Badge of Honour 06 - The Murderers (27 page)

“Mr. Weisbach and myself as the guests of Mr. Giacomo,” Peter said.

“It’s nice to see you, Mr. Wohl,” the porter said, and glanced at what Peter thought of as the Who’s Here Board behind his polished mahogany stand. “I believe Mr. Giacomo is in the club. Would you please have a seat?”

He gestured toward a row of chairs against the wall, then walked into the club.

The Who’s Here Board behind the porter’s stand listed, alphabetically, the names of the three-hundred-odd members of the Rittenhouse Club. Beside each name was an inch-long piece of brass, which could be slid back and forth in a track. When the marker was next to the member’s name, this indicated he was on the premises; when away from it that he was not.

Peter saw Weisbach looking at the board with interest. The list of names represented the power structure, social and business, of Philadelphia. Philadelphia’s upper crust belonged to either the Rittenhouse Club or the Union League, or both.

Peter saw that Carlucci, J., an ex officio member, was not in the club. Giacomo, A., was. So was Mawson, J., of Mawson, Payne, Stockton, McAdoo & Lester, who competed with Giacomo, A., for being the best (which translated to mean most expensive) criminal lawyer in the city. Payne, B., Mawson, J.’s, law partner, was not.

And neither, Wohl noticed with interest, was Payne, M.

I didn’t know Matt was a member. That’s new
.

Possibly
, he thought,
Detweiler, H., had suggested to Payne, B., that they have a word with the Membership Committee. Since their offspring were about to be married, it was time that Payne, M., should be put up for membership. Young Nesbitt, C. IV, had become a member shortly before his marriage to the daughter of Browne, S
.

Wohl had heard that the Rittenhouse Club initiation fee was something like the old saw about how much a yacht cost: If you had to ask what it cost, you couldn’t afford it.

The porter returned.

“Mr. Giacomo is in the bar, Mr. Wohl. You know the way?”

“Yes, thank you,” Peter said, and led Weisbach into the club bar, a quiet, deeply carpeted, wood-paneled room, furnished with twenty or so small tables, at each of which were rather small leather-upholstered armchairs. The tables were spaced so that a soft conversation could not be heard at the tables adjacent to it.

Armando C. Giacomo rose, smiling, from one of the chairs when he saw Wohl and Weisbach, and waved them over.

Wohl thought Giacomo was an interesting man. His family had been in Philadelphia from the time of the Revolution. He was a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the Yale School of Law. He had flown Corsairs as a Naval Aviator in the Korean War. He could have had a law practice much like Brewster Cortland Payne’s, with clientele drawn from banks and insurance companies and familial connections.

He had elected, instead, to become a criminal lawyer, and was known (somewhat unfairly, Wohl thought) as the Mob’s Lawyer, which suggested that he himself was involved in criminal activity. So far as Wohl knew, Giacomo’s personal ethics were impeccable. He represented those criminals who could afford his services when they were hauled before the bar of justice, and more often than not defended them successfully.

Wohl had come to believe that Giacomo held the mob in just about as much contempt as he did, and that he represented them both because they had the financial resources to pay him, and also because he really believed that an accused was entitled to good legal representation, not so much for himself personally, but as a reinforcement of the Constitution.

Giacomo was also held in high regard by most police officers, primarily because he represented,
pro bono publico
, police officers charged with police brutality and other infractions of the law. He would not, in other words, represent Captain Vito Cazerra, because Cazerra could not afford him. But he would represent an ordinary police officer charged with the use of excessive force or otherwise violating the civil rights of a citizen, and do so without charge.

“Peter,” Giacomo said. “I’m delighted that you could join us.”

“I didn’t want Mike to walk out of here barefoot, Armando, but thank you for your hospitality.”

“I only talk other people out of their shoes, Peter, not my friends.”

“And the check is in the mail, right?” Weisbach said, laughing as they shook hands.

A waiter appeared.

“I’m drinking a very nice California cabernet sauvignon,” Giacomo said. “But don’t let that influence you.”

“A little wine would be very nice,” Wohl said.

“Me, too, thank you,” Weisbach said.

“The word has reached these hallowed precincts of the tragic event in Chestnut Hill this morning,” Giacomo said. “What a pity.”

“Yes, it was,” Wohl agreed.

“If I don’t have the opportunity before you see him, Peter, would you extend my sympathies to young Payne?”

“Yes, of course.”

“He must be devastated.”

“He is,” Wohl said.

“And her mother and father…” Giacomo said, shaking his head sadly.

A waiter in a gray cotton jacket served the wine.

“I think we’ll need another bottle of that over lunch, please,” Giacomo said. He waited for the waiter to leave, and then said, “I hope you like that. What shall we drink to?”

Wohl shrugged.

“How about good friends?” Giacomo suggested.

“All right,” Peter said, raising his glass. “Good friends.”

“Better yet, Mike’s new job.”

“Better yet, Mike’s new job,” Wohl parroted. He sipped the wine. “Very nice.”

“I’d send you a case, if I didn’t know you would think I was trying to bribe you,” Giacomo said.

“All gifts between friends are not bribes,” Wohl said. “Send me a case, and I’ll give Mike half. You can’t bribe him, either.”

“I’ll send the both of you a case,” Giacomo said, and then added: “Would you prefer to hear what I’d like to say now, or over lunch?”

“Now, please, Armando,” Wohl said. “I would really hate to have my lunch in these hallowed precincts ruined.”

“I suspected you’d feel that way. They do a very nice mixed grill here, did you know that?”

“Yes, I do. And also a very nice rack of lamb.”

“I represent a gentleman named Paulo Cassandro.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Weisbach asked.

“Because you are both astute and perceptive, Michael. May I go on?”

“By all means.”

“Mr. Cassandro was arrested this morning. I have assured Mr. Cassandro that once I bring the circumstances surrounding his arrest…Constitutionally illegal wiretaps head a long list of irregularities…”

“Come on, Armando,” Weisbach said, laughing.

“…to the attention of the proper judicial authorities,” Giacomo went on, undaunted, “it is highly unlikely that he will ever be brought to trial. And I have further assured him that, in the highly unlikely event he is brought to trial, I have little doubt in my mind that no fair-minded jury would ever convict him.”

“He’s going away, Armando,” Wohl said. “You know that and I know that.”

“You tend to underestimate me, Peter. I don’t hold it against you; most people do.”

“I never underestimate you, Counselor. But that clanging noise you hear in the background is the sound of a jail door slamming,” Peter said. “The choir you hear is singing, ‘Bye, Bye, Paulo.’”

“If I may continue?”

“Certainly.”

“However, this unfortunate business, this travesty of justice, comes at a very awkward time for Mr. Cassandro. It will force him to devote a certain amount of time to it, time he feels he must devote to his business interests.”

“Freely translated, Peter,” Weisbach said, “what Armando is telling us is that Paulo doesn’t want to go to jail.”

“I wondered what he was trying to say,” Wohl said.

“What he wants to do is get this unfortunate business behind him as soon as possible.”

“Tell him probably ten to fifteen years, depending on the judge. If he gets Hanging Harriet, probably fifteen to twenty,” Weisbach said.

The Hon. Harriet M. McCandless, a black jurist who passionately believed that civilized society was based on a civil service whose honesty was above question, was famous for her severe sentences.

“You’re not listening to me, Michael,” Giacomo said. “I am quite confident that, upon hearing how the police department has so outrageously violated the rights of Mr. Cassandro, Judge McCandless, or any other judge, will throw this case out of court.”

“God, you’re wonderful,” Peter said.

“As I was saying, with an eye to putting this unfortunate business behind him as soon as possible, my client would be…”

“Armando,” Weisbach said, “even if I wanted to, we couldn’t deal on this. You want to deal, try the District Attorney. But I’ll bet you he’ll tell you Cassandro has nothing to deal with. We have him cold and he’s going to jail.”

“I will, of course, discuss this matter with Mr. Callis. But frankly, it will be a good deal easier for me, when I do speak with him, if I could tell him that I had spoken to you and Peter, and that you share my belief that what I propose would serve the ends of justice.”

“Armando,” Wohl said, laughing, “not only do I like you, but you are about to not only send me a case of wine, but also buy me a very expensive lunch. What that entitles you to is this: If you will tell me what you want, and how Paulo Cassandro wishes to pay for it, I will give you my honest opinion of how hard Mr. Callis is going to laugh at you before he throws you out of his office.”

“Mr. Cassandro, as a public-spirited citizen, is willing to testify against Captain Cazerra, Lieutenant Meyer, and the two police officers. All he asks in exchange is immunity from prosecution.”

“Loudly,” Weisbach said. “Mr. Callis is going to laugh very loudly when you go to him with that.”

“He may even become hysterical,” Wohl said.

“
And
against the lady,” Giacomo went on. “The madam, what the hell is her name?”

I will be damned
, Wohl thought.
He’s flustered. Have we really gotten through to Armando C. Giacomo, shattered his famous rocklike confidence?

“Her name is Osadchy, Armando,” Wohl said. “If you have trouble remembering her last name, why don’t you associate it with Hanging Harriet? Same Christian name.”

“Very funny, Peter.”

“By now, Armando, with the egg they have on their face about Mrs. Osadchy,” Weisbach said, “I’ll bet Vice is paying her a lot of attention. They’ll find something, I’m sure, that they can take to the DA.”

“Let’s talk about that,” Giacomo said. “The egg on the face.”

“OK,” Peter said. “The egg on whose face?”

“The Police Department’s.”

“Because we had a couple of dirty cops? There might be some egg on our face because of that, but I think we wiped off most of it this morning,” Weisbach said.

“Not in a public relations sense, maybe. Let me put that another way. The egg you wiped off this morning is going to reappear when you try Captain Cazerra. The trial will last at least two weeks, and there will be a story in every newspaper in Philadelphia every day of the trial. People will forget that he was arrested by good cops; what they’ll remember is that the Department had a dirty captain. And when his trial is over, we will have the trial of Lieutenant Meyer.”

“I reluctantly grant the point,” Peter said.

“On the other hand, for the sake of friendly argument, if Captain Cazerra were to plead guilty and throw himself upon the mercy of the court because he became aware that Mr. Cassandro’s public-spirited testimony was going to see him convicted…”

Or if the mob struck a deal with him
, Peter thought. “
Take the fall and we’ll take care of your family.” Which is not such an unlikely idea. I wonder why it’s so important that they keep Paulo out of jail. Has he moved up in the mob hierarchy? I’ll pass this on to Intelligence and Organized Crime, anyway
.

“…there would only be, on one day only,” Giacomo went on, “a short story, buried in the back pages, that a dishonest policeman had admitted his guilt and had been sentenced. There are people who are wise in public relations, and I would include our beloved mayor among them, who would think that alternative would be preferable to a long and sordid public trial.”

I’m agreeing with him again, which means that I am getting in over my head. I am now going to swim for shore before I drown
.

“Before we go in for lunch, Armando, and apropos of nothing whatever, I would suggest that if Mr. Cassandro wants any kind of consideration at all from anybody you know, he’s going to have to come up with more than a possible solution to a public relations problem.”

“I understand, Peter,” Armando said smoothly. “Such as what?”

“You’ve heard about the murder of Officer Jerry Kellog?” Wohl asked.

Giacomo nodded. “Tragic. Shot down in cold blood in his own house, according to the
Ledger
.”

“The
Ledger
also implied that a Homicide detective was involved,” Wohl said. “My bet is that it’s related to Narcotics. I would be grateful for any information that would lead the Department down that path.”