Last Chance for Glory (28 page)

Steinberg paused as Blake came over to the desk, put one instrument away, took out another, left without a word.

“Bell, your friend is a snot,” Steinberg declared.

“True,” Kosinski replied, “but he does good work.” Steinberg took so long to think about it, Kosinski figured the lawyer had to be adding up the numbers, weighing Blake’s cost against his worth.

“Anyway,” Steinberg finally said, “the story my client told me, and which I originally thought was so much crapola, went like this. A month before his arrest, Boyd Harrison receives a visit from a cop who calls himself Lieutenant Anthony Carabone. My client never asks to see formal ID, but he does get a look at the badge, which doesn’t prove much. This Carabone lays out Harrison’s entire scheme, complete with figures, then demands a ten-thousand-dollar payoff. Harrison agrees, but naturally, being a degenerate gambler, he doesn’t have a penny when the day of reckoning comes around. About a month later, he finds himself behind bars.

“Anthony Carabone? Sound more like the mafia than the cops, but I decide to check it out, mostly because it’s the only game in town. Not that I’m so stupid I report the blackmail and hope the cops investigate on their own. No, the first thing I do is call in some favors and track Lieutenant Carabone to his lair, which turns out to be Intelligence. This gets my back up, because, naturally, I’m thinking about my father and how he couldn’t hold a job because somebody in a suit always came around to pass the word to his employers. So what I do is file a motion demanding anything Intelligence has in its files relating to my client. Now, what I’m expecting is a flat denial that any such files exist, but, instead, the prosecutor cites national security, claims that releasing the files would send the country right down the tubes.

“The judge, naturally, puts off any consideration of trial while he reads the briefs and considers the verbal arguments. He says it’ll take him from six to nine months because of his crowded calendar and the five hundred pages I’ve tossed in his face. Bell, for me it was seventh heaven, because now I’ve got my wedge and I fully intend to pound it home. ‘Make me a deal,’ I tell the prosecutor. And make it good, because I’m telling you my client’s family has plenty of money and, just in case the judge should happen to rule against me (which he won’t because Steinberg is never wrong about technicalities), I’m prepared to go into the federal courts.’”

Kosinski shook his head, remembered how much he’d hated defense attorneys when he was a cop. “Probation, right? That’s what they gave you?”

“That’s what they gave my
client,
Bell. I wasn’t on trial.”

“And it doesn’t bother you that this criminal, who stole five hundred thousand dollars, got off the hook?”

Steinberg folded his arms across his chest, let the wig slide forward. “That’s my job. That’s what I do.” He glared at Kosinski.

“You didn’t have to become a
criminal
lawyer. Nobody forced it on you.”

“From you, Kosinski, I didn’t expect naive. What attorneys do is advocate their clients’ positions. It doesn’t matter if the client is a human or a corporation; it doesn’t matter how bad those positions are. A lawyer’s job is to make the best of the worst.”

Blake interrupted before Kosinski could return fire. “Come over here,” he said. “I’ve found it.” He was standing beneath a mounted buffalo’s head, pointing at something neither man could immediately see. “There, right there. That black dot. That’s the microphone.”

“Looks like a cockroach’s ass,” Steinberg observed.

“If you check a little closer, you can see the wire running through the fur. See it?”

“Son-of-a-bitch, they bugged my office. I swear I’m beginning to take this personally, and when Steinberg takes it personally, hold onto your ass.”

“Bell, let’s see if we can get the head down without disturbing the wire. I wanna make sure it goes back exactly the way it was.”

Once the head was lying on Steinberg’s couch, the setup became painfully obvious. The reels of the tape recorder, mounted in a hollow space inside the enormous skull, turned whenever they made a sound.

“It’s kinda big, isn’t it?” Kosinski asked. “I was expecting something the size of a credit card.”

“For a tape recorder that’ll carry ten hours of conversation, it’s
very
small, believe me.” Blake wrapped his fingers in a handkerchief, rewound the tape, started to work his way through it. Through Steinberg on the telephone, Steinberg yelling at his clients, Steinberg yelling at his secretary, Steinberg moaning while a female voice shouted, “Faster, Maxwell, faster, faster, faster.”

“So,
nu,”
Steinberg said, stopping the tape, “for me the only sin is that she charges two hundred dollars to work me to death.”

“Don’t worry, Maxwell,” Blake observed, “we’re not gonna be judgmental here. Me and Bell, we always advocate our client’s position. You wouldn’t happen to remember when you took that position, would you?”

“Two days ago. After hours.”

“Good. That means the conversation we had yesterday has to be on here. I’ll go through it when I get home to make sure.” Blake pulled the cassette, replaced it with a blank tape and turned the recorder over. Using a rubber-tipped screwdriver, he removed the back plate. “No scratches,” he said. “It’s important, because they’ll look for signs of tampering.” He found a small red wire leading from the motor and worked it loose with his fingertips. When he pressed the play button and nothing happened, he grinned and said, “Defective merchandise. Curse of the dishonest spook. They might guess, but they can’t know.”

Steinberg looked at his drinking partner. “Okay,” he said, “I’m admitting it. The boy does good work. Expensive, but good.”

“Like that hooker, for instance?” Kosinski let his voice rise an octave. “‘Faster, Maxwell. Faster, faster, faster.’”

“What could I say, Bell? My doctor tells me I gotta get more exercise and treadmills are boring. Likewise for stationary bicycles.”

Blake held up the tape recorder. “You think we could go over a few things?” When there was no answer, he continued. “From now on, unless I tell you different, you should assume that big brother is listening to every word. Understand?” He waited for both men to nod. “The way I see it, Harrah can’t use all his resources. That’s why we don’t have personal tails and that’s why there’s only one surveillance van. Max, the blackmail story you told? How did Intelligence discover that your client was embezzling funds unless he was part of some larger investigation?”

“We thought about that, of course,” Steinberg answered. “At first, it didn’t make sense—Harrison was a Ronald Reagan conservative and a decorated Vietnam veteran. His wife was as straight as he was, except that she spent a lot of her time doing volunteer work for children. One of the places where she volunteered was called the Bedford-Stuyvesant Children’s Center. According to her, the center was on the up-and-up, which might have been the case, but the supervisor, Ramon Tavares, was indicted for stashing a hundred M16s in the basement. The way I heard it, the cops thought he was part of the FALN, the Puerto Rican terrorist outfit. It’s possible that she and her husband just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and got themselves targeted.”

“Sure,” Blake said, “but where does the blackmail come in? Unless Samuel Harrah does a little business on the side. Which is why I don’t think he can use all his assets. Not unless every single cop in the Intelligence Division is bent.”

“It’d be too expensive,” Kosinski interrupted. “To cut all those cops in. Too expensive and too dangerous. He’d never do it.”

“Excuse me,” Steinberg said, “but I don’t see what blackmail has to do with Billy Sowell getting framed. It sounds like a straight payoff to me.

Blake held both hands up. “At this point, it doesn’t matter. The field’s in motion and we’re gonna follow the bouncing ball wherever it goes. It’s just nice to know we’re not up against thirty thousand cops. Bell, do me a favor. Take the bus over tomorrow morning. We’ll go out together.”

“What about my car?”

“Drive the car back to the rental agency and turn it in. I swept my own car and it was clean, but I don’t know about yours and I don’t want to check it on the street. Look, the way I see it, Samuel Harrah is dead meat. He’s right out in the open and he doesn’t have any idea what we’re gonna do. Plus, he’s scared shitless, which is why he’s watching us. Believe me, boys, it’s only a matter of time until we have what we need to put him away. Unless, of course, he kills us.”

Kosinski looked into Blake’s eyes, noted the mad grin. He was about to say something about maintaining control when Blake spoke again.

“But, don’t worry, the way I’m gonna work it, they’ll go to jail even if they
do
kill us.”

M
ARTY BLAKE SAT IN
his car, listened to the rain pound on the roof, stared through a shifting gray curtain at the front door of Eternal Memorials, Inc. The way he saw it, this was his last chance at reflection. The last chance to back off, change his mind, run away. His Uncle Patrick had made that point abundantly clear. Had arrived unexpectedly at his door, been cautioned with a gesture, then led upstairs to Dora Blake’s apartment.

“Bugged?” Patrick Blake had said. “I don’t believe it.”

“And tapped.” Blake had managed to keep a straight face. With difficulty.

“Jesus Christ.”

“No, Uncle Pat. Not Jesus Christ—Jesus doesn’t need hardware to know what I’m up to. Samuel Harrah, on the other hand, has yet to attain godhood. I hope.”

As far as Marty Blake was concerned, that was the high point of the conversation. Uncle Patrick had come to call his nephew off “before it was too late.” He’d been so persistent, so desperate, that Blake had finally become suspicious.

“You didn’t rat me out, did you, Uncle Pat? Didn’t put your nephew’s head on the block?”

The accusation had sent the older man running for the door. Huffing his indignation through clenched teeth.

“Just tell me one thing, Marty. Just tell me what’s in it for you. What’s in it for
anybody.”
Patrick Blake had paused in the open doorway, had actually filled the frame. Resplendent in his captain’s uniform, he’d jammed his peaked cap on his head, then fired one last volley. “There’s no win here. There’s no
upside.
If you take a cop down—even a dirty cop—you’ll pay for it as long as you live in New York. Remember Serpico. Remember that honest cops hated him, too.”

When the door had closed (more softly than Blake would have predicted) he’d turned to his mother, expecting support. No such luck. She’d poured out the ritual mugs of coffee, observed a few minutes of nearly mandatory silence, then fired her own volley.

“What I told you the other day about your father? About how I didn’t know if he was guilty or not? It wasn’t true. I know he didn’t—couldn’t …” She’d hesitated, looked down at her feet. “I know that your father—my husband—was not a rapist. But I couldn’t convince him. Couldn’t reach him. He decided to walk away from his life and that’s just what he did. Men are only strong when their fears are out in front of them.”

Blake had watched his mother for a moment, noting her discomfort. Enjoying it, if the truth be told. Thinking, maybe she hadn’t reached him because she was too busy keeping his disgrace a secret.

“My father’s gone,” he’d finally said. “And if I get sidetracked here, I’m gonna be gone, too. But I promise you this, Mom—once I’m finished with Samuel Harrah, I’m gonna convince Max Steinberg to tell me the truth. Let me know if you wanna hear it.”

He’d returned to his apartment, tried to put Matthew Blake out of his mind, discovered a letter from Rebecca Webber in his mailbox as he left the building.

Things have gone very badly here. We cannot leave the hotel without being called
auslander
by some ragged beggar.
Schlafsitz des Rabes
is lost to us. We return on September 2nd.

REBECCA

Schlafsitz des Rabes?
There was no, I love you. No, I miss you. Not even, I’m hot for your body. Still, the message was clear enough: We return on September second. Be ready.

Marty Blake, in his own estimation, needed Rebecca Webber about as much as his Bally loafers needed the sudden downpour. September second was nearly a week away. Time enough to end the investigation, brace Max Steinberg, prepare for Rebecca’s return. Maybe he’d go to Bloomingdale’s and find a pair of silk pajamas with a bunny tail sewn into the seat. It was the least he could do.

The strangest part was that everything in Blake’s professional life was going smoothly. Steinberg had been angry enough to write a five-figure check; Johan Tillson’s apartment and business phones had been tapped; John McGuire’s suburban home had been wired so thoroughly that Blake was sure he’d hear the judge singing in the shower. Best of all, Gurpreet Patel had come through, summoning Marty Blake with a terse, self-congratulatory telegram, while Joanna Bardo had called to tell him the middle-aged client with the wayward wife had backed out at the last minute due to the wife’s filing for divorce. Apparently, she’d been sneaking out to see a lawyer, not a lover.

Blake pushed the door open, stuck his umbrella outside. The water was running along the pavement in sheets. If he blocked the flow, it would crawl up the side of his Ballys, maybe even slosh down over the top.

“Fuck it,” he said aloud, “a man’s gotta suffer for his art.” He was wrong about the back wave. Not content with his loafer, it surged up the side of his calf, cresting at the knee. The sensation, he decided, wasn’t all that bad. But his cuffs would drip and shoes would give off wet sucking sounds until he managed to get home and change. And, of course, Gurp Patel would notice.

“How wonderful, Marty Blake. You have added a babbling brook to the tableau.” He waved his arms, indicating the mural surrounding them. “With wonderful sound effects.”

“What could I say? I was too itchy to sit it out.”

“This is not wise. This is the time for patience. You must wait like the praying mantis in the tall grass. You must …”

“Cut the crap. You’re not Buddha.”