Chapter 10 Eddie

10

Eddie

We met outside the now permanently closed Corte Café, on the corner of Lafayette and Duane. While the junior associates were lousy lawyers, they could at least follow basic instructions. They had come in their Sunday-morning-hungover-trip-to-the-convenience-store clothes. Baggy, ripped jeans. Sweatshirts either way too big or way too small. Faded gray T-shirts and stained sneakers. Baseball caps and beanie hats. The kind of outfit you might wear if you were painting the apartment and you didn't mind it getting ruined.

The point was none of them looked like Harvard grads who all happened to work in the same firm.

They had all followed the brief.

Except one.

Harrison Washington III, because I would have a hard time forgetting that name, had come in oversized Dolce it kept getting bigger. Three or four district attorneys had come and gone through his office in just the last few years – resigning or getting kicked out on corruption charges.

Herb would outlast them all. I liked Herb.

‘How are you still alive?' I asked him.

‘Only the good die young, Eddie. Never mind me – I read the news. How the hell are you still alive?'

‘I'm like you. The devil is keeping me alive for a higher purpose.'

It had been a rough few years. I had the scars to prove it.

‘Do you think I could grab five minutes with Castro?' I asked.

His face darkened at the mention of the DA.

‘Have you met him yet?' he asked.

I shook my head.

‘I seen a lot of assholes come through these doors,' he said. ‘This guy takes some beating. I even put in for retirement.'

‘How does Mrs. Goldman feel about that?'

‘She's got a nice place picked out in a seniors' retirement facility in Florida. Goddamn Florida. It's like an elephant's graveyard.'

I winced, said, ‘Sorry to hear that.'

‘I'm praying I'll have a stroke before it comes to that,' he said, then picked up the phone and hit a button. He waited until the call was answered.

‘Hi, Maura, Herb here. I got Eddie Flynn with me for the DA.'

He listened in silence. Then put the phone down.

‘Now is not a good time,' said Herb. ‘Castro is stressed to the balls and he's on the warpath with everybody.'

‘Sounds like the perfect time for me to see him,' I said with a smile.

Herb smiled back, said, ‘Go on through. If anyone asks, you snuck past me.'

I pushed through the doors to the outer offices. Islands of desks and stacks of paperwork with assistant DAs, secretaries and paralegals moving files, on the phone, or punching the keys on their workstations. It was hot. Men had loosened their shirts and ties, and I noticed bottles of water on every desk. The DA's office was at the end of a narrow corridor that began on the other side of the room. I made my way through the chaos of a busy prosecutor's department, along the corridor and found the DA's door open.

Castro stood in the center of the room, his large desk behind him. He was in his underwear, wearing only underpants with a shirt and tie. Flopping out a pair of white suit pants, he stepped into them and then turned and noticed me.

‘What the hell are you doing here?'

‘Thought I'd come and straighten a few things out before your press conference.'

It was then that I noticed a pair of black pants folded over his guest chair. Castro was all show. He had been elected on the back of the former district attorney taking a bribe from a politician who'd been caught with an underage girl. The ever-prescient Castro took that moment to run for the office on an anti-corruption ticket. To separate himself from the other candidates for DA, he wore a white or pale suit. It was supposedly an idea from one of his advisors: it wasn't good enough to say he was clean – people had to have a visual reminder of his untouchable character. Like everything else, it was a gimmick. The word around the halls of justice was that Castro's white-suit routine hid his true nature – the guy was as dirty as they come. It had been Castro who'd set up the politician into bribing Castro's predecessor, thereby paving the way for a district-attorney election in the first place.

This guy was a player.

‘If I had wanted a comment from Jackson's lawyers, I would've called Al Parish,' said Castro, buttoning his pants. ‘Maura!' he called out.

A woman in her thirties came hustling into Castro's office. She was dressed in a black skirt, blue blouse and she had a notepad and pen in her hand. Her hair was supposed to be tied up, but some strands had fallen loose and stuck to her cheek with sweat.

‘Yes, Mr. Castro,' said the woman I presumed was his secretary, Maura.

‘How did he get in here?' asked Castro.

‘Well . . . well, I-I-I'm not quite sure. I . . .'

‘Never mind,' he snapped. ‘Clean up this place. Get the garbage off my desk and, by the way, the tuna salad was awful. Don't ever get my lunch from that place again. I'm not paying for your mistakes. I'm taking that ten bucks out of your paycheck.'

Maura said nothing. She just bowed her head and almost tiptoed round Castro to his desk where she bunched up the remains of his lunch in her arms and made for the door. At this point I was grateful Kate wasn't here. If he'd spoken to Maura like that in front of Kate Brooks, Castro would've needed a fresh pair of pants.

‘And where the hell is my speech?' he cried. ‘As you can see, Flynn. I'm a little busy. If you're not here to plead out your client, you can leave.'

‘I actually came with advice before you open your big mouth to media. Drop the charges against Jackson – he's innocent. This case is not gonna go your way and I wouldn't want you embarrassing yourself in public.'

‘Get out,' he said.

I leaned back, looked at Castro. He found his white jacket on a hanger attached to a coat rack in the corner. He put it on, bellowed, ‘Speech, now!'

An assistant DA, his white shirt stained with sweat, came into Castro's office with two pages of typed script.

‘Is this the revised version?' asked Castro, snatching the pages and scanning them.

‘This is the latest version with your edits,' said the ADA.

‘Better be . . .' he said, and folded the pages before placing them inside his jacket.

The ADA left, Castro turned to me and said, ‘You still here?'

I said nothing. I watched him step into his slip-on leather shoes, waited for him to take a step toward the door. When he did, I moved too. He was a little smaller than me, and when I shouldered him in the chest he bounced back two feet.

‘My apologies,' I said. ‘After you,' and I held out a hand to lead the way.

‘You're a goddamn juvenile, Flynn. You don't scare me,' he said, and I followed him out of his office. Just as he got to the end of the corridor he was swamped by a crowd of ADAs as he made his way through reception and to the elevator. I watched him go, and stopped by Maura's desk.

‘Why is it so hot in here?' I asked.

‘He won't let us put on the AC. Says it's a waste of public money.'

DAs who save money are popular with the mayor's office. This guy was something else. He would make every one of his personnel suffer in the Manhattan heat just to save a few grand so he could suck up to a higher power.

Maura stared at her computer screen, dabbed her forehead with a tissue. Only being this close to her did I notice the collar of her blouse was frayed from too many washes – the color had faded too. Her lunchbox was by her feet, which were clad in pumps with one of the soles peeling away from the shoe. With inflation, rent, food prices and gas going through the roof – times were tough for everyone. One thing Castro was not short on was money. He'd come from a wealthy middle-class family and married an heiress to a mining company. Now, he lived in a mansion two blocks from West 74 th Street.

I peeled off a hundred-dollar bill from my fold, placed it on Maura's desk.

‘Don't tell him I gave you this. He'll make you give it back and he'll still take his lunch money from your paycheck. Just between us, let's say his lunch is on me and you take the rest as a tip. And if you ever get tired of this job call my partner, Kate Brooks. She could help you find something else. Lot of law firms in this town crying out for great support staff.'

Maura stared at the bill, then crumpled it in her hand and stuffed it into her purse.

‘Thank you,' she said.

‘No problem. Are you going to watch his press conference?'

She rolled her eyes, said, ‘I have to. Part of my job.'

I smiled, said, ‘I think you might enjoy this one.'