Midnight Club (22 page)

76

Sarah McGinniss; One Hogan Square

SARAH HAD TO
get
The Club
right. She was obsessed with the book, focusing all her energy on it. The issue was proper documentation; the hard part was getting people to believe truths too horrifying to believe.

Stuart Fischer had suggested she come to One Hogan Square for a briefing with some of his people. The meeting was actually held in what amounted to the attic of the district attorney’s office.

Sarah had talked Fischer into letting her bring a tape recorder. She was planning to take written notes as well. Documentation was so important.

“Why doesn’t everybody grab a seat in this comfortable little nest of ours.” Stuart Fischer addressed the small group that was filing into the makeshift office. The tenth-floor loft had originally been furnished, however sparsely, when the D.A.’s office was secretly investigating the New York Police Department in 1986. It wasn’t much to look at, but it was out of harm’s way.

“I have some news for you, unexpectedly good news. We’re going after Alexandre St.-Germain again.”

The office was nearly silent as they huddled closer around Fischer. The young lawyers were clearly in shock.

Sarah watched a young assistant perched on a peeling windowsill. A
brrrr
sound emerged through his lips and an overgrown, bushy mustache.

A few of the others seemed to avert their eyes. There was a definite similarity to the meeting at Sarah’s house in East Hampton. A sudden chill was in the air.

“When we prepared our case against St.-Germain last year, we were accused, maybe justifiably, of being too conservative. I don’t know if that’s true. I don’t particularly care about the sins of the past. I promise you, though, conservatism won’t be the problem this time.”

Fischer glanced at Sarah, who was the only one who understood exactly what he meant.

“I want to be particularly clear on that,” Fischer continued. “I want all of you to understand exactly what I’m saying. If this sounds like a personal vendetta against Alexandre St.-Germain, then I’m communicating pretty well so far. Because that’s what we’re going to try to conduct here. Anybody? Questions?”

There were none. Not yet. Just complete surprise that they were going after Alexandre St.-Germain again.

“All right. We’re going to be contacting other key agency heads this morning. The FBI, the French and Italian police, Customs, a few bosses in Treasury. I’ve already spoken to the IRS. They’re in. They understand that we can get St.-Germain this time.”

One of the assistants finally spoke, a striking blond woman who couldn’t have been more than twenty-seven or twenty-eight. “We’re going all the way with the IRS? I should say, they’re going all the way with us? Power to seize and confiscate? St.-Germain’s bank accounts? The companies he supposedly owns? That kind of all the way?”

Fischer nodded at the younger lawyer. He smiled at her. “
That
kind of all the way, Louise.”

Sarah made a note about the tenor, the feel of the meeting. There was very little of the usual self-deprecating humor. The assistants understood exactly what was involved in mounting a case against a mob head like St.-Germain; how painstaking and thorough it had to be.

“Absolutely all the way.” Fischer amplified his answer to the assistant’s question. “Actually, we’re going to proceed down two avenues this time. We’ll go after St.-Germain with the Continuing Criminal Enterprise Law… and with RICO.”

The lawyer sitting on the windowsill whistled appreciatively. Two or three of the others finally allowed themselves to smile, to glance at one another for quick reassurance. They were getting the general idea. This
was
a vendetta.

“I’ve asked the six of you here to be briefed privately. We’re going to be acting as a highly confidential unit. We’ll be contacting other agencies and departments, but none will have the whole picture the way we do.

“We already have a lot of evidence on St.-Germain, some of which dates back at least ten years. That ought to constitute a continuing criminal enterprise in somebody’s mind.”

Fischer laughed, and Sarah could see that his high spirits were becoming contagious. He had purposely shocked them. Now he was bringing them back up, slowly, rather masterfully. When they left the office in Hogan Square, they would all be flying high. Stuart Fischer was a very good lawyer, an even better motivator, and Sarah was feeling terrific that she and Stefanovitch had decided to call him on this instead of the D.A. She had serious questions about the district attorney himself.

It was all documented in her notes; it would all appear in
The Club.

“St.-Germain will use James, Henley and Friends,” Fischer continued. “As usual, their people will outnumber us about five hundred to one. That’s why I want two separate charges operating. It’s perfectly legal harassment.

“It’s the way a good small law office would handle this. We’ll hit them with the first piece as early as tomorrow afternoon. I don’t care which charge it is. Something juicy and controversial. While James’s staff is still reeling, we’ll move in with our RICO motions. Get them coming and going. Everybody with me so far?”

“I love it.” The young mustache spoke from his perch on the windowsill. “Hey, listen, though… did the mob ever knock off an entire D.A.’s office before?”

The room broke into raucous laughter. For a change, they were being asked to do what they all had become lawyers for in the first place, to prosecute with the full force and intent of the law.

Sarah’s eyes roamed around the attic room, studying the faces of the young attorneys. She wanted to remember everything, every look.

Fischer had begun to speak again. He wasn’t smiling. “In answer to your question, they knocked off a D.A.’s office in Bogotá, Colombia. Seventeen men and women. So yes, counselor, there’s a precedent for that.”

The laughter inside the office stopped. Sarah froze that incredible tableau in her mind, too. Just that look on all of the young lawyers’ faces.

She was trying to help in any way she could—whether it was something major, or taking care of details she was afraid no one else would remember.

Sarah spent the rest of the morning of July 17, and most of the afternoon, on the phone with Customs.

Then she was on the phone with an official from Scotland Yard.

Finally, she spent an hour with one of the best researchers at CBS Network News. She thought of it as “tightening the noose.” She wasn’t sure whose necks the noose was around, though. The look on the faces of those young lawyers kept flashing back to her.

The key to everything was patience. Harassment would work, but it took time. There was no other way to go after Alexandre St.-Germain and the Club.

77

John Stefanovitch and Isiah Parker; One Police Plaza

STEFANOVITCH AND ISIAH
Parker were dragging badly when they left Police Plaza one night later that week. As he pushed his wheelchair across the pedestrian mall, Stefanovitch looked up at ragged clouds whipping across the sky. That was the way he felt; torn apart by hidden forces.

“All things considered, it’s going better than we ought to expect,” he finally said to Parker. “What’s St.-Germain up to, though? Why is he sitting back and taking it so calmly?”

“He’s deciding how he wants to handle our little disturbance. He’s been harassed before. He’s waiting for something. Some mistake he thinks we’ll make.”

“It’s almost like he knows what mistake we’re going to make.”

“Maybe he does. He’s been here before.”

“I also think he’s trying to keep his nose clean. He’s playing the maligned and completely misunderstood businessman.”

“That could be. It would explain a few things.”

Both Stefanovitch and Parker knew that the New York police practiced more illegal harassment than had ever been reported anywhere by the media. There were major and minor tactics. Stefanovitch had seen senior detectives putting sugar in the gas tank of a mobster’s Cadillac. He’d watched oil rags being stuffed up the exhaust pipe of a pimp’s Caddie Seville parked in Times Square. Cops knew that most wise guys would tear up a parking or moving violation ticket, but the computers kept extensive records. With a well-placed phone call, any detective could get a scofflaw drug dealer’s car towed to the city garage. The result was incredible bureaucratic red tape, and frustration, and occasionally a hot-headed mistake.

In the area of more serious harassment, the city’s environmental agencies always cooperated with Police Plaza. They could shut down a mob-owned factory for violations, or a favorite restaurant in Little Italy because of flies, rodent droppings in the kitchen, faulty ventilation, even improper signage in the bathrooms. Then there was every policeman’s best friend, the Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. The special conspiracy law was aimed directly at organized crime. The RICO Act permitted officers legally to seize a suspect’s bank accounts, automobiles, speedboats, even a house or place of business, which was precisely what they were doing to St.-Germain.

At the parking lot entrance, Stefanovitch and Parker stopped and shook hands. They renewed the emotional pact made a few days earlier in Stefanovitch’s office. Both of them were used to long surveillance stints. This looked like it might be a beaut.

Stefanovitch avoided saying what was going through his mind: Watch your ass going home.

“Good night, Isiah,” he said. “Tomorrow’s going to be our day.”

Parker’s face was well defined in the moonlight. There was something reassuring about his physical presence. “I like working with you, Stefanovitch. I’ll never forget you grabbing that motherfucker out of his limousine.”

Stefanovitch liked working with Parker so far, too. Isiah understood that this was about getting Alexandre St.-Germain, snaring the Grave Dancer, no matter what happened to either of them.

The two policemen finally separated. They made their way into private compartments of darkness and mystery.

78

Sarah McGinniss and John Stefanovitch;
East Sixty-sixth Street

SARAH AND SAM
were like an old married couple sometimes, a late-1980s version of the Odd Couple.

For a good fifteen minutes that night, the two of them discussed the alternatives for dinner. They finally decided on Ray’s Famous Pizza, a bottle of apple cider, homemade toll-house cookies, and a Spielberg movie called
Goonies.

They didn’t watch much of the movie, because they started gabbing about the trip upstate with Roger. Sam asked Sarah whether she and his dad were ever going to get together again. As gently as she could, she told Sam probably not. He seemed to accept that.

Sarah had to keep biting her tongue as she listened to Sam’s stories about his two weeks with his father. Roger had given in to every whim Sam had, refusing to set any limits. He had been perfectly awful.

“He’s sure a great guy,” Sarah said as she tucked Sam in around ten. She was really biting her tongue now. “He loves you a lot, Sam.” Which was probably true. Who wouldn’t love Sam?

He was so vulnerable. Sam’s eyes looked so sad.

“What’s the problem, Sam?”

“Dad loves me,” Sam finally began to answer. “I love him, too. But Mom—”

“I’m right here.” Sarah leaned forward. She kissed Sam’s cheek, nuzzled him affectionately.

“I love you. I missed you every single day on our trip. Promise you won’t leave me, okay?”

He raised his small, fragile arms toward her, and Sarah had to stop herself from crying. Suddenly she wished that the problems between herself and Roger could have been worked out. Sam deserved to have a father.

After Sam was finally tucked into bed, Sarah went around the apartment straightening up. If it hadn’t been for her housekeeper, Annie Leigh, the apartment wouldn’t have been much different from a crash pad shared by a couple of bachelors.

More often than she liked to admit, Sarah slept collapsed on the down comforter on her bed, in her clothes. She also played a lot of Spite and Malice with Sam, and occasionally solitaire, with the TV turned on. Late at night, she practiced an old Fender guitar in her room, playing Ry Cooder and Muddy Waters songs at two in the morning. She’d learned the blues in Washington Square in Stockton.

Sarah liked Stefanovitch a lot, and that was something she wouldn’t have thought possible a few weeks before.

She had questions, lots of questions, but she was intrigued. So much so that when he’d called from Police Plaza and asked if he could come over for a while, she said yes, even though she was exhausted. Now she couldn’t wait for him to arrive.

Sarah couldn’t make up her mind about Stefanovitch, but she knew one thing: she liked being with him more than she’d enjoyed being with anybody for a long time. He kept surprising her, revealing new layers of himself.

Stefanovitch knew about things that were fresh and interesting to her. He talked about his police job sometimes, but also about her job; about politics in the world; even unlikely subjects like his cooking theories, child psychology, modern art. He read more than she did; he enjoyed classical music, jazz, and rock. He was familiar with fashion designers, even the names of the top New York and Paris models. He told her that a lot of cops were pretty well read, and had varied interests. They just happened to be cops.

Most important, John Stefanovitch thought that she was beautiful, inside and out—and she needed to be told that very much right now. Sarah needed to believe it about herself again.

When they had kissed at her beach house, Sarah had actually experienced some light-headedness. She hadn’t felt that way in years; and she found that she’d missed it a lot, more than she had known.

79

THE ELEVATOR EASED TO A
stop and the polished oak door slid open noisily. Sarah smiled when she saw Stefanovitch. This was like a date. How many people their age were dating nowadays? A lot, she suddenly realized.

He had obviously spiffed up after work. His thick brown hair was combed; his faded blue work shirt looked pressed. He would always seem a little Pennsylvania-barnyard, but there was also a subtle polish to him, something that went beyond Minersville, a dash of Manhattan cynicism. And he definitely was handsome, even in the Chair.

“Hello there, Stef.” She suddenly felt shy, the way she did whenever she overthought a social situation. “How’d it go?”

“Well, it was a long day, but a pretty good start.” He immediately retreated into talk about work.

So did she. “How was Isiah Parker? How was he to be with?” she asked. It was partly a nervous question, but she did want to know.

“A lot better than you and I on our first day.” Stefanovitch smiled. “I like him. He wants St.-Germain. His brother was a lot of his life. There’s something else, though, something Parker’s not willing to tell me yet.”

It had suddenly occurred to Sarah that they were holding this conversation in the hallway, where they were easy prey to eavesdroppers.

“Should we go inside?”

“It’s a nice hallway and all, but I guess we should move inside. Sam Snead, winner of three Masters and three PGAs. Is he still up and around?”

“He went off about an hour ago. Will you have a drink with me? I have some wine.”

He liked the way she looked in jeans, bare feet, and a faded Western print shirt. “If I have that drink, I think I’ll turn into a vegetable.”

“That’s okay. I’ll feed you something if you like.”

Sarah made cheese and herb omelets, and she opened a bottle of Château Margaux. It was quiet in the kitchen, where they sat; nicely peaceful after the long, frantic day.

While the eggs were cooking, Stefanovitch finished the last of the tollhouse cookies.

“I’ve gone past the point where sleep is possible. You know that feeling?” he said after he’d polished off his omelet and half the bottle of wine.

“I know the feeling right now. Another omelet? More wine? Cookies?”

“Please.”

“Really?” Sarah’s eyes widened. The light from the lamp overhead played through her hair.

He nodded and grinned. He was feeling almost human again. There was something so luxurious about the cheese omelet and wine at midnight. He hadn’t eaten like this for a long, long time. Part of his life was getting so good, so much better, that it frightened him.

After the second helping, he sat at the table with a satisfied smile spread across his face.

“Beautiful, talented, and she can cook like a whiz. What’s the catch? What’s wrong with her?”

Sarah sighed, her brow puzzling slightly. “She’s divorced. Has a small child who needs lots of love and attention.”

“What else? Nobody would ever object to Sam. Nobody worth too much, anyway.”

“She can be a workaholic sometimes, which might make her seem too self-centered to some people.”

“There’s more than that, isn’t there?”

“Probably. I think so. Oh, I don’t know. Stefanovitch, do you want to go to bed with her tonight?” Sarah said, and suddenly she could barely breathe. It was out now. No turning back.

A look of concern drifted over his face, a definite mood shift.

“Do you think that’s a good idea right now?”

“I have no idea. It’s what I’d like to do, though.”

As if in a dream, the two of them left the kitchen and proceeded to the bedroom. The world seemed a little fuzzed at the edges. Moonlight was streaming through the picture windows. They began to undress, both of them feeling a little strange, suddenly quiet and private.

As her fingers clumsily unbuttoned and loosened clasps, she kept thinking, I want to make love to him. A warm and pleasant sensation was spreading through her now, almost a glow. She wanted him very much. She had for a long time.

Sarah came to him. They kissed, and it was as sweet as the kiss at the beach. Yes, there is definitely something here, Sarah thought.

“Is this going to be all right for you?” she said against his cheek. She didn’t know how to ask certain awkward questions. She didn’t want to rush or pressure Stef in any way. She wanted this to be right for both of them.

“Yes, it’s good for me. After I got hurt, I thought there might not be any feeling. There is, though. I mean, you know what I mean. I can do something about what I’m feeling.”

Sarah understood better after the first few minutes in bed. For one thing, he had the gentlest touch she could imagine. Using his fingertips, he stroked her back and shoulders, then her face and neck, then lower on her body.

She wondered if he had always been so tender. He wasn’t what she had expected at all.

He was completely aware of her body; very sensitive and warm.

As they became comfortable, the inhibitions began to go away, layer upon layer, like taking off bulky winter clothes.

Sarah straddled Stefanovitch. Admiringly, she noticed that he had the body of a twenty-five-year-old: firm and hard, especially his stomach, but also his arms and shoulders. He was powerful, but so careful in the way he touched her.

Sarah kissed his chest, loving his smell, which was fresh and clean.

His fingers lightly kneaded her back and neck. He was relaxing her, inch by inch, her body starting to melt.

“Where did you learn to be so nice in bed? So sweet?” she whispered.

“Backseats of old cars out in Minersville. The Middleview Drive-In Theater. South Junior High parking lot.”

“No, Stef. Uh-uh.” She kissed him again.

“I was in love once. Remember?”

She placed a finger over his lips. “I love the way you feel. The way you touch me,” she whispered in the darkness.

“Everything is going to be fine. We don’t have anything to be afraid of,” he said.

“I was petrified on the way to the bedroom.”

“So was I, Sarah.” Stefanovitch smiled. He also blushed in the darkness, and was glad that she couldn’t see.

“I’m not anymore. I’m not afraid.”

“I’m not either. Oh, maybe a little bit.”

“Make love to me, Stef. I love the way you touch me. I really do love it.”