“Nothing. I’ve told you everything I know.”
I’ve gotten pretty good at reading my clients, and for the first time I think Kenny’s holding something back. Holding something back from one’s defense attorney is akin to putting a gun to one’s head and pulling the trigger, but my pressing Kenny for more information gets me nowhere.
Before I leave, I broach the subject of Adam Strickland becoming an employee of my office so that he can observe what’s going on and perhaps someday write about it.
“But he can’t write anything we don’t want him to?” Kenny asks.
“He can’t reveal any privileged information without our permission.”
“What if he did?”
“You could sue him, and nothing he says could ever be used in court against you.”
Kenny shrugs, having lost interest. He has no desire to focus on any subject that can’t get him out of his cell. “Whatever you want, man. I don’t care either way.”
I tell him I’ll decide one way or the other and then let him know. I head back to the office, where Laurie is waiting for me. I can tell by the look in her eyes that she has something to tell me, though my hunch is helped along considerably by her saying, “Wait till you hear this.”
I decide to take a guess first. “Your old boyfriend changed his mind and offered you a job as a school crossing guard. And you said no, because they’re giving you a bad corner and making you buy your own whistle.”
“Andy,” she says, “you’re going to have to try harder to deal with this.”
I already knew that, so I say, “What were you going to tell me?”
“Preston wasn’t just using. He was dealing.”
This is potentially huge. If Preston was dealing drugs, he was involved with big money and very dangerous people. The kind of people that kill other people. The kind of people that defense lawyers love to point to and say, “My client didn’t do it; they did.”
“Who told you?”
She smiles. “Police sources.”
“Police sources” is Laurie-speak for Pete Stanton. Pete has long been a reliable source of information for both of us. He would never say anything damaging to the department, but nor does he have that knee-jerk police reaction not to have anything to do with anyone on the defense side of the justice system. There would be no downside at all to his supplying background information in this case, since it is under the jurisdiction of the state police.
“Did he give you specifics?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “Over dinner with you. Tonight. He invited me as well.”
I nod with resignation. Since I’ve inherited my fortune, Pete’s goal has been to make me poor again. He does this by selecting the most overpriced restaurants he can find and then stuffing himself to the point where he has to be lifted out of his chair with a crane, while I pick up the tab. “I hope he didn’t choose the restaurant,” I say.
“He did. It’s a place in the city.”
New York City. Pete hates New York City, always has, but he’s apparently become disenchanted with the reasonable cost structure of New Jersey restaurants. “It would be cheaper to bribe the jury,” I say.
* * * * *
PETE SAYS HE’LL meet us at the restaurant, so Laurie and I drive in alone. I’m not a big fan of driving in Manhattan; it calls for an aggressiveness that I simply do not have outside of a courtroom. I’m always afraid that Ratso Rizzo is going to pound on my car and yell, “I’m walkin’ here! I’m walkin’ here!”
The restaurant is on Eightieth Street near Madison, and as we get close, I start looking for a parking lot. I find one on the same block, with a sign proclaiming a flat rate of forty-three dollars for the night. They seem proud of this, as if it’s so inexpensive it will be an enticement for people to park their cars here. I only wish Laurie and I had come in separate cars so we could take double advantage of this incredible deal.
“Maybe you should look for a space on the street,” Laurie says.
I shake my head. “It’s a nice thought, but the nearest space on a street is in Connecticut.”
I park in the lot, and we walk half a block to the restaurant. It’s French, with stone walls to give us the impression that we’re having dinner in a cave. I approach the maître d’ and tell him that I believe our reservation is in the name of Stanton.
He brightens immediately. “Ah, yes! They’re waiting for you!”
Before I get a chance to fully weigh the significance of his using the word “they’re” rather than “he’s,” Laurie and I are led to a private cave off the main dining room. We enter and see one table, set for fifteen people. The problem is, there are enough people in the room to fill it.
Pete jumps up, almost knocking over a lit candle in the process. “Our host is here!”
This draws a cheer, and I am soon surrounded by members of Pete’s family. I know only two of them: his wife, Donna, and his brother, Larry. I’ve been out with Pete and Donna a few times, and I got Larry off on a drug charge four years ago. He’s since turned his life around and does volunteer work as a drug counselor in downtown Paterson.
Laurie and I are soon introduced to a bunch of Uncle Eddies and Aunt Denises and Cousin Mildreds, all of whom think it’s just wonderful that I’ve thrown this party for my good friend Pete.
“This is so nice of you,” Donna says to me. “And his birthday isn’t for six weeks.”
Laurie jumps in, fearful of what I might say. “Andy wanted it to be a surprise.”
I nod, staring daggers across the room at Pete. “And it was. It definitely was.”
Pete is oblivious to my daggers; he’s too busy holding bottles of expensive wine and asking, “Who wants white, and who wants red?” He looks at the labels and says, “I got the Lafeet something and the Pooly whatever…” This is from a guy who’s never bought a bottle of wine without a twist-off cap.
I finally make it over to the guest of honor. “You’re a cop,” I say, “so you’d be a good person to answer this question. Who could I hire to kill you? After this dinner, I can’t afford to pay very much, but I don’t need a quality hit man. For instance, I don’t care how much pain he causes.”
“Don’t tell me you’re pissed off,” he says.
“This was supposed to be a dinner where you gave us information about drug traffickers. Not a four-thousand- dollar family circle meeting.”
He nods. “It turns out that Larry knows something about this, so I wanted him here. But he was having dinner with Aunt Carla, who was staying at Cousin Juliet’s, and it sort of snowballed from there. You know how these things are.”
With almost no family of my own, and no desire to impoverish my friends, I don’t know how these things are, but I drop it. “So when can we talk?”
“You can drive Larry and me back. We’ll talk then.”
The rest of the evening is surprisingly pleasant, at least until the check comes. Pete’s family is both close-knit and funny, and it feels good to be included in it. I’m not totally forgiving Pete for this fiasco, though, and I lash out by refusing to sing “Happy Birthday” when they bring out the three-tier cake I’m paying for.
It’s not until we’re on the George Washington Bridge driving home that Pete addresses the issue at hand. “Paul Moreno,” he says.
“Who’s Paul Moreno?” I ask. The question must be a stupid one, because it draws sighs and moans from Pete, Larry, and Laurie.
“He’s a guy who makes Dominic Petrone look like Mother Teresa,” Pete says. Dominic Petrone is the head of the mob in North Jersey, which means Paul Moreno must be a rather difficult fellow to deal with.
“I just spent twenty-eight hundred bucks on your birthday. Can you be a little more specific?”
Pete, Laurie, and Larry then alternate being very specific, and the picture they paint of Paul Moreno is not a pretty one. About five years ago a group of young Mexican immigrants started a drug pipeline from their former country to their current home in North Jersey. It was mostly street stuff and relatively small money for this industry.