by David Ellis
But it was becoming different now. Maybe not better, but different. The cymbals did not crash as often between my ears. The nightmares had subsided. The throat-gagging, pulse-pounding, breathtaking pain was replaced with a quiet ache, a soft echo in a large, empty house.
HECTOR SAID HE COULD spare fifteen minutes for me in the late morning. I went to the monolithic state building in the city’s downtown and found the Department of Commerce and Community Services on the thirteenth floor. An elderly uniformed man sat at a desk, under a large photo of a beaming Governor Carlton Snow—his thick mane of brown hair and that goofy smile. I showed my identification and he made me fill in my name and purpose-of-visit in a schedule book.
These offices could not be mistaken for anything other than government—thin carpeting, unimaginative beige walls, cubicles made of a cheap cloth. But I’d spent most of my career in the county attorney’s office, so this was more what I was accustomed to than the princely surroundings of Shaker, Riley and Flemming. After winding my way through the maze, I was inside Hector Almundo’s office, nothing fancy but a decent picture-window view of the commercial district’s north side. Hector was done up like always: bright yellow shirt, chocolate-brown braces over his narrow shoulders, a tie the color of a falling sun, propped up by a collar pin.
“The PCB,” he laughed, after I made my request. “You’ve been doing your homework. Definitely where the action is.”
“If it’s a string you can’t pull,” I started, appealing to his ego.
“No, no. No, no.” Hector, I had gathered for some time now, wanted to impress me. I had seen him at his worst, at his most terrified. I had listened to his darkest secrets. If there was anyone in the world who might think ill of Hector—aside from the federal prosecutors—it should be me. He wanted to please me. He also wanted to show me how much power he still had. Hector was in rebuilding mode, having overcome the wrath of the federal government but losing his senate seat in the process. Some people in his situation would just be happy to have avoided prison and would opt for the quiet life. But Hector wanted everyone to know that he was back—or at least on his way.
“How would this work?” I ask. “I put my name on a list? Fill out some application? Do an interview? Do we even know there’s an opening?”
Hector was giving me a paternalistic smile before I’d even finished. “There’s an opening if we say there’s an opening. A list,” he chuckled. “I’m sure Charlie will want to meet you.”
Charlie. None of the PCB board members were named Charlie. “Charlie Cimino,” Hector said, in response to my inquisitive look. “Everything goes through Charlie.”
Charlie Cimino. So maybe the “CC” Ernesto had scribbled on the back of my business card hadn’t been the Columbus Street Cannibals, after all. “He’s some director of something?”
“Charlie? No, Charlie’s the—well, call him an unofficial adviser. Be nice to Charlie, Jason. He can . . . make life difficult.”
That last piece of advice was intended to be lighthearted, but I sensed a tension behind the words, that Hector wasn’t really kidding. I didn’t know this guy Cimino, but he already had an ominous aura given his presumed inclusion on Ernesto’s diagram.
I left with the promise that I’d be hearing from someone soon. I got a call later that afternoon, setting something up for tomorrow. So much for inefficient government—it had taken two hours to work my application, such as it was, through the channels. Tomorrow, I would meet Charlie Cimino.
16
I TOOK A CAB OVER THE RIVER THE NEXT MORNING TO the near-north side, where the streets were mobbed with shoppers at the high-end boutiques just two weeks before Christmas. I had a headache from lack of sleep and my back was sore from the three-hour interval in the dead of night when I actually did nod off, albeit in the love seat in my family room. I do that a lot these days. Sleep is easier when I’m not in our bedroom. Because now it’s just my bedroom. I knew I’d have to sell that townhouse one of these days—meaning my brain was telling me that, but so far I had resisted.
Suffice it to say, I wasn’t looking forward to Christmas, my first without what we affectionately dubbed Team Kolarich. I didn’t connect any memory of the holiday with Emily Jane, as this would have been her first, but Talia and I always enjoyed that time of year, jealously reserving some time just for us and away from our families. My brother, Pete, was down in the Caribbean right now nursing some wounds from a rough few months—long story—and he’d asked me to join him for that week through the New Year. Maybe. Otherwise, I had no family with which to spend the holiday, unless I drove up north to visit my father in prison, the probability of which I put just below the likelihood I would shave my head and become a Tibetan monk. Although I hear Tibet is lovely this time of year.
I missed the warmth of the cab, though not the smell of body odor, once I stepped into the frigid air outside. What little snow had fallen over the last day had been ground into dirty slush, which I tried to avoid because I hate wearing rubbers over my shoes but I also hate wet shoes. Life’s full of conflict.
Ciriaco Properties was out west, a ways from the lake, away from the boutiques and closer to the trendy lofts and restaurants as the city gentrified west. I signed my name with a doorman and took a gold-plated elevator to the twenty-third floor. I checked the walls for a sign, which direction to turn, when I realized that the entire floor was this one company. I pushed through a glass door and found a woman at a tiny reception area who could have been plucked out of a swimsuit competition.
The place could best be described as hip modern, with abstract art filled with primary colors along the walls, designer rugs, sharp geometric angles. I followed the receptionist—about six feet tall, maybe a hundred twenty pounds after a full meal, which to her was probably a couple of celery stalks; shiny blond hair; a simple, formfitting black dress—down the hallway to an office with a gold plate stating MR. CIMINO.
The guy had the entire south wall for an office, floor-to-ceiling windows showcasing the city’s south and east, a view to the suburbs on the west. The north side was a paneled wall featuring a gigantic flat-screen television carrying a cable news channel, as well as a door that, I assumed, led to a bathroom. I thought I should look both ways for an airplane to land before I approached the desk.
Ciriaco “Charlie” Cimino’s primary business was real estate development. From what I could gather online, he held property all over the city, as well as other places in the country and overseas. He had something like twenty or thirty million dollars’ worth of real estate, but that didn’t mean he was worth twenty or thirty million. It might, but it could also mean he was leveraged to the hilt. The real estate market wasn’t so great these days, and wealth on paper did not translate to wealth in your pocket. It meant you were always making deals, always juggling a lot of balls, living and dying with the roller-coaster market.
Cimino was talking on a headset, his hands moving expressively, as he stood looking out the south window. It was the portrait of the man looking over his city, which I suspected was exactly the profile he’d hoped to convey.
“Let me know,” he concluded, then turned to face me. He didn’t smile. He was a barrel-chested Italian, olive complected, dark through the eyes, with a thick mustache that lent an overall scowl to his face. He was dressed in a suit that looked like it had been tailored for him overseas, a glossy smoke-colored piece of silk.
“Jason,” he said, without a hint of warmth. He tried to shake my hand more strongly than I did his, and I let him. “Have a seat.”
His desk was modern, a long slice of steel with thin legs. He sunk into a high-backed leather chair and crossed a leg. He trained those hawkish eyes on me. I saw no reason to speak until he did.
“Tell me about me,” he said.
“I’ve been practicing—” It took me a moment before I realized what he’d said, another moment to be sure I’d heard him correctly. “You have more than a dozen corporations under Ciriaco Properties. You own sever
al million dollars’ worth of property. And Governor Snow trusts you.”
He nodded, just once. “What else?”
“You have excellent taste in receptionists.”
One side of his mouth budged, maybe a centimeter. “About forty million. Depends on the day.” He glanced at his bare desk and tapped his fingers. He wanted to show me that he was unimpressed by that gargantuan figure. “So you saved Hector’s ass.”
“The jury did.”
“To listen to Hector, you turned water into wine. Did you?”
“The feds overcharged.”
That comment seemed to find a soft landing. “The feds always overcharge. It’s a negotiation. An opening bid.”
I couldn’t disagree with that. But I didn’t take it personally, and it sounded like Cimino did.
“And now you want to work for the PCB.”
I lifted a shoulder. “Hector and I discussed some options. It sounded interesting.”
“Why?”
“It’s one thing to help someone once they’re in a jam. I like the idea of helping people avoid it in the first place.”
That, I thought, was my best sales pitch. If I was in simply because I was Hector’s friend, then I had this job as long as I didn’t pull my dick out during the interview. But if he was actually evaluating me, then here I was, a former prosecutor and current defense attorney, with no experience in government bureaucracy, no time spent dispensing legal advice on how to do this or that, really very little to offer other than my charm and good looks—except that, if I knew how to charge people with crimes and how to get them off those charges, then I could probably also help steer people from crimes at the outset. As far as I knew, that’s what non-litigator lawyers did—steer clients through the legal land mines. Who better than someone who’d been there when the mines exploded?
Cimino nodded slowly. He didn’t speak for a long time. Sometimes people do that as a test to see if the other guy will fill in the dead air by babbling. I used to do that in interrogations all the time. I once got a confession on a B-and-E just by shooting looks at the suspect. “The contract would pay you three hundred an hour,” he said. “No limit. Bill every hour you work. You’ll make a lot of money.”
Wow. Three hundred an hour, no cap, for government work sounded awfully generous. It was the first time that morning that I had been surprised.
“You’ll need to raise twenty-five thousand for the governor by the end of next year,” he said.
And that was the second time. I met his eyes. He was wondering how I would respond. So was I. I couldn’t find the words to best express how I felt about having my wallet picked. A couple of expletives might have found their way into my response, along with general suggestions of where the demand for money could be inserted—certain bodily orifices leapt to mind.
Cimino seemed amused by my reaction. “You’ve never raised money before. You’ll learn. It will be worth it to you, believe me. You do your part, you’ll get a lot more back. A lot more. Understand?”
I nodded.
“You prove yourself to us, you’ll be rewarded.”
“Fair enough.”
“You fuck me, I’ll fuck you harder. Understand that?”
Jesus, this guy. I’ve never had much time for people telling me what bucket to piss in, but I wanted this contract. I wanted in. The more time I spent in this office, the more I knew that this had something to do with Ernesto Ramirez’s death.
It seemed to me that the entire reason for meeting with Cimino was these last exchanges: the money, the promise, and the threat. Hector had already greased the wheels for me. This guy just wanted to see whether I was willing to kiss the ring.
“Then I better not fuck you,” I said.
And that was it. One request to an acquaintance, ten minutes with this stroke-job of an egomaniac who made me feel like taking a shower after I departed, and I had a contract for legal services with the state’s Procurement and Construction Board. My radar was buzzing, but that was the point. I was, in a very real sense, looking for trouble. Something told me that it wouldn’t take me very long to find it.
17
“HOW UNCHARACTERISTICALLY ENTERPRISING OF YOU, young man.” Shauna, my law partner and probably best friend, if I thought about it, seemed genuinely surprised. She took a healthy drink of wine from the bottle and passed it to me. “It’s almost like you want to have a legal career, after all.”
Shauna had been on me to pick things up at the firm, starting with showing up on a daily basis and using my celebrity as Hector Almundo’s lawyer to drum up business. Technically, I was just renting space from Shauna and she had no financial connection to my success. But she was hoping that jumping back into the pool would help me recover from whatever it was she had diagnosed as ailing me.
Maybe I was, too. I was taking this gig because I wanted to look into what happened to Adalbert Wozniak and, by extension, Ernesto Ramirez. But I couldn’t deny that I was intrigued. It always seemed like a dark and murky world, this backroom political thing, and if it had escalated to a murder or two, so much the more enticing. It was reckless of me, sure. Nothing that I would have done, had I still been married to Talia and a father to Emily Jane.
Then again, it could have been the wine emboldening me. Shauna and I were camped out on her living room floor, listening to old R.E.M. music on the iPod hooked up to her stereo and splitting a bottle of red wine with our spinach and garlic pizza. This was basically how we spent our junior and senior years at State, only back then we had about a dozen other roommates, and if you wanted to lie on the floor, you needed a tetanus shot. Shauna now had a condo in a high-rise on the near west side, which was pretty small (about a thousand feet) but with a terrific view west that made the place seem twice as large.
We’d fallen back into this routine of late, hanging together the majority of evenings and listening to music or watching the rare show worth viewing on television—a list that grew smaller each year—or sometimes clicking on one of the inane shows that passed for entertainment just so we could ridicule it. Some nights, I’d just slept on her couch rather than make it home. It was always her place, never mine; there was something haunted and unspoken about my townhouse.
Shauna, with her short blond hair, blue eyes, and small frame, had a bit of an angelic look about her, but she could dissect me like a frog in biology class. “So what’s the catch?” she asked, leaning back in the chair behind her desk. “Why this government thing?”
“Steady work between high-profile murder cases.”
“I see.” She wasn’t buying it, and the tone of her voice was her way of saying so. “But this is just a contract, right? Just a client? You’re not becoming a state employee.”
“And leave behind this dynamic private practice I’ve built up?”
“Hey, listen.” She pulled her oversized sweatshirt over her knees. “Christmas. What do you have going on?” She always did this, since Talia’s death, asking after me but in a casual way that tried to deflect her concern.
“I might go down to see Pete. Otherwise, I don’t know. You?” I passed her the bottle.
“My family’s coming. My parents and my brother’s family. I think it’s more an intervention than Christmas dinner.”
“Ah,” I said. “You’re over thirty, and not even a boyfriend, Ms. Tasker.” Shauna grew up on the city’s south side, like me, though we didn’t meet until college. I couldn’t even call myself Catholic compared to her. Her parents were outfitting her for a nun’s habit when she informed them she was heading to law school. She never told them that I was her roommate in college. They wouldn’t have survived it—dual coronaries within minutes of each other.
“Anyway, I could use a lawyer for the interrogation,” she offered.
“I’ll pretend to be your boyfriend. We’ll say we’re living together.”
She laughed, but the offer still stood and I hadn’t answered. “Maybe,” I said. “Thanks.”
She let it go, nodding to
ward the iPod resting on her stereo system. “You can’t group them by twos the way you’re saying.”
“Sure you can. Murmur and Reckoning, obviously. Fables and Pageant, when Michael started feeling confident in his voice.”
“He wasn’t confident in his voice during Reckoning? Ever heard ‘South Central Rain’?”
“An anomaly.” I took the wine from her. We’d had this debate over R.E.M.’s music since State. She had trouble admitting she was wrong. I was fortunate not to have that problem, because I was always right.
“You know, Lynette asked about you the other day,” she said.
“Lynette from law school? Jewish girl with the nice rack?”
Her head fell back, resting on her shoulders. “Why are men such single-cell organisms?”
“You like us that way, Tasker. You can manipulate us and turn us into groveling dogs.”
She smiled, still looking up at the ceiling. “That’s true. We can.”
She didn’t move, but I felt her eyes fall on me. She was constantly poking around with this kind of stuff, gauging my progress. She wasn’t lying, I suspect; Lynette from law school probably had made a comment, but Shauna chose her words carefully and wouldn’t have mentioned it unless she’d had a reason.
I loved Shauna. The way she watched over me, while challenging or insulting me in the same breath, was downright touching. But sometimes her protectiveness landed the wrong way, like an off-color comment made in mixed company. The slow unraveling of my senses, as the second bottle of Cabernet lay empty on the carpet, on this particular evening put me into the early stages of edgy belligerence.
