David Ellis - Breach of Trust

It got a little nicer as I moved southward. The apartment buildings and stacked townhouses became single-family homes, even a few yards with gates and small gardens. I looked for street numbers along the way and found it easily enough. Kiko’s house. It was nothing to write home about. It was on the same half-acre lot as the other homes, two stories, some brick and some siding. That’s where these guys lived, same as the old-time Mafioso around here-housing that was facially modest, but with extravagant interiors and high-priced accessories.

I drove around the block a couple of times. I went down the alley twice. I thought I had a pretty good feel for the place. I knew how I would want to proceed-if I decided to exercise that option. A big if. Confronting this guy wasn’t at the top of my list. I didn’t want to make Kiko my enemy any more than I wanted to jump out of an airplane without a parachute. But I thought I was running out of time before the federal government closed in on Charlie Cimino and company, and when that happened, it would be too late.

So, not tonight. But maybe soon.

I met Brady Macaleer in his office at nine the next morning. It was hard to square the title on his door-CHIEF OF GOVERNMENT ADMINISTRATION-with the pug-nosed, knuckle-dragging thug sitting behind the desk. His shirt didn’t fit him very well and the tie appeared to be an afterthought. His eyes were once again bloodshot, narrow, and still unfriendly.

“Charlie says you’re stand-up,” he informed me. He said it as if we’d never met, as if we hadn’t talked shop all last night at dinner. He also said it as if, from his standpoint, the jury was still out.

“Me, I don’t know you yet,” he continued. “You see what I’m saying?”

“I think so. You don’t know me yet.”

“And I don’t trust people I don’t know. You see what I’m saying?”

We had two-thirds of a syllogism so far. Wait for it. .

“So I don’t trust you,” he said.

“I’m glad we cleared that up,” I said.

I didn’t think his eyes could narrow any further, but they did. I think he had the vague notion that he was being insulted. Some people can be very sensitive.

As riveting as this conversation was, Mac segued into a brief discussion of office hierarchy. He held a hand, horizontal, in the air at face level. “This is the governor,” he said. He lowered his hand a notch. “This is Queen Madison,” he said. Then he lowered it again. “This is me.” He lowered it more than a notch-maybe two or three of them, until his hand was almost down at the desk. “This is you,” he said.

“That’s pretty low,” I observed.

“Yeah, and it’s gonna stay like that.” Then, for good measure, he actually repeated the whole idiotic thing. Governor. Madison. Mac. Kolarich.

It occurred to me that I should play nice with this guy, seeing as how I was supposed to get close with everyone in the inner circle and uncover secret truths.

“Could you diagram that on a piece of paper?” I asked. “In case I forget.”

He didn’t think much of that, but his phone rang before he could comment. He spent a lot of time listening and making various grunting noises. By the time he got off, he’d mentally moved on.

“Okay, mister smart guy. We’ve got these people that we want to put in these jobs to make Rick Harmoning happy, and we got these pain-in-the-ass lawyers coming in to tell us why we can’t hire them. They’re going to tell you about veterans’ preferences and people scoring higher and all sorts of lawyer crap, and all of that comes down to, I can’t do what I want. And I wanna do what I want. Right?”

“Sure.”

“So these guys are going to come in, they’re going to give you the lawyer rap, and then you’re going to figure out how to get my guys those jobs. Right?”

“Right,” I said. “You’re the man.”

AND MAC WAS ESSENTIALLYcorrect in his prediction. We met with a guy named Gordon. I couldn’t remember if that was his first name or last, or maybe he just went by one name like Bono or Madonna. He was a pudgy guy with a shock of black hair on top and droopy cheeks. He was the deputy counsel to the Division of Personnel and Professional Services and Other Assorted Bureaucratic Quagmires, or something like that.

“You’ve got two problems with these jobs,” he said. “First, the veterans’ preferences are absolute. Each of the jobs you’re seeking to fill with these people on this list of yours? They’re right here in the city. There are dozens of veterans up here who are on a list for jobs like these. All of them would start with a preference. You have to consider them first and give them a weighted score.”

“What’s the other problem?” I asked.

“The other problem is that some of these positions, we’ve already taken applications and administered tests, and the people you want for these jobs will have to score higher on the tests.”

I looked over at Mac, who shook his head. Not good. Apparently we weren’t confident relying on the intellectual acuity of the people Harmoning wanted us to hire.

“Veterans are sorted by county?” I asked.

“That’s right.”

“Are there counties with no veterans applying?”

“Are there-well, probably,” he said, thinking about it. “We have over a hundred counties in this state. There are probably counties that don’t have any veteran applicants, yeah.”

“And these five different agencies we’re talking about here,” I said. “Would any of them have offices in those counties without any veteran applicants?”

Gordon blinked at me. “You’re talking about moving the jobs to counties with no veterans applying?”

“I am.” I felt a small pain in my gut just saying it. But it was my role to do this, to fuck over the veterans to get the jobs for these people Madison and Mac wanted hired.

“Well, you can’t-” Gordon looked at me and then at Mac. Gordon knew the law, meaning he knew that it was against the law to try to skirt the veterans’ preferences. But he also knew that Brady Mac was his boss, and I came from the governor’s office. Each of us outranked him.

“He’s asking you to check,” Mac said. “Check to see if these jobs can be moved.”

Gordon’s eyebrows arched and met in the middle. He looked at me for assistance. I looked away. I wasn’t enjoying this, not one bit.

“By the end of the day,” said Mac.

“And what if they can’t?” Gordon asked.

“Well, let’s talk about that,” I said. “Suppose we wanted our people in these jobs and we couldn’t locate the jobs in a county without veterans applying. Or suppose other people have already been interviewed and taken tests. How do we do it? How do we get our guys in?”

Gordon shrugged. He didn’t know, or he didn’t want to help us. A sheen of sweat appeared on his wrinkled forehead. The two people in this room who outranked him were asking him how to bend and twist the law. Gordon may have been a bit of a stiff, but he seemed like an honest guy.

“Aren’t there jobs that don’t require tests?” I asked.

“No,” said Gordon. “I mean, other than internships.”

“Internships. You mean, like, college kids?”

Gordon nodded.

“How does the law define an ‘intern’?” I asked.

“It doesn’t.”

“An ‘intern’ is whatever we say it is?”

“Right.”

“We can create an ‘internship’ whenever we want?”

“Well-I guess so. Sure.”

“An ‘intern’ can hold the job indefinitely?”

“I-well, I suppose so. Yes.”

I looked at Mac. He seemed to be following.

“We can pay an ‘intern’ whatever we want?” I asked.