“I’ve been trying to get you alone for two days now, Jack,” he said as he slipped into the passenger seat.
“Yeah?”
“Need to talk to you about something.”
“Like?”
“I need your help.”
Jack did not know if he wanted to hear this. Hell, he was pretty damn sure he didn’t.
“What kind of help?”
“I’m in trouble. I’ve screwed up my life, Jack. I mean I could give a course in screwing up a life.”
“In what way?”
“Every way imaginable. First off, I am, for all intents and purposes, broke. The Skanks have been sucking me dry for years. And you’ve met Terry. See the way she dresses? She’s never seen a pair of shoes she didn’t love. Doesn’t believe in sales, either. Only shops boutiques. Three wives… can you believe I’ve been married three times? The triumph of stupidity over experience. And whatever’s left behind after they’re through with me goes for legal expenses.”
The last two words startled Jack.
“Legal expenses? But you’re a lawyer… a judge.”
“I’m a judge in trouble. Big trouble. The Philadelphia DA is after my ass, but he’s got to wait in line, because the state attorney general and the feds, not to mention the state attorney ethics commission, all want a piece of me too. At the very best, I’m looking at disrobement, disbarment, huge fines. If I had some hope, any hope of getting off with only that, I’d be a much happier man. But it appears I won’t be that lucky. Things aren’t going my way. I’m looking at jail time, Jack.”
Dumbfounded, Jack could only stare at his brother. Tom? In the joint?
Finally he found his voice. “Why?”
A harsh, forced laugh. “Why? I can look back now and say hubris and poor impulse control. But back when I was at the top of my game—what I thought was the top of my game—it was all just a big puppet show and I was one of the string pullers. As for what… you want a list? Got an hour? How about kickbacks and influence peddling? How about indictment for judicial malfeasance and conspiracy?”
“Jesus, Tom.”
“I did some shady things when I was in private practice, but it was the stuff most attorneys do. Padding the billable hours was a biggie. Double, triple, even quadruple billing was another. If I had to visit clients, I’d try to set up two or three meetings in the same area on the same day. My clock started running when I started the car, and I’d not only bill each client separately for the same travel time, but along the way I’d be talking to still another on my cell phone. Hell, I sometimes billed twenty-plus hours for an eight-hour workday. And on the side I was playing fast and loose with trust accounts. Had some close calls, but never got caught.”
Jack wondered why Tom was telling him all this. Had to have a reason. If he wanted a loan, why didn’t he just come out and ask for it?
“The judgeship did me in. Being appointed for life wasn’t a good thing for me—at all. If I’d had arrogance and hubris before, I now became positively regal. My biggest risks were errors in rulings, which could be changed by an appellate court; but otherwise I pretty much ruled the roost. I was the lord of my courtroom, a king. In reality I was a petty satrap with a big head.”
“I did the usual time-honored gray-zone stuff—you know, using marshals to pick up my dry cleaning, taking trips on city money, beguiling attractive lady lawyers or clerks. And then of course I engaged in the time-honored judicial practice of ‘leaning.’ It’s very easy to shade rulings. I leaned toward my old cronies, and against my old rivals. But I really stepped over the line when I started accepting gifts from parties related to cases I was involved with, and then shading rulings their way.”
My brother the crooked judge… jeez.
Part of Jack wanted to shut this off now, but another part, the part in everyone that slows down when passing a car wreck, wanted more.
“Bribes?”
“If you’re talking envelopes stuffed with cash, no. At least not at first. No, what I’d get was, say, an all-expense trip for me and the current skank to Bermuda or Grand Cayman or San Juan where I’d collect a fat speaker’s fee to address some convention. All done through third and fourth parties, all very circumspect, all ethically questionable but almost impossible to prove.”
“Trouble started after my second divorce when I had not one but two skanks with siphons in my jugulars. With alimony and child support payments up the ass, I had to do something. So I started accepting cash. Got to the point where I might as well have had a ‘For Sale’ sign on the door to my chambers. ‘The Finest Judge Money Can Buy!’“
Jack was shaking his head. “Sounds like you were asking for it.”
“I was. I was caught in this spiral but I didn’t see it. I was into that sovereign mind-set of being a judge, of having the power to decide the fates of people and companies… heady stuff.”
Jack said, “Where do the feds come in?”
Tom grimaced. “A tragedy of errors, that. It all goes back to certain trust fund conservancies I was involved with.”
“Want to run that by me in English?”
“When there’s a large settlement, say from a medical malpractice case where a birth is botched and the kid’s going to need special care for the rest of his life, the money—often millions, sometimes tens of millions—is put into a trust fund which is overseen by a conservator. The conservator is an attorney appointed by the judge in the case. In a number of cases that judge was moi. A conservancy is like an annuity. The conservator has legal duties and he’s paid out of the fund for the hours he bills. If he works it right, he can bill a lot of hours.”
“Skim off a sick kid’s funds?”
“It’s all perfectly legal. But I got to thinking, why should I drop these valuable conservancy plums without getting something back? So I made arrangements: You want a conservancy, you cut me in.”
“Jesus, Tom.”
“Yeah, I know. Risky.”
“I wasn’t talking about the risk.”
Tom waved him off. “Everybody does it.”
“Obviously not, or you wouldn’t be in trouble.”
“I’m only in trouble because I was sold out. That was partially my fault for appointing a jerk named Marty Bieber to a particularly juicy fund. You’ve got to have a little subtlety in these matters, and it turned out Bieber had none. Not only did he overbill outrageously—enough to start the kid’s parents smelling a rat—but he was also gambling with the funds. And losing. A complaint to the local attorney ethics committee turned up shortages. To partially save his ass, he rolled over and pointed a finger at me.”
Jack shook his head. This was so scummy it was scary, this was… he didn’t have the words…
“Okay. But that’s all local stuff. I still don’t see how the feds got involved.”
“Since the damage had happened in a Philly hospital, it was tried there. But the kid’s parents lived in Jersey, in Camden. Bieber’s office was in Camden but he was licensed in both states, so he seemed like a good choice. Unfortunately the tribute he was paying me crossed state lines and the feds used that as an excuse to horn in.”
Tom slammed a fist against his thigh.
“Fucking feds! If I’d stayed local, I might have been able to work something out. You know, use some connections here, spread some cash there. But once the feds got involved and started a taxonomy of my infractions, it was like raising the Yellow Jack over my career. It was as if I’d developed an advanced case of leprosy. Nobody returned my calls, everybody was always busy when I wanted a meeting. Hell, I couldn’t even get people to make eye contact!”
He glanced at Jack with a hunted look in his eyes.
“I’m cooked, bro. I’ve been released on my own recognizance because I’m a member of the club and because I have such ‘strong ties to the community.’ Ha! If they only knew!”
“Why are you telling me all this?”
Instead of answering, Tom pointed to the left. “Turn here.”
“I just want to swing by the old neighborhood.”
Not a bad idea. Jack complied. He kept an eye on the rearview mirror to make sure Terry was following. He caught the puzzled look on Gia’s face.
A wave of nostalgia swept over him as he turned the corner by Mr. Canelli’s old house. Jack had cut many of the lawns in the old neighborhood, but not Mr. Canelli’s. He did his own. Cutting didn’t describe what the old guy did: more like manicuring.
But old Canelli was gone now. Just like Dad.
Jack slowed as they passed the three-bedroom ranch in which he,
Kate, and Tom had grown up. He remembered it had started out with asbestos shingles, which Dad had later replaced with vinyl siding. He was saddened to see that the new owner had torn out all the old junipers and replaced them with hydrangeas. Dumb. From fall to spring, hydrangeas were little more than bunches of brown sticks. Junipers stayed green all year round.
“Remember playing catch in the backyard with Dad?”
Jack nodded. “I remember you winging the ball hard enough to knock me down.”
Tom smiled. “But you always caught it, always held on to it.”
Tom was laying it on thick. Jack knew he was being set up, but was curious as to where Tom was heading.
“You said you need my help. I’m baffled as to why? What can I do?”
“Help me disappear.”
Jack suppressed a groan. “That wasn’t easy before nine-eleven. It’s a hell of a lot harder now.”
“But it can be done—if you’ve got enough cash.”
Yeah, it could.
“You have enough?”
Jack held his breath, waiting for Tom to put the touch on him. But his brother nodded instead.
“Yeah. I think so. Enough for a new identity and a start as someone else.”
“I still don’t see where I come in.”
“I need you to help me get it.”
“All right. I’ll bite: Where is it?”
“In a secret account in Bermuda.”
“Whoa. Hold it right there. Bermuda? I don’t have a passport.”
“Neither do I. At least not anymore. But we won’t need them. We’ll take my boat over.”
“You have a boat big enough to go to Bermuda?”
“Sure do. Listen, we wheel down to the Outer Banks where I keep the boat, then sail straight across to Bermuda. When we get there we just chug into the harbor like a fishing boat coming back from a run, and tie up. No one will bat an eye.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I’ve done it at least half a dozen times.”
“Really?”
“Sure. Nothing to it.”
Yeah, right.
“How long a trip?”
“Forty hours, tops. Look, Jack, I know you’re thinking two days trapped, cooped up in a floating oubliette with me will be a new definition of hell. But I’m not such a bad guy. Look, we’ve been apart for fifteen years, and now, with what we’ve gone through in the past few days… I mean, after all, we’re the only ones left. Our old family of five has been cut down to just two: Us. Don’t you think we should try to reestablish some ties?”
Jack couldn’t remember ever having ties beyond blood to this stranger.
“All well and good, Tom. But there are other ways to do that, safer ways than sneaking into a foreign port.”
“Jack, please. I need that money.”
“I’m sure you do. But that doesn’t mean you need me.”
“But I do. I could get someone else to go along with me on this—I’ve got fishing buddies who’d sign up on a lark—but we’re talking big bucks here, and all in bearer bonds. I need someone along I can trust, someone who knows how to keep his mouth shut.”
“And you think that person is me.”
Tom nodded. “I told you what Dad said: ‘If you ever need someone to watch your back, call Jack.’ Well, consider this a call for backup.”
Dad… was he kidding?
“Not fair.”
“Maybe not, but do you think he’d want you to turn your back on your brother in his hour of dire need?”
“Oh, cut me a—”
“I’m serious, Jack. I can’t do it alone.”
“No.”
He had a child coming in mid-March. Also had people looking for any possible trace of the shits who’d gunned down Dad. That took precedence.
“We’re talking four days—four days. Come on, Jack, you can spare me that, can’t you?”
Jack said nothing as they pulled into the restaurant parking lot.
Tom leaned closer. “Maybe you can’t give me an answer now, but if you could get back to me by tomorrow…”
“What’s the rush?”
“I’ve only got a small window to do this.” He pointed to Terry as she pulled into a neighboring spot. “And don’t mention any of this at lunch.”
“Terry doesn’t know?”
“Not yet, and she’s going to be a hard, hard sell. So let’s keep this sub rosa, okay?”
Jack shrugged. “If you want.”
He laid a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Promise me you’ll think about this.”
Jack didn’t reply. Tom’s remarks about Dad reverberated through his head. Would Dad have expected him to put vengeance on hold and stick by the only other surviving member of their family?
Bastard.
* * *
3
“You won’t believe the harebrained idea Tom came up with,” Jack said as he steered his Crown Vic north on the Jersey Turnpike.
Gia had the front passenger seat, Vicky sat behind them, lost in her Game Boy—which she called “Game Girl.” Her mother’s influence, no doubt.
“Harebrained? Your brother doesn’t strike me as the harebrained type. As a matter of fact I think he’s bright and charming.”
“That’s because he’s giving you the full-court press.”
She reddened. “Don’t be silly.”
“Come on, Gia. You’ve dazzled him. He’s got a crush on you.”
“You’re exaggerating, Jack. We simply have certain tastes in common.”
And many, many more you don’t, he thought.
Jack smiled. “I wonder if he’s making a play for you.”
“Don’t be silly. I’m pregnant with your baby.” She returned his smile. “But every woman likes a little attention and flattery now and then.”
Jack put on a shocked expression. “I’m not attentive?”
She patted his thigh. “Sometimes you’re… remote.”
That was a gentle way of putting it. Jack knew sometimes he became so preoccupied with a fix that he was virtually not there.
“Guilty. Hey, how did we get from the subject of Tom’s crazy idea to me?”
“Okay. What’s his crazy idea?”
“He wants me to go to Bermuda with him.”
Gia looked at him. “When?”
“Now.”
“Now? Right after the two of you just buried your father?” She shook her head. “I gather he’s not talking about a vacation.”
Jack wondered how much to say.
“No, he’s talking about money. Apparently he’s in some kind of trouble.”
“What kind?”
“The legal kind.”
She made a face. “Violence?”
“No. More the white-collar kind—or maybe I should say black-robed. Anyway, he needs money and he’s got some stashed in Bermuda.”
“Did you tell him you don’t have a passport?”
“Yeah. But neither does he. Apparently it was confiscated.”
Gia winced. “Ooh. Sounds like he’s in big trouble. So how does he figure on getting to Bermuda without a passport?”
Jack told her about Tom’s boat scheme, finishing with, “No way I’m doing that.”
“You don’t sound too happy about the decision.”
“I’m not. He played the Dad card—said Dad would want me
to help him out.”
Gia shrugged. “I think you should go.”
“What?” He glanced at her. “You’re not supposed to drink or do drugs while you’re pregnant, you know.”
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