House Odds (19 page)

“So it’s a bribe.”

“On one level. But Mahoney will think: what if the media finds out that the casino canceled my daughter’s debt? The media will make it look like you have Mahoney in your pocket. Yes, it would look very, very bad if the media was to learn of this.”

“No, shit,” Ted said. “And I’d get in trouble for bribing a politician. There’s no way . . .”

“Ted, you still don’t understand. You didn’t give the money to
Mahoney
. You gave it to his daughter by canceling her debt. You haven’t done anything illegal. But Mahoney will understand how the media will make things look.” Before Ted could say anything else, Whitman said, “Look, no one is ever going to know that you canceled the girl’s marker except you, me, and Mahoney—but him knowing puts pressure on him, which is what you want, and it didn’t cost you a thing.”

Ted sat back in his chair and mulled things over.

To Preston Whitman, Ted Allen looked like a little kid sitting at his daddy’s desk, a junior mobster who had the illusion he was playing in the same arena as the big boys. Ted Allen didn’t realize that he was just a pawn. He’d always been Al Castiglia’s pawn and now he was Big Bob Fairchild’s pawn. But Whitman sat there, trying to look respectful and appropriately awed as he awaited Ted’s decision.

“I like it,” Ted finally said. “And it’s about time you started to deliver for me. But I still think I need to do something to make sure Mahoney understands I’m serious.”

“What does that mean?” Whitman said.

Ted just smiled.

27

Molly looked through the peephole, then closed her eyes and leaned her head against the door. She recognized the man standing in the hall outside her apartment. She couldn’t remember his name, but she knew he worked for Ted Allen—and she just wanted him to go away. Her head hurt something awful. She’d drunk way too much white wine the night before; she had to stop doing that.

The man knocked again. Harder. She knew he wasn’t going to go away. Molly opened the door.

“Hi, sweetheart,” the man said.

“Hi,” Molly said. She knew she looked terrible, dressed in a ratty old bathrobe, her hair not combed, her face all puffy. She probably smelled bad, as well; she couldn’t remember the last time she’d showered. But she didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything these days.

“I’m Gus Amato. Remember me?”

Molly nodded.

“Mr. Allen sent me, honey. He wants to talk to you.”

“Oh,” Molly said. “Well, I’ll call him.”

“No, honey. In person. He wants to talk to you in person. He sent me to get you.”

“I . . . I can’t go right now. I have an appointment with my lawyer this morning.”

“I think that’s one of the reasons he wants to talk to you. You know, so you understand what to say to your lawyer the next time you see him. So why don’t you go get dressed. Okay?”

“Can’t I just talk to him on the phone?”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” the man said, shaking his head. The expression on his face was the same—still friendly, looking a little amused, a little bored—but Molly knew he’d make her go with him if she didn’t go voluntarily.

“Can I take a shower first?” she asked.

“Sure, honey. Go take a shower. And I’ll make us some coffee while you’re doing that.”

* * *

Daniel Caine—of Caine, Connors, and White—was a well-preserved sixty. His gray hair was cut short, his complexion tanned, his belly flat and hard. He wore wire-rimmed aviator glasses over hard blue eyes. He had the kind of eyes you wanted your lawyer to have—not the other guy’s—and he was Molly Mahoney’s lawyer.

On the wall behind Caine’s desk was a picture of him on a racing bike rounding a curve. He was wearing spandex shorts, a bright green-and-red cycling shirt, and one of those little caps with an upturned bill. The bike, DeMarco figured, was a model with a titanium frame that weighed less than air and probably cost ten grand. In another picture, Caine was straddling his bike, this time wearing an aerodynamic helmet, and shaking hands with another cyclist. The other cyclist was Lance Armstrong.

People like Daniel Caine always depressed DeMarco. DeMarco had graduated from law school the same year his father was killed, and his timing couldn’t have been worse: there were very few law firms that wanted the son of a Mafia hitman on their legal team. Fortunately—or maybe not so fortunately—he landed a job with Mahoney before he was forced to change his name. But every time he met the Daniel Caines of the world he had to wonder what he might have accomplished had he not been burdened with his father’s legacy. Maybe he could have had an office the size of Caine’s and his name on the letterhead of a prestigious firm. Maybe. It troubled him to think that it was more likely that he wasn’t as smart and ambitious as Daniel Caine—a man who rode bikes with Lance Armstrong.

In Caine’s office were Mary Pat Mahoney, DeMarco, and two other lawyers who worked for Caine, lawyers whose names DeMarco had already forgotten. The purpose of the meeting was for Caine to give all concerned an update on Molly’s case.

“How much longer do you think we should wait for Molly, Mrs. Mahoney?” Caine asked, checking the expensive watch on his wrist, reminding her that he billed for tenths of hours.

“I’m sorry,” Mary Pat said, “but I don’t know where she is. I called her before I came here, but she didn’t answer.” She reached into her purse and took out a cell phone. “Let me try one more time.”

DeMarco couldn’t believe that Molly wasn’t here for this meeting and he wondered if anyone else in the room was thinking about the bail that Mary Pat had posted to get her daughter released from jail. Nah, Molly wouldn’t do that, not to her mom. But why the hell would she miss the meeting? This was her future they were about to discuss.

* * *

Gus held open the rear door of the town car for Molly to enter, and then got behind the wheel, but he didn’t start the car. At that moment, Molly’s cell phone rang and Gus said, “Don’t answer that! And turn your phone off.” He spoke so harshly he scared her, and she did what he said.

Gus still hadn’t started the car. He pointed down the street and said, “Honey, is that your car over there? The blue one?”

“What?” Molly said.

“The Subaru. That’s yours, right?”

“Yeah,” Molly said.

She could see the mud and grime caked onto the car even as far away as they were, and she was embarrassed it was so filthy. She’d bought it three years ago and she remembered her sister, Mitzy, laughing because it was a station wagon and looked like a soccer-mom’s car. But Molly liked it. It had all-wheel drive and got good mileage, and she could take it skiing—although she couldn’t remember the last time she’d skied. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d washed the car either, and now it looked, for some reason, like the sort of car a homeless person might live in.

“Is it insured?” Gus asked.

“What?” she said. He was confusing her with all these questions about her stupid car.

“I want to know if your car’s insured.”

“Of course, it’s insured,” she said. But the truth was, it wasn’t insured. She hadn’t made the last payment. “Why are you asking . . .”

“Watch,” Gus said.

At that moment Molly saw a man walking down the street. He was dressed in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, the hood pulled up over his head, obscuring his face. The way he walked—this arm-swinging, bouncy kind of walk—he looked young and athletic.

He stopped next to Molly’s car, looked around, then pulled something out of the little pouch in his sweatshirt. A bottle. He did something with the bottle—unscrewed the top or something—then stuffed a rag inside the mouth of the bottle. Then he pulled something out of his back pocket and smashed the driver’s side window of Molly’s car.

“What’s he doing!” she said.

“Watch,” Gus said.

The young man lit the rag, flung the bottle hard into Molly’s car, and a second later, the interior of the vehicle was engulfed in flames.

Molly screamed and lunged for the door handle, but before she could open the door she heard the door locks click.

“Calm down, honey,” Gus said. “You said it was insured. Plus, you know, a cute girl your age, you probably oughta drive something a little flashier anyway.”

* * *

“Mr. Caine, I think we should get started,” Mary Pat said. “I’ll fill Molly in when I see her. I just don’t know where she could be.”

“Well, okay,” Caine said, and opened a file on his desk. He studied the file for a moment then said, “Actually, we’re in pretty good shape.” Caine spoke softly but confidently; he whipped the government’s lawyers every day of the week. “The fact that the stock and banking transactions were done online is a good thing. In case our jury has never heard of hackers, computer fraud, and identity theft we have several experts lined up who will instruct them.” Caine smiled—a shark showing its teeth. “We may even arrange a small demonstration, like depositing ten bucks into the judge’s bank account to prove our point.”

Caine waited for everybody to laugh, but the only ones who did were the people who worked for him.

“The second part of Molly’s defense has been provided by Mr. DeMarco,” Caine said, and nodded graciously to DeMarco to show his appreciation. “Thanks to him, we know that the SEC has suspected someone at Reston Technologies of insider trading for quite some time—someone other than Molly, that is—and Mr. DeMarco has identified three men who might be involved. I’ll argue that these people were afraid that the SEC was getting close to them, so they decided to conduct their illegal business under Molly’s name.”

“Can you prove this?” Mary Pat asked.

“No, and I don’t have to,” Caine said.

“What do you mean?” Mary Pat said.

“Mrs. Mahoney, I need to create reasonable doubt. I need to show that it’s possible that someone other than Molly could have committed the crime she’s been accused of. So I don’t have to prove these men did anything illegal. I just need to show that they
could
have.”

Mary Pat looked skeptical but before she could say anything, Caine continued, “We’ll subpoena all of the SEC’s records involving persons of interest at Reston Tech for the last twenty years. If the SEC claims that providing these records will jeopardize future prosecutions, we’ll argue for dismissal of the charges and we’ll win. Also working in our favor is the fact that the crime Molly has been accused of committing involves half a million dollars that was directly deposited into her account. This helps us in two ways. First, the SEC has been unable to determine who deposited the money. This is good because it supports our argument that some unknown person, someone unconnected to Molly, put the money in her account to set her up and then this same person took the money out of her account and bought the stock in her name.

“The other advantage we have, although this might be somewhat embarrassing for Molly, is we can show that with her financial situation, she didn’t have half a million to invest.”

“Well, of course she doesn’t have that kind of money,” Mary Pat said. “She’s only been out of school four years.”

Apparently, no one had told Mary Pat about her daughter’s credit card debit—and DeMarco didn’t want to be the one to tell her.

“The government is going to say that Molly has a rich partner,” DeMarco said.

Caine smiled at DeMarco. The smile said: leave the lawyering to us real lawyers, sonny. “They can say that,” Caine said, “but they can’t prove it.”

DeMarco hated to say it front of Mary Pat but he had to. “And the fact that Molly’s in debt also gives her a motive.”

“What?” Mary Pat said, her head spinning in DeMarco’s direction. “What are you talking about, Joe? What debt?”

“Molly owes a rather large amount on her credit cards, Mrs. Mahoney,” Caine said.

“She does?” Mary Pat said.

“Yes, but that’s not really a problem,” Caine said, waving the issue away with his right hand. “So she owes some money? Big deal. If a jury is impanelled—I mean if this case ever goes to trial—I’ll do credit checks on all the jurors and say: I know that at least four members of this jury have significant debts, but you’re not criminals, are you?”

Mary Pat nodded but DeMarco could tell she was still thinking about her daughter’s credit card situation.

“So what we’re going to do,” Caine said, “is subpoena Misters Campbell, McGrath, and Praeter.”

“Are these the three men you mentioned earlier?” Mary Pat asked.

“Yes. Three men who may have been using insider information to buy stock in companies that are clients of Reston Tech, and two of them have been previously investigated by the SEC.”

“If the SEC knows these men could have done this, why aren’t they . . .”

“The SEC can’t prove they’ve done anything illegal, Mrs. Mahoney,” Caine said, “but as I’ve told you, that’s irrelevant. That just shows how smart these people are. So we’ll subpoena their financial records, and we’ll subpoena them to testify at the trial. We’ll subpoena PNC Financial and show that Praeter’s and Campbell’s finances are linked via Mrs. Campbell’s trust fund. That is, we’ll show that Campbell, who works for Reston Tech, and Mr. Praeter, a very clever investor, have a connection.”