“Yes, Victor,” said Prescott, smiling unpleasantly. “Please do.”
I was being threatened and tested at the same time, I thought. They wanted to see what I had figured out, to determine whether I was ready for all they had to offer me. Well, I was ready. I had been so ready for so long.
“They are just theories,” I started, leaning forward as I spoke. “But I wondered why Chuckie Lamb wasn’t indicted. Chet said it was because only Bissonette had direct knowledge of his possible involvement. That would have given Chuckie a motive for getting rid of Bissonette.” I didn’t tell them about the phone call that evening, didn’t want to run to Prescott and Moore like a little boy when the schoolyard bully threatened, but the call had convinced me that I might be on the right line about Chuckie’s motive.
“So Chuckie did it, huh?” said Moore.
“Also, Bissonette was apparently a ladies’ man,” I continued. “Lots of women. Jealousy could have been a motive. I have in mind one man in particular who was being cheated on who is known to be violent.”
“Tell us who?” asked Prescott while Moore continued to stare at me.
“I’d rather not say just yet,” I said, but I, of course, was thinking of my ex-partner, Guthrie. There was no doubt now that it was Lauren Amber Guthrie in the photograph I had picked out at the DA’s office, those bracelets, and somehow Guthrie must have found out about her and Bissonette too. She had said he could become violent with jealousy, but I knew it would have been more than jealousy, it would have been desperation. Lauren was as domestic as a bobcat, but a tidy package came with her, money, status, entree into a world that kept guys like Guthrie and me out just for the pleasure of the blackball. It was one thing to never have a shot at it, that just caused a slow tightening of the stomach, tying you gradually into knots until you resented everything, hated everybody, held malice and bitterness toward all. But to have it in your grasp, in your bed, to have it all and then to see it slip away as your wife threw herself at some broken-down ballplayer with pectorals, well, that was enough to drive a man to murder. It would have been enough to drive me to murder and Guthrie was no better.
“Any other theories?” demanded Moore.
“Not yet,” I said. “But I’d like to keep looking.”
“That’s not permissible,” said Prescott firmly, as he examined his water glass. “Besides, it would be a waste of time. We already know who killed Bissonette.”
“You do?” I said, surprised.
“What, you think we are idiots here?” said Moore angrily. “You think it just slipped our minds the part about finding out who really beat the hell out of that man?” I shriveled from his blast because that was precisely what I had thought. Suddenly I knew I had made a fool of myself. Whatever test there had been I had failed.
“You were right, Victor,” said Chester with a reassuring smile. “At least about Bissonette sleeping with the wrong woman. And the woman wasn’t discreet about it at all.”
“Mooning over him like a schoolgirl with a crush,” said Moore.
“Linda Fontelli,” said Chester. “Mrs. Councilman Fontelli.”
“Fontelli?” I said. “Councilman Fontelli killed him?”
Moore snorted. “Fontelli doesn’t have the stones for it. Besides, he’s got his own little secrets. He didn’t care.”
“No, it wasn’t her husband,” said Prescott. “It was her father.”
“Linda Marie Raffaello Fontelli,” said Chet.
“Raffaello,” I said slowly. “Jesus Christ.” Enrico Raffaello was the head of the Philadelphia mob, a shadowy, legendary figure said to stand astride the city’s underworld like a modern-day Pluto. “And the limousine at the scene, and the ID by Ruffing?”
“The wino saw a basic black limousine, that’s all,” said Prescott. “There are fleets in the city. And Ruffing is lying. With the lighting in the parking lot it was impossible for him to see what he says he saw. He identified Jimmy and Chester to keep Marshall Eggert happy because Eggert was keeping the IRS off his back.”
“So how do we prove it was Raffaello?” I asked. “Is she in any of his photographs?”
“Yes,” said Prescott. “But getting them before the jury will be tricky. I have two lawyers working on it. Gimbel won’t let us get it in the front door, that’s for sure.”
“So how?”
“A trial like this trial,” said Prescott, leaning back now, putting on the face of a law school lecturer, “a trial like this, where the government is trying to cram a huge array of facts into a neat and tidy package, is made up of contingencies more than anything else. Every defense has to have a backup and every backup defense has to be backed up itself. Now our main defense is that we were merely working within the system, doing what the system demands of every politician. If the trial starts centering on Bissonette then we use our backup, we’ll bring in what we can about Linda Marie Raffaello Fontelli, and even if the judge upholds an objection the name will be floating out there for the jury to grasp.”
“And if that doesn’t work, are there other backups?”
“We’re building them day by day,” said Prescott. “If we need to go that route we’ll let you know.”
“Shouldn’t I know now?”
“No,” said Moore. “There are things only Prescott is to know.”
“We’re building a very complex piece of machinery to get both our clients off, Victor,” continued the professorial Prescott. “And it’s not enough to end with an acquittal. These men are politicians, they must end the trial smelling like virgins, do you understand? Jimmy Moore has to step out of that courtroom cleansed of any taint, risen in stature, ready for a run at the mayor. Now we can’t have you going out half-cocked, stirring up Eggert, getting in the way of the construction of our machine.”
“Eggert didn’t know I was there,” I said. “I went through Slocum.”
“Eggert knows,” said Moore. “The bastard knows everything. He’s got more spies in the DA’s office than I do.”
“So now we’re all on board,” said Prescott. “Each ready to do our duty. Any further questions, Victor?”
“Just one,” I said.
Prescott closed his eyes in exasperation and shook his head. Moore glared. Chet Concannon continued to avoid my gaze. What they all wanted just then, I knew, was for me to shut up and take whatever they were giving with gratitude. But something wasn’t right here. Chuckie Lamb’s slip of the tongue had got me to thinking and what I was thinking about just then, like what I thought about most often in those days, was money.
“Ruffing says he turned over half a million dollars before he backed out,” I said. “CUP’s records showed they only received two hundred and fifty thou. What I was wondering is what happened to the rest.”
“Your job here is not to wonder,” snapped Jimmy Moore. “Your job is to just follow along. I thought Chet made that clear already.”
“I told him,” said Chester.
“Well, maybe you better tell him again.”
“There’s no need,” I said.
“You are to do nothing, absolutely nothing,” said Moore, dumping his ashes on top of the ravioli, his voice rising in anger. “You’re getting paid a lot of money to do absolutely nothing and that’s all you better do. I’m not going to have some skinny-assed geek with a hard-on for my girl sending me to jail because he gets in the way of my high-priced attorney. The only reason you’re here is because Prescott told me you would stay out of his way.”
“I told Jimmy and Chester,” said Prescott, with the false conciliation of a State Department spokesman, “that I thought you were bright enough to grasp our defense and a sharp enough trial attorney to realize the importance of letting me try the entire case.”
“Do you got it now, asshole?” said Moore.
“That’s enough, Jimmy,” said Chester. “He understands.”