Bad Bitch (12 page)

I kicked my heels off and paced along the wide expanse of my sitting area, letting my toes sink into the expensive rug that came from some Middle Eastern oasis.

What did he want?

DiSalvo and I had concluded all business a few years ago. His relocation to Cuba had been final, or so I’d thought.

I pivoted and walked, pivoted and walked. My mind was racing through numerous possibilities. Old business or new business? Maybe he was just calling to check on me? Had I done something? I racked my brain, trying to remember any detail or move I’d made that could have impacted him in any way. There was none. We’d cut all ties.

I continued my march for a while until I threw my hands up in the air and said, “Fuck it.”

I was going to have to call him. There was no escaping it. Better to do it sooner rather than later. Even over the space of an hour, the dread had built up inside me until my chest felt constricted. Fear. My familiar friend I’d tried to leave behind in my small apartment with the linoleum floor and the dozen locks on the door. He’d found me again.

I took a few deep, even breaths before picking up the phone and dialing DiSalvo’s number. I hoped he wouldn’t answer. One ring, two rings—yes, yes, yes—three rings—

He answered, his voice steeped in irritation. “Evangeline.”

“The fuck, Vin!” I yelled. I didn’t care if the entire lower half of the island heard me.

“I’ve been working nonstop for a full week, Evan!” he yelled back. “I can’t catch everything!”

“You can’t catch the names of our biggest fucking clients on a list of victims?” I hissed.

He rose from his desk and kicked his trash can. It flew out the door, barely missing me.

“It’s not
their
names, Evan. It’s some of their last names, and some of them don’t have matching names at all! No one would have caught it. Well, maybe
you
.
But you had that idiot Drew and me—”

“Hey!” Drew yelled from next door.

“Shut the fuck up, Drew!” Vinnie and I yelled in near-perfect unison.

I lowered my voice. “I expect more from you, Vin. This is a big fucking deal. My ass could have been on the line, may
still
be on the line. And I had to learn about it all from DiSalvo? Jesus Christ.”

“I know. I would have caught it. It would have taken me a little more time, that’s all. I got nothing else to tell you, boss. I really don’t.”

“This is so bad. So very, very bad.” I leaned against the doorframe, overcome by the situation.

Vinnie scrubbed a hand down his face and exhaled a deep breath before saying in an even tone, “If you’re going to fire me, go ahead and do it. I haven’t seen Carla in two days. She’s made me sleep on the couch. Our baby is due in five months, and my marriage is on the fucking rocks. So just fire me already.” He sank back into his chair and cradled his head in his hands.

His despair gave me pause. I would never fire Vinnie. Even if he set the place on fire and refused to piss on it to put it out. I was surprised he thought me firing him was even an option. It wasn’t. Loyalty like his didn’t come around every day. I dragged the fear juggernaut back to its confines and locked it up, if only for a moment. I sat down in the chair in front of Vinnie’s desk.

“Go home, Vin.”

He sagged even more.

“No, I’m not firing you. You’re right. I’ve been working you too hard. Maybe you would have found it sooner if I’d actually given you a minute to breathe. And I’m not blameless in this. I’ve been . . . preoccupied.”

Every other sound in the office stopped. Our audience was clearly taken aback.

“The rest of you get to work!” I yelled. “I want to see your fingers fucking bleed from all the work you’re doing. You’d be lucky to be half the associate Vinnie is!”

The sounds resumed, though muffled.

“Go home, see your super-fat, uh, I mean
pregnant
wife.” He raised his head and smiled weakly at that. I was making progress. “I have the profit-and-loss spreadsheet. I’ll have Drew go through and cross-check with our client database for any familiar names—”

“I’ve been working hard, too!” Drew cried through the wall.

“Shut the fuck up, Drew!” I called again. “Anyway, she will do the check, and we will go from there. All in all, it’s not as bad is it could be. At least I don’t think it is.”

“Are you sure it’s just a coincidence?”

“Oh, I never said that. I don’t think it is. Castille took advantage of the parents, grandparents, and spouses of some of the most powerful mob bosses and white-collar criminals in New York and New Orleans. This isn’t over just because we know that now. I mean, it explains a lot—how the Ponzi got so big and why it was charged here—but our clients are not a fan of loose ends.”

DiSalvo’s words circled my mind like carrion birds over a corpse.
You take on a client who’s fucked over the parents and grandparents of half the mob?

“Fuck.” I drew out the word on an exhale. It was the only response to any of it, to the whole situation.

Vinnie rubbed his eyes with a vengeance, as if the action would erase the bad news from his sight. “What if they think we have something to do with it?”

I’d been worrying over that ever since DiSalvo explained the particulars of Castille’s sins. DiSalvo had heard through the grapevine—the retired-criminal grapevine?—that Castille had run a game on the wrong people, namely, the relatives of mob royalty. One of Castille’s “investors” happened to be one of DiSalvo’s elderly sisters, whom he had funded for her entire life. When DiSalvo found out I was repping the guy who bilked her, he, quite naturally, blew a gasket. Not out of loyalty to “senile fucking Clara,” of course, but out of self-preservation. Anything that connected a federal investigation to him was bad news.

I could only hope his call had been more about damage control than anything else. I didn’t think he would hurt me, not after all I’d done for him.

“I’ll handle that if it happens. DiSalvo seemed convinced when I explained that we were in the dark.”

“But what about your other clients? Will they be as understanding?”

I shrugged. “We just have to move ahead with this case. I don’t know of any other way to do it.”

“We could try to drop Castille as a client,” Vinnie said.

“We could, but that’s no easy thing. Dropping Castille now would send him running to another attorney in town, one who might not be as discreet with Castille’s client list. That would blow up in our faces. Letting him out of our grip now would be a mistake. Besides, if we tried to quit, the Court will want an explanation. And we’d have to refund his retainer and eat the bill on all the time you’ve put into it. Not to mention, the fees from the federal case alone will put your little brat through college and then some. You want to lose all that?”

Vinnie groaned. “No.”

“All right. I’m glad we’re in agreement. Drew!” I yelled. “I expect that fucking client cross-check report on my desk by the end of the day. If it isn’t, go ahead and cancel your nonexistent weekend plans!”

I heard something bang against the wall. A stapler, maybe?

Vinnie dropped his voice. “I hope you know what you’re doing, boss.”

I matched his volume. “You and me both, Vin. Shit. We need to win this case sooner rather than later.”

I picked up a pen from his desk, pallida & associates emblazoned across the side in gold letters, and chewed on the end. We both grew silent. I was thinking. He propped his head on his hand and closed his eyes. He could have dozed off for all I knew. I just kept mulling over the problem, trying to get the win and save our skins.

“Maybe we can try to disqualify this Lincoln guy again?” Eyes still closed, Vinnie threw the shitty idea out on the field. A swing and a miss.

“Nope. Try again.” A parade of motions ran through my mind, all different sorts meant to create a quagmire for my enemies. Problem was, I didn’t need to slow this case down. I needed to speed it up. To end it. But not with a plea deal or a conviction, with a win. The only way I knew to get that was to prostrate myself before the goddess of reasonable doubt.

I bent over, head between my knees. This was Sherman all over again, though the threat of death wasn’t quite as front and center. It lurked around the edges, veiled and in the dark.

“It’s this guy Lincoln, right? He’s the problem. He’s got a justice boner for Castille, right? How do we make him take a cold shower? Demoralize him and then take him to the fucking mat?”

I stopped midchew, an idea coming into my mind, as devious as it was clever. It was wrong. Fuck wrong. It was immoral, as if I had any license to use that word anymore. If I did it, I could never take it back. It would plop down on top of my pile of sins like a sickly-sweet cherry.

I remembered the tenor of DiSalvo’s voice over the phone, wizened from age but still sinister. He’d told me I was a cunt for taking Castille’s case, that I should have thought more instead of chasing the dollars like a stripper at a pole. He’d grown more unpleasant as he’d aged, no longer even trying to maintain the friendly grampa demeanor. Now he’d let the image drop entirely, spewing his venom freely and without remorse. He was cold. More than that, he was worried. The link between his sister, himself, and his son, whom DiSalvo had left in charge of his empire, was getting more traceable by the moment. Even the nastiest creature would fight to protect its children. DiSalvo was as nasty as they came.

I turned my idea over in my mind, pretending it was a coin. On one side, the metal was shiny, new—I could do the right thing and let the case play out fairly. The other side was dirty and scratched, the image clear but ruined. Fear told me which side to choose. Ever since Sherman, I had been ruled by that one emotion, doing anything within my power to never feel it again.

I sat up straight, willing conviction into myself. “I have a plan.”

Lincoln

I waited for Jonesy. I sat in his dark interior office. The room was cramped. The desk was too large for the space, so that only Jonesy’s desk chair and one other chair fit inside.

The walls were covered with mementos from cases, commendations from the attorney general, and even a presidential letter. Jonesy had only been prosecuting for a few years and he was already moving up the chain, doing the right things. It was too bad I was going to have to hurt him.

The hall lights flickered on, and legal assistants and paralegals began their day. Other attorneys strolled by and didn’t even peer inside. The light was off, so no one was home.

I let that familiar anger roil under the surface, but I controlled it. It didn’t control me anymore. I still let it escape sometimes, like steam rushing from a valve, hot enough to burn if you’re not careful. Jonesy hadn’t been careful.

I heard him coming down the hall, throwing out greetings like candy at a Christmas parade. He was up, feeling good. No Monday doldrums for him. He must have been feeling pretty fucking great about trying to sink my case and my chances with Evan at the same time. I wanted to crack my knuckles. Instead, I stood and leaned against the wall in the darkness, waiting.

Sure enough, he strolled in and hit the light switch. I grabbed his wrist, wrenched it up, and aimed a vicious jab at his ribs. He didn’t have time to cry out. He only made a whooshing noise as the air left his lungs. I swung the door shut behind him.

“Fuck . . . you . . . doing?”

I put my forearm to his neck and pinned him to the wall. Jonesy was a large man, but anyone can go rag-doll when you cut off their air supply. He struggled and landed a few blows to my ribs, the side of my head. I let him. His flailing slowed as less and less air made it past his windpipe. I wanted to hurt him, to
really
hurt him. But anything I had in mind was too much. The rage didn’t control me anymore. If it had, Jonesy would have already been a bloodied pulp on the floor.

“I warned you to stay away from her.” I said it calmly, methodically. The only violence was in my movements.

“Fuck you.”

“You don’t seem to understand she doesn’t want you.” I flexed my forearm for emphasis, cutting off more of his precious air. “It doesn’t matter what you tell her, she’s going to come back to me every time.”

“You don’t . . . deserve her.” He was struggling to maintain consciousness.

“I know.” Jonesy was right about one thing, at least.

There was a sharp rap at the door, and Wood’s voice boomed through the wood. “What’s going on in there?”

I released Jonesy, who doubled over and gulped in deep breaths of air.

“I’m not after her. I don’t know if you really believed that shit story you gave her or not. But I’m telling you right now. Whatever you think you know about my investigation is wrong. Six months, hell, one month ago? You would have been dead-on. But now, you’re wrong. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt her.”

Another knock at the door.

Jonesy righted himself. “It’s all right, Wood.”

“You sure?” Wood was unconvinced.

“I’m sure.”

“I know Lincoln’s in there. I swear to God if either of you idiots have destroyed any government property during your little lovers’ quarrel, I’m going to take it out of your hides!”

Wood retreated. Jonesy and I stood and eyed each other. He wasn’t afraid. He should have been, but he wasn’t. I respected it.

“I’m not convinced you aren’t out to get her.” He tried to straighten his now-rumpled tie.

“I don’t give a shit.”

“I won’t let you take her down. I know she’s done some dirt in the past—hell, she’s probably even doing some now. But it’s never been enough to get her so much as brought before the bar disciplinary committee for a wrist slap. You’ve got nothing on her.”

I sat back down, the chair still warm from where I’d been waiting all morning. I motioned for him to take his seat, a momentary truce.

“Let me paint the picture for you so you won’t jump to any more incorrect conclusions and get me in hot water with Evan.”

He bristled, but he did take his seat. He was giving me a chance, so I would return the favor.

“When I started this investigation, I quickly realized Castille wasn’t your average Ponzi-scheming asshole. He was smart. He cast a wide net, but he also went for quality. He would fuck over a grandma living on Social Security with $20,000 in savings to show for her entire life and he would also fuck over the grampa with $10 million sitting in various investments and bank accounts. He was a real democratic sort of guy.

“Now, you know I want to nail him for all of the victims—the wrinkled princes and the paupers. But the princes caught my attention. I did some more digging and discovered they were the parents, uncles, aunts, and even ex-wives of some of the biggest players in the underworld of New Orleans, New York, and Chicago. One in particular would be a legendary get.”

“DiSalvo,” Jonesy said.

“Right. The rest are pretty big, too. And they are dirty. Their money is dirty. Even though it was passed through and laundered into the accounts of their nearest and dearest, it is still the same cash that they collected through their illegal enterprises. You have all that right. What you got wrong is that I’m going after Evan for it. She would have been collateral damage.”

“So you’ve been working this bigger investigation, but all of a sudden you’re changing course? Why?”

“I met her.” Simple, but true. Evan had changed the game. And wasn’t this the goddamn rub? “Once I met her, I realized I couldn’t allow that damage to happen. So all the leads and paths and schemes that led to her, all the wrongdoing that could be proven by a raid on her files—gone. I’ll have to prove it up some other way, a way that doesn’t involve Pallida & Associates.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You have a chance to blow the lid off one of the hugest RICO and money-laundering schemes in federal history and you are passing it up? I don’t buy it.”

“Not passing it up, no. But I’m not going to drag her into it. This case will give me convictions of the biggest organized crime bosses this side of Eliot Ness. I will make my name and career on this case. Straight to the top. But it won’t be at her expense.” I looked around at his commendations. Jonesy had been beating the path of his own ascension for quite some time.

Jonesy pinched the bridge of his nose and leaned back in his chair. It squeaked under his weight. “You’re telling me that you are going to get a conviction on Castille—if you even can—and then let Evan go?”

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you.” I nodded.

He was finally figuring out what I’d known since I’d first seen Evan sitting in the bar and working her magic on Jonesy. She was once-in-a-lifetime lightning in a bottle. I couldn’t pass her up, no matter how much it would have pleased me to use her as a shortcut to bring down DiSalvo, or maybe a syndicate. Hell, I would have kicked up my heels with even one straightforward conviction. But that was before I met her. I would make do with Castille for now. Lighting up that prick would go a long way to assuage my ego.

I shrugged. “The bigger case wouldn’t have been that much of a cakewalk with her files anyway. I have to trace the money, every last cent, back to its origination point, link it with the original crime, and then hope double jeopardy or the statute of limitations didn’t kick the case out of court before it even got started.”

“Those are just excuses.” Jonesy dropped his gaze back to me.

I felt like this was the first real conversation I’d had with the guy since I’d been here. He really wasn’t so bad. He’d be a lot better if he got a hard-on for someone other than Evan.

“They are,” I agreed, “but I already told you the main reason.”

“Have you considered that Evan’s clients are going to get wind of what you originally had cooking and blame her? Especially since you two have been . . .” He shook his head, as if trying to erase an image from his mind. “They are the sort who shoot first and ask questions later.”

It was a definite worry of mine. Evan could take care of herself, but if some of her more vicious clients thought for a second she was a threat to them, things would get ugly fast.

“That’s why I’ve dropped the deeper part of my investigation entirely for the time being. I can’t undo what I did before. I have no doubt that I got some buzz going in the criminal community in the months I spent tracing them to Evan’s door, but she hasn’t mentioned anything—”

Jonesy snorted. “That woman wouldn’t tell you shit. Even if one of her clients was standing in her office with a bloody knife and threatening to gut her. She wouldn’t call for help. She would talk the client into paying her an even bigger retainer, and he would leave feeling like he’d won something. You’d be none the wiser.”

I laughed. Jonesy was likely right. All the same, I’d tried to keep a close eye on her when I could. She wasn’t hard to trace—ten- to twelve-hour days at her office, takeout from one of the restaurants between the office and her condo, and the rest of her night alone in her home.

She was solitary, but intentionally so. I’d seen her turn down plenty of offers during the short time I’d been tailing her. I enjoyed watching various men trying to chat her up and the way she shut them down. I couldn’t hear her choice words from the distance between us, but I could tell she didn’t hold back by the way the men scurried away like scalded dogs. If Jonesy was to be believed, this was a solid change in her MO on the casual sex front. I hoped I was the reason.

“But you still intend to take Castille down?” Jonesy interrupted my thoughts. “And then the whole shooting match in time?”

“Sure do.” I stood.

“She’s not going to like that.”

“She doesn’t have to.” I knew I had a tiger by the tail when I first learned Castille had lawyered up with her.

I took two steps to his door.

He sighed, the wind completely gone from his sails. “You know, she isn’t what she puts out there. I mean, she is the bad bitch, that’s true. But she’s a lot more than that. I’ve seen her, the
real
her, every so often. At Docket Call after she’s had a few too many or when she interacts with certain people. She isn’t what she seems. Most people take her at face value, so they don’t realize the shit she says and does isn’t a weapon, it’s a shield to keep people away.”

I’d seen the real her. The one who nursed a deep ache for her lost family. The one who was so steeped in loneliness that she thought it made her somehow stronger, as if connecting with another person would be a sign of weakness. And I’d let her see me. Not the bastion of law and order that I portrayed myself as, but a deeply flawed person who’d tried to change his ways. My forearm against Jonesy’s windpipe only minutes ago reminded me I was still trying.

“By the way, did you tell her what I said about her the other night, when we were outside the bar, and you kneed me in the goddamn face?” Jonesy’s voice had risen a little.

I turned back to look at him, and his color was up, or maybe he just looked red from the lack of oxygen.

“No.”

“Shit!” He slammed his fist down on the desk.

“Why?”

“Oh, just get the fuck out of here.” He didn’t say it with menace, rather genuine irritation.

I obliged. Jonesy’s secretary paid close attention to her computer screen as I walked by, careful not to catch my eye. I didn’t blame her.

I went to my cramped cubby of a makeshift workspace. I spent the rest of the day ignoring glares from Wood and drafting some preliminary motions. I hoped to get the Castille case moving with some procedural fireworks. I wanted to keep the heat on that bastard, and once I had my conviction, I could focus more of my efforts on the larger investigation and, more importantly, on Evan. She wasn’t going to be easily won, but I was more than ready to try.

Maybe I could talk her into a New Orleans trip. Kennedy would love her; I was certain of that. Wash would be a hard sell because of our history, but it was worth a try.

Late in the afternoon, I got a notification e-mail from the court. Evan had filed something in the case. I pulled it up on my laptop, accessing the online filing system to get a look at whatever procedural bugaboo she’d dreamed up. I knew it would be good. Underestimating her wasn’t an option.

I double-clicked the file. It was a
pro
hac
motion—one meant to qualify an out-of-state attorney to serve as co-counsel on a case. She didn’t list who the attorney was but requested a hearing for the next afternoon. My phone buzzed again; it was the clerk of the court, granting the hearing and setting it for 1 p.m. What was she up to? In my review of her case files, I’d never seen her take on co-counsel from outside of her own firm, much less out of state. I marked it on my calendar and put it aside. I wouldn’t know the details until the hearing, so there was no point spinning my wheels over it.

I spent the rest of the day working with one of my expert witnesses on the timing of money transfers in and out of Castille’s accounts, and how those correlated to the accounts of his victims. I needed a precise statement of every transfer, every dime that was taken. Any misstep in the math or the chain of causation could send a jury in the wrong direction. I had to keep reasonable doubt from sneaking in through a carelessly unlocked door or seeping through a crevice in my evidence. I could only win with an airtight case, but I would see to it.

The day grew late. It was almost time for Evan to leave work, if she hadn’t already. I watched over her every night, keeping tabs to keep her safe. I left the courthouse a little after eight. A light mist floated through the city and made halos around the streetlights. I didn’t have an umbrella and made do with my light jacket and my briefcase over my head. I found some shelter in a doorway on the street Evan frequented for her nightly takeout. It was only a few minutes before I saw her jump from a cab and dart into Taj. Indian night for her, it seemed.

After she’d safely nabbed her dinner and retired to her penthouse, I rode the subway up to my shabby apartment.

On the train, even though I was worn out, I spared a few fatigued neurons to wonder who she could possibly be trying to add to the case, but came up empty each time. I was too tired to really dig deep.