Leader of the Pack (Andy Carpenter) (14 page)

“Great,” I say. “That clears that up.”

“Willie’s a friend of mine,” Russo says. “So he says you’re OK, I say you’re OK.”

“I’m definitely OK.”

“Until I learn otherwise” is Russo’s qualifier.

“You won’t; I’m completely OK.” All I want to do is get out of this car; there will be time to strangle Willie later.

“So what I say stays with you, and me, and Willie.”

He doesn’t seem to consider the driver a human worth including in our little secrets, but I don’t mention this. “Fine. Sure.”

“Carmine came to us,” Russo says. “A few months ago.”

“Us? Meaning you and Dominic?”

His voice gets about four hundred degrees colder. “Leave Mr. Petrone out of this.”

Russo is obviously fiercely protective of his boss, Dominic Petrone, to the point of not even discussing him with outsiders like me. My guess is that Dominic doesn’t know Russo is talking to me. “OK … sure. Won’t mention him again. What did Carmine want?”

“Some of our people.”

“Your people? What did he want your people for?

Russo looks at Willie with raised eyebrows, as if asking Willie why he wanted him to talk to this idiot, meaning me. “He wanted them to do what they do,” he says.

I nod. “Makes sense. What did you say?”

“We said ‘no fucking way.’”

I notice that Willie, who’s been silent, is nodding in agreement at everything both Russo and I say. “Joseph, why would Carmine need your people? Doesn’t he have people of his own?”

“So, you finally asked the right question. He don’t trust his people. Without trust, you ain’t got shit.”

Words to live by.

“Do you know why he doesn’t trust them?”

“No.”

“Do you know if Nicky Fats was murdered?”

“No.”

“Is there anything else you can tell me?”

He thinks for a moment, then says, “Yeah. Carmine was scared.”

Hatchet issues the ruling at 9:00
A.M.
, less than twenty-four hours after the hearing. I think he would have issued it earlier, but it probably took awhile to get it scathing enough for his satisfaction.

It calls for a new trial at the earliest possible date, and excoriates Dylan for the violation of his discovery obligations. It stops just short of accusing him of knowingly withholding the evidence, because he could not be certain of that.

But he minimizes the difference between intentional and unintentional, describing them as almost equally egregious, since if it were unintentional, it would speak to “extreme incompetence.”

I head down to the prison to meet with Joey, and while I’m waiting to be brought in to see him, I try and figure out how this conversation can go well.

Unfortunately, it can’t. I am certainly delivering great news. To be telling him the opposite, that we didn’t get the new trial, would be devastating. But in the process, I’m going to be doing that which I always try to avoid … building false hope.

The truth is that if we had the information we have now, back at the time of the first trial, we still would have lost. We need much more, and have very little time to get it. Making matters even tougher is the fact that back then we were investigating fresh occurrences; now we are rehashing trails that have been cold for six years.

Joey takes one look at me and says, “We got it. I can see it in your face.”

I nod. “We got it.”

He doesn’t say anything for at least a minute. He seems to be trying to control his emotions and process this information, and that can’t be easy to do. If hopelessness is the bottom of the human condition, then it’s impossible to overstate how elevating its removal can be.

He wants to hear every detail about the hearing, and literally asks if he can get a copy of the transcript. I promise to get him one, and then launch into my ten-minute speech about how he shouldn’t get too hopeful, and how precarious his situation remains.

It doesn’t seem to take; nothing I say can diminish the joy he is feeling. I think the only way I can bring him down would be to have Hike deliver the transcript. After a one-on-one chat with Hike, Joey will want to plead guilty, and then hang himself in his cell.

I bring up the rather weird goings-on in the Desimone family, though I do so carefully. I certainly don’t want to reveal anything that Joseph Russo told me. He made it clear that it was in confidence, and there are few promises I’m more inclined to keep than those I make to a mob boss.

But it certainly seems likely that it was the Desimones who hired the man who tried to kill Marcus and me. I’ve pissed plenty of other people off, but none very recently.

Joey surprises me by blurting out, “I called my father. I’m sorry, I know you told me not to.”

“That’s OK, Joey. He’s your father. What did he say?”

“That you were a smart guy, and that I should listen to you. He also said that Nicky’s death was an accident. And he told me to be careful in here.”

This last statement makes me angry, not at Joey or Carmine, but at myself. Maybe my mind is atrophying from not working often enough, but one fact completely slipped by me.

If someone’s goal was to eliminate me, it wouldn’t have been anything personal. It would have been to stop me from pursuing the case, and from trying to get Joey out of jail. I’ve been thinking that the bad guys therefore want Joey in jail, but that’s not it at all; they just want me to stop trying to get him out, because of what I might uncover in the process.

Which means that Joey is in as much danger as I am, maybe more.

“I want to get you protected in here. You need to go into solitary,” I say.

“I’ve been protecting myself for a long time.”

“Nobody had reason to kill you before. Except for your personality.”

He laughs. “Thanks.”

“I’m serious about protecting you, Joey. If there’s no you, there’s no case, there’s no investigation.”

“You’d keep at it,” he says.

I nod. “I probably would, but they wouldn’t have any way of knowing that.”

He thinks about it for a few moments, then, “No. I want to stay where I am. If someone takes a run at me, I’ll handle it. And I’ll find out who sent them.”

I want to say, “It might be your father that sends them,” but I don’t. And I have no luck talking him into taking the protection that solitary would offer.

As I’m about to leave, he says, “Andy, there’s no way I can thank you for this.”

“We haven’t done anything yet.”

“You’ve given me a reason to get up tomorrow.”

We have one major advantage heading into this trial. We called very few witnesses last time, because we had very few to call. But Dylan had plenty, as he successfully made his case. Those witnesses are all now on the record, and must stick to their story. Knowing what they’re going to say makes it easier for me to challenge them.

Also, the roles are at least somewhat reversed here. Usually the prosecution is on offense most of the time, since they are the one doing the charging. The defense is aptly named, since it must fend off and refute those charges. But while Dylan will still present and make his case, he must now primarily worry about what we will throw at him.

I hope and expect that he will spend time and energy demonstrating that the Montana militiamen, who made the threats, had nothing to do with the killing. That would be a waste of time and energy, because I am going to spend very little time making the case for their guilt.

I don’t think there’s any chance that one of those dopes made it to New Jersey and murdered the Solarnos. The significance I attach to them is not as suspects, but as customers of Solarno’s illegal armaments.

I want to demonstrate, both through logic and actual evidence, that Solarno wasn’t limiting his dealings to that one group, but that he was also selling to other, even more dangerous people. If he cheated the Montana group, then he might very likely have cheated other customers as well.

Cheating victims with rifles make good suspects.

Our case has to focus on that which we have recently learned about Solarno. We need to understand exactly what he was doing and who he was doing it with. And we have to turn the people that are trying to stop us into unwitting helpers.

Solarno went relatively uninvestigated and unmentioned last time, and that’s going to change dramatically in the retrial. For all the hand-wringing that often takes place about defense lawyers attempting to put “the victim on trial,” that is what is going to happen here, or we’ll have no chance.

I tell Laurie that Solarno is to be her prime focus; we need to re-create his life. We need to know whom he called and whom he met with. If he shared his wife’s penchant for infidelity, we must know whom he saw and how often he saw her.

If we can get the jury to believe that he was the target, then we’re close to home free, since the prosecution has gone on record as saying Joey’s motive was to kill Karen Solarno.

I call Edward Young, who surprisingly takes my call on the first try. Maybe Robby Divine beat him in golf again. In any event, I tell him that I’m going to need all of the business records of Solarno Shrimp Corporation, with particular focus on the six months preceding the murder.

“I assume we’ve got it somewhere,” he says. “I’ll put someone on it.”

“Thanks. I’m going to subpoena it through the court, simply as a formality, but if you can get someone started on it sooner, that would be a help.”

“No problem.”

“What about phone records? Would you have records of calls Solarno might have made or received from his office?”

He thinks for a moment, and then says, “I wouldn’t think so; doesn’t seem like we’d have any reason to keep that.”

“Probably not,” I say. It’s not a big deal to me; I can subpoena it from the phone company, or have Sam steal it from their computer. I’ll probably do both.

“Is that it?” he asks.

“Almost. I’m going to be putting your name on our witness list.”

He hesitates, and when he speaks, I can tell by the sound of his voice that he’s not enthusiastic about the prospect. “Why? I have nothing to say about your case.”

“I know, but I might need you to set the stage for Solarno’s company. And I probably won’t call you, but I have to put your name on the list in case I need to.”

“I do a lot of traveling,” Edward says.

“You’d get plenty of notice.”

“I think I’m finished playing golf with Robby.”

When I get off the phone, I call Hike and tell him to add Edward Young to the witness list. I doubt that I’ll call him, but the more names I have on the list, the more preparatory work Dylan has to do.

Besides, it makes me feel like I actually have a witness list, which would be just a few steps away from actually having a case.

Tommy Iurato was annoyed by the decision.

Not so much because he disagreed with the strategy; strategy was not his thing, and he was not privy to all the factors that were called into play.

When the word came down not to continue to go after Carpenter, Iurato argued the point. He didn’t make a full-blown argument—that wasn’t his style. What he did was point out that the hit would be successful if again ordered, that the screw-up on the highway would not be repeated.

Carpenter had Marcus Clark protecting him, and while Iurato was well aware of Clark’s reputation and ability, he was still just one person. Iurato was prepared to send in enough manpower that the job would get done.

Iurato was worried about Carpenter. Not from any particular knowledge about what the lawyer was doing, or what he might have already learned. His worry stemmed from the fact that he had been told to hit him once, the hit that failed on the highway.

The fact that the hit had been ordered then must have meant that he was a danger to the operation. Carpenter was a prominent figure, and his death would have attracted attention and investigation. If that was a risk worth taking, then Carpenter must have been a significant concern. The fact that Iurato was now being instructed not to remove that danger was troubling to him.

The operation itself meant everything to Iurato. He had no use for the conventions of the traditional Mafia families. The very idea of “the family” was ludicrous to him.

He had his own family, and they remained separate and apart from his work. And that’s what this operation was … work. No different than if he worked for IBM or General Motors. He did his job, and he was paid for it.

Actually, the pay was the one difference. Maybe the presidents of those companies received pay like Iurato was about to receive, but he doubted it. It was going to be more money than he could use in ten lifetimes, and no one was going to stand in the way. Not Carpenter, not Marcus Clark, not Joey Desimone … nobody.

Old-timers used to tell Iurato about being “in the life,” which was how they described the criminal enterprises, the “families,” in which they worked. They never considered leaving that life, and probably would not have been allowed to if they tried.

The day they made their bones was the best day of their lives, and it dictated how they would spend the rest of their years. Their loyalty was a given, almost never to be questioned.

But not Tommy Iurato. He was going to walk away, and he dared anyone to try and stop him. He would retire just like any other businessman, only he would be younger and wealthier than any of them when he did it.

And the idea of lifetime loyalty struck Iurato as outdated and ridiculous. Didn’t employees in other industries move from company to company? Why wasn’t their commitment and loyalty dictated to be forever? They went where the money was, or where the conditions were more to their liking.

And when they wanted to, for whatever reason, they left.

And Iurato would leave. He wouldn’t wind up like Carmine, or that pathetic Nicky Fats. The old-timers could take “the life” and shove it.

But Iurato was told no, Carpenter was not to be hit, and neither was Joey Desimone, at least for now. So it worried him, but at that point there was nothing he could do.

If and when that changed, he’d be ready to act.

When it came to going to work, Edward Young was old-fashioned. Which is to say, when he was not traveling, he got up every morning and went to an office.