“Well, maybe yes, but I had been pretty for a long time and in trouble for a long time and only Jimmy stepped up to take care of me.”
“And for that you owe him the occasional roll in the hay.”
“No, Victor. For that I owe him everything.”
28
“I HAD KNOWN THE COUNCILMAN as a friend and customer for many years,” said Michael Ruffing from the witness stand. “About twice a month him and his party would come into my club and order drinks and food. He was a very good customer.”
“Did he spend a lot of money?” asked Eggert. He stood behind the podium, his body still, his voice calm, his questions short and non-leading. Eggert was a good enough lawyer not to steal the spotlight from his star witness.
“He was a very good customer, like I said. He never bought the cheaper wines. He always ordered the Dom, every time he came in. No matter how many were with him, that’s what he would order. Bottle after bottle.”
“What is ‘Dom’?”
“Dom Perignon, one of the finest champagnes made. It’s like drinking love, or at least that’s what I would tell the customers.”
“Is it expensive?”
“The price depends on the year. The ’seventy-eight you can’t even get, the ’eighty-five is about one-fifty a bottle, sure, but worth it.”
“And that’s what the councilman would order?”
“Nothing but the best, he told me. ‘Mikey,’ he used to say, ‘you’re either class or you’re shit.’ That’s what he used to say, and then to prove he was class he’d order another four bottles of the Dom.” Ruffing looked at the jury and gave a little wise smile and whatever that smile was saying it looked like the jury agreed with him. The jurors had already heard the tapes, they had already heard a series of witnesses testifying about the waterfront deal and the City Council’s involvement, and now they were hearing the story of a shabby shakedown straight from the victim, a law abiding Center City businessman.
Michael Ruffing was a short, energetic man with thick hands and curly gray hair. He was one of the guys who grew up in the neighborhood and kept his neighborhood ways, his Philly accent, his rough talk, his way of shooting his cuffs and fixing his tie between questions. He had grown rich in real estate and lost everything in the bust and grown rich again with a series of nightclubs, the last and largest of which was Bissonette’s, which made him a name in the city. He was one of those developers who believed he could build anything he could envision, and he had envisioned a hotel and shopping complex on the waterfront that would draw tourists from five states and would be riverboat-ready when the governor, the only remaining obstacle to legalized gambling on the river, left office. But more than one visionary developer had run aground on the shoals of the Philadelphia waterfront, a cement-encased stretch between the Delaware River and I-95 that had defied commercial development on a grand scale. Ruffing was now testifying as to how his vision died and the part Jimmy Moore and Chet Concannon had played in its death.
“Now on these expensive outings of his at your club,” continued Eggert, “how did the councilman pay?”
“Cash. Sometimes he would put it on a tab when he was short, which was okay by us because he was in about twice a month like I said, and if he was short one visit he would make up for it the next. Actually it wasn’t the councilman that paid, it was Chet.”
“You mean Mr. Concannon.”
“That’s right. It was Chet who carried the money. Or if not Chet then it was the councilman’s media guy, Chuckie Lamb.”
“And he tipped well?”
“The councilman, sure. Chet too. But Chuckie wasn’t a great tipper. Whenever the councilman would catch him shorting one of the servers he’d give Chuckie hell, call him the cheapest bastard this side of Trenton.”
Everyone laughed at that and I did too. I turned around. Chuckie was sitting in the back of the courtroom. Well, almost everyone was laughing.
“Now, Mr. Ruffing, did there come a time when you entered into business discussions with Councilman Moore?”
“Yes.”
“And how did that come about?”
“One night, when Jimmy was in with his girlfriend and Chet…”
“Objection,” shouted Prescott from his seat.
I turned around again, quickly. In the row behind Jimmy sat his wife, Leslie. Her eyes were closed, her face tense, she was breathing deeply. Then she opened her eyes again and looked forward calmly. Chuckie had been right, Leslie Moore had known about Veronica all along.
“I ask that the answer be stricken,” said Prescott.
“I’ll so order,” said the judge. “Now, Mr. Ruffing, try only to answer my question. How did you enter into business discussions with Councilman Moore?”
“He was at the club one night and he called me over and made room for me to sit down next to him. I was actually busy and I tried to beg off but he insisted, so I sat.”
“And what did he say, Mr. Ruffing?” asked Eggert.
“He was angry. He told me he had heard I was setting up plans for the waterfront development and was seeking help in the council but that I didn’t talk to him first. He told me he had been a good customer for a long time and that I had insulted him by not going through him to get approval for my plan. I told him I didn’t mean to insult him and that, sure, I’d love his help. So he said if we worked together he could be the best friend I ever had and that I should call him and I did. That’s when he told me he thought my plan would take off like a rocket ship and I thought that was great, that got me all excited. It was a good plan, it would have been good for the city, and I thought that Councilman Moore saw that too. So he told me to set up a meeting with Chet Concannon and I did.”
“When was that meeting?”
“A few days later. Chet sat down with me on a bench at Penn’s Landing and told how the legislative process worked with the council and how the councilman would propose the enabling legislation I needed for the development and shepherd it through a political obstacle course to get the legislation approved.”
“What did you say?”
“I told him I was excited about his help and was very optimistic. Then Chet started talking about CUP, that’s the councilman’s political action committee, and about all the good work it was doing, sponsoring drug treatment facilities, registering voters, organizing neighborhoods, general political stuff, you know. Now I’m no young kid from the suburbs, I knew what he wanted. So I told him, I said sure, how much do you want? That’s when he flabbergasted me.”
“What did he say?”
“He said one percent of the cost for the entire project. The thing was budgeted at one hundred and forty mil, if we got both the hotels we wanted and the shopping strip. So what he was demanding was a million four.”
“Did you agree?”
“Not at first. I couldn’t. How was I going to come up with a million four right off the books? I wasn’t making enough on the club to cover it all and the financing was too tight to work with, really. The banks had it down to the penny. But Chet told me that I had to think of the future, how much could be realized if the waterfront plan went through. How much money I would make. And he said the councilman didn’t expect it all at once, he’d take it over time, which would make it easier. I still didn’t figure I could make it. But then he told me that the councilman had a lot of power on the zoning committee and would be looking very carefully at the plans and he told me that unless the councilman was certain of my commitment to help all the neighborhoods of the city he would kill the plan and any bills introduced to get it done.”
“How did you take that?”
“As a threat, sure. He was telling me I pay a million four or the plan was dead. I had been in real estate a long time, I knew the shakedown when I saw it, but I had already invested over a million in the design and initial purchasing of lots and I had mortgage commitments with penalties that I had signed personally, options that were costing me a fortune to keep up. I couldn’t afford to let it die.”