I shook my head. “What’s the catch?”
“The catch is that this isn’t one big happy fucking family. There’s risk everywhere. And I don’t like risk, kid. I do not like it.” He popped a slice of orange in his mouth. “I need a guy like you. I’ve been looking for a guy like you. Hector says you’re as good a lawyer as he knows. Me, I haven’t seen anything that tells me different. So that part, we’re okay.”
So far, so good. Cimino shifted in his chair and turned to me. “You’re with me or you’re against me. There’s nothing in between. You understand that?”
“Yes,” I said.
“You remember that, I’ll make you rich. But you cross me, kid, you’ll be sorry you ever met me. I take care of the people around me and everyone else-everyone else-” He made a noise. A smile crept across his face. He looked over his shoulder and then leaned into me. “A guy named Dick Baroni. B-A-R-O-N-I. He could tell you something about being with me and then against me. He could tell you, but he won’t. You could cut off his dick, he wouldn’t tell you about Charlie Cimino. Not anymore.”
He gave me a moment to think about that. He’d even spelled the guy’s name out for me, so he obviously wanted me to follow up, to look into it.
“What I’m doing right now,” he continued, “I’m taking a risk. I’m taking a risk on you. I’m letting you in. So here’s your chance to walk away, kid. You’re having second thoughts, go have ’em on someone else’s time. No hard feelings. But you work for me, you work for me. Are we clear?”
I don’t think he could have possibly been clearer. “We understand each other,” I said.
“Okay, then.” He dropped his hand flat on the table. “Your job isn’t to tell me what I can do. Your job is to make sure I can do what I wanna do. You see the difference?”
I chewed on that a moment. “If you want something,” I said, “then my job is to want it, too. My job is to see if there is any conceivable way to get you what you want. And I’m aggressive. I’m competitive. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, I’ll find a way to argue that what you want is legal. But that one time out of a hundred-you’ll have to listen to me. We have to make sure that what we do survives an audit.”
“An audit.”
I gave him a look. I leaned in closer. “We both know what I mean. Neither of us is worried about someone filing a lawsuit over what the PCB does. We’re worried about those cocksuckers with trench coats and sunglasses and grand jury subpoenas. The ones who put my father in prison.”
The mere mention of the federal government eliminated some of the color from Cimino’s face. But all I did was say out loud what was already on his mind. Charlie Cimino didn’t avoid cell phones and faxes and emails because he was opposed to twenty-first-century technology.
“And you’re going to steer me clear of those cocksuckers,” he said.
“I am. You’re relying on my advice, Charlie. If something the PCB does gets a hard look, who do you think gets the hardest look? I’m the one with his ass on the line here. So if I say it can’t happen, Charlie, you’re going to say, ‘Thank you, Jason, for making sure I can sleep well at night, knowing that you’ve got my back.’ ”I drilled a finger into the table. “And Charlie, no fuckin’ foolin’, you tell me right now if you see it differently. I’m giving you the chance to walk away.”
I thought it helped to show a little spine here. That’s what he needed, even if he didn’t like it, and I was counting on him realizing that. It wasn’t until a short laugh burst out of him that I knew he had.
35
After my workout at the Gold Coast Athletic Club, I returned to my law office. I knew it was only a matter of time before “David Hamlin” would be ringing me to pump me for information. I spent the time on Google, looking up “Dick Baroni,” the guy Cimino had mentioned-someone who supposedly had learned the difference between being “with” Cimino and “against” him.
It didn’t take me long to find that Richard Baroni was a real estate developer who had had a few balls in the air during the housing bubble in the late nineties. I didn’t see anything that mentioned Charlie Cimino, but there were plenty of mentions of Mr. Baroni’s office going up in flames, with him in it, in 1995. He’d managed to escape with a severely broken leg, a few superficial burns, and surprisingly no idea who might be responsible for the fire.
How nice of Cimino to relate that quaint little anecdote.
Tucker called me on my direct line, avoiding my receptionist, Marie, because we figured repeated phone calls from “David Hamlin” would prompt too many inquiries from the ladies in my office. He said he was going to order food from the downstairs diner and to meet him at Hamlin Consulting in Suite 410.
When I knocked on the frosted glass door, a little late, Tucker showed me in. He had a cheese omelet open in a styrofoam container and, across from him at his desk, a Reuben and hash browns with a sweaty bottle of water for me.
“So how did it go?”
“How it went,” I said, settling in, “is I’m glad I wasn’t wearing a wire. We got in his car and went to his club for racquetball.”
“Yeah.” Tucker shook out a bad thought. “Okay, good, then. He was probably checking you.”
“Probably? I left my clothes, wallet, phone, everything in an unlocked locker. We play racquetball for an hour, then we’re hanging out in a lounge area, and he doesn’t say shit to me until some ‘acquaintance’ of his walks up to him and says, ‘Everything’s great, Mr. Cimino,’ and suddenly Cimino opens up to me.”
Tucker’s head fell back against the cushion. “They went through your stuff.”
“Give the man a prize.”
“Could you identify the man? The one who searched your locker?”
“I don’t know. Probably. And you’re sure you’ve never called my cell from an official line?”
“I’m sure-”
“Because I’ll bet Charlie’s friend has my entire call log, Tucker.”
“Relax, Jason. What, we’ve never done this before? There’s nothing that could come back to me. Don’t worry about that. You’re good.”
“I’m good? Easy for you to say.” I let out a long sigh. “Well, I don’t know if I’m good, but I’m definitely in. He gave me a big speech about me not fucking him. He even dropped a name, some guy who apparently didn’t learn the lesson so well. I just Googled the guy and it turns out, life took a bad turn for him.”
“Yeah? What’s the name?” Tucker pulled a small notebook out of his back pocket.
“Richard Baroni. Real estate developer. His office was torched in ninety-five, and he almost went down with it. I can only guess it was a deal gone south or something.”
Tucker scribbled a note. I looked at my sandwich and the burned hash browns, just how I like them, but I had suddenly lost my appetite. I pushed the food around and took a couple of bites but couldn’t taste it. Tucker had no trouble downing his meal.
“So you passed the test,” he said, wiping his mouth.
So far, I had passed. I had a feeling there would be some pop quizzes along the way.
“Tell me about his car. Was there anything unusual in the interior? Like, anything that he stuck to the dashboard or anything that looked out of place. Maybe a clock stuck-”
“An air freshener,” I suddenly realized. “We’re in this souped-up Porsche 911 with this beautiful leather interior and he’s got this cheesy air freshener-”
“Okay.” Tucker nodded. “Okay. It was a detector. It detects transmitter signals.”
“Great.” I pushed my food away. “That’s just great.”
“It just means we can’t use a transmitter, Jason. All you’re wearing is a simple recording device. A small tape recorder. You’re not sending a signal back to us. No detector can pick up a tape recorder. It’s only when you’re transmitting a signal.” He shook his head. “And now we know it’s not even an option.”
“And now we know,” I said, “that he knows he’s being watched.”