Bingo, Jenna thought, and asked the manager if she could use his phone. It was just a loose end she didn’t like leaving behind. She called the University and was transferred to the security office. A pleasant voice, belonging to Sergeant Clark, offered to help her if he could. She asked if he was able to check the records of an auto accident that took place on campus in 1966 if she gave him the owner’s name and the car’s parking permit number. Clark thought that was no problem and had an answer for her quicker than she expected. The driver of the car responsible for the accident was a student named Douglas A. Fiore.
The taxi raced to the Trenton airport. When Jenna mentioned that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast, Monte handed her a Hershey bar that was under his newspaper on the front seat. At the terminal, with just a few minutes to spare before her scheduled departure time, she owed him thirty-five dollars and change. Jenna gave him two twenties and a ten. “I like the way you drive, Monte,” she said, “and I love the way you pray. Keep the change.”
74
GEORGE RYDER HAD LANDED on his feet. Walters, Cassidy & Breen agreed to pay him his regular salary through the first week of November regardless of whether he put in any billable hours for them. It was to his advantage to find employment elsewhere as quickly as he could, bring his remaining clients to the new firm, and augment his income.
Barrows and LeBlanc offered him a good opportunity. They were a fifteen lawyer firm that was started by the two name partners eight years earlier, specializing in corporate and environmental law. Their first office was in a faux brick building on Westminster Street, next to a parking garage. But as they added lawyers and ran out of space, they moved to a renovated building on South Main Street. Their third floor suite overlooked the Providence River. Up until now, the firm had farmed out the various discrimination matters involving its clients, but several well-publicized decisions made the partners more aware of the heavy trial work and billing those kinds of cases could produce.
“I haven’t done a lot of trial work in the past,” Ryder told Ted Barrows as he sat in the latter’s office. “But I’m sure I could pick it up quickly with a little help at the outset. I’m right up to last week on the law itself and the cases,” he assured him.
Ted Barrows, more than twenty years younger than Ryder, was a little embarrassed about interviewing him. But he was impressed with his background at WC&B and with the clients Ryder would bring to their growing practice. Both Barrows and LeBlanc liked the idea of having an experienced senior person around the office whose brain they could pick with questions about client relations, ethical problems and practical solutions for difficult cases. A financial arrangement was worked out that was beneficial to both parties. Ryder reported to his new office on the third Monday in September, the week following the Rhode Island primary.
By and large, the departure from Walters, Cassidy & Breen went smoothly. He gave Ed Jackson a list of the clients he expected to take with him, and was somewhat surprised that no questions were raised about any of them. By agreement, Ryder let Jackson have a copy of the letter he was mailing to his clients. It informed them of his move to Barrows and LeBlanc and his hope of being able to service them from there. In return, he received a copy of the notification WC&B intended to send to those same companies and individuals. It acknowledged Ryder’s departure and advised them, without actually soliciting their business, that they were welcome to have any future labor or discrimination-related problems handled by other competent attorneys in the firm.
On his last afternoon, there was a “Good Luck George” cake for him in the main lounge. He stood behind a table, cutting pieces of it for those who came in to say good-bye in the hour he was there.
Ryder couldn’t help notice that Frankie Scardino remained in the lounge the entire time. He suspected that Scardino’s presence was meant to discourage anyone from pressing him to give a farewell speech. He put something together a week earlier in the event that happened, but then decided to leave without making any formal remarks. It disappointed him to see that a number of the lawyers, partners especially, were no-shows at the reception. But he accepted the fact that those who wouldn’t have supported him had he fought his termination were too embarrassed to attend, and he guessed that it probably wasn’t a good idea for some to be seen shaking his hand or paying him even minimal public tribute.
The only glitch came on that last Friday morning. Ryder met with Scardino to review what he would be receiving from the firm in paychecks after he left. One item confused him. “What’s this entry on the list that says, ‘Contribution-$100.’” he asked.
“That’s what all the partners are being assessed for a firm contribution to Doug Fiore’s election campaign,” Scardino answered.
Ryder responded with a mild explosion. “Well, goddammit I’m not!” he said. “Don’t ask me to shell out a hundred bucks for the guy who pushed me out of here. I’m not a masochist.”
Scardino acted as if he couldn’t understand where Ryder was coming from. “It applies to all the partners, George, and the firm’s paying you for the next seven weeks. I don’t see why you should be an exception.”
He felt his blood starting to boil. “I’m not sure I expect you to see why, Frankie, or that you’d even have the guts to admit this shouldn’t apply to me. I’m not going to give the managing partner one goddamn nickel without a fight. And let me remind you that I’m going to have the chance to make a speech this afternoon if I want.”
Scardino was obviously flustered. He hesitated and then sat back in his chair, away from the table. “Ed Jackson is the managing partner,” he said, “not Doug Fiore.”
“If you and Ed want to believe that, good luck to both of you. Just tell me that I’m not making a contribution and let’s sign off on the rest of this.”
“I’ll have to speak to Ed about it.”
“I know better, Frankie. I’ve been around here over thirty-two years. But if you want to go through that charade, be my guest. Just have an answer for me before I walk into the lounge this afternoon.”
Scardino moved forward and reached for the paper. “Let’s do it this way. I’ll cross it out for now. We can initial the other items, and I’ll recommend to Ed that the contribution gets dropped. If he won’t go along with it, you’ll find out by two o’clock.”
And, as Ryder knew at that moment, that was the end of it.
75
THEY ARRANGED TO MEET at Bruce Singer’s law office, in the Fairfax Building, early on Saturday morning.
“Good to see you, George,” Bruce said, welcoming him with a smile and a strong handshake. “Carol told me all about the screwing you got at WC&B, except she seemed to let it go pretty quickly. If a woman was given that kind of treatment, my wife would be going through the roof non-stop. How’s it working out for you with Teddy Barrows?”
“I like it there, Bruce,” he answered, accepting the cup of coffee Singer poured for him. “It’s only been four weeks, but I’ve enjoyed it. They’ve put together a nice bunch of lawyers. So far I haven’t seen any office politics and I don’t find a new memo from management on my desk every twenty minutes. Believe it or not, no one has said a word to me yet about going out and doing some marketing with another firm’s clients. It’s a whole new world.”
“I’m glad it’s a good situation. You deserve it. It was hard to believe what Ed Jackson did to you.”
“It was Fiore, Bruce, not Jackson. Ed doesn’t have the balls to do it. He just does what he’s told. If you win the election next month, Fiore will be right back in the driver’s seat. In the meantime, ‘Big Ed’ doesn’t want to make any waves. He thinks people look up to him because he’s on the Executive Committee, and he’s afraid Fiore will bounce him off if he’s a bad boy while he holds down the fort. Fiore was just settling an old score he had against me, and used Jackson to do it.”
Singer noticed the sun hitting Ryder in the face and went over to the window to close the blinds. “It’s scary,” he said. “Things have gone so f
ar downhill in this business. Some of our honorable brothers will use any chance they get to stick a knife in your back. They’ll steal clients from you the minute you turn around, or hold back critical documents in a case when they know they should be turning them over. Some of them will even make a deal with you, shake hands on it and then break it a day or a week later if they suddenly decide it’s not as good for their clients as they thought it was at the time. It’s hard to trust anyone in this profession anymore. I have no trouble seeing why the average person in the street hates lawyers so much.”
Ryder nodded his head in agreement. “You’re right,” he answered. “And maybe what I came to see you about isn’t the most noble thing in the world for a lawyer, either. I thought about it a long time before I called.”
Singer waved his arm, a sign that he was giving George the floor. “Okay, let’s hear what you’ve got.”
Ryder took a small package out of his briefcase and placed it on Singer’s desk. It was wrapped in brown paper and held together by a few strategically placed pieces of duct tape.
“There are eleven audio cassettes in here,” he began. “They’re numbered in order. Every minute of what you hear on these tapes was recorded in Room 606 at the Biltmore, from late in May through September of this year. You’ll recognize the man’s voice. It’s on sound bites on radio and TV every day, something to do with the race for governor in Rhode Island.”
Singer mouthed his opponent’s name. “Fiore?”
Ryder shook his head affirmatively. “Yup.” He continued. “The woman is the wife of one of his clients. No, I take that back, she’s the wife of the president and general manager of his client’s plant. Between you and me, it’s Ocean State Wire & Cable and her name is Pat Hanley. I used to help her husband Brad negotiate their labor contracts.
“I don’t know if there’s anything you can do with these, but I don’t trust your worthy opponent for a second. In case he tries to pull any bad shit on you before the election, anything personal, I thought you should have some ammunition of your own.”
Singer looked stunned, like a man who was just awakened and told to choose either a gun or a sword in a duel to the death that was about to begin. His hands didn’t move. “George, I’ve got to ask you. How did you get these?”
“By conduct unbecoming a man of our profession,” Ryder answered. “You listen, and I’ll try to make a long story short.” He waited for Singer to sit back before he began. “Ocean State has Room 606 on sort of a permanent basis. I think they pay for it by the month. Brad Hanley, the Company president I mentioned, gave me a key so I could sleep there instead of having to drive home if we were up real late negotiating with the union. I went to use it one night and it was easy to see what was going on. Fiore’s briefcase and raincoat were there, and the bed was all messed up. I found out from the desk clerk that Pat Hanley had the room for that day.
“Not long after that, Fiore got Jackson to start sitting on me about my billables. It was obvious that he was greasing the skids for my departure. I figured it couldn’t hurt to have something on him when the showdown came. I didn’t know if I’d use it, being what it is, but I sure as hell couldn’t use it if I didn’t have it.
“Anyway, I spoke to a private investigator who owed me a favor. I took him to the Biltmore on a Sunday morning and he installed a tape recorder under the bed in that room. Then he put microphones in the lamps on the night tables. I got another key made for him and he changed the tapes every so often. The results are what’s sitting on your desk.”
“Have you listened to all of these?” Singer asked.
“No, just the first one and part of the second. They get repetitious, if you know what I mean.”
Singer nodded. “I don’t know what to say, George. I gather you decided against using them yourself.”
“Yes, but that’s only because I caught on with Barrows and LeBlanc. Before that, I was sick about the fact that a majority of my partners were ready to back Fiore if I refused to resign and took it to a vote. They knew that meant all I’d get is three months’ severance after thirty-two years. I know I was a special case, that Fiore had it in for me for a long time, but no one else that I can remember ever had to resign because his billables turned sour. I was told by some of the partners that Fiore has always been fair, even though they knew he wanted as much control as he could get. But when I pointed out that what was happening to me could only happen when the managing partner felt he could do whatever he pleased, and that made it a dictatorship, not a democracy, most of them just said, ‘Sorry, George,’ and turned away. At that point I didn’t have much choice, but I’d already lost my taste for staying there and having to think of those guys as my friends. But I’ll tell you, Bruce, that if I didn’t have another place to go by the deadline they gave me to get out, I might have mailed one of these to Fiore and let him guess what I was thinking of doing with the rest. I’m sure that would have convinced him to open his heart and improve my severance package. Three months, after thirty-two years.”
Ryder got up from his chair. “Hard to believe someone could do something like that,” he said. Singer shook his head, but without speaking, and Ryder pointed to the tapes. “Look, do what you want with them. They’re yours. I don’t need them anymore. Like I said, I think Fiore will do anything in the world to beat you, clean or dirty. That’s who he is, in my estimation. Right now, he’s way ahead in the polls, and he can act like a statesman. But anything can happen between now and the election, so if it tightens up, watch out.” He zipped up his windbreaker. “I’d hate to see that bastard become my governor.”
Singer walked out to the reception area with him. “I appreciate your good intentions,” he said, and held out his hand.
Ryder shook it. “Say ‘hello’ to Carol for me.”
“I will, George, and thanks again.”
Singer watched him walk part of the way toward the elevator. Then he hurried back to his office, opened the credenza behind his desk and took out the Sony tape recorder.
76
WHEN HE FINISHED READING the story Richardson gave him, Dan McMurphy had a big smile on his face. “Great stuff, Jenna,” he said. “This is going to sell some papers. And it will cut into that big lead Fiore has in the polls. How much, remains to be seen. But now you’ll have everyone wondering whether Fiore got into this campaign because he believes in the issues he’s talking about or whether he’s just a shill for the Tarantinos to stop casino gambling. Yup, you’ve got a winner here, but we’re not quite ready to run with it yet.”
His last words put Jenna on her feet, and she reached for the story he was handing back to her. “Why not, Dan?” she asked. Her voice reflected her exasperation.
McMurphy just smiled. He understood how anxious a good reporter was to get a dynamite story into print. But he got paid to make sure it was the best it could be before it went to press. “Because I think you ought to take a day and see if there are any more loose ends out there,” he told her. “We know Fiore went to law school, and I seem to remember hearing that young Tarantino is also a lawyer. Take a look. See if it leads to anything else. Today’s Thursday. Let’s shoot for Saturday or Sunday.”
* * *
The first new connection came easy. Richardson put a call into the Rhode Island Bar Association. She learned from that office that Tarantino graduated from Boston University Law School in 1971 and became a member of the bar later that year. A call to the registrar’s office at BU elicited the information that Sandy entered as a second-year student, transferring from Columbia Law School.
As soon as she heard that, Jenna recalled that Fiore’s campaign literature included the fact that he obtained his law degree at Columbia. Within the hour, having to work her way from the clerk who answered her call, to the assistant registrar, and finally to the law school registrar himself, she confirmed what she already suspected: that the two of them resided at the same off-campus address during their only year together at Columbia.
Logic i
mmediately took her to the next step, causing Jenna to wonder whether the Tarantino family used Walters, Cassidy & Breen as their lawyers. She assumed it was probably information the firm wouldn’t give out—the lawyer-client relationship thing—although she couldn’t see any harm in a law firm just answering “Yes” or “No” to that kind of question. Jenna remembered that lawyers often boasted in public or in their marketing brochures about particular clients they represented, especially if they were well-known industry leaders.
“If I don’t ask, I’ll never find out,” she whispered out loud. Moments later, she obtained the firm’s number from a local telephone operator and dialed it.
The receptionist who answered put her through to the billing department, as she requested. A clerk there listened to Richardson’s question and said she would transfer her to Janice Rossman, the office manager. When the connection was made, Jenna repeated what it was she was looking for.
“Let me check,” Rossman said, and called up the master client listing on her computer. “No, we’ve never represented anyone by the name of Salvatore Tarantino or any other Tarantino.”
“Do you have a listing under ‘241 Atwells Avenue Associates?’” Jenna asked.
“No, we don’t,” Rossman said moments later.
“Do you have anything at all that begins with the numbers ‘241’ or with ‘Atwells Avenue?’”
Again, after a long pause, the answer was negative. Richardson thanked her for looking.
“You know, it just occurred to me that I probably shouldn’t have given out that information without asking the managing partner if it was okay. Oh, well,” Rossman said, “have a nice day,” and hung up.
Jenna was disappointed but continued her search. She recalled that the Herald periodically published the names of all individuals or companies that contributed one hundred dollars or more to the candidates for the various offices. She tracked down the dates on which the financial supporters of the gubernatorial contenders were listed, and picked up copies of those papers in the library.
My Honorable Brother Page 37
