Steve Martini - Undue Influence

We’re down the concrete steps from the dock and up the alley and I can still hear the guy ranting, ragging on the carrier, who could kill.

‘What an asshole,’ says Harry.

‘She knows something,’ I tell him. ‘She knows where Kathy Merlow is.’

He looks at me. ‘How do you know?’

‘She was gonna talk. I could smell it. When I told her there was a woman’s life in the balance. She leaned,’ I say. ‘She was falling into our arms. In that instant before Simon Legree showed up.’

‘Maybe we could look on Goldbloom’s list and find the name Marcie,’ he says. ‘Call her on the phone.’

‘What, and fill out another form?’ I ask him. ‘We’ll find another way to run her down. Come back after work if we have to.’

‘It raises another question,’ says Harry. ‘Who else do you think is looking for Merlow?’

‘My guess? Probably Jimmy Lama.’

Harry gets the picture. If Jimmy did the neighborhood like us, he couldn’t miss the Merlows’ empty house.

‘He’d check where they worked. Lama and his cronies probably lined up all the help in the mail room and did the third degree. A point for our side,’ I tell him. ‘If it was the cops who were asking. Marcie’s a friend. If she thought Kathy Merlow was in trouble, you think she would talk?’

Harry’s shaking his head like a village preacher asked if the devil goes to heaven.

‘That’s what I think,’ I tell him. We do a mutual smile, grins all around.

We’re to the corner when I see the expression on Harry’s face turn grim, then angry.

‘Shit.’ It is the only thing he says.

The meter maid is busy writing Harry a ticket.

‘Racketeering, mail fraud, and extortion,’ she says. ‘Six counts. He pled out two months ago to a sealed indictment.’ This is Dana Colby’s rendition of what the Justice Department has on Jack Vega.

I whistle, low under my breath. He could do a dozen years for this. These are no doubt all activities that Jack would lump under the term ‘fund-raising.’

‘Mr. Vega doesn’t have good money manners,’ she says.

Knowing Jack and his ability to draw attention, he was probably working the rotunda of the Capitol, threatening tour groups with new taxes unless they gave him their pocket change.

It is nearly seven-thirty in the evening. I am at Dana’s house out in the avenues. Two blocks from Jack’s. It was Dana’s choice to meet here. To do it in the office, she says, would have raised questions. She has talked to her people and is now able to tell me some things.

‘So Jack’s now doing his civic duty,’ I say. I’m talking about Vega rolling over on his unsuspecting friends in the Capitol.

‘He had something to offer. We were interested,’ she says. ‘Sit down. How about a cup of coffee?’

‘Sure.’ I settle into the couch in the living room, where I can see her through the opening to the kitchen while we talk.

Dana’s still dressed from work, white blouse, a gray tight wool skirt, hemline above the knees, pinstripes. What the well-dressed female lawyer wears. The skirt clings to her form as she moves about the kitchen in bare feet, having ditched her heels by the chair across the way in the living room.

‘We offered him eighteen months at Lompoc,’ she says. ‘And a quarter-million-dollar fine.’

This will no doubt draw down Jack’s kitty. And while he will do his time in one of the federal country clubs, the place where the junk-bond kings made muscles, grew beards, found God, and turned over new ethical leaves, it is still a penitentiary. When he comes out he won’t be doing any lobbying in D.C. The thing Jack lives for, power, will be drained from his bones like some leaking, dead battery in a discarded toy. For someone like Jack, who doesn’t know how to do real work, he would view this as the first step on the road to homelessness. A man who is suddenly under a lot of strain, getting his psyche steamed and pressed.

‘His lawyers made a big pitch,’ she says. ‘First offense. A man with a family. A long and distinguished public career.’

‘Long I will concede,’ I tell her.

‘And children,’ she says.

Suddenly Jack’s rush to get custody is making more sense. The kids were a foil, a shield that he could throw up to a sympathetic federal judge. No place to go, they need a father.

‘He must have given up quite a bit in return?’ I say.

‘Some members of the House,’ she says. No names, but from the way she speaks I am certain these are ranking politicians.

‘And a few lobbyists.’ She talks like they are trading pieces on a chessboard — my knight for your majority whip.

She’s out with the coffee, two mugs, and a little dish of cookies. She hands me a mug, offers a cookie, and I take one. I am doing without dinner tonight. Then she kneels down on the couch, legs slightly spread and curled under herself so that we are now two endpieces with a single cushion between us. Her skirt has hiked up a little so that I am now getting a lot of open thigh with my coffee and cookies. She sees me looking, does nothing to adjust her skirt, but gives me that knowing look that some women do so well when they know they are being ogled but don’t mind.

‘It’s a pretty good deal — for Jack, I mean. Given the charges, if the evidence was solid.’

‘Ironclad,’ she says. ‘We had him on tape, soliciting and accepting bribes. Still, he’s not finished dealing.’

I give her a look, a question mark.

‘His lawyers are arguing that the murder of his wife, the absence of any available parents for the children, changes the circumstances of his situation. His lawyers are making a pitch for straight probation. Another hearing before the court.’

One thing is clear. Though she doesn’t yet know it, the name of Dana Colby will be appearing on my list of witnesses for the defense.

‘You don’t sound like you’re putting up a pitched battle over this.’

‘He was a corrupting influence, poisoning the system,’ she says. ‘Whether he does jail time or not, we’ve effectively cut him out like a cancer. The terms of probation will be long and severe. No lobbying, barred from public office. Sometimes there is only so much you can do. Diminishing returns,’ she says. ‘We had what we wanted. Vega’s cooperation, the man out of the process. His testimony against others more corrupt,’ she says.

I don’t think there is such an animal. And Dana sounds more than a little defensive. I wonder if there are other reasons they backed off to let Jack walk, something she is not telling me. Some other leverage that has gotten Dana to call off her dogs.

Still, this is the Jack I know. The king of Teflon, even in the jaws of justice. A tragedy in the family, and Jack doesn’t miss a beat. His lawyers ever on the lookout for the silver seam, he appears to have found it.

‘How far are you from closure?’ I ask. ‘For Jack to finish his chores? Indictments?’

‘Ahh. Well, these things take time,’ she says. ‘A few weeks, maybe a month — could be a little more.’

It would be easier to get federal cooperation, to go public with the information on Jack’s criminal involvement and avoid a messy battle with the feds if they can wrap their case and bring indictments quickly. It would also shed a new light on the grieving spouse, perhaps take a little of the edge off of the state’s case against Laurel. After all, the victim was, at a minimum, living with a felon. I wonder how much Melanie knew. The favored tactic on defense. Put the victim on trial.

‘There’s no doubt that his wife’s murder adds a complication,’ says Dana. ‘Still, I’m not sure we see any connection between the two, our investigation and Mrs. Vega’s death.’ Dana’s look at this moment is more questions than answers. She wants to know if I have anything specific linking the murder and Jack’s problems with the feds.