The Defense: A Novel

by Steve Cavanagh

  “Remember who has your daughter,” he said, as he dialed a number on his cell.

  In not so many words, we understood each other. If I pushed him, he’d push back at me through Amy.

  I listened to him talking to Volchek in Russian. Occasionally, Arturas would glance at me while he listened to his boss.

  After a few minutes, Arturas hung up the phone and dropped himself back onto the couch. Assuming he was waiting for a decision, I took my place at the desk in the next room and waited. Tony Geraldo’s evidence might get the prosecution their retrial; it didn’t quite hit a home run on motive, but it was strong circumstantial evidence of animosity almost immediately prior to Mario Geraldo’s death. Miriam would paint a picture of a murdered family member, the terrible loss of such a promising young man on the say so of a cruel Russian mobster, but that was bullshit. If Arturas was right and Tony Geraldo was in fact Tony G, he probably didn’t give a shit about his cousin. From the crime-scene photographs I’d seen of Mario and his apartment, he’d looked to me like a low-life drug dealer. Tony was a big player in the family and the community. He had status. Volchek had probably done Tony Geraldo a favor. Tony was climbing high within the family, and his bottom-feeder cousin always had the propensity to drag him back down. He didn’t need that. He needed respect. And that started at home. After all, if he couldn’t keep his own cousin in check, who in their right mind would trust Tony to run a crew?

  All the same, Mario was family. His murder was an insult that would have to be dealt with. You don’t just knock off a member of the family and get away with it—no matter what. Tony Geraldo needed a way to save face. He didn’t want to start a war—not for his shit-bird cousin anyway—and this probably caused him a dilemma. Perhaps Tony giving evidence against Volchek was the payback for Mario. Whatever his reasons, Tony’s evidence was my ticket to see my old friend Jimmy “the Hat”—the head of the family.

  My right arm and my back ached following my escapades on the ledge. I thought about asking Arturas for painkillers, then dismissed the notion.

  Arturas’s cell phone signaled a call coming in.

  He answered the call and looked at me. He didn’t speak for a time. After about thirty seconds, he ended the call, stood up, and said something in Russian to Victor. Victor looked at me fiercely.

  “You lie,” said Victor as he took a knife from his pocket.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Eight feet of nothing separated me and Victor. I sat at my desk in the judges’ chambers. Victor stood very still in front of the couch, staring at me. He held the knife in his left hand. I couldn’t begin to match the intensity of that stare. My eyes rolled nervously around Victor and the knife.

  He began walking toward me.

  He said nothing.

  My brain ran a spectrum of scenarios before my mind’s eye, each more elaborate and detailed. I couldn’t fathom how I could have been found out. My eyes began darting more erratically, pawns to the theories that were vibrating around my head. My fingers reached for my mouth. If I’d been found out, it should be obvious by now.

  Then my head put on the brakes.

  My dad’s training—keep it together.

  What if I hadn’t been discovered?

  “You know what, Victor? I’ve been sitting here trying to think of a way that Volchek could’ve misinterpreted my actions.” Victor slowed his advance and listened.

  “I’m a pretty smart guy. I have to tell you that in case you’re too stupid to realize it on your own. I’m acting in good faith toward your boss. There’s no way that Volchek can reasonably think otherwise. So I figure he doesn’t believe that I’m lying. He’s being cautious, overly cautious in my opinion. How the hell did he ever make any money without taking some chances? Anyway, I’m not a liar. You are. You’re trying to scare me into giving something away, trying to find out if I’m double-crossing your boss. Let’s save some time. I don’t have an ulterior motive. What? I’m going to take his money and leave my daughter with him? Is he crazy?”

  Victor stopped around three feet from me, the knife still in his hand.

  “Well?” I asked.

  “Do it,” said Arturas, urging Victor on.

  “This is bullshit,” I said. “You guys have nothing on me. You’re just seeing how I’m reacting to the situation. You’re wondering if I’ll crack and do something stupid or reveal a plan. Don’t worry. Where the hell could I go? I’ve been with you assholes all day. I want my daughter. I want her safe. I have to win. I will win this case to save my daughter.”

  Victor didn’t move. For a moment, nothing happened.

  He moved toward me quickly, the knife by his side. I planted my feet and gripped my seat. When he took his next step forward, I planned to dive to my left and start swinging the chair.

  His foot stopped in midair, he flashed the knife, and then laughed as he stepped backward and turned to Arturas.

  “He’s not liar. He nearly took crap in his pants. What a pussy,” said Victor, with a heavy Slav accent before taking a long belly laugh.

  I relaxed a little. I’d passed a test and an important one at that.

  Arturas made a call and again reverted to his native language. He was probably talking to Volchek. The call ended and he pointed at me.

  “You had better be good, lawyer. Four million is a lot of money. Not for us, but it’s still a lot of money. We would be upset if it went missing.”

  “When?”

  “We will have to go and get the money. It will take a few hours to have it ready, no more. Where are we going with it?”

  “I’m going to Jimmy’s restaurant for breakfast. That’s where you’re taking me, and that’s where I’ll meet Jimmy. You won’t meet him. He sees you and you’re a dead man, understand? Your boss needs this. I’m the only one who can make it happen.”

  Arturas said nothing.

  “You do know who Jimmy is? Right?” I said.

  “He is a fat Italian son of a bitch,” said Arturas.

  “Correct, but he’s also head of one of the biggest crime families in New York. And he doesn’t like anyone messing with the family, no matter how distant the relation. What I don’t understand is why you guys aren’t dead already.”

  “Because he doesn’t want to start a war over a little junkie like Mario, and trust me, it would be war. In the end, Jimmy would probably win. But he would lose many men and much money in the process. Is it worth it for one junkie? No. He marks our cards. So we lay off dealers in his area for a month. Let him think business is too good to lose. He soon forgot.”

  The press had reported Mario’s death as a gang hit—a territorial dispute. Tony corroborated the fight in the nightclub between Volchek and Mario Geraldo and said the killing was over a debt. What I didn’t know now seemed very important. My best guess was that Mario had been killed for the photographs that were hidden behind the broken picture frame in the crime-scene photos and subsequently burned by Little Benny when the cops started hammering down the door. What was in those photos? And why was Mario killed to obtain them? Without knowing anything about the photographs, I couldn’t be sure.

  “Okay, so Jimmy saw dollars instead of blood this time. Or maybe that’s just what he wants you guys to think. Depends how personal it was to Jimmy. So how personal was it? Why was Mario killed?”

  “He died because he was a stupid junkie who started a fight with Volchek.”

  “But Tony Geraldo talks about a debt.”

  “Everyone owes Volchek,” said Arturas, and his eyes momentarily strayed into the distance.

  “So was it a debt or a drunken bar fight? Or did Little Benny kill him for the photographs that the cops found burned in Mario’s sink?”

  Arturas looked me over, surprised.

  “It was fate. That’s all you need to know. Do not ask too many questions, lawyer. One of those questions might just get your daughter killed,” said Arturas, as his hand tracked the scar on his cheek.

  That was the second time that I�
�d seen him finger that scar. He probably wasn’t even aware that he was doing it—like most people that unknowingly reveal their tells. The scar appeared to be relatively recent: pink and angry—perhaps no more than eighteen months old. My guess was that Arturas suffered that scar around the same time that Volchek found out Little Benny would testify against him.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  I couldn’t sleep.

  The small couch in the old chambers felt lumpy and sunken in places. Broken springs and broken supports dug into my legs, but even if I’d been lying on a king-sized bed in the Waldorf, I would’ve had the same problem trying to sleep. I couldn’t stop turning everything over in my mind. In a way, it helped. Thinking through the problems helped keep my mind off Amy. My head raced with theories, most of them probably crazy, some close to home, one or two could be right on the money.

  I’d never heard of a mobster turning state’s evidence for anything less than full immunity bought by the witness providing a sworn statement on every last detail of the organization: These are the suppliers; this is our distribution network; this is who launders our money, who killed who, when, and where. Usually all of this would be accompanied by a heavily pinned map showing exactly where the bodies were buried. Just like the Penditi.

  We were very far from that situation here. Little Benny coughed to one murder, that’s it, and he wasn’t going into the witness protection program after this trial. He still had time to serve. So far he’d been serving that time in FBI protective custody.

  I couldn’t understand why Little Benny would be stupid enough to do any time at all. Why didn’t he give up everybody, get himself an immunity agreement, then get the government to set him up for life in witness protection?

  There had to be good reasons. First among my theories was family. The statements were silent on this, but if Little Benny did have a family, I was pretty sure they were in Mother Russia. Not even the feds would be stupid enough to try to offer protection there. No, Benny wasn’t worried about family in Russia; if he had family there, he wouldn’t have opened his mouth about Volchek at all, as there would be no way to protect his loved ones back home. If he had family in the United States, he would spill his guts for the whole operation and get his family into witness protection—or he would say absolutely nothing. Family considerations didn’t fit my theory.

  What would be his primary motivation? I wondered.

  Staying out of jail had to be his only motivation.

  Again this didn’t sit well with the facts. Little Benny had another eleven or so years on his sentence. Why not give up Volchek for a payday and no time? Why give up enough to put a price on your head but not enough to get you paid or out of prison?

  Of course, I was ignoring the ultimate game changer—stupidity.

  As an intelligent, rational human being, you can always see another angle when in fact there is no angle. I was just rationalizing what I would do when the situation might have been that the person was just plain stupid and you can’t rationalize their kind of decisions.

  But was Benny that stupid?

  He got caught red-handed.

  The answer that Volchek gave me seemed closest to the truth, that Little Benny was still loyal to some—Arturas. That was the key; I needed to find the connection between Arturas and Little Benny.

  I got up slowly. My back sang with pain in protest at my movements.

  I ran over the evidence again, the photographs, the witnesses, and the officers’ statements.

  Something wasn’t right.

  When I thought of the fat guard downstairs, the identical suitcase that Gregor put into the passenger seat of the first van before it had been driven into the parking lot, the FBI card, it all just swam in front of my eyes. My head thumped with the effort of trying to contain it all. Then one image came floating to the surface of my consciousness and stayed there—Amy. I examined every corner of her features in my mind and imagined myself holding her, telling her everything was okay, that she was safe, Daddy came for her. My body shook. I gritted my teeth, holding back the tears, and collapsed into the chair.

  * * *

  I must have passed out over the files. I didn’t know how long I’d been asleep, but I woke up fast when the chambers door opened.

  “We leave now,” said Arturas.

  Victor and Gregor said something to Arturas in their own language, and he responded to both of them angrily. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, although it sounded a lot like an argument. Threading my arms through the sleeves of my overcoat, I hefted it onto my back and folded down the collar over my suit.

  “Wait,” said Arturas before launching into a full-blown argument with Victor. The blond man pointed at me.

  “If you two don’t keep it down, security will come up here to see what all the fuss is about,” I said.

  “Shut up and take off the—” said Arturas, before Victor cut him off.

  They were arguing about whether I should leave the bomb in the chambers office or wear it out and risk having to smuggle the bomb into the courthouse a second time. I didn’t want to do that again. Their dilemma was a difficult one. If they left the bomb in the office, there was always a small chance, even with a new lock on the outer door, that security or the FBI might find it. Plus, without the bomb on my back, I had more freedom. Making me wear the bomb out gave them more security; if I didn’t come back after I’d met Jimmy, they could just press the button. That’s if they assumed I’d keep the bomb on me, which, of course, I wouldn’t.

  “Do you want me to leave the jacket here?” I asked.

  They stopped arguing.

  “Take it off,” said Arturas. “I’m not risking you getting searched on the way back in.”

  I took off my coat and the jacket. Delicately, I hung the jacket over the back of the chair in the chambers office and put my overcoat back on.

  “Call Jimmy,” said Arturas, offering me his phone.

  “After. I have to go to the bathroom first,” I said, and I prayed that Harry had returned from his impromptu shopping trip at AMPM Security and managed to hide my equipment in the john.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  I had to go sometime, and Arturas appeared to have expected it.

  He said, “Use the bathroom downstairs. Victor will go with you.”

  “I’ve been using the bathroom on my own for some years now,” I said.

  “You’ll be shitting in a bag for the rest of your life if you keep that up,” said Arturas.

  Victor led the way to the staircase and down to the next level. The stairs were precarious in the dark. They turned most of the lights out in the courthouse after nine p.m., keeping only a few floors lit for night court.

  We took our time on the stairs. I found the bathroom and ducked inside quickly before Victor could protest. The bathroom consisted of one large room directly off the corridor. The lock moved slowly and silently until it turned a full one hundred and eighty degrees and secured me. It would not save me. Victor could have that door off in seconds.

  I dropped the toilet seat down loudly and imagined Victor listening suspiciously at the door, but I told myself that it just was my imagination playing tricks on me.

  Where did Harry put it? I thought as I looked around the bathroom.

  My search began badly. I lifted the porcelain cistern cover and almost dropped it, creating a loud scraping noise in the process.

  I waited and held my breath.

  No calls or questions from Victor.

  The cupboards below the basins wouldn’t open. I checked the ceiling for loose or out-of-place tiles. Then I saw a drop point beside the paper towels.

  It was perfect: a disused paper towel dispenser affixed to the wall. I opened the protective cover and felt inside. I touched a paper bag. The bag came out of the casing easily. The towel holder had been broken for some time, so the cleaners wouldn’t have gone near it. I opened the bag as slowly and as quietly as I could. The items were all there. One by one I removed
them.

  The spray was called SEDNA. It came in a small, black spray bottle like a perfume tester, easy to hide. Then I found the flashlight, or what appeared to be a flashlight. It was in fact a black light that illuminated traces of the SEDNA, which was visible only under ultraviolet light.

  The cell phone felt incredibly small, but I didn’t want it for its size—I wanted it for its features. The main feature being that the phone operated through an illegal pirate network that allowed untraceable calls and signal capture. That too would be easy to hide. The dummy detonator looked to be an exact match. I took out the detonator I had stolen from Arturas and compared the two. They were identical.

  I heard a phone ringing and almost dropped the cell phone in panic. The ringtone ceased and I heard Victor talking outside the door. His phone—not mine. His voice trailed off a little, as if he paced the floor while taking the call.

  Harry had done well. I turned on the cell phone, made sure that it was on silent in case anyone called me, dialed a number, and waited for a good ten seconds before the call was answered.

  “Who’s this?”

  “I need to speak to Jimmy urgently; it’s Eddie Flynn.”

  “Hang on.”

  I could hear conversation on the other end of the line.

  “Call me back on this number,” said Jimmy.

  I redialed to a secure line.

  “What the hell’s going on?” said Jimmy “the Hat” Fellini, in a soft Italian accent.

  Keeping my voice low, I said, “I’m in deep trouble. Some people have taken Amy. I’ll call you in a few minutes. Pretend we haven’t spoken. I have a deal and you will see me right away. The kidnappers will be listening. Don’t let me down.”

  “Eddie, do you need money?” asked Jimmy.

  “No. I’m coming to the restaurant to give you money. I’m buying a hit team.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  After ten seconds of silence, I felt pretty sure I’d gotten away with my hushed call with Jimmy. Victor’s booming voice came through every few seconds, sometimes closer to me, sometimes farther away as he walked around outside the bathroom. I let out my breath. I hadn’t even realized that I’d been holding it.