Steve Martini: The Judge

And then there was Kline’s obsession about Lenore’s interview with Hall. Why? Unless perhaps he thought Hall had told Lenore something about a relationship that was souring. Hall was a social gadfly and a professional climber. I could not help but notice when the letter K turned up missing from her directory. We still do not know if this was fortuitous, the work of Tony on behalf of another. Or if Kline did it himself.

Hall’s apartment that night was like Grand Central Station. It was a measure of the woman and her aspirations that nearly everyone involved in the subsequent trial was there, though not at the same moment-Lili, and Tony, Lenore and I, and Kline.

In fact the only one not to make a visit that night was Gus Lano, though he was in her phone book, and is now in jail.

The reason Harry could be so certain that Lano would return early from his trip was that he never left. Lano had an appointment at the airport with Customs that he could not anticipate, an anonymous phone call, a tip that he was packing nearly a kilo of cocaine in one of his bags.

After the raid at my home, I’d given this to Harry to dispose of, I assumed down some toilet. Harry’s idea of a convenient commode was one of Lano’s unguarded bags in the clerk’s office that last day. When I questioned him about this, he called it “recycling”: Harry’s notion of environmental activism. With Lano running through the airport clamoring to catch his plane, federal agents shagged him.

All debts are now paid, questions answered, the story full circle-poetry in motion.