“Yeah, I thought of that. We probably have a day or two before the feds get the autopsy results. When’s that next shipment?” Bud asked, feigning ignorance.
“Friday, and it’s a big one. How the fuck we gonna get another girl by then? We may even need more than one, with the weight we’re movin’.”
“I’ll take care of that part, Jay. That’s the least of our problems anyway. We need to think more defensively than that.”
“Talk English, for Chrissakes.”
“Friday is a big score, right?”
“That’s what I just fuckin’ said.”
“We need to make sure it happens, so we have a nice cushion and we can lay low for a while, right?”
“Yeah. So?”
“So. We need to keep the feds off us until then.”
“I’m with you on that. In fact, I sent Pavel and Lamar over to the courthouse to check shit out, look into who’s investigating this,” Jay said.
“Those idiots’ll never come through. All they know is how to kill people. But lucky for you, I already got that information.”
“That was quick. How’d you manage it? Your day job?”
“I do what I have to do to look out for you, Jay.”
“You always did,” Esposito said. “And I always show my appreciation in return, right, Buddy boy?”
“Yeah, right. But you catch my drift? I’m giving you this information to help you take appropriate steps.”
“You don’t need to spell it out. I’m making sweet money right now. I got an investment to protect.”
“Good. I knew we’d see things the same way. What I have so far is the name of the lead investigator. She’s a woman named Melanie Vargas, about five-six or -seven, shoulder-length dark hair, maybe late twenties, early thirties, attractive…”
18
MELANIE STRODE PURPOSEFULLY down the center aisle of the cavernous ceremonial courtroom. With its twenty-foot ceilings and row upon row of spectator benches, the place was big enough to host a three-ring circus, and nearly every seat was filled at four in the afternoon. Judge Warner was on duty. Even though arraignments had been piling up since early that morning, he refused to assume the bench until every single case was ready to be called. And since he loved nothing better than sanctioning any lawyer unlucky enough to step out to the bathroom at the wrong moment, they all spent hours glued to their seats, twiddling their thumbs, waiting for the fearsome jurist to make his appearance.
Melanie slid into an empty chair at the government’s table, setting down her armload of files and shrugging out of her heavy winter coat. She’d changed into the spare skirt and hose she kept in her office. It was well known that any female Assistant U.S. Attorney who dared to appear before Judge Warner in pants would lose her bail hearing as punishment. Some pretty serious offenders had made it out onto the street that way.
Brad Monahan, the clean-cut, square-jawed prosecutor in the next seat, leaned over to speak to Melanie.
“So, Vargas, is it true you caught this Holbrooke junkies case?” Brad asked wistfully.
“Holbrooke junkies? What a way to put it!”
“Not my words. Take a look.”
Glancing anxiously at the empty bench first, since Judge Warner had been known to sanction lawyers caught reading the paper in his courtroom, Brad pulled a Daily News from beneath his folded overcoat. A huge black headline proclaimed SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL. A smaller headline beneath it read, “Beautiful Holbrooke Junkies Include Candidate Seward’s Daughter.” Superimposed on a grainy shot of body bags being loaded into the medical examiner’s van in front of Seward’s building were the same wholesome, smiling yearbook photos of Whitney, Brianna, and Carmen that Melanie had seen in Dr. Hogan’s office that morning. Under Whitney and Brianna’s photos, boldface type screamed DEAD, whereas under Carmen’s it said simply SUSPECT.
“Jesus, who leaked that?” Melanie whispered, feeling sick to her stomach. She sincerely hoped Luis Reyes and his daughter Lulu hadn’t seen the papers.
“Face it, Vargas. You’re a hotshot. First the Benson case, now this. How do you do it? You and Witchie-poo sorority sisters or something?” he asked, referring to Bernadette by the epithet favored among junior prosecutors.
“She was paging around last night, and I was stupid enough to answer my beeper.”
“I sleep with mine under my freakin’ pillow, and I don’t get assignments this good.”
“What’s the big deal, Brad? This is just a low-quantity heroin-distribution case. Hardly the Cali cartel.”
“Are you kidding, with these victims? I’d kill for a shot at this kind of media coverage.”
She’d forgotten what a press hound Brad was. Melanie firmly believed that a good prosecutor did not seek press attention. The only appropriate moment to be quoted in the paper was after a big conviction, even then limiting your commentary to, “Justice was served.” Anything more was grandstanding. The job was about the cases, not the prosecutors.
“I have to get my paperwork stamped,” she said, pushing back her chair, relieved for the excuse to stop talking to him. Brad was a decent guy, but his relentless ambition gave her a headache.
Melanie approached the well of the judge’s bench, where a tall, flashily dressed guy in his late twenties with slicked dark hair sat behind a desk talking quietly on the telephone. He held up an index finger to let her know he wouldn’t be long. Within a minute he hung up and shot her a big smile.
“Hola, mami. ¿Cómo estás? Whaddaya got for me?” asked Gabriel Colón, Judge Warner’s young deputy clerk.
Known among the prosecutors as “Gaby Baby” or “Gabriel Cologne,” in honor of his fragrant hair product, Gabriel was the courthouse’s resident Casanova. He’d hit on Melanie for a while after learning of her separation, but she’d turned him down politely. Charming and good-looking as he was, and despite their similar backgrounds, Gabriel didn’t do a thing for her. Maybe she’d actually learned something from her failed marriage to Steve, because players turned her off now, por supuesto. Luckily, Gabriel had taken no for an answer and backed off graciously. And it was lucky, because Judge Warner’s deputy wielded real power and could’ve made her life miserable if he’d chosen to.
“Okay, Gabe, I’ve got search warrants for computers, a camera phone, and a locker at JFK airport, all based on the same affidavit,” Melanie said, lining up multiple documents for him to stamp. “And one new arrest. Trevor Leonard. I spoke to his dad, who’s on his way and asks that we go ahead and assign counsel. It’s a return on an outstanding wire-fraud warrant, with a new ecstasy-distribution charge added, and I’m prepared to agree to bail under the right circumstances.”
“Related to the Holbrooke junkies case?” Gabriel asked, rotating the digits on his stamper to a new docket number and beginning to mark her papers.
“You know about that, too?”
“It’s all over the courthouse that you caught that one, mami. And some curious eyes been watching you since you walked in. Normally I’d think it’s just your pretty legs they’re interested in, but I’ve had some inquiries.”