1
INTO THE TIGER’S CAGE
February 22, 2008.
The twenty-third floor of a nondescript office tower on the outskirts of San Francisco’s Financial District.
The usual glass, steel, and concrete sliced and diced into overly air-conditioned, brightly lit cubes. Eggshell-colored walls and industrial-beige carpets. Fluorescent strips bisecting tic-tac-toe tiled dropped ceilings. Bug-eyed watercoolers, chrome-edged conference tables, faux-leather adjustable chairs.
It was a little past three on a Friday afternoon, and Tyler Winklevoss stood by a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking a pincushion of similar office buildings piercing the midday fog. He was trying his best to sip filtered water from a tissue-thin disposable cup, without spilling too much onto his tie. After so many days, months, hell, years, the tie was hardly necessary. The longer this ordeal dragged on, the more likely it was that sooner or later he’d show up to the next endless session wearing his Olympic rowing jacket.
He managed to get the barest taste of water before the cup folded inward beneath his fingers, rivulets missing his tie but drenching the sleeve of his dress shirt. He tossed the cup toward a trash can beneath the window, shaking his damp wrist. “Another thing to add to the list. Paper cups shaped like ice-cream cones. What kind of sadist came up with these?”
“Maybe the same guy who invented the lights. I’ve gotten two shades tanner since they moved us to this floor. Forget pits of fire, I’m betting purgatory is lined with fluorescent tubes.”
Tyler’s brother, Cameron, was stretched out across two of the faux-leather chairs on the other side of the room, his long legs propped up against the corner of a rectangular conference table. He was wearing a blazer but no tie. One of his size fourteen leather shoes rested perilously close to the screen of Tyler’s open laptop, but Tyler let it slide. It had already been a long day.
Tyler knew the tedium was by design. Mediation was different from litigation. The latter was a pitched battle, two parties trying to fight their way to victory, what mathematicians and economists would call a zero-sum game. Litigation had highs and lows, but beneath the surface there lurked a primal energy; at its heart, it was war. But mediation was different. When properly conducted, there wasn’t a winner or a loser, just two parties who compromised their way to a resolution, who “split the baby.” Mediation didn’t feel like war. It was more like a really long bus ride that ended only when everyone on board got tired enough of the scenery to agree on a destination.
“If you want to be accurate,” Tyler said, turning back to the window and the gray on gray of another Northern California afternoon, “we’re not the ones in purgatory.”
Whenever the lawyers were out of the room, Tyler and Cameron did their best not to dwell on the case itself. There had been plenty of that in the beginning. They had once been so filled with anger and a feeling of betrayal that they could hardly think of anything else. But as the weeks turned into months, they had decided that anger wasn’t doing their sanity any good. As the lawyers kept telling them, they had to trust in the system. So when they were alone, they tried to talk about anything but what had brought them to this place.
That they were now on the topic of medieval literature, specifically Dante’s conception of the many circles of hell, showed that the avoidance strategy was beginning to fray; trusting the system had seemingly trapped them in one of Dante’s inventions. Even so, it gave them something to focus on. As teenagers growing up in Connecticut, Tyler and Cameron had both been obsessed with Latin. With no courses left to take by senior year of high school, they petitioned their school principal to let them form a Medieval Latin Seminar with the Jesuit priest who was the director of the Latin program. Together, the twins and the father translated the Confessions of St. Augustine of Hippo and other medieval scholarly works. Though Dante hadn’t written his most famous work in Latin, they’d both also studied enough Italian to play the game of updating the scenery in his inferno: watercoolers, fluorescent lights, whiteboards … lawyers.
“Technically,” Tyler said. “We’re in limbo. He’s the one in purgatory. We didn’t do anything wrong.”
There was a sudden knock. One of their own lawyers, Peter Calamari, entered first. His receding hairline framed a protruding forehead and undersize, jowly chin. His palm tree–patterned Tommy Bahama shirt was poorly tucked into the waistband of a pair of blue jeans so big for him they made him walk funny; Tyler wouldn’t have been surprised if the tag was still on. Worse yet, Calamari was actually wearing sandals. He’d likely purchased them at the same place he’d bought his jeans.
Behind their lawyer came the mediator. Antonio “Tony” Piazza cut a much more impressive figure. Trim to the point of being gaunt, he was impeccably dressed in suit and tie. His snowflaked hair was shorn tight and proper, his cheeks appropriately tanned. In the press, Piazza was known as “the master of mediation”—he had successfully resolved more than four thousand complex disputes, supposedly had a photographic memory, and was also an expert in martial arts—believing that his training in aikido had taught him how to channel aggression into something productive. Piazza was indefatigable. In theory, he was the perfect bus driver for this seemingly endless ride.
Before the two lawyers had even shut the door behind them, Cameron had his legs off the table.
“Did he agree?”
He’d aimed the question at Piazza. They’d begun to think of Calamari, a partner at the ever-boastful, chest-pounding Quinn Emanuel law firm, as little more than a messenger between them and the aikido master. If his roomy jeans and sandals were an attempt to connect with the Silicon Valley atmosphere, Cameron felt that they marked him as more gimmick than lawyer.
In fact, he wasn’t even supposed to be there. Calamari was standing in for Rick Werder Jr., the lead lawyer on their case, who couldn’t make it at the last minute because he had decided to represent a company in a $2 billion bankruptcy action. Despite the entire fate of the twins’ case resting on his shoulders, Werder hadn’t shown up to the mediation, the case’s defining moment. The twins’ understanding was that he was busy chasing what he thought was the bigger, better deal.
The twins had hired the Quinn Emanuel firm in an effort to add muscle to their legal team, as discovery was coming to a close and trial was on the horizon. Founded in 1986 by John B. Quinn, the firm had a reputation for being tough litigators dedicated solely to business litigation and arbitration. The firm had also pioneered a lack of a formal dress code—something unheard of in the world of white shoe law firms. This innovation was to blame for Calamari’s sartorial failure.
“It’s not a no,” Piazza said. “But he has some concerns.”
Tyler looked at his brother. The request they’d made had originally been Cameron’s idea. They had spent so much time going back and forth through their lawyers—and now Piazza in the middle, a silvery sphinx constantly searching for middle ground—Cameron had wondered if maybe there was a way to cut through all the theater. Hell, they were three people who not long ago had met in a college dining hall. Maybe they could sit down again, just the three of them, no lawyers, and talk this thing through.
“What sort of concerns?” Cameron asked.
Piazza paused.
“Security concerns.”
It took Tyler a moment to realize what the man was saying. His brother stood up from his chair.
“He thinks we’re going to take a swing at him?” Cameron asked. “Really?”
Tyler felt his cheeks growing red.
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
Their lawyer stepped forward, placating. “The important thing is, other than the security concerns, he’s amenable to the idea.”
“Seriously, let me understand this,” Tyler said. “He thinks we’re going to beat him up? During mediation. In the corporate offices of a mediator.”
Piazza’s face didn’t change but his voice shifted lower—to an octave so soothing it could put you to sleep.
“Let’s try to keep focus. He’s agreed to the meeting in theory. It’s just a matter of working out the details.”
Copyright © 2019 by Ben Mezrich
