Rage of Angels (27 page)

“We’re going to handle the Vasco Gambutti case,” Jennifer informed Ken Bailey.

Ken looked at Jennifer in disbelief. “He’s Mafia! One of Michael Moretti’s hit men. That’s not the kind of client we take.”

“We’re taking this one.”

“Jennifer, we can’t afford to get mixed up with the mob.”

“Gambutti’s entitled to a fair trial, just like anyone else.” The words sounded hollow, even to her.

“I can’t let you—”

“As long as this is my office, I’ll make the decisions.” She could see the surprise and hurt that came into his eyes.

Ken nodded, turned and walked out of the office. Jennifer was tempted to call him back and try to explain. But how could she? She was not sure she could even explain it to herself.

When Jennifer had her first meeting with Vasco Gambutti, she tried to regard him as just another client. She had handled
clients before who were accused of murder, but somehow, this was different. This man was a member of a vast network of organized crime, a group that bled the country of untold billions of dollars, an arcane cabal that would kill when necessary to protect itself.

The evidence against Gambutti was overwhelming. He had been caught during the holdup of a fur shop and had killed an off-duty policeman who had tried to stop him. The morning newspapers announced that Jennifer Parker was going to be the defense attorney.

Judge Lawrence Waldman telephoned. “Is it true, Jennie?”

Jennifer knew instantly what he meant. “Yes, Lawrence.”

A pause. “I’m surprised. You know who he is, of course.”

“Yes, I know.”

“You’re getting into dangerous territory.”

“Not really. I’m just doing a friend a favor.”

“I see. Be careful.”

“I will,” Jennifer promised.

It was only afterward that Jennifer realized he had said nothing about their having dinner together.

After looking over the material her staff had assembled, Jennifer decided that she had no case at all.

Vasco Gambutti had been caught red-handed in a robberymurder, and there were no extenuating circumstances. Furthermore, there was always a strong emotional pull in the minds of the jurors when the victim was a policeman.

She called Ken Bailey in and gave him his instructions.

He said nothing, but Jennifer could feel his disapproval and was saddened. She promised herself that this was the last time she would work for Michael.

Her private phone rang and she picked it up. Michael said, “Hello, baby. I’m hungry for you. Meet me in half an hour.”

She sat there, listening, already feeling his arms around her, his body pressing against hers.

“I’ll be there,” Jennifer said.

The promise to herself was forgotten.

The Gambutti trial lasted ten days. The press was there in full force, eager to watch District Attorney Di Silva and Jennifer Parker in open combat again. Di Silva had done his homework thoroughly, and he deliberately understated his case, letting the jurors take the suggestions he dropped and build on them, creating horrors in their minds even greater than the ones he depicted.

Jennifer sat quietly through the testimony, seldom bothering to raise objections.

On the last day of the trial, she made her move.

There is an adage in law that when you have a weak defense, you put your opponent on trial. Because Jennifer had no defense for Vasco Gambutti, she had made a decision to put Scott Norman, the slain policeman, on trial. Ken Bailey had dug up everything there was to know about Scott Norman. His record was not good, but before Jennifer was through she made it seem ten times worse than it was. Norman had been on the police force for twenty years, and in that period had been suspended three times on charges of unnecessary violence. He had shot and almost killed an unarmed suspect, he had beaten up a drunk in a bar and he had sent to the hospital a man involved in a domestic quarrel. Although these incidents had taken place over a period of twenty years, Jennifer made it seem as though the deceased had committed an unbroken series of despicable acts. Jennifer had a parade of witnesses on the stand giving testimony against the dead police officer, and there was not one thing Robert Di Silva could do about it.

In his summation, Di Silva said, “Remember, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that Officer Scott Norman is not the one on trial here. Officer Scott Norman was the victim. He was killed by”—pointing—“the defendant, Vasco Gambutti.”

But even as the District Attorney spoke, he knew it was no use. Jennifer had made Officer Scott Norman appear to be as worthless a human being as Vasco Gambutti. He was no longer the noble policeman who had given his life to apprehend a criminal. Jennifer Parker had distorted the picture so that the victim was no better than the accused slayer.

The jury returned a verdict of not guilty on the charge of murder in the first degree and convicted Vasco Gambutti of manslaughter. It was a stunning defeat for District Attorney Di Silva, and the media were quick to announce another victory for Jennifer Parker.

“Wear your chiffon. It’s a celebration,” Michael told her.

They had dinner at a seafood restaurant in the Village. The restaurant owner sent over a bottle of rare champagne and Michael and Jennifer drank a toast.

“I’m very pleased.”

Coming from Michael, it was an accolade.

He placed a small red-and-white-wrapped box in her hands. “Open it.”

He watched as she untied the gold thread and removed the lid. In the box lay a large, square-cut emerald, surrounded by diamonds.

Jennifer stared at it. She started to protest. “Oh, Michael!” And she saw the look of pride and pleasure on his face.

“Michael—what am I going to do with you?”

And she thought:
Oh, Jennifer, what am I going to do with you?

“You need it for that dress.” He placed the ring on the third finger of her left hand.

“I—I don’t know what to say. I—thank you. It’s really a celebration, isn’t it!”

Michael grinned. “The celebration hasn’t started yet. This is only the foreplay.”

They were riding in the limousine on their way to an apartment that Michael kept uptown. Michael pressed a button and raised the glass that separated the rear of the car from the driver.

We’re locked away in our own little world,
Jennifer thought. Michael’s nearness excited her.

She turned to look into his black eyes and he moved toward her and slid his hand along her thighs, and Jennifer’s body was instantly on fire.

Michael’s lips found hers and their bodies were pressed together. Jennifer felt the hard maleness of him and she slid down to the floor of the car. She began to make love to him, caressing him and kissing him until Michael began to moan, and Jennifer moaned with him, moving faster and faster until she felt the spasms of his body.

The celebration had begun.

Jennifer was thinking of the past now as she lay in bed in the hotel room in Tangier, listening to the sounds of Michael in the shower. She felt satisfied and happy. The only thing missing was her young son. She had thought of taking Joshua with her on some of her trips, but instinctively she wanted to keep him and Michael Moretti far away from each other. Joshua must never be touched by that part of her life. It seemed to Jennifer that her life was a series of compartments: There was Adam, there was her son and there was Michael Moretti. And each had to be kept separate from the others.

Michael walked out of the bathroom wearing only a towel. The hair on his body glistened from the dampness of the shower. He was a beautiful, exciting animal.

“Get dressed. We have work to do.”

It happened so gradually that it did not seem to be happening at all. It had begun with Vasco Gambutti, and shortly afterward Michael asked Jennifer to handle another case, then another, until soon it became a steady flow of cases.

Michael would call Jennifer and say, “I need your help, baby. One of my boys is having a problem.”

And Jennifer was reminded of Father Ryan’s words,
A friend of mine has a bit of a problem.
Was there really any difference? America had come to accept the Godfather syndrome. Jennifer told herself that what she was doing now was the same as what she had been doing all along. The truth was that there was a difference—a big difference.

She was at the center of one of the most powerful organizations in the world.

Michael invited Jennifer to the farmhouse in New Jersey,
where she met Antonio Granelli for the first time, and some of the other men in the Organization.

At a large table in the old-fashioned kitchen were Nick Vito, Arthur “Fat Artie” Scotto, Salvatore Fiore and Joseph Colella.

As Jennifer and Michael came in and stood in the doorway, listening, Nick Vito was saying, “…like the time I did a pound in Atlanta. I had a heavy H book goin’. This popcorn pimp comes up and tries to fuck me over ‘cause he wants a piece of the action.”

“Did you know the guy?” Fat Artie Scotto asked.

“What’s to know? He wants to get his lights turned on. He tried to put the arm on me.”

“On
you?
”

“Yeah. His head wasn’t wrapped too tight.”

“What’d you do?”

“Eddie Fratelli and me got him over in the ghinny corner of the yard and burned him. What the hell, he was doin’ bad time, anyway.”

“Hey, whatever happened to Little Eddie?”

“He’s doin’ a dime at Lewisburg.”

“What about his bandit? She was some class act.”

“Oh, yeah. I’d love to make her drawers.”

“She’s still got the hots for Eddie. Only the Pope knows why.”

“I liked Eddie. He used to be an up-front guy.”

“He went ape-shit. Speakin’ of that, do you know who turned into a candy man…?”

Shop talk.

Michael grinned at Jennifer’s puzzled reaction to the conversation and said, “Come on—I’ll introduce you to Papa.”

Antonio Granelli was a shock to Jennifer. He was in a wheelchair, a feeble skeleton of a man, and it was hard to imagine him as he once must have been.

An attractive brunette with a full figure walked into the room, and Michael said to Jennifer, “This is Rosa, my wife.”

Jennifer had dreaded this moment. Some nights after Michael had left her—fulfilled in every way a woman could be—she had fought with a guilt that almost overpowered her.
I don’t want to hurt another woman. I’m stealing. I’ve got to stop this! I must!
And, always, she lost the battle.

Rosa looked at Jennifer with eyes that were wise.
She knows,
Jennifer thought.

There was a small awkwardness, and then Rosa said softly, “I’m pleased to meet you, Mrs. Parker. Michael tells me you’re very intelligent.”

Antonio Granelli grunted. “It’s not good for a woman to be too smart. It’s better to leave the brains to the men.”

Michael said with a straight face, “I think of Mrs. Parker as a man, Papa.”

They had dinner in the large, old-fashioned dining room.

“You sit next to me,” Antonio Granelli commanded Jennifer.

Michael sat next to Rosa. Thomas Colfax, the
consigliere,
sat opposite Jennifer and she could feel his animosity.

The dinner was superb. An enormous antipasto was served, and then
pasta fagioli.
There was a salad with garbanzo beans, stuffed mushrooms, veal
piccata,
linguini and baked chicken. It seemed that the dishes never stopped coming.

There were no visible servants in the house, and Rosa was constantly jumping up and clearing the table to bring in new dishes from the kitchen.

“My Rosa’s a great cook,” Antonio Granelli told Jennifer. “She’s almost as good as her mother was. Hey, Mike?”

“Yes,” Michael said politely.

“His Rosa’s a wonderful wife,” Antonio Granelli went on, and Jennifer wondered whether it was a casual remark or a warning.

Michael said, “You’re not finishing your veal.”

“I’ve never eaten so much in my life,” Jennifer protested.

And it was not over yet.

There was a bowl of fresh fruit and a platter of cheese, and ice cream with a hot fudge sauce, and candy and mints.

Jennifer marveled at how Michael managed to keep his figure.

The conversation was easy and pleasant and could have been taking place in any one of a thousand Italian homes, and it was hard for Jennifer to believe that this family was different from any other family.

Until Antonio Granelli said, “You know anythin’ about the
Unione Siciliana?
”

“No,” Jennifer said.

“Let me tell you about it, lady.”

“Pop—her name is Jennifer.”

“That’s not no Italian name, Mike. It’s too hard for me to remember. I’ll call you lady, lady. Okay?”

“Okay,” Jennifer replied.

“The
Unione Siciliana
started in Sicily to protect the poor against injustices. See, the people in power, they robbed the poor. The poor had nothin’—no money, no jobs, no justice. So the
Unione
was formed. When there was injustice, people came to the members of the secret brotherhood and they got vengeance. Pretty soon the
Unione
became stronger than the law, because it was the
people’s
law We believe in what the Bible says, lady.” He looked Jennifer in the eye. “If anyone betrays us, we get vengeance.”

The message was unmistakable.

Jennifer had always known instinctively that if she ever worked for the Organization she would be taking a giant step, but like most outsiders, she had a misconception of what the Organization was like. The Mafia was generally depicted as a
bunch of mobsters sitting around ordering people murdered and counting the money from loan-sharking and whorehouses. That was only a part of the picture. The meetings Jennifer attended taught her the rest of it: These were businessmen operating on a scale that was staggering. They owned hotels and banks, restaurants and casinos, insurance companies and factories, building companies and chains of hospitals. They controlled unions and shipping. They were in the record business and sold vending machines. They owned funeral parlors, bakeries and construction companies. Their yearly income was in the billions. How they had acquired those interests was none of Jennifer’s concern. It was her job to defend those of them who got into trouble with the law.

Robert Di Silva had three of Michael Moretti’s men indicted for shaking down a group of lunch wagons. They were charged with conspiracy to interfere with commerce by extortion and seven counts of interference with commerce. The only witness willing to testify against the men was a woman who owned one of the stands.

“She’s going to blow us away,” Michael told Jennifer. “She’s got to be handled.”

“You own a piece of a magazine publishing company, don’t you?” Jennifer asked.

“Yes. What does that have to do with lunch wagons?”

“You’ll see.”

Jennifer quietly arranged for the magazine to offer a large sum of money for the witness’s story. The woman accepted. In court, Jennifer used that to discredit the woman’s motives, and the charges were dismissed.

Jennifer’s relationship with her associates had changed. When the office had begun to take a succession of Mafia cases, Ken Bailey had come into Jennifer’s office and said, “What’s
going on? You can’t keep representing these hoodlums. They’ll ruin us.”

“Don’t worry about it, Ken. They’ll pay.”

“You can’t be that naive, Jennifer. You’re the one who’s going to pay. They’ll have you hooked.”

Because she had known he was right, Jennifer said angrily, “Drop it, Ken.”

He had looked at her for a long moment, then said, “Right. You’re the boss.”

The Criminal Courts was a small world, and news traveled swiftly. When word got out that Jennifer Parker was defending members of the Organization, well-meaning friends went to her and reiterated the same things that Judge Lawrence Waldman and Ken Bailey had told her.

“If you get involved with these hoodlums, you’ll be tarred with the same brush.”

Jennifer told them all: “Everyone is entitled to be defended.”

She appreciated their warnings, but she felt that they did not apply to her. She was not a part of the Organization; she merely represented some of its members. She was a lawyer, like her father, and she would never do anything that would have made him ashamed of her. The jungle was there, but she was still outside it.

Father Ryan had come to see her. This time it was not to ask her to help out a friend.

“I’m concerned about you, Jennifer. I hear reports that you’re handling—well—the wrong people.”

“Who are the wrong people? Do you judge the people who come to you for help? Do you turn people away from God because they’ve sinned?”

Father Ryan shook his head. “Of course not. But it’s one thing when an individual makes a mistake. It’s something else
when corruption is organized. If you help those people, you’re condoning what they do. You become a part of it.”

“No. I’m a lawyer, Father. I help people in trouble.”

Jennifer came to know Michael Moretti better than anyone had ever known him. He exposed feelings to her that he had never revealed to anyone else. He was basically a lonely, solitary man, and Jennifer was the first person who had ever been able to penetrate his shell.

Jennifer felt that Michael
needed
her. She had never felt that with Adam. And Michael had forced her to admit how much she needed him. He had brought out feelings in her that she had kept suppressed—wild, atavistic passions that she had been afraid to let loose. There were no inhibitions with Michael. When they were in bed together, there were no limits, no barriers. Only pleasure, a pleasure Jennifer had never dreamed possible.

Michael confided to Jennifer that he did not love Rosa, but it was obvious that Rosa worshiped Michael. She was always at his service, waiting to take care of his needs.

Jennifer met other Mafia wives, and she found their lives fascinating. Their husbands went out to restaurants and bars and racetracks with their mistresses while their wives stayed home and waited for them.

A Mafia wife always had a generous allowance, but she had to be careful how she spent it, lest she attract the attention of the Internal Revenue Service.

There was a pecking order ranging from the lowly
soldato
to the
capo di tutti capi
, and the wife never owned a more expensive coat or car than the wife of her husband’s immediate superior.

The wives gave dinner parties for their husbands’ associates, but they were careful not to be more lavish than their position permitted in relation to the others.

At ceremonies such as weddings or baptisms, where gifts
were called for, a wife was never allowed to spend more than the wife above her station in the hierarchy.

The protocol was as stringent as that at U.S. Steel, or any other large business corporation.

The Mafia was an incredible moneymaking machine, but Jennifer became aware that there was another element in it that was equally important: power.

“The Organization is bigger than the government of most of the countries of the world,” Michael told Jennifer. “We gross more than a half a dozen of the largest companies in America, put together.”

“There’s a difference,” Jennifer pointed out. “They’re legitimate and—”

Michael laughed. “You mean the ones that haven’t been caught. Dozens of the country’s biggest companies have been indicted for violating one law or another. Don’t kid yourself about heroes, Jennifer. The average American today can’t name two astronauts who have been up in space, but they know the names of Al Capone and Lucky Luciano.”

Jennifer realized that in his own way, Michael was equally as dedicated as Adam was. The difference was that their lives had gone in opposite directions.

When it came to business, Michael had a total lack of empathy. It was his strong point. He made decisions based solely on what was expedient for the Organization.

In the past, Michael had been completely dedicated to fulfilling his ambitions. There had been no emotional room for a woman in his life. Neither Rosa nor Michael’s girl friends had ever been a part of his real needs.

Jennifer was different. He needed her as he had needed no other woman. He had never known anyone like her. She excited him physically, but so had dozens of others. What made Jennifer special was her intelligence, her independence. Rosa obeyed him; other women feared him; Jennifer challenged
him. She was his equal. He could talk to her, discuss things with her. She was more than intelligent. She was smart.

He knew that he was never going to let her go.

Occasionally Jennifer took business trips with Michael, but she tried to avoid traveling whenever she could because she wanted to spend as much time as possible with Joshua. He was six years old now and growing unbelievably fast. Jennifer had enrolled him in a private school nearby, and Joshua loved it.

He rode a two-wheel bicycle and had a fleet of toy racing cars and carried on long and earnest conversations with Jennifer and Mrs. Mackey.

Because Jennifer wanted Joshua to grow up to be strong and independent, she tried to walk a carefully balanced line, letting Joshua know how much she loved him, making him aware that she was always there when he needed her and yet giving him a sense of his own independence.

She taught him to love good books and to enjoy music. She took him to the theater, avoiding opening nights because there would be too many people there who might know her and ask questions. On weekends she and Joshua would have a movie binge. On Saturday they would see a movie in the afternoon, have dinner at a restaurant and then see a second movie. On Sunday they would go sailing or bicycling together. Jennifer gave her son all the love that was stored in her, but she was careful to try not to spoil him. She planned her strategy with Joshua more carefully than she had planned any court case, determined not to fall into the traps of a one-parent home.