Killing Plato

“Antagonistic? Look, Karsarkis, I was about to go home to my wife when this little asshole kidnapped me and dragged me halfway across town to this apartment, and you say I’m being antagonistic?”

“Now, Jack,” Tommy said, “calm down.” He pushed himself around on the couch until he was facing me. “I don’t particularly like being called an asshole and I think claiming you were kidnapped is a bit of an exaggeration, but you should-”

“Yes, I apologize for all that, Jack,” Karsarkis cut Tommy off, looking at me, not him.

Tommy made no protest at the interruption and went back to sipping at his vodka.

“It was unseemly,” Karsarkis continued. “On the other hand, it was impossible for me to come and see you, and I was afraid if I just asked you to come here, then well…”

Karsarkis gave a rueful shrug and trailed off.

“You’re right,” I said. “I wouldn’t have come.”

“So there you are, Jack,” Karsarkis nodded. “You see my dilemma. That’s why I had to ask Tommy to prevail on you like this.”

I sighed heavily and slumped back into the couch.

“Okay,” I said. “So now I’m here. Tell me what you want and let’s get this over with so I can go home.”

Karsarkis cleared his throat unnecessarily and stood up. He walked to the window and looked out for a moment, his back to me, and then he folded his arms across his body and turned around.

“I want you to represent me, Jack.”

“We already talked about that. I told you I wasn’t interested in being involved in your hotel deal.”

A flash of genuine annoyance crossed Karsarkis’ face and he waved a hand as if brushing it away.

“Forget the goddamned hotels, Jack,” he snapped. “That was all just bullshit anyway and you know it.”

Karsarkis unfolded his arms, took a couple of steps toward me, then refolded them and sat back down in the red leather chair. He seemed to me to be a little nervous and I wondered why. I sensed we were getting close now to whatever Karsarkis had really brought me there to say, so I folded my arms too and waited.

I didn’t have to wait long.

TWENTY ONE

“I want you to file an application for a presidential pardon for me, Jack.”

“A pardon for what? You haven’t been convicted of anything yet. You only get pardoned after you’re convicted, not before.”

“My lawyers have looked into that. The presidential power to pardon is absolute. Ford pardoned Nixon before he was even charged with anything. This president can do the same thing for me.”

Karsarkis might have been technically right, I knew, but I didn’t really feel like getting into a debate with him on the finer points of constitutional law. Instead I stuck to the obvious practical problem.

“You know there’s no way that would ever happen,” I said. “No way in hell.”

“Oh, I think there may really be a pretty good chance,” he smiled, looking like a man who knew something I didn’t. “All I need is the right person to explain some facts to the White House. Those facts are very much in my favor.”

“What facts?”

“That’s not the point right now,” Karsarkis said.

“Then what is the point?”

“You, Jack. You’re the point right now. You have both access and credibility at the White House. You can reach people there and they will listen to you. That’s why you’re the guy I need.”

Okay, so I knew someone at the White House. To tell the truth, I knew someone there pretty well; and it wasn’t just someone, it was really someone. William Henry Harrison Redwine and I had been roommates for two years when we went to law school together at Georgetown, and ever since this president had moved into the West Wing, Billy had been White House counsel. No one outside of the innermost circles of the White House ever knew for sure how the power was distributed or who really had the president’s ear, but whenever commentators speculated as to who the most powerful people in Washington were, whenever lists of the influential were made up and torn apart, inevitably Billy Redwine’s name was right at the top. In Washington, that was the ultimate definition of someone.

Karsarkis said nothing else, but he watched me closely. He was clearly less nervous now that everything was on the table and his careful examination of my reaction seemed composed of equal parts curiosity and expectation. Still, I tried to give him very little reaction to examine.

“In compensation for your efforts on my behalf,” Karsarkis went on when I said nothing, “I am prepared to pay you a fee of one million dollars.”

I tried to remain expressionless, but I’m sure I gaped at that regardless. Karsarkis was back on familiar ground, not asking for help, but controlling a proposition by drowning it in money. His face once again displayed the self-assured look of a man in control.

“Let me make this very clear, Jack. If you will agree to represent me in seeking a pardon from the President of the United States, I will pay you a fee of one million dollars right now, tonight. I will arrange for it to be wired in full to any bank account you designate anywhere in the world within the hour. That money is yours to keep whether you succeed or fail.”

Karsarkis smiled slightly, but he didn’t seem to mean anything in particular by it. I waited. He waited. I waited longer.

“If you do succeed, however, I will pay you a further fee of four million dollars.”

Tommy leaned forward, his knees banging into the low table so hard he sloshed some of the vodka out of his glass.

“That’s five million-”

“I can add, Tommy,” I cut him off. amp;ldq hi'1euo;So for Christ’s sake shut up.”

Tommy opened and closed his mouth, but then he leaned back on the sofa again and said nothing else.

Ever since I began practicing law, I had dealt with vast, mostly unreal sums of money — ten million here, a hundred million there — so the mention of five million dollars hardly caused me to fall out of my chair. Still, all those enormous sums were just numbers on pieces of paper, nothing like real money, and certainly nothing like my real money. This was altogether different.

“So what do you say, Jack? Are you with me here or not?”

I stared at Karsarkis in complete silence for a good thirty seconds. He just sat there and stared back.

“You’ve got the wrong guy,” I finally said. “You really have.”

“Do I?” Karsarkis looked annoyed. “Don’t shit me, Jack. You have a private line straight into the White House and we both know it. You are well respected and well connected and you have significant credibility with someone who has the ear of the President of the United States.”

“Look, Mr. Karsarkis, I-”

“So will you do it, Jack? Will you go to the White House and put my case for me?”

After that everyone, including me, sank into silence. I assumed they were waiting for me to say something, but I had absolutely no idea what to say.

Eventually Karsarkis leaned forward and fixed me with the kind of sincere gaze I figured they probably taught you at the Dale Carnegie School. “Can you do it?” he asked in a near whisper.

“Sure,” I said. “I can also eat a box of rat poison and stick my finger in a wall socket, but on the whole, I’d rather not.”

Karsarkis didn’t even smile at that. Instead, he just looked at me, then leaned back and waited some more.

“I really don’t know what to tell you,” I said after a long time had passed in silence.

“Just think about it. Mike will call you tomorrow. If you accept my proposal, he will wire your money immediately.”

I nodded slowly, not trusting myself to do much of anything else right then.