William Lashner - Marked Man

“My God,” I said to Slocum, who sat beside me on the bench as we both watched Hathaway work. “She should have been a gastrointestinal surgeon, the way she’s giving that guy a second asshole.”

“And he’s not even the defendant,” said Slocum.

“What’s her story?”

“A born prosecutor, never even flirted with defense work. Her father was a cop.”

“Here?”

“One of Philadelphia’s finest. Homicide, retired now. His daughter’s taken up the sword.”

“I wouldn’t want to be on her wrong side.”

“You already are,” said Slocum.

We must have been talking louder than we thought, because Hathaway stopped smack in the middle of a question and turned to stare at us. Her blue eyes focused on me, and I felt myself shrink beneath her gaze as if I had been dunked in an icy pond. She didn’t quickly turn back either. She kept staring so that everyone else in the courtroom, judge, bailiff, defendant, jury, the whole kit and caboodle turned and stared at me, too. It was all quite intolerable enough on its own, and then Slocum started laughing.

K. Lawrence Slocum was a solid, starchy man with thick glasses and a deep laugh who took inordinate pleasure in my humiliations. We were not quite friends, not quite enemies, we were simply professionals who worked the opposite sides of the same street. But I could trust Larry to hew to the highest standards of his profession, and he could trust that I wouldn’t even pretend to do the same, and with that understanding between us we got along surprisingly well. He had arranged a meeting between me and the intimidating Jenna Hathaway, the federal prosecutor with the strange, abiding interest in Charlie Kalakos. Hathaway, in the middle of a trial, had asked us to meet her in court, and so we had.

After the judge called a recess, Hathaway packed up her oversize briefcase and started down the aisle toward the doorway. Without saying a word, she motioned with her head that we were to follow. Her heels clicked on the linoleum as she led us down the hallway and into one of the lawyer-client rooms, a dreary space with no windows, metal chairs, and a brown Formica table.

When she turned around and trained again her blue eyes on me, I put on my smarmiest smile and reached out a hand. “Victor Carl,” I said.

Jenna Hathaway ignored the proffer and, while barely moving her tensed lips, said, “I know who you are.”

“Good,” I said. “I’m really glad we have this opportunity to get together and work out something on poor Charlie’s behalf. I’m sure we’re all looking for the same thing here, an outcome that will promote both the goal of justice and allow a wonderful work of art to regain its place in-”

“Could you just do us all a favor, Victor,” she said, interrupting me in midsentence, “and shut up. Not just here, in this room, where your voice is grating beyond measure, but on the evening news and in the papers, too. You’re in love with the sound of your own voice, and let me tell you, in your own best interest, you’re no Caruso. So please, please, please, just shut up.”

A little stunned, I looked over at Larry, who was fighting unsuccessfully to stifle his laughter, and then back at Jenna Hathaway. “Is that nice?” I said to her.

“I’m not trying to be nice.”

“And good for you, you’re succeeding. But whatever else all that talking did, it got your attention.”

“What will it take to shut you up?”

“Cutting to the chase, are you? I admire that. Right to the bone of it. So often lawyers spend so much time talking around things that are essentially meaningless. They can go on and on, and it can get so-”

“You’re doing it again,” she said.

“Doing what?”

“Talking too much. Are you doing this on purpose, just to piss me off?”

“Actually, yes,” I said.

She turned to Larry. “Is he a blathering idiot normally, or just a total jerk?”

“Oh, Victor can be a bit of both, but today he’s being the latter.”

She eyed me again, down and up, taking in the scuffs in my shoes, the railroad pleats in my pants, the wrinkled shirt, the weirdly glistening red tie. She rolled her eyes, sighed loudly, and dropped into one of the chairs. I sat across from her. “What can I do,” she said, “to get you out of my life?”

“Make a deal.”

“Terms?”

“We return the painting to its rightful place at the Randolph Trust and you drop all charges.”

“We won’t drop all charges,” she said. “That’s a nonstarter. And what about his testimony? He’d have to talk.”

“With immunity?”

“Be serious.”

“How long have you been going after the Warrick Brothers Gang, Larry?” I said.

“Years,” he said.

“How you guys doing?”

“Not so well.”

“And what’s the life expectancy of those who agree to testify against them?”

“Short.”

“We’ve already received a dire threat against my client’s life and my own. The first is par for the course, but the second I take very seriously. Still, Charlie will talk about his time with the Warricks if you give him immunity and you agree to protect him. He’d be amenable to witness protection.”

“Of course he would,” said Hathaway. “Living his days off some golf course in a condo paid for by the government.”

“And he mentioned something about a plasma TV.”

“Is this clown for real?” she asked Slocum.

“Unfortunately, yes,” he said.

“Then we have nothing more to talk about,” said Hathaway. “The FBI tells me they’re on the edge of finding your client anyway. As we speak, they are chasing down reliable leads.”

“Even if true, it doesn’t mean they’ll find the painting,” I said. “Did I mention the painting gets returned? Isn’t that why you’ve been after him all this time? Isn’t that why you had the FBI stationed outside his mother’s house, so you could get back that painting?”

She looked at me coldly. “I don’t give a good damn about the picture of some dead Dutch guy who painted himself.”

I stared at her for a moment. None of this made any sense. If it wasn’t the painting she was searching for, then what was it? I looked at Larry for help. He just shrugged.

“So what are you after?”

“I want to know how he got the painting.”

“It was stolen,” I said. “Thirty years ago. What more do you care about? There’s nothing you can do to any of them now. The statute of limitations has run. They got away with it. Sometimes bad triumphs. Let’s move on.”

“I’m not moving on,” she said. “If he comes in, he’s going to have to talk not just about his old gang but about the Randolph heist, too. Everything. And he’s going to have to name names.”

“He won’t. He’s already said.”

“Then that is that, isn’t it? You want to make a deal, make it with Larry.”

“But he can only talk about the state charges. There’s still a federal indictment against my client.”

“Yes, there is.”

“What are you really after?”

“Your client knows.”

“Charlie knows?”

“Sure he does. That’s it, those are the terms. If he comes back and talks truthfully about everything, and I mean everything, then we might be able to work something out.”

“I’ll talk to him.”

“Good.” She stood, hoisted her huge briefcase off the floor so that it thunked on the table. “Now I have to get back. There’s still some flesh I haven’t filleted off that accountant’s back. But, Victor, hear this. If I see your face on the television again, or one of your obnoxious quips quoted in the newspaper, the next dire threat you’ll be getting will be coming from me.”

“Can I ask you something more personal?”