“Yes,” I said, conscious of the insult.
“There will be some people there you should know,” he said, his tone once again avuncular. “It’s never too early to start meeting the right people.”
“But about the check.”
“Don’t worry, Victor. Concannon is on the board of directors of CUP and his indemnification is provided for by the committee’s bylaws. It is all perfectly legal, I assure you. Take it.”
So I took it, and stuffed it in my pocket, and sat with it in the courtroom, thinking of the black-tie affair to which I had just been invited, wondering at all the important people there to whom Prescott would introduce me. I was imagining the scene, sparkling with tuxedos and gowns in a pure black and white, like a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie, when I was tapped on the shoulder by a tall, pale man.
“You Carl?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Let’s talk,” he said, giving a toss to his head in the general direction of the hallway.
He wore a blue suit, a red tie, black, heavy police shoes, the generic uniform of a prosecutor. There was a weariness in his eye, a sense of having seen it all before. Prosecutors have two primary expressions, one of weary cynicism when they think they are being lied to, which is often, and one of weary self-righteousness when they believe themselves to be the last bastions of truth and justice in the world, which is always. These expressions are as much a part of the uniform as the red ties. When they hire on with the government they must be sent down to Washington to train with an army of mimes in a basement of the Justice Department building, mastering their weary expressions.
“I’m Marshall Eggert,” he said, perfunctorily holding out his hand when we reached the hallway. It was like grabbing hold of an eel. “I’m prosecuting the Moore case. I understand you’ll be representing Concannon.”
“That’s right.”
“We’re glad as hell that McCrae’s off the case,” he said. “If we had known that’s all it took we would have taken him out for some Peking duck months ago.”
“Your sympathy is heartwarming,” I said.
“We could never get McCrae to accept a deal for Concannon. Could never get him to even consider one.”
“What kind of deal?” I asked warily.
“We’ll drop everything down to one felony and recommend a minimal term. And we won’t object if the Bureau of Prisons gets soft and sends him to a Level 1 facility like Allenwood.”
“And what does he do?”
“Testify.”
“Against his boss.”
“Exactly.”
“And for that he gets jail time? It won’t happen, Marshall, can I call you Marshall? Chet Concannon’s a stand-up guy. He won’t flip.”
Eggert sniffed at me. “What would he want?”
Good question. Truthfully, I had no idea what Chester Concannon would want to testify against his boss, but I knew exactly what I wanted here. “Complete immunity,” I said.
“You know better than that, Carl. We would never give immunity in a case like this.”
I shrugged.
“Your boy’s in a tough spot,” said Eggert, who had dropped a hand into his navy blue pants pocket and was now jingling his loose change. “With his priors he’s looking at serious time. And he’s liable to be caught in the crossfire between the government and Moore. If I were you I’d be jumping out of my pants to make a deal. Look everything over, talk to Concannon. We’ll keep our offer open for a week, but then it disappears. Now how much time will you need to get ready for trial? We’re willing to be flexible.”
“Trial’s in a week and a half,” I said. “That should be enough.”
The jingling stopped suddenly and Eggert’s expression shifted to weary incredulity. He sniffed twice, cracked a weary smile, and the jingling began again. “Ever tried a racketeering case before, Carl?”
“No.”
“This is not your usual rear-ender. There are tapes, there are boxes of documents, there are reams of financial records, there are over a thousand pages of Jencks Act material from the grand jury. And there’s a half a million dollars flowing from the good guys to the bad guys, a half million we can’t all account for. This is complex stuff. There’s no way you can be ready in a week and a half.”
“I’ll work overtime,” I said.
“Listen, pal, if you don’t ask for more time I’m going to demand it, and make you look like a fool in the process. I’m not going to have my conviction overturned upstairs because of your incompetence.”
My eyes were watering, so I turned aside and looked down the hall. “You started the clock running when you indicted, Marshall. Time to step up to the line, ready or not.”
“Oh, we’ll be ready,” he said, the jingling of his change growing furious. “The government is always ready. But you’d be well advised to be careful here, Carl. These people you’re palling around with now, they’re not boy scouts. Bissonette would tell you so if he could talk out a skull still as soft as a ripe guava. And fat Pete McCrae, whom you replaced, that piece of duck might have done him a favor. He was two weeks from getting indicted himself.”
“I can look out for myself,” I said.
“I don’t know how you fell into this case, Carl,” he said, “but trust me when I tell you that you didn’t fall in clover.”
Then Marshall Eggert, a knight in cheap navy blue wool and clunky black shoes, a weary prosecutor weighed down by all his grave and portentous righteousness, Marshall Eggert turned from me and stalked back into the courtroom. Well, I could never say I hadn’t been warned.
Judge Gimbel was a great prune of a man, his skull covered in a wrinkled bag of skin without even a pretense of hair, except for wiry sprouts erupting from his brows and ears. His mouth was dried and downturned. A set of reading glasses perched aggressively on the tip of his sharp nose, through which he peered with a marked disdain for those with the temerity to stand before him. He had been a federal judge longer than anyone could remember and acted as if he had been born to the job. His voice, turned grotesque by age and disease, was like a handsaw eating through a log.
“Did Mr. Concannon get new counsel?” the judge asked. There was a slight echo in the courtroom that gave the proceedings an air of grave importance.
“Yes, Your Honor,” I said. “Victor Carl on behalf of Chester Concannon. I filed an appearance of counsel this morning.”
There were four of us at the defense table. Prescott stood next to me, straight as a pole in his stock navy suit, his own pair of reading glasses perched on his nose, lending him the virtuous air of a scholar. Moore and Concannon sat on either side of us. Behind our table was the Talbott, Kittredge team, all in a row, waiting to hand off any document for which Prescott snapped his fingers. At the prosecution’s table stood only Eggert.
“Are you satisfied with Mr. Carl’s representation, Mr. Concannon?”
Concannon stood and said, “Yes, sir.”
“I can attest,” said Prescott, “that Mr. Carl is a highly qualified attorney.”
“We’ll see, won’t we,” said the judge. “When’s our trial date?”
“October sixth,” said the judge’s clerk, a young woman sitting at a table in front of the bench, ceaselessly working through piles of paper as she spoke.
“That’s thirteen days from now,” said the judge. “Are we going to be ready?”
“Yes, Your Honor,” said Prescott.
“The government will be ready, Your Honor,” said Eggert, “but in light of the fact that Mr. Carl filed his appearance only this morning, we believe a continuance is in order.”
“I’ve discussed the case with Mr. Carl,” said Prescott. “He’s had access to all our discovery and to Mr. McCrae’s files and he has informed me that no delay of the trial date will be necessary.”