The Cross: An Eddie Flynn Novella Read online

  The Cross

  Steve Cavanagh

  An Eddie Flynn novella

  Contents

  Title page

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Acknowledgements

  The Defence – extract

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Big Freddy Marzone told a lot of lies.

  I thought that for most of his testimony, he’d stuck pretty close to the facts in the mistaken belief that somehow this would save him, that the droplets of lies, scattered here and there, would be lost in the wave of truth. Truth is what you tell your priest, or your spouse, or your parents. Once you open your mouth on the stand, you speak only to what you can prove—doesn’t matter if that’s true or false.

  Marzone thought he could prove it all.

  The only sound in the courtroom came from Freddy’s chest. He wasn’t asthmatic, but when your chest was the same size as an oak whiskey barrel, even breathing normally makes a damn racket. He’d given his testimony without sitting in the steel-framed chair, which sat in the middle of the witness stand. Freddy’s ass could not be accommodated by most chairs. They called him Big Freddy, or Slab Freddy, because he was roughly the same size as a ’76 Cadillac Fleetwood. Probably weighed as much, too, although you couldn’t really call him fat. He was carrying a few extra pounds, sure. Let’s call it an extra seventy pounds. But the weight was distributed pretty evenly over his huge, six-foot-nine-inch frame. His shoulders were wider than the witness stand, his hands the same size as stop signs, and his head looked like a cinder block with ears.

  A big guy. And a big lie. One that I could use to punch his ticket in a heartbeat.

  My mom used to say that the only difference between a con artist and a lawyer was that the lawyer wore a better suit. I’m a lawyer, so I have to disagree with that statement; a con artist would always wear the better suit. At least with a grifter you know their motives are clear—the basement man is always gonna deal himself a high card from the bottom of the deck; the short-change artist practices to confuse the hell out of store clerks with fast talk and quick hands; any offer from a 419 mailer is too good to be true. Yet the attorney on his feet, in full flow, will con you just as fast. The real difference is that the con artist knows he’s a con artist—the lawyer thinks he’s on the side of the angels. I’d lived the life of a con artist, and nine years ago I gave it up to become a lawyer. After my career change I found myself doing the same thing—pulling the same moves, except this time my victims were prosecutors, juries, and judges, and I billed by the hour while wearing a suit that came off a rack.

  Oh, and I was supposed to be one of the angels.

  There were few angels in this courtroom. Not the witness, Marzone, or me. The only innocent in this whole case was my client, the plaintiff, Maria Hernandez. She sat beside me, fresh tears running down the worn tracks in her makeup. Some lawyers encourage their clients to cry at appropriate moments in the trial to give emotional punch to their arguments, preying on the jury’s heartstrings. I didn’t need to do that. Maria’s emotion was genuine: grief, anger, joy. The joy came every now and then when she felt the baby kicking. She was due in two weeks. Strands of long black hair stuck to her wet cheeks. Brushing them away, she wiped at her eyes with a Kleenex and gripped the table, like I’d told her. Hold on to something solid. Grab the desk—use it to anchor yourself physically and mentally.

  To my left sat the defense tables. Two defendants, two tables. Freddy Marzone was the first defendant named in my lawsuit, and Marzone’s lawyer was a real piece of work in his own right. His name was Vinnie Federof. The advertising board at the bus stop opposite his office told you everything you needed to know about Vinnie.

  Been charged with a crime?

  Have you been sued?

  Call Vinnie Federof!

  He will GET-U-OFF!

  My partner in the law, Jack Halloran, said Vinnie’s sign had “a certain charm to it.” That tells you a lot about Jack, too.

  While Jack and I couldn’t afford decent wardrobes, Vinnie got his suits custom-made by a tailor in Upper Manhattan. All of his suits were a bright, vomit-inducing blue, and he wore them over white, monogrammed silk shirts and power-red ties. He was a good-looking guy in his late forties, and two games of racquetball a week at his exclusive club kept Vinnie in great shape. That was his thing; he liked to look good. Bleached white teeth, gold beach tan, and silver hair swept back with enough gel to hold an aircraft carrier steady.

  For the past three months Vinnie had been bleeding us dry. Running a case like this costs a lot of money—and Vinnie hit our cash flow by systematically stealing our best clients.

  All is fair in civil litigation.

  “Mr. Federof, do you have any further questions?” asked the judge.

  Ignoring the judge, Vinnie continued to check his notes, pretending he hadn’t heard Judge Winter. His Honor, Sam Winter, District Court Judge and former prosecutor, obviously felt as though he’d heard enough from Marzone.

  I had a steel-plated question for Marzone. The kind of question that changes the whole nature of the trial and every single piece of evidence that had preceded it. In cross-examination the answer to the questions are irrelevant. It’s the question itself that’s important. I had that killer question for Marzone that would blow a fist-sized hole in his entire case.

  “Nothing further, Your Honor,” said Vinnie, closing his notebook and sitting down.

  The attorney for the second defendant named in the lawsuit got to his feet, told the judge he had no questions, and sat down again as though his work for the day was done. The attorney for the city of New York, Alfred Boles, was pushing sixty and had seen this all before. The city employed Freddy Marzone, and it was being sued because in the eyes of the law, if an employee hurts somebody during the course of their employment, the employer is just as liable as the employee: vicarious liability. Normally, the employer’s attorneys act for the employee as well. Not in this case. See, the city was making two arguments. First, that Maria’s case was bullshit. Second, if Maria’s case wasn’t bullshit, and she won, then by definition, the city could not be liable for Freddy Marzone’s actions because they were way outside the ambit of his employment.

  Vinnie had just one argu
ment, that we had no evidence against Marzone.

  The facts of the case were simple and our points were real easy to understand. We alleged that on the night of October tenth, Detective Freddy Marzone, of the eighty-ninth precinct detective squad, murdered Maria’s husband, Chilli Hernandez, in cold blood.

  That made my question worth around thirteen million dollars in damages. A small price to pay for the life of a husband.

  Behind me, I heard a clicking sound. I turned and saw a man in a checkered suit, pale brown shirt, and gray tie. His dull gray hair had been slicked back, and yet thin strands still drooped over his forehead. His face looked like a road map; blue and red veins stretched across paper-white skin and all of it laminated in a thin sheen of sweat. A cigarette was perched behind his ear, and a gold Zippo tumbled around in his right hand.

  He flicked open the lighter with his thumb. Snapped it shut.

  Click, click.

  His eyes skirted the judge and the jury, making sure his movement would be unobserved. When he was satisfied no one was watching, he drew the sign of the cross over his heart.

  A reminder, for me.

  I checked my watch. A little after three o’clock. If I pulled the trigger and asked my killer question, my client would be an instant millionaire and I’d likely be dead before nine thirty. Along with my pregnant client and Jack, too.

  My partner put his arm around Maria and whispered something reassuring. Her knuckles were white against the dark wood of the plaintiff’s table, nails digging into the grain. The tears came afresh.

  I had two choices.

  Flunk the cross-examination, lose the case, and avoid a date with Mr. Zippo.

  Or do what I’d sworn to do, what I’d promised Maria I would do—ask the right questions and win the case.

  Jack leaned back in his chair, so that our client wouldn’t see him, and shook his head. We had been warned already—just tell the judge you have no questions for Marzone.

  No questions.

  Maria had come to see me eight months ago because she had questions that demanded answers. Answers for her. Answers for her unborn child.

  The question was a hot stone burning in my head.

  I bent over and placed my hands on the desk. My notes were right in front of me.

  The jury was waiting. The judge was waiting.

  Click, click, went the Zippo.

  I checked my watch again, and at 3:05 p.m. I opened my mouth and the words came flooding out.

  I didn’t tell the judge I had no questions for the witness.

  I didn’t ask the case-ending question, either.

  Instead I did something nobody expected, least of all me.

  Chapter One

  Twenty-four hours earlier

  “I got a text message from Vinnie. There’s an offer in the Hernandez case,” said Jack.

  He didn’t sound too enthusiastic. Then again, Jack didn’t get excited by anything to do with the law, or the cases we ran together. The only thing that got his blood up was a big stack of chips in the middle of a poker table and a pair of aces in his bony hand. He was tall and skinny, and seemed to survive on coffee and nicotine patches.

  “How much?” I said.

  “Not enough,” said Jack, getting up from behind his desk. He slipped his suit jacket on and picked his car keys out of a ceramic bowl that sat beside his laptop. Checking his pockets, he made sure he had his wallet with him, and then he continued to pat himself down. From a desk drawer he lifted a pack of cards and slid them into his pocket.

  “Jack, you gotta be kidding me. We’ve got a trial in the morning. Tell me you don’t have a game tonight.”

  “It’s not a game. How many times have I told you? It’s work. Besides, we need the cash; we’ve poured every last cent into Maria’s case. How much did the last expert’s report cost? Five thousand?”

  “We needed it.”

  “Well, I need my rent. I want to eat out somewhere that isn’t Ted’s Diner. Even if we win the case and hook the city into damages and get an award of five or six mil, the city will appeal and we’ll have another few months of negotiation before we settle the damn thing. On the other hand, we could win against Marzone and not the city. In that case, he’ll slip into bankruptcy and we won’t get a cent. If Vinnie hadn’t been poaching our paying clients, it would be easier, but there it is. This is a long game, Eddie. If you want to keep the lights on until then, let me go get us some dough,” said Jack.

  “What about that robbery case? We got a ten-grand retainer last week. What happened to that?”

  Taking a billfold from his pocket, he peeled off two C-notes and placed them on my desk.

  “That leaves me an eight-hundred-dollar stake. The rest went to office costs and filing fees. And you thought I was gambling—if we lose this case we’re going under.”

  I shook my head. Hernandez was my case, and yeah, it had cost a lot to set it up, but I was sure I could win it. And if we won, the payoff would keep us going for the rest of the year, at least. Secretly, the thought of losing the case terrified me. I didn’t want to admit, to Jack or myself, just how big a gamble the case had proven to be.

  “We got money coming from other clients. I’ve got twenty grand in outstanding bills,” I said.

  “Get a grip. Your client Pete Tulisi came in here yesterday with fifty pounds of tuna. Said he couldn’t make a payment on his bill this month and this might keep us going for a while. Marion took most of it. What’s left is in the refrigerator. You better take it home tonight. I can’t stand fish.”

  Halloran and Flynn, attorneys at law, had only one employee: Marion Page—a sixty-three-year-old legal secretary who knew more about criminal and civil procedures than Jack and I put together. She didn’t type—she hammered out correspondence. And in the last year she’d burned through three laptops. When Jack told her the fourth laptop would come out of her paycheck, she lightened her touch—and darkened her mood. I classified myself as a decent fighter, and I knew Jack could handle himself. We were guys who wouldn’t shy away from a right hand, no matter who was delivering it, but we were both kinda scared of Marion. She didn’t work late. Point-blank refused. Thank God; it was difficult enough to find the money to pay her regular salary. If she ever decided to do overtime, either I’d have to sell my car, or Jack would need to get lucky at the table, real lucky.

  “Pete can’t always pay his court fine and his legal fees. Way I see it, it’s better to let him pay the fine. If he defaults on the fine, he goes to jail; then he can’t work and we’ll never get paid.”

  “We ain’t getting paid right now.”

  “He’ll pay. When Pete can spare it, we’ll get it. Besides, his mom works in city management. It’s good to have those kinds of connections.”

  “Yeah, right. I’m outta here. If anyone is lookin’ for me, I’ll be at Manny’s or Hanzo’s. You got the phone.”

  “Hey, you didn’t tell me what the offer was from Vinnie.”

  “Twenty-five,” said Jack.

  “Twenty-five thousand? That doesn’t even cover our outlay.”

  Jack snorted, put on his coat, and said, “Eddie, wake up. The offer was twenty-five hundred. I think Vinnie knows something we don’t.”

  And with that, my partner left our tiny studio office in Harlem with the front door shaking in its frame. It was a measure of Jack that he could make more money at a Triad poker game in a single night than he could bill in legal fees in a whole month. Turning over trials and plea bargains wasn’t Jack’s style—he was the rainmaker. He brought in the clients, good and bad. I did most of the trial work. Somehow it all came together as a business.

  A two-man business with a secretary who had more legal and business sense than the both of us.

  On the other hand, Vinnie Federof operated as sole partner with half a dozen junior lawyers backing him up. The more I thought about his offer, the more I thought Vinnie had some trick up his sleeve. He was notorious with juries. Up until 2003, under the penal code, it was
an offense to tamper with or attempt to influence a juror prior to the jury delivering their verdict. That created a loophole which Vinnie exploited. Obviously, he couldn’t influence the jury before the verdict—but he did plenty afterward. If Vinnie won his case with a verdict from the jury, he made a point of taking all twelve jury members out to an expensive dinner and treating them to a night in a hotel. Lot of people couldn’t see the point, especially considering the case was over. Well, thing is, word travels fast. Don King used to do the same when he was dragged through the courts in a series of cases in the early nineties. If he won his case, Don put the entire jury up in a hotel in Vegas for the weekend and gave them tickets to Holyfield or Streisand or whatever they wanted, and he publicized it. There were pics in all the dailies of Don and his jury. Don’s theory was that the next jury hearing one of his cases might be inclined to give him a favorable verdict in the hope that they would get a weekend away and tickets for a show. Vinnie had tried this, too, and it had worked until the loophole was found and closed.

  That didn’t stop Vinnie from doing whatever he could to influence jurors, but I remembered that during jury selection, he’d missed a couple of questions I would’ve asked the jurors if I were representing Marzone. I’d thought Vinnie would sack juror eight in the Hernandez case, but he let the juror slide. That worried me—Vinnie hadn’t done his homework for jury selection. Maybe he didn’t need to and there was something else in his armory I hadn’t thought about. Maybe the poor offer was just tactics.

  Before Jack had left the office, he’d said the words that I hated the most: You got the phone.

  A cell phone rested on a stack of files beside Jack’s desk. I picked it up and made sure it was on. We had a dozen desk sergeants in as many precincts on the payroll. They gave us a heads-up if any juicy arrests came in—like a murder or a robbery. We’d get the call before the person in custody got a chance to call their own lawyer. Most times, when we got there before they’d made their call, we got to keep their business. That’s if I answered the damn phone in the first place. I hated cell phones, a hang-up from my days as a hustler. Carrying a cell, even a secure throwaway, was just like putting an electronic tracker on your clothes. With the business I was in, I didn’t want the cops knowing where I was and who I was talking to. So more often than not, I’d ditch the cell phone, knowing that if someone wanted to get ahold of me, a call either to the landline at Ted’s Diner, my home, the office, or the payphone at the Chambers Street courthouse would eventually track me down. I stuffed the cell in a drawer and slammed it closed.