Hostile Witness Part 27

"How did you pay?"

"About once a month the councilman would call and give me an update on the project, how the bills were progressing through City Council. And then he would set up a meeting for me with Concannon. I would meet Concannon at various places around the city. We'd talk about the deal, sometimes we'd have lunch. Everything was very friendly, you know. And then I'd pay him."

"What would you give him?"

"A check made out to CUP for fifty thousand and the rest of that payment in cash in a manila envelope. What I did was set up a credit account at a couple of the casinos in Atlantic City and take out enough chips in bits and pieces over an evening to make up the fifty thousand. Then I'd cash out, asking for hundreds. Concannon told us the councilman liked the cash to be in hundreds and cleaned through the casinos."

"To pay the neighborhood activists?" asked Eggert with a wry smile.

"That's what Chet said."

"And what happened in Council?"

"Oh, the councilman was true to his word. The project was moving through the system. It got stalled here and there, which you got to expect, it's the city after all. And I was already running short of cash because of the delays, but the councilman was doing his part. But then, along with my money problems, Zack found out about the payments."

"You mean Mr. Bissonette?" asked Eggert.

"Yeah, right. I had given him a small piece of the club in exchange for his name and every now and then he'd take a look at the books. When he saw these payments to the casinos and CUP he went crazy. He was a good guy, Zack, and I couldn't really blame him. Said he wouldn't be involved in anything that wasn't completely legal, said he wouldn't let profits from his club be used to bribe a councilman."

"Objection," said Prescott. "We don't need to hear Mr. Bissonette's interpretation of the legality of Mr. Ruffing's campaign contributions to CUP. In any event, it's hearsay."

"Sustained," said the judge.

"Fine," said Eggert. "Did Mr. Bissonette get involved in the waterfront deal?"

"Yes," said Ruffing. "When I told him I needed to keep paying Concannon because I couldn't afford any more delays he said he could raise all the bucks I needed as long as I stopped giving any payments to the councilman. I was running out of cash for development. It didn't help that I was dishing out about a hundred grand a month to Moore and Concannon. I needed a partner, so I said sure."

"And he came up with the money."

"Surprised the h.e.l.l out of me, don't know how he did it, but yes, he did. Enough to keep the options alive and the mortgage commitments going, which was what I needed. So I agreed to stop paying the money demanded by Moore and Concannon."

"By that time, how much had you paid?"

"I had given CUP half a million dollars, exactly."

"How did you stop making the payments?"

"I called up Moore and told him it was over."

"What was his reaction?"

"He was apoplectic, what do you think? He told me he would send Chet over to talk with me."

"Did you talk to Chet?"

"Sure, I told him I had no choice. I explained the thing with Bissonette. Chet told me if I stopped paying the deal was dead and that was just the start of it. He told me to think of the poor and the underprivileged, the drug addicted youth who had begun to rely on my payments. And then he told me if I stopped paying it wasn't only the deal that would be dead. He told me the club could have licensing problems and other problems. He told me the councilman could no longer guarantee my safety. When he left, I was shaking I was so scared."

"What did you do?"

"I didn't have no choice. I had sunk everything I had into the development project and the only way it could go forward was with the money Bissonette brought in and Bissonette said no more payments to Moore. So I stopped paying. I thought maybe they was bluffing. Boy, was I ever wrong about that."

"Objection," said Prescott.

"Sustained," said the judge. "Just tell us what happened after you stopped the payments, Mr. Ruffing."

"One night, about two weeks after I stopped paying, in the club, we were closed then, it was after two and we were closed, I saw the councilman's limo pull up and it looked like Moore and Concannon getting out. Bissonette was still there. I told Bissonette that I was getting out of there, but he said he'd stay and talk to them. As they approached the back door I got out the front. My car was in the back but I didn't dare go back there. I took a cab home. Later that night I was called by the police and told that Bissonette had been beaten to near death and was in a coma. Just a few days ago he died, poor guy."

"Anything else?"

"Yeah. A month later my club burned down. Arson."

"And what happened to the waterfront development deal, Mr. Ruffing?"

"It's gone, like the club. With Bissonette in the hospital and the plan delayed in Council I ran out of money. It would have been beautiful, but it all turned to c.r.a.p. So I ended up with nothing, which is what I got right now, a lot of nothing. You know, when the councilman called me over, told me to sit with him, and said he could be the best friend I ever had, I was on top of the world. I had a hot club, I had a partner I admired and trusted in Zack Bissonette, you know how hard it is to find a partner you can trust? I had a waterfront deal in the works that was going to make me a name as big as Rouse, as big as Levitt. I had everything going for me. Nine months after getting the councilman on my side I'm broke, the club is gone, the development deal has disappeared, and Bissonette is dead. With friends like that, Jesus."

29.

THE NIGHT BEFORE RUFFING'S cross-examination I was in the offices of Talbott, Kittredge and Chase, sitting at the long marble conference table, drinking one of those free c.o.kes, enjoying the luxury of it all. But I wasn't there to work on the Concannon case. The Bishop brothers had insisted we spend that very evening going over the paperwork for their Valley Hunt Estates deal, so I was once again reviewing the doc.u.ments that we would be putting into the prospectus, spreadsheets, pro forma projections, performance data on prior Bishop Brothers deals, a list of limited partners who had already committed to purchasing shares. I was sitting there alone at that conference table, drinking my c.o.kes, when a secretary opened the door and ushered Beth into the room.

She looked around. "Fancy," she said. "Like a mausoleum."

"Never been here before?" I asked when the secretary had left. "Look at all this stuff. Pens with Talbott, Kittredge and Chase embossed in gold, all the yellow pads you could ever want. Why don't you take some back to the office in your briefcase? You want a soda?"

"No, thank you," she said.

"It's free. Come on, have one. Diet c.o.ke?"

"Doesn't this place give you the creeps, Victor?" she asked. "How many trees had to die to panel these walls? How many deserving plaintiffs were screwed to pay for all this? I don't like it here." She shivered. "I feel like I'm in a wax museum after hours."

"We should get ourselves a marble conference table," I said. I pointed to the antique prints of Philadelphia landmarks, City Hall when it was still young and clean, Independence Hall, the Second Bank of the United States. "And some artwork just like this. What do you say?"

She sighed. "I have enough faith in you, Victor, that if you ever got any of this you'd hate it all too much to keep it. Rita told me you were here. I came over because I thought I could help you prepare for Ruffing tomorrow."

"That's not what I'm working on. It's this Valley Hunt Estates prospectus."

"What about Ruffing?" she asked.

"I have my instructions, and my instructions are to do nothing. How can I justify billing for preparing to do nothing?"

She sat down across from me and sighed again. I was beginning to fear her sighs. She looked around. "Is this place bugged?"

I shrugged. "Probably."

"Well, screw it," she said. "Victor, if Prescott is going to point the finger of blame on Chester he's going to do it tomorrow."

"He won't," I said. "He told me he was going to get Chet off."

"Like his old boss Nixon said he wasn't a crook. You should be preparing just in case. Prescott's whole defense is based on the legality of asking for political money, right? If he tries to distinguish Concannon's meetings with Ruffing from the phone conversations between Ruffing and Moore, Chester could be in serious trouble. Prescott could claim that what Moore was doing was perfectly legal but that Concannon extended it to the illegal."

"Concannon was Moore's top aide. No one would believe that."

"Remember about the missing money? A quarter of a million that never ended up at CUP? Money like that can erode anyone's loyalty and don't think the jury won't believe it. If Prescott can pin the missing money on Concannon, then Chester is going to take the fall for his boss."

I took a sip from my c.o.ke. It was in a tall gla.s.s, filled with ice cubes I had lifted with pewter tongs from the ice bucket sitting on the marble credenza. "There is no missing money," I said. "Ruffing's lying about the numbers to get a bigger tax deduction."

"Who told you that?" asked Beth.

"Prescott."

"So it must be true."

"You know what I think," I said, suddenly angry. "I think you're jealous. I think you're worried that I might just make the big time here and leave you behind, that I might pull a Guthrie. And frankly, it p.i.s.ses me off that you would think that of me."

She stared at me for a long moment. I thought I might have seen something terribly sad in her face but then was sure I hadn't because she was too tough to let me see anything she didn't want me to see. "What I think of you, Victor, is that you're drunk on this marble conference table and these fine prints of Old Philadelphia and these free c.o.kes. And that when you sober up, you're going to be very sorry for all that you did while under the influence."

She stood and stared down at me. "Morris wants you to call him," she said coldly before she left, stranding me with the embossed pens and piles of yellow pads and antique prints. I took another sip of soda.

I turned back to the Valley Hunt Estates papers and read again the list of limited partners who had already agreed to buy into the deal. There was an entry that puzzled me, a partnership purchased by one set of initials for the benefit of another. I was still looking it over, trying to figure it all out, when Jack and Simon Bishop came into the room.

"How's it all looking, Victor?" asked Simon.

"Great," I said. "There's only one thing that troubles me."

"I don't fancy the numbers in the five-year pro forma, either," said Jack, holding in his hand the financial projection prepared for the prospectus. "The numbers are too high."

"It's not that," I said. "The numbers look fine."

"They look smashing to me," said Simon. "We'll sell out within a week."

"And be sued within a year if things don't work out," said Jack.

"They'll work out, Jack," said Simon. "They always do. But let's deal with it later. Right now we're off to dinner. You coming, Victor?"

I looked at them, their round faces as open to me as an invitation, and whatever concerns I might have had disappeared in the warmth of their generosity. "Sure," I said. "Dinner sounds great." I followed them into the elevator for the ride to the parking garage and their Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow.

They took me to a fine French restaurant, a small place in a fancy suburb. It was a long drive but Simon told me it would be worth it and it was. The place was full, a mob of swells waiting at the bar, but the man at the door knew the Bishops and led us right to an empty table by a window. They were actually a jolly pair, these Bishops. I had first thought them to be very stiff and very formal, but that was just their surface manner. Underneath they were great fun, full of rollicking appet.i.tes and a taste for fine wines. Halfway into our second bottle I excused myself to make a call.

"Victor, is that you, Victor?"

"Yes, Morris. It's me."

"You have a cold or something, Victor? You don't sound yourself."

"I'm just a little tired, but I wanted to return your call."

"You must take care of yourself, Victor. That's number one. What I do when I'm oysgamitched from all the work, I pick up a bottle of Manischewitz that's good and thick like a medicine, I lie in bed, turn on the news, drink the wine, fall asleep to Peter Jennings, and when I wake up I'm the old Morris. You should try it."

"What about chicken soup?"

"Forget what they tell you. Chicken soup in bed it creates such a mess, all that splashing. News I have for you, Victor. Mine son, the computer genius, he has a phone right in his computer and he pulls out a register of marinas and starts looking for our man."

"Any luck?"

"Calm your shpilkehs and let me tell you. So first he looks under the thief's name. Stocker. Plugs it in, the search takes an hour, more, the cost of the call is so high I don't want to say it over the phone."

"We'll cover it."

"Of course. I'm in this business to lose money to AT&T? So word finally comes back, no Stocker. So I think that our friend the accountant might not have sold his boat so fast so we looked up The Debit, and sure enough we get the listings of five boats called The Debit. Five accountants with the same idea, a conspiracy of accountants. So we check them all and, what do you know, there is only one thirty-foot sloop. I still couldn't tell you what a sloop is, but mine son, he says he knows, and The Debit anch.o.r.ed in a marina just south of St. Augustine, Florida, is a thirty-foot sloop. Owned by a man named Cane. So I happen to know that cane in German is stock."

"You happen to know?"

"I just happen to know, so I think maybe it's the same man. So I call the marina and they get hold of our Mr. Cane."

"And it's him?"

"Accht, let me finish."

"Morris, you're a genius."

"Victor, so you've finally caught on. Yes, with all modesty, I confess that I am. But no, Mr. Cane was not Mr. Stocker. He's Mr. Cane, Nathan Cane, his father was a Cantowitz. He sells real estate and he sold a big house or something so he says he splurges and buys this boat, The Debit."

"From who?"

"Funny, that's exactly what I asked. He says he bought it from a Mr. Radbourn, a little pisher, he tells me. All the papers were in order. So I ask him who Radbourn got it from and he looks on the bill of sale and it turns out Mr. Stocker sold it to Mr. Radbourn, and if you ask me, from the description, Mr. Stocker and Mr. Radbourn are one in the same. He transferred it to himself to make it harder to find him."

"So what we have now, Morris, is the boat but no Stocker."

"Exactly right. You're very quick there, Victor."

"So what do we do?"

"Well, of course, I figure our friend the thief he likes boats too much not to have one, and he has the money, so I figure he bought himself something else, and this time something bigger. A chazer bliebt a chazer, right? So we check the marina records again for a Mr. Radbourn. Gornisht. We check the records for the sale of a boat larger than thirty feet at around the same place and time and you know what we found?"

"What?"

"Hundreds. Too many to check. To check them all would take us six months."

"So we're done."

"Not yet, Victor. We talk again to our friend Mr. Cane, a nice man, really. He promised to set me up with a condo deal if I decide to move south for mine retirement. When it gets colder like it is now I start thinking that maybe shvitzing is not the worst thing in the world. So he seems to remember Mr. Radbourn mentioning something about going across the state and buying something on the west coast of Florida, where he heard prices they might be cheaper."

"So what does that tell us, Morris?"