“But-”
“Let’s assume that Blanca is in on the counterfeiting games her boyfriend has been running and that she doesn’t pay taxes. I’ll even go the next step and bet she, too, lied on her asylum application. It doesn’t change the fact of what Baby Mo did to her in the hotel room.”
“Maybe it does. You know that, Alex. Maybe she’s incapable of telling the truth about anything.”
That was the bottom line in all this. How could we ask a jury to find MGD guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, if everything his accuser said cast more doubt on her? Maybe Blanca had lived on the margins for so long, she wouldn’t recognize the truth if it hit her squarely between the eyes.
“Okay, then you keep your global mobile van out on the streets. I have the unpleasant duty of calling Pat McKinney at this hour.” I stretched my arm out for another shot of Scotch to ready me for that task. “He needs to light a fire under Byron Peaser and make Peaser bring Blanca to the office at nine A.M.”
Ryan was pumped up with his own sense of accomplishment. “As they say in the hood, she got some ’splainin’ to do.”
I was already making my list for the morning. “I want to thank you for all this, Ryan. You know that most prosecutors in this country would just leave all this dirt for the defense to dig up. Throw it against the wall in the middle of a trial and see what sticks. I’m so proud of you for running this all down.”
“Where do you think it will go, Alex?” Ryan asked, the tone of his voice much calmer now.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“I think we have to have another shot at Blanca in the morning. Confront her with her lies and go back at her about the events in MGD’s room.”
“Worst case scenario?”
“We ask Judge Donnelly to hear us again in the afternoon. I have the prisoner produced. I let Lem dress me down for ten minutes. I tell Donnelly I was wrong-”
“It wasn’t you, Al. It was the whole team.”
“I tell the judge I was wrong and that we need to reconsider the bail status of Gil-Darsin so we can sort everything out-cool, calm, collected.”
“You’ll let him walk, even though you know he’s a pig?”
“He might well walk, Ryan. And Paul Battaglia will have my head.”
FORTY
I decided to drive to work on Friday morning because I had a slight detour to make.
I left my garage at seven-thirty and drove up Madison Avenue. I wanted to stop and see the twin buildings that Lutèce and its neighbor occupied on the quiet, tree-lined street not far from Central Park, which was in full spring bloom.
There were several parking spots on the street. Many wary New Yorkers lived by the hours of the alternate-side street-cleaning signs rather than pay for garage spaces more expensive than most monthly rents in the country.
I slipped into an opening just off the corner and got out of the car.
The work crew was setting up in the restaurant. They were unloading tools and equipment from two small trucks double-parked on the street. The front door was wide open, and although I was tempted to go in to look around, I knew that I would be in the way.
I crossed to the other side and studied the facades of the matching buildings. The exteriors of both had been restored to their original elegance. That alone would have cost a small fortune.
Double-hung windows had been replaced in each, the neighbors appeared to be copying the effect of the painted trim on the sills, and the handsome silhouettes were aesthetically pleasing to the eye.
The only difference I noted was in the entrance to the buildings. Lutèce was open to the sidewalk, with black wrought iron handrails that would give customers secure footing on the steps in and out of the restaurant.
Around the adjacent residence, there was black wrought iron, too. But it wasn’t a simple railing. Rather, it was an eight-foot-high gate that extended from the sides of the house itself and squared around the front of the building, where the two sides met in the middle with a formidable lock at the entrance.
The residential twin town house looked as unwelcoming as the fancy restaurant appeared to be inviting. The distinction amused me. It was not everyone’s idea of home to have the daily foot traffic of hundreds of diners and the constant commercial deliveries of food and liquor and flowers and linens.
Workmen were also setting up in the town house next to Lutèce. I waited for a school bus to pass, then crossed back to stand in front of the gate.
“Excuse me,” I said to one of the four men in painters’ pants who were carrying buckets from their van into the building.
“Good morning, lady.”
“How far along are you?” I asked. I didn’t know enough about construction work to think of anything more profound.
“How far with what?”
“This building. I mean, is it going to be ready for occupancy soon?”
“It’s not for rent, if that’s what you’re asking,” the guy said. He was standing at the rear doors of the van, passing paint rollers and tarps to the other three.
“I’m a friend of the guy who bought this other building-the restaurant next door. I’m just interested in what’s happening here.”
“Antique white on the walls on the ground floor. Pastels in most of the bedrooms upstairs. Martha Stewart kind of colors. That’s what’s happening here, so far as I know,” he said, his Bronx accent undoubtedly thicker than the paint.
“Who’s the owner?”
“Lady, the last time I played Twenty Questions I was in third grade. I don’t got the slightest idea who the owner is.”
I followed him toward the gate.
“I’m just curious, ’cause I’d like to talk to him-or to her-about when they’re moving in. Things like that.”
“Hey, Joey,” he yelled out to one of the others. “Who owns this place?”
He waited for an answer. “It’s not people that’s moving in, lady. It’s a corporation that owns it. I’m not trying to be difficult with you.”
Joey shouted back. “The name’s on your pay stub.”
I walked down the steps behind the guy I was talking to and went inside. The walls had been freshly plastered, and I could smell the coat of paint that had been applied yesterday.
“Look around, lady. Suit yourself.”
The parquet floors had been laid but not finished. That would wait until after the paint job. There were no furnishings at all yet, and the space flowed freely from one area at the front of the house to the next.
“You guys do nice work,” I said. “Do you have a card, in case we need any help?”
“Your workers would throw a fit if we elbowed in on them.”
“You just never know when you need to bring in someone from the outside. I think they’re running way behind schedule.”
The painter reached deep into his back pocket for his wallet and removed a card for me. Then he unrolled a piece of paper-the pay stub of his check-and showed it to me. “That’s who’s gonna be your neighbors.”
I looked at the name: GINEVA IMPORTS. I played with the letters and said it aloud a couple of times, but it didn’t mean anything to me.
“Would you mind if I looked around the basement?” I asked.
“Right over there. Most people want to see the upstairs. They made it a nice space-three bedrooms on the second floor with three baths. Really spiffy. Two on the floor above that.”
“Any lights down here?” I was on the staircase, and the bare bulb shining overhead only got me halfway down the staircase.
“I got a flashlight,” the man said. “Whaddaya want to look at?”
I was flustered and trying to think of an answer. “We’ve got a wine cellar in the basement of the restaurant, and that’s where our sound system will be,” I said, making up the second part. “I’m just wondering where it will abut, because of the noise late at night. I’d hate to cause any trouble after all this construction is done.”