Justice Hunter (35 page)
For a while there, it almost seemed that Mancini would prevail, putting up an exceptional front for the city while neutralizing any outlandish theories that he was in bed with the very defendant he had been lambasting for the past hour or so. Even Vito Armani’s staunchest supporters couldn’t escape the almost hypnotic cadence of Mancini’s voice, every syllable delivered like gospel. It was either the con job of the century, starring Mancini and his alleged co-conspirator Armani, or Mancini had been baiting Dillon, him, and everyone else the whole time. And as each calculated second of character assassination and conjecture about Armani’s ties to organized crime passed, it was the second theory pulling ahead from the pack. As the hypotheses inside Hunter’s mind continued to ignite like the sparks of a car battery upon the connections touching the wrong plug, he recognized someone in the audience he never imagined he would see again—in this lifetime at least.
T
he toothless desk clerk at the dingy motel in Atlantic City, the one whom Mancini had greased to get to Vito Armani’s son, sat in the back of the courtroom, discreetly taking it all in. Hunter didn’t know what prompted him to look over his shoulder and hone in on the guy, now looking almost dapper amazingly, only to pick him out of the crowd. It was astounding what a shower, suit, and decent set of dentures could do. Hunter’s first reaction was to chalk it up to coincidence, the way the beneficiary of a well-orchestrated surprise party would, initially denying the possibility that the presence of one friend, and then another, and another, and so on, was intentional.
Where there’s one
, thought Hunter as he quickly scanned the unobstructed line of sight for other recognizable faces.
But it was a commotion at the door to the courtroom that prompted mostly everybody in the room to turn their collective heads in curiosity, Hunter included. Sporting black from head to toe, in one of his fashion-forward numbers, looking more like the Grim Reaper than a Las Vegas magician today, stood Detective Risotto, surrounded by a slew of other detectives and a dozen or so of Philadelphia’s finest. Hunter was sure they were coming for him. New evidence. A break in the case. He was a goner for sure. Hunter stopped breathing the instant he saw him, and Dillon nudged Hunter in the ribs just for emphasis. As if it were even necessary. Mancini didn’t miss a beat, though. He kept hammering away even as the defendant, the other lawyers, and the panel itself stopped concentrating, their mouths agape as they stared, hypnotized by the drama overpowering the room.
Hunter stared in wonderment as Risotto, accompanied by two cops, splintered off and coolly walked toward the front of the courtroom. The throngs of spectators seamlessly parted, making an aisle for them as they passed. It wasn’t until they were within a few feet of Mancini that he stopped his presentation and turned to acknowledge the magician and his backup.
His authoritative voice still audible through the tableside microphones making a record, Mancini smiled calmly. His hardened expression said, “You’re making a big fucking mistake, my friend,” which didn’t even give Risotto pause.
“Detective Risotto,” he acknowledged. “This better be a matter of life or death, because as you can see, I was in the process of reforming Mr. Armani over there,” he added, gesturing toward a visibly distraught Armani. “Ethnic intolerance was just a few more questions away.”
“Albert Mancini,” he replied, matter-of-factly, all business. “You’re under arrest.”
“This is some sort of a practical joke, right?” he asked arrogantly.
“I can assure you that this is far from a joke, sir.”
Even from a distance, Hunter could see the color drain from Mancini’s bronzed complexion in a fleeting instant, his face going pale as the gravity of the situation set in. The fear was palpable.
“Officer Brooks, cuff him and read Mr. Mancini his rights.”
Mancini was dead in the water, and he knew it. But even as the cop reached out, letting the perp meet him halfway, Mancini resisted. A scuffle nearly ensued as he flailed his wrists in frustration; that is, until he was overpowered and forcibly cuffed. “You’re making a big fucking mistake,” he snapped. Loud boos and laughter put the icing on the humiliation cake.
“I sure hope not,” Risotto said confidently, already on his way to his next target like a heat-seeking missile. He breached the defendant’s area without a thought and beelined for the next logical candidate—Vito Armani. And for a fleeting instant, his legal team seemed to be putting up a united front. It was transparent, though, just lawyerly posturing for the benefit of the audience. Smoke and mirrors. The pathetic truth was that before Risotto even needed to utter a syllable, they had already caved, exemplifying everything that was wrong with the American legal system.
Armani nodded slightly, knowing that the skeletons in his closet had finally been discovered. It was over, and his eyes betrayed the guilt that emerged and beamed as if somehow he was relieved at the same time. He raised his white flag and signaled that, unlike Mancini, he would go willingly. Perhaps it was a sign of things to come. Hunter interpreted the body language as Armani’s subtle way of letting Risotto know he was willing to flip, cut a deal, even if it meant giving up Mancini and the others.
“Vito Armani.” A pause. “You’re under arrest for racketeering and extortion.”
“You just can’t waltz in heeya like this,” chimed in one of his lawyers in a southern accent.
Too little, too late.
Risotto coolly shot down her lame afterthought, above even dignifying it with a verbal response.
“Mirandize him,” he instructed the other cop before he turned away and retreated. His business was done. Mission accomplished. Moving efficiently, now he was off to put the finishing touches in place, the few remaining pieces required to make the bust of his career, to take them down, along with God knows how many others who were involved. Hunter could only speculate about the evidence and the precise allegations. But one thing was a virtual certainty, even amid whatever scandalous accusations would emerge in a matter of hours. In fact, he’d bet his life on it, which, in the blink of eye, just managed to become a whole helluva lot more valuable. Somewhere along the line, greed was the motivating factor, compelling the guilty to abandon any sense of ethics or desire to abide by anything that was right and just in the world. Everyone in the room, including all who applauded the arrests, had done it at various times and to varying degrees, Hunter included. They all knew that avarice was the root of all evil and had been throughout time in memoriam. There was nothing more seductive than wanting more, at any cost, even if one could somehow justify the experience with feelings of entitlement or infallibility.
O
nce the dust settled, Whitman Packer was two associates, one chairman, and two vital clients leaner. It turned out that Melissa Zane’s tenacity had finally paid off. The Mediacast case was dismissed, and Hunter’s dirty little secret about the sanctions order finally came to light. Dillon, the one who got the partnership nod, never did take care of it. Andy had committed career suicide when he enlisted the help of Chris Gates to blackmail Mancini.
Between the two of them, they’d accumulated enough evidence of Mancini’s former mob ties to put him away for a very long time. Instead, they figured they’d call it even if Mancini guaranteed that Hunter was steered from harm’s way. After all, despite Mancini’s fear that the feds were onto his prior mafia affiliations, what prompted him to go after his pal Armani in the first place, they had bigger fish to fry. It was the judicial corruption probe that ultimately proved his downfall. And that was more than enough for them to ensure he’d be vacationing in Club Fed for a very long time. Mancini was immediately remanded into federal custody, along with every other lawyer and judge who had participated in what the media described as “unquestionably the city’s most intricate and insidious judicial corruption scheme—one for the record books.” Every practicing lawyer seemed to know someone who was at least tangentially connected to the investigation. Invariably it would take years for the scars to heal and for the public to regain its trust in a system that was already on shaky ground.
As for Sheila Primeau, her black magic proved no match for the illusions of Detective Risotto. After essentially faking her own abduction or death, depending upon the immorality staining one’s mind, she re-emerged very much alive and well. Staging her disappearance was her only choice. She realized very early on that her testimony would be vital to building a case against Mancini—which, of course, meant there would be an exceedingly large target on her back until Mancini either disposed of the critical evidence before he was taken down or was captured with it still pretty much intact. In Sheila’s estimation, the fact that Judge Russo had been the victim of such a brazen murder, right there in his chambers of all places, was an indication of just how serious Mancini and his co-conspirators were. They would stop at nothing to derail the investigation.
Despite her conspicuous absence, she still managed to play a pivotal role in the corruption probe. Up until the very end, she’d been collaborating with Detective Risotto, pretty much feeding him detail upon detail, any piece of evidence required to validate the truth of the findings by Detective Risotto and Dillon’s private dick. The corruption, payola, participation by judges—all of it was fair game, and Sheila was more than happy to oblige. Vindication never felt so good, especially after learning it was Mancini’s idea to initiate an ethics review into her relationship with Hunter, an inquiry that was eclipsed by the larger scandal and hopefully wouldn’t resurface any time soon.
Hunter confessed to his escapade with Stephanie Diaz, which didn’t really come as much of a surprise to Sheila. Their relationship had still been in its infancy, and she admitted to not expecting absolute fidelity, especially after her blunder about not ’fessing up about her former relationship with Mancini. So although she forgave him for betraying her trust, they both agreed a break was in short order. The upside, he supposed, of his thing with Judge Primeau, what turned out to in hindsight to be yet another in a long line of flings, was that the whole sex and ethics probe proved boring by comparison with the rape and plunder of the city’s justice system. Losing parties in a variety of former Whitman cases were screaming bloody murder, looking for multimillion-dollar verdicts to be overturned. Even the mayor was getting in on the action, his office the subject of an investigation into potential cover-ups and kickbacks.
Mancini’s links to Vito Armani and the mob were still a bit nebulous. Needless to say, even if Mancini knew something, he was too scared to rat anybody out. Dillon’s theories, like pretty much everything else he spewed, ultimately proved unreliable. And as for Mancini’s…Well, they were self-serving to say the very least. Despite Andy’s promise to Mancini that he’d keep everything under wraps so long as he bailed out Hunter, it turned out to be too late for that kind of a deal anyway. Detective Risotto already had gotten enough on his own to at least make a colorable argument that the Risotto and Armani were colluding, just to throw the feds off their trail. In the end, Sal Armani went free and gave the feds just enough about Mancini to cut his own deal. The allegations against Armani, just as Risotto suspected all along, were threadbare at best. There was not nearly enough to tie him to organized crime.
To Hunter’s surprise, Russo’s murder was never solved. There wasn’t enough there for an indictment, and that included Mancini. Yet it was probably the best thing that could’ve happened to the deposed leader. Russo assuredly would’ve been the fed’s key witness. Rumor had it that once upon a time, Russo’s conscience was no match for his zeal for power and fortune. He progressively became so entrenched in the corruption that there was virtually no way out. Apparently last year, though, a cancer scare led him on a quest to rediscover judicial autonomy and the sanctity of the bench—the things that had prompted him to run for judge in the first place, decades ago. He would’ve done anything to rediscover his dignity, to be remembered as a protector of the law rather than a defiler. His cravings posed a serious threat to the criminal enterprise, though, a near-impenetrable fortress constructed from years of illegal activity. He had become a liability, and not killing him simply wasn’t an option. Perhaps one day there would be enough evidence to put together that missing piece of the puzzle.
Mentally and physically exhausted, Hunter took off for Chicago, leaving behind his Philadelphia existence virtually in shambles. His mom and sister needed him, and he craved the nostalgia he associated with his hometown, as difficult as it was to tolerate the void left by his father’s passing. If and when he ever came back to the City of Brotherly Love, he would rebuild and try to put some of the pieces back together, find some sense of order in the wake of devastation left behind by big firm life and his own quest for partnership. But for the immediate future at least, he had no intention of letting the banality of life, masquerading as stuff of substance, maintain its stronghold over him.
A
fter six months of soul searching and recovering from big firm associate existence, with a life-threatening case sprinkled in just for good measure, Hunter returned to the place that had become his real home—Philadelphia. The life he had left behind there was far from glamorous, but it was a life nonetheless. And it was his. He missed Andy the most and knew he owed his friend, the one who sacrificed his own partnership aspirations just to liberate Hunter, a huge debt of gratitude. Gates also fell into that category, which meant he’d actually have to get Gates laid once and for all, if not to clear his conscience more than anything else.
He’d stopped by his old stomping ground to pick up a few of the personal things he left behind amid the torrent of controversy. He wanted to catch up with Andy a bit, Debbie, Gates, and a handful of other people he’d always consider friends and part of his extended family. The interim chairman, Clarence Hall, found out that Hunter was in the building and refused to let him leave until he paid a quick visit. Hunter was elated for Hall, someone he would’ve never expected to helm Whitman during such a tumultuous time. In a way, though, the choice was sensible. Hall’s paternal instincts and focus on excellence in the practice of law, rather than an affinity for in-your-face rainmaking and the associated accoutrements of success, would be a breath of fresh air for a firm that frankly had been on something of life support of late. Mediacast and the city, along with the millions of fees they generated, were long gone, along with a handful of other capricious clients, undoubtedly trying to steer clear of any residual fallout. It was shaping up to be the scandal to get the media and the public through the end of the year, at a minimum. Only a grand-scale terror attack had the potential to displace it from its stronghold at the number one spot.
For Hall, who seemed to pay the tabloid fodder little mind, Hunter was still the same talented and well-respected associate he remembered. He had his job back anytime he wanted it, and “if he kept his nose to the grindstone,” he could make up for a bit of lost time. He was a “shoo-in for non-equity partner.”
An urgent knock at the door to Andy’s office jarred him momentarily.
This has to be a hoax of one kind or another,
thought Hunter. Hunter was alternating between mindless Internet searches and dizzying associate ads on a couple of the random job sites while Andy left to put out a fire.
“Hunter! Hunter!” It was Andy, putting on a fantastic act. Clearly he was back to his old self.
Very
old self.
Before he could even respond, though, the door flung open, revealing a disheveled and discombobulated Andy.
“What’s going on?” said Hunter, still kind of playing along.
“This isn’t a joke, dude!” He carefully locked the door before looking over at Hunter. Andy’s eyes were fixed in a horrified stare, as if he’d just witnessed a murder.
“Calm down, Andy. It’s going to be all right.” A compassionate pause. “Take it easy.”
“I can’t believe this, man. I just can’t.” Now he was blinking and shaking his head catatonically.
“What’s this about? Your family okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah. They’re fine.”
“Then what—”
He interrupted. “It’s Dillon.”
“What about Dillon?”
“He was involved.”
“What do you mean he was
involved
?”
“Just what I said.” He paused to catch his breath. “I saw something I wasn’t supposed to see over at his condo last night.”
“What? Spit it out already.”
“I had to check my e-mail. A work attachment came through. I needed to view a bigger file, so I was at his desk. He didn’t even know. And a few handwritten notes caught my eye. I can’t explain why. I’m usually not in the habit…”
“I know,” he prodded. “Go on.”
“There was a chronology of your last week here. Exact times. Locations. People.”
“So? Dillon was helping me to put it together. I don’t understand. To nail Mancini.”
A deliberate knock on the door got their attention. “Guys. Are you in there?” The faintest trace of guilt mixed with lunacy was detectable in Dillon’s otherwise carefree tone.
“One minute,” replied Hunter, staying calm just to buy a few more seconds.
“There were other dates, too. His own reminders about things to do, calls to make. There was stuff about the subway attack on me. Nicknames of the people who jumped me. Prices next to their names. The car hit on Stephanie. It was all planned out. Premeditated.”
The severity of the accusations hit Hunter like a ton of bricks. His mind went on overdrive, reviewing memories of Dillon’s interactions, statements he made, behavior that seemed slightly off in the moment. The images flashed in rapid succession, almost too quickly to follow.
“Anything about Judge Russo?”
Andy nodded, as if he was afraid Dillon had some kind of spy-like listening device on the door. “Crazy shit about Russo. His hours, habits, staff, potential enemies. Best times to strike.”
“Holy shit!” said Hunter under his breath. “It was a setup. The whole thing. Start to finish.”
“The only thing that makes sense is—”
“That Dillon wanted to guarantee himself the only partnership spot,” said Hunter, finishing Andy’s sentence. “My God.”
“Guys. Open the door!” The banging was more intrusive, almost frenetic now.
Solemnly, Andy asked, “What are we going to do?”
Hunter could only shake his head in disbelief as he considered the depths of Dillon’s depravity, his psychopathic behavior.
How did he bump off Judge Russo? What will he do now that he realizes Andy and I are on to him?
“Give me a minute, goddamnit!” shouted Hunter, mostly in anger and trying to settle Dillon down.
“What are you guys doing in there? Jesus Christ.”
“Do you think you can get a hold of this evidence?”
“Already did,” Andy said. “Took a picture with my phone.”
“Right.” Hunter paused to process. “Then let’s meet at my place in about an hour.”
They nodded in agreement and put on their game faces.
Hunter whipped open the door.
“Some greeting,” said Hunter, remaining as composed as possible and doing a quick once-over for knives or weapons.
Who the fuck knows what this nut job is capable of?
“Who locks their door?”
Dillon was grinning now.
A pretty good sign
, thought Hunter. Hunter threw his arm around his neck and forced him into a huddle. “Porn,” he whispered. “You know how many spies there are around here.”
“You dirty dogs. So Hunter, that’s what you’ve been doing with all your free time.”
“My new career calling.”
“In-house legal counsel with a sex outfit?”
“Yup.”
“It seems like you’re doing better than me, then.”
“I doubt it.”
“Well, just don’t corrupt my finest associate here too much.”
The three shared an artificial laugh as each of them contemplated his next move, using it to quell the others’ suspicions and buy time.
“Hall told me you were here. I came right down.” He extended a hand with Hunter’s missing city hall key card. “I’ve been holding on to this forever.”
Hunter stared at the card and contemplated the ramifications of Dillon using it to access city hall.
Did he use it when he bumped off Russo? Not good.
“Thanks,” replied Hunter, taking the hand off as Dillon’s gaze drilled into him, conveying the depths of Dillon’s wickedness.
“Why don’t the three of us go grab a cup of joe?” offered Hunter. “You guys can fill me in on what I missed. All right, Mr. Partner?”
Dillon smiled wickedly. “Sounds like a plan.”
“Let’s head then,” chimed in Andy, getting into the act.
“Just like old times,” added Dillon before they departed through the halls of Whitman Packer, pretending that everything was normal. The corridors of Whitman were quiet. Just the sounds of paralegals hammering away on their keyboards, associates rushing around, obsessive compulsively contending with deadlines as they billed away their young adult lives. Nothing new. Just a handful of fresh recruits and a new sheriff in town who Hunter figured wouldn’t last very long. Once the scandal went away and Whitman had managed to salvage the better part of its client list, the other equity partners would be craving to find a more aggressive rainmaker, someone like Mancini who could make them all a little richer and make the whole endeavor just a bit more tolerable.
As the world turns,
thought Hunter, learning not to be too surprised by the unpredictability of life.