This last contention was a serious allegation. Brady v. Maryland was an old case involving deliberate withholding of exculpatory evidence by a politically ambitious district attorney. To accuse a prosecutor of holding back Brady material was tantamount to calling him a liar and a cheat who would convict an innocent man on evidence he knew to be false. It was an accusation not to be made lightly—and I was making it with the full knowledge that I’d have to back it up.
Lazarus jumped in. His face was a mottled red; he looked ready to explode. “If Ms. Jameson has any proof whatsoever, Your Honor, she should be made to present it to this court. If she doesn’t, she should be held in contempt of court for even suggesting such a thing.”
“Do you deny that you met with TJ on at least one occasion?” I shot back. The judge frowned; one of the rules of etiquette in court is that lawyers do not address one another directly. But I was too angry to play Miss Manners. All the pent-up fury and sick rage I felt at the death of Dwight Straub fueled me as I stood toe-to-toe with the man whose overreaching ambition had started this whole mess.
“Ms. Jameson, kindly clarify the relevance of this TJ,” the judge commanded.
I backed up, and started with the rumors I’d heard about a Brooklyn cop who’d cut himself in on a drug dealer’s street action. I named TJ as the dealer and Eddie Fitz as the cop. I went on to say that I now knew that TJ had visited Lazarus, and when he’d gotten no satisfaction in the Southern District, he’d taken his story across the river. As corroboration, I pulled out the internal memorandum from Di Blasi’s office, recording TJ’s visit. I handed the document to the nearest court officer, who proceeded to walk toward the bench. “Show it to opposing counsel,” Judge de Freitas ordered. As if programmed, the uniformed man wheeled and headed toward the prosecution table.
Lazarus gave the memo a quick glance and tossed it onto the prosecution table. “Your Honor,” he began, “defense counsel is making a mountain out of a molehill here. This man TJ was a self-confessed narcotics dealer and convicted felon. He came to my office with a cock-and-bull story about Detective Fitzgerald. I had his story checked out by my top investigators, Your Honor, and found that there wasn’t a shred of truth in any of his allegations against the detective.”
“You checked him out?” The words burst out of me, but this time I caught my mistake and turned my attention to the judge. “Your Honor,” I amended, grabbing onto my self-control with both hands, “if the prosecution checked out TJ’s allegations, then we not only should have been informed about the existence of TJ, we should have been provided with the results of the investigation. This entire matter has been swept under the rug by the prosecution in an attempt to keep vital information from the defense, information that would have seriously undermined the credibility of the chief witness against Mr. Riordan. This calls for a mistrial, Your Honor.”
My voice was shaking, a combination of rage and nerves and sick regret. Dwight Straub was dead, and my response was to castigate Nick Lazarus for withholding evidence. But somehow it seemed right to open up all the closets, to let all the skeletons dance through the courtroom, to strip away the façade of civilized justice and reveal the bull walruses butting their heads against one another until the blood ran down their faces.
I’d seen that once on Channel Thirteen. One of those nature shows where the camera lives with the animals, showing in grotesque detail everything from birth to carnivorous mealtime. The walruses had all gathered on a frozen island; breeding was about to begin. And the males fought for the prize females, banging their heads together horribly. Armless, they threw themselves at the bigger males, drawing blood and grunting. The loser slunk off and died of shame and exhaustion; the winner went on to impregnate as many females as he could find.
It was one hell of a way to insure more walruses.
Somehow the spectacle this trial had become reminded me of those walruses. Lazarus and Riordan were both bloodied, both charging at one another, roaring their masculine pride as each attempted to destroy the other.
“This is nothing more than a smoke screen, Your Honor,” Lazarus pronounced by way of reply. “This TJ has nothing to do with the matter at hand; Ms. Jameson is trying to divert attention from her client’s guilt and put Detective Fitzgerald on trial in his place. I am outraged at her suggestion that this office would deliberately suppress evidence. She has all but accused me of suborning perjury in this case, and I demand an apology at once.”
You could hear a pin drop. Or a pen scratch; behind me, a sketch artist drew swift lines on an oversized drawing pad.
“Ms. Jameson,” Judge de Freitas said in his dry, inflectionless voice, “I am going to proceed with this trial in a moment. But I am ordering you to produce before this court any and all evidence you have indicating that Mr. Lazarus has committed any act of wrongdoing in this case. I am also,” he went on, turning toward Lazarus, “going to require the United States attorney’s office to produce all memoranda, including internal work product, that involves this TJ.”
There was a distinct rustling in the press seats behind me. The reporters were eager to race out of the courtroom toward the public phone banks. But the judge wasn’t finished.
Fixing Nick Lazarus with a basilisk eye, the former law professor said, “And if I find that the United States attorney’s office has withheld Brady material or otherwise conducted itself in a manner inconsistent with the Canons of Professional Ethics, I shall take whatever steps I deem necessary.”
A surge of elation swept through me; we were on our way toward achieving justice at last. But then the judge turned his attention to me.
“If, on the other hand,” he went on, “I am satisfied after perusing such evidence that the defense allegation is unfounded, then I will consider holding Ms. Jameson in contempt and imposing sanctions accordingly. Do I make myself understood?”
I stood up a little straighter and answered “Yes, Your Honor” with just a hint of defiance.
I’d just put my own career on the line; either I proved my allegations against Nick Lazarus and beat Matt’s case, or the two of us went to jail together.
The reporters swallowed us up the minute we stepped outside the courthouse onto the stone steps. There was no time to position ourselves for maximum photo opportunity; microphones were thrust at Matt and Lazarus, Singer and me, with seemingly random abandon. They wanted a sound bite, and it didn’t much matter who uttered the words.
The questions peppered me like buckshot: “Are you really calling Lazarus a liar?” a black reporter asked. “What’s this about a cop killing himself?” another demanded. Ginger Hsu, a concerned look on her photogenic face, wanted to know how it felt to have a witness commit suicide rather than face my questions in court.
That one I answered quickly and emphatically. “It feels like hell,” I said.
“What do you think Dwight Straub could have contributed to this trial?” Ginger persisted.
I took a deep breath and weighed my options. I could go public with all my suspicions about Eddie Fitz and his partners, or I could tell the reporters to wait and see what turned up in court, or I could—
Lazarus’ piercing voice cut through my thoughts. “Not all the police officers in this city deserve the name New York’s Finest,” he said. “It’s an unfortunate fact, but it’s true.” For a wild moment, I thought he was about to admit to the city press corps the truth about his Hero Cop, but instead he said, “And I’m sorry to have to admit that Dwight Straub, who worked closely with Detective Fitzgerald at the Seven-Four precinct, was apparently one of those officers who succumbed to the temptations of the street. My office, as you know, has been investigating corruption in the police precincts, and I can say now that an indictment will be filed shortly, and—”
“Are you saying,” Carlos Ruiz jumped in, “that you were about to indict this Straub guy?”
“Does this mean,” Tom Delaney of Channel Four cut in, “that your star witness was a corrupt cop, too?”
�
��No, no,” Lazarus replied. “Detective Fitzgerald was the one man in that precinct who refused to go along with what was happening. He was the one man who blew the whistle on the drug dealing, and Ms. Jameson and her client should be ashamed of themselves for suggesting that he has anything to hide. As for Dwight Straub,” the prosecutor went on, “all I can say is that a man who disgraces his badge by acts of corruption has reason to be afraid when an honest cop speaks the truth.”
The reporters lapped it up. They flocked around Lazarus like hungry pigeons falling on a crust of bread, pecking and scratching and begging for more.
I felt sick. How the hell was Annie Straub going to feel, watching this performance on the six o’clock news? And was there anything I could say to counter it, or should I hold my fire until I had all my ammunition ready?
At the edge of the clutch of reporters stood Jesse Winthrop. His face was drawn and pale; he looked as nauseated as I felt. He knew, thanks to me, that his Hero Cop was the real disgrace to the badge. I wondered whether he would finally write everything he knew.
The court clerk had given me an envelope containing subpoenaed material; I ripped it open and glanced through the police reports. The final item caught my attention: TJ had been in the Brooklyn House of Detention shortly before he died. He’d been released on bail posted by Jack Vance.
The sign in the window said “Jack Vance, Bail Bonds, All Hours.” On the sign there was a cartoon drawing of a man in a striped prisoner suit behind bars; underneath was the slogan “A Friend in Need Is a Friend Indeed.” There was an 800 number for those too panicked to enter the 212 area code lest the warrant fall and they spend the night in jail. It was a sleazy little office on a sleazy little street, the kind of street that hides behind the skirts of courthouses everywhere. A service-providing street: bail bonds, investigations, cheap-copy stores, lawyers with signs offering everything from divorces to name changes to notary services at five bucks a pop. The kind of street a self-respecting lawyer didn’t step into without making the sign of the cross: Please, God, please, don’t ever let me sink this low.
There was a For Rent sign in the corner of the window, no sign of activity within. No “girls” answering phones, no phones ringing. No clients’ families sitting on the edge of chairs, sipping bad coffee from plastic cups. No Jack Vance, come to that, but he could be in his office in the back. I knocked on the window and waited.
Fat Jack lumbered toward the door, listing from one side to the other as his weight shifted from leg to leg. His belly was an enormous burden, lopping over his pants, straining against the huge expanse of white shirt-front. Beads of sweat stood out on his domelike forehead; the effort of walking from his office to the door had taken a lot out of him.
I hoped we could finish the interview before he had the coronary that was so clearly in his future.
“Ms. Jameson?” he asked, his voice weakened by a wheeze. Asthma, on top of everything else. I nodded; he motioned me inside, opening the door just wide enough to let me slip through. As if he were afraid someone or something bigger and stronger would follow me in.
The desks were clean. Not a paper in sight. No telephones either. Jack was closing down, winding up his business. Getting ready to face the sentence soon to be imposed by the Eastern District judge.
Who had his papers?
I decided to ask, to open discussion before we sat down, before Fat Jack reached his office, his turf.
“Did Nick Lazarus subpoena your records, or did you just turn over anything he wanted?” I addressed my question to Jack’s broad back, which was crisscrossed by suspenders that were fashionable back in his grandfather’s day.
All I got for an answer was a wheeze. It hadn’t occurred to me that he couldn’t walk and talk at the same time.
His office was as stripped as the rest of the place. There was a battered wooden desk that looked as if it had been purchased at a city auction. On the top sat a multiple-line phone, one pristine yellow legal pad, and a Far Side coffee mug filled with sharp yellow pencils. Gone were the stacks of papers that must have buried the desk at one time.
The only decoration left on the wall was a framed copy of the Post’s famous headline about an early Riordan case: LOUIE NEEDS A WITNESS, the banner screamed. Matt had been defending a low-level mobster, a Nunzie Aiello clone, who’d told the jury he was playing poker with his pals at the Little Flower Social Club on the night of the crime. When the D.A. asked Matt’s alibi witness how and why he’d come forward to testify the man had shrugged and told the jury, “Because someone told me Louie needed a witness.”
The city had had a good laugh, and Matt’s client had gone down in flames, but the style and grace with which Matt had laughed along with the press and the public helped forge his reputation as a class act.
The clipping was still on the wall. Was that because it held some meaning for the fat man, or did he intend leaving it there when he moved out, as a signal that his friendship with the man who’d engendered the headline was a thing of the past?
I sat in the straight-backed chair and tried not to stare as Fat Jack lowered himself, inch by inch, into the sagging leather chair behind the desk.
“Now, Ms. Jameson,” he said, his needy voice edged with something I couldn’t identify. Sarcasm? Triumph? Something not quite pleasant, something I’d better figure out before I left this place.
“You ask whether or not I betrayed the man I worked for.” His restatement of my question was meant to elicit a protest: Oh, no, that’s not what I meant at all.
I didn’t protest. I stared straight at him and gave a small nod; yes, that’s exactly what I meant. Did you give ammunition against Riordan to Lazarus, or did you make him work for it? And is there anything you held back, anything Lazarus doesn’t have that might help us? And what happened after you met TJ at the Brooklyn House of Detention on the last night of his life? Did you drive him to Lazarus’ office? Did you shoot him in the head and hide the body in the trunk of a car?
It occurred to me that there were a few land mines on the ground that stretched between Fat Jack and me. He was not being called as a witness for the other side, so there was technically no reason why I couldn’t talk to him in the absence of his lawyer, but I was definitely searching for evidence of a crime, evidence I might have a legal obligation to turn over to the authorities.
I opened my mouth to rephrase the question; a small smile at the corner of Jack’s thin lips told me he’d followed my train of thought with a swiftness that could only have come from years of association with lawyers.
The direct approach was not, I reflected, always the best one. I stepped back, shifted ground, went for the conversational instead of the confrontational. The course I should have taken in the first place.
“Looks like you’re closing down,” I remarked, looking around at the empty shelves, the clean desk.
“Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out,” Jack said. He sat back in his chair, which rocked under his weight. “Nick Lazarus set out to break the Baxter Street Gang, and I guess he succeeded.”
“The Baxter Street Gang,” I repeated. The sleazy little street outside was probably the least desirable section of Baxter Street. “Who else on this street did he go after?”
Jack gave a shrug. “It’s kind of like a figure of speech. Matty started out here, had an office two doors down. So even though he’s been gone from Baxter Street a long time, Lazarus still thinks of him as part of some kind of gang, some kind of conspiracy to make him look like an asshole. Personally,” Fat Jack confided, inclining his head forward an inch or two, “I never thought Nicky Lazarus needed any help in looking like an asshole.”
The use of the nickname gave me an opening. “In Brooklyn, we call Nick Lazarus, Jr., Nicky. He’s an assistant D.A.—and a real pain in the ass.”
Jack nodded. “Chip off the old block. Just like Nick trying to fill his father’s shoes. Sid Lazarus was maybe the best prosecutor this city ever saw. Between him and Hogan, anyway.
Don’t even mention Tom Dewey in the same breath, you ask me.”
“Tom Dewey became governor,” I said. “And almost president.”
“Yeah, and Rudy Giuliani’s the mayor now,” Jack commented. “Seems like being a U.S. attorney for the Southern District is a ticket to a political future.”
“And Nick Lazarus? What job is he angling for?” I asked. “Would mayor be enough, or does he want to go higher?”
“What he wants and what he can get are two different things,” Fat Jack pronounced.
“He’s been getting a lot of ink on this Riordan case,” I pointed out.
“Counselor,” Jack said, his thin voice weary, “you didn’t come to the ass-end of Baxter Street to talk politics. Why not cut to the chase here, okay?”
“You could testify for Riordan,” I said, giving the fat man the blunt truth he’d asked for. “Unless, of course, that was part of the deal you made with Lazarus. Did they let you plead on the condition that you stay off the stand during Matt’s trial?”
Vance shook his head; his jowls waggled. “I could testify if you want,” he said. Then the thin little smile returned. “But you don’t want. Trust me, Ms. J., you don’t want.”
Why the hell not? I wanted to shout. What could you possibly say that would make things any worse than they are now?
And then he told me. “See, you gotta understand, once I found that memo, everything changed. Everything turned around.”
“What memo?” I leaned forward on my chair, not bothering to conceal my eagerness. “Jack, what memo?”
“You didn’t get the memo?” The bondsman’s eyes widened with surprise. “I thought for sure Lazarus would have to turn that over to the defense. It was a memo from Nick Lazarus to some undercover cop, and I found it in an envelope Eddie Fitz gave me. So it didn’t take a rocket scientist,” the fat man continued, using a favorite expression, “to figure out that Eddie was working undercover for Lazarus. I nearly shit my pants,” he confided. “I was that fucking stunned. I just looked at the damned thing like it was gonna explode in my face, and then I realized he must have taped our conversations. We were fucked, me and Paulie and Matty.”
Mean Streak Page 14
