Page 21 of Witness 8

‘I imagine an indictment from a grand jury is imminent. That gives us some discovery. At least something to work with so we can start building a defense. We’ll need to talk to him before the press conference. He’ll make it through this,’ I said.

‘Will he?’ asked Parish.

‘He’ll make it. Even if we have to carry him. Get him to your office in an hour. I’ll call Kate and Harry. There might be a way to handle Castro’s press conference.’

‘Not much we can do. What’s the point?’

‘We need to deaden the impact of the press conference, for the sake of getting an unbiased jury at least. And for John’s sake. I don’t want him splashed over the news, not yet. And I don’t want Castro riding our client’s case for publicity to help his election campaign.’

‘What can you do?’ asked Parish.

‘I’ll figure it out.’

I hung up, texted Kate and Harry to tell them about the forensics and arranged to meet them in Parish’s office in an hour. Then I took a bite out of the hot dog and popped the tab on my Pepsi.

People think justice is like the buildings that house the system itself. Huge, indelible edifices that look as if they’ve stood there for five hundred years. Same as the courtrooms themselves. Apart from microphones and the addition of TVmonitors, courtrooms haven’t changed for more than a century. Not really.

That gives the notion of justice permanence.

Yet it could not be more malleable. What drives the justice system isn’t our constitution, or the laws that govern each state, it’s the people in power.

Justice is a hammer. You can use it to tap lightly on stone, molding and shaping it over time.

Or you can crack the whole damn rock wide open.

It depends on who is wielding the hammer.

In this instance, District Attorney Rob Castro was going to pick up his hammer and do as much damage with it as possible.

As I contemplated various ways to go after Castro, a long black town car pulled up at the curb. A serious hunk of shiny black metal with blacked-out windows and titanium rims. That car weighed two and a quarter tons, yet the suspension shifted as the driver got out, opened the rear passenger door and looked at me.

The driver was Anthony Lombardi, better known to me and the rest of the criminal fraternity in New York as Tony Two Fucks. He weighed half as much as the car. That sport shirt drawn tight across his chest must’ve been made from Kevlar, because no other kind of material could take that strain. Tony was a good guy. Sure, he was a getaway driver and peripatetic hitman for the Mafia, but we all had our foibles. Tony had a little speech problem. His mother, Gloria, God rest her soul, first noticed the problem when Tony, good Catholic that he is, was going through his first confession.

The eleven-year-old Tony got into the confessional and said, ‘Fuckin’ bless me, Father, for I have sinned like a motherfucker.’

His career as an altar boy was cut drastically short and the priest threw him out of the church.

Tony, for reasons best left to science, could not get through a sentence, no matter how short, without a liberal sprinkling of fucks.

Not even without a ‘fuckin’ A-fuckin’-men’ at the end of his ‘Our Father’.

‘That fuckin’ hot dog any fuckin’ good?’ he asked.

‘It’s good,’ I said.

‘I’ll fuckin’ pick up a bag when I drop you off. Get in the fuckin’ car, Eddie. Jimmy wants to see ya.’

There are a lot of Jimmys in this town, but I instantly knew who he was talking about.

My childhood friend, Jimmy the Hat, who ran half of the city from a restaurant. He was head of one of the most powerful Italian crime families in New York, which made him one of the most powerful men in the country.

I finished the hot dog and the Pepsi, threw the napkin and soda can in the trash and got into the front passenger seat beside Tony.

I don’t ride in the back. I’m not royalty, I’m not a made guy and I’m not stupid enough to get into the back of a car that can be locked and sealed by the driver up front, no matter how far Jimmy and I go back.

‘How’s Jimmy?’ I asked as Tony pulled into traffic.

‘Fuckin’ A, that’s how fuckin’ good he is, the fuck.’