He gets up, steps outside. Somebody gets him his coat. He goes out, gets in his car, drives around awhile. "Sometimes you think best when it's quiet," he says later.
He spends the evening at a restaurant downtown in the company of lawyers. Later, they move for reconsideration of the judge's decision, which Lasky calls "horrible." In the meantime they are cooperating with the trustee to get the company back on its feet. Right now, that's the Next Big Thing, Lasky says.
Those who know him, friends and foes alike, say he'll be back. Mike Lasky always finds a way. Former employee Suzanne Farabaugh believes in his magic touch. "Everything he touched he could turn into money," she says. Mike Lasky has always been able to evoke strong feelings from people: resentment, fear, disillusionment, but also faith.
It's like the story former Inphomation creative director Carter Clews tells about his father, Rev. Charles Gordon Clews, a United Methodist minister. Rev. Clews was walking through the Owings Mills Mall a few years ago wearing a Mike Warren Sports sweat shirt, the one that read: "1-800-MIKE WINS."
"A woman came up to him and said, 'Oh, I believe in him, Mike Warren.' My father says, 'Well, ma'am, everybody has to believe in something.' "
Pub Date: 3/08/98
