William Brown - The Undertaker

Big trial. Big name lawyers. Lots of press. What finally put Jimmy behind bars was the defection and testimony of several of Santorini's top “button men”: Richie Benvenuto, Johnny Dantonio, Paul Mantucci and Clement “the Mole” Aleppo, topped off with a bean counter named Louie Panozzo. Without them, the Feds would never have made their case. With them, it was a slam dunk. Apparently, the Federal Witness Protection Program sounded better than spending twenty-five to life behind the razor wire at Marion in the cage next to Jimmy. It was a good thing Marlon Brando was dead, though. Omerta must have died with the Godfather.

Looking at the more recent news stories, I found some dealing with the investigation, the arrest, and the trial, but not much after that. The trial lasted months, but the half-life of a mob trial is only a week or two once it was over. Besides, it was mostly a New York/ New Jersey story to begin with. With the exception of a few quick blips, it faded as fast as Jimmy's suntan inside Marion. The New York Times put the best wrap on it:

“When all is said and done, after all the prosecutors and politicians have done their final preening for the cameras, after all the big name lawyers have cashed their 7-figure checks and the reporters have written their last word, putting Jimmy “the Stump” to the Federal pen had all the permanence of throwing a rock into a big lake. Not that Jimmy Santorini didn't get what he deserved, but after the big splash, the hole in the pond quickly fills back over, the ripples fade to nothing, and some new “wise guy” has muscled his way in to take his place. In the end, we must ask ourselves, “What difference did any of it make?”

I returned to the Reference Desk and found the same polite librarian sitting on her stool, staring across the counter at me.

“If I wanted to find out about a lawyer, do you have a book or something I could look him up in?” I asked.

“Some people have the damnedest hobbies,” she commented, straight-faced. “Why on earth would you want to do that?”

“Oh, I'm just curious,” I smiled. “I want to make sure I'm hiring the right one, you know.”

“You mean the one with the sharpest teeth?” She asked without blinking. “Well, each to his own. Come along, we'll see what we can find.”

She led me back into the labyrinth of the reference shelves and paused in front of a long row of thick, yellowy-gold, black-lettered tomes. “That's the new edition of the Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory,” she offered proudly. “All thirteen volumes, divided by State and City. It'll tell you everything you ever wanted to know about every law firm and every lawyer in the Country — except which ones are honest and which ones ought to strung up and hung.”

She looked up at me and flicked her finger against my shirt pocket where I had hidden the obituaries I ripped out of her newspapers. “Just don't go tearing anything out of these babies, okay? 'Cause if I catch you, it won't be pretty.”

“Yes, ma'am,” I said as she turned and walked away, leaving me standing there with an embarrassed grin on my face.

I had no idea there were that many lawyers in the country. Each volume of the Martindale-Hubbell set contained well over a thousand pages and each page consisted of two columns of very small print. It really made you wish for an open hunting season to thin out the herd. The thick, middle volume contained North Dakota, Ohio, and Oregon. Lawyers. They're nothing if not logical. In the middle of the thickest part containing Ohio, after hurrying past all the dead weight of Cincinnati and Cleveland, I found the long, alphabetical roster for Columbus.

I flipped to the H's and found the heading for Hamilton, Keogh, and Hollister in big, bold, italic letters. Under the name was the address, Suite 1400, Fidelity National Bank Building, 147 South High Street. In smaller lettering I read, “General Trial, Appellate, and Federal Practice, Criminal, Federal Procedures, Business, Commercial, Corporate, Labor, Employment, Taxation, Estate Planning, Bankruptcy Probate, Real Estate, and Insurance.” It didn't mention chasing ambulances, getting scumbags off the hook, or being on the O. J. Simpson Dream Team, so how good could they be?

Below the heading, I saw a long list of “Members of the Firm” which ran to eight pages, not including the Associates. The first among the many was:

Tinkerton, Ralph McKinley, Managing Partner, Hamilton, Keogh, and Hollister, Columbus, 2004-Present. Born Amarillo, Texas, September 9, 1961. Admitted to the Ohio Bar, 2003. Also member in Texas, New York, Florida, and New Jersey; U. S. District Court, U. S. Court of Appeals, 6th Circuit, and the U. S. Supreme Court. Education: University of Texas, (BA, 1983, Phi Beta Kappa) Harvard Law (JD, 1993, magna cum laude) Editor, Law Review. Adjunct Professor Georgetown. Special Counsel, U. S. Justice Dept. Past President, Association of Prosecuting Attorneys. Former U. S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, 2001-04. Assistant U. S. Attorney for South Florida, 1998-01. Special Counsel, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1996-98. Agent, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1993-96. Captain, Special Operations, U. S. Marine Corps, 1983-90, Central America Military Assistance Command.

Very impressive. Tinkerton was not your basic homegrown Buckeye. No, he was a transplanted Texan and ex-marine who went on to be a top-level Fed, a heavy-duty criminal prosecutor, U. S. Attorney, and an agent in the FBI. Hardly one of your typical family law snakes who lived on wills, deeds, and divorces, the kind you'd expect to find handling the minor executor duties of an autoworker, a motel desk clerk, a car mechanic, a warehouse supervisor, or a carpenter. Nope, there was no way a Ralph McKinley Tinkerton would come within five miles of the Skeppingtons, the Pryors, the Brownsteins, Edward J. Kasmarek, or Mr. and Mrs. Peter E. Talbott of Columbus, Ohio, unless he was about to throw them in the slammer, or get them out.

The more I looked at Tinkerton's entry, the less sense it made. I looked at my watch. It was nearly noon and 147 South High Street was only a few long blocks away. They say you can tell a lot about a person from the books he reads, the company he keeps, and the way he keeps his office. I wondered what that would tell me about Ralph McKinley Tinkerton.

Carryout can kill, and mind the pickle, too…

My first glimpse of 147 South High Street came from the sidewalk three blocks away. It was a twenty-eight story high-rise office building built of gleaming brown marble and dark tinted glass. Like a big magnet, I had felt it pulling on me and sucking me in all the way from Boston. Remembering back, maybe those were its first light tugs I felt when Gino Parini shoved that obituary at me. But I was here now and I had to climb that mountain and confront Ralph McKinley Tinkerton. Still, standing on the sidewalk and looking up at his lair, I felt more alone than I had felt since Terri died.

The building looked expensive and state-of-the-art. You could find the same twenty-eight stories of polished granite and mirror glass in Westwood, Reston, on Sixth Avenue in New York, on North Michigan Avenue in Chicago, or looking out on the harbor of Boston. It featured a gleaming two-story lobby with three tones of contrasting marble, an atrium full of oversized plants that looked like they'd grown up near a nuclear power plant, and banks of whirring, high-speed elevators that shot the harried lawyers, bankers, and stock brokers to the upper floors in quick, ten story bites.

I walked inside and took a quick glance around, but there was no tenant directory on display, only a guard in a dark blue uniform eyeing me from behind a round, marble-clad reception desk. It was strategically placed to block the path to the elevators, so the guard could scan all comers with the same dull, plastic smile. In this era of 9/11, with suicide bombers, eco-terrorists, postal clerks with assault rifles, militiamen with drums of fertilizer, angry husbands, angry wives, and every garden-variety local nut with a grudge, I didn't find it very surprising. Corporate anonymity was in vogue. Back in LA, you would not find very many logos on the exterior of the buildings any longer. No corporate names on the doors. No tenant directory inside the lobby. Especially not for a big law firm. If you didn't know the name of the person you wanted to see, who he worked for, and the location, you were shown the door. Even if you did, if that person didn't know you and expect you; if you had to ask or even hesitate, blink, or didn't maintain that downtown, get-out-of-my-way three-piece suit and button-down collar gait as you walked up to the guard, you still had a Hell of a time getting inside. One wrong look and he would point and pull you over like a motorcycle cop on an LA freeway.