Coulter guessed that any meetings taking place back here would be at the long table against the far wall. That was where the chairs were. He further guessed that any business-related calls were made from the pay phone on the wall. The eavesdropping warrant did not give them the right to install a wiretap, but using the phone’s electrical power, he could install a bug that would pick up any conversation taking place in the room, including whatever was said into the phone on this end.
Coulter went to work.
He’d done jobs where the least-suspected installation was in plain sight. People felt comfortable in their own environments, they didn’t go looking for anything unusual. Theory of “The Purloined Letter.” Splice into the phone line, run your wire along the baseboard where it could be clearly seen, straight into a bug in your 42A block across the room. You could buy a 42A block in any store selling telephone accessories; it was just a simple two-by-three-inch ivory-colored receptacle with either a single or a double phone jack in it. A Brady bug fit neatly inside it. You fastened the block in plain sight, nobody ever noticed it or the bare-faced wire running to it. But according to Welles, there were some heavy wiseguys coming in and out of this place, and maybe they were a little smarter than your average Gabagootz Mafia bum.
Coulter took off the baseboard molding and tucked his wire behind that, leading it around to the door in the center of the room. He tacked the wire up one side of the door, and over it, and down the other side of it, where he tucked it behind the molding again. The wire surfaced again just under the table, where Coulter had fastened the 42A block with the Brady bug in it. He screwed the wire into that, tacked up the molding again, retrieved his tools and his night-light, checked the street before he went out, and pulled the door closed, making sure the spring latch clicked shut behind him.
As he attached the slave to the access line in the box hanging on the rear of the building, his two backups stood shivering across the yard from him, covering his foolhardy ass.
Mollie was preparing for bed. Murder, She Wrote had just gone off. Sarah snapped off the television set. Across the room, Michael was reading the appeals brief Anthony Faviola’s attorneys had filed on his behalf. Michael had called his contact in the U.S. Attorney’s office...
“What’s all this Faviola interest all of a sudden? First the transcripts...”
“One of our people is thinking of writing a book.”
... because he wanted to be sure he didn’t make any mistakes with Faviola’s son. Any appeals loopholes the elder mobster’s shysters had found would help Michael when he began sifting whatever the eavesdropping surveillance disclosed. He would not commit any technical errors. When he was finished with this, father and son would be walking the same exercise yard together for an hour after lunch every day for the rest of their lives. He hoped.
The racketeering activity of which Faviola was convicted in this case consisted of the execution murders of George Antonini, Carmine Gallitelli, John Panattoni, and Peter Mugnoli at a restaurant on August 17, 1991. Shunting aside the holding in U.S. v. Ianniello, Faviola seeks to reverse his RICO convictions on the ground that committing or aiding and abetting four murders cannot be a pattern if the murders all occur at the same time and place. Faviola also distorts the trial court’s charge in an effort...
“Michael?”
He looked up.
“Are you going to be with that all night?” she asked. “You worked all day today...”
“I’m sorry, honey,” he said, and immediately closed the brief and took off his glasses, and came to her and hugged her close. “What would you like to do?” he asked. “Shall we run around the corner for some cappuccino, leave Mollie home alone, risk charges of...”
“I thought...”
“Or shall I go pick up a video?”
“Michael we just saw a movie. Can’t we just sit and talk? We’ve both been so busy lately...”
The deception, she thought. Share the blame. We’ve both been so busy.
“Good idea,” he said. “Let’s go kiss Mollie good night.”
The deception. Ringing a variation on the familiar theme. Instead of the deceived husband asking, Is anything wrong, darling? here was the unfaithful wife complaining of neglect while longing to be in her lover’s arms tonight and every night, for the rest of her life. Her lover. The word echoed in her head, carrying with it lustful undertones contrary to the motherly act of tucking her daughter in.
“Mom?” Mollie said.
“Yes, honey.”
“We had this dance, you know? On Friday? The older boys from Locksley came over? And there was this one boy I kind of liked. He kept staring at me, you know? This was in the gym?”
“Yes, darling.”
“And I sort of kept staring back at him. Because he was so cute, you know. With blond hair like mine, but with very dark brown eyes. And I could tell he liked me.”
“Um-huh.”
“So... he came over. He walked all the way across the gym from where he was standing with some of his friends in their little blue Locksley jackets, and he stopped right in front of where me and Winona were sitting, and he asked me to dance.”
“Um-huh.”
“And I said no.”
The room was silent for a moment.
“I don’t know why I did that,” Mollie said. “I really wanted to dance with him, and he was so cute and all, and he’d come all that way across the gym, but I said no. I sometimes think there’s something wrong with me.”
“No, there’s nothing wrong with you, darling.”
“I hope not. He was so embarrassed. I thought I would die, too, refusing him like that.”
“Maybe you felt you couldn’t handle it quite yet. Dancing with a strange boy. Someone older than you.”
“Maybe,” Mollie said, and fell silent again. “Winona got her period last week,” she said at last.
“Did she?”
“Yeah. When do you think I’ll get mine, Mom?”
“Soon enough.”
“Winona says it’s a nuisance.”
“I suppose it is.”
“But I wish I’d hurry up and get it.”
“You will, darling,” Sarah said.
“Winona’s my best friend in the whole world,” Mollie said.
“That’s good, darl—”
“Except you, Mommy.”
Sarah swiftly turned her head away.
“Mommy?” Mollie said.
“Yes, darling.”
“Why are you crying?”
“Because I love you very much,” Sarah said. She pulled the blanket to Mollie’s chin and leaned over to kiss her on the forehead. “Good night, sweetheart,” she said.
“I love you, too,” Mollie said.
“I know.”
“I wish I’d grow up one of these days,” she said, and closed her eyes on a heavy sigh.
Sarah went back into the living room, where Michael was waiting for her.
The deception.
The goodwife, goodmother, goodteacher, telling Michael again that they’d decided to hold their teachers’ meetings every Wednesday evening, careful not to use the word “night” with its heavier connotations...
“I hope you don’t mind, Michael, we just feel...”
“Don’t be silly,” he said.
How easy to deceive him, she thought.
And how perfectly natural it seems.
Pouting a bit as she told him his work seemed more important than she did these days, what was he working on, anyway?
“Can’t tell you,” he said.
“Still a big secret, huh?”
“Very big.”
“When will you tell me?”