IRS, which always operates under a siege-like mentality, brought the Administration and other politicians to heel. Highest level telephone calls were exchanged and meetings held. The IRS presented the numbers to the disbelieving politicians and spooked them as was their plan. The program was now given special attention and in an address, to the public and nation as a whole, it was cancelled. Before it had been cancelled however, Mr. and Mrs. America had joined the nation’s elite at the trough and bought their tax credits too. The program had gone much too far; it had been used, and happily so, by middle class America. The backbone of America had been allowed to sit at a table normally reserved for the nation’s elite; they had eaten from the table and liked what they had.

The IRS was faced with a dilemma. It could not, due to the political consequences, disallow the tax credits and force taxpayers to pay the taxes they had legitimately avoided. The IRS resolved to pursue those who had sold the tax credits to so many. They were after the serpent who had given the apple to the innocent Adam and Eve. Their numbers were few and they still had all the monies raised or assets that could be sold by the IRS to recover any money shortages that might arise, or so the IRS thought.

So began a campaign to disgorge those spoils and return them to the national Treasury. Resistance for the most part was non-existent as the IRS bogey-men scared most into returning the monies to the IRS. Not all scared so easily; Dara Wilder was a man who would not be intimidated. Wilder had surprised the IRS by his resolve and further, as they would later find out, by his movement of the monies around and out of reach of the IRS. Wilder further complicated the picture by entering into a plethora of contracts with other companies and individuals to do the various research and development projects on which he had sold the tax credits to the public.

Through Roger Lawrence and Michael Richards, an ex-IRS and now private practice tax accountant, Wilder learned that he did not have to spend a dime to incur hundreds of millions of dollars of research and development expenditures and for which the American public and corporate citizens would pay him thirty (30%) per cent and require no repayment, shares or involvement of any kind. It was free money. Wilder did one deal after another and soon became one of the country’s largest research and development organizations. All without spending a dime. Those he contracted with would be paid in two years and out of any profits derived from such research and development.

To the IRS, it was all a sham. They went to various courts throughout the country and obtained numerous search warrants. Armed with these warrants, team after team of special agents swarmed over Roger Lawrence’s, Michael Richard’s and others’ homes and businesses. The investigation by the IRS was always internal and the police, FBI or other police organizations were never involved. At the helm of the investigation was an incompetent and new graduate from university in accounting, Mr. Maurice Ma. This was his first case and it would last more than eight years culminating with his appearance as a star State witness at trial.

Through the trial, Roger reviews the last ten or so years of his life; from his graduation from law school to articling and then onto his own practice. He recounts how he met his co-defendants and his clients, Dara Wilder and his gopher, Ron Johnson. Memories of gold bullion deals, trips to Beverly Hills, Hong Kong, Singapore and Indonesia highlight interludes of the trial. The State’s witnesses are presented and their testimony and reasons for such are dealt with and put into context. Cross examinations and revelations therefrom are featured frequently in a dialogue, court transcript-like manner.

The State is represented by a succession of District Attorneys, the IRS and the Judge are each examined in their backgrounds to establish scenarios for their corrupt actions and behaviour in the lengthy trial. The first D.A. is found dead, on the eve of trial, from an apparent suicide by hanging. Questions arise from forensic evidence as to whether it was suicide or not. Roger shares with us his family and how these charges have devastated him and them. He shows us no matter how great the strain and how erroneous the charges are, that he is a fighter. He will not stop until he wins- or dies. The unheeded pleas of not guilty that he laments periodically are full of pathos and reveal to us that no matter how stalwart and stiff-upper lipped he is or may appear, he has been badly brutalized within.

Through the cross examination of the State’s witnesses by a team of seasoned and battle proven defence lawyers, the rookie D.A., a son of a Judge who sits on the same bench as the presiding trial Judge, is given a bloody nose time and time again. The battle would have been short and lost for the impersonal, wall-eyed D.A. if it had not been for the constant improper interventions of the judge. The Judge is a prosecutor’s judge but in this trial he has stepped over the line of proper conduct and even-handed application of law too many times. Every time it has been for the benefit of the D.A.

The Judge has seen the IRS’s witnesses perjure themselves on the stand; he has heard and seen how the D.A. has suppressed evidence from the defence and he has seen how the D.A.s have illegally obtained evidence in Hong Kong by deceiving the Hong Kong courts and yet he ignores it or calls it such things as innocent errors. The State’s witnesses, those with and without credibility, have mostly turned out to be defence witnesses. The State’s case is bolstered only by one man, James Breitzman, who, among other misdeeds, swears one thing in this trial and the exact opposite in a civil trial involving the same parties in the same Court, but in another courtroom in the same building. Breitzman engages a thug to collect on his contract with Wilder. This thug is an IRS informant who plants bombs at the defendants’ offices and residences and leaves pine coffins. Soon this thug takes away Mr. Breitzman’s civil claim and leaves him in the cold too afraid to do anything for fear that he will be implicated in the bombings.

The Judge has the last word to the jury after all the evidence is in and after all the lawyers have made their closing addresses to the jury. It is at this point that he delivers the death blow. He purposely misstates the only witness’s testimony that goes to the core of the charges. The witness has said there was no fraud and that he never met Roger Lawrence, yet the Judge tells the jury the opposite. With pained agony, the defence erupts, but the Judge refuses to correct his error in front of the jury. Roger Lawrence sits and awaits his fate; a fate that will be determined not on the facts, but on a grand conspiracy involving the IRS, the Judge, D.A.s and perjurers.

In the final moments of dread anticipation, Roger finally hears from the jury the unthinkable - he is convicted on two of the four projects. Tears flow from his eyes and he utters to himself, This will not stand. Maybe, but for now, he has been cast into the pit.

•All references to IRS and FBI are fictional. IRS actually refers to Canada Revenue Agency. USA and America are the fictional settings for Canada where events actually occurred.

JUSTICE DENIED - A Personal Requiem

Chapter One

Winter was a lion, and the city still shuddered in the cat’s paw. The city had been paralyzed by the relentless record snowfalls and punishing sub-zero temperatures. Streets were virtually empty during the days, and the downtown core was haunting and deathly still after five o’clock in the afternoon. All but the faintest pretense of business and normality ceased. This was winter’s mausoleum. Christmas holidays had been taken early and prolonged but not due to any widespread goodwill to men or reborn faith. Two months of forced hibernation had passed, and only now was winter’s death grip seemingly relenting. People were returning to routine, and the streets were cleared of all but the brown rime produced by the tires crushing the icy streets. The filthy sleet was everywhere. Movement in the city was slow and jerky as if the city had woken from a deep coma. Snow drifts, three feet high, still lined the streets and encroached on the barely visible sidewalks. The worst seemed to be over. Over for the city, but just beginning for me.

It was a rainy, cold February morning. Here I was sitting in court on the first day of my trial. This was the supreme court. The courtroom, one of many in the futuristic glass complex, was full of people. The defendants were here, the phalanx of lawyers robed and beside their charges, courtroom staff and sheriffs, and a hundred or more public citizens who had been dragooned to be selected as jurors. My wife and mother were also present, somewhere, in this sea of humanity and confusion. The judge had yet to appear.

A sheriff motioned to me to join the other defendants in the prisoner’s dock, which was already full of my co-accused. To the sheriff, this was meaningless; procedure was procedure. His mind was obviously numbed with procedure and not reality. Explanations of the obvious would be wasted on him. I ignored his direction and sought out my counsel. With a look from my robed counsel, the sheriff disappeared into the masses.

The unintelligible noise and din of the reluctant citizens continued unabated for minutes until another sheriff bellowed, Order in court. In his black robes with crimson lapels, cuffs, and borders, the judge, representing the last line of defense of the public against criminals, came out of a hidden door at the front, walked up the steps to his bench, and sat in his high-back red leather chair. Everyone was required to stand and did so until he commanded all to be seated.

The court clerk stood and stated that this was the case of the State versus Roger Lawrence and others. Why was I the named defendant and not merely one of the others? I groaned to myself. This was a nightmare; it could not be happening. Please, I want to wake up. However, it was happening, it was real. I must be strong and endure it. I can’t break down now, we’ll meet their case and witnesses head-on. The truth will come out, and I will finally be free of these devils. Free after the eight years of hell they have put me through, knowing all along that I did nothing wrong. Their egos and agendas had been upset; they were obsessed with making someone pay. The IRS is not to be fooled with, not by anyone. Fool with them, or even if they feel you have done so, and they will exact extreme penalties. Whether illegality or not on your part is involved, you will pay. They will dress it up as they please, within or outside the law, but make no mistake, they will make you pay. I and the others had our names on their bullets.

The indictment listing eleven charges of fraud and the proceeds of crime involving hundreds of millions of dollars was read out by the clerk to the court while I and the others stood. The citizens knew why they were there. It wasn’t a murder or rape, but it was just as salacious; money always is.

The time had come for our pleas, two years after the indictment had been preferred and I surrendered to the authorities. I was first, as I would be throughout the trial. Having been a lawyer myself for twelve years, I had anticipated this moment and steeled myself as best I could. My answer would be loud, clear, and without any doubt in my voice. Not guilty, I repeatedly responded to each of the counts with which I was charged. So too, the other defendants were called upon to enter their pleas. To my pleasant surprise, each with calm and resolve entered pleas of not guilty. For now, our part in the play was over, and we regained our seats.

The focus shifted back to the judge, who then inquired if the counsel were prepared to proceed with jury selection. They all confirmed their readiness, and with that, the clerk rose and called out the first five names of the citizens on her list. As their names were called, each proceeded at their own pace and gait to the front of the room where one female sheriff, grey-haired and looking as though she had done her twenty, waited for them. They were placed in a queue, and once all the names were read, the clerk sat down.

This was the time to discover more about the prospective jurors, more than just the thumbnail bio from the voters’ lists from which these poor citizens were commandeered. As the mood or fancy dictated, the district attorney and defense counsel would question these persons to uncover any source of potential bias, predisposition, or other impediments that may prevent them from impartially hearing the evidence and rendering a fair decision. The process is still mostly a matter of art and not science. A few standard questions from a larger list of standard questions possessed by all trial lawyers are typically asked to determine a person’s suitability. This procedure was followed mixed with the usual objections based on gut feel to select the final twelve jurors.

During jury selection, three employees of the IRS were unmasked and summarily excused amongst the laughter of the gallery. Excuses, some innovative and imaginative, most mundane and patently false, were employed by many to escape jury duty. They were all successful and happily left the courtroom, whereas those selected, momentarily swollen with patriotic pride, would later come to envy those who escaped.

Enough had been accomplished today; the judge adjourned court until ten in the morning the next day. I was free on one million dollars’ bond and allowed to go home.

The next morning, I arrived at the courthouse at nine and commenced the daily rituals that I would perform for every day of trial. I would meet with the same co-defendant, Gerry Byerlay, at a coffee shop a few hundred yards away from the courthouse, but literally under its shadow. Gerry would be there at a quarter to eight every morning when his bus would arrive in the city. Due to the bus schedule and the fact that Gerry lived as a gentleman farmer eighty miles out of the city, he had to leave home at five in the morning. He would do this dutifully every day the court sat, as would be expected from a retired officer.

During the next weeks to come, I would drive my wife Donna and my children into the city in the last vehicle available to me from what was once an impressive stable of expensive, exotic cars. I drove the beat-up family seven-year-old Chevrolet Blazer from the stately manor, which the IRS and D.A. called a mansion, that sat atop the mountain across the harbor from the city and its downtown skyscape. I would first drive to Chartwell Elementary School, where my eight-year-old and eldest son, Jarrod, attended. Then, I would drive further down the mountain out of the monied village—not suburb—we resided in, onto the cable-suspended bridge that connected our genteel community with the business district. The towers of commerce in the business district were not in immediate connection with the bridge but were buffered by a large, public park akin to Central Park. It was similar in size and unspoiled natural beauty, but starkly different in that it was and had always been crime-free.

Over the three-laned bridge and through the park causeway, by the lagoon with a fountain reminiscent of that outside Geneva, and down the corridor of the towers, I soon arrived at the courthouse. I would say goodbye to my wife and children, Justine, one, and Julian, two, grab my briefcase, and walk off to meet Gerry.

On many mornings, I would watch Donna move from the passenger to driver’s seat, each time having to move the seat almost to its most forward position from its rearmost. I would strain to see through the black-tinted side windows to get one last look at Julian and Justine, not knowing how many more days I might have with them.

Gerry was always there when I arrived, and his table was always a mess with numerous open, empty sugar packages and coffee cream containers, and an overflowing ashtray.

Gerry would always be at a table for two, with one side abutting the wall. I would smile, wish him a good morning, and put my briefcase on a chair or under one at a table for four away from the wall. Each morning was the same; Gerry would wish me a good morning and slowly collect the refuse on his table, put it in a waste receptacle nearby, grab what was left of his coffee, put the rest of his burning cigarette in his mouth, and join me. Meeting with Gerry in the mornings allowed me to have reality checks and know I was not the only innocent being abused.

At a quarter to ten, it was time to leave; the show was about to go on. I drained what was left in my third cup of coffee and butt out my cigarette. This was my usual breakfast. Breakfast was a lovely concept for Mr. and Mrs. America and their two-point-five kids, but I had no time or inclination. I never eat breakfast when I am in a battle, and I had been in a battle for the last eight years. The battles had led to this, the final campaign. Gerry and I left together, but as usual, Gerry had one more port of call. He went a few yards down the street into a hole in the wall to obtain his daily provisions: two packs of English cigarettes, a taste he must have acquired during his tour of duty in the United Kingdom, and a pack of Halls, the flavor being secondary to the time-tested ability to suppress his gut-wrenching hacking.

Gerry re-emerged from the quaint tobacconist’s emporium and found me reading the headlines of the international newspapers displayed in the street racks. It was now ten to ten, still plenty of time to make the last hundred yards. When we arrived at the courthouse entrance, we decided to have one more cigarette. We lit up, smoked half our respective cigarettes, and butt them out in the single ashtray provided. The two thick plated glass doors slid open as we stepped on the pressure pads immediately before them. In we went, into the concourse of the Great Hall, past the bronze statue of Themis, the Greek goddess of justice, still wearing her blindfold and holding a set of scales on high, all under the glass roof that covered the whole complex. We stepped from the cold, black shale-like floor of the Great Hall onto the beige carpeted stairs up two flights to the sixth floor and onto Courtroom Sixty-Five. The heavy twin metal doors were still locked at five minutes past ten. Courts never start on time.

Elevators from below soon brought the counselors, each carrying briefcases and boxes of documents on those carts stewardesses are always seen pulling their bags on in airports. Lawyers, both defense and prosecution, and the defendants were all present and accounted for. The metal doors groaned as the court clerk swung one, then the other open. All concerned entered Courtroom Sixty-Five and took up their stations, like the first day of a new school year, where each student picks the place he will stay for the balance of the year. The location and stakes were different now, but the same mentality still prevailed. We always mark out our turf.

Briefcases were unlashed from the trollies. The trollies were folded up and stuffed under the counsel tables, boxes and briefcases were opened, and binders of documents were removed and meticulously placed by their owners on their tables. After the perfunctory morning greetings were exchanged, they were ready. With his gun in its holster, the sheriff announced, Order in court, and everyone rose. In walked the judge, gowned and ready to proceed, with his brown orthopedic bench cushion in hand.

The clerk rose to announce the case, as she would every day, and I groaned quietly inside every time she said, The State versus Roger Lawrence and others.

Mr. D.A., are your ready to proceed with your opening address? inquired the judge.

Yes, Your Honor, was the reply.

In that case, sheriff, please call in the jury.

Yes, Your Honor.

As the sheriff tersely announced, The jury, all but the judge rose as they filed in, single file, and stood in front of their assigned seats, then sat when the judge so permitted them. Only after that could everyone else regain their seats. Mr. D.A., proceed, were the instructions from the bench.

How had all this happened? Why me? I kept thinking. My sanity was slipping away. The D.A. stood at the lectern with his back to me, facing the jury, and started to relate from his prepared notes what the State hoped to prove—a fraud of vast scale, and I was the kingpin. Sitting beside my counsel, being spared the indignity of the prisoner’s dock, I could only hear the D.A.’s drone in the background. My eyes moved from him to the jury, not wanting to make direct eye contact for more than a fleeting second for fear they may think I was trying to intimidate or threaten any of them, then over to the judge and to the court seal hanging directly above him. My body was here, but my mind wandered.

I had finished high school with honors in both the arts and sciences programs. School was never difficult for me after the third grade. My first three years of education were controlled by aged female dragons ending their teaching careers, more interested in booking their summer vacations to Egypt or other places unknown to me than trying to deal with an active, indomitable boy. I guess to be charitable, they were all played out from the many years of dealing with similar children. In any event, none could spark any interest in me for what they had to say. That all changed with my voluptuous fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Korbin. She was well built, young, humorous, and had a penchant for short skirts and sitting on her desk as she read us stories. She was my first crush. From the fourth grade onward, school was so effortless that I made it a habit of giving myself at least thirty days off each year to relax and smell the roses. Ferris Bueller had nothing on me.

After high school, I went straight to university for the next seven delightful years. Had I taken a year off to travel or work and actually know what money would allow me to do, I would have never come back and finished. It was better that I did not taste the forbidden fruit.

University was traumatic for me for the first month. The assigned reading in two weeks was easily more than a whole year’s worth at high school. The coasting was over; it was time to apply myself. In a short time, but not without considerable doubt and introspection, I adapted and hit my old, familiar stride. However, the thirty-day annual bonus was not to survive but was replaced with favorable scheduling of classes to allow me the odd afternoon off where possible. With days being generally unavailable, that only left the nights. What nights they were during my seven years at the university, whose motto is Tuum est, which is roughly translated as It’s up to you. And so, it was.

I received my Bachelor of Business Administration and Bachelor of Laws from this venerable university. I thought I had calculated these degrees wisely—one to make money and the other to keep it. The graduation ceremonies were held in the summer with all the grads in their black robes wearing those mysterious squared hats lined up in someone’s idea of order outside the building where the chancellor, deans, persons to receive honorary degrees, parents, spouses, etcetera were seated in tight pack formation filling every available square foot of the hall. My parents were there too. I found the whole ceremony trite and quite the pain, but like funerals, the ceremony is not for the deceased but for those still alive. Both times, my parents were proud, and I was glad for them, but none of this was making me any money. Now I thirsted for money, big money, not the sort of money that may have seduced me not to finish university. Millions; I wanted millions. My money was out there, all I had to do was find out who was looking after it, unknowingly, for me.

The ceremonies ended fast enough, and now I would proceed to do my internship or articling as they call it. One more year before I could go for the brass ring. I was to article with the attorney general’s office in the capital. Two weeks after receiving my sheepskin, I reported to the attorney general’s office ready to dazzle.

During our articles, we were to work for various governmental departments for varying periods, the duration of which and timing of our intermittent summons to come out of the cold would be the sole fiat of Deputy Attorney General Norm Prelypchan, a bureaucrat masquerading as a lawyer. Pompous, egotistical—both without cause—boring and unapproachable, he would deal me from one department to another. How I hated to live in the capital; the home of the newlywed and the nearly dead.

Why are all state capitals so dull and boring? Because they are full of bureaucrats, civil servants, and worst of all, politicians.

At the time, I was twenty-five, single, almost a real lawyer, and I loved the hunt for women—nothing serious, only casual but successful. I was a hit and run artist. These were the heady days of nightclubs, discos, swirling metal balls, colored light dance floors, and jumpsuits for men! Four-inch heeled shoes, again for men, Danskins for women. Total sybaritic living.

I had two prestigious university degrees, the looks, the audacity, and the doors to the rainbow and pot of gold had opened for me. I had it made. I was cocky, but that’s OK. I felt bragging wasn’t bragging when it was true. It wasn’t that I would lord over others and say I was a lawyer and smarter and better than others. I believed it but never said or showed it, although my gait and attitude were swagger and confident. I don’t like assholes who need to build themselves up by tearing others down. Ascension through condescension or insult is a style employed by losers. I am not a loser.

Even before I was of legal drinking age, my buddies and I would frequent the nightclub areas of the city, traveling in my car on two dollars of gas and patrolling the nightclubs. We knew the bouncers and owners by name and sight and had our V.I.P. cards and club buttons. Those were nice perks for the rounders but unnecessary for us. Admission by us had always been gained through back stairs, doors thought to be locked, bribery, a reasonable rate of $2 per head, or creating or waiting for distractions that would take the bouncer or owner away from the door. You could always count on there being relatively timely distractions.

It didn’t matter to us, we were super rounders. We were always there. We never just went to one club per night; three or four were the norm. We had images to protect. We were full of it. Yet we thought we owned the city.

God, my friends were still doing this, and I was stuck in the capital. Alone.

Well, you can’t keep a good man down. True, but I tell you, if you’re the one down, you’re not so quick to agree. The law is a jealous mistress, and this truism is generally believed and oft stated by lawyers. I hadn’t practiced long enough to appreciate it or believe it myself, but as long as they believed it, it would do. It would be the key to my release from my internship and practicing law.

I devised a simple but effective plan. The effective plans are usually the simple ones. To get back to the city at a decent time, calculated to be an hour after the nightclubs opened, allowing for half an hour to drive to the ferry—that’s right, I had a moat keeping me out of the city—and two and a half hours crossing with a further forty-five minutes to home, actually, mom and dad’s. It was a tight schedule, but with nerve, I could pull it off.

At strategic times near the end of the day, the plan was to go to the courthouse library to research the law. Every case and every legal question requires research, seemingly endless research on usually tedious, endless minutiae. Changes in statutes, regulations, and decided cases may have developed the law beyond what it may have been yesterday—changes that may have altered the law as you thought you knew it to be. Any good lawyer’s credo is: If you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail. To do proper service to a client and yourself, this rule must always be followed. To follow it, you must do the research, the preparation. That requires time, lots of time.

After a few months of moving from one department to another and my maneuvering to work at branch offices in the city, my career with the attorney general became in doubt. I thought I had resolved my problem; I had all the benefits and prestige of working for the attorney general and the joys of being in the city with my buddies.

Alas, it was not to last. Deputy Attorney General Norm Prelypchan was not pleased with my absence from the capital and out of sight. I was called to appear before him, back to the capital. The writing was on the wall.

Dutifully, I attended his office, certain that he would say I was spending too much time away from the capital. I was not to leave again. With a disingenuous smile and words of concurrence from me, I told him this was not acceptable. I had no choice, no say, no discussion; this was a bureaucratic edict. Banishment to the land of the newlywed and nearly dead. Agony.

This was not acceptable. There had to be an alternative. There are always alternatives. What was it, when would I find it? I would find it that day. Courtesy of generous governmental toll-free calling privileges, I called one of my buddies, Dale Crosson. Dale was a rounder. I met him in the seventh grade when my family moved, and I changed schools.

I needed to escape, so I told Dale about my situation. Fortune was smiling that day. Dale was a commercial, industrial, and investment property agent at one of the major real estate and quasi-banking institutions. His associate there, Dana Leung, was a guy our age, same sybaritic lifestyle, oriental, and his family was well known and well placed in the city’s Chinatown.

Through Dana and his family’s connections, I switch my articles to a law firm in the city. Adios capital. It was a small two lawyer firm that consisted of Tom Kendall, a paper lawyer in his mid-fifties with silver curly hair, trim, and who didn’t do trials, and Richard Achtem, who was in his mid-thirties, five foot ten, slightly overweight, and loved good cigars and a good fight. Richard did trials, only trials. The firm was out of the city center, in a small four-story office building. My office was an afterthought. None of this mattered; I was in the city. I completed the balance of the year with them at the princely sum of eight hundred dollars before taxes per month.

I was under Tom’s wing and that I suppose more than anything else is how I wound up to be a paper lawyer or to use the euphemism, a corporate/commercial lawyer. Tom would occasionally pull me aside and tell me that I was too cavalier, not in my work or its quality, but in my attitude. Hell, law was fun for me. I took it seriously enough to enjoy it. Perhaps Tom’s comment spoke more of him than I. Tom didn’t enjoy the law; it was his way to make a living. Not living.

In later years, immediately prior to this trial, Dana’s very eccentric and very uncontrollable mother—the scourge of Chinatown—would, by her actions, bring down the governor William Vander Zorn in public disgrace and shortly after that, be a large cause of his party’s fall from government and its virtual decimation and disappearance as a political party. A party that had governed almost continuously for the last fifty years was now wiped out by a crazy, savvy lady known more for her eccentric, never-ending supply of bizarre hats. If Imelda Marcos had her shoes, Faye Leung had her hats.

Faye acted as a developer, realtor, and intermediary between the governor and a reclusive, obese, oriental billionaire. The governor had property he wanted to sell and make a handsome profit on. It wasn’t merely land, apartments or condos, it was an amusement complex called Fantasy Gardens. Incredible. The governor owned and operated a fantasyland. Politics and governing should have been fantasy enough, but not for him.

Fantasy Gardens had a huge, full-sized windmill and a downsized replica of a castle on site. The governor and his wife lived in the castle. The ego behind this man was equally fantastic.

The governor wanted to leave office and be financially prepared for his departure. It probably wasn’t that he wanted to go, but with his autocratic, doctrinaire leadership style, ill will had been seething in his party, among his cabinet, bureaucrats, and the public. He saw the sharks circling, some of which bore his political stripe. He knew his time was near. It was time to see what he could do for his political afterlife. Enter Faye, enter the billionaire. The sale of Fantasy Gardens was the key.

Faye knew someone interested in buying it, someone interested in acquiring the adjacent land and, as an aside, setting up a bank in the state. As with most oriental business people and dealings, the real purpose or goal is not revealed until after dealing with red herrings, underlings with no power, and other meaningless diversions. The real goal was to have the governor assist, make easy, perhaps guarantee that red tape would be removed and government interference and scrutiny would be eliminated from the billionaire’s bank.

Meetings with the governor, the lieutenant governor, official protocol, and state dinners were set and conducted for the billionaire, Tam Yu. The governor would use his political office to appeal to the boundless ego of the billionaire. Two boundless egos pursuing their own purposes.

The governor and his wife were summoned to a venerable, port-side hotel to meet with Tam. Limousines employed, they arrived. The hotel, perhaps best known for its circumspection and service, was where Howard Hughes lived for the last years of his life. Mr. Hughes rented a whole floor sometimes more for his sole use. No access permitted, no visitors or peddlers, please. The hotel staff with tactical, military precision and efficiency saw to it that Mr. Hughes remained as he wished. Alone.

It was here that the governor, his wife, Faye, and Dean Leung, Faye’s husband of many years, met in a room. Dean was quiet, frail, and dressed in a morning suit with his ever-present bowler hat and umbrella. He would act as the messenger. Tam was not in the room; he paid for it, but it was not where he stayed. His room was much more majestic. This was a waiting room where his minions and those wishing to have the honor of presenting their inconsequential proposals, might wait for his benevolent audience.

Dean called Tam’s room and spoke to a secretary to inform Tam of the governor’s arrival and seeking further instructions. He would make several trips between rooms, each time, bringing messages or questions that seemed immaterial or delaying in nature. This continued for hours. The governor and wife were hungry, hungry for the supper they thought they had been invited to. They were also hungry to conclude the sale of Fantasy Gardens.

The governor was in a tuxedo that wasn’t as fresh and cleanly pressed as hours before; he was concerned, annoyed, and perspiring heavily. His wife sat on the sofa in her exquisite gown, ostentatious jewelry and fingers tapping nervously, quickly and angrily on the side table. Coffee cups showed the stains of coffee on the outside, as they do when they have been repeatedly filled. The governor’s cup was full and now cold. His wife’s cup drained again as she put it to her lips. The rim of her cup was hemorrhaging with her lipstick left on it.

The governor was quietly, almost imperceptibly, annoyed, his wife was obviously annoyed. Her well-coiffed hair was now stale and seeking to release itself from the artificial constraints. The room was charged. Faye was nervous. Her husband was out of the room again. Faye was eccentric, but she knew people, and she knew business; she loved money and power. Her money and power were slipping away, and slipping fast. She could not offer more coffee; small talk had long been exhausted. Decisive, swift, and conclusive action was needed.

Faye did not have her reputation undeserved. Billionaire or not, she was the pivot on this deal. Formalities, positioning, and egos had been served. She watched, she went along; now she would drive the deal. Faye lifted the phone, asked to be connected to Mr. Tam’s room, spoke to his secretary, and was soon speaking with him. They conversed in Cantonese;