Hostile Witness Part 41

"I have no choice," I said.

"Okay, Victor. Tell me now what is so important that you have to become a thief and break into some poor shnook's office. Wait, don't yet tell me."

He quickly finished his sandwich and downed the entire gla.s.s of beer. He s.n.a.t.c.hed a French fry and ate it in two quick bites. Wiping his mouth with a napkin, he said, "Okay, now. I was hurrying up to finish mine eating so that I wouldn't lose appet.i.te from what you are going to tell me."

"I need to break into an office."

"So I have heard three times already. Whose office, if I may ask?"

"William Prescott's."

"The other lawyer on that trial you are losing. Oh, don't protest like that, I know everything. Mine new friend Herm Finklebaum, he has been watching the trial for me, keeping me up to date on exactly how lousy you are doing."

"I'm in a difficult position," I said.

"Herm says you are dropping faster than his mother's kreplach. I don't know his mother, never met the poor woman, but I can imagine."

"I'm in a very difficult position."

"And breaking into this fellow's office, it will help? This I want to hear. This will be better than cable."

"You get cable, Morris?"

"What, I alone in this country, I don't deserve to watch our favorite movies on TNT? What crime have I committed, Victor, what? Tell me."

"I just never thought of you sitting back with a beer watching Sports Center."

"That Berman fellow, he cracks me up. Jewish actually, you know that? I can tell. Such a punim. So tell me why I must to help you commit a felony."

And so I told him about Concannon and how he wouldn't let me defend him like he needed to be defended without proof that Jimmy Moore was dumping on him and how I thought that proof was in William Prescott's office.

"You need proof in black and white to convince this client of yours?" asked Morris incredulously.

"That's right."

"And you think that proof is in this office you want to break into?"

"That's right."

"Are you sure you won't find nothing there but bubkes?"

"I think it's there. Prescott is a very scientific trial lawyer. He checks every argument with focus groups before popping it on a jury. He had a jury survey conducted before the trial and I asked him for it five or six times. Each time he said he would send it right over, but I never got it."

"And you are sure that is your proof?"

"That's all I can think of."

"And let me ask you this, mister felony, mister three to five years if you are caught. Even if you find this sheet and use it to convince this client to fight back at this fellow Moore, what then? Is there something you can do to save him?"

"I think there is," I said, "but I can't do it without his consent and I can't get his consent without some proof."

"It seems to me, Victor, and this is just mine professional opinion so you don't have to follow it because what do I know, but it seems to me that you are taking a very big risk to help this client."

"You don't know the half of it."

"I know more than I want to know already by a half, believe me. Is this client of yours, is he worth it?"

"Actually, yes," I said. "He's a good man who is being taken advantage of and deserves someone to stand up for him."

"And that needs to be you?"

"If not me," I said, "who?"

He paused and ate a French fry and stared at me for a moment. "You've been studying Rabbi Hillel maybe?"

I shrugged and nodded with a shy smile, all the while wondering who the heck was Hillel.

"Maybe you have gained a dollop of faith on us after all, Victor. Is it possible?" He ate another French fry and sighed. "So when is it you will be wanting this break-in?" he said finally. "It's like Watergate, you know, when is it you will be wanting this Watergate break-in to occur?"

"Tonight."

"Tonight, is that all? It is so good you are leaving yourself so much time to plan. I a.s.sume, Victor, knowing you as well as I do, I a.s.sume that you have not yet made plans for this Watergate break-in."

"That's right."

"No idea how to do it."

"That's right."

"No keys, no floor plans, nothing, gornisht."

"Gornisht."

"Victor, I am sorry, but I can't help you with this. I'm an old man, a fat man, ask mine wife and she'll tell you I drink too much, go ahead, ask Rosalie, she'll tell you. b.u.mp into her in the street, a stranger, and she will tell you I'm a shikker. Mine heart would plotz on you, right there in that fellow's office, and then where would you be? There was a time, Victor, when I was the man for excitement, the man in love with danger, but that time, Victor, that time ended the very day I got cable."

"I need you, Morris."

"I'm very sorry, Victor. I can't."

"I don't know what to do."

"I can't help you, Victor. But mine son, little Sheldon, have I mentioned mine son the locksmith? I think, though I am not certain, but I think mine son might be free tonight. He's very good at these things, mine son. He spent two years in the Israeli army. Two years starving and working off his tochis, like a schmuck, in love with the idea of the Holy Land before he realized not a shekel could he make there. And beside that, for this cloak-and-dagger mishegahs he was trained by the best in the world."

"By the Mossad?"

"Now you're insulting me again, Victor. By Morris Kapustin, by me. This is not a way to treat someone whose help you so desperately need."

"I was hoping for you, Morris. You I trust. Little Sheldon I wouldn't recognize if I b.u.mped into him in the street."

"And I appreciate that, Victor, but forget about me. You'll trust me into mine grave if I let you. Mine son, little Sheldon, he'll set you up fine. You'll give him a chance, no?"

"I guess I don't have a choice."

"Your enthusiasm, Victor, it brings tears. Now of course, for work such as this we have special rates. Hazardous work like this we have very special rates."

"As I expected," I said. "I also need you to look into one other thing for me."

"Does this too need breaking in?"

"No," I said with a smile. "This is a perfect job for an alte k.o.c.ker like yourself."

"Such word is the one Yiddish word you learn from me?"

"The night of the arson, a cab driver said he saw a limousine pull out from behind Bissonette's."

"Yes? So?"

"I want you to find out who in the area rented a black limousine that night and see if you can link up the rentals to anyone in this case."

"That I can do."

"I have a hunch."

"Victor, please. This whole thing about hunches is very overrated. And who will be paying for all these services?"

"I will."

"I didn't know you were such a macher."

"Just do it, Morris."

"For you, Victor, anything. And I'll set you up tonight with little Sheldon. Now that all is settled, I have one more question. The strudel at Ben's, Victor. Have you ever tasted the strudel at Ben's? Believe me when I tell you this, it is a mechaieh. So maybe you'll be nice boichick and be ordering me a piece?"

44.

I HAD BEEN INSTRUCTED to be at the bar of the Doubletree Hotel at 10:30 P.M. and to wait there for little Sheldon. The Doubletree was a modern cement and gla.s.s structure just south of City Hall. The bar there was open and airy, with rows of tiny tables, a ring of circular booths on a riser around the edge, and gla.s.s doors looking out at the hookers on Broad Street. A two-man band played on the tiny stage, a short guy in a tux on guitar and a tall good-looking woman singing and playing synthesizer, standards like "I Will Survive" and "Cherish," the Madonna version, but no one was dancing. As I sat at the bar, waiting for little Sheldon Kapustin to come and get me, I wondered what he would look like. Small, round, a young Morris but maybe skinnier, hopefully skinnier. He would have to be skinnier, having made it through two years in the Israeli army, but it wouldn't take too many pastrami sandwiches to beef him up again. My image of Sheldon was not exactly comforting, young, small, fat, a computer nerd. "Give him a chance," Morris had asked and give him a chance I would because I didn't have much choice, but I hoped giving little Sheldon his chance wouldn't land me in jail.

Morris had told me to draw up a rough plan of Prescott's floor and I had, very rough. It was folded in my jacket pocket. Prescott's office was on the fifty-fifth floor. I wasn't quite sure how to get up there. I hoped Morris had worked out a plan. I also didn't know how to get in the office door if it was locked, but Sheldon was a locksmith, so he would have to take care of it, as well as the desk and file cabinets, which might also be locked. And if I couldn't find the actual doc.u.ment, it would probably be somewhere on the computer, which Sheldon would have to hack his way onto. Already, I realized, I was too dependent on little Sheldon, and if little Sheldon was even only twice what I expected him to be, I would be lost. I ordered a beer while I was waiting and, on a spur, also a gin and tonic. This was not a night to get drunk, but it was a night for calm, natural or chemically induced, so I drank the G&T quickly and then the beer and ordered another of each.

"Mr. Carl?"

I turned around and immediately flinched. Behind me was an enforcer type, big, solid-necked, arms like legs, a real bruiser with curly black hair and a weightlifter's pinched nose. He wore a hat, a gangster's fedora raffishly c.o.c.ked forward. He held a little leather briefcase in his right hand. It was another Raffaello summons and that briefcase, I thought, was a nice touch in the hotel. "What now?" I asked.

"Is there a problem?"

"I'm sick of it, is all. I'm sick of being dragged into cars for little chats with big-time mobsters. I'm sick of being whipsawed in your boss's little fights with Moore and the feds." Maybe I had drunk too much, or maybe my renewed resentment was getting the best of me, but it felt fine sounding off against this lug. "Tell your boss I'm busy, that tonight's not a good night, that if he wants to talk to me he can just call me on the phone like everyone else. Tell him that."

"I don't understand, Mr. Carl."

"Just tell him what I told you to tell him. You don't need to understand. That's not what you're made for, understanding, is it? Brawny boys like you are made for something else. Just tell him."

"Maybe some other night would be better."

"Yeah, sure. Tell him to have his girl get in touch with my girl and we'll set something up. We'll do lunch. I know an Indian place."

"I'll tell him, Mr. Carl, but my father won't be too happy about it."

"Your father, huh? Funny," I said. "I thought you were dead."

"Not yet. I'll give Morris the message."

"So you're little Sheldon," I said. I looked him up and down. "Tell me, Sheldon." It was the first thing that popped into my mind. "Your mother, Rosalie. I don't mean to be rude, but your mother is she by any chance a big woman?"

"She can be imposing."

"I bet. I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else. Sit down. Can I get you a drink?"

"A ginger ale."

I waved down the bartender. "A ginger ale and another beer."

"Make that two ginger ales," said not-so-little Sheldon Kapustin. When the sodas came he took his and led me to a booth in the rear, where we sat across from each other.

"Are you drunk, Mr. Carl? I'll be frank, I'm not going up with you if you're drunk."

"I'm not drunk at all," I said.

"You sounded drunk back there at the bar."

"Fortified is what I am."

"Let me see your floor plan."

I pulled out the sheet of paper on which I had sketched the hallways and offices, as best I could remember, of the fifty-fifth floor of One Liberty Place. In the corner, as big as I remembered it, was Prescott's office. I had drawn in the couch, the desk, the oblong table. He looked at it for a while.

"Which way is north?" he asked.

"I don't know."

"Do you remember the view out the window?"

I closed my eyes and saw the rivers of row-housed streets leading to Veterans Stadium, and catercorner to it the Schuylkill and Franklin Field. "I think this was south and this was west."