Travelling Circus

The waiting area at Pearson’s gate 61 wasn’t a far cry from the alcoves of the Dirksen building this morning. Paul Waldie and Eddie Greenspan took a leisurely stroll to pass the time. A few feet away, David Roebuck, a frizzy haired civil litigator from Heenan Blaikie, held court for a bleary-eyed journo. Roebuck’s advising Eddie on the whys and wherefores of the so-called Mareva injunction freezing the Blacks’ worldwide assets—a subject of some interest to the court at Conrad’s bail hearing this afternoon (2:30 Chicago time). He explained the history of the term Mareva, borne of some arcane corner of British maritime law. Stopping for a moment, he advised that of course everything he was saying was off the record, which, had the journo had the faintest idea what he was talking about might have had some application. Eventually Eddie, looking vaguely like Clarence Darrow—tie-less in a white shirt, sleeves rolled up and wearing suspenders—sidled by. He allowed that he wouldn’t be having much to do with the appeal: “Don’t really know the American law. On the facts, that’s another story. My job today is to get him home, and we’ll move on from there.” Then the group divided (Eddie and Roebuck into business class; the journos in steerage), all of them ready to reacquaint themselves with that fragment of Conrad Black’s harsh reality spinning away in Room 1241.