Hostile Witness Part 11

"I'm Victor Carl," I said. "I'm representing Chester Concannon."

"What can I do for you, Carl?"

"Tell us when we can bail out our clients."

"We'll arraign them at the Roundhouse right away."

"Who's the judge there this evening?" asked Prescott.

"Does it matter?" said Sloc.u.m. "We'll ask to hold them without bail but whatever judge we get probably owes his seat to Moore and will set a half a million at ten percent. For Concannon too."

"And where do you think they are going?" asked Prescott.

"This is a homicide here," said Sloc.u.m in all his weary righteousness, the jaw muscles beneath his smooth dark skin working. "A death penalty case. They shouldn't walk with just fifty thousand down."

"Do you have anything more on them than the U.S. Attorney?" I asked.

"They got everything but the tapes from us in the first place," said Sloc.u.m. He turned his head and spat onto the step below Prescott. "But Eggert's not one to wait his turn."

"I a.s.sume you notified the press at the Roundhouse," said Prescott.

"They'll be waiting."

"You've always been a hound, Larry," said Prescott.

"A city councilman being arraigned in night court. Front page of the Daily News, don't you think?" said Sloc.u.m. "That's why I had them cuffed. Looks better on page one."

"You missed your calling," said Prescott.

"Maybe so," said Sloc.u.m, taking off his thick gla.s.ses to wipe the lenses with his tie. "But I'd rather make news than report it."

The cop with the serious face climbed up the steps to Sloc.u.m. "We're all set."

"You read them their rights?"

"Word for word."

"Well, gentlemen, it was a pleasure," said Sloc.u.m. "Want a ride to the Roundhouse?"

"We'll take the limo," said Prescott. "Better scotch in the back seat."

"Oh man," said Sloc.u.m, shaking his head as he walked slowly down the steps to the police cars waiting for him, their engines running, their lights still flashing. "I can't wait for private practice."

"Is he any good?" I asked Prescott as Sloc.u.m ducked into one of the cars and all three pulled back around the museum.

"The best they have," he said. "Let's get our clients out of jail. Chuckie will prepare a statement for the press."

"Concannon was a little unraveled," I said.

"He'll get over it. I'll tell you what's really unraveling. The federal case. Eggert had always hoped that Bissonette would revive and finger Jimmy. That's one of the reasons he wanted to delay everything. Now there's one less witness to worry about."

"So who do you think actually did kill Bissonette?" I asked offhandedly.

He looked at me with his cold blue eyes squinted sternly for a moment and then eased his face into a paternal smile. "It doesn't really matter, does it?" he said.

Part II.

Pretrial Emotions.

11.

THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE was in a narrow, dirty building sandwiched between two gla.s.s skysc.r.a.pers. Lawyers with offices in the skysc.r.a.pers bustled in and out of the revolving doors, the ta.s.sels on their loafers swishing, their Rolexes flashing as they hailed the cabs lined up on the street, the drivers all hoping for that apocryphal fare to the airport. Lawyers from the DA's office pa.s.sed out of their filthy lobby in weary navy blue waves, pushing shopping carts full of their day's files, girded for battle in the city's grimed and undermanned courtrooms. There was about this throng of city attorneys the air of a soon-to-be-defeated army pushing forward only because any avenue of retreat had been cut off.

"ADA Sloc.u.m," I said to the receptionist in the lobby, a flabby-faced woman with wrinkles around her eyes and the tan stains of a smoker between the first two fingers of her right hand. She was ensconced behind a thick wall of Plexiglas with only a circle of airholes for her to speak through. "He's expecting me. Victor Carl."

"Have a seat," she said, gesturing to a dirty row of ruined plastic chairs out of some high school auditorium. I chose to stand. With the lobby's dim light and its general filthiness, I felt like I was in a subway station. That receptionist, that lobby, it was all quite a leap down from Talbott, Kittredge and Chase.

A few minutes later the elevator opened and a thin young woman stepped out while still holding the door.

"Mr. Carl?" she said.

We stopped at the fifth floor. On the way to Sloc.u.m's office the woman led me past a maze of secretarial desks and cubicles, through the frenzied sounds of drastically overworked a.s.sistant district attorneys. What could have possessed them to take such a job, I wondered. They started at less than thirty grand, they worked killer hours pleading with cops and yelling at witnesses on the phone late into the evening, sending out subpoenas that were ignored, glancing at piles of files the night before the day they had to try them. And when it was time to leave the office for private practice it was tough to find a job other than hustling for cases in the city's criminal courts. With my spirits buoyed by the grand possibilities that Prescott was promising, I could only feel pity.

Sloc.u.m was in his shirtsleeves, leaning back in his chair, his feet resting on his desk as he talked on the phone. His shirt cuffs were rolled up, revealing dark and powerful forearms. Behind his desk were two flags on posts, one the Stars and Stripes, one sky blue and mustard with gold markings, which was the city's flag. Sloc.u.m's office was cramped with boxes and file cabinets and large posterboard exhibits leaning against the walls, a map of one of the city's parks, a diagram of an apartment with the outline of a sprawled body in the living room, a photograph of a woman with bruising around her face. The walls were covered with a cheap and fraying paneling. One of Sloc.u.m's shoes had a hole in the sole. Sloc.u.m was talking to his car repair guy, arguing over what was required for his car to pa.s.s inspection.

"That's got to be the biggest racket going," said Sloc.u.m after hanging up the phone. "I bring in my car for a thirty-dollar inspection and end up paying five hundred dollars for a new exhaust system in order to pa.s.s. Isn't there a law?"

"You tell me," I said. "You're the expert."

"I told my mechanic once I was going to put an undercover unit on his tail. He laughed at me. Said it didn't matter how many plainclothes cops came into his shop, it was still going to cost me three-fifty for a brake job. He told me what I really needed was a new car. That was four years ago."

"Maybe your mechanic's right," I said. "Judging by the sole of your shoe you do too much walking."

He laughed. "The real trick is sitting at the counsel table so the jury can see the bottom of my shoes. Jurors like their public prosecutors a little ragged around the edges. It adds to our sincerity. And they don't want to think they're paying us too much. If I hadn't worn it through naturally I'd have filed a hole in there by now. So what do you need, Carl?"

"You know I represent Chester Concannon."

"Sure," he said, webbing his hands behind his head. "You took Pete McCrae's spot. Too bad about him, huh?" A broad smile hid his evident grief.

"On Concannon's behalf," I said, "I'm looking into the Bissonette murder." Prescott had said it didn't really matter who killed Zack Bissonette, but I couldn't agree. My client had been accused of killing that man and it was my job to do what I could to defend him. Investigating Bissonette's murder might not have been in strict accordance with my client's orders, sure, but I didn't figure I was risking much by snooping around. If it turned up nothing, no one would ever need to know, and if it turned up something, well, maybe I'd be a hero. So the night before, standing in my tuxedo in the Roundhouse courtroom, with derelicts staring down at me from the gla.s.s-enclosed bleachers up above, I had pulled Sloc.u.m aside for a few seconds while the defendants were in the lockup and Prescott was out raising bail and I had set up this meeting.

"Your federal trial starts in a week and a half," said Sloc.u.m. "My advice, Carl? Go back to your office and finish preparing for that trial. This will keep."

"My team's working on the federal case," I said.

"How many people in your office?"

"Two."

"I thought so," he said with a scornful laugh. "Make a discovery request and I'll consider it in due time."

"I don't have due time. I was hoping I could get something right now."

He dropped his feet from the desk and leaned forward, his hands now clasped angelically before him. He smiled a broad smile and his eyes, even through his thick round gla.s.ses, were glistening. "It's a sad thing how often in this life our hopes go unfulfilled."

My eyes started watering as he continued to flash that broad, dashing smile and for an instant I didn't know what to do so I did what I sometimes do when I don't know what to do, I laughed, and he laughed with me and we both laughed together, laughed loud and long, laughed hysterically at how he had all the power over me at this meeting and could send me home with nothing if he chose and it looked like he was choosing exactly that. We laughed so hard that he had to take off his gla.s.ses to wipe tears from his eyes and I pressed the palms of my hands into my own eyes as if I could squeeze back the water and we laughed some more at how wildly we were laughing. We let our laughter gear down into guffaws and into chuckles until finally we were only shaking our heads in amazement at how hard we had laughed before. And then I stopped even chuckling when I realized there was nothing funny about it.

"So," I said. "What about it? Am I going to get some help?"

"File your motions," he said. "The discovery judge should get to them maybe sometime next month." He started laughing again, but this time I didn't join in. Polite requests obviously weren't going to work. I could think of only one gambit, weak though it was, that might.

"If I have to file the motions," I said, "I'll file the motions, but that will take a lot of time."

"Which you don't have. You agreed to the trial date, didn't you?"

"I agreed, but I'll tell the judge I'm not getting the cooperation I expected and I need more time. He'll chew the h.e.l.l out of me."

"That he will."

"But then he'll give it to me."

"Prescott will love that," said Sloc.u.m.

"No, Prescott won't be happy," I said with a shrug. "But you know who will be thrilled?"

"Who?"

"Your buddy Marshall Eggert, who's anxious as h.e.l.l for some sort of delay because he needs more time to prepare for the biggest trial of his career as a federal prosecutor and he's terrified of blowing it."

As soon as I said Eggert's name any remnant of Sloc.u.m's smile fled from his face. "That skinny little b.a.s.t.a.r.d," said Sloc.u.m. "I was good to go on the attempted murder charges when he got the Attorney General herself to convince the DA to let the feds try Moore first on his racketeering c.r.a.p. Except for that your clients are sc.u.mb.a.l.l.s, I'd like nothing better than to see him shoot a blank." He stopped talking for a moment and gave me a strange look. It was a strange look coming from him because I sensed it was almost a look of respect. "But you knew that, didn't you?"

"I suspected," I said. "He seems to be concerned that there's a lot of money he can't account for, money that seems to have disappeared."

"Only a quarter million," said Sloc.u.m. "But Eggert's concerned about more than just that. The murder evidence is pretty tight but there are other holes that he hasn't yet filled and he knows it. They overreached in their indictment." He rubbed his mouth for a moment and then said, "I a.s.sume, Carl, that you are now making a formal discovery request."

"That's right," I said.

"And in view of extenuating circ.u.mstances you are seeking to receive the information immediately or the prosecution of a major racketeering case will be delayed, inconveniencing the court and all parties, including the a.s.sistant United States Attorney, and delaying the swift and sure execution of justice."

"Exactly," I said.

"And these extenuating circ.u.mstances will be detailed in a letter that will be hand-delivered to this office first thing tomorrow morning along with a formal pet.i.tion."

"My secretary is typing it up this very instant," I said.

"I'll check upstairs and let you know by early tomorrow if I can free up a detective to sign out the evidence." He rubbed his palm across his mouth again. "You know, Carl, my guess is you're in way over your head."

"Most likely," I said.

"We are not lifeguards in this office," he said. "Whatever trouble you get into, don't be looking to us for help. My only goal here is to make sure that Jimmy Moore and Chet Concannon pay the steepest possible price for killing that man."

"I understand," I said.

"That's good, Carl. You see, if I have to use you for a stepping stone as you flail about in the water, I don't want you thinking you'll get anything more from me than the bottom of my shoe on your face."

12.

I WAS IN MY OFFICE, on the phone to Dr. Louis Saltz, when she called. It was after hours, and Ellie was strictly nine to five, so I had to put Saltz on hold to answer the other line. When I realized who it was I felt the briefest moment of panic. "Hold on a moment," I told her and then switched back to Saltz.

"Listen, Lou, something has come up. I have to run."

"We're set for tomorrow then, right?"

"Four-thirty in my offices," I said.

"I got hold of the others and most will be there. I still have my doubts. You're going to have to do some convincing to get me to agree, but I'll wait for the others."

"Lou," I said. "Believe me when I tell you, this offer's a gift. We should take it and be giddy."

"Be good, pal," he said and then he was off.

I sat at my desk for a moment, the light on my phone blinking to indicate a caller on hold, and thought about how much trouble that call could be, how disastrous it could turn out if I took it, but then, smack in the middle of my sensible thoughts, I punched her line. "Ho," I said. "I'm back."

"Mr. Carl? Jimmy told me to call you if I had any more troubles with my landlord," said Veronica Ashland.

"I really don't do much real estate work, Miss Ashland," I said. "Maybe you should find someone else who knows what he's doing. I could refer you."

"I'm sure this isn't too complicated for you," she said. "It's just that my landlord wants to evict me."

"Have you been paying your rent?"

"Sort of."

"Well, that's sort of the problem, I guess," I said. "Landlords generally want their rent paid on time."