Caper (15 page)

“You're clearly not a lawyer.”

“Is it that evident? Usually, I have to miscite a few precedents.”

“If this is a crank call, I don't find it funny. My client's being held on a murder charge.”

“He couldn't make bail? What happened? Is all his money tied up in your retainer?”

“I'm going to hang up now.”

“The doorman's lying.”

“What?”

“The doorman. In the apartment building. At the crime scene. The one who ID'd your client. He's lying.”

“You're clearly not familiar with the facts of the case. My client was arrested at the scene.”

“Yeah. Always a bad move. I'm surprised you didn't advise him against it.”

“The doorman's identification of my client is irrelevant since my client was found there.”

“That's not what he lied about. He lied about calling upstairs and the congressman saying to send him up.”

“And you know that how?”

“From the facts. You'd know it, too, if you weren't so damn arrogant. Does your client say the doorman called upstairs? Does your client say the doorman talked to the congressman?”

“What my client said is none of your business.”

“No, but it should be yours. Your client is a frequent visitor in the building. Ask him if the doorman
made him wait
while he called upstairs, or if he just sent him up and called to say he was coming. If it was the latter, ask him how he knows the doorman called at all. He doesn't, and the doorman didn't. He only says he did so he won't get in trouble with the landlord and the union. But he didn't bother calling up, and if he had, the congressman wouldn't have answered because the congressman was dead. If he says the congressman was alive when your client went up, he's lying.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I can reason,” I said. “See, I never went to law school.”

32

T
HIS TIME
M
AC
A
ULLIF WAS
REALLY
PISSED.

“To what do I owe your indignation?”

“What do you think?”

“I don't know, MacAullif. Are you playacting this time? Because, I must say, once was funny, but if you're going to make this a regular thing …”

MacAullif slammed his fist down on his desk. “Don't fuck around. What did I tell you about the congressman?”

“He may have been accepting bribes.”

“Don't play dumb. It's typecasting, and you're still no good at it.”

“Hey. I used to be an actor. That's just cruel.”

“You wanna see cruel? Stick around. I'll show you cruel.”

“To what do I owe this ill humor?”

“The Congressman Blake case.”

“Oh, good. I have nothing to do with that case. Who are you mad at?”

“I just got a call from the ADA assigned to the case. He's fit to be tied.”

“Oh?”

“The congressman's attorney slapped a subpoena on one of his witnesses. Wants to take his deposition.”

“Can he do that?”

“No, he can't do that. He can't interrogate a prosecution witness under oath before the trial. The attorney knows that.”

“So, it's a stupid move.”

“No, it's a brilliant move. It's a red flag that the witness is lying. It makes the prosecutor say, ‘What the fuck am I getting myself into.' Then he takes a good hard look at his witness and tries to figure out what the lie might be.”

“What'd he come up with?”

“I didn't bring you in here to give you information. I brought you in here to bawl you out.”

“I kind of got that impression.”

“Do you know
why
I'm bawling you out?”

“Not enough bran in your diet?”

“Out of the clear blue sky this dipshit attorney decides to take a pass at a prosecution witness.”

“I don't want to tell you your business, MacAullif, but some lawyers would consider the phrase
dipshit attorney
actionable.”

“I have to wonder where the attorney got the idea.”

“Gee. You don't suppose
his client
confided in him, do you?”

“His client didn't know anything. His client was a dumb schmuck got caught in the act. He's gonna tell his attorney, ‘Hey, the doorman who let me up is probably lying, because I wasn't there at all.'”

“That doesn't seem likely,” I admitted.

“So, I'm just wondering if you happened to talk to Leslie Hanson's attorney.”

“I haven't been anywhere
near
Leslie Hanson's attorney.”

“Did you talk to him on the phone?”

“I'm going to have to refuse to answer on the advice of a dipshit attorney.”

“Yeah,” MacAullif said with disgust. “The last time I had you in here, I didn't think you knew enough to make trouble in this case. Turns out you do. Which is bad news on all counts. Forget the fact you're a meddling pain in the ass. If you knew enough to tip off Hanson's mouthpiece, then you are mixed up in this
way
more than you let on. Perhaps even made that phone call to the police.”

“Oh, for God's sake. You're still afraid I'll get you in trouble over the phone number.”

“I'm
not
afraid you'll get me in trouble over the phone number. I'm afraid you'll get convicted of murder trying to get the contractor off the hook.”

“I think you're overreacting.”

“
I'm
overreacting? Fine. Then tell me. Yes or no. Did you make that phone call to the police?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Of course, I do.”

“If I'd made that phone call to the police, I would have had perfectly pure motives. And no idea anyone might be at the scene of the crime.”

“Really? The phone call reported an altercation. Can you have an altercation without at least two people?”

“Well, now you're taking the phone call at face value, MacAullif. Don't a large percentage of these things turn out to be cranks?”

“It wasn't a crank. The guy was dead.”

“That does add validity to the complaint. Even so. If some moron found the congressman dead, and didn't want to report it themselves because it would get them in trouble, they might make a bogus nine-one-one call, reporting an altercation in progress, which was, in fact, already resolved. Would that be illegal? I mean,
failing
to report a crime's illegal. But
inaccurately
reporting one? That can't be so bad.”

“Is that what you're saying you did?”

“Don't be as dumb as I am, MacAullif. That's what I am very carefully
not
saying I did.”

“Jesus Christ!” MacAullif's face ran the gamut from insane fury to utter hopelessness, with a number of stops along the way. By the end, the poor son of a bitch resembled one of those droopy dogs that have far too much skin and look like they need their face ironed out. “If you found the body, the whole house of cards comes tumbling down. You had to get in there, which means the doorman probably saw you. Is that right?”

“We're talking hypothetically here.”

“I don't care
how
we're talking. This is one fucking mess.”

“That was sort of my assessment of the situation.”

“So, it turns out you did every fucking thing I brought you in here to bawl you out for.”

“Allegedly.”

“Allegedly, hypothetically, I-don't-give-a-flying-fuckedly.”

“I don't think that's a real adverb.”

A vein I never realized MacAullif had bulged out of his forehead. “Not good at reading social cues, are you? This is no fucking joke, asshole. If what I think happened happened, then you are teetering right on the brink of a one-way ticket up the river.”

“You're mixing metaphors.” I put up my hand. “Sorry. Reflex action. Point taken. I'm totally fucked and there's no way out. Now, you wanna help me or blame me?”

“I'd like to kick your fucking ass from here to Hoboken.”

“I can see that. Right now I'm a little busy, but maybe later we could arrange it. Meantime, how can I get out of this mess?”

“Easy. Go home. Lock your door. Disconnect your phone. At least let the answering machine pick up. Stay as far the fuck away from everyone as humanly possibly. For God's sake, don't try to fix anything. You can't do it. All you can do is drag yourself down, and everyone around you.”

“Come on, MacAullif. I can get that type of advice from my wife. I thought I was talking to a cop.”

His mouth fell open. “You arrogant schmuck. If ever there was anyone with less reason to be cocky, I haven't met him. Despite it all, you still think you can fix this thing.”

“I don't think I can fix this thing, MacAullif. I think, like you say, it's all gonna come down on my head. When it does, I'd like to see you don't get hurt. Apparently, you don't care about that.”

MacAullif shook his head. “It's like talking to the wall. You got a situation, the minute you stick your neck out, you're fucked. The minute I stick
my
neck out,
I'm
fucked. I can show a passing interest in a case that has nothing to do with me, but that's it. Anything more, people want to know why.”

“You met the congressman at a fund-raising dinner.”

“The congressman's dead.”

“And you're pissed, after paying for dinner.”

MacAullif exhaled. “Jesus Christ.”

“Lighten up. I don't expect you to do anything. You dragged me in here, remember. To bawl me out. Which you've done admirably. I stand rebuked. I'll take it from here.”

“No. You
won't
take it from here. You won't take
anything
from
anywhere
. You will stay way the fuck away from this case, do you hear me? You'll leave the cops alone, and you won't go near them, will you?”

“Absolutely not, MacAullif. And this ADA who complained to you …”

“Yeah?”

“What's his name?”

33

ADA R
EYNOLDS WAS ONE OF THOSE HOTSHOT ATTORNEYS
too young to live. MacAullif hadn't given me his name, by the way. Instead, he had set what had to be new decibel records for One Police Plaza. I'd looked the guy up on my own.

Reynolds squinted at me. “What's your name again?”

“Stanley Hastings.”

“And what's your interest in the case?”

“If you check police records you'll find I got caught up in a little caper involving the congressman. He brought his son's teenage girlfriend down to Philly to see the kid perform in a boy band. I was duped into thinking he'd picked up a teenage prostitute. It was a setup. I was supposed to blow the whistle on him and make an ugly scene. Instead, I got the girl away from him and brought her back to her parents. Naturally, all parties were pissed as hell, and I come out looking like a schnook. That's fine, getting suckered is part of the game. But when I see on TV the guy got killed, I can't help thinking it's gotta be connected. The guy got scammed. It didn't work, so he got killed. See what I mean?”

The young ADA had a look on his face like I was trying to sell him the Brooklyn Bridge. “And you got no reason for thinking this.”

“I just told you one.”

“That's not a reason. That's a wild guess.”

“It's an educated guess.”

“Oh, please.”

“Look. It's none of my business. I did my job, I got paid. But I can't help thinking there's a connection. I give it to you for what it's worth.”

“You're aware I've made an arrest?”

“So I hear. You confident of a conviction?”

“That's a strange way to put it.”

“Sorry. I was trying to look at it from your point of view. You think you got the right guy?”

ADA Reynolds frowned. “You think I don't?”

“I have no idea. That's why I'm asking you. This other thing happened I thought you should be aware of.”

“Is this a matter of record?”

“I don't know. The congressman may have hushed it up. Assuming such things can be done.”

“Uh-huh,” the ADA said, ironically. “And just what would the congressman have hushed up, now?”

I gave him an abbreviated version of my adventure. I left out such things as chloral hydrate, and both my abortive and my successful attempts to get into the congressman's building. Even so, it was quite a story.

ADA Reynolds was not impressed. “You were hired by the mother of a teenage hooker. Only she wasn't the mother and the girl wasn't a hooker.”

“I admit it sounds bad.”

“Bad? Do you have any idea what a defense attorney could do with this? This could add two weeks to the trial, and give some numbnuts juror a reason to vote not guilty.”

“May I quote you on that?”

“Look. Thank you for coming in. You've done your civic duty. Now, you want to do me a favor, go drop off the face of the earth. I can't afford these extraneous matters entering the case.”

“You're sure they're extraneous?”

“We know what time the congressman got home, and we know what time his body was found. In between those times, one, and only one, person went up to his apartment. He was arrested in the apartment with the dead congressman. Now you can't ask for a simpler case than that. All this other stuff is just a distraction.”

“You know what time the congressman got home?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I don't have to present my case to you.”

“No. You can send me away and let me give my story to the newspapers.”

His face darkened. “Son of a bitch.”

I put up my hand. “I don't wanna do that. I just want to assure myself I'm doing the right thing. Believe me, if this guy is guilty, I'd be very happy. I just want to be sure. So, how do you know when the congressman got home?”