Fresh Kills (36 page)

Authors: Carolyn Wheat

BOOK: Fresh Kills

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Matt led me to the office, bypassing the parlor area. “I don't know about you,” I began, trailing him through the rooms, “but I could use a drink.”

“Got just the thing, babe,” he called over his shoulder. Opening the door of a mini-fridge, he took out a chilled bottle of pepper vodka, poured a generous slug into a heavy old-fashioned glass, and handed it to me. The combination of fire and ice was like drinking a melted diamond.

Matt heaved a sigh and flung himself into his leather chair. He looked tired and old, jaws sagging, eyelids drooping. I glanced at a framed courtroom sketch of him as a fire-eating young trial honcho and the contrast stabbed my heart.

I decided getting down to business was the only thing that could cheer Matt. “Okay,” I began, “we play the tapes. Since you never gave Jack money for the grand jury minutes, there won't be anything that can really hurt us. Then we investigate this plea of Jack's across the river.”

I stopped and locked eyes with my client. “What I'd like right this minute,” I began, keeping my tone conversational, “is one more assurance that whatever Jack did to get himself indicted in Brooklyn is not going to affect this case.”

He returned my stare with a steady gaze. “Nothing to do with me,” he said. He lifted his glass to his lips and tossed back the vodka with a practiced movement. “But I'd give a lot to know what the hell Di Blasi's up to over there. It's obvious why Lazarus wants to let the Eastern District handle the sentence; they want deniability. They want to be able to say they're not going easy on Jack. But why is Di Blasi going along? He hates Lazarusâeveryone knows thatâand word is he was pissed as hell when Singer left the office to take a job with Lazarus. She was his protÃ©gÃ©e, and her walking out was a hell of a blow to his ego.”

“So why is he making it easy for them by taking Fat Jack off their hands?” I mused aloud, finishing his thought. “I'll see what I can find out,” I promised. “Then I'll use my Brooklyn contacts to find out all I can about Detective Edmund Fitzgerald. We should be able to do a lot of damage on cross.”

My client had begun shaking his head somewhere in the middle of my recital. “No, babe,” he said in a more-in-sorrow-than-anger tone of voice. “No, that's not how this game is played. I don't play not to lose. I play to win.”

“And that meansâwhat?” I didn't bother to conceal the annoyance I was feeling. I had every intention of winning, and if Matt didn't realize that, then he might as well fire me right now.

“Did you ever hear of Cato the Elder?” Matt asked. I shook my head; the name was vaguely familiar, but I could see Matt had a story he wanted to tell.

“He was a senator in ancient Rome,” Matt explained. He leaned forward in his chair; the sag had left his jowls and his eyes had regained their spark. “Rome was at war with a city called Carthage, and every time Cato the Elder stood up to speak in the Senate, he said the same thing: â
Cartaga delenda est
.' Carthage must be destroyed.”

“Which means?”

“Which means I want more out of this case than a ânot guilty' verdict,” my client pronounced. “As far as I'm concerned, Lazarus
delenda est
.”

Lazarus must be destroyed. I looked at Matt's face, and saw there what the ancient Romans must have seen on the face of Cato himself: implacable determination. My client wasn't kidding. Lazarus must be destroyedâand he wanted me to do it.

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About the Author

Carolyn Wheat is an attorney, editor, and award-winning author. She has worked on both sides of the legal fence, defending indigents accused of crime for the Brooklyn office of the Legal Aid Society and giving legal advice to the New York City Police Department. Wheat's short stories have won the Anthony, Agatha, Shamus, and Macavity Awards, and two of her six Cass Jameson Mysteries have been nominated for Edgar Awards.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The lines from “when faces called flowers float out of the ground,” “in Just-,” “all ignorance toboggans into know,” and “pity this busy monster, mankind,” are reprinted from
Complete Poems, 1904â1962
, by E. E. Cummings, Edited by George J. Firmage, by permission of Live right Publishing Corporation. Copyright Â© 1923, 1944, 1950, 1951, 1972, 1978, 1991 by the Trustees for the E. E. Cummings Trust. Copyright Â© 1976, 1979 by George James Firmage.

Cover design by Barbara Brown

ISBN: 978-1-5040-0227-1

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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New York, NY 10014

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