Tim Green - False Convictions

“Niko Todora,” Casey said, watching the fat man’s eyes widen just a hint, otherwise he remained impassive. “Chicken wings, plumbing fixtures, and gas leases.”

Todora looked at Napoli.

“Our group has varied interests,” Napoli said.

“Your group may be under indictment,” Casey said. “Every one of you.”

“I saw you on TV,” Napoli said, squinting, “and I told Mr. Todora you reminded me of Louie Fitch’s assistant. Louie was a magician in the day, and his assistant had red hair like you, pretty, too. He’d saw her in half and bingo, he’d put her back together and there’d she’d be with those terrific legs in that black fishnet. You got some tricks of your own. I see that.”

“And your partner Robert Graham is the magician,” Casey said, holding his pale green eyes with her own, “but you’re not going to like his tricks.”

“Like?”

Casey looked at Jake. He inclined his head to her.

“Graham has a file of income reports that you haven’t seen,” Casey said. “You put your money into the company, and you collect your checks. Big checks. The problem is how he’s reporting the income he pays out to you and your partners. He makes it look like it’s not taxable, but it is.”

Casey looked around at them, Massimo D’Costa and John Napoli scowling, Niko Todora passive with the cigar hanging limp from his lips.

“So we didn’t pay taxes,” Napoli said.

“But you should have,” Casey said.

Napoli’s lower teeth showed like small yellow posts as he looked from one of his partners to the other.

“That’s his problem,” Massimo said in a rumble.

“No,” Casey said, “really, it’s yours. He’s been holding these files like an ace up his sleeve. If he never needs to play it, fine. No harm, no foul.”

“But if he ever goes down,” Jake said, “and he will go down-the FBI has an active investigation going on Graham-then he uses the file to give you up instead.”

“The FBI would much rather put a bunch of reformed”-Casey, searching for the right words, said-“would much rather toss all of you in jail than one well-known philanthropist. It doesn’t matter that you all thought what you were doing was legitimate. He’s your partner. You’re expected to know. Graham has personally made millions off you and your other partners.”

“Jail?” Massimo said, placing his meaty fists on his thighs and leaning forward.

“Tax evasion,” Casey said, “to the tune of about 120 million dollars. That’s how they got Al Capone.”

Napoli set his jaw, and the ember on the tip of Niko Todora’s cigar blazed. His eyes shifted around. He squinted at her through the smoke.

Todora removed the cigar from his mouth and leaned forward, pointing with it at the folder in front of Casey. “Is that the file?”

“That’s not the file,” Jake said, drawing a vicious stare. “Of course we have it.”

“But you want us to have it,” Todora said.

“Graham is a problem,” Jake said.

“He’s our partner,” Napoli said. “He has a fiduciary duty to our money. He shouldn’t be punished for that.”

“Your money’s gone,” Casey said. “Graham stole it and tried to get it back by fixing the outcome of The Nature Conservancy v. Eastern Oil & Gas, the court case that shut down the Marcellus Shale drilling. I’m sure you know. I’m sure he asked you to get rid of Judge Rivers, which, to your credit, you wanted nothing to do with. Everyone inside the gas business knew those leases would be worthless unless Eastern won their appeal. Graham bought them up at a huge discount. You thought you were getting a twenty to thirty percent return on investment? All Graham did was give you back some of your own money. The rest he spent on airplanes and champagne.”

Todora looked at Napoli. “True?”

“It could be,” Napoli said, gumming his lip.

Todora sat back and sighed, flicking his ashes on the floor. “Graham. He’s like a toxic waste. Massimo knows all the landfills, so I think that’s something we can take care of.”

“That’s not what we want,” Casey said, shaking her head.

Todora glowered. “Money?”

She shook her head. “I have a reputation.”

Massimo snickered, slicked his hair, and said, “Yeah, you do. Going all the way to the Caribbean for some guy’s load. You’re some gal.”

Napoli coughed and gave her a yellow grin.

Casey’s spine stiffened. “Robert Graham needs to admit publicly that he’s a piece of shit, that he twisted this case, that he lied, faked the evidence, everything. He needs to fall on his sword. You do that and you’ll get your files. Otherwise, the hell with all of you. Those blaze orange jumpsuits will go good with your tans.”

Casey stood, sending her chair screeching across the floor.

Napoli shook his head at Jake and said, “That’s not smart.”

“She’s not a good listener,” Jake said, rising from the table himself, “but let’s not get excited. This’ll be easier than you think.”

“We’re talking about a lot of money we stand to lose if our partner isn’t successful,” Todora said. “That’s not something we can overlook. It’s too much.”

“That’s why I brought you this,” Casey said, patting the folder.

“Quit with the riddles,” Todora said.

“When this story breaks,” Casey said, “everything Graham has is going to come unraveled. His entire empire will fall. The banks, investors, every creditor he’s got will be scrambling for hard assets.”

“You mean us, too,” Napoli said.

“That’s why we put these together,” Casey said, opening the file and pushing it across the table to Napoli. “Confessions of judgment. You get Graham to sign these and you walk away with his mansions in Seattle, Aspen, and Palm Beach. His jet and a three-hundred-foot yacht. Over ninety million in assets are yours, and you’re almost whole.”

Napoli looked through the papers and said, “Yes.”

“You get Graham to come clean, first,” Casey said, “then you have him sign those papers, then we give you his tax files.”

“In the environmental business,” Massimo said in a growl, “things get cleaned up just one way, and the mess stays gone.”

“I’ll do the cleaning,” Jake said, taking something small from his pocket and holding it out so that all three men leaned close. “You just call a sit-down with Graham. I’ll take care of the rest.”

LITTLE HOUSES stood crowded together along twisting streets that overlooked the river. Next to the railroad tracks below, the broken rubble of a razed factory sprouted blue PVC piping, wells sunk deep in the ground to collect and filter the poison of bygone days. On the corner, Ferrari’s Restaurant stood like a resolute ironworker, aged and worn but refusing to fall victim to the blight surrounding him. The restaurant boasted a wooden sign, the red-and-black shield of the famous carmaker.

Casey and Jake walked through the bar, past the dining room and the kitchen, then followed Dora up a narrow set of stairs in the back. The equipment had been set up around what looked like the bedroom of a child, with a circuit board and a computer resting on the single bed and several monitors crowded onto the desktop amid sloppily painted toy soldiers. Colored cables twisted themselves into a spaghetti of confusion on the braided rug in the center of the cramped room. A faded Bills banner hung on one wall and a Sabers pennant hung by two thumbtacks on the slanted ceiling. Gray light seeped in through a single narrow window, but their eyes were glued to the monitors, which gave them five different angles of the table in the corner.

“I set the whole thing up on my own,” Dora said proudly. “Had the crew drop everything on the curb. Angelo gave them a bag of egg and pepper sandwiches and off they went to the casino in Niagara Falls. Didn’t want anyone asking questions.”