Hostile Witness Part 24

"It's been known to happen," said Dominic in a flat, cold voice.

"Some men don't like n.o.body talking about their family," said Virgil.

"You should learn to keep-a your mouth shut," said Luigi.

There was a long quiet while the men stared at me and I stared at my cards and then Dominic said, "Let's play."

Luigi shook his head at me. "No more talk, hey. Enough with the talk. I'm in," he said, tossing in his chips.

Dominic put in his twenty-five.

"Now," said Luigi, turning up his down queen. "Show me that-a flush."

"Sure," I said as I turned over my cards. I reached to rake in the pot but Dominic's hand grabbed my forearm and squeezed.

He squeezed so hard I felt it in the bones.

"Full house," he said, without turning over his cards.

"Of course he had the boat," said Virgil. "Why else would he have stayed in against the flush?"

Dominic pushed my arm away and then slowly began transferring the chips from the middle to his piles. He still hadn't turned over his cards.

"Let's see it," I said.

Dominic froze at the table, his hands still on the chips, and I could hear his breathing, slow, steady, dangerous as a leopard's.

"If Dominic says he's got a boat, Sport," said Jasper, softly, "he's got the boat."

"I'm not saying he doesn't," I said. "I just want to see it."

"What you are saying," said Luigi, the coldness back in his whispery voice, "is that you don't-a believe him."

"I'd just like to see it."

"This is a gentlemen's club," said Luigi. "And since you have no more money your temporary membership is revoked."

Giovanni rose from his red leatherette chair and moved to the table behind Luigi, his arms crossed in front of him.

"You're ripping me off," I said.

"It's time to go," said Giovanni.

I looked around at these old men, who had seemed harmless just a few moments ago, and what I saw was not a group of geriatrics needling each other in their weekly poker game but something much more ferocious. Luigi had the sharp hatchet face and Sicilian accent of a Mafia underboss. Virgil was an aging enforcer, collecting for loan sharks, breaking legs when necessary. Jasper was the negotiator, the dealmaker, the man who set up the lucrative arrangements that the others enforced. And Dominic, silent and stolid, was as dangerous as a hit man. I never had a chance in that game, the goal of that night was to fleece me of all my money and I was lucky that was all they were after. But I had learned what I had come to learn, that Bissonette had played around with the wrong girl and had been killed because of it. And though these aged gangsters had refused to talk about it, their silence and threats and the absence of denials loudly confirmed that it was Raffaello's daughter Bissonette had been playing with and that it was Raffaello who'd had him killed. And I wondered, for a moment, if it was one of these old men who had done the deed. Maybe Dominic, Bissonette's second cousin, twice removed, whose grip, I knew, was still strong enough to wield a Mike Schmidt autographed bat.

I stood up and nodded at the men around the table and, without saying a word, self-consciously walked to the door.

"You're forgetting your jacket, Sport," said Jasper. "We don't want you should forget your jacket."

I returned to the table, avoiding the angry gazes of the men as I took hold of my jacket, and walked again to the door, moving as quickly as I could without running.

"Hey, kid," I heard from behind me.

I stopped and turned around. Dominic was staring at me with a scary squint in his eyes. Slowly he turned over his down cards, one by one, first the ten of spades, then the ten of clubs, then the six of diamonds, which gave him a sixes over tens full house.

"No one calls me a cheater, kid," he said. "Leastways no one who wants to keep breathing."

I looked at him and expected him to smile at his joke, but he didn't, his face was as hard as the squint in his eyes. And then I dropped all pretensions of calm and ran out of the club, ran to my car, and tore the h.e.l.l out of South Philadelphia.

I was filled with relief when I drove north past South Street, into the safety of Society Hill. It was relief at being out of that grubby little men's club, away from the gangsters there with murder in their eyes. And, just as much, relief at learning that everything Prescott had been telling me might actually be the truth. He was right about who killed Bissonette and he would do his best, which was far better than my best, to make sure the jury knew about it too. I could now, with whatever good conscience I could muster, stay safely silent, following his orders as he tried my case, collecting my fat hourly fee by merely sitting next to my client, keeping my mouth shut and my tie clean as I slipped into my prosperous future.

I had just left the front door of my apartment building the next morning, heading for the Market Street subway to take me to the courthouse, my body still suffused with the soft elation of relief, when the rear window of a parked car exploded in front of my face.

25.

IT WAS A HATCHBACK, j.a.panese I think, and I was just in front of it when the rear window shattered into a constellation of diamonds that hung in the air for a brilliant incandescent second before falling. It was such a startlingly pretty sight that I didn't move, just stared at the now jagged opening yawning from the back of the car and the sparkles spinning on the pitted asphalt. Then I saw someone across the street pointing down an alley and a man in front of me dropping to the ground, like a soldier under ambush, and I realized that the window hadn't spontaneously exploded of its own accord but had been shot out in front of me. That's when I dropped to the ground too.

There were no more shots. There were the sounds of footfalls and a car stopping suddenly and more footfalls and people shouting, but no more shots. By the time I had picked myself off the sidewalk a crowd had formed and a policeman was coming over to look at the damage and to ask his questions. There was a group of us now, the man I had seen hit the ground, the man who had seen someone run away and had been pointing across the street, an old woman from my building, out for a morning walk with her purebred dachshund, the dachshund barking rabidly, the woman laughing wildly. I had seen nothing but the explosion of the window and so I wasn't much help, but the officer took down my name and address just the same.

"What do you think it was?" asked the pointer.

"Probably just some random shooting," said the cop, a peach-fuzzed kid with a holster and an att.i.tude, trying to speak over the dachshund's barks. "Happens all the time."

"In Beirut maybe," said a pa.s.serby.

The dachshund growled into my crotch.

"Quiet, Oscar," said the dog woman, no longer laughing, giving her dog a tug on the leash. The dog sniffed my ankle and growled again.

"Maybe someone was trying to damage the car?" said another man in a tan raincoat.

"That's possible," said the officer, who for the first time took note of the car's license plate. "Anyone know who owns this vehicle?"

No one knew, so he called in the license plate on the portable radio attached to his belt.

"All right now," he said as he was waiting for a response. "I have your names. Let's get on our way."

I left, and took some comfort in the officer's nonchalance, but not too much. I stepped quickly to the subway. I took a seat in the corner of the first car and hid myself behind a newspaper. Back on the street I was careful to stay within the bosom of the crowd on my way to the metal detectors in the lobby of the Federal Courthouse. And all the time I couldn't help but carry with me, along with briefcase and raincoat, the suspicion that the shot had not been random or aimed at the car, but fired at me. Oh yes, I was not completely blind. I could feel the danger rising about me, from the threatening Chuckie Lamb, from the paranoid Norvel Goodwin, from my new and fervent relationship with Veronica, from Jimmy if he ever found out about the two of us, from Prescott and the power he could use to break me, from the poker playing gangsters with murder in their eyes and full houses in their hands, from the shadowy Raffaello.

This I knew about myself: I was not the most courageous of men. I was comfortable with that fact. I left the heroics to those who were paid for it, policemen, Brinks guards, inside linebackers, paparazzi. That's one of the reasons I was attracted to the law, I guess. By its very nature the law is a hedge, boom or bust, mergers or bankruptcies, there is always work. And so the shot had only confirmed for me the decision of the night before, confirmed it in a way that was more than intellectual, in a way that was visceral. And whether the bullet was aimed at me or not was no matter; I had learned the lesson of the lead. Whatever was to come, whatever humiliation, whatever ugliness, whatever betrayal, I would do nothing to stop it. My instructions were to follow along, and follow along I would. Whatever you want, Mr. Prescott, sir, you can count on me.

Outside the courtroom that morning I was talking to Beth about my opening statement when we were approached by one of the Talbott, Kittredge coterie working with Prescott. It was the blond bland man with the perfect nose who had sneered at Morris the day before. His name was Bert or Bart, something harsh and efficient. I knew nothing about him, really, didn't know whether he had a family, a child, whether he read poetry or Proust, whether he felt deeply for the disadvantaged or whether the pains in the world had turned his viewpoint cynical and his humor wry. But what I did know was that he held a Harvard law degree and I didn't, that he had the job I wanted, that he owned the future of which I had dreamed, and for all of that I hated him.

"Bill asked me to give you this," he said, reaching into his shiny silver case and pulling out a sheet of paper with a few lines printed out in bold capital letters.

"What is it?" I asked.

"It's your opening," he said.

"We prepared an opening," Beth told him, her voice showing incredulity at his nervy a.s.sumption that we weren't ready.

After the poker game I had spent most of the night practicing my delivery of a lengthy and blistering attack on the government's case against Concannon. It had been written primarily by Beth, so I knew it was quality. Beth's opening highlighted the gaps in the case against Concannon: There were no tapes capturing Concannon's voice, no pieces of physical evidence directly involving him in any of the transactions, no photographs showing him with Ruffing or Bissonette. The case against Concannon would depend solely on the testimony of Ruffing and certain financial records from CUP, and Beth had laid out a viciously effective argument against Ruffing's credibility. I understood that I would be following Prescott's lead in every sense, but I still expected that I would be saying at least something of my own to the jurors.

"We're sure that it's a fine argument," said Bert or Bart. "But what we want you to do is to give the opening we have prepared for you."

"Who wrote it?" asked Beth, grabbing the paper from my hand.

"I did," he said, his chest puffing out slightly. "Bill looked it over, discussed it with the jury expert, made a few changes, and decided you should go with it."

"Is that what he decided?" I said.

"That's what we decided."

"I think we'll stay with what we worked up already," said Beth.

"I was told you were with the program, Vic," he said to me, ignoring Beth. "That you wouldn't be any trouble."

"What's your name?" Beth asked.

"Brett Farber. Brett with two t's."

"Well, Brett with two t's," she said. "The only program we're with is our client's and as best I can tell, from a quick look through this little statement of yours, it's a piece of s.h.i.t."

Brett didn't pull back from the attack like I would have. Instead he brought out his sneer and leaned into me until I could smell the coffee in his breath and he said, "s.h.i.t or not, Vic, your client approved it and it is what you are going to give."

Before Beth could reply he had turned on his heels and was gone.

f.u.c.king Brett with two t's, I thought as I watched his back disappear into the courtroom. Maybe there was a reason other than luck that he was an up-and-comer with Talbott, Kittredge and I was not.

"Such a pleasant young boy," said Beth. "His mother must be so proud. So tell me, Victor, how does it feel to have a.s.sholes like William Prescott and Brett with two t's as your colleagues?"

"For two-fifty an hour I'd sleep with an orangutan," I said. "This is only slightly worse."

"What are you going to do?"

I took the piece of paper from her and read it quickly, eight sentences typed in bold capital letters so that I wouldn't stumble as I read it to the jury. "What I'm going to do," I said, "is discuss it with my client and then, Beth dear, I'm going to suck it up."

"You suck it up any more, Victor, you're going to start looking like a chipmunk."

I hadn't told her about the shattered hatchback window and didn't intend to, nor about Veronica, nor about Chuckie's call, nor about Norvel Goodwin, nor about my disastrous poker game. If there was danger to be ducked, it was mine and I would do the ducking. So all I did, as she looked at me with disappointment flashing in her sharp, pretty eyes, was shrug.

When I sat down at the defense table I showed the paper with the eight sentences to Concannon. "Is this what you want me to give as an opening?"

"Is that what Prescott showed me last night?"

"Yes."

He shrugged. "Is it a problem?"

"It's a big fat zero," I said. "It does nothing."

"The way he explained it to me is that we should make my role in the deal, the arrangements, everything, seem as small as possible."

"Eggert's not going to let the jury forget you're on trial."

"If that's what Prescott wants you to give, then give it."

"You know I checked it out, about Bissonette and Raffaello's daughter," I said. "It appears to be on the up."

"Victor, Victor," he said, his voice slightly scolding. "You were supposed to stop your interfering."

"Consider it stopped," I said just as the door behind the judge's bench opened and the court clerk stood to start the trial. "From here on in I'm Chuckie Lamb's mannequin."

"All rise," said the clerk as the judge climbed the steps to the bench.

We all rose.

26.

"ANY CRIME IS A betrayal of the trust we have in each other, but when it is a public official who commits the crime, an official who asked for our vote and swore an oath to serve the public, the betrayal is particularly cruel."

Eggert very slowly walked over to the defense table until he was directly opposite the defendants. He was giving his opening to the rapt jurors, his reedy voice rising in indignation. He pointed at Jimmy, his finger close enough to the councilman's face that Jimmy could have bitten it off if he wanted to, and the moment it flashed there, like a white scimitar, that's exactly what it looked like Jimmy would do. Then he recovered control and the look of deep sobriety returned. Through it all, his eyes never wavered from Eggert's; if there was to be a staredown, it would be Eggert who blinked first. In the front row of the public benches, three different artists were furiously sketching the moment, Eggert's straight back, his accusing finger, the bunched muscles in Jimmy Moore's neck.

"James Douglas Moore is a city councilman, a public official placed into office by the people of this city who looked to him to promote the interests of all of Philadelphia, not just his own. The first requirement of his office was honesty, and that was the first thing he threw out the window. The evidence will show, ladies and gentlemen, that Jimmy Moore used his office to extort money, and when his extortion plan went awry he resorted to threats, which you will hear on tapes legally obtained by the government, he resorted to arson, and he resorted to murder. Murder, ladies and gentlemen, the murder of Zachariah Bissonette, the former ballplayer, who stood up for what was right and refused to be blackmailed. Jimmy Moore took a baseball bat and battered Bissonette so badly he was in a coma for five months, never to open his eyes, to see the beauty of the day, to look into the faces of his loving family, never to recover before he died. That is how Jimmy Moore observed the public trust. And we'll show you where the money went, how it was funneled through his political action committee, how a chunk of it never even got to the committee but was instead skimmed off for his own personal use, how Jimmy Moore used his office to grab enough money so he could ride around the city in a big black limousine and drink champagne and gamble in the casinos along the Boardwalk. That's what the evidence will show."

Eggert moved on to Concannon and again the finger of the prosecution pointed.

"Chester Concannon is Jimmy Moore's chief aide, a public servant whose duty was to help the councilman achieve his legitimate goals as a public official. But instead of looking out for the interests of the people of Philadelphia, Concannon aided the councilman in each of his extortion schemes. Concannon was the go-between, the bagman, the fellow to see if you wanted the councilman on your side. Chester Concannon took his share of the lucre ripped out of the skin of the people of this city, and Concannon was with Jimmy Moore the night Bissonette was battered with that baseball bat into complete and unwavering unconsciousness."

When he was finished accusing the defendants he detailed the elements of the crime of racketeering that he would prove, going over what each witness would say and how it would all come together to show so clear a pattern of illegal conduct that the jury would be forced to convict. Then he leaned over the defense table and stared, first at Jimmy Moore, then at Chester Concannon. "At the end of this trial, I'm going to come back to you and ask for a guilty verdict on all the counts. And instead of the money or the political power or the black limousines and champagne nights and extravagant evenings in Atlantic City, I'm going to ask you to give this corrupt councilman and his corrupt aide all that they truly deserve." With a final look at the defendants, a look filled with all the weary disgust he could muster, Eggert walked slowly to the prosecution table and sat down.

Prescott didn't jump up to follow Eggert as most lawyers would. He remained seated, his head down dramatically. Judge Gimbel, still at work on whatever opinion he was drafting for some other case, didn't seem to notice the delay and just kept writing. The crowd in the courtroom stirred, one of the jurors coughed, Prescott remained seated.

"It is at a time like this," said Prescott finally, while still seated at the defense table, "it is in a trial like this that the genius of the jury system shines through."

With a great sigh, Prescott stood, his shoulder slightly bent, his head shaking sadly. He looked down solemnly as he spoke and the whole effect was of a profound disappointment.