I followed Slocum out the doors to learn what exactly would be happening to my client. Assistant District Attorney K. Lawrence Slocum stopped between two columns right outside the entrance and watched with Prescott as the suspects were led down the steps and around the fountain to the cars. He was bobbing up and down on the balls of his feet.
“I’m surprised at you, Larry,” said Prescott as we watched the woman officer put her hand on Moore’s head and press it down so it wouldn’t hit the roof as she placed him into the back seat of one of the cars. “I would have expected you to find a more public place for the arrest.”
“You know how it is, Bill. The Eagles were out of town this week.”
“I’m Victor Carl,” I said. “I’m representing Chester Concannon.”
“What can I do for you, Carl?”
“Tell us when we can bail out our clients.”
“We’ll arraign them at the Roundhouse right away.”
“Who’s the judge there this evening?” asked Prescott.
“Does it matter?” said Slocum. “We’ll ask to hold them without bail but whatever judge we get probably owes his seat to Moore and will set a half a million at ten percent. For Concannon too.”
“And where do you think they are going?” asked Prescott.
“This is a homicide here,” said Slocum in all his weary righteousness, the jaw muscles beneath his smooth dark skin working. “A death penalty case. They shouldn’t walk with just fifty thousand down.”
“Do you have anything more on them than the U.S. Attorney?” I asked.
“They got everything but the tapes from us in the first place,” said Slocum. He turned his head and spat onto the step below Prescott. “But Eggert’s not one to wait his turn.”
“I assume you notified the press at the Roundhouse,” said Prescott.
“They’ll be waiting.”
“You’ve always been a hound, Larry,” said Prescott.
“A city councilman being arraigned in night court. Front page of the Daily News, don’t you think?” said Slocum. “That’s why I had them cuffed. Looks better on page one.”
“You missed your calling,” said Prescott.
“Maybe so,” said Slocum, taking off his thick glasses to wipe the lenses with his tie. “But I’d rather make news than report it.”
The cop with the serious face climbed up the steps to Slocum. “We’re all set.”
“You read them their rights?”
“Word for word.”
“Well, gentlemen, it was a pleasure,” said Slocum. “Want a ride to the Roundhouse?”
“We’ll take the limo,” said Prescott. “Better scotch in the back seat.”
“Oh man,” said Slocum, shaking his head as he walked slowly down the steps to the police cars waiting for him, their engines running, their lights still flashing. “I can’t wait for private practice.”
“Is he any good?” I asked Prescott as Slocum ducked into one of the cars and all three pulled back around the museum.
“The best they have,” he said. “Let’s get our clients out of jail. Chuckie will prepare a statement for the press.”
“Concannon was a little unraveled,” I said.
“He’ll get over it. I’ll tell you what’s really unraveling. The federal case. Eggert had always hoped that Bissonette would revive and finger Jimmy. That’s one of the reasons he wanted to delay everything. Now there’s one less witness to worry about.”
“So who do you think actually did kill Bissonette?” I asked offhandedly.
He looked at me with his cold blue eyes squinted sternly for a moment and then eased his face into a paternal smile. “It doesn’t really matter, does it?” he said.
Part II. Pretrial Emotions
11
THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY’S OFFICE was in a narrow, dirty building sandwiched between two glass skyscrapers. Lawyers with offices in the skyscrapers bustled in and out of the revolving doors, the tassels on their loafers swishing, their Rolexes flashing as they hailed the cabs lined up on the street, the drivers all hoping for that apocryphal fare to the airport. Lawyers from the DA’s office passed out of their filthy lobby in weary navy blue waves, pushing shopping carts full of their day’s files, girded for battle in the city’s grimed and undermanned courtrooms. There was about this throng of city attorneys the air of a soon-to-be-defeated army pushing forward only because any avenue of retreat had been cut off.
“ADA Slocum,” I said to the receptionist in the lobby, a flabby-faced woman with wrinkles around her eyes and the tan stains of a smoker between the first two fingers of her right hand. She was ensconced behind a thick wall of Plexiglas with only a circle of airholes for her to speak through. “He’s expecting me. Victor Carl.”
“Have a seat,” she said, gesturing to a dirty row of ruined plastic chairs out of some high school auditorium. I chose to stand. With the lobby’s dim light and its general filthiness, I felt like I was in a subway station. That receptionist, that lobby, it was all quite a leap down from Talbott, Kittredge and Chase.
A few minutes later the elevator opened and a thin young woman stepped out while still holding the door.
“Mr. Carl?” she said.
We stopped at the fifth floor. On the way to Slocum’s office the woman led me past a maze of secretarial desks and cubicles, through the frenzied sounds of drastically overworked assistant district attorneys. What could have possessed them to take such a job, I wondered. They started at less than thirty grand, they worked killer hours pleading with cops and yelling at witnesses on the phone late into the evening, sending out subpoenas that were ignored, glancing at piles of files the night before the day they had to try them. And when it was time to leave the office for private practice it was tough to find a job other than hustling for cases in the city’s criminal courts. With my spirits buoyed by the grand possibilities that Prescott was promising, I could only feel pity.
Slocum was in his shirtsleeves, leaning back in his chair, his feet resting on his desk as he talked on the phone. His shirt cuffs were rolled up, revealing dark and powerful forearms. Behind his desk were two flags on posts, one the Stars and Stripes, one sky blue and mustard with gold markings, which was the city’s flag. Slocum’s office was cramped with boxes and file cabinets and large posterboard exhibits leaning against the walls, a map of one of the city’s parks, a diagram of an apartment with the outline of a sprawled body in the living room, a photograph of a woman with bruising around her face. The walls were covered with a cheap and fraying paneling. One of Slocum’s shoes had a hole in the sole. Slocum was talking to his car repair guy, arguing over what was required for his car to pass inspection.
“That’s got to be the biggest racket going,” said Slocum after hanging up the phone. “I bring in my car for a thirty-dollar inspection and end up paying five hundred dollars for a new exhaust system in order to pass. Isn’t there a law?”
“You tell me,” I said. “You’re the expert.”
“I told my mechanic once I was going to put an undercover unit on his tail. He laughed at me. Said it didn’t matter how many plainclothes cops came into his shop, it was still going to cost me three-fifty for a brake job. He told me what I really needed was a new car. That was four years ago.”
“Maybe your mechanic’s right,” I said. “Judging by the sole of your shoe you do too much walking.”
He laughed. “The real trick is sitting at the counsel table so the jury can see the bottom of my shoes. Jurors like their public prosecutors a little ragged around the edges. It adds to our sincerity. And they don’t want to think they’re paying us too much. If I hadn’t worn it through naturally I’d have filed a hole in there by now. So what do you need, Carl?”