Marked Man (7 page)

You can tell a lot
about a lawyer by how she tries a case. If you saw Jenna Hathaway in the street, you’d think she was quite wholesome and sweet, with a round angelic face and haunting blue eyes. Long legs, honey brown hair, a nervous mouth, a figure not quite willowy but willowy enough, she seemed the kind of tall, good-natured woman you could imagine sharing an ice cream cone with while taking a long walk in a fine summer’s mist. That was Jenna Hathaway in the street, or at a restaurant, or sitting on the porch swing drinking a tall glass of lemonade. But in court sweet Jenna Hathaway was an assassin.

I was sitting in the back of a federal courtroom watching as Jenna Hathaway cross-examined an accountant in a money-laundering prosecution. The accountant was impeccably dressed, what hair he had left was impeccably trimmed. He was obviously an important man with important clients who found refuge in the numbers that he used to define the world, but under the relentless assault of Jenna Hathaway’s questioning he was turning into another creature before our very eyes. It was like a carnival freak show. An accusatory question from Hathaway, a feeble objection from the overmatched defense attorney, a sneering response from Hathaway, an admonition from the cowed judge compelling the witness to answer, and then we all watched in horror as the accountant devolved ever further into a pale, quivering, fishlike creature that gasped for oxygen and flopped like a beached carp on the stand.

“My God,” I said to Slocum, who sat beside me on the bench as we both watched Hathaway work. “She should have been a gastrointestinal surgeon, the way she’s giving that guy a second asshole.”

“And he’s not even the defendant,” said Slocum.

“What’s her story?”

“A born prosecutor, never even flirted with defense work. Her father was a cop.”

“Here?”

“One of Philadelphia’s finest. Homicide, retired now. His daughter’s taken up the sword.”

“I wouldn’t want to be on her wrong side.”

“You already are,” said Slocum.

We must have been talking louder than we thought, because Hathaway stopped smack in the middle of a question and turned to stare at us. Her blue eyes focused on me, and I felt myself shrink beneath her gaze as if I had been dunked in an icy pond. She didn’t quickly turn back either. She kept staring so that everyone else in the courtroom, judge, bailiff, defendant, jury, the whole kit and caboodle turned and stared at me, too. It was all quite intolerable enough on its own, and then Slocum started laughing.

K. Lawrence Slocum was a solid, starchy man with thick glasses and a deep laugh who took inordinate pleasure in my humiliations. We were not quite friends, not quite enemies, we were simply professionals who worked the opposite sides of the same street. But I could trust Larry to hew to the highest standards of his profession, and he could trust that I wouldn’t even pretend to do the same, and with that understanding between us we got along surprisingly well. He had arranged a meeting between me and the intimidating Jenna Hathaway, the federal prosecutor with the strange, abiding interest in Charlie Kalakos. Hathaway, in the middle of a trial, had asked us to meet her in court, and so we had.

After the judge called a recess, Hathaway packed up her oversize briefcase and started down the aisle toward the doorway. Without saying a word, she motioned with her head that we were to follow. Her heels clicked on the linoleum as she led us down the hallway and into one of the lawyer-client rooms, a dreary space with no windows, metal chairs, and a brown Formica table.

When she turned around and trained again her blue eyes on me, I put on my smarmiest smile and reached out a hand. “Victor Carl,” I said.

Jenna Hathaway ignored the proffer and, while barely moving her tensed lips, said, “I know who you are.”

“Good,” I said. “I’m really glad we have this opportunity to get together and work out something on poor Charlie’s behalf. I’m sure we’re all looking for the same thing here, an outcome that will promote both the goal of justice and allow a wonderful work of art to regain its place in—”

“Could you just do us all a favor, Victor,” she said, interrupting me in midsentence, “and shut up. Not just here, in this room, where your voice is grating beyond measure, but on the evening news and in the papers, too. You’re in love with the sound of your own voice, and let me tell you, in your own best interest, you’re no Caruso. So please, please, please, just shut up.”

A little stunned, I looked over at Larry, who was fighting unsuccessfully to stifle his laughter, and then back at Jenna Hathaway. “Is that nice?” I said to her.

“I’m not trying to be nice.”

“And good for you, you’re succeeding. But whatever else all that talking did, it got your attention.”

“What will it take to shut you up?”

“Cutting to the chase, are you? I admire that. Right to the bone of it. So often lawyers spend so much time talking around things that are essentially meaningless. They can go on and on, and it can get so—”

“You’re doing it again,” she said.

“Doing what?”

“Talking too much. Are you doing this on purpose, just to piss me off?”

“Actually, yes,” I said.

She turned to Larry. “Is he a blathering idiot normally, or just a total jerk?”

“Oh, Victor can be a bit of both, but today he’s being the latter.”

She eyed me again, down and up, taking in the scuffs in my shoes, the railroad pleats in my pants, the wrinkled shirt, the weirdly glistening red tie. She rolled her eyes, sighed loudly, and dropped into one of
the chairs. I sat across from her. “What can I do,” she said, “to get you out of my life?”

“Make a deal.”

“Terms?”

“We return the painting to its rightful place at the Randolph Trust and you drop all charges.”

“We won’t drop all charges,” she said. “That’s a nonstarter. And what about his testimony? He’d have to talk.”

“With immunity?”

“Be serious.”

“How long have you been going after the Warrick Brothers Gang, Larry?” I said.

“Years,” he said.

“How you guys doing?”

“Not so well.”

“And what’s the life expectancy of those who agree to testify against them?”

“Short.”

“We’ve already received a dire threat against my client’s life and my own. The first is par for the course, but the second I take very seriously. Still, Charlie will talk about his time with the Warricks if you give him immunity and you agree to protect him. He’d be amenable to witness protection.”

“Of course he would,” said Hathaway. “Living his days off some golf course in a condo paid for by the government.”

“And he mentioned something about a plasma TV.”

“Is this clown for real?” she asked Slocum.

“Unfortunately, yes,” he said.

“Then we have nothing more to talk about,” said Hathaway. “The FBI tells me they’re on the edge of finding your client anyway. As we speak, they are chasing down reliable leads.”

“Even if true, it doesn’t mean they’ll find the painting,” I said. “Did I mention the painting gets returned? Isn’t that why you’ve been after him all this time? Isn’t that why you had the FBI stationed outside his mother’s house, so you could get back that painting?”

She looked at me coldly. “I don’t give a good damn about the picture of some dead Dutch guy who painted himself.”

I stared at her for a moment. None of this made any sense. If it wasn’t the painting she was searching for, then what was it? I looked at Larry for help. He just shrugged.

“So what are you after?”

“I want to know how he got the painting.”

“It was stolen,” I said. “Thirty years ago. What more do you care about? There’s nothing you can do to any of them now. The statute of limitations has run. They got away with it. Sometimes bad triumphs. Let’s move on.”

“I’m not moving on,” she said. “If he comes in, he’s going to have to talk not just about his old gang but about the Randolph heist, too. Everything. And he’s going to have to name names.”

“He won’t. He’s already said.”

“Then that is that, isn’t it? You want to make a deal, make it with Larry.”

“But he can only talk about the state charges. There’s still a federal indictment against my client.”

“Yes, there is.”

“What are you really after?”

“Your client knows.”

“Charlie knows?”

“Sure he does. That’s it, those are the terms. If he comes back and talks truthfully about everything, and I mean everything, then we might be able to work something out.”

“I’ll talk to him.”

“Good.” She stood, hoisted her huge briefcase off the floor so that it thunked on the table. “Now I have to get back. There’s still some flesh I haven’t filleted off that accountant’s back. But, Victor, hear this. If I see your face on the television again, or one of your obnoxious quips quoted in the newspaper, the next dire threat you’ll be getting will be coming from me.”

“Can I ask you something more personal?”

She tilted her head, tightened her lips.

“Do you like long walks in the misting summer rain?”

“With my dog,” she said.

After she stalked out, her briefcase banging the doorjamb for emphasis, I remained seated at the table with Slocum.

“Do you have any idea what she’s looking for?” I said.

“None.”

“Don’t you think you should find out? Maybe climb the chain of command to discover what’s really going on?”

“You want to hear something puzzling, Carl? The attorney general of the United States doesn’t return my calls.”

“A shocking breach of decorum.”

“Yes, it is. I would complain, but the vice president doesn’t return my calls either.”

“She’s after something.”

“Evidently.”

“Did you notice that when she talks, she doesn’t really move her lips? Like she’s a ventriloquist.”

“I noticed.”

“It’s a little frightening,” I said.

“She’s a frightening young lady.”

“And, you know, from a distance she looks so sweet.”

Rhonda Harris and her
little notebook were waiting for me outside the courthouse. How she knew I was at the courthouse was a bit problematic, but the sight of her in her dark pants and white blouse, her green scarf, her long legs and red hair pulled back, brushed that niggling question aside. She looked oh, so Katharine Hepburn I half expected her to break into a quavering Yankee accent as she called me her knight in shining armor.

“Mr. Carl, I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

“Not at all,” I said. “It’s gratifying to see the working press working. But unfortunately, right now, and for the foreseeable future, I have no further comment on anything.”

“Really? That’s so out of character.”

“We all must change with the times. I know it’s a grave disappointment.”

“Not really. Your comments didn’t quite grind the presses to a halt.”

I checked my watch. “I have to get a move on. I’m due in landlord-tenant court.”

“Can I walk with you a bit?”

“Only if what we say is off the record.”

She put away her notebook, lifted her hands like a magician to show there was nothing here, nothing there, nothing up her sleeve.

“Come along, then,” I said. “How’s the story going?”

“Fine, sort of. My editor says he needs more detail and more human interest.”

“I’m not an interesting enough human for your editor?”

“He told me I need to interview Charlie.”

“That’s a shame, isn’t it? I really liked your Thomas Wolfe angle.”

“How can we arrange an interview?”

“We can’t.”

“Oh, everything can be arranged somehow, can’t it?”

“Not this.”

“Give me a chance, Victor. I’ll only write the most complimentary things. And I’ll give you approval over your client’s quotes if you want. I’m sure the public will find Charlie’s story fascinating.”

“It is, I assure you. But as of today the Victor Carl–Charlie Kalakos media machine has been shut down. And I wouldn’t have let you interview Charlie in any event.”

“But doesn’t he have the right to have his say?”

“At the appropriate time, sure. This isn’t it.”

“You know, Victor, if I could have an exclusive interview with Charlie, I could get this thing splashed on the front page of
Newsday. Newsday
’s feature articles are picked up by papers all over the country. The publicity would be out of bounds. The morning shows would be calling. You could become the next Johnnie Cochran.”

“I always admired Johnnie. Hardly anyone looks good in a black knit cap, but he pulled it off with style.”

“Maybe after the article you could charge as much as he did.”

“So now you’re appealing to both my pathetic hunger for fame and my venality.”

“Is it working?”

“Can I ask you a question? The man you saw in my office. Did you know him?”

“That little gnome? No, thank God.”

“Why ‘thank God’?”

“Didn’t you sense it, the violence in him? I did. I’ve seen enough of that sort in my life. What did he want?”

“He was appealing to my venality, too. It seems to be a disturbing pattern.”

“Then maybe there is something else I can appeal to.”

“Rhonda, are you propositioning me?”

“Oh, Victor. Don’t be silly. It’s just a story.”

“Too bad.”

“What I meant is that maybe I could appeal to your sense of charity. I’ve been fighting to break through at my newspaper for a while. I fell into this business late, and it’s hard being a stringer, but my editor said if I can make this story happen, he’d push to hire me full-time. All I need to make it happen is an interview with Charlie. In person if I can, by phone if I have to. You would be giving a huge break to a struggling reporter.”

“We all have our jobs to do, Rhonda.”

She gently took hold of my biceps, gave me a tug. “Please, Victor. I really need this.”

I stopped, turned toward her, saw her green eyes swell with hope, and I felt an ache. It frightened me what I felt, an ache of wanting. She was a reporter—a life-form lower than a ferret, lower even than a lawyer—and I had no doubt but that she was trying to manipulate me for her own ends, anything for a story, but still I felt the ache. And yes, she was pretty, and yes, I liked her offhand manner, and yes, she treated me with an appealing lack of respect, but no, even then I could discern that my feelings had little to do with the truth of her inner being and everything to do with some pathetic need of my own.

I had felt the same ache for a bicyclist with long blond hair and pretty pink riding shoes who had asked for directions on the parkway. And before that I had felt it for a woman in a short black skirt whom I had spied across the street and who, without bending her legs, had leaned down to tighten the laces on her bulky black shoe. I could walk along the street during my lunch hour and fall in love a dozen times and feel the ache as each woman strode on through her life without me. And it was undoubtedly the same ache that had driven me, insensible with drink, to tattoo a stranger’s name upon my chest in a declaration of love.

Either I was a wildly warm and openhearted person or my life was in serious trouble. And, unfortunately, I am not that warm and openhearted a guy.

Yet still, even if all those other supposed emotional connections were the result of some existential psychosis of the soul, who was to say that this emotion, the one I was feeling right now toward this
woman with the blazing red hair and freckled face, might not be the real deal?

“Rhonda,” I said with a slight stutter, “maybe we can go out sometime and get a drink.”

She slipped on a sly smile. “Does that mean…?”

“We’ll talk about it over a drink. And maybe, if everything feels right and the circumstances allow it, maybe I’ll talk to my client about you and your article.”

“That would be just so great, Victor,” she said. “Thank you, thank you so much. When?”

“I’ll get back to you,” I said. I glanced again at my watch. “But right now I have an eviction to fight.”