by Dave Daren
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Chapter 1
“The DA’s office has failed to produce sufficient evidence to convict my client,” I said. “Given the recent arrest of DA Adams for bribery and falsifying evidence, I would like to move to have this case dismissed.”
I stared unflinchingly at the gray-haired judge on his bench as I recited my motion. It was unbelievable that the acting DA had actually taken my client to court despite the fact that he had absolutely no case. I glanced over at my twenty-year-old client that had been picked up for distribution and gave him a small reassuring smile.
The young man had supposedly had a joint on him, and another pound in a backpack, but the police hadn’t been able to produce any evidence. His bail had been low enough that he was out the same night, but he shouldn’t have been charged in the first place. Especially when the cops hadn’t been able to actually show that he’d had drugs, and they had no witnesses to corroborate the officer’s story.
“Do you have anything to say, acting DA Martin?” Judge Smith asked.
DA Martin was a thin weasel of a man with a long nose and small eyes. His tongue darted out over his chapped lips as he straightened his tie and then pushed his sweaty blond hair back out of his face. He was in a muddy-brown suit that was so wrinkled it looked like he might’ve slept in it, and he didn’t have a belt to hold up his loose pants.
“My predecessor’s arrest has no bearing on this case,” the middle-aged man huffed.
“DA Adams was arrested for falsifying evidence,” I countered. “And since his arrest, the police department hasn’t been able to produce one shred of proof to back up their charges.”
“It’s been a busy week,” Martin said. “But the drugs will turn up. They always do.”
“My point exactly,” I said. “If they aren’t already logged into evidence, then they likely didn’t exist in the first place.”
“I’ve heard enough,” Judge Smith said as he held his hands in the air to silence us.
The gray-haired magistrate had bags under his bloodshot eyes, and the tip of his nose was red from all the tissues he kept using. The bailiff had even had to bring him a new box before the trial could start. The judge downed what was left of his coffee and then peered down at the case file in front of him.
“Mr. Martin,” the Judge continued. “I suggest that you review the cases that your predecessor had on his docket, because I am getting very tired of dismissing cases that were filed before they were ready. I have enough to deal with given all the prisoners at Rikers that are now contesting their cases. Mr. Morgan, your client is free to go.”
“Thank you, Your Honor,” I said over the sound of the gavel.
I turned to look at Stefan as the young man stood up with a giant grin on his face.
“That was amazing,” he whispered.
He looked up at the judge like the man might change his mind and then forced himself to stop smiling so bright.
“There was no case,” I said with a shrug. “And you can be as happy as you want. They’re not going to re-arrest you.”
I led the young man out of the courthouse and to his waiting mother on the front steps. She’d been invited to sit inside with us, but the nervous woman had refused and perched herself on one of the planters with her rosary beads instead. I wondered how her son was an associate of the Febbos, one of the Italian mafia families in New York City, but I’d learned not to ask too many questions.
“Mama,” Stefan said. “Let’s go home.”
“It went well?” the petite woman asked as she stood. “I knew the Lord would keep you safe. Now, you stay away from your cousin Tino. He’s nothing but trouble. Look what happened from you spending all that time with him down by the park.”
“Mama,” the young man sighed. “It had nothing to do with Tino. And if I didn’t work for the Febbos, then I wouldn’t have had Mr. Morgan as my lawyer, and I would’ve been in prison because some cop doesn’t like Italians.”
The Italian woman huffed, pursed her lips, and then twirled her rosary in her hand.
“No offense, Mr. Morgan, but I don’t want my son working for the Febbos,” she said.
“I can pass that message along,” I said. “But, I believe it’ll be up to Stefan to decide what he wants in the future. I can promise that I’ll be there if the cops try anything again.”
My client’s mother pinned me with a glare that could melt bones, and then spun on her heels and stalked off toward the bus stop.
“I’m sorry about my mom,” Stefan said with a blush. “She’s been worried ever since pops.”
“Your father?” I asked as I strolled down the steps.
“Yeah,” the young man said. “He used to work for one of the other families, but he went on a business trip and never came back.”
“Ah,” I said.
I didn’t know enough about the other families in the city to know how they did business, but I could understand why the woman wouldn’t want her son to follow in his father’s footsteps. The Febbo family did have plans to make their organization legit, but that was privileged information, and the kid wasn’t high up enough to know about that just yet.
“Please don’t tell Mr. Anthony that I want out of the business,” my client said as he glanced over at his mother.
“Your mother’s opinions are safe with me,” I said with a smile. “Have a good day. And, Stefan, keep out of trouble.”
“Yes, sir,” the young man said, and he gave me a nod before he ran off to catch the bus that had just pulled up.
I watched as the two stepped up into the city transportation, found seats by the window, and then waved goodbye as they passed by. My attention was pulled away from the bus when I realized that my bodyguard Hank still hadn’t made an appearance. I knew that he’d be around somewhere, though the large man never came into the courthouse.
He was perched on the hood of my Mercedes AMG with one foot on the bumper and his hands in his pockets. His gun was visible on his belt even from across the street, and with the scruff on his chin he looked like every Italian mobster that I’d ever seen in a Hollywood movie.
“That was fast,” the bodyguard said as I crossed the street to the alley where I’d parked.
“They lost the evidence,” I said with a shrug. “The Manhattan DA’s office is a mess.”
“Just like the Queens, DA and the Mayor’s office,” Hanks said with a smirk.
“ABC7 spent a whole hour talking about the special elections last night,” I said as I unlocked my car. “And the FBI has revealed more of the cops that were on the Serbians’ payroll.”
I’d helped the feds with their corruption case, and I’d even retrieved the information that the Serbian mafia had hidden in the Gryffon Company’s servers. Hank and I had to go to Andorra to do it, along with a Febbo family hacker named Gabriele, but finally their operation was being dismantled and the city freed from their clutches.
It had been a year and a half since I’d first taken a pro bono case for my main client, Anthony Febbo, though he’d been using his mother’s maiden name at the time so I hadn’t realized who he was until later. I’d been by his side ever since then, and the Serbian mob had been using every dirty cop and DA that they could to bring down the Febbo family and their associates.
“Where are we off to, now?” my bodyguard asked as he climbed into my car with me.
“Anthony’s apartment,” I said.
The main Febbo estate had been the site of a shootout only a week ago, so my client had rented a faux-rundown apartment in a
hipster neighborhood that had been gentrified by eager developers. He loved the huge windows and the rust-colored brick of the old factories, and he’d rented out the penthouse for a month while the home was being remodeled.
His father, Sal, the head of the Febbo family, had taken the back seat in the operations. He’d trusted his son to make the decisions for the business, and the revenge, though he’d been vocal about his feelings about giving the feds the information rather than sending some made men to take care of everyone.
His mother, Gulia, willfully stayed out of the conversations about business. She and her youngest daughter, Annie, were living in a townhouse in Brooklyn with Sal while the house was renovated. Most of her time was spent cooking for everyone on the block, but she’d made several trips out to Riverhead to supervise the new construction.
“I heard that Gulia is using the shootout to renovate everything that she hated about the house,” Hank said as if he could read my mind.
“I haven’t been out there,” I said. “But Anthony has said that she’s adding another oven.”
“Doesn’t she already have two?” the bodyguard asked.
“Apparently she wants a third,” I said as I drove through toward Anthony’s apartment. “Something about having one dedicated to teaching the grandkids how to cook.”
“Ah, of course,” the Italian man said with a smirk. “That makes perfect sense.”
“Doesn’t it?” I chuckled.
The converted warehouse that Anthony lived in was down the block from the brewery that he’d worked at when I first became his lawyer. He’d had to return to Riverhead and the family estate after an attack on his father, and he’d remained there as Sal prepared to retire. Taking over the family business had never been part of his plans, but the last year and a half had proven that he was more like his father than he originally thought, and the prospect of making it legit was too much to give up on.
Still, the mafioso had been thrilled to be back near his old stomping grounds for the last few days, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he started to rent a place in the city again at some point, maybe just for the weekends.
“How is Gulia?” Hank asked as his smile faded. “I heard from the guys that she was in the house when it all went down.”
“She was,” I said. “She’s the one who called me and told me they were under attack.”
Hank had been sent out of town on business after we’d returned from our fact finding mission in Andorra, and had only returned that morning. I’d gotten a text from him that let me know that he’d be outside of the courthouse, and I knew that he had to be frustrated that he wasn’t there to help the family when they needed him. But his work must’ve been successful because Anthony sounded like he was in a good mood when he told me that my bodyguard was coming back.
“I swear,” the beefy man said as he balled his hands into fists on his lap. “If they hadn’t already been arrested, I would volunteer to take care of the Serbian bastards myself.”
“I thought about it myself,” I said.
I preferred the legal approach to dealing with the enemies of the Febbo family, but after seeing the destruction at the Febbo house, I’d been ready to go to war. All I had to do was think of the way the matriarch had been shaking despite the bright smile on her face, and I started to wonder if prison was really the best place for the Serbian mobsters.
The beautiful woman had moved on from her fear, though, and it was better for my client if he and his men weren’t involved in an old-school turf war. Gulia was fine, and so was Anthony’s uncle and sisters. His mother had started to go a little stir crazy in the small townhouse since she couldn’t host the entire family, but hopefully the Riverhead house would be completed sooner rather than later.
I pulled into the only vacant parking spot in front of Anthony’s temporary apartment, shut the car off, and then climbed out with my briefcase in hand. There were residents that loitered around out front at almost every time of the day, and I always looked them over, just in case any of them were sent by the Serbian mob, but none of them ever made a move toward a weapon.
It was only a matter of time before the Serbian mob retaliated, though with the joint effort between the Serbian government and the FBI, the bust had gone better than I could’ve ever hoped it would. I rested a little easier knowing that the head of the Petrovic family was behind bars, and most of their stateside goons had been arrested in the raid on the Gryffon Company, but someone always filled a gap when there was money to be made.
My bodyguard seemed to think the same thing because he had his hand on his side piece as he climbed out of the car and joined me on the sidewalk. His gaze swept over everyone on the street like they were a potential assassin, and he kept his head on a swivel until the old elevator lift had climbed up past the first floor. He didn’t move his hand off of his Glock until we’d reached the top floor and he’d made sure that there wasn’t anyone in the hallway waiting for us.
I knocked on the heavy metal door to the apartment and waited until I heard Anthony telling me to come in before I stepped inside.
The entire front side of the building was Anthony’s. Directly across from the massive front door was a wall of windows that no amount of scrubbing could completely wash clean. There were steel beam pillars throughout the open space, finished concrete that had been stained a dark gray, and ductwork that ran along the ceiling.
The kitchen was stuffed into the left corner of the room. Its polished steel countertop, stove, and refrigerator added to the industrial look, and dark oak shelving lined the wall above the sink and the cabinet that Anthony had turned into a coffee corner complete with an expensive-looking espresso machine.
There were carpets underneath the black leather sofa and coffee table that served as his living room, and one on either side of the king-sized bed in the right corner next to the door to the bathroom. The one that had been underneath the oak dining room table had been moved after an incident with some spaghetti, but Anthony had it dry-cleaned so that he wouldn’t have to buy a new one when he left the furnished apartment behind.
“How’d the case go?” Anthony asked as he looked up from his computer.
The mafioso took after his mother in his lanky frame and hazel eyes, but his large ears and curly hair were exactly like his father. His jeans and t-shirts had been left behind when he’d taken over the family business, and the tailored suits that he wore now made him look much more like the surly head of the Febbo family.
“Thrown out,” I said with a grin. “They supposedly lost the evidence.”
“I’m sure,” the young Febbo snorted. “More like they ran out of time to make the evidence.”
“Exactly,” I said.
I nodded to the bodyguard at the high-top table next to the door and then strolled over to the table that served as a makeshift desk. A yawn tugged at my mouth when I put my briefcase down, and I looked longingly at the espresso machine. I’d learned to use it well enough in the last few days, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go through the long process of steaming the milk and brewing the coffee, or if I just wanted to wait for a few hours until we went to dinner.
Gulia would definitely serve me a cup of espresso, and the wonderful matriarch had even started to add more cream and sugar in mine so that it was a little smoother than what the rest of the family preferred.
“How many cases do you have left?” My client walked over to the kitchen and started brewing a cup of coffee.
“Just one,” I answered and started to rifle through the fridge. I emerged victorious from the cool depths of the fridge. “It’s out in Queens. It should be a walk-through since DA Ordman arrested him before they even found witnesses. And I found a video online of the accident that shows Michael had a green light.”
The former Queens DA had been on the Serbian mob’s payroll, like the Manhattan DA and the Mayor, and he’d charged as many of the Febbo associates with petty crimes that he could as part of a plot to destroy their business opera
tions. Michael had been charged with running a red light and causing a traffic accident, but I’d dug through the hours of traffic cam footage and found one that showed that my client had a green light and that the supposed victim of the fender bender had run a red light.
“Good,” Anthony said as he handed me the steaming mug of espresso. “It’s about time we move on. You may even have enough time to yourself to take a vacation.”
I laughed and shook my head as I walked over to the dining room table. Work had been non-stop for months thanks to Mayor Webber and his vendetta against the Febbo family. The corrupt politician had claimed that he would rid New York City of the mafia even though he was in the pocket of the Serbians, and his focus had been on my client rather than any of the other Italian families. He’d gone after them, too, but Febbo associates were much more likely to wind up in court than anyone else.
“I wouldn’t know what to do with so much free time,” I said. “Besides, your father has been sending me plenty of work with the companies that he wants to take legit before his official retirement.”
“The list does seem to be growing.” Anthony gestured toward the stack of paperwork that covered the far end of the table and spilled onto the stainless steel kitchen island. He took a sip of his coffee, snagged a cannoli, and strolled back to his chair.
“That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” I said as I joined him.
“No,” the mafioso said. “I’m happy that we’re doing this, but damn, it’s a lot of paperwork.”
“Luckily, I’m well-versed in corporate law documents,” I said.
I’d worked for a white shoe law firm before I’d taken the pro bono case for Anthony, and as a junior associate I’d spent hours upon hours poring over the legal documents for various mergers and acquisitions. The tedious work had been the bane of my existence, especially when the partners would breathe down my neck like I hadn’t put in sixty hours during the week, and my real passion had always been criminal law. Still, my time there had prepared me for taking the Febbo family legit, so it wasn’t all bad.
