Criminal Conversation

by Ed McBain

  Coulter took off the baseboard molding and tucked his wire behind that, leading it around to the door in the center of the room. He tacked the wire up one side of the door, and over it, and down the other side of it, where he tucked it behind the molding again. The wire surfaced again just under the table, where Coulter had fastened the 42A block with the Brady bug in it. He screwed the wire into that, tacked up the molding again, retrieved his tools and his night-light, checked the street before he went out, and pulled the door closed, making sure the spring latch clicked shut behind him.

  As he attached the slave to the access line in the box hanging on the rear of the building, his two backups stood shivering across the yard from him, covering his foolhardy ass.

  Mollie was preparing for bed. Murder, She Wrote had just gone off. Sarah snapped off the television set. Across the room, Michael was reading the appeals brief Anthony Faviola’s attorneys had filed on his behalf. Michael had called his contact in the U.S. Attorney’s office …

  “What’s all this Faviola interest all of a sudden? First the transcripts …”

  “One of our people is thinking of writing a book.”

  . . . because he wanted to be sure he didn’t make any mistakes with Faviola’s son. Any appeals loopholes the elder mobster’s shysters had found would help Michael when he began sifting whatever the eavesdropping surveillance disclosed. He would not commit any technical errors. When he was finished with this, father and son would be walking the same exercise yard together for an hour after lunch every day for the rest of their lives. He hoped.

  The racketeering activity of which Faviola was convicted in this case consisted of the execution murders of George Antonini, Carmine Gallitelli, John Panattoni, and Peter Mugnoli at a restaurant on August 17, 1991. Shunting aside the holding in U.S. v. Ianniello, Faviola seeks to reverse his RICO convictions on the ground that committing or aiding and abetting four murders cannot be a pattern if the murders all occur at the same time and place. Faviola also distorts the trial court’s charge in an effort …

  “Michael?”

  He looked up.

  “Are you going to be with that all night?” she asked. “You worked all day today …”

  “I’m sorry, honey,” he said, and immediately closed the brief and took off his glasses, and came to her and hugged her close. “What would you like to do?” he asked. “Shall we run around the corner for some cappuccino, leave Mollie home alone, risk charges of …”

  “I thought …”

  “Or shall I go pick up a video?”

  “Michael we just saw a movie. Can’t we just sit and talk? We’ve both been so busy lately …”

  The deception, she thought. Share the blame. We’ve both been so busy.

  “Good idea,” he said. “Let’s go kiss Mollie good night.”

  The deception. Ringing a variation on the familiar theme. Instead of the deceived husband asking, Is anything wrong, darling?, here was the unfaithful wife complaining of neglect while longing to be in her lover’s arms tonight and every night, for the rest of her life. Her lover. The word echoed in her head, carrying with it lustful undertones contrary to the motherly act of tucking her daughter in.

  “Mom?” Mollie said.

  “Yes, honey.”

  “We had this dance, you know? On Friday? The older boys from Locksley came over? And there was this one boy I kind of liked. He kept staring at me, you know? This was in the gym?”

  “Yes, darling.”

  “And I sort of kept staring back at him. Because he was so cute, you know. With blond hair like mine, but with very dark brown eyes. And I could tell he liked me.”

  “Um-huh.”

  “So … he came over. He walked all the way across the gym from where he was standing with some of his friends in their little blue Locksley jackets, and he stopped right in front of where me and Winona were sitting, and he asked me to dance.”

  “Um-huh.”

  “And I said no.”

  The room was silent for a moment.

  “I don’t know why I did that,” Mollie said. “I really wanted to dance with him, and he was so cute and all, and he’d come all that way across the gym, but I said no. I sometimes think there’s something wrong with me.”

  “No, there’s nothing wrong with you, darling.”

  “I hope not. He was so embarrassed. I thought I would die, too, refusing him like that.”

  “Maybe you felt you couldn’t handle it quite yet. Dancing with a strange boy. Someone older than you.”

  “Maybe,” Mollie said, and fell silent again. “Winona got her period last week,” she said at last.

  “Did she?”

  “Yeah. When do you think I’ll get mine, Mom?”

  “Soon enough.”

  “Winona says it’s a nuisance.”

  “I suppose it is.”

  “But I wish I’d hurry up and get it.”

  “You will, darling,” Sarah said.

  “Winona’s my best friend in the whole world,” Mollie said.

  “That’s good, darl—”

  “Except you, Mommy.”

  Sarah swiftly turned her head away.

  “Mommy?” Mollie said.

  “Yes, darling.”

  “Why are you crying?”

  “Because I love you very much,” Sarah said. She pulled the blanket to Mollie’s chin and leaned over to kiss her on the forehead. “Good night, sweetheart,” she said.

  “I love you, too,” Mollie said.

  “I know.”

  “I wish I’d grow up one of these days,” she said, and closed her eyes on a heavy sigh.

  Sarah went back into the living room, where Michael was waiting for her.

  The deception.

  The goodwife, goodmother, goodteacher, telling Michael again that they’d decided to hold their teachers’ meetings every Wednesday evening, careful not to use the word “night” with its heavier connotations …

  “I hope you don’t mind, Michael, we just feel …”

  “Don’t be silly,” he said.

  How easy to deceive him, she thought.

  And how perfectly natural it seems.

  Pouting a bit as she told him his work seemed more important than she did these days, what was he working on, anyway?

  “Can’t tell you,” he said.

  “Still a big secret, huh?”

  “Very big.”

  “When will you tell me?”

  “When it’s nailed down.”

  “Meanwhile, you’re gone at dawn every morning …”

  “Objection, Your Honor.”

  “Six thirty, then.”

  “Only one day last week.”

  “And you went to the office today.”

  “Important meeting.”

  “About what?”

  “Putting in a bug.”

  “Where?”

  “Secret.”

  “Why?”

  “Secret.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Then it wouldn’t be a secret anymore.”

  Secrets, she thought.

  “Would you like to make love?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  Whore, she thought.

  “Although you’re both experienced detectives …” Michael said.

  Well, one of us is, Regan, thought.

  “. . . who’ve investigated dozens of eavesdrop cases, I’m required by case law to brief you on the procedure to be followed in listening to any conversation originating in the back of that tailor shop.”

  They were in his office and this was early Monday morning, the first day of February. They were about to leave for the apartment where they’d be monitoring the bug Coulter had installed. Michael had read them the eavesdropping warrant, an
d was now about to give them the “minimization lecture” they’d each heard ten thousand times before.

  Well, me, anyway, Regan thought.

  He told them first that the courts generally regarded an eavesdrop warrant like any other search warrant authorizing a limited search and seizure of evidence. The law made no distinction between listening to, monitoring, or recording a conversation.

  “Whether a conversation is merely overheard, or also recorded, makes no difference legally,” Michael said. “Either way, the conversation has been seized.”

  He went on to say that the warrant gave them authority to intercept the conversations of the named subject—Andrew Faviola—and various coconspirators, accomplices, and agents also named in the warrant …

  “The hoods you saw going in and out of the shop,” he said.

  . . . authority to intercept their conversations as they relate to the crimes of loan-sharking, drug trafficking, and—since the unfortunate waiter Dominick Di Nobili had been found with two bullets in his head in the trunk of a car at La Guardia Airport—murder as well.

  “In short,” he said, “you’re permitted to listen to any conversation regarding these criminal activities, or for that matter, any other criminal activity that might come up during the course of the eavesdrop. What you can’t listen to is any privileged conversation.”

  A privileged conversation was defined as any conversation between the subject and his attorney, the subject and his priest, the subject and his doctor, or the subject and his wife. If Regan or Lowndes detected that Faviola was talking to any of these people, they should immediately turn off their recording equipment and stop listening.

  Ho-hum, Regan thought.

  “A conversation between the subject and his girlfriend isn’t considered privileged,” Michael said. “But the minute they start talking about anything unrelated to the criminal activities named in the warrant, you have to quit listening.”

  This did not preclude them from making occasional spot checks. For example, one moment the subject could be talking to his attorney about defending a suit that’s been brought against him; this would be privileged communication. But five minutes later he could begin talking about whether or not the attorney wished to be present at a meeting in the Bronx where they’d be restructuring the narcotics distribution setup in the Four-One Precinct. Trafficking in narcotics had been mentioned in the warrant; this would clearly be a criminal conversation.

  It was permissible, therefore, to listen even to a privileged conversation for a few seconds every minute or so. If during this brief spot check they intercepted evidence of any of the crimes named in the warrant, it was okay to keep listening and recording. But the penalty for listening to or recording anything not specifically authorized was that everything they heard might be suppressed.

  “Be extremely careful,” Michael said. “If you’re in doubt, just turn off the equipment and stop listening.”

  In conclusion, he told them that the eavesdropping warrant had been obtained by the district attorney of New York County, and that he’d been appointed as the DA’s agent to assure that the warrant was properly executed. The justice of the Supreme Court who’d issued the warrant had the right to require periodic reports about the progress of the investigation and the manner in which the warrant was being executed …

  “. . . and whenever he wants such reports,” Michael said, “I’m the guy he’ll turn to. The time may also come when a search warrant, or an additional eavesdropping warrant, or some other legal document or legal advice or legal decision is needed. I’m the one who’ll have to do that, so I have to know what’s going on. Please keep me informed, okay? Make sure I get copies of all the logs, tapes, and surveillance reports. I want to hear each and every tape as soon as it’s duplicated. If anything seems to be breaking suddenly, call me. Here are my numbers, office and home. Post them in a conspicuous place at the plant. That’s it,” he said. “Good luck.”

  The phone numbers were posted on the wall above the telephone in an apartment on Grand Street, a block from the tailor shop. Regan and Lowndes had dialed the number of the access line, turning on the bug, and the line was now open. They could hear every conversation originating in the back room of the tailor shop as if they were sitting right there with the goombahs. Wearing earphones, adjusting and readjusting the volume controls, they learned almost instantly that the one constant player was someone named Benny, and they figured out quickly enough that he was the son of the owner and that he ran the pressing machine—at least for the time being. From one of the early conversations between Benny and his father that first Monday of the surveillance, they gathered that he might not be working there much longer.

  “But I thought you liked working with me,” the old man said.

  Louis Vaccaro, owner of the shop. Regan and Lowndes knew what he looked like and sounded like because they’d been in and out of there at least a dozen times.

  “I do like working with you, Pop …”

  Benny Vaccaro, running the pressing machine. Steam hissing in the background as he spoke.

  “It’s just I don’t like pressing. Andrew told me he could get me something on the docks. This was after …”

  “You have to be careful, the docks.”

  “Yeah, I know. But I turned down the fish-market thing, I can’t stand the smell of fish, Pop. Andrew said I could begin work right away, soon as I cleared it with you. I’d be making more money, Pop, and he said he’d see about some other little things I might be able to do for him, you know, special little things’d bring in even more money. I really want to do this, Pop.”

  “I thought you liked it here,” the old man said.

  “I do, Pop, I do. But, you know, just running this machine all the time …”

  “When I first started this business, I used to do all my own pressing,” Louis said. “The tailoring and the pressing, too.”

  “Well, that was the old days, Pop.”

  “The old days, yes.”

  “Andrew thinks he can help me make a better life for myself. Pop, I’m thirty-three years old, I can’t spend the rest of my life behind a pressing machine.”

  The old man sighed forlornly.

  “Okay, Pop?”

  “Stay till I find somebody else.”

  “Well, how long will that be, Pop? Andrew says I can start next Monday. That’s the eighth. Will you have somebody by then?”

  “I’ll ask Guido.”

  Guido was one of the old man’s friends. He came into the back room of the shop on the first Tuesday of the surveillance and the two chatted over lunch. Regan and Lowndes figured they were eating because there were a lot of references to food and wine and a great many words mumbled around chewing and swallowing. The gist of the conversation was that Benny had been offered a better job and Louis would now need someone to run the pressing machine. Guido told him this was a great pity …

  “Che peccato, che peccato …”

  . . . but that he would look around and see if he could find someone.

  “E necessario che tenga la bocca chiusa,” Louis said.

  “Si, naturalmente,” Guido said.

  Since neither Guido nor Louis had been named in the warrant, and since criminal activity did not seem to be the subject of the conversation, Regan and Lowndes turned off the equipment and stopped listening. Neither of them knew what the Italian meant. The sentences were translated by an Italian-speaking secretary in Michael’s office on Wednesday morning as Louis saying, “It’s necessary that he keeps his mouth shut,” with Guido replying, “Yes, of course.” Meaning, Michael supposed, that whoever ran the pressing machine would have to remain silent about the comings and goings in the back of the shop, a perfectly natural precaution. Suddenly, this, too, seemed like a criminal conversation.

  The comings and goings started on Wednesday morning at ten o’clock, when Andrew Fav
iola himself arrived. Benny helpfully identified him for the digital recording equipment.

  “Hey, Andrew, how you doing?”

  “Good, Benny. Good.”

  Earphones on their heads, Regan and Lowndes listened. Benny was still at the pressing machine; apparently Louis hadn’t yet found a satisfactory replacement. This was the first thing Benny complained about.

  “I told my father I want to start working for you next Monday,” he said, “but he’s draggin’ his heels about finding somebody.”

  “I just spoke to him,” Andrew said. “He thinks it’ll be okay.”

  “’Cause I’m really anxious to start, you know.”

  “It’ll be okay, Benny. We’re working on it.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Trust me.”

  “Go hide the silver,” Regan said.

  “Trust him,” Lowndes said disdainfully.

  “I’m expecting some people,” Andrew said.

  “Yeah, okay, I’ll send them up.”

  “Send them up?” Regan said.

  “Up where?” Lowndes said.

  They heard his footsteps crossing the room. Over the hiss of steam from the pressing machine, they heard a scraping sound, and then a click, and then what sounded like a door opening and closing, and then only the hissing again.

  The first of the people to arrive was Rudy Faviola.

  “Hey, Rudy, how you doing?”

  “Fine, Benny. My nephew here yet?”

  “Yeah, he said to tell you to go on up.”

  Regan looked at Lowndes. Lowndes looked puzzled.

  They heard footsteps crossing the room. Silence. Then another voice, sounding as if it were coming over a speaker. Andrew’s voice?