"Jesus, Tom."
"I did some shady things when I was in private practice, but it was the stuff most attorneys do. Padding the billable hours was a biggie. Double, triple, even quadruple billing was another. If I had to visit clients, I'd try to set up two or three meetings in the same area on the same day. My clock started running when I started the car, and I'd not only bill each client separately for the same travel time, but along the way I'd be talking to still another on my cell phone. Hell, I sometimes billed twenty-plus hours for an eight-hour workday. And on the side I was playing fast and loose with trust accounts. Had some close calls, but never got caught."
Jack wondered why Tom was telling him all this. Had to have a reason. If he wanted a loan, why didn't he just come out and ask for it?
"The judgeship did me in. Being appointed for life wasn't a good thing for me—at all. If I'd had arrogance and hubris before, I now became positively regal. My biggest risks were errors in rulings, which could be changed by an appellate court; but otherwise I pretty much ruled the roost. I was the lord of my courtroom, a king. In reality I was a petty satrap with a big head."
"I did the usual time-honored gray-zone stuff—you know, using marshals to pick up my dry cleaning, taking trips on city money, beguiling attractive lady lawyers or clerks. And then of course I engaged in the time-honored judicial practice of 'leaning.' It's very easy to shade rulings. I leaned toward my old cronies, and against my old rivals. But I really stepped over the line when I started accepting gifts from parties related to cases I was involved with, and then shading rulings their way."
My brother the crooked judge… jeez.
Part of Jack wanted to shut this off now, but another part, the part in everyone that slows down when passing a car wreck, wanted more.
"Bribes?"
"If you're talking envelopes stuffed with cash, no. At least not at first. No, what I'd get was, say, an all-expense trip for me and the current skank to Bermuda or Grand Cayman or San Juan where I'd collect a fat speaker's fee to address some convention. All done through third and fourth parties, all very circumspect, all ethically questionable but almost impossible to prove."
"Trouble started after my second divorce when I had not one but two skanks with siphons in my jugulars. With alimony and child support payments up the ass, I had to do something. So I started accepting cash. Got to the point where I might as well have had a 'For Sale' sign on the door to my chambers. 'The Finest Judge Money Can Buy!'"
Jack was shaking his head. "Sounds like you were asking for it."
"I was. I was caught in this spiral but I didn't see it. I was into that sovereign mind-set of being a judge, of having the power to decide the fates of people and companies… heady stuff."
Jack said, "Where do the feds come in?"
Tom grimaced. "A tragedy of errors, that. It all goes back to certain trust fund conservancies I was involved with."
"Want to run that by me in English?"
"When there's a large settlement, say from a medical malpractice case where a birth is botched and the kid's going to need special care for the rest of his life, the money—often millions, sometimes tens of millions—is put into a trust fund which is overseen by a conservator. The conservator is an attorney appointed by the judge in the case. In a number of cases that judge was moi. A conservancy is like an annuity. The conservator has legal duties and he's paid out of the fund for the hours he bills. If he works it right, he can bill a lot of hours."
"Skim off a sick kid's funds?"
"It's all perfectly legal. But I got to thinking, why should I drop these valuable conservancy plums without getting something back? So I made arrangements: You want a conservancy, you cut me in."
"Jesus, Tom."
"Yeah, I know. Risky."
"I wasn't talking about the risk."
Tom waved him off. "Everybody does it."
"Obviously not, or you wouldn't be in trouble."
"I'm only in trouble because I was sold out. That was partially my fault for appointing a jerk named Marty Bieber to a particularly juicy fund. You've got to have a little subtlety in these matters, and it turned out Bieber had none. Not only did he overbill outrageously—enough to start the kid's parents smelling a rat—but he was also gambling with the funds. And losing. A complaint to the local attorney ethics committee turned up shortages. To partially save his ass, he rolled over and pointed a finger at me."
Jack shook his head. This was so scummy it was scary, this was… he didn't have the words…
"Okay. But that's all local stuff. I still don't see how the feds got involved."
"Since the damage had happened in a Philly hospital, it was tried there. But the kid's parents lived in Jersey, in Camden. Bieber's office was in Camden but he was licensed in both states, so he seemed like a good choice. Unfortunately the tribute he was paying me crossed state lines and the feds used that as an excuse to horn in."
Tom slammed a fist against his thigh.
"Fucking feds! If I'd stayed local, I might have been able to work something out. You know, use some connections here, spread some cash there. But once the feds got involved and started a taxonomy of my infractions, it was like raising the Yellow Jack over my career. It was as if I'd developed an advanced case of leprosy. Nobody returned my calls, everybody was always busy when I wanted a meeting. Hell, I couldn't even get people to make eye contact!"
He glanced at Jack with a hunted look in his eyes.
"I'm cooked, bro. I've been released on my own recognizance because I'm a member of the club and because I have such 'strong ties to the community.' Ha! If they only knew!"
"Why are you telling me all this?"
Instead of answering, Tom pointed to the left. "Turn here."
"But the restaurant's—"
"I just want to swing by the old neighborhood."
Not a bad idea. Jack complied. He kept an eye on the rearview mirror to make sure Terry was following. He caught the puzzled look on Gia's face.
A wave of nostalgia swept over him as he turned the corner by Mr. Canelli's old house. Jack had cut many of the lawns in the old neighborhood, but not Mr. Canelli's. He did his own. Cutting didn't describe what the old guy did: more like manicuring.
But old Canelli was gone now. Just like Dad.
Jack slowed as they passed the three-bedroom ranch in which he,
Kate, and Tom had grown up. He remembered it had started out with asbestos shingles, which Dad had later replaced with vinyl siding. He was saddened to see that the new owner had torn out all the old junipers and replaced them with hydrangeas. Dumb. From fall to spring, hydrangeas were little more than bunches of brown sticks. Junipers stayed green all year round.
"Remember playing catch in the backyard with Dad?"
Jack nodded. "I remember you winging the ball hard enough to knock me down."
Tom smiled. "But you always caught it, always held on to it."
Tom was laying it on thick. Jack knew he was being set up, but was curious as to where Tom was heading.
"You said you need my help. I'm baffled as to why? What can I do?"
"Help me disappear."
Jack suppressed a groan. "That wasn't easy before nine-eleven. It's a hell of a lot harder now."
"But it can be done—if you've got enough cash."
Yeah, it could.
"You have enough?"
Jack held his breath, waiting for Tom to put the touch on him. But his brother nodded instead.