Read Losing Faith for Free Online

works he made years ago? Not to mention that I hear his health isn’t very good. If he dies before trial, which might still be six months or more away if we try to delay, your case dies with him.”
    “Come on, Rachel. I know you’re repping your client, but jail time is a must for us. Period.”
    “Will six months do it?”
    “Nope. We’re not letting this go for less than a year.”
    Rachel smiles. That’s exactly what she wanted to hear. “Does that mean a year might do it?”
    “A year, plus a complete allocution of guilt, and he makes full restitution.”
    Rachel wants to jump through the phone and shout Yes! but she’s got to play this out. “I don’t want to mislead you, Stephanie, because that is still going to be something of a sell on my end. But, here’s what I want to do. If you’re willing to put that on the table, I’ll go back to my client and tell him that it’s my proposal—so then we’ll make that offer to you, and do it on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. What I’m afraid of is that if you made the offer, he’s going to want to see how much better than that he can do.”
    There’s a pause on the other end. For a second, Rachel fears that she’s overplayed her hand, and now that she’s opened the door to a guilty plea, the prosecutor will demand more jail time. But then she hears, “I’m going to take you at your word on this, Rachel. It’s a year. Not a day less. You understand?”
    “How about if I want a day more?” Rachel says.
    “Hah. Sure,” Kessler says with a chuckle. It’s a quirk of the federal sentencing system that inmates sentenced to more than a year get to serve the last six months in a halfway house. “A year and a day. Final offer.”
    “Thanks, Stephanie,” Rachel says. “I’ll get back to you later today, but I’m going to beat the hell out of Malone on this end so he takes the deal.”

6
    T here was a time when the tourists lined up in front of Tiffany on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, muffins in hand, to re-create Audrey Hepburn’s famous pose from Breakfast at Tiffany’s . Now they’re much more likely to photograph themselves in front of its neighbor, Trump Tower, pretending to be fired contestants from The Apprentice .
    Judge Mendelsohn had granted Nicolai Garkov’s bail request that he be confined to his home as he awaited trial. There was quite a lot of outrage over that at the time, with every TV news report about the case shot in front of Trump Tower and making repeated references to Garkov’s twenty-thousand-square-foot apartment’s being the only five-star prison in the world. Now there’s speculation in the press that Mendelsohn’s Alzheimer’s had something to do with the tone-deafness of his ruling.
    Trump Tower’s public spaces are clad in Breccia Pernice, a pink, white-veined marble, and mirrors are seemingly everywhere. The five-level atrium has a waterfall, various shops, at least three cafés, and a pedestrian bridge that crosses over the waterfall’s pool. This morning it is also teeming with people, most of whom are speaking a language other than English.
    Aaron walks past the kiosk hawking Donald J. Trump’s signature clothing line to a booth marked CONCIERGE . He tells the white-gloved attendant that he’s here to see Nicolai Garkov.
    “The private elevator is down the end of the hall,” the attendant says. He points to the back of the space. “Go through the doors, and you’ll see it.”
    Through the door, the pink marble stops and is replaced bysomething much more industrial: a flat-weave, gray carpet. Two uniformed police officers and a man in a dark suit sit behind a metal detector.
    “I’m here to see Nicolai Garkov,” Aaron says. “I believe he’s expecting me.”
    The man in the suit picks up a clipboard. “What’s your name, please?” he asks.
    “Aaron Littman.”
    “Yup. You’re here. Mr. Garkov’s ten o’clock.”
    Aaron grins at the thought. “Does he get many visitors?”
    “You’d be