Bum Rap (12 page)

-28-

Playing Poker with the Feds

A
n hour after leaving the cemetery, I traveled 138 years into the future. Which is to say, I drove the fifteen miles to my office on South Beach. I don’t have fancy digs. No deep carpet or marble tile and certainly no oceanfront view. I’m on the second floor of a landlocked building above a Cuban restaurant called Havana Banana. Climbing the stairs each day, the aroma tells me what the lunch special will be. Today, carne asada, basically a skirt steak marinated in olive oil, garlic, and jalapeño. I love it.

Jorge Martinez, the owner, will send a platter up the stairs, without my even asking. Of course, I never charge him when fighting the Health Department over repeated sanitary violations. Years ago, I saved him from personal ruin with exceedingly wise advice when his first restaurant went belly-up.

“Declare bankruptcy,” I told him.

“But my lifelong dream is Escargot-to-Go.”

Finally realizing that fast-food snails would not launch a thousand franchises, he folded his cards and opened Havana Banana, which is reasonably profitable when not dispensing salmonella with the quesadillas.

Entering the door at the top of the stairs, I discovered my longtime secretary, Cindy, missing from her cubicle. No surprise. She often headed for the beach when I was late getting in. But I wasn’t expecting to find a woman in the two-chair waiting area. She wore a business suit in charcoal gray. Solid gray. Not even a pinstripe. And sensible black pumps. A plain leather briefcase at her feet. About forty, short brown hair that didn’t need much tending. I get a few walk-in clients, but my well-honed instincts told me she wasn’t a felon.

“Mr. Lassiter?” It was part question, part accusation.

Fortunately, I’d worn a navy sport coat over my khakis and striped long-sleeved shirt. Some days, I come into the office in flip-flops, baggy shorts, and a T-shirt with the slogan “Officer, I Swear to Drunk I’m Not God.” So sue me.

“That’s me, unless you’re a process server.”

“I’m Deborah Scolino. Assistant US Attorney.”

“Ah, I was hoping you were a bank robber or, at the very least, an embezzler.”

That did not get a smile from AUSA Scolino.

“Can we talk?” she said.

I ushered her into my inner sanctum. A plain office. Desk, a leather chair for me, a set of bookshelves with never-read legal treatises, and two client chairs with stiff backs. No certificates on the wall. I keep my law school diploma on the bathroom wall at home. It covers a crack in the plaster and reminds me of the tenuous connection between the law and justice every time I pee.

I settled behind my desk. She sat primly in one of the client chairs covered in real imitation leather.

“Miami Beach police say you caused quite a ruckus at Club Anastasia the other night,” she said.

“Do they now?”

“Apparently you are searching for a Bar girl named Nadia Delova.”

“You mean your CI? The ill-trained young woman you wired and sent into a Russian mobster’s inner sanctum?” Taking a shot at it. Who else could it be but the woman sitting across from me?

She gave me a deadpan look they must teach in federal bureaucrat school. “I can neither confirm nor deny that Ms. Delova was ever a confidential informant for the federal government.”

“But the fact you’re here means that the investigation didn’t die with Nicolai Gorev.”

“I can neither confirm nor deny any such investigation ever existed.”

“Now you’re looking into his brother Alex.”

“I can neither—”

“And maybe Benny the Jeweler.”

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She had stopped neither confirming nor denying, and her eyes blinked twice. I would like to play poker with this woman.

“Benny the Jeweler,” I continued, my fishing line dangling in the water. “Quite a piece of work.”

He may well have been. I really didn’t know.

“Just how much do you know about Benny?” she asked, unable to resist.

Not a helluva lot, but your expression just told me he’s a big piece of the Gorev puzzle.

I love this part of the game. AUSA Scolino thought she was asking me a question, but instead she was answering one of mine. I decided to rebait the hook.

“Benny and B-girls and diamonds. It’s a helluva story.”

And that was pretty much all I knew about it.

“
You know about the diamonds?” If Ms. Scolino had been nonplussed before, now she seemed downright dumbfounded.

“Doesn’t everybody?” I said, winging it.

“Of course not. Do you know how the diamonds get to Miami?”

“Actually, that’s of very little concern to me.”

I was starting to put together the pieces. Jeweler. Diamonds. Russians. And Scolino’s question:
“Do you know how the diamonds get to Miami?”
That was likely the evidence she wanted Nadia to get from Nicolai Gorev.

This wasn’t some penny-ante wire fraud investigation about Bar girls and credit cards. This was diamond smuggling.

I needed more information. Starting with who the hell was Benny the Jeweler and where do I find him? I went fishing again.

“Would it be okay with you if I talked to Benny the Jeweler?” I asked.

“Absolutely not.”

“Not that you could stop me.”

“No, you could go to his . . .”

She stopped. A thought crossed her face.
Uh-oh.
She just discovered I was holding a pair of deuces.

“You don’t know who Benny the Jeweler is,” she said. “You don’t even know his last name.”

I gave her my best grin. “I can neither confirm nor deny . . .”

“Well, I’m certainly not going to help you compromise a federal investigation.”

“Certainly not,” I agreed.

“If I were you, Mr. Lassiter, I would be extremely careful about doing anything that could be construed as obstruction of justice.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. In fact, every day I do two things. Brush my teeth and uphold the Constitution.”

“Mr. Lassiter, are you being sarcastic?”

“Why do you ask?”

“When I clerked for a federal judge, she told me I lacked a sense of humor or even the ability to determine when other people were joking.”

“Then you’ve got the right job,” I said. “Federal per-se-cutor.”

“Now, that was a joke, right?”

“If you’d like it to be. Thank you for stopping by to threaten me.”

“There was no threat, Mr. Lassiter.”

“Then for the record, I’m not obstructing your investigation. I’m helping it.”

“In heaven’s name, how?”

“You haven’t asked, but here’s everything I know. Nadia’s best friend, another B-girl, told me she has no idea where Nadia is.”

Lying to a federal prosecutor always makes my day.

“That’s it?”

“Your turn. What do you know?”

“Nothing I can share with you.”

“You have one advantage over me, Ms. Scolino.”

She looked at me dubiously.

“You’ve met Nadia, right? In this investigation you can neither confirm nor deny.”

She shrugged, ending the charade for at least one question. “Of course.”

“You’ve spoken to her. Gotten a handle on who she is. Her credibility. Her trustworthiness.”

“Yes. All of that.”

“And I’m betting you’ve examined and cross-examined a lot of witnesses in your time.”

“Hundreds, at least.”

“Without revealing any secrets of national security, what can you tell me about Nadia?”

“Nothing!”

“I’m not asking what she told you. I’m asking, did you believe what she told you?”

“Nadia said a lot of things about Nicolai Gorev that were surely true. But when it came to Benny the Jeweler, she was evasive.”

“And . . . ?”

“You’re a big man, Mr. Lassiter. What, two hundred and thirty pounds?”

“I wish. Closer to two hundred and forty-five these days.”

“I trust Nadia Delova about as far as I can throw you. She knows things about the Gorevs and Benny the Jeweler, and if she will tell the truth, I can bring down a very significant international ring of . . .”

“Yeah?”

“Of none of your business.”

“Seems to me you’re walking on a tightrope, Ms. Scolino.”

She waited, so I filled her in. “You’re trying to rescue your own fouled-up investigation, but if Nadia shows up to testify in Solomon’s case, the whole world will see the federal screwup that led to Nicolai Gorev’s death. You can’t let that happen, meaning you need State Attorney Pincher’s help. So I’m just wondering. What are you and Pincher cooking up? What conspiracy of sovereigns is taking place in the shadows?”

“None, I assure you.”

“Then you should get busy on one. Because you’ve given me the theme of my defense. Steve Solomon isn’t responsible for Gorev’s death. Neither is Nadia Delova.
You
are, Ms. Scolino. The federal government is responsible. You sent that poor girl into the lair of a Russian mobster. You either gave her a gun—”

“We did no such thing!”

“Or she felt the job you assigned her required one. She was improperly trained, improperly supervised, and totally unsuitable for the task you gave her, and a man is dead as a result.
”

“That’s ludicrous.” Pink splotches rose on her neck. I seemed to have the same effect on her as poison ivy.

“Be on the lookout for my subpoena. You’re a defense witness, Ms. Scolino.”

“We’ll move to quash.”

“My client’s fair trial rights trump your need for secrecy. Motion denied.”

“You have the scruples of an alley cat.”

“Thank you. Feel free to give Pincher a preview of my closing argument. He’s always looking to suck up to the federal government. Maybe the two of you can come up with something that won’t cost you your job.”

She was quiet a moment, then said softly, “What is it you want?”

“A deal I can live with. You get to keep Nadia out of the courthouse, and I get Solomon out of jail.”

“That’s called extortion, Mr. Lassiter.”

“No, it’s not. It’s called lawyering.”

-29-

Nadia and the Feds (Part Five)

One week before the Gorev shooting . . .

Office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida

In Re: Investigation of South Beach Champagne Clubs and one “John Doe”

File No. 2014-73-B

Statement of Nadia Delova (Continuation)

July 7, 2014

(CONFIDENTIAL)

Q: [By AUSA Deborah Scolino] Before you leave, just a few more questions.

A: [By Nadia Delova] It never ends.

Q: Do you know a man known as Benny the Jeweler?

A:
Da.
All the girls know Benny.

Q: Is he a customer?

A: Elena says he is partner of Nicolai Gorev. Maybe even big boss.

Q: So Benny owns the club?

A: Many clubs. But this is all B-girl talk.

Q: Has Benny ever given you any gifts?

A: My pendant.

Q: Indicating for the record a diamond pendant of perhaps . . . what would you say, Ms. Delova, four or five carats?

A: Not sure. Is big.

Q: Did you have sex with Benny?

A: Yes.

Q: Is that why he gave you the diamond pendant?

A: He gives diamond to all the B-girls.

Q: Why does he do that?

A: Is generous gentleman.

Q: Do you know where Benny gets his diamonds?

A: Wherever a jeweler gets them. Not my business.

Q: Are you being truthful, Ms. Delova?

A:
Da.

Q: Because you know your immunity does not protect you from perjury.

A: You keep telling me.

Q: Have you ever heard Nicolai Gorev and Benny discussing diamonds?

A: [No response]

Q: Ms. Delova . . .

A: Always same talk. Benny says, “When are diamonds coming?” And Nicolai says, “When they come, they come.”

Q: So you are aware that Gorev is in the diamond-smuggling business?

A: They never use that word.
Smuggling.
I never use that word. Only you use that word.

Q: When you wear the wire and speak to Gorev, try to get him to talk about the diamond business. Try to use the word
smuggling
.

A: He is not idiot.

Q: Meaning what, Ms. Delova?

A: Why not I just ask him to shoot me?

-30-

On the Beach

I
will not be scared.

I will not be scared.

If she said it enough, Victoria thought, it will work. Lassiter told her not to come here, but she wanted to know the truth, and this was the only way to get it.

She had pulled the car into an empty spot on Ocean Drive and Sixth Street. Even at 3:30 a.m., the sidewalks were crowded. Tourists, local partyers, your usual collection of young people—male and female—who looked like models or lifeguards at play. Music still poured from cafés and clubs on the west side of the street. She walked through an opening in the coral rock wall that separated the sidewalk from the beach and headed toward the water.

Ahead of her the dark ocean, the shore break a soft murmur in the night. Behind her, the lights of Ocean Drive. She angled left and started walking north toward Tenth Street, passing a children’s playground; the slides and rides cast shadows across the sand.

As Victoria walked, she grew bolder and headed closer to the water, each step taking her farther into the enveloping darkness. She
wished there’d been that famous moon over Miami, creamy beams riding the inbound waves. But it was a moonless black night with only the faintest of breezes.

She thought of the two men whose lives were intertwined with her own.

Steve and Jake. You’ve both disappointed me.

She’d always known that Steve treated the justice system like a pinball machine. He liked to smack it within an inch of the buzzer signaling “tilt.” Now she’d learned Jake was pretty much the same, though he approached the system as if it were a heavy punching bag. Slug it until sand bursts from the seams.

And me?

Silly me, I believe that sign over the judge’s bench: “We Who Labor Here Seek Only the Truth.”

Well, tonight, she would try to get Elena to lead her to the truth, which is to say, lead her to Nadia. Putting her on the phone with Nadia would be a good start. Then, with luck, a face-to-face meeting. With Steve’s mouth clamped shut, there was no one else who could tell her what happened in Gorev’s locked office.

Her thoughts turned to last night.

OMG.

Just who was that woman toting a bottle of whiskey and trying to seduce Jake? The embarrassment was nearly palpable.

I’m just thankful Jake did the right thing.

A strange thought, then.

If I wasn’t involved with Steve, would I go for Jake?

She tried not to answer, but her brain wouldn’t listen. There was the age difference, but now it didn’t seem to matter.

Yes, I would go for him. And now I better chase that thought away.

Nearly at Tenth Street. A silhouette ahead.

A woman, thank God. Just standing there at water’s edge. Barefoot, her toes in the warm fizzing shore break. Long blonde hair, tight jeans and a halter top. It was Elena Turcina, changed out of her come-screw-me uniform.

“Elena!”

The woman turned and waved, then looked around as if to make sure no one else was coming. Victoria closed the distance between them, passing the darkened lifeguard stand. In the daytime, it’s a round wooden shack painted bright pink with a yellow handrail. At night, just a dark cylinder rising out of the beach.

Victoria pulled off her flats and let her toes sink into the wet sand.

“I am happy you are here,” Elena said.

“Likewise. You’ve spoken to Nadia?”

“She is so afraid—she does not know what to do. But I told her she could trust you.”

“What is it she fears?”

“She was working for government against Nicolai. Alex would kill her for that and then kill her a second time because of what happened to Nicolai.”

“That’s why she needs my help. A lawyer to get the government to protect her.”

“She wants to go see Benny. He always looked out for her.”

“That might not be a good idea. He may think Nadia informed on him, too.”

“But she did not. She told me she did not talk about Benny.”

“But Benny may not believe that.”

“This is too confusing for me. I will put you on the phone with Nadia.”

In the distance, Victoria heard an engine. At first, she thought it was a boat. But then she saw the light farther south on the beach. A four-wheel ATV, the vehicle the police used. Coming their way. No law against being on the beach at night, but cops are always on the lookout for drug dealers and underage drinkers. Victoria
squinted into the night, trying to make out the figure on the ATV as it picked up speed, heading directly for them.