“You’ll stop without a kiss.”
“If you were Prescott you’d have me stretched out on the back seat already with my legs around your neck.”
I didn’t relish being compared to Prescott like that, as if he were the better man in everything. I was on the way up, in my ascendance, but still I couldn’t stop seeing myself as a second-rater compared to the likes of William Prescott III. I felt a swift flash of anger and I cupped her chin to give her a peck on the cheek, like she was a little girl, tossing her chin away from me when it was over.
She laughed. “See, that wasn’t so terrible.”
She leaned forward and kissed me quickly and lightly on the lips. And then again, longer this time, pressing her body into mine as she kissed me. Her lips parted and her tongue licked my lips before slipping itself through and rubbing my teeth and then searching like a serpent for my own. By the time the cab stopped she was almost kneeling on the bench seat, pressing her body onto mine like a wrestler struggling for a pin, and my hands were up the back of her dress and down her panties.
“If maybe you finished here now, mister, we’re at the place,” said the driver. We were in front of a corner restaurant with a brown tiled entrance and a well-lighted sign hanging off the wall that read: DANTE’S & LUIGI’S.
Veronica pulled back from me and, still kneeling on the bench, said through a catlike smile, “See, just an innocent little kiss.”
Then she reached for her purse and told the driver to ride around the block, once, so she could straighten her face.
17
“HOW’S THAT VEAL CHOP, VICTOR?” asked Jimmy Moore. “They make the best veal chop in all of South Philadelphia. The best.”
“It’s fine.”
“Their gravy’s not as good as Ralph’s, but Dante’s and Luigi’s veal chop is the thickest in the city. And they marinate it before they broil it. That’s the secret.”
“It’s fine,” I said.
It was just five of us in a bare and spacious private dining room, with whitewashed plaster walls and a high tin ceiling. The table was covered with crisp linen and the waiters, wearing red jackets and linen aprons, had piled it with pasta, veal, broccoli rabe sautéed in garlic, a large bowl of chopped greens swimming in oil and spiced vinegar. Prescott sat rigid in his chair, ignoring his meal so he could stare at me. Concannon worked carefully on his scaloppine, elbows off the table. Veronica sat next to Moore, who kept his arm possessively in her lap.
“We’re glad you were able to come this evening, Victor,” said Prescott. “We wanted to make clear exactly the foundation upon which our defense will rest in the upcoming trial.”
“Politics in America, Victor,” boomed Jimmy Moore. “That’s our defense. You’ve heard the tapes, we can’t deny that we were asking for contributions from that lizard Ruffing, and I wouldn’t if I could. But everything we did was required by our fine political system. Required. Do you understand?”
“Not exactly,” I said.
“What is politics in America all about, Victor?” he asked.
I thought for a moment. “The will of the electorate?”
“Money,” he roared. “America is not about power being bestowed by the people, it is about power being grabbed. Grabbed. This country was built with a revolution, created again in a civil war, nothing comes easy or cheap here. American politics is the fairest in the world because the only thing that matters is the money. Hire the consultants, buy the television time, put a bumper sticker on every car, pay off the ward leaders, grab the electorate by its throat with all your money and take the oath of office. That’s the system and that’s damn fine. Any Tom, Dick, or Hanna can hand in a petition, but only the real Joe, can raise the dough. And to stay the real Joe, you better aim every day of your term at getting the contributions for the next election, you better never let down, not for a second. For those who want to support me it is not enough that they clap when I speak, they must give me money when I run. When I was demanding money from Ruffing for my political action committee, for my causes, for my future as a public servant, it was in the great tradition of American politics. All politicians do it, they just cloak it with cocktail parties or fancy dinners. But I cloak nothing. I was demanding money from a supporter because the system I love requires me to do it. And if I was asking a little more forcefully than others, it’s because I have a greater passion for what I’m doing than the others. Do you understand what I’m saying, Victor?”
“Our strategy,” said Prescott, with a pursed, mournful face, as if he were a presidential flack on Nightline, “is to turn this trial of these two public servants into a trial of the American political system and then to make sure the system gets acquitted.”
“You should be focusing on that strategy,” said Moore. “Preparing to build on that foundation. Isn’t that right, Chet?”
“That’s right,” said my client.
“Now we’ve hired a polling service,” said Prescott. “We’ve studied focus groups, examined the demographics. With the right jurors this strategy will prevail. We’re certain.”
“Can I get a copy of that study,” I asked.
Prescott smiled at me, but not his warm smile. “Of course. The key is to gear everything, the jury selection, the arguments, the testimony, everything to our strategy.”
“What about the murder?” I asked.
“Don’t worry yourself about it,” said Moore, reaching for a basket of toasted garlic bread.
“And the arson?”
“Forget it,” said Moore, his mouth now full.
“It’s hard to forget about murder and arson.”
“How’s your makeup doing, Ronnie?” asked Moore.
“Fine, I think,” she said.
“Why don’t you check it?”
She nodded and rose from the table, leaving the room without glancing at me. I couldn’t help but follow her out with my gaze. When I turned back, Moore was staring at me with a frightening ferocity.
“What were you doing at the DA’s office this morning?” he demanded.
I pulled back from the table. Did everyone know where I had been that day, what I had done, whom I had seen, how many times I had hit the pot? “I was looking into the murder,” I said. “Examining the physical evidence.”
“Why didn’t you clear it with Prescott?”
“I didn’t know I had to clear all my trial preparations with Prescott.”
“Tell him, Chet.”
“You have to clear everything with Prescott,” said Concannon.
Without taking his eyes off me, the councilman fished a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it. Holding it like a pencil, his lips tight and dangerous, he took a deep drag. “In war you have to pick your battlefields, son,” said Moore, breathing out smoke with his words. “That’s what Lee learned at Gettysburg.” He jabbed his cigarette at me and the syllables of his words came with the precise staccato of gunshots. “Our battlefield is not going to be Bissonette’s murder.”
“The federal indictment,” explained Prescott, with a surfeit of patience in his voice, “covers the crimes of racketeering and extortion. If the murder and the arson are not linked to the request for money, and if the request for money is legal, the federal case will fail.”
“But if Eggert ties the murder into the request for money,” I said, “any claim for legitimacy disappears.”
“He won’t,” said Moore. “Eggert’s so far down the wrong road he might as well be in Vancouver.”
“But you’ve been looking into Bissonette’s murder on your own, Victor,” said Prescott, “conducting an investigation without our knowledge or consent, acting contrary to your client’s express orders. Risking everything.” He looked at me hard so that I knew exactly what he meant, and he meant everything. “So tell us, Victor, what exactly have you uncovered so far?”
“Nothing definite,” I said. “But I have some ideas about who might have killed Bissonette, some theories.”
Moore leaned back and stared at me. “So you have some ideas, do you, Victor?” he said slowly. “Some theories.” There was a silence as he took another drag from the cigarette, all the while staring at me. He spread his arms wide. “Educate us all with your theories.”