King Con (11 page)

“You think?” Beano asked. “Okay, let’s try it.”

He moved to the phone book, looked up the D.A.’s office, and dialed. Once he got the switchboard, he asked for Victoria Hart’s extension. After several rings, he was
forwarded to the Reception Desk just before it shut down for the night.

“Hi, who is this?” he asked in Gil Green’s soft, non-confrontational, passive-aggressive voice.

“It’s Donna. Is that you, Mr. Green?” the receptionist answered.

“Yes, Donna, this is Gilbert. I’m trying desperately to reach Victoria and I fear I’ve left my book in the office. Do you have her home telephone and perhaps her address?”

“Yes, Mr. Green,” Donna said, eager to please, “but I don’t think she’s at home just now.”

“Do you know where she might be?”

“She’s at her parents’ house in Wallingford, Connecticut. I don’t have the number, but I think it’s listed.”

“And her father would be …?” He let it hang in the air with arch theatricality, liking the way he was doing the impression. Sometimes, he thought he could even give Dana Carvey a run for it.

“Her father’s name is Harry Hart. Harry and Elizabeth Hart.”

“How very American,” he said condescendingly, and hung up without saying good-bye. Minutes later he had their phone number. He dialed, but got no answer. He tried calling again at seven-ten, then at seven-forty and at eight
P.M.,
but still no answer.
Maybe they’re out to dinner,
he thought,
or maybe I’m already too late.

The restaurant was on the ninth fairway of the public links in Wallingford, Connecticut. The windows overlooked the course. Harry and Elizabeth Hart listened earnestly as their daughter finished her tale.

Harry was a retired insurance executive. He had a ruddy complexion and silver-white hair. After he retired, he’d started wearing out-of-style madras coats and white linen pants—clothes Victoria thought he would never
have worn ten years ago. Harry was very proud of his daughter. He thought she was the most strikingly wonderful person he had ever known.

Elizabeth Hart had her wheelchair parked up close to the table. She was holding her daughter’s hand under the drape of the tablecloth. Her hands were too slender and heavily veined. The right side of her face sagged and she had lost the ability to walk since her last stroke. Elizabeth Hart’s mind was still tracking, even though she slurred her speech in her soft Texas accent. It was hard for Victoria to see her mother this way. … She had always been so vital, so beautiful. It had been her mother who had constantly pried Victoria’s hand off the achievement throttle as a child, urging her to develop her playful side. It had been a valiant, if unrewarding struggle.

“I suppose it’s already aired by now. Thank God you don’t get WTRN here in Connecticut,” Victoria said, and then they sat in silence until a waiter cleared the plates.

“You did the right thing, Victoria,” her father said. “You must do what you feel is right. From everything you’ve told me about Gil Green, he’s not a good manager of his people.” He was being the business expert now, falling back on twenty years of management experience at Penn Mutual Insurance.

“But see’s been ‘ere almos five ‘ears, ‘arry,” her mother slurred, the Texas drawl making it even harder to understand. “Where ‘ill see go?” Her mother, as usual, had caught the heart of the problem: Where could she go to practice law after all this?

“So, you stay up here for a while, till it all blows over.” Her father raced ahead: “You hang up a shingle. I know some people who will throw work your way. Real estate or business contracts, lotta work like that around here.”

“I’m a criminal attorney, Dad.” Then she paused before going on. “… And I have another problem. …”

They both anxiously waited for her.

“I … maybe …” She stopped and looked down. “Maybe I need to do something about these murders, prove what happened to Carol.”

“Let the police do that,” Harry said sternly, but Elizabeth squeezed her hand under the table.

“But, Dad, they won’t be able to. Joseph Rina is very smart. He doesn’t make mistakes. The only mistake I think he ever made was beating this John Doe, whoever he was, with a nine-iron in front of a witness. I need to find a way to get Rina. A police investigation won’t do it; there are too many rules, plus evidentiary and procedural roadblocks. He’ll never go down that way. I need something else, something …” She hesitated, looking for the right word, then chose the one that had been linked to her by the press. “… something tricky,” she finished.

“I won’t hear of this,” her father said. “If Joe Rina is everything you say, and I’m sure he is, he’s not somebody you want to be messing around with. I know I can’t tell you what to do anymore, but, sweetheart, I can’t bear the thought of you being in danger. It’s not your job to go out and try to settle society’s debts.”

She looked at him and finally nodded.

On the way out of the restaurant, her cellphone rang. Her father had wheeled her mother over to get their coats when she answered it. It was David Frankfurter.

“You sure knocked the flies out of the garbage,” he said.

“Lotta pissed-off people down there, I’ll bet,” she said softly.

“Yeah, listen, there’s something else you oughta know. I got a kickback from the N.C.I.C. deep check on Beano Bates.”

“Not that it matters anymore, but let’s hear.”

“His father was Jacob Bates. The Bates family is sort of well-known. There are three thousand of them. Most of the family is on the hustle. There’s even an N.C.I.C. information number on them, with arrest records going back six years. If you want, I could order it up, but it’s gonna be a phone book.”

“Save it. Maybe later. Is that all?”

“That’s not the main reason I called.” He paused for effect. “Beano Bates’s mother’s maiden name is Sesnick.”

“What?”
she said; her voice was suddenly too loud in the restaurant entry. Her mother and father turned to look.

“Carol Sesnick was related to him,” David finished.

“You think Bates stole the file because he’s trying to get even with Joe Rina for killing Carol?”

“Well, he sure didn’t steal it because he needed the practice,” David answered. “The Sesnick family, by the way, is also in the computer. They’re a family of American Gypsies. They work crowds in the Midwest, mostly pickpockets, some tarot card and palm-reading scams.”

“Jeez” was about all she could think to say.

“I’ve got Beano Bates’s mug shots and file pictures here. You want, I can fax ‘em to your mom and dad’s house.”

“Yeah.” She gave him the number, then stood there, looking out the front door of the restaurant. Her father rolled her mother up to her.

“Ready?” he said.

“Be right there, Dad,” she replied, and he pushed the wheelchair out and gave the valet the parking ticket.

“Listen,” David continued, “I’ve had a couple a’calls. It’s kinda goofy around here. That Ted Calendar piece was courageous but maybe not too smart.”

“I know … I’m sorry. I couldn’t just do nothing. It was stupid, but it’s done.”

“Don’t let these assholes run you off, Victoria. They want to sell justice by the pound down here. You’re one of the ones who never let that happen.”

“Thanks, David. Don’t worry, I’m hanging tough,” she lied. They both knew that Gil Green would never let her come back.

That same evening, Joe Rina had been having a celebration in the plush dining room at the Trenton House. At the table was his fiancée, Stacy DiMantia, and her father, Paul. Tommy and a hooker he had paid five hundred dollars to made up the rest of the party. The French dining room was named La Reserve. Their waiter was named Giraud Le Mousant; Tommy’s hooker was named Calliope Love. She laughed loudly and called Tommy “the best little jockey who ever rode her.” Joe was getting angry at her vulgarity and was about to say something when the maitre d’ came over and whispered that Joe had a phone call. He took the call in the lobby. It was from Gerald Cohen.

“Just think you oughta know that you were accused of murdering the witness and two cops on Ted Calendar’s TV program tonight.”

“Come on, Gerry, they’ve got no evidence of that. … You sure? Who’s stupid enough to do that?”

“Tricky Vicky. I’ve got a copy of the segment. I’ll send it over.”

“She’s not that stupid,” Joe said. “What’s she think she’s doing?”

After dinner, Tommy and Joe watched the tape alone in the Trenton House manager’s office. When it was over, Tommy was fuming. “This fucking bitch! Where’s she get off? I’m gonna use this cunt up.”

“You’re going to calm down and watch your language,”
Joe said, without emotion. He put a tasseled loafer up on the side of the desk and looked at his tan silk socks, which came from Hong Kong and cost sixty dollars.

“We’re not going to do anything right now. You got that, Tommy?”

“Joey, accidents happen,” Tommy pleaded. “People get hit by falling safes … a car full a beaners runs a light and whammo, you got avocado salad.”

“You will not do anything.
Calm down, okay? I’ll think of something. … We’ll take care of it at the appropriate time.”

Tommy figured the appropriate time was now, but he didn’t say anything. They got up; Joe removed the cassette, then turned to his older brother. “One other thing, Tommy. This sperm bank you brought with you … can you possibly get her to shut up?”

Tommy looked at his handsome brother. Sometimes Joe got on Tommy’s nerves. With his good looks, manners, and Italian suits, Joe didn’t have to work to get a good piece of ass. … Since he was thirteen, all Joe had to do was crook a finger. Tommy choked back his anger over the criticism. He knew his little brother was the boss. That had been established when they were barely in their teens. Tommy wasn’t about to change things now, but sometimes Joe could really piss him off.

It was only nine o’clock, but Victoria was exhausted. She guessed it was from the mental anguish of what had happened in the last two days. She was glad to be back home, in her own bedroom. She put on her old flannel nightgown that she had had since before college. She paused on the way to her bed and looked at her old cheerleading photos from ninth grade. She had been the team captain. She was kneeling in front of the rally squad, her pom-poms beside her, the big white
W
on her
sweater. She was the only one in the picture who wasn’t smiling. She let her eyes roam the room. Victoria had never allowed herself any leisure time here. She had studied hard, never wanting any seams to show. She had wanted to be perfect. She tried to recapture the countless hours spent in this room, to review them like favorite moments in a scrapbook … but there were none. This was not a room full of fun memories. It was a work space.

Her mother had picked the blue and white wallpaper. It had ballerinas on it; they were twirling, arms outstretched or over their heads, frozen in perfect pliés and pirouettes. She could remember lying in bed as a girl, looking at the dancers on the wall, wondering what it would be like to dance like that, to be free, whirling with abandon, no cares, no fears, no finals. She could not imagine it. Her life was deadlines and due dates. She could never pull her eyes off the finish fine. Not then, not now. She wondered where that trait had come from and what it had cost. Her parents had tried to find outside interests for her, but no matter what the activity, Victoria always found the discipline in it. She had pushed her tennis lessons all the way to the Junior Semi-finals; her cheerleading team won the State Championship. Everything she did was planned out, plotted, and delivered on.

Law had been the perfect career for a beautiful over-achiever. She had been top of her class at Dartmouth and had turned down several prestigious law firms to go into combat training on the D.A.’s staff. She had been called Tricky there, but she knew “tricky” was hardly the word to define her. A better word was “relentless.” She refused to give up on a case if she thought the perp was guilty. She would pursue new angles when a confession or evidence had been thrown out. She would research and study and dig till it hurt. She would often come up with unorthodox strategies that worked. Now,
at age thirty-five, it had all come crashing down because of a small, wavy-haired mobster who walked on his toes. She couldn’t understand how a road so carefully paved, so meticulously chosen, could end in such disaster.

She heard the door of the small elevator close downstairs. Her father had installed the lift two years ago, after her mother had the first stroke. The elevator hummed and Victoria heard it stop upstairs. Then she heard her mother’s voice outside her door.

“‘ictoria …?”

“Yes, Mom.”

“‘an I ‘ome in?”

“Sure.” She got out of bed, turned on the light as her mother came in, and set the brake on the wheelchair.

“Honey, I ‘ant you read ‘iss,” her mother slurred, and handed Victoria a sheet of paper filled with her shaky but legible handwriting.

Victoria read it out loud: “People have to attain their own destinies. Sometimes only you can know what you must do. A long life is nice … and I wish it for you because I love you. But a life full of choices forced on you by others is not worth living.”

They sat looking at each other. Her mother had come to her rescue thousands of times in this room, sat patiently helping her with her homework, helping her with her life.

Victoria moved to her mother, bent over, and gave her a hug. “How did I get so lucky to have you guys as parents?”’ she finally said.

“We lucky ones,” her mother answered.

Somewhere in this moment the phone had rung downstairs. Victoria had not paid it any attention. Now her father was calling for her. She moved out of her room and into the hall where the phone sat on a French Provincial table.

“Hello …” she said tentatively.

“Martin Cushbury. I hope that stain came out. Should have. Citrus juice generally isn’t too tough.”

“Whatta you want?” she said angrily.

“You sure stuck your broom handle into a Sicilian hornets’ nest, Vicky.”

“I want my case folders back.”

“I’m not so sure I would have flipped off Joe Rina on TV, but other than that, it was a pretty good performance. It’s about time somebody gave Gil Green a tonsillectomy.”