“From what we know it doesn’t look like he is going anywhere too fast,” said Morris. “Besides, he can’t be sailing off to Paraguay.”
“And why not?” I asked.
“There is no seaport in Paraguay,” said Morris. “It is in the mountains.”
“So now you’re the geography wizard?”
“I had reason to be searching once for criminals in Paraguay.”
“What, Morris, you were a Nazi hunter?” I asked through my laughter. “You were searching the mountains of Paraguay for wayward German colonels?”
“Yes,” said Morris in a cold voice that shut me up quick. We stood there in an awkward silence while Morris stared at me until I began looking down at the scuffs on my shoes. The elevator came, breaking the moment, but before I could enter it Eggert grabbed hold of my arm and yanked me aside.
“Are you still interested in a deal?” he asked.
“What are you offering?”
“Plead guilty to extortion only, testify against the councilman, we’ll recommend minimum jail time. I’ll even talk to the U.S. Attorney about probation.”
“Gardner’s testimony shook you up a little, hey, Marshall?”
“Not at all,” he said, but his hand was in his pocket and his change was jingling out a very different tune. “It’s inconclusive at best.”
“Maybe. But your taxi driver witness said the limo he saw flashed his brights, like a signal, as if it were hoping to be noticed. And now we know that Ruffing, who collected the insurance on the property, was tooling around that night in a black limousine. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to see the connection. Your arson just disappeared from the case, and so, probably, did the racketeering charge. Now you want my client to plead to the only real charge left.”
He sniffed twice. “It’s a good deal, Carl.”
“This trial has come down to either or. It’s either Moore or Concannon. The only way for you to get both is for one to plead and rat out the other. Sit tight, Marshall. We’ll talk after my witness tomorrow. If she is all I expect, tomorrow you’ll be offering immunity and be damn glad to give it.”
I walked away, not waiting for a response. A week before I would have jumped at his offer, leaped at it like Charles Barkley leaping for a rebound, but it wasn’t a week before anymore. I was back in the game, I was on a roll, and tomorrow I was going up for the winning score.
53
IT WAS A COLD GRAY MORNING, a winter morning at the tail end of the fall. My breath fled in wispy clouds as I walked from the underground parking garage beside the courthouse to the Society Hill Sheraton, where Veronica was hiding out. It was a peculiar place to hide, a large but not tall brick building with a wide and active lobby, from which guests in tracksuits flowed out through the glass doors and around the courtyard to run along the Delaware River. Morris told me he would be in the gray Honda, waiting for me. I spotted it resting at the end of a long line of cars parked across the wide cobblestone street from the front of the hotel. All the cars but Morris’s faced the curb; Morris had backed the Honda in so he could see the front of the lobby without twisting.
“Anything?” I asked.
“You didn’t bring mine coffee?” said Morris.
“I forgot, I’m sorry.”
“The first rule in surveillance, Victor, the very first rule. Never forget the coffee.”
“I’ll get you some coffee.”
“Stop, don’t be worrying yourself. It is the first rule, but it is maybe not such a very good rule, because once it goes in it has to go out, which is very inconvenient, believe you me, in the middle of a following. When are you wanting her in the courtroom?”
“This morning, ten o’clock.”
“Does she want to go?”
“I’ll talk to her, she’ll come. All right, let’s go get her.”
“Hold your horses,” said Morris.
“Hold your horses?”
“Yes, hold your horses. That’s a very fine expression, I think. What, I couldn’t have been a cowboy? I would have been some cowboy.”
“Have you ever ridden a horse, Morris?”
“What’s to riding a horse, you tell me? I can sit, I can hold onto the straps, I can say go and stop, I can ride. Look over there, by the front driveway.”
“The silver BMW?”
“Such a car I should own. Beautiful, no? Except for that it is German it is a wonderful car.”
“Why are we admiring a car?”
“Because it has been parked there all morning. Just sitting there, but for when one of the men left for a few minutes and came back with coffee.”
“You think they’re watching the lobby entrance?”
“The coffee was what gave it away to me,” said Morris. “Already you’re forgetting the first rule of surveillance.”
“They could be waiting for anyone,” I said.
“They could, yes.”
“But they might also be Jimmy’s people.”
“That too.”
“No one but Jimmy and us should know she’s there. Maybe we should go in from the back.”
“I think it’s important that we know who’s in that car, don’t you?”
“Why?”
“You told me there’s a valise full of money missing, floating free, is such a fact?”
“A quarter of a million dollars.”
“Well, Victor, I may be wrong, I’m often wrong, just ask Rosalie and she’ll tell you, just bump into her in the street and…”
“What are you thinking, Morris?” I said.
“I would bet that whoever has that money is the one who sent those people in that fancy car to sit there watching.”
I took a closer look at the silver BMW. “You think so?”
“I just said it, didn’t I? So what I am thinking is that you should walk into the front of the hotel so that who is in that car can see you. Then maybe we will know who is so interested.”
“I’ve been shot at twice already, don’t you think that twice is enough?”
“Don’t you worry about a thing. I am here, Morris Kapustin, and I will be covering you.”
“You’re going to cover me? With what, Morris, with a kosher dill?”
I expected one of his witty retorts about Jews and pickles, but that’s not what I got. Instead, Morris gave me a cold look and from his great black coat pulled out an automatic pistol. Its blued barrel gave off a dull, oily shine. With one quick and practiced motion he ejected the clip and snapped it back into the handle.
“Jesus, Morris, what are you doing with that?”
“You maybe never heard of Jabotinsky?”
“No.”
“There are many things you must learn, Victor. One shouting in court is not enough to prove you have learned all you need to learn. You still must learn about what it means to be a Jew and what it does not mean. You have much thinking to do about your life and yourself and your heritage, but not today. Today you will walk into the front of the lobby, slowly, as if you had not a care in the world. Don’t be looking at the car, just walk in and we’ll see what happens. If nothing happens, I will meet you outside her room, number 4016. Now go.”
I hesitated, but Morris literally pushed me out of the car and I was on my way, headed across the wide cobblestone street for the hotel. It was still cold, my breath still steamed in the frigid morning air, but I was sweating. I opened my lined raincoat as I walked to the round courtyard and tried not to stare at the silver BMW, sitting by the front, ominous, as frightening as a shark in shallow water. My neck twitched as I approached. Look straight ahead, Morris had told me, and that was what I did even as I passed the dangerous chrome grill. And then I was beyond it, fighting the urge to look back, heading straight for the entrance. But before I could reach for the long bronze handle to get me inside a car door slammed shut to my right and I heard the shout.
“Yo Vi’tor Carl, the man with two first names.”
The voice was familiar, slippery, and thick, it eased its way around the consonants, approaching then veering off just before it would have grabbed hold of them. I stopped in dread and turned. It was Wayman, Norvel Goodwin’s henchman, who had driven me around in the councilman’s limo and then smacked me in the face with the back of his hand. Which meant, if Morris was right, that Norvel Goodwin had the missing quarter of a million. How the hell had he gotten his talons on all that money?