“Anything good?” he asked.
I almost laughed. Tucker, I knew, would get a laugh out of the last few minutes of the recording.
“Not really,” I said, trying to focus. “No great admissions. To listen to this, you’d think neither Madison Koehler nor the governor had any idea about Greg Connolly working for you or the real way he died. You’d think the governor hardly knew the name George Ippolito and only vaguely knew about Rick Harmoning getting jobs for his cronies in the administration.”
“He’s a slippery one,” Tucker said.
“Yeah, but it’s not so much that, Lee. This guy-it’s not like he avoids the topic altogether, he just doesn’t go into detail. And every time he gets near something hot, Madison’s there for a roadblock.”
“Right. Insulating the boss. Classic.”
I wasn’t as convinced as my FBI handler about the insulation Madison was giving Governor Snow. Tucker might be right; it was possible that Snow knew everything that was going on-that he directed it, in fact-and Madison was just making sure he didn’t slip up in public. But I thought it was even money that Madison was the string puller, and she figured the governor didn’t need to know the details. And Carlton Snow sure seemed like a guy who could live with that arrangement.
Tucker nodded. “Anything else?”
“Tomorrow, the unions are endorsing Snow. SLEU and the Laborers. I think eleven or eleven-thirty.”
I saw the urgency in his eyes, the same thing I felt when I heard that news, so I was quick to tell him that the word I received was there would be no Ippolito appointment tomorrow. “Madison thought the timing would be too obvious.”
“She said that? That it would be ‘too obvious’?”
“Yeah, she did. That’ll be a nice admission for you at trial.”
He seemed pleased with that. He should be, from his perspective. Madison, from what anyone could tell, was the closest to the governor. She had the most goods to spill. They’d do the old hard-soft on her. They’d throw everything they had at her, trying to scare the shit out of her, and then offer her a decent plea bargain if she gave up everything she had on Governor Snow. She would likely be the star witness.
I knew that all along, of course, but it hadn’t bothered me until now. I’d assumed that she had a role in Greg Connolly’s murder, which eased my conscience considerably for helping record incriminating conversations about the Ippolito appointment and the jobs-for-endorsement thing with Rick Harmoning. But now I didn’t like her for that murder, and it made the whole picture a little grayer for me.
“Anything else?” Tucker shook the F-Bird in his hand. He was impatient, eager to get back and dissect the contents of tonight’s recordings.
“Nothing major,” I said. I left out the part about Hector admitting to me tonight that he orchestrated the Columbus Street Cannibals’ shakedown of local businesses for campaign contributions. Chris Moody was going to love that part when he listened to the F-Bird. It was like rubbing his face in his courtroom defeat. I didn’t know Hector was going to say that. It wasn’t my intention to rub it in Chris’s face. But it was a nice fringe benefit.
“Okay, so-that’s it?” Tucker asked.
I thought for a moment. “I might as well tell you, you’re going to hear it, anyway,” I said. “The governor made a pass at me tonight.”
“He made a-” Lee Tucker stared at me with innocent, unassuming eyes. A burst of uncertain laughter escaped. “Seriously?” he asked. “What did he do?”
“He sidled up to me and put his hand on my knee.”
Tucker put his hands on top of his head. He got a real rise out of that.
“My thigh, actually,” I said. “The inside part. There was. . no doubt.”
That made him laugh harder. It was probably a combination of stress release and sleep deprivation, but soon he had to use the door to prop himself up. “You’ve gotta be. . kidding me.”
“I wish I was, believe me.”
My cell phone buzzed. The caller ID said it was Hector Almundo. I could imagine why he was calling, but I wasn’t in the mood. I was hoping Tucker would stop laughing sometime soon.
“Eight tomorrow?” Lee said to me, catching his breath, his face the color of a tomato.
“See you then.”
I could hear his laughter as he walked down the alley. I allowed myself a brief chuckle, as well, more an acknowledgment of the bizarre than pure comedy. But the frivolity didn’t last. I was getting close to the end of my run with the governor’s people, and I had done a lot for the federal government, but I had completely struck out on my personal mission. I’d set my sights on two people-the governor and Madison-as the people behind Greg Connolly’s murder, and I had turned up a goose egg.
Maybe I’d been wrong about Charlie not running the show that night when Greg and I were interrogated, with only one of us surviving. Maybe there wasn’t someone above him. Maybe I was doing nothing more than serving as a good old-fashioned snitch without a higher purpose.
My cell phone rang again. Hector a second time. No doubt now-he’d heard from the governor. He was being called in to play intermediary, to damp down any brewing fire.
I watched the phone as it played out its four rings, then silence, then a slight quiver of the phone and a buzz telling me a second voicemail message had been left.
Then I decided to call Hector back.
82
Hector answered on the second ring. “Hey,” he said, clearly relieved to hear from me. “I talked to Carl. I heard about, y’know, what happened.”
“I figured.”
“I told you that you didn’t have to stick around, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, a little more specificity would’ve been nice, Hector.”
“Carl feels terrible. He’s really embarrassed.”
“It’s fine, Hector.”
“Listen-this is something you can keep to yourself, right? I mean, you can keep this a secret?”
That, clearly, was the purpose of the call, not the apology.
“Who would I tell?”
“I know,” he said, “but Jason, I’m serious here. This kind of thing gets out, it’s over for Carl. He’s finished.”
In this day and age? “Oh, come on,” I said, but I was reconsidering my reaction before I’d finished speaking. In many contexts, it seemed like it had become downright fashionable to swing from the other side. But, now that I thought about it, what was true for movie stars or baristas at Starbucks might not be true for governors of large Midwestern states. There wasn’t exactly a sea full of outwardly gay politicians anywhere, actually. There had been the governor out east, Jersey I think, who’d held that press conference to out himself, but that presser was quickly followed by a resignation. Maybe that old line was still true, the only things that will end your political career are being caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy.
“You have to tell me that you understand what I’m saying,” said Hector.
“I thought I already did.”
Silence. Then, “Tell me what you want, J. You can have whatever you want. Seriously.”
“I want the vacancy on the supreme court,” I said.
“The sup-” He spent a moment with that, to my surprise. “I mean, that’s pretty-could we talk about the appellate court maybe?”
“Hector, I’m kidding. A Porsche 944, yellow with black interior, will be more than enough.”
“I can’t tell if you’re being serious or not.”
“I can see that.”
“Jason. Jason. You understand, you’re holding his whole political future in your-”
“I understand you’re serious, Hector. I’m not going to mention this to anybody, all right? I’m probably more embarrassed than he is.”
“I seriously doubt that.”
In the background on Hector’s side of the phone call, there was the sound of something breaking, a glass it sounded like, followed by cussing. Hector covered the phone and said something I couldn’t make out, save for the scolding tone. The voice of the person cussing was a man’s voice.