She reached for the door handle, then looked Feaver’s way. Somehow, after all her ungainliness, she managed something in her expression. In response, a hundred emotions seemed to swim through his face.
“You know what a Yahrzeit candle is?” he asked her then. She didn’t. “It’s what Jews do to commemorate a death in the family. Mother. Brother. Every year, you light this candle. On the anniversary. And it’s the saddest goddamn thing. This candle burns for twenty-four hours in like a water glass, and even if you get up in the middle of the night, the thing is flickering, the only light in the house. My ma always lit one for her sister. And right before her stroke, I was there, you know, I go see her early in the morning, it was still dark, and I looked at this thing, sitting on the stove, this forlorn kind of light, spurting and wavering, charring the sides of the glass and getting lower all the time, and I suddenly said to myself, That’s Rainey. That’s what she is now, just a long sad candle melting, burning down to this soft puddle of stuff which will finally drown the light. That’s Rainey.”
He’d drooped against the wooden steering wheel. She waited what seemed to be forever, but he never looked her way. Instead she left the car and watched as he zoomed from the curb and executed a smooth U-turn despite the heavy traffic, speeding back toward home.
12
UCORC’S PROTOCOLS AIMED AT AVOIDING trials in the contrived cases. A full courtroom showdown with witnesses for two sides would require both the manpower and the budget of a Hollywood production and would greatly enhance the risks of detection. Plan A was that Robbie would either win a motion that disposed of a whole case, or prevail on some other significant ruling, then declare the matter favorably settled and make a pay-off. Thus, Judge Malatesta’s denial of McManis’s motion to dismiss set the stage for Robbie to make his first recorded drop, this one to Walter Wunsch. With that, the Project would move beyond what the agents called ‘talking dirty’ to real criminality. Assuming no foul-ups, Walter would become the first trophy, the first dead-bang conviction, and the first person to squeeze when Stan began the ultimate castle siege meant to bring down Brendan Tuohey.
About two weeks after the session in Malatesta’s courtroom, Robbie phoned Walter, imparting the good news that the judge’s ruling had forced McManis to settle Petros v. Standard Railing and arranging the drop at their customary site, the parking garage adjoining the Temple. That afternoon, Klecker arrived at McManis’s with another of his clever devices, a portable video camera with a fiber-optic lens that fit into the hinge of a dummy briefcase matching Robbie’s. McManis looked it over, then quickly vetoed its use.
“Robbie’s never passed money before wearing hardware. It’s tough enough to keep up the cover without worrying about aiming and focusing. We’ll use the camera later.”
“Jim,” argued Sennett, in obvious distress, “Jim, a jury will want to see the money change hands. If it’s only audio and Robbie can’t get Walter to say something about the dough, this whole thing won’t be worth much.”
Jim would not budge. He rarely asserted the authority that UCORC had given him over operational details. In theory, Stan determined what evidence was needed, and Jim made the tactical decisions about how to obtain it, but usually Jim let Stan have his way. The best Stan could manage now was cool courtesy to hide the fact he was bridling.
Instead, the discussion turned to how Robbie could make an overt reference to the money, something which this dark world’s strict etiquette severely discouraged. Feaver came up with the idea of delivering $15,000 to Walter, instead of the usual ten. The rationale for this largesse was found, oddly, in a problem that had been irritating Sennett for several days.
By now Sennett had ground out six more fictitious complaints. To Stan and McManis’s amazement and chagrin, half of the new cases had been drawn to Malatesta, while none went to Barnett Skolnick. Sennett was especially eager to get to Skolnick, the one judge who dealt with Feaver without a bagman, but Robbie had no reason to complain about the assignments. His only interest was supposed to be having the case before a judge he could ‘talk to.’ However, with three specials recently added to Malatesta’s calendar, Feaver had need to be particularly ingratiating, and the additional sum would provide an excuse to address the amount of money Robbie was bringing Walter.
But this left the agents five thousand dollars short. With some anguish, McManis wrote a check to cash on the Law Offices’ account, knowing it would require hours of paperwork for D.C., only to find the bank downstairs closed when he arrived. Ultimately Sennett had to make a series of calls. The United States Attorney returned half an hour later and drew five thousand dollars in cash from an envelope in his topcoat. He’d requisitioned the funds with his own IOU from the Drug Enforcement Administration, which kept tens of thousands of dollars in currency on hand as ‘buy money.’
Every bill was then photocopied so it could be identified if it turned up in a search. The stack of almost two hundred bills, mostly hundreds and fifties with a sprinkling of twenties, was nearly an inch thick, even banded. Accordingly, Robbie’s habit with Walter was to deliver the cash in a cigarette carton. Wunsch was a heavy smoker, one of those nicotine fugitives regularly pacing back and forth before the Temple, coatless no matter what the weather and looking as if he was attempting to suck the cigarette dry in his race to get back to the courtroom before the judge returned to the bench.
Finally, Robbie was wired. He let his trousers down this time without much forethought. Afterwards, Robbie grabbed the cigarette carton with the money and Evon also put on her coat. She would be in the car while Robbie and Walter met. It would be far too unsettling to Wunsch if Feaver handed over the money in front of her, but the need to overcome standard courtroom defenses meant she had to catch sight of Wunsch to confirm it was his voice on the recording. She also had to watch Robbie so she could testify at trial that he’d had no opportunity to keep the money himself. To corroborate the drop, McManis would frisk Feaver carefully as soon as he returned.
“Now you have the scenario?” Sennett asked, reminding Robbie yet again to talk about the money. “And see if you can find out what the hell Malatesta does with all this cash. The Service,” he said, meaning the IRS, “can’t see anything.”
That remark appeared to prick McManis, who looked up abruptly. Inter-agency rivalries are fierce, and Jim apparently knew little about the IRS’s continuing participation in the investigation, although he must have anticipated as much. In a world where catching bad guys gives life meaning, the IRS agents who’d knocked on Robbie’s door would never settle for being entirely cut out of the case. Nevertheless, knowing Sennett, I suspected Stan was putting Jim in his place, reminding him who still held the most secrets in the game of need-to-know.
Given the significance of the first payoff, Stan wanted to listen as it was made, which meant that I, too, was invited to join McManis and Klecker in the back of the surveillance van. We each walked separately to the new federal building, where a guard cleared us to enter the garage in the basement. The van was a boxy gray Aerostar, with flashy ivory detailing on the side. The only light in the rear came from two frosted observation bubbles on either side of the vehicle, which provided a dim, wide-angle vantage on the passing world. Cables snaked all over and Klecker knelt on the rubber floor mats, hovering close to the readouts and dials of the banks of electrical equipment secured with steel belts bolted to the floor. The stale air had a strong rubbery smell. As we left the garage, Sennett, McManis, and I were seated on narrow fold-down seats hinged to the wall, under strict instructions to stay there and be quiet, so that we did not impede the work of the agents.
The van was driven by Joe Amari, a middle-aged FBI veteran who’d clearly worked with Jim before and who posed as the law office’s investigator. Joe had coppery Sicilian skin, and black hair so thick and perfectly groomed that it looked like something from a furrier’s shelf. He had the appearance of a squat tough guy, and he was. He’d been under a dozen times, almost always on mob cases.
>
The municipal parking structure adjoining the courthouse was a five-tier open-air affair built in the same buff-colored brick as the Temple. By plan, Wunsch, in an old Chesterfield topcoat, would already be lurking on the ground floor. Robbie would drive by him with no sign of recognition, racing up the circling lanes to the top floor, which, at this hour, was largely deserted. In time, we heard the Mercedes gearshift jammed into park and Robbie’s tread as he crossed to the elevator. If all went according to the standard arrangement, when the elevator’s brown doors rumbled back, Wunsch would be inside.
Robbie and Walter had been using the elevator for drops for years now. The tiny carriage was a squeeze even for four persons and a hopeless wreck. The tiled flooring was gone in most places and the elevator reeked from its use as a pissoir by various urban vagabonds. The contraption rose and descended at an infinitesimal pace, and with awful sounds, the cables squealing and the brakes clanging like steam pipes whenever the machine slowed to an actual halt. It was used by virtually no one, particularly on the way down. Robbie was speaking even before the doors labored to a close.
“Jesus, Wally, the old man had me wetting my socks with that Hamlet routine up there. I wrote him a great brief. What else was he looking for? Smoke signals?”
“Shit. Silvio? Half the time he don’t know if it’s today or tomorrow. And besides, you could give the old fuck a heart attack if you said ‘reversed on appeal.’ Any chance the boys upstairs’ll bounce a case back gives him the willies. He figures somebody somewhere’s keepin track.” A reversal on appeal would draw suspicion to a case. Malatesta, as Stan had deduced, was determined to eliminate even the remotest risks of discovery. “Believe me, I had to carry on with him a long time on this one. I deserve the freakin Oscar. I had to wipe his nose and diaper his behind before he did the right thing. Anyway,” Walter concluded, in a tone meant to get down to business.
Robbie said he’d brought some smokes. The sound of the cardboard ripping was distinct.
“Yeah,” said Walter in time, “that’s the right brand okay.”
“Fifteen long there.”
“Mmm-mmm,” Walter answered quietly.
“Cause I want the old man to remember I’m a righteous fella. You’re gonna be seeing a lot of me.” Robbie reminded Wunsch of the three new cases. Walter, predictably, was more ornery than grateful.
“This better not be the miracle-of-the-month club,” he answered, “because after this one, Silvio’s neck’s back in his shell for a long while.”
“This wasn’t a miracle. I had great authorities.”
“Shit,” Walter answered. “That wasn’t what I was hearing. You better make sure Santa’s got me right on the top of his Christmas list. Santa better love me this year.”
“We’ll write you down for a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck.”
“Fuck.”
“No, here you go, look at this.” The distinct crinkling of what I knew to be a travel brochure could be heard, along with the scuffing of fabric as Feaver removed it from his pocket. Walter, like the other bagmen, expected a tip. But he preferred no cash. He had told Robbie that he had enough cash, a reference, presumably, to the share Malatesta provided from his end. More pertinently, over the years Mrs. Wunsch had figured out where Walter was likely to hide his stash and, by his reports, regularly looted it. As a result, he preferred tangible items and thought nothing of calling Robbie with requests for merchandise that had caught his eye. Robbie had it all shipped to Walter’s country cottage, where his wife seldom visited. Recently, he’d been paying Wunsch’s way to various golfing havens. He extolled the resort in Virginia portrayed in the brochure.
“Yeah, well, I’ll go,” Walter said, “but listen, since I had to carry your water so far uphill on this thing here, I had a thought. I been looking at some irons. Oversized Graphite shafts. You seen these Berthas? Nice clubs.”
With appropriate grumbling, Robbie now agreed to add the irons, then slid the conversation toward the topics Sennett wanted him to cover.
“Listen, Wally, I gotta ask you one thing about the old man that’s always bugged the hell out of me. I look at him up there on the bench. The guy dresses like a hobo.” From the sound of it, Walter enjoyed the description. “And whenever I see him tooling around the courthouse, he’s in some old heap, right?”
“ ’83 Chevy.”
“And he and the wife still live in his mom’s old bungalow in Kewahnee, right? Isn’t that the story? So what gives? It makes me nuts wondering: Where’s it going?”
Over the speakers, there was a momentary lapse, during which the grinding motion of the elevator mechanism and the stiff wrinkling of the brochure going inside Walter’s topcoat were audible. It was clear Wunsch did not welcome Robbie’s curiosity.
“Feaver, this ain’t a fuckin game show. You think I ask questions. I don’t care if he’s using it in the outhouse. What’s it to you? I can’t make no sense of whatever’s goin on in Silvio’s little noggin, anyway.” Another silence followed, punctuated almost at once by the terrifying sound of the elevator brake being applied. The doors rumbled again as they retracted, followed by the scuffling of Walter’s departure. Then there was an unexpected bouncing noise and Walter’s voice was heard once more. He had apparently thrown a hand between the rubber bumpers on the closing elevator doors. Across the van, McManis tensed, anxious about the meaning of Wunsch’s return.
“And listen,” he said. “They got a big demand on these clubs. They’re on back order. Okay? So you know, to get em, you know, they gotta be ordered right now.”
“Gotcha,” Robbie answered. The doors, finally closed, sealed off the sound of the city clamor heard in the background in the open-air garage.
In the van, as we listened to the elevator creak, to Robbie padding back to the auto, to the engine rumbling to life, there was an immediate air of celebration. Walter Wunsch now had a confirmed reservation in a federal penitentiary, and he’d said enough damaging things about Malatesta that the recording would be useful both in forcing Walter to turn on the judge and in corroborating him once he did it. Stan shot a thumb in the air and unfastened his seat belt so he could move around the van, hunched from the waist, shaking hands. I noticed he made it a point to start with Jim.
Yet as Amari drove back, I felt somewhat removed. I was happy enough to see the Project succeed, but I was more stunned than I’d anticipated by the events. I had always known there were monkey-shines of some kind going on in the Kindle County Superior Court. When I began practice as a new assistant State Defender, late in the 1960s, Zeb Mayal, a bail bondsman and ward boss, still sat in open view in the Central Branch courtroom issuing instructions to everyone present, often including the judge. But in the felony courthouse, on the other side of the canyon created by U.S. 843, I was always an outsider. I’d come to the law at my father’s table, listening to him speak about the great principles of decisions, moments that remain in memory magical and intense, like the spotlight’s circle of white on a darkened stage. I didn’t understand those who saw the law only as either a commodity or a social lubricant, nor, frankly, did they know what to make of me. I had no committeeman, no parish to name, and was primly disdainful whenever someone suggested that I take steps—selling tickets, for example, to a fund-raiser—to overcome these deficits. Over time, I realized that the system that existed, whatever it was, had as one of its principal aims closing out fellows like me, with my faint Southern accent, my unfaltering manners, my Brooks Brothers apparel, and my Easton degree. I was someone who had prospects in the Center City among the suits and the towers. Most of the regulars in the felony courthouse knew they counted for little in that realm, which was one of their foremost, if unspoken, excuses for taking care of each other. And eventually, as they expected, I departed for that other world, to the federal courts, where there was officiousness, but virtually no known corruption, beyond what was suspected about a few rogue drug agents.
Robbie’s tales of retail justice were appal
ling, but also somehow titillating to me, because they suggested again some stifled secret I’d been searching for during my years across the highway. And now in the banter between Robbie and Walter I heard it, the hard wisdom of their clandestine world. A strange message was communicated in the passing of cash: I know the worst about you, you know the worst about me. The claims of law, rules, the larger community, the fabled, phony distinctions of class, are all, in the end, as insubstantial as dreams. Palayer aside, the black truth, which only we dare speak and which, as a result, gives us insuperable power, is that we are all servants of selfish appetites. All. All of us.
All.
“FIELD HOCKEY?”
“Yes, field hockey. It’s been an Olympic sport longer than basketball.”
“I know. Really, I know that. Guys get killed, right? In Pakistan? Somebody’s always getting brained with that thing. The cudgel.”
“The stick.”
“Stick. It can be dangerous.”
She stopped and lifted her lip to show him where there was still a pink scar. His black eyes, silvered by the streetlights, shifted back and forth from the traffic. Now that he was past his initial surprise, he nodded gravely, almost slavishly, clearly hoping to forestall any dread on her part that she had finally told him.
But she felt little regret. It was a good night. Neither one of them was down yet from the thrill of getting Walter. And, in truth, he’d guessed. About two weeks ago, he’d bought something called The Olympic Factbook and once or twice on the ride to or from work, he’d toss an event at her, usually as a non sequitur. He’d started with archery and went right through the alphabet. He was cute about it, of course, making his determination a joke, putting on a poor-mouthing, little-boy look. This morning he’d gotten to fencing, and tonight he’d had no trouble reading her smile. She was revealing only a fraction of what would come out about her eventually, now that there was certain to be a prosecution. And he’d been right at the start; he was too good an actor to blow the cover.