The Defense: A Novel (2 page)
I felt the bomb pressing into my flesh as soon as I sat down.
There were four men in the back of the limo, including Arturas, who followed me inside, closed the door behind him, and sat on my left, still wearing that disconcerting smile. I could hear the engine purring, but we remained parked. The smell of cigar smoke and new leather filled my nose. More tinted glass separated the luxurious rear of the vehicle from the driver.
A white leather gym bag sat on the floor.
To my right, two men in dark overcoats filled a seat built for six people. They were freakishly large, like characters from a fairy tale. One had long blond hair tied up in a ponytail. The other had short brown hair and looked truly enormous. His head was the size of a basketball, and he easily dwarfed the big blond guy next to him, but it was his expression that frightened me the most. His face appeared to be bereft of all emotion, of all feeling, the cold, dreaded look of a half-dead soul. As a hustler, you rely on being able to spot a “tell.” You rely on your ability to manipulate emotions and natural human responses, but there’s one class of individual who’s immune to the usual moves, and every hustler can spot them and knows to stay the hell away from them—psychopaths. The giant with the brown hair looked like a textbook psycho.
The guy opposite me was Olek Volchek. He wore a black suit over a white shirt, which lay open at the neck. Graying stubble covered his face, and the same coloring ran into his hair. He might’ve looked handsome if it weren’t for a simmering malevolence in his eyes that seemed to temper his good looks. I recognized him from newspapers and TV; he was a mob boss, a killer, a drug dealer.
But he sure as hell wasn’t going to be my client.
I’d dealt with people like Volchek my whole life, as friends, enemies, and even as clients. Didn’t matter if they were from the Bronx, Compton, Miami, or Little Odessa. Men like this respected only one thing—strength. As shit scared as I was, I couldn’t let him see it or I was a dead man.
“I don’t work for people who threaten me,” I said.
“You don’t have choice, Mr. Flynn. I’m your new client,” said Volchek. He spoke with a thick Russian accent in slightly broken English.
“Sometimes, as you Americans say, shit happens. You can blame Jack Halloran if you like,” said Volchek.
“I blame him for most things these days. Why isn’t he representing you? Where is he?”
Volchek glanced at Arturas, and for a second he mirrored Arturas’s indelible smile before he looked back at me and said, “When Jack Halloran took on my case, he said it was impossible to defend. I knew this already. I had four different law firms look at the case before Jack. Still, Jack could do things other lawyers could not. So I paid him and I gave Jack a job. Unfortunately, Jack couldn’t hold up his end of the bargain.”
“Too bad. Nothing to do with me,” I said, struggling to keep the nerves from my voice.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” said Volchek. From a gold case beside him, he removed a small chocolate-colored cigar, bit it, lit it, and said, “Two years ago I ordered a hit on a man named Mario Geraldo. I asked Little Benny to do it for me. Benny did his job. Then he got caught and he talked to FBI. Benny will give evidence at my trial that I ordered the hit. All the lawyers I spoke to said that Benny would be the prosecution’s star witness. His evidence will convict me. No doubt about it.”
My jaw was clenched so tight it began to ache.
“Benny is in FBI custody. He’s well protected and well hidden. Even my contacts can’t find him. You’re the only one who can get close to him because you are my lawyer.”
He lowered his voice and said, “Before you cross-examine Benny, you will take off your jacket and, when the court is empty, we will tape the bomb underneath the chair in the witness box. Benny takes his seat, and we detonate the device. No more Benny, no more case, no more problem.
You
are the bomber, Mr. Flynn. You’ll go to prison. The prosecutor won’t have enough evidence for a retrial, and I will go free.”
“You’re one crazy son of a bitch,” I said.
Volchek didn’t react at first. He didn’t fly into a rage or threaten me. He just sat there for a moment before tilting his head as if he were considering his options. There was no sound, other than my heart jackknifing in my chest, and I wondered if I’d just earned myself a bullet. I couldn’t take my eyes from Volchek, but I could feel the others staring at me, almost quizzically, like I was a guy who’d just put his hand into a snake pit.
“Have a look at this before you decide,” said Volchek, nodding to Arturas.
Arturas picked up the white gym bag and opened it.
Jack’s head was inside.
My stomach cramped. My mouth filled with saliva. I retched, covered my mouth, and coughed. I spat and fought to hold on to my senses and gripped the seat beneath me until I could feel my fingernails scraping the leather. All traces of a calm facade left me completely.
“We thought Jack could do it. We were wrong. But we take no chances with you, Mr. Flynn,” said Volchek, leaning forward. “We have your daughter.”
Time, breath, blood, motion—everything stopped.
“If you so much as touch her…”
He took a cell phone from his pants pocket and flipped it around so that I could see the screen. Amy stood on a dark street corner in front of a newsstand. My little girl. She was only ten years old. I saw her standing somewhere in New York, hugging herself against the cold and staring warily at the camera. Behind her, the news banner carried the headline on the cargo ship that sank on the Hudson on Saturday night.
I hadn’t realized how much I was sweating; my shirt was soaked, along with my face and hair, but I was no longer afraid. I no longer cared about the bomb, the gun, or the pair of mute giants staring at me with their dead eyes.
“Give her back to me and I’ll let you live,” I said.
This produced laughter from Volchek and his crew. They knew me as Eddie Flynn, the lawyer; they didn’t know the old Eddie Flynn: the hustler, the backstreet fighter, the con artist. In truth, I’d almost forgotten him myself.
Volchek inclined his head before speaking. He seemed to be considering each word carefully. “You are in no position to make threats. Be smart. Nothing will happen to your daughter if you do as I tell you,” said Volchek.
“Let her go. I will do nothing until I know she’s safe. Kill me if you want. In fact, you’d better kill me, because I’ll go to my grave with my thumbs in your eyes if you don’t let her go now.”
Volchek took a pull from his cigar, opened his mouth, and for a moment, he let the smoke play over his fat lips, savoring the flavor.
“Your daughter is safe. We picked her up outside her school yesterday while she waited for the bus to take her on her field trip. She thinks the men looking after her are security guards, working for you. You’ve had death threats in the past, and she knows this. Your ex-wife thinks Amy is on the school trip, hiking in Long Island. The school believes she’s with you. She won’t be missed for a day or two. If you refuse to carry out your instructions, I will kill her. But that will be a relief. Your daughter will suffer if you don’t cooperate. Some of my men…”
He trailed off deliberately, pretending to search for the right words, letting my imagination build me a nightmare. My whole body tensed, as if preparing to repel a physical attack. I felt adrenaline washing my system with rage.
“Well, some of my men have
unusual appetites
for pretty little girls.”
I lunged at Volchek. Out of my seat before I knew what I was doing. Cramped, no purchase, ducking my head, but fired up, I still managed a decent right cross that connected sharply with Volchek’s left cheek. The cigar went flying out of his filthy mouth. My left hand drew back, and I steadied myself before I punched him in the throat.
Before I could throw that second punch, a huge hand grabbed me and picked me clean off the floor. Turning, I saw the giant psycho had taken hold of me. He was about to put me on my ass like an errant child when my old habits took over. My right hand grabbed for his face, hard, driving my fingernails into his fleshy forehead. It was an automatic, unconscious response and distraction. My left hand slipped into the big guy’s jacket, and I lifted his wallet. It took half a second. Fast and soft. I hadn’t lost much speed over the years after all. It was a clean lift. The big guy hadn’t noticed; he was too busy trying to take my head off. As I slipped the wallet into my pocket, a fist the size of a dinner plate appeared in front of my face. I turned away from the blow and felt the impact burn across the back of my skull. I fell, smacking my head on the limo floor.
I stayed on the deck and felt the pain roaring into my head. It was my first pocket dip in fifteen years. It was instinct; it just happened because that’s who I was.
No—it’s who I
am
.
The skills and techniques that I’d developed and used as a successful con artist—distraction, misdirection, persuasion, suggestion, the load, the switch, the drop—I’d used these methods just as much on the street all those years ago as I had for the past nine years in the courtroom. I hadn’t really changed. I’d just changed the con.
My eyes and my mind closed as I gave in to the thickening dark.
I woke up on leather seats, the back of my head aching. One of the gorillas held a bag of ice on my neck. It was the big blond guy who looked as if he’d just lost his spot in a Swedish heavy metal band. The sweet, acrid smell from Volchek’s cigar made me feel sick. I figured that I’d been picked up from the floor of the limo and dumped in the seat. My eyes burned a little from the smoke, but it took me only a second to realize the giant psycho who’d knocked me out was no longer in the car. I took the ice pack and dropped it to the floor.
“We’re at the courthouse now,” said Arturas.
I sat up.
“Why are we at the courthouse?” I said.
“Because Mr. Volchek’s trial starts this morning,” said Arturas.
“This morning?” I said. I summoned the image of my daughter on Volchek’s phone and felt the anger building more pain behind my neck and iron tension in my muscles.
“Trial starts in an hour. Before you go, we need to know that you can do this. Otherwise we kill you now and your family later,” said Arturas. He took out his revolver and placed it on his folded knee.
Arturas handed me an expensive-looking glass with a splash of urine-colored liquid swilling within. It smelled like bourbon. I downed it and felt that familiar, sour heat. It was my first drink since I’d checked out of rehab for alcohol addiction. For a second I thought about how much money I still owed the clinic, then dismissed the thought. There was a time and place for falling off the wagon, and right then seemed as good a time as any. I held my hand out for another, and Arturas spilled more of the liquor into my glass from a matching crystal decanter. I swallowed it fast and enjoyed the burn. A shudder ripped through my body from the strong alcohol, and I shook my head. I was trying to clear my mind, like shaking a Magic 8-Ball; I didn’t come up with any answers.
“Where’s my daughter?”
“Safe and happy for now,” said Arturas. He poured me another drink. I tucked that shot away and started thinking.
“Why’d you kill Jack?” I asked.
Volchek nodded to Arturas; he was happy to let him fill in the details.
“All of the lawyers we saw said Benny’s evidence would convict Volchek. So it made sense just to kill Benny; it’s a simple solution, but we can’t find him. We …
persuaded
Jack to wear the jacket, so we could kill Benny when he got to court. But he couldn’t do it.”
I wondered what kind of persuasion they’d tried on Jack. No doubt he would’ve been tortured. He was an asshole and a gambling addict, but he had been my partner, and my feelings toward him softened a little then. Whatever Jack used to be, he wasn’t cut out to carry a bomb. Most days he was lucky if he could carry his briefcase without tripping over his own feet. They must have worked him pretty hard.
“Why Jack?” I asked.
“It had to be a certain kind of lawyer. We know you and Jack started that firm with loan-shark money. Jack had a bad reputation for lying and not paying his debts. He needed money; clients started leaving the firm after you quit, and we needed someone who could carry the bomb through security. Security at the courthouse is good. It will be better today. We couldn’t smuggle a bomb in there; everybody’s searched going in, body scanned and then searched again—everyone except you and Jack. We know this. We watched both of you walk into that court building every day for months. Neither of you were ever searched. The security guards let you two straight through—like old friends. We told Jack what we told you; plant the bomb and take the hit.”
Arturas leaned back in his seat and shot a quick glance at Volchek. It was almost like they were a tag team; Arturas had laid out the facts, straight and clear. After that, he seemed happy to let his boss handle the intimidation.
“Jack sat where you are now, Mr. Flynn, just three days ago. He wore the same jacket as you, with the same bomb inside. We told him what we told you. I opened the door of this car and told him to go and do his job,” said Volchek, lowering his eyes to the floor.
His head came up through the pall of smoke, framing his face in the gray mist as he continued. “Jack froze. He shook like a … what you call it? Epileptic? Like he was having a fit. He had piss running down his leg. We closed the door and took him to our place.”
He sucked on the cigar again and watched the warm glow at the tip.
“I tied him to a chair. I tell him I will kill his sister if he doesn’t do as I ask. Victor here”—he pointed at the blond guy—“brings the sister to us. I take my knife and I cut her face in front of him. ‘
Will you do it now?’
I ask him. Nothing. I go to work on her with my knife and he just sits there.”
I could almost feel a clamp coming down on my chest. This monster had my little girl. A noise startled me slightly; my knuckle joints cracking with the tension in my fist. In my other hand I held the empty bourbon glass, and I thought about punching it into Volchek’s eye before deciding against it. Given that my last attempt at taking him on had gone so badly, I didn’t want to take another shot.