William Lashner - Marked Man

“It wasn’t any trickto find your boy Bradley Hewitt,” said Skink. “A guy like that, he needs to let it be known that he’s a player. Lunch at the Palm, dinner at Morton’s, doing the stroll among the well-heeled and the powerful, and always accompanied by his three guys with their suits and their briefcases.”

“He’s got an entourage,” I said.

“That he does.”

“I want an entourage.”

“You couldn’t handle an entourage. And why is it the power joints all serve steak?”

“Like in the days of the dinosaur, the most feared are always carnivores.”

“You wants to know why the cemeteries are filled with indispensable men? Because they all eats steak.”

We were walking north, on Front Street, quiet and cobblestoned, with a few cars slipping back and forth looking for parking. Most of the city action was to the west, Old City and Society Hill, the bright lights, the bars. Front Street was staid and dark, close to the river and its mist, a street for the cozy rendezvous or the quiet conversation, a place to walk and talk unobserved.

“That was the public face of your Bradley Hewitt. Nothing of interest there,” said Skink. “But I don’t give up, it’s not in my nature. I keep following. And then, on a quiet Tuesday night, just like this one, I follows him down to the river, away from the crowds.”

“Entourage in tow?”

“It’s an entourage, so of course it is. Down toward the river, right here to Front Street, and then up a few blocks until he finds hisself a swanky little chew-and-choke just off Market. They all pop inside. A few minutes later, I slip close and scan the dining room. Nice, truly, red walls, marble floors, old school. And chowing down at a table is the entourage, enjoying the hell out of themselves. But no Bradley.”

“He was in the men’s room?”

“No extra plate at their table. He was somewhere else, and they weren’t invited.”

“Interesting.”

Skink slipped across to the east side of the street, and I followed. We began walking on the sidewalk behind a line of parked cars.

“So I find me a comfortable place and keep my eyes open and sees what I can see. It wasn’t long afore limos started disgorging their occupants on the curb like a string of Bowery drunks disgorging their stomachs, one after the other, splat, splat, splat .”

“That’s an image I could do without.”

“First a hot-shot developer what has been in the news, then a councilman what has been railing about developers, and then, wouldn’t you know it, His Honor hisself.”

“The mayor.”

“That’s right. I check again through the window, careful now with a cop standing outside. Not a one of them showing.”

“There’s a private dining room.”

“Of course there is. I waits until the night is over and everyone has left the joint, first the mayor and the councilman, then the developer, then Bradley and his entourage. I wait for the last of the fat cats to clear and the door to be locked. I keep waiting until the waitstaff starts slipping out, one by one. It’s no real trick to find the one I’m looking for. Someone with a hop in the step, the furtive glance, the twitchy fingers, the one that can barely wait to start spending the tips. And it’s a she, and not a bad looker.”

“Convenient.”

“I start following, but it doesn’t take long. She heads north, turns left on Market, slips into the Continental, the upscale joint in that old diner, finds herself a place at the bar. It isn’t long afore I find myself a place next to her.”

“What was she drinking?”

“Blue martinis. What is that all about? Looks like antifreeze, tastes like nothing. But they gets her in a jovial enough mood. Name is Jillian. Nice girl. She’s going through a phase. A few years she’ll be back in college where she belongs.”

“And what does sweet Jillian say?”

“She says there’s a private dining room in the wine cellar of that restaurant, a fancy room with frescoes on the ceilings and bare tatas on the frescoes. And every Tuesday night the mayor meets with his friends to conduct private business.”

“Making deals.”

“It’s the way the city works, right?” says Skink. “He’s not even shy about it. Pay to play. The mayor’s always running for something, always needs a little cash for the upcoming campaign.”

“Jillian tell you this?”

“Jillian didn’t know the details, of course she didn’t. When she was in the room, pouring the wine, they talked only about golf and the Islands.”

“But she knew the players.”

“Yes she did. And it seemed every Tuesday night Bradley was there with some other money boy looking to enter the game.”

“So Bradley Hewitt is the middleman, bringing together the mayor and the money for a nice little meal.”

“She said our Bradley was partial to the nodino di vitello all’aglio .”

“What the hell’s that, Phil?”

“Veal chop in garlic.”

“And he’s probably sawing through one right this second. Fabulous. Now all we have to do is figure how to get in, listen to what they’re saying, and get it all on tape to use it against him in court. I assume you have a plan to do just that?”

“You assume wrong.”

“No plan?”

“No plan.”

“You always have a plan.”

“Not tonight, mate.”

“Then what good is all this?”

“I just thought you’d be interested.”

“But I won’t be able to use any of this in the Theresa Wellman case.”

“Well, maybe not directly.”

“What are you talking about, Phil?”

“Something else Jillian let slip. This was after the fourth martini, when she was trying quite hard not to fall off her stool.”

“Go ahead.”

Phil Skink stepped behind a large black SUV, and I did the same. He pointed across the street to the blue awning and quiet front entrance of an upscale, family-owned Italian joint with one of the best wine lists in the city. There was a limo parked out front and a plainclothes cop leaning against the entrance, looking at his nails.

“I happened to mention to Jillian some sort of federal investigation I had heard tale of, and she nodded. Like she knew what I was talking about. And then she put her finger up to her pretty lips, like it was a secret.”

“Like what was a secret?”

“You’re a smart cookie, you figure it out.”

I looked at Phil, looked at the restaurant and the plainclothes cop, who now was flicking a piece of lint off his lapel. I tried to put it all together, what he was getting at, and I flashed back again on pretty Jillian, her eyes lidded from drinking, leaning forward with that drunken sexiness as she puts her finger to her lips. Sssshhh, it says, that gesture. Don’t let anybody know. Know what? That someone is listening. To whom? To Jillian and Skink at the Continental? No way. The whole point of the Continental is to act so cool as to ignore everyone else.

A car was coming from the left. As it came at us, I ducked. Skink laughed. After it passed, I scanned the street, back and forth. To our left I spied a row of cars parked nose first, facing the river. I hadn’t given it much notice when I passed it before, but this time I gave it a good scan. And there I saw it. How could I have missed it?

A battered white van with a raw brown streak of rust on its side. A van I had seen before.

“Son of a bitch,” I said. “Someone is listening in for us.”

“You happen to know anyone in the Department of Justice who might give you a hand?”

“It just so happens I might at that, except she hates my guts.”

“Charm her, mate.”

“I’d have better luck with a cobra,” I said, “and probably a better time, too.”