“When it’s nailed down.”
“Meanwhile, you’re gone at dawn every morning...”
“Objection, Your Honor.”
“Six thirty, then.”
“Only one day last week.”
“And you went to the office today.”
“Important meeting.”
“About what?”
“Putting in a bug.”
“Where?”
“Secret.”
“Why?”
“Secret.”
“Tell me.”
“Then it wouldn’t be a secret anymore.”
Secrets, she thought.
“Would you like to make love?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said.
Whore, she thought.
“Although you’re both experienced detectives...” Michael said.
Well, one of us is, Regan, thought.
“... who’ve investigated dozens of eavesdrop cases, I’m required by case law to brief you on the procedure to be followed in listening to any conversation originating in the back of that tailor shop.”
They were in his office and this was early Monday morning, the first day of February. They were about to leave for the apartment where they’d be monitoring the bug Coulter had installed. Michael had read them the eavesdropping warrant, and was now about to give them the “minimization lecture” they’d each heard ten thousand times before.
Well, me, anyway, Regan thought.
He told them first that the courts generally regarded an eavesdrop warrant like any other search warrant authorizing a limited search and seizure of evidence. The law made no distinction between listening to, monitoring, or recording a conversation.
“Whether a conversation is merely overheard, or also recorded, makes no difference legally,” Michael said. “Either way, the conversation has been seized.”
He went on to say that the warrant gave them authority to intercept the conversations of the named subject — Andrew Faviola — and various coconspirators, accomplices, and agents also named in the warrant...
“The hoods you saw going in and out of the shop,” he said.
... authority to intercept their conversations as they relate to the crimes of loan-sharking, drug trafficking, and — since the unfortunate waiter Dominick Di Nobili had been found with two bullets in his head in the trunk of a car at La Guardia Airport — murder as well.
“In short,” he said, “you’re permitted to listen to any conversation regarding these criminal activities, or for that matter, any other criminal activity that might come up during the course of the eavesdrop. What you can’t listen to is any privileged conversation.”
A privileged conversation was defined as any conversation between the subject and his attorney, the subject and his priest, the subject and his doctor, or the subject and his wife. If Regan or Lowndes detected that Faviola was talking to any of these people, they should immediately turn off their recording equipment and stop listening.
Ho-hum, Regan thought.
“A conversation between the subject and his girlfriend isn’t considered privileged,” Michael said. “But the minute they start talking about anything unrelated to the criminal activities named in the warrant, you have to quit listening.”
This did not preclude them from making occasional spot checks. For example, one moment the subject could be talking to his attorney about defending a suit that’s been brought against him; this would be privileged communication. But five minutes later he could begin talking about whether or not the attorney wished to be present at a meeting in the Bronx where they’d be restructuring the narcotics distribution setup in the Four-One Precinct. Trafficking in narcotics had been mentioned in the warrant; this would clearly be a criminal conversation.
It was permissible, therefore, to listen even to a privileged conversation for a few seconds every minute or so. If during this brief spot check they intercepted evidence of any of the crimes named in the warrant, it was okay to keep listening and recording. But the penalty for listening to or recording anything not specifically authorized was that everything they heard might be suppressed.
“Be extremely careful,” Michael said. “If you’re in doubt, just turn off the equipment and stop listening.”
In conclusion, he told them that the eavesdropping warrant had been obtained by the district attorney of New York County, and that he’d been appointed as the DA’s agent to assure that the warrant was properly executed. The justice of the Supreme Court who’d issued the warrant had the right to require periodic reports about the progress of the investigation and the manner in which the warrant was being executed...
“... and whenever he wants such reports,” Michael said, “I’m the guy he’ll turn to. The time may also come when a search warrant, or an additional eavesdropping warrant, or some other legal document or legal advice or legal decision is needed. I’m the one who’ll have to do that, so I have to know what’s going on. Please keep me informed, okay? Make sure I get copies of all the logs, tapes, and surveillance reports. I want to hear each and every tape as soon as it’s duplicated. If anything seems to be breaking suddenly, call me. Here are my numbers, office and home. Post them in a conspicuous place at the plant. That’s it,” he said. “Good luck.”
The phone numbers were posted on the wall above the telephone in an apartment on Grand Street, a block from the tailor shop. Regan and Lowndes had dialed the number of the access line, turning on the bug, and the line was now open. They could hear every conversation originating in the back room of the tailor shop as if they were sitting right there with the goombahs. Wearing earphones, adjusting and readjusting the volume controls, they learned almost instantly that the one constant player was someone named Benny, and they figured out quickly enough that he was the son of the owner and that he ran the pressing machine — at least for the time being. From one of the early conversations between Benny and his father that first Monday of the surveillance, they gathered that he might not be working there much longer.
“But I thought you liked working with me,” the old man said.
Louis Vaccaro, owner of the shop. Regan and Lowndes knew what he looked like and sounded like because they’d been in and out of there at least a dozen times.
“I do like working with you, Pop...”
Benny Vaccaro, running the pressing machine. Steam hissing in the background as he spoke.
“It’s just I don’t like pressing. Andrew told me he could get me something on the docks. This was after...”
“You have to be careful, the docks.”
“Yeah, I know. But I turned down the fish-market thing, I can’t stand the smell of fish, Pop. Andrew said I could begin work right away, soon as I cleared it with you. I’d be making more money, Pop, and he said he’d see about some other little things I might be able to do for him, you know, special little things’d bring in even more money. I really want to do this, Pop.”
“I thought you liked it here,” the old man said.
“I do, Pop, I do. But, you know, just running this machine all the time...”
“When I first started this business, I used to do all my own pressing,” Louis said. “The tailoring and the pressing, too.”
“Well, that was the old days, Pop.”
“The old days, yes.”
“Andrew thinks he can help me make a better life for myself. Pop, I’m thirty-three years old, I can’t spend the rest of my life behind a pressing machine.”