“Mike doesn’t want Waldron in on all the interviews tomorrow. Doesn’t like the guy’s style, doesn’t think he knows anything about murder investigations, says he’s no better than a Meter Maid. So Mike’s trying to get as much done as possible out of Waldron’s presence, okay?”
“Suits me fine.”
“Johnny Garelli you know that name?”
“Yeah. Johnny Gorilla, she called him. The stunt man stud Isabella romanced for a few months. I only met him once.”
“Waldron got him to come into town for a sit-down tomorrow. He arrived on the red-eye this morning. Staying at the Gramercy Park Hotel. Mike thinks that if you called him and asked him to meet you for dinner this evening, you might be able to get more out of him than we could in a formal interview. Mike says Garelli likes broads better than he likes’ cops I’m supposed to butter you up and say he likes blondes with great wheels does that work?”
“No butter needed. You know this is the kind of assignment I love. Do I have to tell Battaglia?”
“Hey, you know me. If it was one of my guys did a thing like that without my permission, I’d wring his fucking neck.
But in your case, don’t you go off duty at 6 P.M.? I’m not asking you to get a pass from nobody to have a dinner date. It’s nothing dangerous like Mata Hari. We have no reason to think he’s the killer, but Mike wants to look at him ‘cause he’s got such a history of jealous squabbles with the deceased. We figure he’ll bite if you call, one of yous’ll pick a place, and Chapman’ll be having a drink at the bar.
Maybe you’ll get some scoop, some juice he’ll give you as a friend of Isabella’s. Pick his brain. I guess I’m usin’ that term loosely. Worst that can happen to you is you have a boring evening and a bad meal. Choose the restaurant, you might even eat good.“
“On the job, Loo. I love it. I’ll try to reach him. Tell Mike to call me when he gets in this afternoon. I’ll really feel like a wallflower if he turns me down.”
“If he turns you down, Alex, I’ll take you to Sheehan’s for a steak.”
Ugh, the food at Sheehan’s, a friendly bar run by the family of a retired Homicide cop. Great place to drink, but damned if I’d eat another meal there. That was incentive enough to put in a call to the Gorilla.
I got the number of the hotel from Information and asked the desk for Johnny’s room. He answered the phone and sounded as though I had awakened him. I reminded him that we had met once at Mortimer’s, expressed my less than-enthusiastic sympathy for Isabella with exaggerated sincerity, and suggested that we might meet for drinks or dinner to commiserate about her loss. He told me he’d been napping because of his jet lag, and that he had a date with a dancer from one of the Broadway shows who couldn’t meet him till almost midnight. Yeah, he’d be glad to do dinner with an old friend of Isabella’s.
“Want me to suggest a restaurant, or do you know New York?”
“You got any problem with Rao’s?”
“Only getting in. I adore it, but you’ll never get a table for tonight.” A New York classic, but impossible to get into. The tiny place four booths and a handful of tables was one of the hottest tickets in New York, despite its unlikely location on the corner of Pleasant Avenue and 114th Street in the heart of East Harlem. It was one of the last remaining vestiges of the Italian neighborhood that,ey once flourished there. Run almost like a club, regulars had On their own tables for designated nights of the week and there was no room for reservations for unknowns unless every as politician, actor, writer, and hotshot were marooned on the;er same remote island. Great food, no menus, and the most he incredible jukebox in the city light on Smokey, but lots st of Sinatra and the Shirelles. ier “Not a problem. Stallone told me I could have his table if I wanted it tonight. I was just about to give it up this girl I’m being set up with doesn’t get off till it’s too late to eat. I’ll meet you there at eight.”
Lucky for me. I get the good meal, and the showgirl gets Johnny Garelli for dessert.
When my lunch was delivered, I closed the door to the office and ate by myself, enjoying the solitude. It never lasted long.
The first knock on the door was Mark Acciano. I waved him in.
“What did you think?” he asked eagerly.
“Great summation, really good job. Thoughtful, thorough, impassioned. You gave it your best shot. Now you’ve got to let the jurors go to work you’ve given them all the tools they need to reach the right result. The rest is in their hands.” We chatted about the case and I told him I would try to be with him when the verdict came in, to beep me when he got the call. Then came Phil Weinfeld, aka The Whiner. He had two traits that made Sarah and me cringe every time he loomed in the doorway of my office. First was what we called the “I knew that‘ problem. He’d call and urgently plead for ten minutes of my time, come over and present a hypothetical, and then ask for guidance. The ten-minute presentation never took less than half an hour, and at the end, when Sarah or I made a suggestion which obviously caught Phil by surprise, he’d say, ”I knew that.“ Then what did you bother me for in the first place?
The other thing he was known for, much to the aggravation of most of his colleagues, was his insistence on seeking advice from eight or ten of us on exactly the same issue, without revealing that he had already consulted the others. We used to joke that if he got hit by a bus on his way home in the middle of the trial, the case wouldn’t even need an hour’s adjournment. There’d be at least a dozen of us who knew the facts every bit as well as he did who could pick up the file and carry on to the verdict.
He had worn out his welcome with Sarah, who’d begin every conversation with him by asking, “How many other assistants have you asked about this already?” If he’d been through it with half of the bureau, she’d point to the door and tell him to get lost.
“What’s up, Phil?”
“Have you got a few minutes for a question, Alex?”
“A few.”
“I’m having a problem with the witness in the case that you assigned me in September, the woman whose old boyfriend came back to her apartment to pick up his clothes, and then beat her to a pulp when she wouldn’t have sex with him? You know which one I mean?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, she canceled three appointments with me. Kept telling me that she didn’t want to prosecute ‘cause she still loved him. I was trying to work out a plea with his lawyer, figuring I’d rather take a misdemeanor assault than have him walk away with no record.”
“What’s the problem?”
“She just called me in hysterics. Changed her mind completely. She went to a psychic this morning for a consultation.
Didn’t tell the psychic any of their history, nothing about the guy, and the psychic does her reading and says, ”There’s a man in your life who’s very dangerous.“ She flipped. She’s terrified. Now she wants to go all the way with the case.”
“You mean the ex puts her in the hospital with two fractured ribs, a loose tooth, a broken nose and a black eye, but it took a swami to convince her the guy is dangerous?Unbelievable. I’m sure she’s sitting in front of the psychic with a huge shiner and her nose relocated next to her ear, and the genius figures out that a dangerous man hit her.Maybe we ought to put a psychic on the payroll to help with recalcitrant witnesses.”
“What should I do about the plea offer I made?”
“Withdraw it. If the schmuck was too stupid to take it and run, bring her in tomorrow while she’s still hot to testify and put the case in the Grand Jury. Assign the arresting officer, even if it’s his RDO‘ regular day off’ and I’ll authorize the overtime. Indict him and let’s get the felony instead of the misdemeanor. Be sure her order of protection is renewed.” I “Yeah, I know that. I’ll take care of it.”