“It looks great,” Jake said.
“Yeah,” Casey said, trusting Jake’s opinion and taking a seat next to him in a rickety folding chair.
They didn’t have long to wait. Only twenty minutes passed before John Napoli got rolled in by his driver, who positioned himself at the corner table and then quickly disappeared. The waitress muttered shyly and Napoli ordered anisette and a plate of olives. Niko Todora appeared in the entryway and swam through the tables, pushing chairs aside to make room for his bulk. Todora sat in the corner and Massimo took the chair opposite Napoli. While Massimo asked for a glass of Chianti, Todora ordered only Pellegrino and limes and told the girl to have Angelo send out some food.
The food came in waves, salad swimming in a bowl of dressing, a similar family-style bowl full of Italian potatoes, plates of lasagna, dishes of cooked greens. Todora began to eat and Massimo tucked a napkin into the collar of his custom shirt before digging in. Napoli picked at his olives and sniffed at the mounds of food. As the three men ate, they talked about the Buffalo Bills’ offense and whether the new quarterback could put up the points necessary to make their games interesting. Casey could only assume by their casual demeanor that deception was a regular part of their business and something as comfortable as a featherbed.
Dora began to fret, checking her watch and shaking her knee until Jake encouraged her to show Casey how she could adjust the shots, zooming in and out with several deft strokes on her computer.
“Obviously, I can’t pan side to side,” Dora said.
Casey gave her a look.
“The filaments are embedded in the wall,” Dora said. “Nothing bigger than a pinhole, so while in and out works, there’s no lateral movement.”
“That’s why we’ve got five cameras,” Jake said.
“To give us some different angles when we cut it,” Dora said.
“It’s amazing how well you can hear them,” Casey said. “Like we’re sitting at the table.”
“Two mikes,” Dora said, pointing to the screen. “One in the candle and the second is more directional, and I put it on the side of that picture frame.”
Casey studied the screen to show her appreciation.
“He’s here,” Jake said, sitting straight and pointing to the screen on the left, which showed the entrance to the dining room and Robert Graham striding in. “You rolling?”
“I was rolling from the minute I had them in,” Dora said. “You think I’d mess this up?”
Graham rubbed his hands together as if to warm them. Some of his polish got lost in the black-and-white images of the monitor. He looked more like a construction worker than a billionaire financier in his Timberlands, jeans, and flannel shirt.
Graham shook hands all the way around and his partners grinned at him as he took up the seat facing Todora.
“Sit,” Massimo said through a mouthful of greens and beans, “eat.”
Graham sat and spooned some food onto his plate, accepting a glass of water from the waitress.
“So you’ve had some trouble,” Todora said, without wasting time.
Graham’s fork stopped in midair as he considered the enormous man, searching his face for clues. Casey knew that while Graham would have no reason to suspect that Todora knew about his tax files, guilt would make him wary, especially since the files were no longer under his control.
“With that bitch lawyer,” Graham said, shaking his head, “but who cares? I fixed that other bitch.”
“The Rivers woman,” Todora said, stoking his mouth with a hunk of lasagna, “the judge.”
“Yeah,” Graham said, leaning back and pointing with his fork, trying to look tough with his day-old beard. “She fucked with the wrong people.”
“You made a lot of noise,” Todora said, wheezing a bit as he twisted the juice out of a lime wedge and sipped at his drink.
“You gotta break eggs to make an omelet,” Graham said, daring to shovel in a mouthful of salad.
“How’d you do that whole thing?” Massimo asked, tilting his head. “I mean with that hot little redhead and the spunk sample from that mope down in the Caribbean? I mean, that wasn’t really her, was it? Much as I’d like to think it, she didn’t seem the type. I’m talking on TV and all.”
“No, she had finer tastes than that,” Graham said with a wink as he chewed, “if you know what I mean.”
“You dipped into that?” Massimo said, clapping Graham on the back.
“I like redheads,” Graham said, stabbing a single ziti noodle.
“Nice.”
“I’m confused by the timing,” Napoli said, clearing some phlegm in his throat. “She was down there with Rivers’s son, or she wasn’t?”
“Not that complicated,” Graham said, swallowing and offering up a smile. “I had my guy Ralph fly down to Turks and Caicos with a hooker, find Rivers’s son half shit-faced in a local bar, blow him, spit it into a cup, and get out of Dodge.”
“I knew there was a reason I always liked to make ’em swallow,” Massimo said, clapping Graham again, this time hard enough to shift him in his seat.
The rest of them chuckled and Graham joined in.
“I used some grease to get the security guard at the warehouse to let Ralph in,” Graham said. “He switched the samples, and bingo, Dwayne Hubbard walks free.”
“A sick fuck,” Todora said.
“Absolutely,” Graham said, raising his fork, “but necessary to discredit our judge. She’s finished. All the bitch had to do was take our money and work with us. Then I ran the lawyer down there with me for some personal fun, got her together with Rivers’s son, and painted a slightly different picture for the press. The perfect lie is one composed of different truths.”
Graham looked around, expectant.
“But you shouldn’t blame a person for not taking our money,” Todora said with a serious face and using his own fork to point.
“No, that’s true,” Graham said, dabbing his awkward smile with a napkin.
“It should make people nervous, the idea of taking our money,” Todora said. “We worked hard for it. We did things that make some people uncomfortable. No one should want to take our money.”
“What do you mean?” Graham asked, one hand clutching his fork, the other balling up the skirt of the checkered tablecloth.
67
CASEY’S STOMACH tightened. She looked at Jake, whose eyes had also gone wide, as if he, too, expected something to go bad.
“It’s on tape,” Jake said in a whisper, as if afraid the men downstairs could hear. “They’re not going to do anything crazy.”
Massimo reached into his jacket.
“Is that a gun?” Casey said, knowing they could kill them all and make the tape go away.
Massimo’s hand came out of his jacket with a cigar that he tucked up underneath his nose to sniff. Casey let out a long breath.
“I mean just what I said,” Todora said. “This Patricia Rivers, she’s a judge. She’s not supposed to take anyone’s money.”
“Well,” Graham said, “she didn’t. So I had to put my foot on her neck. She made it easy, fucking with that Hubbard case, even if it was twenty years ago. I enjoyed the whole thing, actually, working the system, playing the media like a herd of cows.”
“You did that,” Massimo said, clapping Graham’s shoulder another time. “That crazy fuck Brad Pitt and all that, then the story on the redhead. Perfect.”
“Brad Pitt’s a putz,” Graham said, his hands relaxing. “I bought him off like I did the redhead. When you’re in my position, you learn pretty quick that everyone has their price.”
“We got ours, right?” Todora said, leaning forward with a scowl.
Graham shifted in his seat and spoke in nearly a whisper. “I didn’t mean you, Mr. Todora.”
Todora broke out in a laugh and they all joined in, Graham loudest of all.