Personal injuries (42 page)

"Terrible burden that boy is carrying," Tuohey advised me, growing somber. "Well, `boy,' now listen to me. But I've known him all his life. A grown man many years, but that's how I think of him. Partners with my nephew, did you know that? I take an avuncular interest. Concerned about him, naturally. I worry that all of it----!' Tuohey folded his lips before resuming. "He seemed a bit, I'd say, irregular when I bumped into him last Tuesday. Have you seen him since? Does he appear all right to you?"

I was no match for Brendan. I'd been bred to a reserve that if nothing else generally left me time to think, but I didn't have Tuohey's speed or his guile. His probes, placed with the delicacy of acupuncture needles, could intrude barely noticed. What was coming to me through a process of plodding calculation was known to Tuohey largely by instinct, but I finally realized he was at my side because he'd heard nothing from Mel Tooley.

Mel was a former Assistant United States Attorney, who had gone from being one of Stan's darlings to, more recently, a Satanic outcast. Once he'd left the government, the appetites of private practice had led Mel to begin defending many of the same made members of the Mafia he'd formerly investigated. There had been outrage in the U.S. Attorney's Office and protracted battles, which the government lost, aimed at throwing Mel off the cases. Stan had entertained thoughts of sending Robbie, attired in his sound-wired boots, to visit Mel, as Tuohey had suggested. UCORC, however, found there was no hard evidence of a potential crime and declined to authorize a recording. Stalemated, Sennett had figured that silence might drive Tuohey or his minions to recontact Robbie on their own. Instead, Brendan had clearly concluded that, despite his discouragement, Robbie was seeking legal advice from me.

Tuohey's glance swept over me like a searchlight. I did not know if it was my weakness or my honor that Brendan meant to exploit, but he was sure I would never mislead him, whether as a matter of highminded rectitude or out of knee-knocking reluctance to offend the mighty. Appropriate lawyerly conduct was to let Brendan's lingering question pass with no comment, but I knew that, given his suspicions of me, he would feel he could no longer count on Robbie. And so in this grand old ballroom, with its velvet-backed chairs and huge mirrors veined in gold, I swung like a spider caught in descent on its own web. I should have moved off with the myth of the waiting conference call, and let Stan clean up the resulting mess. But I stood my ground. I was driven by too many motives to know which was dominant-commitment to my client was part of it; so was what Sennett, with his craft, had long counted on, namely, my anger and disdain over Brendan's private appropriation of the power of the law. Whatever, as I'd always suspected, I was thrilled to tempt the fates. Well knowing where the line lay that I'd long drawn for myself, I marched across it, committed to making the man who in all likelihood would soon run all the Kindle County courts an enemy for life.

I gave Tuohey a look as grave and level as I could muster and said that Robbie Feaver was a tough guy and not the kind to share his woes. He did not understand why anybody would want to make trouble for him, but he was a stoic and would take the weight of whatever came his way. From the withered depths that gave his light eyes an aspect of privacy, Tuohey's look remained on me as he evaluated the message.

"Ah," said Brendan slowly. "So he's okay?"

I was sure of that, I said with no wavering.

"And you'll let me know if there's any change? I want to help however I can." Departing, Tuohey shook again with a fierce two-handed grip, pleased with me and himself and my assurance that Robbie was a stand-up guy. He'd given another bravura performance, finding out what he needed without admitting a thing. His remark that Robbie'd seemed ìrregular' might even have loosed a weevil of doubt about the reliability of anything Robbie had let slip to me, although I'd done my best to convey the impression that Feaver had told me nothing.

"You didn't have to do that, George," Robbie said, when I shared the details of my encounter with Brendan. We sat in the parking lot of a McDonald's near his home where I'd stopped on my way from the office that evening. Together we watched the young moms coping with the anguish of dinnertime. Robbie was sharp to the nuances of practice and knew the burden I was taking on if Tuohey escaped.

I reassured him that I'd chosen to do it. But I had one request.

"Anything," he answered.

Let's not tell Sennett, I said.

CHAPTER 35

ON FRIDAY AT NOON, EVON MADE A TRIP to Feaver's, carrying an urgent message. She found him in no state for visitors. He answered the door in tears. Like a child, he wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his polo shirt as she stepped into the marble foyer Her first thought was to leave, but he took hold of her wrist, clearly craving company.

"We were talking," he said. "About kids. I mean, you understand." His black eyes briefly rose to her as if the look alone betrayed a secret. And it did. Evon, for once, immediately made the connection. Rainey must have indicated that she did not have the same reasons to continue her life she might have if she were a mother.

"I mean, you know-regrets?" he asked. "Millions. But that's number one. Kids." They were on the long white sofa in the living room where Robbie had first faced the IRS agents last fall. She had no place to ask for details, but Robbie, as ever, spoke.

"It was always an issue. I was for kids. I mean, I was afraid of fucking up like my father, but, you know, I wanted the chance to do better. But Lorraine, with that screwy upbringing of hers? It became kind of a
manana
thing. She had her job, and wow, she made big money. And then, you know, I was trouble. I made trouble. She was always with one foot out the door, and I'd say I'd mend my ways, and I didn't. And then, to teach me a lesson, she did some stuff. But when we got the news, whatever it was, three years ago, I was like, No, wait one minute, we were just about to get this right. I think we would have. I do. Every New Year's, for maybe five years, it was my last loopy thought right before I crashed through into sleep: This year we're pregnant.

"Before she got diagnosed we were talking about it more. We even named this kid we didn't have. I mean, goofy names. Sparky. Flipper. We'd toss around funny things the kid would do. Don't get pizza with olives, she won't eat olives. It was always a girl, I don't know why. And somehow we got to doing that just now." He'd been staring straight into the high pile of the white carpet, but, unexpectedly, a comic thought came to relieve him, impelling a brief laugh.

"We got a great name today. I said, I want a nice Jewish name. We'd just finished this book she really liked, so she looks over there and says, `Nancy Taylor Rosenberg' So that's who we were going on about, Nancy Taylor Rosenberg. Nancy Taylor Rosenberg needs sunglasses for her big blue eyes. Nancy Taylor Rosenberg has an outie like her mother. Every screwy thing. Nancy Taylor Rosenberg loves chocolate cake and has terrible allergies. We really got rolling. We were both bawling our eyes out, but we kept going for twenty minutes. So," he said in abrupt conclusion and slapped his thighs. "What's up?"

She eyed him, not sure he was ready for business, but he indicated she should proceed. Sig Milacki had called this morning and wanted Robbie to phone. The next move was at hand.

"Sig," he said and considered the message slip. She'd brought the phone trap. The device used to record the call was a tiny earpiece, the size of a good hearing aid. The earplug was miked to pick up both the signal from the telephone handset and Robbie's voice, which was transmitted through the bones of his skull. The lead ran to a portable tape recorder she'd brought in her briefcase. Alf had wanted to do this himself, but, as always now, the fear was he might be tailed. Listening in on an extension, Evon could hear Milacki approach the phone from a distance, assailing his underlings with gruff wisecracks.

"Feaver!" He proceeded with his standard banter, jibes about attorneys. His daughter, Milacki said, had now finished her first semester in law school. "I'm watching her real careful," he confided,

"to see just when it is she grows the second face."

"Fuck you, Sig."

"Be the best piece of ass you ever had." Milacki exploded in raw laughter. He loved that line and repeated it several times. Finally he explained himself. "Sort of wanted to catch a look at your ugly mug. Thought maybe we could have a soda pop. Six okay at that yuppie-duppie joint of yours with the six-dollar brewskis?'

Robbie tried to get a hint what the meeting was about, but Milacki roared as if Robbie had told another joke, and with no more ended the call.

AT FIVE AFTER six, Robbie strolled into Attitude, as he had on many another Friday night. Perhaps it was the familiar atmosphere or his acting skills, but he looked far better than he had in days. He was in an Italian sharkskin suit, his big hair blown dry, his cologne, as always, redolent for yards around.

For Klecker, getting a decent recording amid the shattering ambient noise of a Friday night crowd presented a technician's nightmare. To deal with that, Alf had wired three of Amari's surveillance team members with directional mikes in the hope they could work their way close to Robbie and capture better sound. To augment the problematic audio, both Klecker and Sennett wanted cameras. The jostling in the hurly-burly of the bar made a stable picture unlikely, and in the meeting at McManis's beforehand, Feaver had claimed that he'd dislocate a shoulder if he had to stand there holding the ponderous briefcase-camera for an hour. Ultimately, Klecker had dispatched another member of the surveillance squad with that unit, instructing her to take a table on the loft level where she'd get a good wide-angle image of the entire scene. A second camera was manned downstairs by three agents of Asian descent, two Japanese and one Korean, whom Amari had requisitioned on short notice. The three men were in the middle of the barroom floor. In another of Klecker's inspirations, they played the role of happy tourists, passing what looked to be a video camera back and forth among themselves, as they endeavored to record every moment. Only one of the agents spoke any foreign language, but he crowed at volume and the other two laughed and bowed in a vigorous parody of American expectations.

To conserve the batteries, none of the cameras were switched on until Robbie entered the bar. In the van there was the inevitable Zantac moment waiting to see if the equipment would function. The space here in the rear was extremely confined tonight. It now looked like a TV

studio. Klecker had added two video monitors and three additional sound receivers to the pyramided equipment. Tex Clevenger, trained in the Army as a sound tech, worked with Alf, helping spin the dials. Sennett, McManis, and I did not have room to spread our elbows. In front, Shirley drove. Evon was beside her in the passenger seat. Like the rest of us, she'd been provided with headphones, but she listened through only one side, the other ear being already equipped with the infrared receiver hidden under her hair. Robbie's assignment tonight was direct: try somehow to get another meeting with Brendan. In order to dramatize Feaver's desperate need for further advice from Tuohey, Sennett and McManis had worked out a scenario around Evon. Executing this plan depended on how long Robbie remained inside and what Milacki wanted. On that score, there was still no clue.

From the audio output alone, it was clear Attitude was rocking. The crowd, packed tight from the door, was full of libertine energy. They'd survived another week, had taken the punch, and were ready to make the most of it. Alf flipped between the radio channels sampling the sound, almost all of it a waterfall of unintelligible chatter, while the tape decks turned. One of the miked agents had already i.d.'d Milacki and was drinking next to him. A second had followed Robbie through the door.

A woman whom Robbie knew, a legal secretary who once had worked at Feaver & Dinnerstein, pushed up to greet him as soon as he cleared the tall glass doors. Carla. We could see her on the output from the video cam with which the three agents were posing. She was smoking a cigarette and barely remembered to remove it before kissing Feaver on the lips. She was conventionally pretty, near Robbie's age. She clutched Robbie's arm above the elbow as she asked him about Mort and shared stories of her two sons, both now in the Marines. Her straight blond hair, heavily sprayed and treated, divided like a stream around the rock of her shoulders. She licked the ends absentmindedly as they spoke.

"I'll see you, hon," Robbie said eventually. "I gotta get with a guy."

"That's how it is anymore. Everybody's always running. I'm over by the window by Rick and Kitty."

He blew her a noncommittal kiss and worked his way toward Milacki, who was in the second row of standees near the bar. He had one finger in his ear as he yelled into his cell phone, apparently reaming out somebody who worked for him. When Robbie arrived, Sig pointed at the phone and mouthed an insult about the person on the other end.

In the van, Alf signaled, instructing us to switch our headphones to channel three. The mike in the briefcase of the surveillance agent who was beside Milacki funneled far clearer sound than Robbie's FoxBlte.

"Say, listen," Milacki said, and caught Robbie by the arm, after they had said hello. "We just had a thing at the courthouse. I swear to God, I nearly soiled my skivvies. One of these macaronis with the aluminum foil hairdo, you know, so they don't get too many of them weirdball radio signals from outer space, one of these wackheads goes right through the metal detector. Holy Tamoli, we got bells and lights like a pinball machine. So the boys pull him over to the wall to frisk him. Here," said Milacki to Robbie, "here, pick up your arms. I gotta show you this." On the second monitor, we could see Milacki spread his hands, ready to pat Robbie down.

"Oh shit," said McManis. He tried to stand up, forgetting his seat belt, and was jolted back. After popping it free, he crowded closer to the monitor. There was no mistaking Robbie's hesitation either. After a second, McManis pushed Evon's shoulder and told her to get in there. She looked into the side-view to be certain she was clear and jumped out in a rush.