Last Chance for Glory (41 page)

“Please.” Fletcher’s eyes widened and his lips dropped slightly apart. Blake recognized the fear immediately, but it took him a minute to see the greed pushing that fear.

“You want this?” Blake asked.

“Yes, I do. I want it badly.”

“Why?”

Fletcher took a deep breath. “Are you a religious man?”

“Don’t waste my time with bullshit.” Blake continued to back up.

“Somebody has to stop Samuel Harrah.”

“Guess who that’s gonna be.”

“Somebody has to hold him up to the light. Can you do that by yourself?”

“You still haven’t answered my question.”

“All right, Mr. Blake. I want the case for myself, for my career. Is that what you need to hear me say?”

Blake stopped by the door of the car. “Get in,” he said. Fletcher, obviously relieved, climbed inside. He accepted the envelope from Blake, waited patiently while Blake started the engine, put the Caprice in gear, and pulled away. Then he opened the envelope, read Blake’s cover letter, skimmed the documents.

“There are four voices on the tape,” Blake said. “John McGuire’s, Ann McGuire’s, Bell Kosinski’s, and Samuel Harrah’s. Your problem is that two of those people are dead and the property transfer, by itself, doesn’t prove anything. The good news is that the documents are a matter of public record and the tape was made with the full knowledge of one of the participants.”

Fletcher nodded, then returned to the material, reading through it again, this time more carefully. Finished, he slid the documents and the tape back into the envelope.

“The husband, Tillson,” he announced, “will turn first. His crimes—obstruction of justice and receiving a bribe—are relatively minor. We’ll offer him immunity in return for his testimony, use his statement to reopen the investigation into his wife’s murder.”

“That takes care of Edward Green. What about Samuel Harrah?”

Fletcher dropped the envelope into his lap, folded his hands. “Harrah will take a little longer. Perhaps Ann McGuire, if she has direct knowledge, or Tillson, if Harrah acted as a go-between.”

Blake pulled the Chevy to the curb. “You plan to take this to your boss?”

“I have no authority to launch an investigation on my own. But I assure you. Mr. Blake, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office hasn’t been subject to political influence for decades. You might …”

“I thought I asked you not to waste my time with bullshit.” Blake reached across Fletcher’s body to open the door. “Do us both a favor, don’t take this material to
anybody.
You should have a lot more within a couple of days, enough to make your boss get his ass in gear whether he likes it or not. And by the way, everything you have and everything you will have goes to the press first. That’s how much I trust the District Attorney.” He smiled. “That’s how much I trust
you.”

Everything about Marcus Fletcher (including his ambition) had seemed sincere to Marty Blake. Fletcher’s eyes had flashed greed, not calculation; his manner had been direct, respectful, at times almost pleading. Nevertheless, Fletcher had seen the car; he might have memorized the plate number, might be dialing the phone, might already be speaking to Samuel Harrah.

Or so Blake reasoned as he drove out to Kennedy Airport in search of a replacement for the Caprice. He found what he was looking for at a small agency on the periphery of the airport. Set back on a dusty, Sutphin Boulevard lot, BottomLine Rentals’ collection of older vehicles was a long way from the shiny sedans offered by the majors. A long way and a lot cheaper. Blake selected a 1991 Ford Aerostar van with a single, convex window on either side and bent louvers over the rear window. Thoroughly scratched and dented, it would be all but invisible on the street.

The radio was on when Blake started the van, tuned to WINS, an all-news station. He let it go as he made his way toward Barnett Avenue in Woodside, expecting a story on Bell Kosinski’s death. Instead, a deep, resonant male voice announced the demise, by suspected drug overdose, of Manhattan Borough President Edward Green. Green’s body had been discovered on the floor of his Centre Street office several hours after his wife called police to report him missing. According to detectives at the scene, who refused to dismiss the possibility of suicide, the medical examiner would perform an immediate autopsy, the results to be announced in the middle of the week.

So much for Joanna’s big client, Blake thought. And so much for Johan Tillson who’s gotta be next. If they don’t get to me first.

Half an hour later, he was in Vinnie Cappolino’s office, examining four sets of individual and two sets of corporate tax returns. Vinnie, resplendent in his newest AC/DC T-shirt and his oldest black leather vest, sat on the other side of the desk, complaining in tones that could only have been taught to him by Linda Francis, his partner’s practical wife.

“Ya know them returns cost me a lot more than I expected. Maybe there’s a shortage of corrupt tax examiners—I don’t know—but I got squeezed so hard I’m gonna be walkin’ bowlegged for a week. Tell ya the truth, Marty, I woulda held out for more money, if I thought ya had it.”

Blake ignored this and similar conversational gambits, focusing his attention on the paperwork, taking his time about it. The overall scam was obvious at a glance (and as crude as he’d expected), but he continued to work at it until he had the figures clear in his mind. Samuel Harrah and his wife, Margaret, had filed separate returns in each of the four years Blake inspected. As head of household, Samuel Harrah’s returns showed only his chief’s salary and a bit of interest income from a small saving’s account. Margaret Harrah, on the other hand, as sole shareholder of both corporations, South Queens Financial Consultants and Lefferts Office Supply, had paid a whopping tax on profits of more than one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, virtually all of which had come from the South Queens corporation. In addition, both Harrah children, George and Owen, as South Queens’ sole employees, had drawn salaries of a thousand dollars per week. This was in addition to mid-six-figure incomes derived from senior partnerships at the Wall Street law firm of Wallach and Block.

“You look at this Vinnie?” Blake laid the papers on the desk, sat back in his chair, wondered what he would have done if the Harrahs had come up clean. If he would have gone home and simply waited. Or if he would have gone to Harrah’s home and blown the motherfucker’s head off.

“Sure, I checked it out. But I don’t know what good it did.” He sat forward, laid his elbows on the desk. “Hey, you remember what Joanna said about me and corporate work? She said I didn’t have the cachet for it. Ya believe that? The fuckin’ cachet.”

“C’mon, Vinnie, tell me what you think.”

Cappolino shrugged, lit a long, fat cigar, blew a perfect smoke ring at the ceiling. “The financial company’s a laundromat. They got nothin’—no accountant, no bookkeeper, not even a goddamned janitor. And what the fuck is it doin’ out in the asshole of Queens? I mean you ain’t seen fit to tell me where the money’s comin’ from, but I guarantee they ain’t makin’ it by handin’ out stock tips.”

“And Lefferts Office Supply? What’s the point of owning a second company that barely breaks even?”

“Ya think I don’t know?” He waved the cigar like a sword, flashed a lopsided, triumphant smile. “Look, outside of rent and utilities, there’s only one thing an investment company has to buy and that’s office supplies. Okay, they could’ve bought their supplies legit and tossed them in the dumpster, but that’s the kinda thing attracts the neighbors’ attention. This way, the paperwork is clean; they get invoices to put in the files in case the IRS shows up, but they don’t actually take delivery on the material.”

“Yeah,” Blake admitted, “that’s the way I figure it, too. It’s pretty crude, really.”

“I was surprised they didn’t take their business offshore. Then, you woulda been screwed. You woulda had to pay me for nothin’.”

Blake shook his head. “Harrah’s not the Medellín cartel. And a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year wouldn’t be tip money to a Panamanian banker.” He took a deep breath. It was time to put the last card into play. If he could slip it off the bottom of the deck without dropping it. “There’s one other thing I need from you, Vinnie. Only …”

“Only you ain’t got the money.”

“Yeah, that’s about right.” Blake tried for a smile, managed a grimace. “I want you to sit surveillance for a couple of hours in a van I’m gonna set up with video receivers. All you have to do is copy the material and have it delivered to two people. It’s a nothing kind of job.”

“Unless I get caught.” Cappolino waggled a finger in Blake’s direction. His head was shaking like a metronome. “Then it’s a five-to-ten years kind of job. In Attica. Or, maybe, the cops’ll figure they gotta do to me what they already done to you.”

“You’ll be two blocks away. In a van. Look, Vinnie, there was a time—and it wasn’t
that
long ago—when you would’ve taken the job for the adventure. I’m gonna drop some big players here and I just thought, being as you’ve always been a macho sort of guy, you’d like to get a piece for yourself. I mean it sounds to me like Linda’s a guru instead of an accountant. Like she slaps you around if you get out of line.”

“Forget it, Marty. It ain’t gonna work. I’m a changed man.”

“What you are is a prick, Vinnie.”

Cappolino shrugged. “Then I guess I ain’t changed as much as I thought.”

“What I oughta
change
is your fuckin’ face.” Blake, though he tried, couldn’t put any real conviction into his threat. Cappolino’s face already carried enough scars to resemble a road map. “Forget it, Vinnie. Forget what I just said. How much do you want for the job?”

“Two, large.”

“Two thousand dollars for a few hours? That’s robbery.”

“I don’t think so. I think what it is is
business.
Face the facts, Marty. It ain’t like you’re gonna be a repeat customer.”

Blake stood up. “I need a private phone. You mind if I use the one in your partner’s office?”

“Who ya gonna call?”

“Joanna Bardo.”

Cappolino’s whooping laugh followed Blake into the next room. He closed the door, reminded himself that it wasn’t the first time he’d eaten shit in order to get the job done. Then he dialed Joanna Bardo’s home phone number.

“Hello.”

“It’s Marty Blake.”

After a brief silence, Joanna, in her most imperious tones, announced, “You’ve ruined us.”

“Does that mean ‘us’ heard about Edward Green?”

“Marty, you’re digging your own grave.”

“Seems to me I’ve already finished and I’m standing inside. Waiting for the dirt to fall. But, look, I didn’t call to chat, Joanna. I need a favor. I need you to promise Vinnie Cappolino you’ll pay him two thousand dollars to do a job for me.”

“And why would I do that?”

“Because if you don’t, I’m gonna tell the people who whacked Edward Green that you’ve been behind me all the way. I’m gonna tell ’em you set me up with the money, gave me access to the computer, that you’ve got everything I’ve got and you’re not afraid to use it. I’m gonna tell ’em you’re my insurance policy.”

Another dead silence. Blake waited patiently, knowing Joanna would do anything to protect herself and her business. It was just a matter of time until she decided that paying off was her only serious option.

“Let me talk to Vinnie.”

Blake set the phone down without replying. He opened the door and motioned Cappolino inside. “She wants to speak to you.”

Cappolino, a smirk plastered to his face, returned five minutes later. He crossed the room to his desk and sat down. “Man, that bitch was hot. I never heard Joanna so pissed off.”

“What did she say?”

“She started with the loyalty bit. Like I’m supposed to
owe
her somethin’. ‘Forget the bullshit,’ I said, ‘an escaped slave don’t owe his master.’ Then she reminds me that I use her computers every day. That she could cut me off. I told her there’s fifty companies offering computer info and whenever I need somethin’ that ain’t legit, she makes me go out on the street for it. I …”

“Do me a favor, Vinnie. Get to the point.”

Cappolino opened the bottom drawer of his desk, took out a quart of Wild Turkey bourbon, drank directly from the bottle. “What ya doin’ here, Marty, is rushin’ a good story. Which is somethin’ ya never woulda done a year ago. Looks to me like I ain’t the only one that’s changed.” He capped the bottle and set it on the desk. “After Joanna seen that she couldn’t psych me into refusin’ the job, she switched to her heavy ammo.”

“She offered you money.”

“Yeah, four thousand dollars if I put one behind ya left ear and dump the body in the river.”

“And what’d you say, Vinnie?”

“I told Joanna I made a deal with you and I got my honor, but if you come out of this in one piece, it wouldn’t be real hard to arrange.”

B
LAKE WAS IN NO
hurry to reach the offices of South Queens Financial Consultants on Conduit Avenue, the service road for the Belt Parkway near Kennedy Airport. He felt good about his progress (not to mention rearranging Tommy Brannigan’s face), good enough to stop in Rego Park for a slice of pizza that quickly became two, then three. Finding someone to retrieve the van and distribute the tapes and paperwork had been his last serious logistical problem. From here on the job became purely mechanical, a series of interlocking pieces to be carefully fitted together in order to … There were still too many variables for Blake to know what form the completed puzzle would take, but he was certain that Samuel Harrah and his cohorts would be taken down. Which, as far as he was concerned, was the whole (and, now that Bell Kosinski was dead,
only)
point.

It was nearly eleven o’clock when Blake left the tiny storefront pizza parlor. He stood on the sidewalk, watched the traffic on Woodhaven Boulevard, found himself wishing he’d packed a jacket. A patrol car passed and the two cops inside raked him with a glance as they slid by. Suddenly, the automatic in his belt seemed to weigh twenty pounds. He was sure the cops would see the bulge beneath his shirt, sure they’d come flying out of the patrol car, lean across the trunk and hood, demand that he assume the proverbial position. Instead, they turned left against the light and disappeared down Sixty-third Avenue.