“How are you doing, Russell?” Her voice held a lifetime of Virginia Slims. “You want another beer?”
“No, thanks, Mrs. Costello.”
He wasn’t in a chatty mood, but Mrs. Costello didn’t move.
“You know the bar sponsors a Little League team, right?”
“Sure, I know.”
“Ralphie Bonfiglia’s the coach and his company is transferring him to Boston for a few months.”
“Yeah, so?”
“You coach basketball, don’t you?”
“That’s right.”
“Do you want to coach the Little League team until Ralphie comes back?”
The offer flabbergasted Russell. Given the state of limbo he currently occupied, the idea of making plans was something he had not considered.
“Are all the parents on board?”
Russell and Mrs. Costello had avoided any talk about his situation. She had not brought it up, and Russell did not volunteer information.
“Don’t worry about the parents. Mr. Costello likes you, he’ll talk to anyone who’s got a problem.”
“And Ralphie’s okay with this?”
She told him not to worry about it, everyone would be grateful. Russell had trouble envisioning any return to routine existence, but this gesture showed him he could be accepted back into society despite what he had done. He rubbed his knee, the one that had buckled on him that awful morning. It was still sore.
“All right, then yes.”
She nodded and went to check on the customers down the bar.
Russell thought his interview with Lou Pagano of the Westchester County District Attorney’s office had gone well. The encounter had been friendly, and Russell told his story from every possible angle. He liked Pagano who did not seem to have a bad attitude about cops but came away from the meeting not sure how it would work out.
Since the shooting, his days had taken on a strange texture. The White Plains Police Department had placed him on administrative leave and confiscated his firearm. He and his wife fought constantly, and their bickering caused the baby to cry incessantly. Reporters waited for him outside his apartment building. Circumstances led him to the house of his brother, a Yonkers firefighter with a wife and three kids. He had spent the last several nights on a pullout couch in the finished basement. It was not an ideal arrangement. There, he would thrash for hours, unable to sleep. In the morning, he would put on sunglasses and pull a trucker cap low over his eyes before he left for the day. He worked out at a local gym during off hours when he would be less likely to run into anyone he knew. He took his laptop to the library where he read the news in a quiet corner. His friends on the police force called but he parried their invitations to grab lunch or drinks. He prepared himself for the worst. Mrs. Costello’s offer of a coaching opportunity was like seeing an angel slide.
That morning he had met with his attorney for the second time, a meeting he had requested. Joan Abelson was a lawyer at Rose, Gardener & Seligman in downtown White Plains. Her manner was as brisk as her wardrobe, which consisted of a tailored gray pantsuit and a white blouse. Blonde hair cut short, two gold studs in her left ear. Russell sat across from her in a sports coat and khakis, cap on his lap. The lawyer sipped a large mug of chai tea. Russell found the scent relaxing.
“How have you been doing?”
“Been better,” he said.
He realized that his leg was bouncing and stopped it. He did not want the lawyer to think he was nervous. She waited for him to talk but Russell was not sure exactly what to say. He knew he needed to ask a question before she told him she had work to do and would call when there was news.
“How long does it usually take before the DA’s office says whether it’s going to put a grand jury on a case?” He hoped that his edginess was not painfully obvious. At least his voice was forceful.
“As I told you when we met the other day, it varies.”
“Is my situation taking longer than usual?”
“If the DA were to make an announcement today, that would fall somewhere into the average length of time. She’s not taking too long.”
““I’ve been reading about grand juries.”
“And what have you learned?”
“They can be unpredictable,” Russell said. He pinched the brim of his cap, now resting on his thigh.
“That’s true.”
“It’s impossible to tell how this is going to play out?”
“Russell, look, as I said, this is a serious case that will have ripples far beyond you and your situation. It would be highly unusual for the district attorney not to convene a grand jury. I can pretty much guarantee it, in fact. But that doesn’t mean you have to start worrying yet. If the case goes to trial, you’ve got a better-than-average chance of beating the charges. Your record is exemplary, you’re active in youth sports. It was a bad situation.”
“The fucking worst,” he said. “Excuse my language.”
The attorney nodded supportively. He appreciated that she seemed to be listening to him and was sensitive to his distress. Russell wished he could stop worrying. Joan Abelson certainly seemed untroubled by it. He admired the dispassion lawyers brought to their work. Studying law interested him. If he were allowed to return to his job, perhaps he’d ask to be assigned to the DA’s office. The department certainly was not going to put him back on the street anytime soon.
“If the case goes to trial, and I’m not saying it will, we’ll get you a sympathetic jury, and I’m going tell them your story.”
The door to the bar opened, and Russell heard the men before he saw them. Two black guys. He tensed. They were talking about a school board meeting that had occurred the previous evening. The men, who appeared to be around forty, sat in a booth and ordered drinks. Although people stared at him in public, and some probably judged him harshly, no stranger had spoken to him since the incident. The media had not widely circulated his picture, but he had assumed people would know his identity. That this did not appear to be the case astonished him. Still, Russell was sensitive to the presence of African-Americans, who, he believed, would take a particularly harsh view of what had happened. He glanced at the men and was pleased to see they remained indifferent to his presence.
Russell was not a regular churchgoer but he believed in God, and this put him in a knotty position. In his view, he had not sinned. And yet now a man was dead, and this death was on him. He had caused it. That was horrible but what else could he have done? His life had been in danger. John Eagle could have grabbed his gun. Whether or not he was at fault, the remorse at having taken a life weighed on him. Russell Plesko lived by the words “peace officer.” It was the first time he had drawn his weapon on the job.
He took another sip of his beer and peered around the bar. Since he was young, he had wanted to be a cop. He had barely finished college not because he couldn’t do the work, but because he wasn’t suited for sitting in a classroom. Russell loved being on the force. It allowed him to interact with new people each day and he enjoyed the respect they showed him. White Plains was a mostly middle-class city, and despite pockets of poverty, it was not a bad place to be in law enforcement. He had planned to work for twenty years then pension out, buy a weekend cabin upstate, spend time in the woods with his family. Now all of it was in jeopardy.
He glanced at the black men. They were still engrossed in conversation. Down the bar, one of the commuters ordered a refill. Russell tossed a couple of bills on the bar, waved to Mrs. Costello, and walked out.
It was early evening and the air had chilled. The sun was low in the sky when he walked into the Fenian. Now traces of purple lingered on the horizon, and he could see the moon rising over downtown Port Chester. Russell had parked around the corner. Turning up the collar of his jacket, he wished he could call Christine Lupo. He needed to know what was going to happen.
It
was evident something was wrong when he turned on to the side street where his car was parked. The streetlight lit the windshield of Russell’s five-year-old gray Honda Civic unevenly. The illumination reflected in intricate patterns on both lateral extremes, but the middle was bashed clean through and swallowed the glow like a dead star.
Christine regarded her dinner companion across the table at the Parkway Diner. Bruce Lathrop was a husky man with a shaved head and stubbly face, the combination of which lent him a menacing aspect that he undercut with an open, easy-going manner. He wore jeans and a sports coat. The two of them were in a booth, and spoke quietly so as not to be overheard. They were expecting someone else to join them.
As the ambitious politico picked at her salad, the consultant revealed that the initial polling she had commissioned exposed an unfortunate truth: Her name recognition was not as high as either of them had hoped.
“All the drug dealers you lock up, the wife beaters—our research shows that, at least outside of Westchester County, no one cares.”
He chewed thoughtfully on a piece of turkey bacon and let this unappetizing reality sink in. Despite the hour, Lathrop had ordered breakfast.
“What about all the times I’ve been on television?”
“The TV has mostly been local, so some people in the city know you, but upstate, no one.” He saw her reaction to this, a barely perceptible downturn of her coral lips, and said, “Hey, you’re not paying me to sugarcoat it, right? But look, since you’ve been in office, you haven’t had a genuinely sexy case.”
“I was on TV for an entire month when we put away the doctor who killed his wife’s boyfriend. CNN did that story on the nightly news.”
“Joe Blow in Buffalo? He doesn’t care,” Lathrop explained. “You can’t take it personally.”
The district attorney forked a juiceless piece of tomato into her mouth and chewed but did not notice the lack of taste. She took her entire situation personally. The lucrative career in the private sector she had passed up to work twelve hour days for a government salary, dealing with armed criminals, rapists, murderers; her conviction rate was the envy of her colleagues across the country, and yet she remained a nonentity to the public? It was maddening.
“And we convicted the doctor on evidence that was circumstantial,” she reminded the bullet-headed operative.
“Which was impressive, don’t get me wrong,” he said, awarding her the booby prize of his approbation. “But locking up that guy doesn’t make people look at you and think”—here he paused for effect, then said in a stentorian tone—“Governor Lupo.”
Christine examined the combination of greenery in her bowl as if the configuration in which the chef arranged it contained a code that, when cracked, might offer a solution to this riddle. It ate at her that despite the high level at which she discharged her duties, brought indictments, and put criminals behind bars, she found herself barely better known than some state senator from Poughkeepsie.
Then came the consultant’s proposal: “But if there was a case that was the right kind of high-profile—” He didn’t need to finish the thought.
“You think I should indict the cop who killed the civilian?”
“Not for political reasons, that’s for sure.” He tore a piece of wheat toast, dipped it in a pool of egg yolk, placed it in his mouth, chewed and swallowed. “But it would be a publicity bonanza.”
“People already say I’m too in love with the cameras.”
“You can’t be successful in this business if you hang back,” he pointed out. “All this racial stuff going on now with the cops, no one’s taking them on.”
“You know what happens when you antagonize the police?”
“I’m not saying it wouldn’t be a gamble, but when you take a hard look at your profile, you might want to think about it.”
“Even if I were inclined to do that, this looks like the wrong defendant. My deputy personally interviewed all of the witnesses. He believes the officer was justified in his use of force.”
“What’s the cop’s name, Plesko, right?” The DA confirmed this. She could see the computer in Lathrop’s head sort files and bring up a document. “I think that’s a Hungarian name, probably Catholic, which falls under the heading of white European. He’s not from some ethnic group that’s going to rally to his defense.”
“You forget the cops,” she reminded him. “They’re a group. I hosted a delegation of them in my office to discuss this, and I can tell you, they’ll be upset.”
“They’re always upset. And by the way, I’m not advocating either position, just thinking out loud.”
“I’m not going to indict that guy to get traction in an election.”
Bruce Lathrop held his hands up, palms facing across the booth, stop right there.
“Hey, I would never suggest anything so cynical,” he assured her. “Look, you want to be elected governor, you need to win the city. You want to spend your time running around upstate putting the Schenectady-Albany-Troy equation together, be my guest, but that’s not how you get elected governor. New York City is a union town. You gotta make inroads down there. On the one hand, if you want to look at this thing through the self-interest prism, you’re better off not bringing the case to a grand jury.”
“But if I do, then it would look like I had balls.”
“Of course,” he agreed. “Frankly, I think voters prefer balls to integrity.”
“New York is full of liberals who might be pro-union, but they’re not particularly pro-police, and it would look like I had more integrity if I did, right? And balls.”
“Look at what happened when Reagan fired the air traffic controllers,” Lathrop said, wistful at the memory of the routed labor movement. “It was like Washington crossing the Delaware. Balls and integrity in a single package.”
“Not that I would ever think that way,” the DA said.
“So, you have a conundrum.”
“That’s your brilliant insight?”
“Hey, don’t kill the messenger,” he said.
That her frustration had revealed itself further frustrated the DA. It wasn’t Bruce Lathrop’s fault that she was in this position. Was the harsh tone she had just used misdirected anger she felt toward her husband? It was her suspicion that if she were not going through a divorce at this highly inconvenient time, her thinking around the police shooting would have greater clarity. Her inability to come to a decision was something that she would be happy to lay at her husband’s feet if that were not a sign of mental weakness. But it was. She offered her apologies for snapping at Lathrop. Accustomed to far worse from egotistical, narcissistic politicians, he told her not to worry about it.
Outside the window, a black limousine glided into the parking lot and pulled up to the restaurant door. A substantial man in a business suit emerged from the backseat and Christine instantly recognized him. He hustled into the diner and seconds later was hovering over their table. He smiled ingratiatingly at the DA and introduced himself to Lathrop.
“Sorry I’m late,” Franklin Gladstone said. The consultant moved over, and the new arrival slid in beside him. He looked at Lathrop’s plate. “Who eats breakfast at night? This guy’s nuts!” Franklin delivered the words like a punchline, but since they were not funny, he only received forced smiles in response.
The waitress arrived and asked Franklin if he’d like to order something, but he waved her away. The three of them exchanged pleasantries, then Franklin declared the preliminaries over and requested that they discuss the reason he’d driven up to White Plains. Christine admired Franklin’s no-nonsense style as it reflected her own. He was someone who “got things done” and was acquainted with a great many potential donors, two qualities she prized. She walked Franklin through her money-raising operation, how much the campaign had already, and what her projected needs were between now and the election. Franklin listened int
ently, nodding as she enumerated the challenges of putting a donor network together. Having illuminated the financials, the district attorney asked if there were any particular policy issues he wanted to discuss.
“I’ve already vetted you on policy,” he said.
“I need to know you’re comfortable,” Christine said.
“I can tell you I’m nearly always the smartest person in the room,” the hereditary kingpin assured them. “I assess situations quickly based on the data my people put in front of me. I don’t like it, I’m out, but if I like it—”
“You’re in,” Bruce said.
“This guy’s a genius,” Franklin said.
Christine smiled, pleased by Franklin’s enthusiasm. He was a force she could harness. “Do you think you’d like to be a bundler?”
“It would be an honor to encourage my friends to violate campaign finance laws on your behalf.” The DA and the consultant stared at Franklin. When he said, “I’m joking!” the pair laughed like it was professional comedy.
The check came, and Christine grabbed it, but while she was digging into her wallet, Franklin picked it up. “It’s a thing I like to do,” he said. “Indulge me.”
In the parking lot, Franklin asked Lathrop if he might have a private word with the district attorney. Deferring to the donor, the consultant shuffled to his Prius.
“My wife and I would like to host a fundraiser for you at our home.”
Christine’s eyes melted. Franklin Gladstone was the whale she had been praying for. “I would love that,” she said, deploying the word love strategically with the expectation her new patron would derive warmth from his proximity to its sound.
“Are you free for dinner next week?” Franklin asked. “I have some ideas.”
It sounded as if he were asking her on a date. She was not remotely attracted to anything about her new admirer other than the size of his investment portfolio but was nonetheless flattered.
“I think so.”
The Hazards of Good Fortune Page 22
