“That might be right.”
“And those conversations weren’t taped.”
“No.”
“Now those checks you gave Concannon, did they come back from the bank?”
“Sure, cashed out by CUP.”
“But you didn’t get anything back from CUP for the cash? No receipts?”
“No, nothing.”
“So CUP only acknowledged payments of the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars that was duly reported on its books.”
“I don’t know about their books.”
“And the councilman never mentioned that he got the cash?”
“No. He didn’t want to talk specifics about that.”
“It was Chester Concannon who talked the specifics.”
“That’s right.”
“It was Chester Concannon who told you how much to pay, how to pay it, that some should be paid in cash.”
“That’s what I said.”
“And it was Chester Concannon who threatened you after you stopped paying.”
“Yes, that’s what happened.”
“And as far as you know, that cash might never have reached CUP.”
“As far as I know.”
“And it might never have reached Councilman Moore.”
“As far as I know.”
“It might have gone no further than Chester Concannon.”
“That’s possible.”
“I have no further questions,” said Prescott.
Judge Gimbel lifted up his heavy prune face and, peering hard at me over his half reading glasses, said, “Do you have any questions for this witness, Mr. Carl?”
Still sitting, I looked around the courtroom. Prescott was back at the table, conferring quietly with the councilman, ignoring me. Eggert was looking at a yellow pad, taking notes. Concannon’s eyes were closed, like he had been put to sleep by the questioning himself. I shook my head to wake myself and stood up slowly. I found it difficult to phrase the words, my mouth dry, my tongue thicker than before, my stomach turning over. Finally, after trying to squeeze them through my lips, the words fell out in a tumble. “I’d like a few moments with my client.”
Judge Gimbel smiled condescendingly at me. “Good idea, Mr. Carl. Court is recessed for twenty minutes.”
31
WHAT HAD STUNNED ME by the last series of Prescott’s questions to Ruffing was not just that he had turned on Concannon, shifting blame to him, but that he had done it so blatantly. I would have expected him to do his damage subtly, a question here, a remark there, I would have expected Prescott to slip the knife into Concannon surreptitiously, silently, the razor-thin blade sliding through the vertebrae so cleanly that Concannon himself wouldn’t have known he was dead until his knees collapsed beneath him, and even then not be sure. But Prescott had discarded all subtlety. He had looked at the jury, smiled, and said it wasn’t my guy, it was his guy, and all of a sudden the strategy imposed upon me of trying to make my client seem not a part of the proceedings was revealed to be a sick joke.
My first reaction was to sit down at that counsel table and put my head in my hands and try to keep from crying. It is undignified for a lawyer to cry at a trial, unless it is in front of a jury and then only for effect. But the jury was out of the room, the spectators were milling, my client had left for the men’s room, in that situation crying was not a trenchant strategy. Even so, I couldn’t stop my eyes from watering. I heard Prescott laugh to my left, not a loud laugh, but loud enough.
I felt a hand on my arm and I turned around as quickly as my hangover would allow.
It was Herm Finklebaum. He was back on his heels, smiling thinly at me. “You feeling all right, buddy boy?” he asked.
“Not so good just now,” I said.
“I been watching you, like I said I would, but I ain’t seen much.”
“By design,” I said.
“By whose design? Eggert’s?”
“It’s a very complex strategy, Herm. You wouldn’t understand.”
“A toy company came out once with a doll that pooped in its diapers,” said Herm Finklebaum, the toy king of 44th Street. “I asked the sales rep, ‘What’s the fun in that? I’ve changed diapers. Changing diapers is not fun.’ The rep told me I didn’t understand but that the doll was hot hot hot, that it was going to sell like flapjacks. I bought fifty for the Christmas season, sold three. He was right, I didn’t understand, didn’t understand that I was being a schmuck for buying fifty.”
“What’s your point, Herm?”
“Point? There’s no point,” he said, turning away from me and starting to walk away in his jaunty, splayfooted walk. “It’s just a story I like to tell on myself.”
As I watched Herm walk to the rear of the courtroom I saw Beth sitting in the back row, staring at me, not triumphantly or angrily, just staring. She stood and gestured me to meet her in the hallway. I nodded and turned around again.
I didn’t have much time to figure out what I was going to do. Judge Gimbel would be asking me if I had any questions for Ruffing at the end of the twenty-minute break and then and there I would have to know for sure. But I really needed to figure it out for myself before then, before I faced my client, before I faced Beth.
After the shock of Prescott’s questions had worn off, I realized I shouldn’t have been surprised at all. Of course Jimmy would betray Chester, he was a politician, after all, and the only difference between a politician and a viper is that a viper’s fangs retract. And how could I ever have assumed that Prescott’s offer of opportunity meant anything other than opportunity at a price? But the price was so damned high. To shuck all the principles of my profession with the ease of shucking an ear of corn and let my client suffer an unrebutted attack that would leave him imprisoned for the rest of his life was almost unthinkable. But then again there was money to be made, bonds to be forged, opportunity to be seized. Valley Hunt Estates was just the first of a myriad of projects that would be offered me as I rose to the upper echelons of my profession. Prescott would make it all happen for me, he had as much as promised it. They say behind every great fortune is a great crime and I had always been waiting to find mine to commit. Now here it was, and all I would have to commit was nothing. And even if I tried to do something, what could I do, stand on the table and holler that the mobster Raffaello had killed Bissonette? That would get me nothing more than a contempt citation. And what about the threats from Norvel Goodwin and Chuckie Lamb? And what about the exploding hatchback window and the message of the lead? And what about…
But even as I debated it all in my mind, I knew what the answer would be, never truly doubted it for a minute. And right in the middle of deliberations I shut off my thoughts like I shut off a faucet, stood, and left the courtroom.
Chuckie Lamb was waiting for me in the hallway. He grabbed my arm and pulled me aside and his fish-lipped grin was unpleasantly dark. “You going to ask Ruffing any questions, Vic?” asked Chuckie.
“I don’t have time for this,” I said. “I need to talk to my client.”
“You going to ask any questions, Vic, or are you going to be their good little boy?”
I leaned into him and stuck a finger in his chest, like my Uncle Sammy would have. “Look, Chuckie. As far as I’m concerned you don’t exist, your threats, your opinion of me, it’s like you’re on Mars. I’m going to do what I have to do.”
I turned around and walked away from him, on my way to meet Chester and Beth, but his voice chased me down the hallway. “We all do what we have to do, Vic.”
The room we found had pale green walls and a formica table with steel legs. Metal chairs were jumbled there and here. Beth gestured toward a chair and Concannon sat. She stood over him. I sat at the table across from him. Even though there were only the three of us, with a trail of ashes fallen out of the tinfoil ashtray and sprinkled over the table, with the too many chairs, with the stale air in the room, it felt crowded.