“How about I do it for Ernesto?”
The mention of his name moved her. I hadn’t intended to upset her. But whatever it was passed quickly; she snapped out of it with a curt shake of her head. “He wouldn’t want you to get hurt because of him.”
But he got
killed
because of me. He lost everything because of my pursuit of him.
Essie Ramirez uncrossed her arms and walked down the stairs toward me. I wasn’t entirely sure what she was doing, but I walked around to the curb side of my car. She put her hands on my arms, reached up, and kissed me on the cheek. “You’re a good person,” she said. “Don’t lose your way.” She went back inside, leaving me in the freezing cold with the fruity scent of her shampoo and something weird floating through my chest.
39
I WAS SUMMONED TO THE U.S. ATTORNEY’S OFFICE THE
day after Christmas. That was somewhat unusual for this stage of the investigation. I’d have expected a covert meet at a diner or the offices they were renting in my building—Suite 410. But not this time. They wanted me on their turf.
Not a friendly discussion planned, I assumed.
I knew I was right when I saw the look on Lee Tucker’s face when he met me at the elevator. He acknowledged me but didn’t make much eye contact, and I could feel his anger coming off him like heat. The place was largely deserted. A day off for most, maybe for the whole office.
But not for Lee Tucker. And not for Christopher Moody, who was sitting in the conference room with a sour look on his face.
Tucker was in jeans and a sweatshirt, which wasn’t all that different than I’d seen from him. But I’d never seen Moody out of uniform. He had a button-down checkered shirt and khakis. It almost made him look human.
“Why the long faces?” I said. “You guys didn’t get what you wanted for Christmas?” I took a seat and kicked up my feet on the table. They’d brought me here, home territory, to establish power. I wanted to take some air out of them.
“Boys,” I said, after a long silence, “I thought you’d be singing my praises. I just made your lives easier. I just—”
“What the hell are you doing, Jason?” said Lee Tucker. I was his responsibility, so he would handle the conversation. He was still standing, pacing in anger. “This audible you called with Cimino?”
He meant the new idea I’d proposed, which Cimino had accepted. We wouldn’t go after companies seeking new contracts before the PCB. Instead, we’d extort the companies that already had state contracts and would want to keep them. Higher probability of success, lower risk, and far more efficient.
I opened my hands. “A better way to shake down companies for campaign donations.”
“A different way,” Tucker replied. “A
different
way. A way that doesn’t include the PCB.”
That was true enough.
“We build this case the way we want to build it,” said Tucker. “Not the way
you
want to.”
I held a stare on him and slowly shook my head. “We’re improving our efficiency, Lee. Cimino will commit more crimes. More counts to the indictment.”
“But you’re keeping the board out of it,” he replied. “The PCB doesn’t have a say in this. And we want those guys. All five of them. Greg Connolly and the bunch. You’re turning this into a two-man operation. Now it’s the Charlie and Jason Show.”
I laughed. “You should listen to yourself,” I said. “You’re disappointed that more people don’t get to participate in the crimes. Like the whole goal is simply to rack up as many scalps as possible. That’s your problem, you know that?”
“Oh, now I have a problem?” Tucker took a moment to contain himself. He preferred the image of the cool FBI agent. And it fit his personality. He didn’t like balling me out, I could tell. It wasn’t his way, plus it meant he wasn’t controlling his operative. “You don’t know everything, and you don’t need to know everything. You are part of an operation, Kolarich. Okay? Just one part. That’s why we tell you what to do, and how to do it. So everything stays consistent.” He dropped into his seat and stared up at the ceiling. “I mean, first you go off and do a hard sell on Cimino—”
“Which worked.”
“—and now you change the entire game plan—”
“Which will also work.”
Tucker watched me for a long time, running his tongue over his cheek. He removed his tin of tobacco and dumped a pinch in his mouth.
From my take, Tucker wasn’t prone to anger. He was a relatively easygoing guy. And more than that, I was his project. He had to work me. He seemed to have made the calculation that I was a bit harder to tame than most people in my position, and he had to take his subjects as he found them. But he was pissed. And I wasn’t sure why.
On the other side of the room, Christopher Moody stared at me, his expression intense. He was supposed to intimidate me. Maybe he forgot how that Almundo case turned out.
Tucker said, “You’re messing up, my friend, I shit you not. You’re calling audibles you aren’t allowed to call. You want to get yourself in more trouble than you already are?”
A long stalemate followed. It was true that I had cut down the players in this scheme, for the most part, to Cimino and me. Others would probably get caught up, as well, but for the moment at least, this was going to be a two-man operation.
“You’ve hindered our investigation,” Tucker went on. “You’ve closed doors to us.”
“You’ve obstructed justice.” So the great Christopher Moody finally spoke. He delivered it with an even tone, meant again to intimidate. “We gave you instructions to work as an attorney with the PCB and you just shut them out completely. You are a lawyer for the board, not for Charlie Cimino. Cimino isn’t even a government employee. And now we’ve lost part of our case. You’ve fucked up royally, Kolarich.”
“Careful, Chris. Don’t threaten me. You don’t want Cimino’s defense lawyer to—”
“Oh, it’s no threat, superstar. I’m telling you square. I
will
charge you with obstruction when this case is over. One count, so far. You want to keep going? You want to keep disobeying us? Conspiracy and obstruction aren’t enough? Then keep doing what you’re doing, and the indictment will get thicker. I’m done fucking around with you, Kolarich. I am fucking done.”
I waited to be sure he was finished. Then I nodded to Tucker. “Your turn, Lee. Good cop.”
He snorted out a laugh, but it wasn’t merriment. He made a show of shaking his head and flapping his arms. “You got any more surprises for us? Any other brilliant ideas that you might want to share with us?”
This might have been a good time to tell them that the reason I got involved with the PCB in the first place—and the reason I was still involved—was my attempt to solve the murder of Ernesto Ramirez. I didn’t know if my search would conflict with their operation. It might have been wise to clear this with them. But I didn’t.
I raised my hand. “Point of order, if I could. I have just completely gained the trust of the target of your investigation. This guy loves me right now. I’m serving up Charlie Cimino on a silver platter. We’re going to be a two-man crime syndicate, and you’ll have a front-row seat. My little ‘audible’ has just guaranteed you a conviction in federal court. So instead of ambushing me, maybe it’s time you started playing a little nicer.”
Chris Moody’s head jerked up, like something had just occurred to him. Whatever else I may think of him, he isn’t dumb. That last line of mine wasn’t lost on him. He mumbled something to himself, shook his head, and pushed himself hard out of the chair. He walked over to the window looking out over the east side of the commercial district.
“I think you got it backwards,” said Tucker. “You’re working off a good deal of criminal liability right now. You’ve got a lot of working off to do.”
I looked over at Moody. “Chris, why don’t you help Lee out here? He’s fallen behind.”
Tucker didn’t get it. But Moody did. He remained silent for a long time before speaking into the window. He probably didn’t want me to see his face.
“Our good friend here Mr. Kolarich,” said Moody, “has made himself indispensable. The Charlie and Jason Show? That was no spontaneous audible. Jason planned this out very carefully, Agent Tucker.”
“Obviously, I deny that,” I said. “I was merely doing my best to help gain the target’s trust. But let’s assume for argument’s sake that Chris is right. Why would I want to make myself indispensable?”
Tucker was lost. Moody was pissed.
“Anyone,” I said. “Just shout it out.”
“Just get it over with, whatever it is,” said Moody.
I turned to look at Tucker. “Lee, here’s what’s gonna happen next. Chris over here is going to exonerate Shauna Tasker of all wrongdoing.”
Tucker paused a beat. “Bullshit.”
“Oh, but it’s true,” I said, wagging a finger. “It’s true. And there are two reasons why. The first is that he knows damn well that my friend Shauna had nothing to do with this. She just sat in on a meeting with that construction guy. She had no idea the client was sent over by Charlie Cimino. She didn’t know anything about shakedowns of state contractors. She’s completely innocent, and everyone in this room knows it. Right, Chris?”
Moody was still stewing in the corner.
“And the second reason?” Tucker said, but I think he’d caught on by now.
“The second reason is that the Charlie and Jason Show doesn’t work so well without Jason. Right, Lee? Charlie, he likes me. I provide legal cover for him, or so he thinks. I make Charlie feel safe. I’ve had some swell ideas so far. And I’ve penetrated that very tight inner circle. It would only take you, what, another year or so to find someone who’s gotten as close as I have.”
“We don’t do that,” said Moody. “We don’t give out clean bills of health to potential defendants.”
“You do now.” I got up and walked past Tucker to the door. “You have twenty-four hours,” I said. “You walk Shauna Tasker or I do some walking of my own.”
I pushed through the glass door and headed to the elevator. One of them—not hard to guess which one—had caught the door and was following close behind me. I pushed the elevator button and started whistling. Chris Moody stood close to me and spoke to my profile.
“Score one for you,” he said. “Your girlfriend gets a pass. But I meant what I said in there. I’m going to indict you with Cimino and everyone else. You’ve now guaranteed that. You hear that, rock star? It’s a guaran-fucking-tee. Everything I have on you so far and anything else I can think of.
“Now, you give me one hundred percent cooperation from here on out—I mean one
hundred
percent, Kolarich, not ninety-nine—and I’ll think about a reduction. But you’ll still spend time inside. Maybe two years, maybe three. All you did in there was dig yourself a deeper hole. You, my friend, are going to prison. It’s just a question of how long.”
His face was a bright crimson. He’d just been served his lunch, but he’d given as much as he’d taken. I’d lost all hope of good faith with him now. I would be standing trial with Charlie Cimino and Greg Connolly and whomever else they would charge.
I’d freed up Shauna, but at considerable cost.
Hell hath no fury like a prosecutor scorned.
DEEPER
February 2008
40
“WE’VE ALWAYS APPRECIATED THE CHANCE TO WORK
for the department.” Mitchell DeSantis eyed Charlie Cimino and me with some trepidation as we ate seafood. He was talking about the Department of Revenue, with whom DeSantis’s company had a four-million-dollar contract annually to print tickets for the state lottery. “I think we’ve done everything Revenue’s ever asked of us.”
“Well, obviously there’s a new administration,” said Cimino, a standard opening for us over these last two weeks. With a new administration—albeit a year old—came changes, especially with a different political party in charge. It was, at least, superficial cover. “We’re conducting audits and we have some concerns.”
“Concerns. What concerns? I haven’t heard any concerns.” DeSantis was a lanky, nervous man. His chin and nose gave him an academic, almost birdlike quality.
Cimino shot a look of annoyance and boredom—which really meant power. “You’re hearing them now,” he said.
It was my turn. By now, Cimino didn’t even have to look in my direction. We had this down to a formula. “Mr. DeSantis,” I said, “the contract allows the department to terminate the contract without notice, if the termination is for cause. And if it’s without cause, you have as long as it takes the department to rebid the contract, which is about ninety days.”
“What is it?” he asked. “We’ve always kept up our stock. We had one issue once with the new ink—which we fixed right away, and without charge to the state.”
“What my lawyer here is saying, Mitch, is that we don’t need a reason. In which case you have about ninety days left. And if Jason informs the department that cause exists, your contract could be terminated tomorrow. Mitch,” he went on, changing his tone, as if he were now dispensing friendly advice, “I can see a situation where your company finishes out the governor’s term. That’s about a year from today. January 2009. And I can also see your company reupping for another four years, if Governor Snow is reelected.”