by Todd Merer
Was the woman’s gaze now focused on me?
I jerked back out from view. From below came the sound of the house door closing. My heart was hammering. I guzzled half the second bottle. Gasped for breath. The booze had me now. I spread my arms to the explosive-stained heavens above.
So fucking what?
So I’d been caught looking. No big deal. I was in a public place . . . No. My problem was not that I’d been watching, but what I felt about what I’d seen . . . a man and a woman in love. Which triggered a realization:
My life was loveless. I lied about not caring that I was alone, but I did care. I lied about loving my work to conceal its sordid reality. My braggadocio about being a ladies’ man was the biggest lie of all. The Avianca flight attendant was a one-night stand. All my affairs were. Because I feared a woman seeing my faults? Whatever. The fact is that I was alone. No lovers, no friends . . .
Boo-hoo. Poor me. I’m drunk as . . . a . . . what the fuck is that?
An apparition had appeared in the bay. A spaceshiplike enormity lit by a million pinpoints. It glided across the water. A beautiful close encounter. The little moving things on its deck were people waving hello. I raised the bottle—hello—and drank.
The cruise ship’s white-swirling wake swept away my dark thoughts.
It was a new year, and I was the old me again.
Benn T. Bluestone, aka Johnny Bipolar.
When I got back to my room, I realized my device was blinking. The fireworks had deafened me to message pings. Many of them. Now I read and nearly wept for happiness.
Because I wasn’t alone after all.
There were others out there thinking of me: thirty years’ worth of grateful clients wishing me a Happy New Year. So what if criminals were my only friends? Forget what that says about me. What’s important?
I’m remembered.
The next morning, I was on my way to New York. I didn’t want to watch the junk that passes for movies and had nothing to read, so I pulled up a drawing app on my device and free-associated, letting my fingers do the working—
“Wow,” the woman next to me said. “That’s really good.”
I’d been absently drawing what I always drew. My ex.
“You must love her very much,” the woman said.
“No,” I said. “She’s a figment of my imagination.”
CHAPTER 13
New York in the grip of midwinter. Fifty shades of grime. Depressing. I had a voice mail that made things worse. It was from my young friend Billy. Bea was in the hospital. When I returned the call, it was too late. Bea had passed last night. Billy had been the only one with her. Indigent, she’d been cremated.
It hit me hard. Except for Billy, I was the only friend or family Bea had. A lonely end to a poor life. Then it hit me harder:
Bea was the only person I had.
Fuck it. Time to work. I wanted face time with Rigo before he was arraigned, so I headed downtown early. Since 9/11, the Manhattan federal courts, US Attorney’s Office, and adjacent federal jail have been a no-vehicle zone whose perimeter is guarded and patrolled 24-7. These buildings compose the premier federal district in the country, the Southern District of New York, archenemy of jihadists, far right loony-tuners, lone-wolf Unabomber types, and, praise be, drug kingpins.
The SDNY courthouse address was 500 Pearl, but the Pearl Street entrance fell within the no-drive zone, so Val dropped me off outside the perimeter at the intersection of Mulberry and Worth streets. The old heart of Little Italy, when I first began. Part of ever-expanding Chinatown now. There was only one constant in my New York:
The frigging courts, baby.
Security people with attitudes. Money. Stressed lawyers lugging paper. Money. People with problems trying to go unnoticed. Money. Lights, camera, action; close-up on the money.
I went through security, down a long marbled hallway, and up an elevator to the fifth-floor hallway. On the way, I passed two or three dozen people I knew or knew of. About half I’d be afraid to turn my back to. The other half, I couldn’t care less about. I wound among them.
On one end of the fifth-floor hall was pretrial intake, where new arrestees are pedigreed under the watchful eyes of agents, a collective from acronym heaven. FBI. DEA. ICE. USPO. USM. ATF. SS. Pretrial was where I met with new clients on the verge of being swallowed by the system. On the opposite end of the fifth-floor hall were proffer rooms, where assistant US attorneys met with me and my client cooperators taking their first baby steps toward freedom. It was for this journey across the fifth floor that I was paid so well.
I loved the fifth floor. Today I headed not to either end but to the center, the magistrate’s courtroom, where new arrestees were presented. Mag court was empty except for a clerk. I handed him my notice of appearance. He glanced at the defendant’s name, shrugged.
“Not yet, Counselor. Try again in half an hour.”
Perfect. I went down to the fourth floor. Above a reinforced door, a camera looked down at an intercom. I pressed the intercom and raised my face to the camera and said my name and my client’s name.
“Wait, Counselor.”
I waited. The other end of the floor was the SDNY US Marshals office. Its anteroom was decorated with wall hangings. My kind of art. Criminal realism:
The latest FBI Most Wanted list, replete with mug shots.
A poster-size drawing of a gaunt marshal: ten-gallon hat, behind him a gallows. A caption identified him as Marshal George Maledon, executioner for Isaac Parker, the Hanging Judge. Beneath his name was a bold-lettered declaration: Let no guilty man escape.
I weighed that against the proposition that we’re all guilty of something. I know I am. I sometimes imagine myself being caught. Doesn’t matter for what—taxes, perjury, obstruction of justice. Deep down, I know that one day I will be caught. Begging the question of why not quit before it’s too late? Easy answer:
It’s the money, Stupid.
Maledon eyed me.
Not today, Marshal.
I moved on to an enlargement of an old black-and-white newspaper photo of marshals wearing long overcoats and fedoras, escorting Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Behind mustache and eyeglasses, Julius’s expression was numb. Ethel looked as if she’d just had a bad conversation with an oncologist.
I paused to admire an old photograph of the first woman marshal. In it, she was leaning against a car holding a revolver. Her legs were shapely—
The voice said, “Take number four, Counselor.”
The marshal pens are twelve-by-six spaces partitioned by steel-mesh screens. In Antigua, my first take on Rigo was short, dark, and ugly. Now, although the screen slightly blurred his features, his scowling features beneath the harsh overhead fluorescence confirmed my impression.
“You okay?” I said.
“Here? How the fuck can I be okay?”
“I’m referring to the incident in Antigua.”
“Incident? They were trying to kill me.”
“Mind telling me who is they?”
“I have to educate you? They are people afraid I’m going to sit on them.”
Sombra, I thought. “I know that. I was asking who they are. If you’re cooperating against people, I need to know who—”
“You’ll know when you have to know. Let’s be clear, Doctor. I’m the one in the cage. I’m the one who decides who I sit on and when. No more questions, okay? Just do your job. Okay?”
I needed to grab the controls. “Okay. Whatever you say. All I ask of you are two things.”
He cocked his head on his short neck and squinted at me.
“One? Take care of our business. Now.”
“Your fee has been authorized.”
“Two? I need for you to . . .”
I flattened my palm against the screen. Usually at that point, the client anxiously presses his palm to the other side of the screen from mine. One for all and all for one, but Rigo didn’t seem to give two shits about ritual bonding. I continued my act, anyway.
“W
alk with me,” I said.
“Gus is here?”
“Gus?”
“Gus, the DEA.”
Ignoring my palm was bad enough, but Gus? That pissed me off. Newly arrested guys are like newborns who fall in love with the first nipple they’re offered. Usually, the nipple is mine, but not so this time. Thanks to Mondragon’s overreaching machinations, the case had begun without me being anointed as master of ceremonies.
“Gus may or may not be here,” I said. “From now on, Gus is unimportant. He’s just a worker for the prosecutor.”
“On the plane, Gus said you’d arrange for me to have commissary money. And phone calls and reading material.”
I nodded pleasantly. Chores this motherfucker’s people should be doing. I wasn’t a fucking caregiver. Whatever. Once my fee was in pocket, our relationship would shake out my way. The door behind Rigo opened, and a marshal leaned in.
“Time, Counselor.”
When I returned to mag court, Gus Romero was sitting in the first row alongside a black guy wearing a conservative suit and button-down shirt. He was Rigo’s prosecutor, Assistant US Attorney Barnett Robinson. We’d done a case together some years back, during which I’d scored a rare litigated win: not a jury trial but a hearing, convincing a judge a search had been illegal, the case then getting tossed. The client was an illegal alien, though, subject to automatic deportation. Still, after acquittal, he’d languished for long months in immigration jail. Communicating with the immigration jail meant floundering through an endless menu of numbered options that invariably ended in an unanswered ring, a dropped call. Immigration court was the worst. Anyway, I’d known that one call from Robinson would get the gears in motion. I’d e-mailed him, asking him to intervene, reminding him my client had not been convicted. His reply had been in caps:
ACQUITTED DOES NOT MEAN INNOCENT.
So it goes. My client did an unnecessary eight months in immigration jail because Robinson, a straight-as-a-ruler-salesman honest man, was also a lawyer. Lawyers can’t deal with losing. He needed to dole out some punishment.
Rigo’s case was called.
In the well, Robinson and I exchanged a brief handshake as Rigo emerged, flanked by a pair of court cops. The proceedings hardly took a minute. Although Rigo had surrendered, technically he was illegally in the States, meaning there was an immigration hold on him, meaning he could not be allowed out on bail. So in one run-on sentence, I waived a bail hearing, waived a reading of the indictment, and entered a plea of not guilty.
As Rigo was led back inside, I whispered that I’d visit him tomorrow, so as to begin planning his cooperation. He shook his head. “Not yet. Dr. Mondragon is planning everything.”
An unlikely pairing, I thought, not for the first time. In Antigua, Mondragon had been disparaging of Rigo, who in turn seemed contemptuous of the lawyer.
Outside the courtroom, Barnett Robinson and Gus Romero were waiting for an elevator. I told Robinson, “My client will want to come in from the cold. Letting you know now, but I’d like to put it off a bit. Until I’m satisfied he’s ready to proffer.”
“We’re on the same track, Benn,” Robinson said. “Prior to his arrest, your client supplied us with certain information we’d like to check out before we sit down with him. I’ll give you a heads-up soon as that happens.”
They got on an elevator whose door slid shut, leaving me with the realization that everyone in the case was on the other side of a stone wall from me. I rode solo down in the next elevator and left 500 Pearl.
Felipe Mondragon waited outside the courthouse. “Ah, there you are. For the next few days, I shall be meeting with our client privately. Nothing to do with his case here: that’s your responsibility. My conversations with him concern his properties in Colombia.”
“You might remind him my fee is due.”
“Not to worry. It’s in the process.”
“Right. Will you be meeting him mornings or afternoons? Whichever you choose, I’ll visit him the other to discuss his cooperation.”
“I will be with him both mornings and afternoons.”
“I understand,” I said, although I didn’t.
CHAPTER 14
At my office, I received a voice mail from Foto, telling me to call Jilly at a given number. I made the call, and a man with a Slavic accent answered. Hmm. Clients sent by Foto were invariably Latin. But I shouldn’t have been surprised. There’s no corner of the world that isn’t the territory of some criminal organization. Crime is crime, and in the crime business nowadays, the white powder is king. Russia’s a big country, got to be at least a couple million people there who like a toot now and again. Or so I assumed.
“We come bring Jilly now,” the man said.
“Say, in an hour. My office is—”
“We know where.” He hung up.
While waiting, I read Laura Astorquiza’s latest Radio Free Bogotá blog:
Extraditing Colombian citizens for crimes they committed in Colombia is another form of colonialism. In their arrogance, the gringos ignore our judicial system and judge our people by the laws of their own country. The latest example is the extradition of Rigoberto Ordoñez. Undoubtedly, this thug will use his resources to buy cooperation that will result in his early release, but he should be judged by his crimes against the citizens of our country. Justice will belong to us. Viva Colombia!
I agreed with Laura. Extradition in its present, body-count-driven format was sorely unjust. But fuck that. What struck me was that Laura had singled out Rigo. Had she known I was his lawyer? I’d filed my notice of appearance just a few hours ago, so it couldn’t possibly have already been posted on the case docket. Unless she knew someone who knew before—
The cage elevator whined to a stop outside my office. I heard its door slide open and floorboards creaking. No one had buzzed me from the street entrance, so I assumed the footfall was that of my neighboring tenant, S. Stephen Sonnenberg, a private financial adviser to the kind of people Page Six noted as having dined with so-and-so in a downtown restaurant. Since I had no standing in that crowd, Sonnenberg ignored me, although, ever the gentleman, I always greeted him politely by the diminutive of his first name. He didn’t appreciate that because S stood for Solomon, which he hated. Hence, I called him Solly, which he hated more.
Solly’s footsteps didn’t fade toward his door as I’d expected but advanced toward my door, followed by a knock.
“Enter,” I said, and the door opened.
It was Solly all right. His usual dashing self: camel cashmere coat draped over shoulders, shades propped atop spiked hair.
“Hello, Benn.”
“Solly.”
Uncharacteristically, he ignored my jibe. “As I was entering the building, a visitor was about to ring your bell. I informed the visitor that you were my neighbor, and it would be a pleasure to show the way.”
“You on Ecstasy, Solly?”
“My Ecstasy is beauty.” He stepped aside and gallantly waved an arm for the person with him to enter my office.
“Thank you,” the visitor said, entering.
“No, thank you,” said Solly.
Solly closed the door, leaving me staring at a pair of hazel eyes that looked even better now than they had in Foto’s penthouse where I’d last seen them.
Hello again, they said.
CHAPTER 15
I’m not often at a loss for words, but at the moment, I was speechless.
“Mr. Bluestone?” Her voice was whispery.
“Please, call me Benn.”
“I’m Jillian,” she said demurely, adding a surname that sounded like Shenolt. “Everyone calls me Jilly.”
“Oh. I thought Jilly was . . .”
“That I was what?”
“A man. I mean, you aren’t a man, are you?”
She laughed, pink mouth, white teeth perfect but for a slightly crooked upper incisor. Hey, perfection is boring. That night in Foto’s apartment, she’d seemed purely beautiful. By day in my office,
she was still beautiful but no longer pure. Something about her aura seemed damaged. Out of nowhere, a thought struck me: she was, or had been, a drug addict. I was sure because it takes one to know one. And let me tell you something: to a former addict, there’s no woman more desirable than the one in your lifeboat.
“Not important. Please, sit. Take your coat?”
She sat but kept the coat on. It was some kind of coat. Dark mink with a silver fox hood; a vision of a legend in Blackglama. I eyeballed her coat’s cost as about the same as a Mercedes S-Class with all the options. The silver fox framed the lower half of her face and tangled with her hair. I wanted to cross around the desk and lift her from the chair and lay her on a Caucasian rug and take her goddamn fast and furious right fucking now.
“So, Ms., ah, I’m sorry, I didn’t catch . . .”
She repeated the name sounding like Shenolt, adding, “I suppose you know why I’m here.”
“My impression is you have a problem.”
“Not me,” she said quickly. “Someone I don’t even know. I don’t even know why they wanted me to visit you. I’m not very good at talking to lawyers.”
“Don’t blame you,” I said. “We’re a motley crew.”
Her laugh was sudden, there and then gone. She glanced away and drew a breath, then turned back and looked me in the eyes. “I have a . . . business associate is the way to put it, who wants to help a friend. The friend is the person who has the problem. I’m told this explains it.”
From within the coat she took out a skin bag, whose worth I rated as a fully equipped Honda, and from it took some papers that she handed to me.
It was an Eastern District of New York indictment captioned United States of America v. Joaquin Bolivar. It was just three pages, bare bones and minimal, alleging the defendant conspired with unknown others to import more than one ton of marijuana into the United States.
Huh? Foto was referring me a pot case? Way back when I was an up-and-coming mouthpiece, I’d done plenty of pot cases. But for a long time since, the big fees had been in hard-drug cases. Still, Foto had said the fee was a million—to start—so there had to be more to the matter. The indictment was nine months old, probably unsealed when Bolivar was arrested in Colombia. I turned to the third page of the indictment and again was puzzled: the predicate acts of the indictment took place six years ago.
