Extraordinary Rendition by Paul Batista Page B

passed Byron Johnson’s light-filled corner office on the twenty-seventh floor overlooking Park Avenue and the urban landscape of midtown office towers. As the lead partner of the firm, Sandy made it a point to walk at least once each week through the five floors the firm occupied in the Seagram Building to make his presence known. On these tours he spoke with the firm’s other partners, the associates, the secretaries, and the messengers. Byron, who was always respectful and friendly to people on the staff, thought Sandy’s tours through the office were a form of politicking, as if, Byron once told a bitter, now retired partner who had been removed from the firm in a campaign Sandy orchestrated, he were running for Mayor of Park Avenue.
    Byron was making notes on a yellow legal pad when Sandy knocked on the edge of his open office door. Sandy, his suit jacket off, wore a regimental striped tie. His initials were woven into the cuffs of his crisp white shirt. “Byron,” he said, “when are we going to get you to stop using those yellow legal pads? I thought Nixon was the last man to use them.”
    “Sandy, the beauty of these is that I can burn them and nobody can ever know what was in my mind. That’s why Nixon used them. They tell me that what you type on a computer lives forever.”
    Sandy had worked as a young lawyer on the staff of the Watergate Committee for its Republican members. Sandy said, “Hell, Byron, I still have Nixon’s notes.”
    Bright light from the late morning sun flooded Byron’s sparely furnished office. He still had enough sense of attachment to the firm that he thought it was best for him to sit and banter for a few minutes with Sandy Spencer.
    “Sandy, you’re the man who keeps the secrets. That’s why Nixon loved you.”
    Sandy sat in the visitor’s chair in front of the desk. He crossed his elegant legs, the relaxed posture of Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady . As if announcing good news, he said, “I just got a call from Jack Andrews. They have a new case they’re sending over. Securities fraud, he said, with a sprinkle of racketeering claims to spice it up.”
    Jack Andrews was the chief inside counsel at American Express, a client of SpencerBlake for all the years both Byron and Sandy had worked there. Jack Andrews had once been a junior partner at the law firm, which long ago had managed the brilliant tactic of placing him in the in-house counsel’s office of a major client. Jack had soon become the ultimate decision-maker in selecting outside lawyers to represent American Express. Jack Andrews “spread the jewels around,” as Sandy Spencer often said, but he usually saved the “crown jewels” of legal work for his old law firm.
    Smiling, Byron said, “Sandy, is there a bank in America big enough to hold all your money?”
    Sandy returned Byron’s smile. “I’ve moved the excess to the Channel Isles.”
    “Now that Switzerland is giving up information right and left,” Byron said, “there are all these other countries racinginto the growth industry of tax havens. Or are they islands, dukedoms, principalities?”
    “Where there’s money there’s always a way to hide it,” Sandy said, laughing. He then looked at Byron as if, Byron thought, he was about to cajole a boy. “Jack specifically said he wanted you to be the lead litigation partner on this case. It’s important enough to Amex that he wants to be sure you handle it. Even at your $950 hourly rate.”
    Byron clicked the tip of his pencil on the top of his desk. “When did clients get the privilege of deciding who’s assigned to what cases? Isn’t that our decision?”
    Sandy’s expression changed from its usual urbanity to that wintry look his father used when he was unhappy with another lawyer in the firm. Sandy’s father was still working at SpencerBlake in the first three years Byron was there. He was “Mr. Spencer” to everyone, including his son. There were times when, if he wasn’t satisfied with