Scott Turow - The Burden of Proof

Ralph was behind the cart a respectful distance with Stern's five iron.

Stern's drive had traveled downhill, but it had trailed to the right of the fairway-the wrong place to be on this hole-so that Stern 'was required to play left. He sliced naturally and positioned himself at an angle to the hole.

Dixon credited misfortune to various deities, like wood elves. Losses on the trading floor belonged to the bean god. Here he paid homage to the god of balls.

"Ball god!" screamed Dixon as Stern's shot tore off for the deepest woods. Ralph turned to watch it go, like an outfielder pining after a homer.

Stern took another from his pocket and hit his shot cleanly. The ball faded, not quite sufficiently, toward an area left of the green, hit the uneven ground there, and kicked, as if drawn magnetically, into a sand trap.

"Beach," said Dixon, in case Stern had not noticed. They parked the cart in the left rough while Ralph crashed around in the woods, making a hopeless search for Stern's ball.

"So what happens?" asked Dixon. "With this thing? They want the money back, right?" 'That is merely the starting point, Dixon. If the prosecutors employ the RICO statute, as I expect, the government will attempt to forfeit the racketeering enterprise-you understand: take it from you as punishment."

"What's the mcketeering enterprise.,MD,"

"The whole fucking business?"

"Potentially. Not to mention a term in the penitentiary."

"Oh, sure," said Dixon, jumping down from the cart again for his shot,

"you couldn't expect them to go easy."

Dixon's bravery was admirable. Stern had actually been,asked twice in his career by other clients facing the rigors of forfeiture about the legal consequence of suicide: could 'the government still grab their dough if they were dead? Stern avoided answering, fearing the consequences of a truthful response, since all phases of a criminal prosecution were, in fact, terminated by death.

With Dixon, of course, there was no risk of selfdestruction. He probably could not conceive of a world he did not inhabit. But Stern knew nonetheless that he had struck a nerve. To threaten Dixon's business.was to toy with the obsession of a lifetime. He had begun th'my-some years ago, driving all over the Middle West in search of clients, soliciting the small-town,businessmen whose /velihoods depended on farm prices -the merchants, the feed-lot owners, the rural banks which could use commodity futures to hedge their loan portfolios.

Dixon's strategy, he explained to Stern later, was to sign up the fire chief.

The firemen were volunteers, fought flame and death together; the fire chief was the captain of their souls. If he liked something, all would.

No trick was too low for Dixon. He carried a fireman's helmet in his think.

Now he flew between the coasts, doing deals, but his first.love remained sitting in the office, plotting strategies for the managed accounts, the commodities pools, the large customer Orders. He made money and lost it with every tick, in each future, but Dixon never lost his interest in the game, a mixture of street savvy and balls poker..Three or four times a year, he would grab his dark jacket and badge and go to the floorSfor part of the day. Even in the chaos of the trading floor, the news would go out that he was there. He stepped into the tiered levels of the pits, shaking hands and tossing greetings like Frank Sinatra onstage, commanding the same reverence, or, in some quarters, subverted 1oathifig. Dixon did not care. Stern had been in the Kindle office one day when Dixon had lost $40,000 in less than half an hour and he was still exhilarated by the tumult of the floor, the jumping and shouting of the trading crowd, what he took as an essential moment in life.

Dixon lofted his ball between the extended foliage of two tree boughs.

The ball did not bite well and rar about twelve feet past the cup.

"Tough par," said Dixon, thinking of his putt:'

Ralph stood at the edge of the sand trap like a well-armed soldier, Stern's sand wedge in one hand and the rake in the other. Stern trod down dutifully into the pit, then bedded himself in, dog-like, shaking his fanny. These shots, hit an inch behind the ball, were all acts of faith. Stern thought of fluid motion, then swung. Amid an aura of sand, the ball rose from the bunker. It traveled almost sideways when it hit the green, but it camertfolios. Dixon's strategy, he explained to Stern later, was to sign up the fire chief.

The firemen were volunteers, fought flame and death together; the fire chief was the captain of their souls. If he liked something, all would.

No trick was too low for Dixon. He carried a fireman's helmet in his think.

Now he flew between the coasts, doing deals, but his first.love remained sitting in the office, plotting strategies for the managed accounts, the commodities pools, the large customer Orders. He made money and lost it with every tick, in each future, but Dixon never lost his interest in the game, a mixture of street savvy and balls poker..Three or four times a year, he would grab his dark jacket and badge and go to the floorSfor part of the day. Even in the chaos of the trading floor, the news would go out that he was there. He stepped into the tiered levels of the pits, shaking hands and tossing greetings like Frank Sinatra onstage, commanding the same reverence, or, in some quarters, subverted 1oathifig. Dixon did not care. Stern had been in the Kindle office one day when Dixon had lost $40,000 in less than half an hour and he was still exhilarated by the tumult of the floor, the jumping and shouting of the trading crowd, what he took as an essential moment in life.

Dixon lofted his ball between the extended foliage of two tree boughs.

The ball did not bite well and rar about twelve feet past the cup.

"Tough par," said Dixon, thinking of his putt:'

Ralph stood at the edge of the sand trap like a well-armed soldier, Stern's sand wedge in one hand and the rake in the other. Stern trod down dutifully into the pit, then bedded himself in, dog-like, shaking his fanny. These shots, hit an inch behind the ball, were all acts of faith. Stern thought of fluid motion, then swung. Amid an aura of sand, the ball rose from the bunker. It traveled almost sideways when it hit the green, but it came to rest within two yards of the flag.

"Making it hard on me," Dixon said. Stern had a stroke on each hole.

Ralph handed them their putters, then drove the cart off toward the next tee.

"They have to prove it's me, don't they?" Dixon asked as the two men stood on the green. "All this crap, taking the business-they don't take my business away because somebody else did this without me knowing.

Right?"

"Correct," said Stern. He moved his putter near his shoes.

"If that is what occurred."

"Look, Stern, everybody in the place puts on trades that end up in the error account. There are a hundred, hundred fifty trades a month that go through there." This was the point which Margy had seized on. "Maybe somebody's trying to screw me, make me look like a bad guy."

"I see," said Stern. "The govemmeut, Dixon, not to mention a jury, is rarely persuaded that an employee is willing to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars and then give it to his employer out of spite." 'Me?"

"It is your account, Dixon."

"Oh, bullshit, it's the house account."

"It is your house, Dixon. And it is logical to attribute all of this to you, if the money remains in the account." Dixon suddenly showed a quick, scornful smile.

"Is that what they think?" he asked. He tossed away his cigarette and removed a piece of tobacco from his tongue, while he fixed Stern with a dry look. The message was plain: I am not that dumb. Apparently, Dixun had exercised more care than Margy had made out. There was another layer of involvement in Dixon's scheme, one that somehow isolated the error account and the unlawful profits. A flash of something, say a smile, passed between the two men before they moved off on either side of the flag.