by Alan Hruska
“Suppose I offered you another job?”
“With who? Your client? Who I don’t even know.”
“With me.” Teddy says. “And not as a driver.”
“Hmm,” Morrie says. “Doesn’t lower my terms. But might make me happier about offering them.”
FORTY-ONE
Tom and Elena are in bed.
It’s been a busy day. They subwayed back to Manhattan; she packed some clothes and toiletries; he bought some; they each ATM’d some cash; and returned separately by subway to Red Hook. There they found a bodega, provisioned their fridge, had dinner in a neighborhood café, retired to their studio apartment, changed into their sleeping attire, switched off the lights, and slipped one by one under the covers.
After a minute, Elena says, “So, I suppose now you’ll want to have sex.”
“How romantic,” Tom says.
“It’s true, isn’t it? That’s what you expect.”
“I know you’re nervous, El.”
“Aren’t you?” she says.
“Of course.”
“So it’s better to talk about it, right?” she says.
“Absolutely the opposite.”
“You just turn off the lights and go to it?”
“Generally, yes.”
“Generally? You have a process? You do this so often?”
“No,” he says. “I don’t.”
Silence ensues.
“Okay then,” she says.
“Can’t now,” he says. “You’ve broken the mood.”
“What mood?” she says. “We had a mood?”
“Close.”
“I didn’t feel it. And you want to know the truth? I never have with anyone. Not really.”
“Done it?”
“Felt it, stupid.”
“There’s an obvious reason for that.”
“You’re going to say, because it hasn’t been the right guy.”
“Don’t you think?”
She says nothing. Neither does he. They lie there listening: to a distant shout, a nearby laugh, a boat horn, a passing car, someone’s television turned up, then down.
He says, “We’re going to have to take your pajamas off.”
“Found the mood, have you?”
“What I suggested would help.”
“With all that light streaming in from the windows?”
“The better to see you,” he says.
“Why do you have to see me?”
“I’ll assume you’re kidding.”
“Not entirely.”
“Elena!”
“Yours first,” she says.
“I’m not wearing pajamas.”
“All the more reason. Your … skivvies.”
“Then you’ll take your pajamas off?” he asks hopefully.
“Then I’ll think about it.”
“All right,” he says, laughing. He slides out of bed and shuts the blinds.
She sits up and says, “They close more tightly.”
“They don’t seem to, no.”
“There’s light still coming in. Don’t you see it?”
He reopens the blinds, then snaps them shut.
“Doesn’t help,” she says.
“No one out there can see into here.”
“It’s not anyone from out there I’m worried about.”
“You’re modest with me?” He jumps back into bed and thrusts off his T-shirt.
“That’s it?” she says.
“That was me going first.”
“You call that going first? Classic.”
“What is this,” he says, “high school?”
Without a word, she gets up on her knees and, in two sudden motions, swoops off her top and yanks down her pajama pants. “Okay? Me! Anatomically correct. Usual parts in all the right places. Happy?”
“You’re beautiful,” he says.
“No, I’m not beautiful. I’m flawed. Like a human. For one thing, my boobs are small. Pointy and small.”
He rushes to hold her. “No, really. You’re beautiful.”
“And you?”
He flops on his back, lowers his shorts, and kicks them onto the floor.
She says, “You’re pretty big.”
“I’m just aroused,” he says.
“Really?”
He pulls her down to him, and she curls to his side. He says, “Of course, first times are shambles.”
“Are they?” she says weakly.
“So we’ll take it slowly,” he says.
“Good idea.”
He pulls her closer and lays his hand on the back of her leg, grazing her bare bottom. Then he kisses her on the mouth. It’s a deep, long kiss with lots of yearning from each of them.
“Oh, my,” she says.
“What?”
“It seems to be working.”
Teddy Stamos rings the Khalils’ front door, jabbing repeatedly. It’s opened by Anna Khalil, Morrie’s wife, who’s dressed in a terry-cloth bathrobe, with the big “D” for Disney embroidered on its front.
“Sorry,” Teddy says, “but it’s urgent, and will be very rewarding to you if you let me in.”
“I’ll get him,” she says, but Morrie is already descending the stairs, also in a white bathrobe identically embroidered.
“You’ve got your deal,” Teddy says. “But we must act on it immediately.”
Khalil puts on an act of geniality. “Come in, come in.” He ushers Teddy into the living room, and deposits him into a chair. The Khalils take the sofa. “So, Morrie says. “My deal, meaning, specifically….”
Teddy pulls out his iPhone. “Look at this page. It’s your new account at the bank you specified. You will note your account balance. One hundred thousand dollars. Full story please.”
Morrie glances at the screen, then hands it to Anna. “You’d like a drink?” he asks.
“No, Morrie. Thank you. No drinks, all business, big rush. I want your story. Then I’ll want you to call a man named Sammy Riegert at the DA’s office and tell it to him.”
“It’s past ten.”
“He’s there.”
“How could you know this?”
“Morrie, I know many things most people don’t know. It’s my stock-in-trade, my inventory, as it were. Now. Story please. For the moment, net, net.”
“Okay.” Morrie looks at his wife, who nods. “Very simple. On the night Mr. Riles was killed, I got a call from Mr. Althus. He said Mr. Riles would not be needing the car that night, so I should drive for him, Mr. Althus. I asked him how he knew this, that Mr. Riles wouldn’t need the car, and he seemed to get very offended. Not like him at all. In an angry voice, he told me to pick him up at his apartment at seven and be prepared to stay with him until late that night.”
“That was it? End of conversation?”
“With him, yes. But two minutes later, Mr. Riles’s daughter called. Elena. She said to do what Mr. Althus had told me and not go near the office any time that night.”
Teddy took his phone back from Anna, dialed a number and handed it to Morrie. “Remember, the guy you want is Sammy Riegert. Same story. Go.”
“Doesn’t it look funny, I ask for someone by name?”
“Of course.”
“I mean, how do I explain how I know this.”
“You don’t. You ask for the guy heading up the team on the Riles murder. You keep insisting on that guy, and you’ll get Sammy Riegert. Just tell ’em who you are. They want to talk to you.”
Lowell Jockery returns to his penthouse apartment to find Birdie in his bed. The smile of pleasure vanishes from his face when he sees her bring from under the covers a Glock 27 with silencer. She shoots him twice in the head before his dead body hits the carpet.
FORTY-TWO
At approximately ten-thirty in the morning, at One Hogan Place, Tom Weldon works his way through two separate security stations before being shown into Mike Skillan’s office. He says, without sitting down, “I did not shoot Lowell Jockery.”
/> “Good morning, Tom,” Mike says without getting up. “Thanks for coming in.”
“I was in Brooklyn last night.”
“I know,” Mike says. “Red Hook.”
“You had me followed?”
“Elena, actually. From when she picked up that suitcase. Followed you guys to dinner and back.”
“We didn’t notice.”
“No.”
“One guy?”
“Two, as it happens.”
“They’re good.”
“Sometimes,” Mike says. “But some other things happened last night too, which started me thinking.” He squints at Tom. “Why don’t you sit down?”
“I’m okay,” Tom says, pushing the heel of his hand against the back of a chair.
“All right,” Mike says. “We got a call last night. Robbie Riles’s chauffeur. Said he was told not to pick up his boss on the night he was shot. Called off by … Elena.”
“And?”
“Well, the implications are fairly obvious.”
“Are they? Like his just telling you this now?”
“Not so unnatural,” Mike says, “his sitting on this for a while.”
“And you’re telling me because …? You want to see how I react?”
“That’s right.”
“For one thing,” Tom says, “I’ve no idea if it’s true. For another, if it were true, there’d be an innocent explanation. Because if you actually think Elena killed her father, you’re out of your fucking mind.”
“Well, another reason I invited you here may lead you faster to that conclusion. You’re out of a job right now, right?”
“And what? You want to offer me one?”
“That’s right.”
Tom laughs out loud, then starts thinking Skillan might mean it. “That’s ridiculous,” he says.
“Maybe amusing, but unintentionally so.”
“Or is this just more of what you were asking us to do?”
“No. This is an official job.”
“I’m under indictment, for murder. And you want me to be an ADA?”
“I had cause to indict you,” Mike says.
“And now you don’t?”
“Well, you see, that’s another thing that happened last night.”
“Finally dawned, did it?” Tom says.
“More like additional evidence. From Verizon. Their detective work may be better than ours. At least when given a proper incentive—which you can thank me for. They’ve now figured out their records were tampered with. They haven’t yet identified who did that, but they’re reporting no calls were made from your line to Elena’s, or from hers to yours.”
“Really!” Tom says and sits on the chair he’d been tilting.
“It’s a fact.”
“And evidence of the frame.”
“One might say.”
“So you’re lifting the indictment off both of us.”
“Off you,” Mike says. “Not her … quite yet. The only thing linking you to her prior to the murder was Verizon. That gone, you’re out. There’s still a lot of evidence incriminating her.”
“All of which is now tainted.”
“Called into question.”
“It’s a criminal case,” Tom notes. “If the evidence is questionable, it’s insufficient.”
“At this stage, if it raises a question, the question must be answered.”
“Great,” Tom says. “I’ll answer it. I was there. I saw what happened. Two thugs jumped out of the cab they were driving, shot Elena’s father, and kidnapped the both of us.”
“You saw Riles being shot?”
Tom hesitates. “No. I saw him being grabbed. The other guy knocked me out before they shot him.”
“Your testimony’s probably not worth much anyway.”
“Because I’m biased in her favor?”
“Aren’t you?”
“Of course I am. But I just told you the truth when I could have lied.”
“Duly noted,” Mike says. “And I do trust you. One of the reasons I want you to work here.”
Tom’s having trouble fully believing Mike to be serious. “As an assistant district attorney? An ADA?”
“That’s right.”
“Would I be assigned to this case?”
“Yes.”
“How’s that going to look?”
“Almost no one will know it,” Mike says. “You and Elena will continue doing exactly what I asked. All anyone need know is that you’re helping your girlfriend figure out how to deal with getting ownership of a company in the middle of a takeover battle.”
Tom starts shaking his head, while Mike gets up and begins to pace. “Listen to me, Tom. This seemingly bizarre offer makes sense from both of our standpoints. From mine, editors-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal don’t normally walk in here, much less apply for a job. A few have, in the past, and have done very well. But it’s rare. Besides that, it gives you a chance to help break a case, for which you’ve gotta be super motivated. And on top of it all, you have unique qualifications for a special task we both want done urgently. If your assignment to the case is kept quiet.”
Tom looks at him skeptically.
“The mole, Tom. Remember? Your suggestion we have a mole here?”
“And I’m best qualified to find him?”
“No one better. I don’t have to trust some additional person with the fact you already know, and no one else here does. I’m not running the risk that the guy I’m trusting is himself the culprit. And you’d be the least likely guy I could put on this job to be suspected of having it.”
“You obviously have some idea how to do this.”
“I do,” Mike says. “Pretty basic. We’ll start with one staffer. Someone who knew what was later leaked. After my public announcement—that I’m not only dropping the indictment against you, but hiring you for this office—you’ll be assigned to some other cases. In fact, I’ll say in the press release that you won’t be working on the Riles murder case for obvious reasons. At some point in casual conversation, maybe over lunch, you’ll tell this guy in confidence that I wanted you working sub rosa on the case, and that was the real reason you were hired.”
“And you’ll expect him to leak it.”
“If it’s the guy I think it is, it would make both of us look bad. Which he wants to do, apparently. Me—probably because he wants my job. You—probably because he’s being paid off by whoever’s trying to frame you.”
Tom says, pretty much knowing the answer, “Why don’t you tell him yourself?”
“Works better if you do. When the leak gets published, he’ll think, either you won’t confess you told him, or, if you do, he can get away with denying it.”
“Suppose it’s not leaked?”
“Then I’ll give you another guy to work on.”
“How long is your list?”
“Too long.”
“I don’t know, Mike.”
“What’s your problem?”
“I don’t see myself as a spy,” he says. “Or, for that matter, as a prosecutor.”
“You want to protect your girlfriend, don’t you?”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Tom says. “We’ve been thrown together, quite literally, and we’re still trying to figure everything out.”
“But you do want to protect her? And yourself?”
“Because you can’t?”
“Kennedy was shot with a hundred security officers around him. You want protection, join up. Nobody shoots an ADA. Because that no one gets away with. Ever.”
Tom thinks about it.
“And one more thing,” Mike says. “Jockery’s murder ups the odds they’re coming after you. Both of you. And now they don’t have to be so careful. They’re out of the closet, so to speak. Riles and Jockery, rivals for the same takeover target, have both been shot. Now it’s obvious, if it wasn’t before, that the killer—at least the guy paying him—is someone somehow involved in that deal. Only if you two disappear migh
t that picture be cloudy enough to prevent a conviction. The best way to beat a murder rap is to be able to point to another possible perp.”
“Meaning Elena.”
“Against whom the evidence is still pretty strong, and would get stronger if she disappears.” Mike sits on his desk, jaw jutting at Weldon.
Tom says, “The first guy I’d question is the chauffeur. Who paid him to make that call?”
“See. You’re already thinking like a prosecutor.”
“I’ll need some time.”
“Of course you do. Take the rest of the day.”
“One day, you’re giving me?”
“You may not live another,” Mike says. “You or her. Enough motivation? Oh, and the salary, by the way, is peanuts. But you won’t be caring about that now, I suspect.”
FORTY-THREE
At the same sidewalk café in Brooklyn where Morrie Khalil had last dictated his terms, he and Teddy Stamos take a table in the shade. There’s little traffic, automobile or pedestrian. It has the feel of being on a side street in Rome.
After ordering coffees, Teddy says, “I wouldn’t spend that money in your account so fast. Or at all, possibly.”
“I already have,” Morrie says.
“Oh, my, you are precipitous.”
“What’s the problem?”
“You saw who was killed last night?” Teddy asks.
“I assume lots of people were killed last night.”
“Lowell Jockery is the one of significance to us.”
“To you maybe,” Morrie says. “He meant nothing to me.”
“It’s his money you spent.”
“Wrong there. Mine. I earned it.”
“No doubt,” Teddy says. “But you’ve now committed yourself to the DA’s office. They have your name, your information; they’ll want you as a witness; and you’ll have no choice. But you won’t get paid for that part. The man who wanted you to do it doesn’t care anymore. He’s dead.”
Their coffees arrive. Morrie stares at his and says contemplatively, “Jockery, huh?”
“Now deceased.”
“I suspect someone else may want that story told. And pay for it.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Teddy says.
“Well, I’ll give you some time. I won’t change it immediately.”
“You’ve already given it. How can you change it?”
