"Oh… dear Lord…" She kissed my hands and blubbered awhile. I managed to get a look at my watch. "Anna, I have to go meet Frank." I stood, her hands still grasping mine. "I really have to go -" "Hey, Counsellor! Got to move!" It was Vinnie, who, seeing Anna clutching me, said, "Oh, hi, Mrs Bellarosa. Sorry about this. I gotta take Mr Sutter to court."
I disengaged my hands and said to Anna, "Call Susan and she'll come over to keep you company. Maybe you can go shopping, play a little tennis." I hurried toward the door, snatched up my briefcase, and left quickly.
On the expressway into Manhattan, Lenny, behind the wheel, said, "Did you see how cool the don was?"
Vinnie, also in the front seat, replied, "Yeah. He ain't afraid of nuthin'." He looked back at me. "Right, Counsellor?"
I was a little annoyed with these two, who had been singing Bellarosa's praises for the last ten miles, as though he'd been arrested by the KGB for pro-democracy activities and was on his way to the Lubyanka for torture. I said, "There was nothing to be afraid of except bad drivers on the expressway." "Yeah?" snapped Vinnie. "I've been arrested twice. You got to show balls or they fuck you around. How'd you like to be looking at ten or twenty years?" "Hey, Vinnie," I replied, "if you can't do the time, don't do the crime.
Capisce?"
Lenny laughed. "Listen to this guy. He sounds like fucking Weinstein now. Hey, Counsellor, how'd you act if you was thrown in a cell full of melanzane and spies?"
"I might prefer it to being in a car with two greaseballs." They thought that was very funny and they laughed, slapped their knees, pounded the dashboard, and Lenny hit the horn a few times while Vinnie whooped. The Italians, I'd discovered, were pretty thick-skinned when it came to ethnic humour at their expense. But there were other kinds of jokes they didn't find so amusing. You had to be careful.
Vinnie said to me, "The don is lookin' forward to lunch at Caffe Roma today, Counsellor. He's gonna be there, right?"
"I hope so. If not, we'll get Caffe Roma to deliver to his cell." Now there's an example of the kind of joke they don't find funny. In fact, Vinnie said, "That's not too fuckin' funny."
Lenny said, "If you don't walk out of that court with the don, maybe you should find another way home."
That wasn't quite a threat, but it had possibilities. I replied, "Let me worry about that. You worry about driving."
No one spoke for a while, which was fine with me. So there I was, in a black Cadillac with two Mafia goons, heading into the maws of the federal criminal justice system.
It was just nine A.M. now and the worst of the rush hour was over, but traffic was still heavy, so I didn't think there was any chance that we'd overtake Mancuso, and in fact, I didn't even know what sort of vehicle he was driving. But as it turned out, though we never saw the car that Mancuso and Bellarosa were in, I began to realize that the same four nondescript grey Fords had been keeping pace with us for some time.
Lenny said, "Look at those cocksuckers."
So I did. Each car held two men, and they were staring at us as they played a game of changing positions around us. The car to our front suddenly slowed down, and Lenny hit his brakes. "Cocksuckers!"
The grey Fords to our sides and rear boxed us in, and they slowed us down to ten miles an hour, causing the other Long Island Expressway motorists behind us, who are not known for road courtesy in the best of times, to go nearly hysterical. Horns were blaring, insults hurled, drivers pounded their foreheads against their steering wheels. They were really upset back there. So we caused what they call on the radio 'major delays' approaching the Midtown Tunnel.
This wasn't just harassment, of course, but a rather unethical attempt to separate me from my client. I saw Ferragamo's hand in this and began to suspect that it wasn't the FBI in those cars, but Ferragamo's men from the Justice Department. I said to Lenny, "Go right to Federal Court in Foley Square." "But the don said to meet him at the FBI headquarters."
"Do what I say."
"He'll kill us!"
"Do what I say!"
Vinnie, who had about half a functional brain, said, "He's right. We gotta get straight to the court."
Lenny seemed to understand. "Okay. But I ain't takin' this fuckin' rap, Vinnie." I settled back in the seat and listened to the horns blaring around us. I didn't think Mancuso was in on this, and as best I could figure it, Mancuso would get a call over his car radio instructing him to go straight to Federal Court. Bellarosa could and would be booked there instead of at FBI headquarters. Then Bellarosa would be whisked in front of a judge for arraignment, and the head of New York's largest crime family would be standing there in his nice suit without an attorney. The judge would read the charge and ask Bellarosa to enter a plea. Bellarosa would say, "Not guilty," and the judge would order him held without bail. Frank would put up a big stink, but to no avail. Murder is a tough charge, and it would take me about two weeks to get a bail hearing. Actually, I would be well-advised to just head on down to Rio and send a postcard. I looked at my briefcase beside me. Some of the paper assets were negotiable, and there was a cool million in cash. The Brazilians didn't ask many questions when you deposited a million U.S. in the bank, except maybe what colour cheques you wanted.
I looked at my watch. They were probably at Foley Square by now, but the booking process, even if it was speeded up, still had to be done according to law; there would be a body search, fingerprinting, photographs, a personal history taken, and forms to fill out. Only then would they haul Bellarosa in front of a waiting judge. So it was possible for me to charge into the courthouse, find out where Bellarosa was to be arraigned, and get into the courtroom on time. It was possible.
I remember I had a house closing in Oyster Bay once, and my car broke down… but maybe that's not a good comparison.
Well, but what could I do? I took down the licence plate numbers of our escorts, stared back at them, then picked up a newspaper lying on the seat. The Mets had beaten Montreal and were two games out of first place now. I said to my friends up front, "Hey, how 'bout them Mets?"
Vinnie said, "Yeah, you see that last night?"
We did baseball chatter awhile. I knew we had to have something in common besides the same boss and the fear of our lives.
There was a car phone in the rear, and I could have called Susan, but I had no desire to. The next time she heard anything of me would be on the afternoon news. But then I remembered she didn't read, hear, or watch the news. But maybe she'd make an exception in this case. Thanks for the challenge, Susan. We approached the tunnel tolls, and I looked at my watch. This was going to be very close.
CHAPTER 27
We lost our escort at the Midtown Tunnel and got on the FDR Drive. Lenny turned out to be a better driver than a conversationalist, which is saying very little, and he got us quickly into and through the narrow, crowded streets of lower Manhattan. But the closer we got to Foley Square, the slower the traffic was moving. I looked at my watch. It was nine-forty, and I estimated that Mancuso and Bellarosa could have been at Foley Square for as long as thirty minutes. The wheels of criminal justice move slowly, but they're capable of a quick grind if someone such as Alphonse Ferragamo is standing there squirting oil on them. But the wheels of the Cadillac were not moving fast at all. In fact, we were stalled in traffic near City Hall Park, and the first arraignments would begin at ten A.M. Damn it. I grabbed my briefcase and opened the door. "Where you goin'?" asked Vinnie. "Rio." I exited the car before he could process that. It was hot and humid outside the air-conditioned Cadillac, and it's not easy to run in wing-tip shoes despite their name, but all lawyers have done this at one time or another, and I headed up Center Street toward Foley Square at a good clip. On the way, I practised my lines. "Your Honour! Don't bang that gavel! I got money!"