Steinberg’s office alone was bigger than most Manhattan apartments. A long plate-glass window gave them a view eastward of the sprawling city. Steinberg’s desk was easily six feet wide, made of a deep, rich brown polished wood. As Michael and Taylor were led into the office, he rose to meet them. He was short, balding, almost nondescript, and had to be pushing seventy. He didn’t exactly present a fearsome image, Taylor thought.
He crossed the room from behind his desk and met them in the middle of the room. “You must be Mr. Schiftmann,”
he offered, extending his hand.
Michael nodded. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Steinberg.”
Taylor thought he seemed quiet, subdued, even a little nervous. The two of them had left Taylor’s building through the basement and the boiler room, and out onto the sidewalk at the freight entrance. They’d dodged smelly garbage cans and pallets of flattened recyclable cardboard boxes to avoid the news trucks and vans parked out front. Michael had said less then five words during the long cab ride uptown.
“And you’re Taylor Robinson,” Steinberg said, turning to Taylor and smiling. “Joan Delaney’s told me so much about you. She sees you as the future of the agency, you know.”
“That may be stretching it a bit,” Taylor answered. “But thanks for the compliment.”
Steinberg turned and motioned toward a shiny leather sofa that occupied the center of the office. Next to it, a matching brown leather chair sat next to a long glass coffee table.
“Please, sit down. We’ve got a lot to do and not much time.
We’re going to be here awhile, so would you like some coffee, tea, a soda, perhaps?”
“No, thank you,” Taylor said. Michael shook his head.
Steinberg turned and dismissed his assistant with a wave of his hand. Michael and Taylor sat down on the sofa at opposite ends. Steinberg loosened his tie and settled himself into the chair.
“Well, Mr. Schiftmann, you must feel like a character in one of your own books.”
Michael reached up and rubbed his forehead. “I don’t think I could ever write anything like this. No one would believe it.”
Steinberg laughed. “You’re not the first person I’ve ever met who was accused of something and couldn’t quite believe it.”
Michael scooted forward on the seat and put his elbows on his knees, his arms extended forward. “First of all, Mr.
Steinberg, I want you to know I’m absolutely inno-”
“Don’t,” Steinberg interrupted. “Don’t tell me that now.
For one thing, it doesn’t matter at this point. For another, we have too much else to do.”
Michael leaned back in the sofa, looking a bit, Taylor thought, like a scolded puppy. Steinberg crossed his legs in the chair and leaned his head back, relaxed and confident.
“The first thing we have to do here is make a couple of decisions. The first is how you’re going to choose to fight this. There are several ways to contend with it. First, you can lay low, keep quiet, and let the best lawyers in the country fight it out for you. On the other extreme is total war, total commitment. Take your case to the public. Hire the best public relations firm in the country. Work the talk-show circuit, the tabloids, the whole thing. Build a case for Michael Schiftmann as the victim of an overzealous prosecutor and an incompetent police department. We can hire private investigators, our own forensic researchers, experts, and take the offensive. We challenge every point, concede nothing, and make them pay with blood, sweat, and tears for every step they take.”
Michael and Taylor looked at each other briefly, then back to Steinberg.
“The advantage to the former course of action is that it’s less stress and cost on your part. Good lawyers with lots of resources can often make these things go away. The downside is that you’re putting your fate in someone else’s hands, and that requires considerable trust.”
“And what are the ramifications of taking the other course?” Michael asked.
“The advantage is that your own personal involvement in the case will often swing public sympathy to your side, and don’t negate the power of that. The downside is when it backfires and the public turns against you. And there’s one other downside.”
“Yes?” Michael asked.
“If you write a check to the lawyers and let them take it from there, it’s going to be expensive. But if you decide to commit to total war-and make no mistake, my friend, this is war-then it could cost you everything.”
“But if I beat this …”
“Then you become a kind of folk hero,” Steinberg said, smiling. “And there are many opportunities in our culture for heroes. You’re a writer. Use your imagination.”
“Yes,” Michael said, smiling. “And I think that I want to take this fight to them. I’m innocent-I know you told me not to say that, but I am-and I’m not going to let them run over me. I don’t want to go to war with them, but if I have to, I will. Total commitment.”
Michael turned to Taylor and held out his hand. She smiled and took it. Then she turned to Steinberg.
“Okay, Mr. Steinberg,” she said. “Total war. What’s the first step?”
“The first step,” Steinberg said, “is you write me a check for one hundred thousand dollars. That’s just to get started.
And when we get your attorney in Nashville on board, you should be prepared to write another one.”
There was a long moment of increasingly uncomfortable silence. Taylor looked over at Michael as he sat there with a shocked look on his face. Then he slowly extracted a leather-bound checkbook from his inside suit coat pocket.
“How should I make out the check?” he asked, his voice subdued.
“Steinberg, Tillman will be fine.”
Michael slipped his black Montblanc fountain pen out of his pocket and removed the cap. “I’m writing a one-hundred-thousand-dollar check with a fountain pen that five years ago, I couldn’t afford.”
Steinberg smiled. “Funny how things change over time.”
Michael signed the check, ripped it out of the book, and handed it across the table to Steinberg, who folded the check and slipped it into his shirt pocket. “Now, let’s move on to some other things.”
Then Steinberg began talking, nonstop. Taylor sat there, off to the side, as the old attorney went on and on, with Michael occasionally nodding his head or answering a question with one or two words. Taylor found herself drifting in and out of the conversation; she still couldn’t believe this was happening. There was something about it so far removed from reality, so surreal, that she kept thinking that sooner or later someone was going to burst into the room, shout, “Just kidding!” and then it would all be over. Steinberg would roar back laughing, stand up, and rip Michael’s check into shreds. Then they could all go have a big lunch and a few drinks and a good laugh over all this.
Only it wasn’t a joke.
Taylor looked down at her watch; they’d been in Steinberg’s office nearly an hour. Suddenly the door opened and a middle-aged woman wearing a stern blue pin-striped power dress, her hair pulled back tightly, walked into the room.
Steinberg, irritated, turned to her.
“What?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Steinberg,” the woman said, “but you’re going to want to see this.”
She walked over to a large, closed cabinet that dominated the middle of the built-in floor-to-ceiling bookcases. She opened the door, revealing a large flat-panel television. She picked up the remote off the top of the TV and pointed it at the screen. The television powered up in a few seconds. The woman raised the volume and pressed the buttons to go to Cable News Network.
The shot was a live one, from the steps of the Davidson County Courthouse in Nashville, Tennessee. A podium had been set up on the steps with a bank of microphones jammed on top. A crowd milled around, restlessly murmuring. It was a bright blue spring day in Nashville, Taylor noticed as she got up from the sofa and walked over to the television. A moment later, Michael was standing on one side of her, with Steinberg on the other.