The Defense: A Novel (19 page)

For a second my breath froze.

Gregor put his hand into his coat. Then he checked his other coat pockets. He patted his pants, repeated the process, and finally used his huge fingers to feel his coat before throwing his hands into the air, mystified. He knew his wallet was gone. Arturas produced his own wallet and handed over a clutch of bills to each of the van drivers. Both men then got into the back of the limo, which pulled away. I guessed that the money in the clips, which I’d found in his wallet earlier, had been destined as payment for the drivers. Some kind of joke seemed to pass between Arturas and Gregor, and I saw the big man hold up his big paws in a display of innocence. Maybe the big man lost his wallet or failed to produce his wallet on a regular basis. There’s no way they would’ve suspected I’d taken Gregor’s leather. To them I was just a lawyer; they didn’t know my past. And lawyers don’t lift wallets. The Russians and the fat guard then walked up the street and turned right, out of my line of vision, toward the courthouse entrance.

Arturas and Gregor would enter the building the same way I had entered that morning, walk past the security station, through the lobby, and make their way to the elevators. My best estimate was that it would take around ninety seconds to make that journey. If they took the elevator, I could add another sixty seconds to that time before they reached the nineteenth floor and maybe ten seconds before they walked back into the chambers office. They would wake up Victor and then they would check on me—maybe another ten to fifteen seconds. For safety, I guessed I had two and a half minutes to get back to my room before they found it empty, made a call that would end Amy’s life, and then hit the real detonator.

I’d gotten used to timing my cross-examinations, and I thought I enjoyed a pretty accurate internal clock. I drew my legs beneath me, stood up, and started moving. By the time I’d reached the statue, around forty-five seconds of my time had gone. The gray lady wasn’t as slippery as the ledge, and it took me twenty seconds to lever myself to her shoulders, my feet planted on her back and my hands gripping the sides of her head. Part of the brickwork that had fallen away on my outward journey created a four-foot gap between the statue and the safety of the ledge.

Five seconds passed with my motionless form clinging to the Lady. I put one foot on the top of her right shoulder, stood up, and grabbed the sword for balance.

Everything Arturas had told me earlier that day had been a lie. Arturas could have moved a grand piano into the courthouse if he wanted; he just got two vans and a suitcase inside without a security check. The bomb that lay across my lower back could easily have been placed in the case that Gregor had put in the van. They didn’t need me, or Jack, to smuggle anything into court. I cursed myself for being so stupid; if the Russians could afford an FBI agent, they could damn well afford to bribe a security guard to allow them to swing a bag past security. In fact, they probably had enough money to make every guard in the courthouse millionaires. In my mind, I replayed my entrance into the courthouse that morning. Barry had hollered my name; the blond guard named Hank had wanted to search me. Even before I got to the X-ray scanner, the fat guard had his eyes on me. At the time I had thought that the fat guard knew me, but I hadn’t recognized him. Watching him help the Russians to smuggle the vans into the basement, I reevaluated his presence in the lobby that morning. When Hank asked me to assume the position, the fat man strolled toward us. I had thought he was backup for Hank—now I knew he’d been eyeballing me to ensure I got through security in one piece, without Hank or anyone else finding the bomb.

They would kill Amy as soon as they had no further use for me. What I couldn’t figure out was why. Why involve me at all?

My dad once told me that you can’t run a con unless you know all the angles. Nothing about this situation made any sense. I got the feeling that I was nothing more than a pawn in a much larger game. At least I was beginning to realize who the players were. That meant I would have to start a whole new game of my own.

I let go of the sword, breathed out, and jumped.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

My body landed flat on the ledge and my legs kicked loose some more bricks. I hugged the wall and shuffled along as quickly as I could to the window that I’d left open. Two minutes twenty seconds had elapsed as I fell into the chambers room, sprang to my feet, and closed the window. I took off my coat and began brushing it with my palm. It was damp, along with my pants. The radiator in the corner was off, and I cranked it up full, put my coat on it, and leaned up against it to dry the damp patches on my knees while I caught my breath. In between gasps, I heard footfalls from the corridor. Leaving the heat from the old rad, I peered through the keyhole and was grateful to see Victor asleep on the couch, in the reception, in much the same position as I’d left him. The Samsonite case that had contained the case files remained open and empty on the floor, just where I’d left it. The files themselves were still on my desk in the chambers.

The silence was broken by a faint, metallic rattle: the elevator doors opening in the hall. Sweat dripped onto my jacket, and I wiped my forehead. Along with one set of footsteps, I heard a much heavier man’s feet coming behind. Arturas quietly strolled back into the outer office and folded himself softly into a chair. Gregor came in behind him and kicked Victor, waking him up. Gregor asked Victor to move over, and the two huge men leaned back into the couch and closed their eyes. Soft lighting from a lamp, identical to the one in my room, made the outer reception look almost serene. I tested the handle of the door and found it locked. No one had checked on me. If they had opened the door and found me gone, they wouldn’t have relocked it.

As quietly as I could, I went back to the radiator and let the growing heat dry my pants. My next step was already planned out. I needed to contact Jimmy before I made my move with the Russians. To do that I required the phone on Harry’s list. Even without traffic, it would take Harry at least an hour to get the gear and make the drop. There was nothing I could do but wait. Stretching out my legs and putting my back to the wall, I could still see through the keyhole.

They were resting.

After a half hour, I caught my head falling into my chest. I’d almost dozed off. My coat and knees were dry, and thankfully, the dark color hid any stains. The little room felt hot and I turned off the radiator and settled back down with my thoughts.

I already owed Harry Ford so much. Without him I’d either be in jail or dead. That’s the inevitability of life as a hustler. There’s no retirement plan. And no health care. Toward the end of my life in insurance fraud, the evil of complacency had crept in. Either that, or I had wanted to get caught. It certainly didn’t feel like that at the time. When it was happening, I blamed myself for a split-second bad decision, and I blamed a nine-pound hammer. Well, it wasn’t the hammer’s fault; nor was it the fault of the man who had wielded it. It was really my driver’s fault for sleeping with somebody else’s wife.

I had scouted my mark, and we were all set up for a Friday-morning fender bender. My precision driver, a washed-out NASCAR racer called Perry Lake, got himself all busted up by a jealous husband on the Thursday night. The husband tied Perry to a chair, went to his tool bag, and showed Perry a brand-new nine-pound hammer. He went to work on Perry: broke his knees, his hands, his elbows, and his teeth. I should’ve called off the job. I didn’t. I’d forgotten the rules of the game: Get the money and get out. During those last few years as a hustler, I’d stashed away close to two hundred grand. I wasn’t in it for the money anymore. I was in it for the scam, for the rush of conning a big insurer and their legal team out of thousands of dollars and then toasting my dad in a bar before cashing each damages check. So I took Perry’s place that day. I might have done better if I had strapped Perry to the driver’s seat and left him to it. I messed up; I hit the brakes too hard, too soon. The Mercedes hit me from behind, well short of the intersection. My fault, not his. Instead of me threatening to take the driver of the Mercedes to court, he sued
me
for personal injuries. In fact, he brought me to the civil court in Chambers Street. The judge that eventually heard the case was Harry Ford.

Ordinarily, an accident like this wouldn’t see the inside of the courtroom. The accident was my fault, but I lied and said that a pedestrian ran out in front of me and that’s why I’d had to break hard. A cop said he had been across the street and had witnessed the accident. He said he didn’t see a pedestrian running in front of me. If not for the cop coming on the scene of the accident, I would just have taken off immediately afterward. Instead the cop took my details. The only ID I had on me was my own, another mistake.

I turned up in court that day to offer the guy ten grand to walk away. His lawyer told him not to take it and just run the case in court. The car I had driven in the accident wasn’t insured, and hiring a lawyer would’ve sent the signal to the Mercedes driver that I had enough money to get a lawyer, so I just showed up to defend myself. When the case began, the judge, Harry Ford, seemed to be profoundly bored. If not for the cop, the case would have been my word against the word of the Mercedes driver. It wasn’t until I began asking questions that I noticed Harry taking more of an interest. The mark gave evidence that he didn’t see any pedestrian before I had put on the brakes. I asked him one question: “You say you didn’t see me braking until it was too late and you ran your car into me. So if you weren’t paying attention to what I was doing, you wouldn’t have seen the pedestrian either, right?” He didn’t answer.

The cop said he had a clear view of me, a perfect recollection of how the accident happened, and he sure didn’t see any pedestrian running across my path. I knew if I could shake the cop, then I had a pretty good chance, so I tried to test him on what he really remembered.

“Officer, you say you have a perfect recollection of that day, events that happened more than six months ago?”

“Correct.”

I held a page in front of me: a letter from the mark’s lawyer threatening to sue me if I didn’t pay his client one hundred thousand dollars. The cop saw me looking at a piece of paper but couldn’t see what it was.

“Officer, what was the next call that you attended after witnessing the accident?”

He was about to lie, to make something up. He hesitated as he saw me looking at the document while I waited for his answer. The cop thought that I already had information about what call he’d attended after the accident and that information was on the paper in front of me.

“I don’t remember,” was his safe response.

A similar setup for the next question about the nature of the call he attended immediately before the accident. Same response—all of a sudden he didn’t remember.

As a young boy, I’d watched my dad perform the exact same routine with his runners if they were light on a payment. He’d hold up his little red book as he questioned them, as if to say that he knew exactly what had gone on and he had the evidence to prove it. He didn’t, of course. He was bluffing.

After a few more questions, I heard Harry laughing.

He addressed me for the first time. “You don’t need to ask anything more. I’m dismissing this case.”

I had kept my bankroll. Only just. The mark stormed out of court, shouting obscenities at his lawyer. The feeling that little victory gave me was astonishing. It was just as sweet as any con I’d ever pulled. There is a little tapas bar across the street from the courthouse. I headed there, feeling elated and suddenly hungry. As I waited for a table, I heard a deep voice behind me. “You did well today, son. Pity you’re not a real lawyer.” It was Harry.

We ate together. Harry told me he’d never seen an unrepresented litigant perform so well and that I’d done a better job than most of the lawyers who appear before him. I’d never met anyone like Harry before. He was straight, successful, with a wicked sense of humor, and well, I suppose he had something dangerous about him. He asked me what I did for a living and I told him I had a little money put aside from my parents but that I hadn’t decided upon a career.

He licked sauce off his fingers and said, “You know, you have a rare gift. You should think about law school. I like the way you asked questions. It shows real talent and aptitude for the job. Particularly with the cop. You blew him away.”

“To be honest, I didn’t have a clue what calls he’d attended on the day of the accident. I suppose I was kind of conning him. Don’t think they teach that in law school.”

He laughed.

“You ever heard of Clarence Darrow?” said Harry. “He was a trial attorney a long time ago. You remind me of him. Before Clarence began a trial, he would thread a long hat pin through the center of one of the big Cuban cigars that he liked to smoke in court. When his opponent’s case began, Clarence lit up his cigar. As his opponent presented their case, Clarence’s cigar burned down, but because of the hat pin, the ash held together and didn’t fall. The pin worked like a sort of central support beam. That column of ash got longer and longer until the entire jury were ignoring Clarence’s opponent and the witness. Instead, the jury were watching the ash on Clarence’s cigar, waiting for it to crumble and fall all over his white linen suit. The ash never fell, and Clarence never lost a case. You think there’s much difference between Darrow and the stunt you pulled today with the cop?”

“Never thought about it that way.”

“That proves you have talent. If you ever decide to try law school, give me a call. A recommendation from me should help. When you’re done studying I could always use a clerk,” he said. And that was that. Although Harry planted the idea of being a lawyer in my head, it was my mom who made me take the final leap.

*   *   *

The snoring coming from the reception area got cut off abruptly before beginning again.

Midnight.

Sixteen hours left on my clock.

Harry surely had had enough time to get the equipment and make it back to the courthouse before twelve.