The time had come for Sonny to repay the good turn, a trickle-down fifty years in the making. “Describe my days with him,” he said, resigned to the responsibility.
“He’s with you when you’re working up a proposal. Explain the process, what you’re seeing and doing. I know it’s part pixie dust, so save that lecture. Do the best you can.”
Sonny asked about the money.
“Anything he runs, your cut is half. Right now he’s partial to cash grabs between ten and fifty and averages one or two a month. He’s expected to earn, whether it’s Philly or Florida. My only rule is no street drugs. Forget the dope. Everything else is open. If he flunks out, send him home and it’s my problem. Any ideas you come up with while he’s shadowing will earn a premium at next year’s meeting.”
“I never had a chance.”
“Don’t start with the tears. He’ll be down in a few weeks,” said Bielakowski. “Now let’s order some sandwiches. I want to tell you about my newest friend. He’s an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
15.
NO ONE COULD ACCUSE Billy O’Bannon of sloth.
Between 9:30 A.M. and noon, the lawyer had four hearings in four courtrooms. His record at the Criminal Justice Center was ten, and six wasn’t uncommon. Four was easy breezy, even with the martini hangover he’d acquired the previous evening buying drinks and telling stories at the Palm. The receipt in his pocket said he’d spent a grand, which meant a fine time even if he couldn’t recall all the highlights or punch lines.
O’Bannon’s first appearance was in front of a surly Irishman named Judge James “Jimmy Mac” McManus who’d walked a night beat while earning his degree at Temple Law. The hearing was over before it started because the Commonwealth’s star witness no-showed a third time. The prosecutor, freshly promoted from preliminary hearings at the Roundhouse, requested another continuance and was denied. Ordering the defendant’s release, Judge McManus offered his congratulations and an assured prediction they’d be meeting again soon.
Three floors down, O’Bannon’s second hearing was his motion against the DA’s office for refusing to provide a videotape copy of his client stealing windshield wipers from K-mart. If they couldn’t give him a copy, the prosecutor couldn’t use it at trial, and if the prosecutor couldn’t show the tape, the case fell apart like wet toilet paper. The judge’s interest was piqued, though not enough to dismiss the case; instead he hung a thirty-day window to rehear pending the DA’s production of the tape.
Ten minutes and two cell phone calls later, O’Bannon was back upstairs for a hearing that never reached the merits because of his request for a Rule One continuance—courtroom code for a lawyer waiting to be paid. The judge, a former defense attorney, had no problem with the defendant cooling his ass in jail until his attorney received what was promised. The fourth appearance was the easiest of the bunch—a calendaring issue for a trial judge who didn’t like working the last two weeks of November. Four cans kicked down the legal system’s road as defense lawyers stalled and the ADA’s shortened their daily stacks.
With his morning under control, O’Bannon’s afternoon was shaping up. As long as his noon appointment didn’t forget the retainer, he’d have enough money and time to pick up the jewelry and deliver it to his newest girlfriend. One look at the tennis bracelet and she’d blow him in the parking lot, which was all he could really handle because of the hangover and his wife needing him home before eight o’clock to watch the kids.
The closer O’Bannon got to the retainer, the more comfortable he became with collecting the oversized charge. The client was a Mafia grunt referred by Daniel Moss, the Italians’ longtime legal counsel. When more than one associate got pinched, each needed his own representation to avoid a conflict of interest. Moss took on the highest-ranked and farmed out the rest to defense bar pals such as Joe Penny, Ed Delisle, and, most recently, Billy O’Bannon. Each lawyer understood that Moss controlled the defense team’s strategy, so no one was allowed to run off and cut a deal with the prosecutors. Follow the rules, you got the cases. Go rogue, you got buried. O’Bannon had no problem falling in line. The cases were good money and he couldn’t buy the free airtime he caught for representing a well-known South Philly hood.
For the most recent pool of clients, Daniel Moss told the other lawyers to get their retainers toot sweet because he was motioning for dismissal based on unlawful search and seizure. O’Bannon saw Moss’s advice as an opportunity to hustle a couple extra bucks, no different from a trainer’s tip on a horse. At the first client meeting, O’Bannon told the young soldier, “It’s a ten-thousand-dollar case. But kick in another eight and I’ll guarantee a win. And whatever you do, don’t tell your partners, because if word gets out, you’ll get ten years for tampering.” He closed with a wink, but the soldier was smart enough to ask for more detail. On the spot, O’Bannon spun a story about a side deal with the court clerk who assigned cases to judges. O’Bannon explained that the right judge made all the difference, particularly one he roomed with in law school. All bullshit, of course, every ounce of it. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. But it had a certain appeal to a twenty-four-year-old kid facing five years in Graterford. If he was already on the hook for ten grand, what was another eight to seal the deal?
Cutting across City Hall’s stained courtyard, less than ten minutes from his office, O’Bannon gave his retainer rationale a final review. Lies were a natural resource for the lawyer, though he wasn’t calloused enough to shoulder them without periodic justification. His first and favorite argument was that the client deserved the inflated retainer for being so stupid. Nobody could or would fix cases for eight grand, and a criminal making his living on the streets should know better. Second, even if the legal team lost the motion, who says they couldn’t win the trial? And if they lost? Well, in that scenario, the client was on his way to a state-run facility. Let the bastard sue him for ineffective assistance of counsel from jail, he thought. See how that lollipop ride goes.
His office was located on the fourteenth floor of 123 South Broad Street, where he shared a lobby, conference room, and receptionist with two other attorneys. O’Bannon’s only personal staff was a paralegal named Rosie who’d been with him for a decade. Despite her decent looks and daily proximity, O’Bannon declared Rosie off-limits for him and the other lawyers because a replacement would cost a hundred grand in lost business and create a month of headaches.
After navigating the building’s revolving doors and stepping into the elevator, O’Bannon’s cell rang with Rosie’s extension. He decided to postpone any law-talk until he’d made it upstairs and used the restroom. The Criminal Justice Center’s bathrooms were the daytime latrines for Philadelphia’s criminal class and unacceptable, he believed, for a man wearing hand-stitched shoes and a tailored suit.
Once inside the firm’s waiting area, O’Bannon’s receptionist pointed her pencil quite purposefully in his direction as she spoke on the phone. Believing the call was for him, O’Bannon increased his speed, shook his head, and mouthed I’m not in.
Before he could disappear down the hallway, she put the caller on hold and spun her chair. “Your noon appointment has arrived,” she said, spearmint gum dancing in her mouth. Answering phones for three criminal defense attorneys gave her a battlefield confidence, similar to a nurse in a mobile field unit who’d seen it all or wasn’t surprised by what she hadn’t.
“Yeah, they do that,” said O’Bannon, distracted by her etiquette. “What gives with the gum?”
O’Bannon wasn’t the receptionist’s favorite lawyer or most hated. His attributes qualified for both, often in the same day. “He’s already in the conference room,” she said, spitting the gum into a tissue.
“You offer him something to drink, like we talked about?” They’d been coaching her on which clients deserved special treatment, though identifying the right candidates was harder than in most law firms. With a criminal defense practice, some of the shadiest were the best paying. The rub
for the receptionist was parsing that economic class from the deadbeats who couldn’t scrape together fifteen hundred for a preliminary hearing. O’Bannon went mad giving that demographic anything for free.
She bunched her lips to one side of her mouth. “It’s not the one you were expecting.”
Damn it, thought the lawyer, always a complication. Instead of getting paid, he had a walk-in chugging complimentary Pepsi in the conference room. “My noon is a beefcake kid named Costa. Big shoulders. Black hair, all oiled up. Who’s sitting back there?”
“It’s the same appointment, just a different guy.”
“Somebody’s here for Costa?” asked O’Bannon, leaning against the receptionist’s chest-high counter, close enough to whisper. His intuition said it was probably Costa’s old man, trading his life savings for an explanation of the lawyer’s guarantee. “His dad here with the retainer?”
“Not so much,” she said, enjoying his discomfort. One of the other lawyers mentioned O’Bannon wanted to skip the Christmas bonus, blaming the economy and city wage tax. The same lawyer neglected to mention it was a unanimous opinion. “It’s his boss,” she said. “The top dog.”
O’Bannon’s eyes flicked down the hallway. “Rea?”
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
The receptionist nodded and released the call.
O’Bannon’s first thought was that her Christmas bonus was taillights. He wasn’t stuffing an envelope to reward this kind of bush league behavior. His second was that, with the head of the Philadelphia mob in his conference room, he had a better chance of growing a fingernail on his dick than collecting the eighteen-grand retainer.
With the law firm’s design, O’Bannon couldn’t reach his private office without passing the conference room’s glass doors. Knowing a walk-by projected trepidation and/or cluelessness—both damning attributes for a counselor—his only real option was an immediate and unswerving introduction. “Call back to Rosie,” he said, smoothing his maple hair before buttoning his suit coat. “Explain the situation with Costa—”
Hitting the hold button a second time with the type of refined exasperation reserved for trade masters, she said, “Rosie knows. She tried calling you. Watched her stand right there dialing your cell. You didn’t answer.”
O’Bannon hated staff getting the last word. He thought his signature on the weekly paycheck entitled him to more. “Okay, listen for a second. I’m not looking for input. In exactly five minutes, I want Rosie knocking on the conference room door with a file in her arms. When I wave her in, she’s to remind me about a pending call with Judge Binns. Understood?”
The receptionist tapped her pencil twice on the message pad before shifting her gaze to the phone’s blinking light. “Fine.”
“Fine what?”
“With what you just said.”
“You’ll tell Rosie?”
“If that’s what we just agreed to.” The receptionist knew she scraped O’Bannon’s temper by refusing to acquiesce with an unconditional yes. While that technique was an asset fielding phone calls from third parties seeking commitments, it was a maddening character defect in almost every other circumstance.
“Damn it, I don’t need this attitude right now,” said O’Bannon, turning for the hallway. Same as the lobby, the firm’s corridors were lined with case-law books bought from an attorney needing money to fight a tax fraud indictment. At the discounted rate, the books cost less than wallpaper and classed up areas often occupied by soon-to-be convicted felons waiting for an appointment.
Reaching the conference room, O’Bannon instinctively paused before entering. Through the door’s cut glass he could see Rea at the far window, his head tilted up as though the overcast sky were more interesting than the midday streetscape. His slacks were well tailored and recently pressed, the crease running an unbroken line to his back pockets. His blue shirt, tucked with care beneath a mahogany belt, provided a nice contrast against the burnished molding and windowsill. His hair was dark except for an unusual patch of awkward white a few inches above his collar. Though still, his lean figure radiated an intense energy and the lawyer’s two-second take was that absolutely nothing about the man’s slender physique suggested he was incapable of leading men into a street fight.
When O’Bannon popped the levered handle, his entrance was all shoulders and jawbone, like a boxer called to the center of the ring for prefight instructions. Corporate clients responded to reserved, controlled—even detached—counsel whom they judged according to Ivy League pedigrees and summer homes. O’Bannon’s clients were the outliers. They wanted the pissed-off lone wolf who got off staring down the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania or the United States government. Law review credentials and sheepskin diplomas were all meaningless measuring sticks of a foreign society. They wanted someone who understood what it was like getting handcuffed by the cops and tossed down a stairwell, someone who’d been victimized by the same system they were now fighting. They wanted one of their own.
“Mr. Rea, what a pleasure,” said O’Bannon, his hand extended like the statuette atop a bowling trophy.
Rea stayed silent. A five-count passed before he pivoted without closing the distance. He wanted another concession and got it when O’Bannon leaned forward enough to pull his back foot off the rug. Rea was almost playful in his acceptance, as if they were a couple of pals busting stones. “Little surprised, right?” he said, holding the grip.
“Actually it’s good finally meeting you. It’s just that I was expecting Mr. Costa.”
“Costa couldn’t make it,” said Rea, quick enough to overlap the dialogue. “Tickle in the back of the throat. I told him to take the day off. Turns out I didn’t have anything on the calendar, so I volunteered to come down.”
“I see,” said O’Bannon, directing his guest to a chair upholstered in blue leather faded from too much afternoon sun. Rea accepted the offer, leaving the head of the conference table for O’Bannon.
Behind the lawyer hung an oil portrait of a nineteenth-century French general standing on a hilltop, surrounded by cannon smoke rising from the surrounding valleys. A second glance revealed more than a passing resemblance between O’Bannon and the Napoleon look-alike. “Nothing too serious with Mr. Costa’s health, I hope? We have a very important hearing coming up.”
Again laying his words over the lawyer’s, Rea said, “You like it here?”
“Excuse me?”
“I asked if you like it here.”
O’Bannon scanned the room. “Yeah, it’s an okay office. Moved in almost three years ago and have a couple more on the lease. Wish the building had its own parking, but what can you do? We’re close to the Criminal Justice Center and City Hall, which is worth something. I don’t know, I used to be up near the parkway, but with all the homeless up there, I like this—”
Rea cut him off. “You’re lost.”
The bully plays were catching the lawyer off guard. “Wait, what?”
“Come on, your life is firing questions on cross-examination—this shouldn’t be so hard. I’m asking if you like it here.” Rea crossed his legs, fingers intertwined over his right knee. “Not this office. I don’t give a shit about whether you like this office. And not this building or block or city. Fuck do I care if you like Philly, right? When I say here, I’m speaking in a metaphysical sense. Like, do you enjoy walking the earth? Taking air in, holding your wife’s hand, playing with the kids, smoking a cigar with a nice bourbon. Or—and this is what I’m asking—maybe you don’t. Maybe it’s all too much hassle. Maybe you’d rather not own the routine of Billy O’Bannon anymore. Some guys, you know, some guys have this death wish kind of swagger. They want to die, they’re just too chickenshit to off themselves. You ever hear of that phrase suicide by cop?”
O’Bannon nodded. The glands beneath his armpits had opened. Beads of nervous sweat trickled down his flanks until they were either absorbed by his undershirt or redirected by seams of fat.
“Okay, good, we’re rea
ding from the same book,” said Rea. His tone was increasingly animated; his body remained still. “Let’s take a random guy looking to kill himself. Maybe he’s self-loathing, or his old lady is playing around, or he’s gotten in over his head. Who the fuck knows, right? Instead of eating a bullet or walking west, he looks to antagonize. He heads for the tavern and picks a fight with a goon twice his size, but that’s not enough ’cause a beating is only half the job. So now he turns up the volume and hits the streets looking for a cop ’cause cops don’t like fighting. That’s why they carry the guns. This guy, he wanted to die with a bullet in his brainpan. He just couldn’t reach the trigger. Follow?”
Another nod from O’Bannon, this one smaller, less sure what he was agreeing to.
“This fellow is an example of someone not liking it here. He wanted to move on and picked a cop for assistance. Happens all the time. So my question is, are you playing me for your cop?”
While the most optimistic parts of O’Bannon’s brain had been preaching hope, the rest understood there was only one agenda behind the Costa-for-Rea switch. New bosses were hypersensitive to public perception. Adversaries had to believe, deep in their soul, that the don of the Philadelphia Mafia was the baddest mofo in town. If word got out that Rea’s men were easy marks, or that he was slow protecting their backs, the hordes would charge the walls.
The Friendship of Criminals Page 11