The Good Lawyer: A Novel (24 page)

An obese middle-aged white woman with several unappealing beauty marks, looked up and over a desk cluttered with piles of thick manila folders.

“Vincent Tedeschi. Ain’t he the one who called a couple times wanting his bail money back?”

“Yep. Real pissed off too. Said the defendant owed him money, and he wanted to take back the bail he posted. Called about a week ago, and again yesterday.”

I asked the clerk, “How do these people get their money back now that most of the bail has been exonerated? Can you give me their checks? I’ll be happy to deliver them.”

Though I had no desire to see Dr. Terkel, the largest donor, I did want to speak to Tedeschi. I was curious why he was so upset, and did not want to lose him as a character witness should the case go to trial. Perhaps if I returned the bail money I could coax him into burying any gripe he might have with Guevara.

“Counselor, do you think I’ve got a wire to some bank account where I can cut checks from my ten by twelve office back there on some push button machine or somethin’? ‘Cause if you know of such a contraption tell me where I can find it, and I’ll cut me a big one-way ticket the hell out of here!”

He did a one hundred eighty-degree spin then laughed along with Sophie. Upon quieting down he explained that after a two percent fee was deducted a check would be mailed to the respective benefactors in about ten days from the New York City Comptroller’s Office, which in retrospect made perfect sense to me.

I called Dr. Terkel to inform him of the new developments in the case and the bail refund. A woman, who I guessed was his nurse, answered the phone with a deep Jamaican accent. I could hear Terkel in the background disdainfully commenting on the mid-day news. She pleasantly asked him several times to pick up the phone.

“He gets preoccupied with the crime reportin’ on the TV,” she said. “Give ‘im a little bit. He’ll pick up.”

I heard the receiver lift to the loud blare of a television commercial.

“Dr. Terkel? This is Nick Mannino.”

“Yes, yes. How are you? When are you coming to visit me?” He shot the two questions at me in one breath. I was fumbling for an answer to the second.

“I’m fine. Either before or right after the case is over, I’ll come visit you. I promise.”

“Fine, fine.” He sounded older and more debilitated than when we’d spoken weeks earlier.

I told him about the bail reduction and the recantations of the Rodriguez boys. To my surprise he knew about both already.

“Peter was here last night,” he said hoarsely, as if every word required the greatest effort. “I knew he was innocent. Smart boy. Smart boy. He’s going to beat this case. I know it. They’ll never convict him, never convict him at all.” He was babbling on and I hadn’t a clue how to stop him. I gave up all hope of ever using him as a character witness. He sounded too far-gone. “Never convict him. Killed a man. That’s right. No trial. No conviction.”

I thought I might have heard wrong so I asked him: “Who killed a man? Peter?”

“Peter!” he shrieked. “No, no, no. Me. I killed a man. Long time ago. Long time ago. Deserved it. Deserved it he did…”

“So it was self defense?” I asked, amazed at the turn in the conversation.

“Oh yeah. Killed him. Killed him. Killed him.”

Whatever was physically wrong with Terkel had evidently affected his mind. The nurse, who I suspect had been absent from his room, picked up on another extension. “Please hold the phone, Mr. Mannino.”

I could hear her thick rubber shoes squeaking across the floor. Terkel was mumbling on incessantly. I don’t believe he knew who he was speaking to any more, or even if he was speaking at all. He kept repeating: “Killed him, killed him, killed him” over and over until I heard the nurse say something in Jamaican, then smack the phone onto its hook.

She came back on the extension. “He fadin’ fast,” she said sadly. “Pay ‘im no mind. He ramble on like this all day long. He dyin’, you know. Very sad. Got that AIDS and won’t let go. Hangs on like a battleship.”

“He seemed all right when I spoke to him a few weeks ago.”

“Some days he OK. But half the time he like you heard. The news set ‘im off.”

I told her to tell him to expect his bail money back in about ten days.”

“Sure, I’ll tell ‘im.”

“Thank you. And I hope things go as well as they can for him.” I had no idea how to close conversation about a dying man. And it showed.

She responded with a simple, “All right then.”

Chapter 47

K
ingsbridge Road Realty was named, unimaginatively, for its location on Kingsbridge Road off Aqueduct Avenue, a location central to Saint Nicholas of Tolentine Church two blocks south, and P.S. 92 two blocks north. Guevara lived in a four-story walk-up on University Avenue, just half a block away.

I had called Vincent Tedeschi just before leaving Legal Aid. He said he was on his way out and spoke with a forced courtesy after I told him I was Guevara’s attorney. Upon hearing I had news about his bail money and was headed right over, he agreed to wait.

After racing uptown in my Malibu, I rang the bell outside his storefront office. He buzzed me in.

Tedeschi, who seemed about thirty-five, had a handshake that was all salesman—like a man who shakes hands for a living and works on commission. He had a thin face and was about my height and general physical appearance, at least until he tossed off a powder blue sports jacket and displayed a toned chest under a fitted shirt. His hair fell constantly onto his forehead.

I took a seat in a private office in the back as he spoke on the phone to a seller about the benefits of the multiple listing service and its broad subscription by hundreds of brokers in the Bronx and adjoining boroughs. He was quite the smooth talker as he pushed to secure the listing without sounding heavy handed. He winked at me in victory when he set up an appointment to see the homeowner.

As he leaned over a desk calendar I noticed that this young, personable yet obviously vain real estate broker was wearing one cheap and terribly unconvincing toupee.

Oddly, this display of both insecurity and bad taste made him somewhat likable. And I wondered if subconsciously he wore this chink in an otherwise well-kept armor to endear himself to his older more conservative middle class clients. His discount department store pants and 100% polyester shirt rounded out his dime store wardrobe. No wonder he was screaming at the clerk’s office for his bail money back.

I scanned his desktop for family photos. There were none.

“So, Mr. Mannino. What’s the news on my bail money?” He spoke like a creditor inquiring about an overdue debt.

I explained the usual protocol of bail posting—how the money didn’t get returned until the case was over and the accused had made all his appearances.

He nodded again as if he knew this already. His fingers tapped the desk impatiently.

“Since the bail you posted got exonerated, you should be getting a check from the Comptroller’s Office in a week or two.” I was surprised when he didn’t brighten up with the news.

“The thing is,” he said in a business-like manner, “I posted an additional thousand dollars in Guevara’s name.”

“I saw that on the list. But why in Guevara’s name?”

“Because I’m an idiot, that’s why.” He stood and looked through a glass partition. A young Hispanic woman neatly dressed in a skirt, blouse and high heels was being buzzed in by one of the sales agents.

Tedeschi hit the intercom button. “Dolores, would you see to this young lady please?” A smartly dressed sales agent offered her hand to the young woman. “It’s a rental,” Tedeschi remarked. “Since Peter left, the other agents have been taking turns with them.”

“Peter did the rentals?”

“Yeah, and he was damn good at it too. He was supposed to take his salesman’s test and get his license to sell, but he never did. So I kept him on rentals. If an inspector came around and caught him showing apartments instead of houses, I was less likely to get in trouble.”

“Well, that explains why Peter didn’t tell me about his job here.” I was quick to point this out in a veiled attempt to regain some of Guevara’s favor with Tedeschi.

Tedeschi was unmoved, but seemed uneasy. He then told me about an apartment rental Peter had handled the Saturday before his arrest.

The prospective tenant had agreed to take it and was supposed to come by the office the following week to drop off a month’s rent, a month’s security, and the broker’s fee. Then Guevara got arrested. When he called Tedeschi from Riker’s Island and asked for help raising bail, Tedeschi agreed to post two thousand five hundred dollars of his own money. With all contributors accounted for, this still left Guevara a thousand short. Since Tedeschi already owed him three hundred dollars in previously earned commissions, and the Saturday rental meant another four hundred dollars’ due Guevara, that left Tedeschi, upon posting an additional thousand dollars, in the hole for only three hundred. Guevara promised to make good on it immediately upon his release.

Guevara never kept his promise. When the prospective tenant for the second apartment never materialized, that left the real estate broker in the hole for a hefty seven hundred, and no sign of Guevara since he’d left Rikers Island.

I apologized for my client, and blamed it on the strain of the criminal charges. I also told Tedeschi about Guevara’s suspension from P.S. 92, and that I would personally see to it that Guevara repaid him in full as soon as he was able.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Tedeschi said while rolling his eyes back. He took a deep breath and looked around the room. “Just tell him to forget about it, ok. And tell him I filled his position with a licensed sales agent so I don’t need him back either.” He stood and extended his hand.

“I’m sure he’ll repay you,” I appealed.

Our hands met. He gave mine a quick conclusive shake then pointed toward the door. “Please, I’ve got work to do.”

Chapter 48

I
waited for Eleanor, one of an anxious group of onlookers, behind a rope a few feet from the bottom of a descending escalator that reminded me of the Bronx Criminal Court. A short black security guard stood watch nearby as a single file of passengers rode down, their eyes combing the crowd below.

Though it had been only ten days since I saw her last, she looked years younger. Wide-eyed, rested, relaxed, she had never appeared more beautiful to me than in those seconds before our eyes met. She smiled broadly and ran toward me.

Dropping her suitcase and shopping bag, she threw her arms around my neck and gave me a long, intense kiss. We hugged until the crowd had parted and the security guard left his post. We held each other as we walked to my car, Eleanor carrying her shopping bag, me carrying her suitcase.

“So, have I lost you to Atlanta?” I asked.

A cool wind whipped her hair back, and I was reminded again of the night we first met and the confusion I’d felt as we parted outside Cardozo Law amid the gusts of Fifth Avenue.

She looked down at the pavement. “I missed you terribly, Nick. I don’t think we should be apart for this long again.”

I opened the passenger door of the Malibu. She slid in and held her breath as tears formed in the corners of her eyes. I reached over and hugged her.

She futilely attempted to blow dry her eyes by waving her fingers in front of her face. When I started the car the radio came on.
The Long and Winding Road
was playing with Paul McCartney’s voice in the lead. I held her hand during the entire drive to Manhattan.

When we got to her apartment she emptied the shopping bag. A tiny cherubic doll pushing a rust-tinted Coca-Cola crate was delicately placed on the coffee table. It commemorated the first sale of America’s favorite soft drink out of a drug store on Atlanta’s Peachtree Street in the late 1890s. She then draped across my knee a tie emblazoned with a picture of Rhett Butler playing cards in a black cape and white ruffled shirt.

Eleanor studied my reaction as I examined each gift. I told her I loved them both and kissed her twice in thanks, though I couldn’t imagine where or when I’d ever wear the tie.

She then took a third gift from the bag—a porcelain hand-painted bust of Saint John the Baptist so delicate, I was actually afraid to touch it. “I thought your mom would like this.”

Eleanor had remembered that my stepfather’s full name was Giovanni Baptiste Mannino.

She would gain a special place in Mom’s heart with this one.

“I know you don’t wear jewelry,” she said handing me a small box. “But I thought of you when I saw this.”

I opened the box and gaped at the Rolex inside.
This must have cost thousands.

“Don’t even think about saying that I shouldn’t have. It’s a gift, and I’m not taking it back. So just tell me you love me, and always will.”

“I love you, and always will,” I said, and meant it. I hoped my sincerity successfully masked my embarrassment. The last thing I wanted her family to think was that I was taking advantage of their daughter, or worse—was only interested in her money.