Solomon & Lord Drop Anchor (29 page)

Wow! I did it. I’m a clerk on the Supreme
Court of the United States. Me! Lisa Anne Fremont from Bodega Bay.
And Max didn’t do it for me.

She allowed herself just a few seconds of
elation. Then the realization set in. She wasn’t just Sam Truitt’s
law clerk. She was also working for Max Wanaker and Atlantica
Airlines, petitioner in one of the biggest cases of the new term.
In legal jargon, she had a major conflict of interest. Her job was
to subvert justice, not to achieve it. She tried not to think about
the cruel paradox, which threatened to ruin the moment.

She focused a businesslike smile on Sam
Truitt. In the past two hours, she thought, they had learned all
about each other. Or had they? She’d already known him. And he only
thought he knew her. For a moment, looking into his blue-gray eyes,
she thought there was a glimmer of recognition, that he saw through
the gaps in her resume and in her life, that somehow he glimpsed
the abyss that separated who she had been from who she had become.
But if he had sensed anything wrong, why had he hired her?

She broke eye contact, and he released her
hands. “Thank you, Judge. I’ll try to live up to your
expectations.”

“You and me both,” he said, laughing, giving
her a warm smile. Then his voice dropped nearly to a whisper and
his brow furrowed. “Lisa, we have a chance to do wonderful work
here. Not just to resolve individual disputes, but to set the tone
for civilization, to draw boundaries for conduct, to define
fundamental rights and responsibilities, and to right wrongs. We’re
the conscience of society and the buffer between the government and
the governed, striking the balance between the state and the
individual. We protect against anarchy on the one hand and
dictatorship on the other. Our job is to breathe life into that
glorious two-hundred-year-old document they keep under glass a few
blocks west of here. God help me, I hope we’re both up to the
task.”

Lisa stood in stunned silence. What could
she say? Oh, I’m sure you’ll combine the wisdom of Solomon with the
compassion of Gandhi and the strength of Zeus. And I’ll be right
there beside you … corrupting the process, violating everything you
believe in.

She had never known anyone like Sam Truitt.
He was truly afraid of falling short, of failing to live up to his
own standards and those who came before him. Here was a Galahad
whose greatest fear was that he could not attain the Holy
Grail.

She admired and respected this man who was
honest and devoted to principles, not to the accumulation of power
and personal wealth. He was everything Max Wanaker wasn’t. What a
sad irony that she had to betray Sam Truitt’s trust and tarnish his
beloved bronze statues. For a moment, she felt such shame that she
could not look him in the eyes.

He guided her toward the door, grabbing his
coat for the walk down the corridor to the chief’s chambers.
“Wait!” he said at the last moment, and she tensed.

What is it? Has he seen through me? Maybe
he’s the mind reader!

“I’ve completely failed to ask what
substantive areas of the law interest you,” he said.

With the self-discipline and poise that had
brought her so far, she chased away the guilt and the fear.
“Aviation law has always fascinated me,” Lisa Fremont said.

* * *

IN THE

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

GLORIA LAUBACH,

individually and as

representative of the

Estate of Howard J. Laubach,

deceased, et al.

Petitioners,

vs.

ATLANTICA AIRLINES, INC.,

Respondent.

ON PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI

QUESTIONS PRESENTED

Whether the 1978 Airline Deregulation Act
bars Petitioner’s claims under the Florida Wrongful Death Act for
the death of her husband in the crash of a commercial aircraft, and
if there is no such federal remedy, leaves Petitioner without the
right to sue for money damages?

Whether Petitioner presented sufficient
evidence as to Respondent’s negligence so as to preclude the entry
of summary judgment and to permit jury consideration of that
issue?

* * *

REASON FOR GRANTING THE WRIT

The decision below (a) radically departs
from established case law; (b) subverts the intention of Congress;
and (c) immunizes the tortfeasor from liability, thus permitting a
wrong without a remedy, an abhorrent result in a case involving the
deaths of nearly three hundred persons.

Respectfully submitted,

Albert M. Goldman, Esq.

LISA DROVE AROUND FOR HOURS before
heading back to the apartment. She passed the Washington Monument,
the circle of American flags crackling in the autumn breeze. She
drove by

the elm trees and the Reflecting Pool, and
just as the lights came on, she curled behind the Lincoln Memorial
with its distinctive Doric columns resembling the Parthenon. She
slowed the car and fought the urge to join the tourists and walk up
to old Abe—now dramatically backlit—and soak up all that corn-pone
Americana. Thinking about it, she felt like a character in a
black-and-white movie, 
Ms. Fremont Goes to
Washington.

What she was feeling now was every bit as
hokey as the old Frank Capra tearjerker. A vague disquiet settled
over her as she considered notions of justice and honor and the
young Scrap Truitt sweating on the football field in a noble but
losing effort.

How could I do it? How could I sit there and
smile and wow him with my intellect, all the time planning to
sabotage his treasured work? How low can I go?

She crossed the Arlington Memorial Bridge and
headed to the national cemetery, parking the car and sitting there
in the enveloping darkness. Scattershot thoughts raced through her
mind, but one kept returning, kept nagging at her.

“
Tell me about Lisa Fremont, the
person.”

No. You wouldn’t like Lisa Fremont, the
person. But I can change. I want to believe all the flowery phrases
about duty and justice and principle. Sam, I want to be like
you!

She 
didn’t
 want to be like
Max. She was angry with him for manipulating her.

“
After all I’ve done for you, don’t you
think you owe me this?”

No! Not this.

She believed there was a time in a person’s
life when one decision affects everything else. You head down that
crooked side road one mile too far, and you’ll never get back on
the highway. But it wasn’t too late to play it straight, and this
time, there was nothing Max could say that would change her mind.
When she got back to the apartment, she’d tell him. Not only
wouldn’t she try to sway Justice Truitt’s vote on
the 
Atlantica
 case, she’d recuse herself from even
preparing the bench memo.

Her cellular phone rang, startling her. It
was Max, wondering when she’d get home. She told him she’d gotten
the job; she left for later the rest of the day’s news.

Max didn’t congratulate her, just
mumbled 
uh-huh
, like it was no big deal.

Like every day a poor girl from Bodega Bay,
a teenage runaway, an underage stripper with no future, gets to be
a law clerk on the Supreme Court of the United States.

Now, she had prospects. Entree into the
biggest and best law firms. Before taking the clerking job on the
D.C. Circuit, she’d been interviewed by a Chicago firm with offices
in London, Paris, Moscow, and Rome. Hadn’t the managing partner
told her to keep in touch, to call him when her clerkship was over?
Well, a year from now, she could waltz right in there. Law firms
fall all over one another competing for young lawyers who have sat
at the foot of the throne.

Hey, Max, guess what. A leopard can change
her spots.

“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” she said on
the cellular. “We have to talk.”

“Yeah, we do,” he said.

* * *

Two men in suits were waiting inside Lisa’s
apartment. Max Wanaker was sleek in his jet black Armani with a
thin pinstripe. Theodore Shakanian wore a baggy charcoal gray
Wal-Mart special and brown shoes. A cigarette dangled from his
mouth, and Lisa shot him an angry look. She didn’t let Max or
anyone else smoke in her apartment. Lisa knew little about
Shakanian, other than the fact that his office was adjacent to
Max’s in Atlantica’s Miami headquarters and he was an ex-cop from
New York. Ever since the crash in the Everglades, the two men
seemed to be spending a lot of time together.

Max looked grim, his face drawn. “I think you
know Shank,” he said, gesturing toward Atlantica’s head of
security, a lanky man with three days of black stubble sprouting
from an acne-scarred face.

“I do,” she said. “I just don’t recall
inviting him over.”

Max forced a laugh and smiled apologetically
at Shank. “Lisa’s always been territorial. Like a cat.”

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Put your briefcase down and relax,” Max
said. “Shank will explain it.”

She tossed the briefcase at Max, who caught
it just before it clipped him in the forehead. He gently placed it
on a sofa of white Haitian cotton.

“Congratulations on getting your new job,”
Shank said, his voice gravelly, like tires crunching loose
stones.

“Thank you,” she said without enthusiasm.
“What’s going on?”

Why the hell was Max spreading the news?

She’d seen Shank several times in the last
few years but had never exchanged more than a casual greeting. A
sullen, homely man, he stood perhaps an inch above six feet and had
a Sergeant Joe Friday flattop that was so out-of-date it had come
back into style. He looked to be between forty and fifty, there was
no way to tell. Either he owned only one suit, or he had a closet
full of the gray ones, which he always wore with a white shirt and
a gray and black tie. She had only seen him once without the suit,
in Max’s hotel suite in Paris at the annual air show. He was
speaking on the phone in a combination of English and what sounded
like Japanese and was wearing jeans and a polo shirt. Lisa had been
surprised at the size of his arms. In a suit, he looked rangy, even
underweight. In the snug, short-sleeve shirt, she could see thick
wrists and powerful, cabled forearms. On one forearm was the tattoo
of a knife slicing a heart down the middle.

“Right now, you’ve got the most important job
of anybody at the airline,” Shank said, exhaling a plume of smoke,
“and your enterprise falls under my jurisdiction.”

Lisa wheeled toward Max, the anger building.
This was supposed to be between the two of them. Now it was
an 
enterprise
. A phrase came back to her from criminal
law class: the RICO statute and “racketeering enterprises.” She
pictured the FBI, the U.S. attorney task force, and a grand jury
all probing into their little enterprise.

“Damnit, Max, I thought I was doing a
personal favor for you. Now, it’s a corporate job? Who else knows?
Did you put it in the shareholders’ report?”

“Calm down, Lisa,” Max said. “Let me fix you
a drink.” He walked to the liquor cabinet and tossed some vodka
over ice, pouring in bottled orange juice from the minirefrigerator
below the wet bar. Then he poured another for himself, his hands
trembling. He wouldn’t look her in the eyes.

“I don’t want a drink,” she said angrily. “I
want you out of my apartment.”

Max shrugged, chugged one of the
screwdrivers, and appropriated the other, carrying it to the sofa
where he sat down, apparently content to sit out the dance.

“
Your
 apartment is paid for by
Atlantica,” Shank said with a sneer, “so I tend to look at it as
corporate property and you, Ms. Fremont, as a corporate asset.”