Стюарт Вудс - Barely Legal

“I have to talk to Herb.”

Herbie got up from his seat. The councilman practically pulled him outside.

“What’s up?” Herbie said.

“Melanie’s missing.”

“What?”

“I just got a phone call saying she won’t be home until we lose the case. And if we win the case, she won’t be home at all.”

“You mean Taperelli has got her?”

“That’s what it looks like. She’s not answering her phone, and she didn’t show up for work.”

“We’ve got to go to the police.”

“They’ll kill her if we do.”

“Stone Barrington’s friends with the police commissioner. They can be discreet.”

“The police framed my son. Do you think they wouldn’t know?”

“What do you want to do?”

“They said to lose the case.”

“Do you want your son in jail?”

“Of course I don’t want my son in jail.”

“Okay, so we don’t finish the case. They’re not going to hurt her until the case is over.”

“Yes, but it has to be soon. If we stall, they’ll hurt her.”

Herbie exhaled noisily and thought that over. “Okay. That’s the situation. We can’t finish the case, and we can’t stall.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling you,” Councilman Ross said. “How are you going to handle that?”

Herbie smiled grimly. “Just watch me.”

When court reconvened Herbie said, “Let me take the witness.”

“Are you sure?” Stone said.

“Let me take a shot. You can always stop me if I go far afield.”

Stone hesitated. Having read the transcript, Stone considered Herbie’s whole cross-examination far afield. “Fine. If you flounder, I’m jumping in.”

Judge Buckingham banged the gavel. “Gentlemen. Do you have any more questions for this witness?”

Herbie stood up and approached the stand. “I’m almost done with this witness, Your Honor. Just one or two more questions.”

“Proceed.”

“Detective, we’re almost done. I have just one small matter to clear up while you’re on the stand. How did you know that the defendant would be selling drugs at the party?”

The detective hesitated. “From intelligence received from the narcotics division.”

“The narcotics division is tough to subpoena, Detective. What person informed you the defendant would be there?”

“I would have to consult my notes.”

“Your Honor, I ask that the detective be given time to consult his notes before I continue my cross-examination.”

“Detective Kelly, how long will it take you to consult your notes?”

“Some little while, Your Honor. My notes are back at the precinct.”

“There is no one else with that information in court?”

“Your Honor,” Herbie said, “are you suggesting I rely on secondhand hearsay information from a person not even under oath?”

“I am not, Mr. Fisher, and you know it. Detective, you are excused to get your notes. Please get all your notes. Everything you could possibly need to complete your testimony. Bring it to the courthouse tomorrow morning at ten o’clock.

“We are about to adjourn. Jurors are admonished once again not to talk about the case. Court is adjourned until tomorrow morning at ten o’clock.”

Tommy Taperelli was supervising a shipment down by the docks. There was no danger in doing so because there was no contraband on board. Somewhere between Colombia and the Jersey Shore, several kilos of cocaine had been removed and replaced with baby laxative. This was not unheard of. Tommy Taperelli’s coke was always cut with baby laxative, only it was cut after it arrived, increasing his profits as much as twofold. The shipment in question had been cut before it arrived, decreasing the value of the product he had bought.

The substitution might have gone unnoticed had not Tommy Taperelli had a chemist standing by in the warehouse to test the coke as soon as it arrived. After testing samples from several kilos, the chemist was able to report back to Tommy Taperelli that the product in question had a ninety-nine percent chance of proving effective in the case of a constipated baby.

Hence Tommy’s visit to the ship.

Taperelli was having a chat with the captain, a swarthy man with scraggly black hair and a beard, who was proclaiming his innocence. “I’m the captain. I run the ship. I don’t handle the cargo.”

“Who does?”

“Emilio.”

Emilio, a skinny young Colombian with greasy hair and shifty eyes, also disavowed all knowledge, but had no one to pass the buck to.

Taperelli let Emilio protest until it became boring, then told two of his henchmen to “show him the bill of lading,” and they walked him away.

Show him the bill of lading was a euphemism. Emilio wasn’t coming back.

Taperelli was coming down the gangplank when his phone rang.

It was Mookie, calling from court. “Bad news.”

Taperelli couldn’t believe it. “ We’re stalling?”

“It’s that fucking detective,” Mookie said. “He asked for an adjournment.”

“Why would he do that?”

“The lawyer finessed him. Asked him something he didn’t know. Something he’d have to look up. Here’s the lawyer saying I want to wind up my testimony. Here’s the detective saying I have to consult my notes.”

“What notes? Why does he need notes?”

“The lawyer wants to know who told him the guy would be at the party.”

“Oh, shit.”

“That’s a problem.”

“Damn right it’s a problem. No one told him the guy would be there. He picked him up and he followed him there.”

“Why doesn’t he just say that?”

“He already said he was there because the guy was selling drugs at the party. The question is who told him that?”

“What’s the answer?”

“How the fuck should I know?”

“Okay, what do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know. Has the lawyer left yet?”

“No. I came right out.”

“He’s the guy who asked the question, right? Not the other guy?”

“No. Herb Fisher.”

“Yeah. The pain in the ass. Keep tabs on him. The guy might have an accident.”

“Really?”

“Better him than me. If I can’t straighten this out, it’s going to get ugly.”

The phone bleeped. It was Detective Kelly. “We got troubles.”

“I heard.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Tell the truth.”

“Huh?”

“The guy wants to know who told you the defendant would be at the party?”

“Yeah.”

“Tell him no one did. You were acting on intel drugs were being sold there. You checked it out, and this is the guy who was selling ’em.”

“I like it.”

“I hate it. I want you off the stand. Don’t let him screw you with a follow-up.”

Taperelli walked out to the end of the pier. He looked out across the ocean and took a deep breath of the salt air.

Now for the call he didn’t want to make.

Someone was going to get fired. That was all there was to it. A head was going to roll. Jules Kenworth was at the mayor’s luncheon, but he wasn’t at the mayor’s table. That was completely unacceptable. It was embarrassing. It was demeaning. It was the type of thing that should not happen, could not happen. And there was nothing he could do about it. He could get up and walk out, but that would only underline the situation. Or he could sit there and pray that damn photographer from the Daily News wouldn’t catch him in the background in a shot of the mayor’s table.

Yes, heads were going to roll. Either his own secretary, or the mayor’s damn booking agent, who put him there just to be mean. He could imagine her doing it, too, the vindictive bitch. Just because he’d once groped her in the elevator. The elevator was crowded, and his hand may have been on her leg, but where the hell was he supposed to put it?