The Cross: An Eddie Flynn Novella (21 page)

He had family commitments.

Two years after I’d joined Mickey’s gym, my dad got sick. We weren’t poor, and my dad always paid the health insurance for the whole family, right on time, every month in life. The rare form of
cancer that took him wasn’t covered under the policy. My dad hired a lawyer, the cheapest one he could find. The insurance company hired a big-city law firm, and the case went to court. I watched my dad’s lawyer get crucified. It wasn’t his fault; he was hopelessly outmatched. We lost the case, and even with money from friends and Jimmy’s family, we didn’t have enough to pay the hospital fees. Without proper treatment, my dad was dead within six months.

I wasn’t there when he died. In his hospital room, I’d held his frail, skeletal hand in mine for eleven hours and then got up and left to get a soda from the machine. When I got back, I saw my mom waiting for me at the door to his room. I knew he was dead. She didn’t say anything. She just handed me his Saint Christopher medal and cried. After that, it was just me and my mom, and she looked after me as best she could. She even let me box as long as I got straight As. I kept my promise and graduated top of my class. I made sure to have mac and cheese or a plate of eggs waiting for her when she got home from the restaurant. Most nights she didn’t eat it, but she never failed to thank me. I couldn’t cook for shit, and she knew it, but she was thanking me for being the man of the house and keeping a little part of Dad alive. She’d stopped reading the romance novels. Instead she watched a little TV with me before turning in.

When I’d completed school, I hit the illegal fight circuit for a year and ran a few scams on the side. Before the year was out, I had enough money to stake my operation. I hit the street at eighteen, ready to set up : a perfect con, a surefire way to steal every last cent that I could from the people who killed my dad—insurance companies and the rich lawyers who protected them.

Looking back, they hadn’t stood a chance.

“Lawyer,” said Arturas, from the reception room. “Time’s up. We have to go. The trial is about to start.”

CHAPTER SIX

Leaving my coat and pants in the chambers office and sporting my new suit, I joined the Russians at the door. Arturas wheeled the suitcase behind him.

“What’s in the case?” I asked.

“Volchek’s files—all the papers that Jack prepared for the hearing.”

“Is there a prosecution witness list?”

“Yes, and Benny’s at the end of it.”

I’d guessed about as much. The prosecution always saved their best witness till last.

We rode the elevator to the fourteenth floor and court sixteen. The elevators opened up to a wide hall. The white stone walls were bedecked with four huge plaques listing the names of lawyers and judges who fought and died in World War II. Bathrooms and vending machines were scattered around the corners. To the left of the elevators, the long marble staircase rose to the upper floor.

Directly ahead of us were the open, oak double doors that led to a packed courtroom.

Court sixteen was the grandest courtroom in the building. Four large arched windows on the left-hand wall revealed a familiar skyline. The marble floor seemed to sip at the pale morning sun. Newly installed pine benches made up the public gallery. Two judges had threatened to quit if they didn’t get the new benches because the old theater-style seats had become infested with fleas over the years—no doubt due to the type of clientele that the criminal court attracted. When the infestation spread to the judges, replacement seating suddenly became a priority.

There were around twenty-five rows of benches, which were split into two sections on either side of the central aisle. A rail separated
the gallery from the legal tables : prosecution table on the left and defense on the right. Both tables faced the judge. The prosecution table sat empty. A small clump of gallery seats behind the defense table had been saved for Volchek and his entourage. I heard my name being whispered by a few people as I made my way to the defense table. At the back of the court, the judge’s leather seat waited behind a mahogany judicial bench. About fifteen feet in front of the prosecution table stood the witness box. Three steps led up to a small half door in the otherwise solid oak box that contained a single, straight-backed steel chair with a worn, upholstered seat. Directly opposite the witness box and ten feet to the right of the defense table was the jury stand with twelve empty chairs. The jury stand faced both the witness box and the windows behind it. A thought occurred to me as I took my seat.

“Is jury selection complete?” I asked Arturas.

“Yes, but . . .”

Before Arturas could answer, Miriam Sullivan, acting district attorney for New York County, walked into court sixteen flanked by an entourage of assistant DAs and paralegals, who were quickly followed by another three guys in dark suits. From the way they moved and looked, I guessed the stragglers were FBI.

I’d followed this case in the papers like every other New Yorker. A man in his forties with links to an Italian crime family had been found shot in his apartment two years ago. An unidentified man was arrested at the scene : the man I now know to be Little Benny. Benny got caught red-handed with the murder weapon and the body. Filling in the blanks that Volchek had left, I guessed that the FBI had been watching Volchek for years and they stepped in to make a deal with Benny. They wanted to go light on the trigger man and get to the real boss. After Volchek got arrested, the
Times
reported that the judge set bail at five million dollars. Volchek paid that sum in cash within a half hour.

The murder didn’t cross state lines and wasn’t, as far as I could tell, drug related, so the NYPD and the district attorney’s office held on to the case. The feds would hold the witness so they could keep an eye on proceedings. I remembered an unusual feature of the case, something that had grated on me from the first time I
read the reports in the papers. There was only one charge—murder. Volchek hadn’t been indicted for drug running or racketeering or any of the usual organized crime charges. He faced a single charge of first-degree murder.

The prosecution team heaved cardboard boxes full of files onto their table, grabbed extra seats, and built a fortress of paper on their desk. Psychological tactics for the jury—
look at all the evidence we have against this guy
. The state had an army of the top prosecutors, who’d had months to prepare a watertight case, and an unlimited budget.

Miriam looked cool and professional, every inch the seasoned litigator. She wore a black suit with a skirt. She wasn’t classically beautiful, and I’d heard her described as having quite plain features. But her demeanor changed when she came to court; her eyes took on an intensity that was almost hypnotic. Throw in the legs, the shapely figure, and it was a good visual package for the jury. Not that she needed an advantage. She could’ve looked like Danny DeVito and it wouldn’t have made any difference. Miriam was just a devastating lawyer—period. She’d made her name in vice before moving to sex crimes. During the five years that Miriam prosecuted sexual offenders, the conviction rate for rape almost doubled. She’d graduated to homicide, and so far, she was on track for the DA’s job come election season.

Arturas placed the suitcase on the floor underneath the defense table and took his seat at the end of the row behind me. I heard a rumble of heavy footfalls and murmurs from the crowd, and I didn’t need to turn around to know that Volchek was making his entrance. I opened the suitcase and looked inside at the seven files that contained probably six or seven thousand pages in total.

The rumble from the crowd became louder. I turned around to see Volchek walking down the central aisle, alone. Then a Hispanic male stood up in the middle of the crowd. He wore a red and blue bandana, a white shirt and track top. Tattoos spread from his neck up over his jaw and onto his face. It wasn’t the mere fact that he’d stood up that caught my eye; it was what he was doing. He clapped his hands in a slow cadence. An Asian guy in a dark suit got up and began to join in with the applause just as somebody
else stood to attention. The third man was also Hispanic. He wore a maroon T-shirt and he also sported black, wiry tattoos on his bare arms and neck.

Volchek nodded politely at each of the men as he passed them and sat down beside me at the defense table.

“Friends of yours?” I said.

“No. They are not friends. They are my enemies. They’ve come to watch me fall.”

The slow, staccato applause for Volchek died down.

“So exactly who are these enemies?” I asked.

“The Puerto Ricans and the Mexicans run lines for the South American cartels here in New York. The other man is Yakuza. They are here to show me that if I go to prison, they are coming for me and my operation. They are in for a surprise,” he said.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Jean Denver, one of the few female clerks, emerged from the entrance to the judge’s chambers. She winked at me. I liked Jean; she was cute, smart and liked to flirt. She wheeled a heavy trolley. It contained five binders that were thick with paper. The judge’s case files. Judge Pike must be ready to make her appearance. That meant I was about to get my first look at the jury. You can be the most knowledgeable lawyer in the world and be an amazing cross-examiner, but if you don’t know how to talk to a jury, you’re in big trouble. Before you talk to them, you have to understand them. Most jurors don’t want to be jurors. The minority that actively want to be jurors should be avoided at all costs.

I could feel the muscles in my neck getting tighter and tighter each minute, as if the wiring from the bomb was sliding up my back to choke me.

Miriam walked over to my table and stood beside me. Staring into space, my head was running at a hundred miles an hour. I could feel the heat from Miriam’s smile. She held a handwritten message on a yellow Post-it, which she waved at me before sticking it to the desk.

YOUR CLIENT’S GOING DOWN. I’LL HAVE HIS BAIL REVOKED BY 5 P.M.

My mouth was dry. That note was a death sentence for Amy. If Miriam was right, and she was successful in revoking Volchek’s bail, then Amy and I would be dead before the cuffs warmed up on Volchek’s wrists. I was aware of my heels bouncing on the marble floor, and I swore silently and battled to calm down and think.

Miriam didn’t normally get so personal. Like most good lawyers, Miriam usually stayed detached. We’d come up against each other a
few times in the past and came out about even. In the first case I tried against Miriam, I’d underestimated her badly. She wiped the floor with me. My client was caught selling meth outside a school. No deals on a plea, so we fought it and my scumbag got heavy time. Her performance for the jury was flawless; she’d remained composed, restrained, and gave the impression to the jury that she was just recounting facts, not playing on their emotions. About a month after the trial, someone told me that Miriam’s son went to that school and had been offered drugs by my client. She hadn’t mentioned it to me and sailed through to an easy, dispassionate victory. Even though it was the right verdict, and an easy one for the jury, the way she secured that win impressed me.

The note she’d handed me was intended to rile the defense. That meant Miriam was worried. This was no ordinary murder. Miriam’s career case started today. If she lost this open-and-shut wonder, she’d be out of a job. Prosecutors often experience more pressure on such a case because they’re expected to win, and if she secured a verdict, with the feds holding the hand of her star witness, news of her victory would travel in the right circles. I handed the note to Volchek. First, so that he could see I wasn’t swapping notes with the prosecutor about the bomb, and second, I needed him scared. People who’re scared like options. If such things had existed, the hustler’s bible, page one, would read exactly the same as the first page of the trial lawyer’s manual :
Give the people what they want
.

“She’s going for your bail straight off the bat,” I said.

Arturas leaned over the rail to listen. I watched as Volchek grew pale and turned toward Arturas.

“You did not expect this,” said Volchek.

“She can’t do that yet. The other lawyers told us the prosecutor would try, but that they were confident she wouldn’t get it,” replied Arturas.

“You think they were maybe being optimistic because they wanted to get retained in your case?” I said. I watched Arturas’s face tighten, his eyes narrow.

“She must think she has a great first witness : a game changer. A good trial attorney will always start a case with a strong witness. Miriam Sullivan is a great attorney. She thinks the first witness will be enough to put you in handcuffs.”

Volchek bared his teeth and snarled, “Arturas, you told me you had thought of everything. You’ve had two years to plan. First Jack can’t even get out of the limo with the bomb, never mind get through security. Now this . . .” His arm reached out as if to claw at Arturas’s face, but he held back at the last moment. “If you fail me again . . .” He shook his head.

Arturas stroked the scar on his cheek. He saw me watching him and took his hand away from his face. Up close, I saw that the scar had not fully healed. A translucent liquid oozed from a red, puckered section of the wound just below his eye. Guys like Arturas don’t go to the ER for that kind of treatment, and whoever had stitched his cut hadn’t done a very good job. Backstreet doctors, high from their own prescription pads, aren’t known for their care with hygiene, or their skill with a needle for that matter. The scar looked keloid and infected and would probably stay that way; damaged tissue sometimes never fully heals.

I began to wonder about that scar. Perhaps it was a punishment from Volchek for a past failure. Arturas focused his anger on me.

“You will not let her revoke bail. Your daughter’s life depends on it. One phone call is all it takes to have her little throat cut,” he said.

Rage stripped the anxiety from my voice, and I said, “Take it easy. I won’t let it happen. She would need something incredible to get Volchek’s bail revoked on the first day. Whatever it is, I’ll deal with it,” I said.