Binding Arbitration (3 page)

He nodded his head and handed it across the aisle.

“When did your material witness become hospitalized?”

“Three days ago.”

I snatched the warrant and scanned it. “Ah, you’ve been following my client for ten days, and three days ago your surveillance detail allowed him to assault a state witness?” I tried to play naïve, but an eyebrow rose in accusation.

“Of course not. The state alleges that Mr. Accardo arranged for the assault. He wouldn’t do it himself.”

“I see from the warrant his phone has been tapped. How did he arrange for having a man beaten? Smoke signals?” I let him chew on that kibble for a bit.

“I object, your honor,” Jax leaned over his table.

“It wouldn’t be a circus, if you didn’t.” Judge Foreman dropped his gavel to steady the courtroom which was all abuzz.

I leaned on my knuckles in the same manner and stared Jax down. “Are you going to charge him with being rich, Mr. Wagner? What’s next? Too attractive? Is that a crime now, too?”

Judge Foreman dropped his gavel over the laughter from the gallery. “Order, I want order in this courtroom!” He pointed his gavel at me, “You’ve made your point, Ms. Tucker. Don’t go so far as to make a mockery out of my courtroom.”

Wagner grumbled out, “Your honor...”

Judge Foreman stopped him with a glare. “I am going to let the bail stand. But I am going to require Mr. Accardo to relinquish his passport before he leaves the courthouse. Happy?”

I smiled, knowing I’d won this round. Tony touched the sleeve of my suit jacket. I looked down at his passport. The man was prepared for any eventuality.

“Approach,” the judge said as he cleared his throat, “Ms. Tucker, I expect you and Mr. Wagner in my courtroom next Wednesday to start this trial.”

“But, your honor, that gives me only a week to prepare.”

He smiled when he said, “Next Wednesday, same time. I’m sure your client is looking for a speedy trial.” Before I had a chance to continue my rebuttal, he was moving forward. “Did the two of you go through school together?”

“Yes sir, we did,” Jax said.

“Did she kick you in the ass there, as often as she does in my courtroom, Mr. Wagner?”

“Yes, but she kicked everyone’s ass there, sir. She didn’t single me out.”

Judge Foreman gave Jax a knowing look. “Too bad for you.” The judge winked at me. “Libby, keep up the good work.”

“Your honor, I didn’t do anything.” I protested for effect.

“This is the first time all day that this room has been quiet. Every man in this courtroom is watching your backside right now. The quiet does my old ticker good.” He tapped on his heart with his free hand.

“You do realize that borders on sexual discrimination, your honor.” Jax said, insulted for me.

“You hear me say anything sexual? Discriminatory?” he harrumphed. “Miss Tucker can take a compliment when kindly meant.” He glared at Jax before addressing me again. “Now sashay back to your counselor’s table so I can be done with this farce for today.”

Jax didn’t know the judge as well as I did. I’d been his clerk while in law school, and he was the least discriminatory judge on the bench in Cook County. Foreman was giving me a subtle reminder about the only case I’d ever lost. An Illinois Supreme court case I’d left being his clerk to third chair. A case so insidious, that it almost took down all the chairs on either side of the case and the largest law firm in Chicago.

After Judge Foreman dismissed us, I took my time assembling my briefcase. I let Mr. Accardo precede me through the swinging gate. I stopped to put on my trench coat, and when I looked up, I saw Eve Moore and Tony evaluating each other as if they were sizing each other up for a future battle.

When I reached for my briefcase, Mr. Accardo refused to relinquish it. “Can you tell me what just went down?”

“Maybe you can tell me.” I cast a look at Eve Moore, but she was speaking with Jax and a frantic police officer.

We stepped into an empty client lounge, as I examined the new charges. I knew the conversation between Accardo and I would be akin to the Pope taking Satan’s confession. “The assault charges are for one Vito Serrelli.” I eyed his response over the rim of my glasses. “Someone you know?”

“He grew up on the northwest side. His family owned a grocery store and meat market. His older brothers ran numbers out of the butcher shop in the back, and his elderly uncle Charlie sold drugs from under the cash register.”

“What would you know about a mob family, growing up on the North Shore with silver spumoni”—I smiled—“in your mouth?”

“All of the families are related, by blood, or by marriage. And I liked to slum when I was a teen, it drove my father crazy. Whatever happened to Vito wasn’t my doing. He’s an informant with a serious drug habit; either can land you in the hospital.”

I watched his calm confidence, either he was the best liar I’d ever seen or he was declaring the truth. Not that it made a difference in my capacity to defend him.

The firm set of his jaw softened. “I hope when this is resolved you’ll consider going out with me.” His tone was as deep and rich as a glass of burgundy, and seduction was his usual ploy of distraction.

His aqua eyes pierced me. I had to force my eyes away by blinking. “There is a strict code of conduct between lawyers and their clients.”

“I can get another attorney, but it’s not every day I meet a beautiful, well-educated, Catholic girl. My mother would beat me with a stick, if I let you get away.”

I extended my hand. “Vicki will contact you to set up an appointment to go over the game plan for the new charges.”

He brought my hand to his lips. “I’m not giving up.”

“You’re going to have to.” I started through the door and then turned back. “Mr. Accardo, you would do well to remember the best way I can help you is if I have all the necessary information to assist you in fighting these charges.”

“I have no intention of letting these charges stick.” He tilted his head and a wry smile lit his expressive face.

“I hope you don’t think batting your eyes at Eve Moore will help your case. She’ll eat you for lunch.”

“That’s the same observation many people make about you.”

“Don’t underestimate me, Mr. Accardo. I can make Moore look like a Sunday school teacher. If I had to, I could roast you alive for lunch and use your charred skin to weave a bread basket for dinner.”

Shock washed his face as he followed me to the elevators.

Two uniformed officers stepped off the elevator, removing their hats in salutation. “We’re looking for Tony Accardo.” I pivoted and gauged Tony’s response, when he caught sight of the police he looked grim, but he didn’t seem surprised. He put his phone in his trench coat pocket when the officers took a step in his direction. “Mr. Accardo, we have a warrant for your arrest.

I blocked the officer’s path, examining the warrant. “Mr. Accardo, if I don’t leave now, I’ll be late for my next meeting. It’s urgent. Otherwise, I’d go with you to the station. I’ll call the judge. Hopefully, you won’t spend the night.”

I jumped into the elevator before the doors closed. It was 1:45pm, and my next dance with the devil was at 2:30pm.

If the demon I was meeting was still as slippery as Jax Wagner and Tony Accardo were, I was in for another battle. I might just have to lay waste to every male in my path to get what I needed for the only one of them that counted. I hailed a cab with a shrill whistle and made my way out of the Loop.

Out of a pan of purgatory and into a kettle of confession.

3

PITCHER VS. CUTTER

Cardinal rule for all hitters with two strikes on them: never trust the umpire.
Robert Smith

Aidan 2:15 p.m.

Survival instinct is the reason I initially refused this meeting. Exposure being the next justification, because a potential scandal was the last thing I needed right now. I paced the sidewalk in front of the plate glass window, refusing to glance at my own reflection. I was avoiding the consequences of the only game, in thirty odd years, I hadn’t seen to completion.

Curiosity is what lured me here, like a die-hard Cubs fan to the seventh inning stretch. I wanted to face her and ease my conscience by laying all the blame on her locker room floor. I glanced at my watch and pitched myself across the threshold.

“Palowski.” The bartender sneered from behind a beer stein she was polishing, as if she were expecting me.

Gutheries was a local hangout two blocks from the ballpark in Wrigleyville. While I’d been here before, it wasn’t a regular haunt. I enjoyed the earthiness of its roughly carved bar and rugged, wide-plank flooring, but I lived in Lincoln Park, and neighborhood bars are a dime a dozen in Chicago.

The soft Irish ballads playing in the background gave me the impression I’d stumbled into an Irish wake, which wasn’t reassuring. Whiskey fumes and fish-n-chips filled the air, threatening to bring the bile up from my stomach. I shook off my nausea and concentrated on the sepia photographs that hung on the plastered, white-washed walls. The turn of the century photographs ran the gambit from immigrant families in tattered clothes to beefy brutes in the stock yards slaughtering cattle right off boxcars. The vast majority of the images appeared to have last been cleaned during that same era.

I was waiting at the ascribed place, at the assigned time like a cosseted school boy. I retreated to a table farthest from the surly barmaid, keeping a direct bead on the door.

Strike one.
The ump grumbled.

“What’ll it be, glitter-boy? The bartender focused on the trash bags in her hands, instead of looking at me.

“Pale Ale.”

When she returned, she banged the beer on the table, a spray of foam danced across its top sloshing onto the sleeve of my coat. No napkin, no nuts, no apology. The feeling she’d like nothing more than to incinerate me along with the trash at the rear of the establishment snaked up my spine. She returned to her post in the watering hole and snapped the pages of the
Tribune
up in front of her, effectively obstructing me from her line of sight, but I heard her whispering into her cell phone.

A few gulps of beer later the small silver bell at the top of the frosted glass door chimed on a blustery wind. A tall woman, whose expensive boots looked like they’d never step foot in a place like this, swept through the entry and forced the door shut. She shook off her trench coat exposing a navy suit. Her lengthy chestnut hair was pulled back into a chic French twist with a silver barrette exposing a classic profile.

Her briefcase strained her delicate features, but at the same time anchored her, if only for the hesitant moment between each determined stride. I couldn’t pull my eyes away, as I stared at her from behind my shades. My pulse accelerated.

The woman took in the interior with a wide sweep of her head as the lenses of her glasses lightened. It wasn’t until she started toward me with her boots clicking the hardwood that I realized this ravishing woman was the one I never thought to see again.

That would be a curve ball.

All these years later, I couldn’t allow myself the luxury of a full recollection of time spent with her. That might’ve required admitting I’d never scratched my itch for her out. All the numerous women, every shade from platinum to strawberry- blonde, couldn’t dish out half the heartache a wild-haired brunette cutter had put me through with her flaming green eyes and a mouth so lush it made my tongue ache to taste it.

I swallowed a long swig of beer, the steely grain helping me bottle my reaction. I attempted to reconcile what I was seeing with what I had expected. She still had it, more of it—that special something some women have that first draws men’s attention—then buzzes their brains into crushed barley.

She hesitated in front of the table. I refused to stand and I didn’t remove my Oakleys. Let her stare at her own likeness, while I took my time studying the perfectly sculpted lines of her face, which lead to a defiant chin.

Libby tossed her briefcase between us on the tabletop, as if that paltry item could provide a barrier between us. I grinned at the thought of it until my dimple ached.

She perched on the edge of her chair.

I spun my beer bottle on the graffiti-riddled wood.

I watched her green eyes blink in agitation, her opal skin blanched to ivory and her overly generous lips flattened out. She threaded her hands together like an angry teacher about to reprimand an unruly school boy. We stared each other down.

“You’ve grown even more beautiful with time.” I saluted her charms with my bottle, arching a brow in challenge.

Her eyes enlarged for a second; the rest of her demeanor was a veiled mask of harnessed hostility. “Smarter too.”

She’s cute, cute, cute for a cutter,

She ain’t easy to fluster.

I ignored the ump’s baritone. Libby’s calm demeanor gave the distinct impression that she was an Elizabeth now. “You always were too smart for your own good.”

I thought I saw an instantaneous spark of pain, but then her eyes bored into me. “Obviously not, or we wouldn’t be having this exchange.”

“Does that say something about me, or you?” I grinned.

“Whatever, I don’t care to rehash the past. And thank you, but no, I don’t care for a drink.”

“I don’t see what else we would have to talk about.” I shuffled in my seat, making to leave like a rude jerk.

She put her hand on the sleeve of my leather jacket holding me in place with those serious eyes, which I had been able to read once upon a time. “Don’t you?” A red flush crept up her neck, as she jerked her hand away, shaking it.

“Why don’t you dispense with the mystery, and tell me what you want? Just be prepared to get in line like everyone else.”

Libby swallowed. Whatever it was, she wasn’t any happier about asking, than I was about waiting. She fished around in her briefcase and pulled out a computer printed form. “All I need is a blood sample.” She pushed it toward me with a perfectly manicured hand.

My eyes went to the title on the form and my hands clinched the beer bottle. She held out all this time never asking for anything. I was about to get my biggest one-year paycheck, and somehow she not only knew the exact figure, she wanted a share. She thought I owed her something. I pushed the lab form back at her. “Why on earth would I want to do that?”