Mob Lawyer 3: A Legal Thriller

by Dave Daren

  I opened another tab to search for the restaurant and found it was a small locally owned place that specialized in European dishes. The pictures on the restaurant website were filled with Serbian faces, and I groaned at the find. We were getting so close, but it was more circumstantial evidence, so I had to keep digging.

  After what felt like hours, I found a disbursement for nearly ten grand to a company called Gryffon Standard with the bland description of “Consulting.” I stared at the name for a few seconds before I went back and compared the description to the others I’d already seen. The rest of the expenditures were clearly labeled with things like “Meal Expense” or “Transportation,” yet the Gryffon Standard was the only one to be described as “Consulting.”

  My heart started to pound inside my chest as I scoured the internet for Gryffon Standard. I combed through the company’s website, but I couldn’t find anything that told readers what the company did. No motto or slogan, no description of services, only a brief paragraph about how Gryffon Standard could be called upon for a variety of needs.

  I dug a little deeper and found contact information for a man named Robert Smithe, which was obviously a common name, but I ran into a brick wall trying to figure out how to find out more about someone with such a bland name and no other details. I couldn’t subpoena the company records, so this was the best I had for now.

  I called Anthony with my new information, and when he answered, I heaved into my recap of the day so far.

  “…and now, I have the name Robert Smithe, but I have no idea how to track him down,” I concluded. “We just have to find that guy, and we should be able to move forward from there.”

  “He’s probably not the one who really owns the company,” Anthony finally said. “The families have always had a random person sign contracts with one of its members nearby. He gets paid, and the family gets to keep its names off the official paperwork. It’s called a patsy. It keeps the cops from looking directly at the person who signed it, though it doesn’t always deter the media.”

  “Great,” I muttered. “I did all that digging for nothing?”

  “Not necessarily,” my client reassured me. “There are ways of finding out more information about a patsy and who hired them.”

  “Okay, how do I do that?” I asked.

  “You don’t,” Anthony chuckled. “The legal options are officially exhausted in this case.”

  “Damn it, Anthony,” I hissed. “You can’t--”

  “Just stay out of it, Hunter,” he ordered. “I know what I’m doing. I learned from the best.”

  I stayed silent for a moment as I recalled the haggard young man I’d rescued from Riker’s just a few months ago and compared him to the hardened Mafia boss I spoke to now. His father’s attack had sent him back into the lifestyle he’d sworn he didn’t want, and now he was in deep.

  “Just try to stay out of prison this time,” I grunted.

  “Don’t worry,” Anthony chuckled. “I’ve got everything covered.”

  Chapter 11

  I didn’t know, nor did I want to know, the details of Anthony’s hunt for Robert Smithe, but I did know he still hadn’t found the guy by the time I finally closed my dying laptop for the day. I had written pages of information about Brian Chatel, his European sabbatical, and his suspected associates after said trip, but neither of us had come up with anything concrete on Robert Smithe.

  As for Chatel, the information I’d found was interesting, though still not concrete evidence of his ties to the Serbian mob. He had gone on sabbatical to “rejuvenate his interest in law,” according to the Facebook post he made before his trip. Once he was across the pond, he invested time and money into a few real estate property flips in France, Italy, Croatia, and Serbia. I read through the property records and found the purchases and the sales, except for one home that remained in his name.

  It was nestled in a Serbian village called Bogojevo near the Croatian border. I looked on Google maps only to find the house wasn’t visible because Google only covered the highway, but I could see the town was really small. There were only a few stores on the main strip and some neighborhoods behind them. It didn’t exactly scream “vacation destination,” which made me wonder why he would keep or even buy this particular home.

  I texted Anthony the address, though I couldn’t help but feel like I was encouraging his illegal search for information. Then I shook my head at myself. My client was a grown man, and a stubborn one at that. It’s not like I could tell him not to do it, and at least this way, he would have all the information on hand. That’s what I told myself anyway.

  When I finally went to bed, I felt like I’d learned most of Chatel’s life story, and I crossed my fingers I wouldn’t dream about the slimy politician. I woke up the next morning to a message from Anthony.

  Alessia was right, looks like the ties went even deeper than we realized. Working on address, still no Robert.

  I sent him back a thumbs up and slid out of bed to get in the shower. The election was only a couple weeks away, and I wanted to get to the campaign headquarters to see what Bear had planned for Alessia. It had been a while since I’d popped in on one of their events, and I needed to let her know what we’d found so far.

  By the time I was showered, shaved, and dressed, I felt like a whole new man, rather than the reclusive hermit that spent sixteen hours researching on the computer yesterday. I shot Alessia a text that I’d meet her at headquarters in thirty minutes, and I jogged downstairs and down the block to the coffee shop near my building.

  After I’d gotten my warm cup of go-go juice, I stepped back out to see Anthony’s security team waiting on the sidewalk with their eyes on the passersby. I’d forgotten about my extra layer of protection, and I waved sheepishly at the pair before I headed back toward my apartment.

  “I’ll be driving to the campaign headquarters,” I told them as we approached the parking garage. “Do you want to follow me or…”

  “Yes,” the giant confirmed with a nod.

  They marched to their vehicle, and I waited until they were tucked inside before I went into the garage and found my car. Some part of me expected to see my tires slashed or windows busted out after Nelson’s attack the other night, but everything looked to be in order. He’d probably realized the parking garage had cameras and driving a patrol car inside to damage my car was obviously a bad idea.

  I pulled out into traffic, and the Chrysler slid in behind me as we headed for the after-school center. It wasn’t a long drive, but I’d wanted to get my car on the road again. It had been several days since I’d taken the Mercedes out of the parking garage, and she needed some love.

  I whipped into the parking lot for the center and eased through the gravel until I reached the back of the lot. I parked next to Bear’s SUV and hopped out. I waved to the security team before I headed inside and was immediately overrun with volunteers. They sprinted back and forth with papers and phones, and the place was buzzing with excitement.

  Alessia and Bear hovered over a desk near the back of the room, and I breezed through the teeming room toward them.

  “Did something happen?” I asked as I approached.

  “New poll results,” Bear explained. “Alessia jumped ahead another ten points.”

  “Hell, yeah,” I said with a grin. “So, who do we need to go after to finish closing the gap?”

  “Uh,” Bear hesitated, and his dark eyes bounced back and forth between Alessia and me.

  “He means what voter group still needs convincing?” Alessia clarified with a giggle.

  “Hey, I have to be sure when I’m talking to a guy that hangs out with the Febbos,” the campaign manager said with a shrug. “Maybe you were about to have their kneecaps busted out. I don’t know.”

  “Jeez, does everyone know about my client list?” I muttered, but part of me felt a whole new thrill that my link to Anthony brought about a sense of danger.

  Maybe being a mob lawyer wasn’t so bad after all.
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  “Did you think Mr. Febbo was the only one in those pictures that got posted from last night?” Mateo chimed in as he approached the table with his ever-present phone in his hands. “You were in them, too, dude.”

  “Ahh, so, now I really need to be careful that I’m not seen at Alessia’s events,” I mused.

  “I agree,” Bear said in a low voice. “Alessia has a good chance at winning based on her anti-corruption campaign. Having you at her side could impact that view of her.”

  “Okay, so I support from afar,” I sighed. “What’s the next move?”

  “We gained a lot of ground with our young voters after the Twitter forum, but we’re lacking in the older generation.” Bear skimmed over the printout on the desk. “They’re still worried about experience, so we need to find a way to get them on board based on her knowledge instead. Any ideas?”

  “Post a few of her research papers from law school,” I joked. “You can tell she’s brilliant by reading just one of those.”

  “They were released weeks ago,” Mateo retorted without looking up from his fiercely tapping thumbs. “It gave us an upward surge with the middle-class.”

  “Oh,” I mumbled and looked down at the paper.

  “What about a way for me to talk specifically to the ones we’re trying to reach?” Alessia asked. “They’re obviously not feeling the Twitter vibes, and they may not be big on social media, so that leaves an in-person event.”

  “A live forum?” Mateo finally looked up in surprise. “That could work. It could still be live streamed to reach your typical audience, but we could invite anyone who isn’t sure about you yet. Let me see how to word this…”

  The young communications director continued to mumble to himself as he walked toward a group of volunteers who were practically chomping at the bit when he approached them.

  “Cool, so, like a town hall meeting?” I asked. “I’ve seen that before.”

  “Town hall!” Mateo shouted from across the room. “That’s it!”

  He and his crew resumed typing on their phones and writing on random sheets of paper as I turned back to Bear and Alessia with a chuckle.

  “You have to be ready for just about anything with such an open forum,” Bear advised her. “The questions could be related to the office and policy, or they could ask if you have a good sex life as a single woman in politics. There’s really nothing people won’t ask.”

  “Great,” the ADA laughed. “This could be interesting.”

  “I’ll be there, but I’ll stay in the back,” I decided. “No one will even know I’m there.”

  “Are you sure you should go?” Bear narrowed his eyes on me, and I felt like a kid in the principal’s office as I explained myself.

  “I just don’t want anything to go wrong,” I insisted. “After the mugging, I’d like to stay close at a physical event like this.”

  “And do what?” Bear’s stare dropped to the pistol on my waistband. “Do you even know how to use that?”

  “I mean, yeah,” I said and tapped the handle of my firearm. “Point and shoot, right?”

  “You mean to tell me you didn’t even learn to shoot when you bought a gun?” he asked in surprise.

  “Well, it’s not like it’s rocket science,” I retorted. “I can hold my own with or without it.”

  “Alright,” he agreed, though he still seemed unconvinced.

  “I swear, I’ll stay hidden.” I held my fingers up like a Boy Scout. “I want her to win just as much as you do.”

  “Because she’s your friend?” Bear asked with eyes that seemed to stare into my soul.

  “Partly,” I confirmed and met his gaze confidently. “I want my friend to succeed, but I also don’t want a prick like Chatel to be the DA. It’s not good for Brooklyn, which means it’s not good for me.”

  “Fair enough,” the campaign manager said with a shrug of his huge shoulders before he turned back to Alessia. “We’ve got some practice questions we put together for another event that we can use as a primer. Let me check with Mateo and see where he put those.”

  “Sounds good.” She nodded and waited until he was out of earshot. “So, did you find out about the security?”

  “Yeah, and it’s going to take some more work to get everything we need,” I whispered. “But you were right about Chatel. That sabbatical wasn’t just a little vacation. He has some roots in Europe, especially Serbia.”

  “I knew it!” Alessia covered her mouth when her voice rose with excitement, and she took a breath. “Are you going to be able to get everything soon?”

  “I hope so,” I replied. “I can’t make any promises, but just know, we’re going to make sure the truth comes out.”

  “We’re ready!” one of the volunteers called out and abruptly ended our conversation.

  “Okay,” Alessia exhaled. “Let’s practice.”

  Bear and Mateo had set up a makeshift podium on one of the desks and gestured for Alessia to stand behind it while the volunteers sat at the tables around her with index cards. They each fired off questions about her stance on hot topics such as drug possession, non-violent crimes, and gang-related crime. For each question, Alessia answered with a solid response that perfectly straddled the fence between deep consideration and quick thinking. She never took more than a few seconds to answer, but each time she spoke, it was clear she meant what she said. She wasn’t some seasoned politician who said what the audience wanted to hear.

  “And what about senior offenders?” one of the volunteers called out in an imitation of a grumpy old man. “Are you going to put away a seventy-year-old man like me in jail for the rest of his life?”

  “If you’ve been found guilty of murder, I wouldn’t temper the law in your favor,” she replied easily. “I have the utmost respect for our more experienced citizens, but I also have a duty to keep our society safe from violent offenders. I hope you can respect my responsibility to treat all our citizens fairly, regardless of age or life expectancy.”

  “So, you’re saying you would go for a life sentence for anyone?” the next volunteer asked. “Even a teenager?”

  “Youthful offenders generally have a different tenet of the law that applies to them,” Alessia explained. “Not because the law believes they should be punished less harshly, but more so because science has shown the human brain may not have fully developed a complete understanding of action and consequence before the age of twenty-five. So, if the law tells me I should consider a lesser sentence for a seventeen-year-old offender, then I will follow the law. I am an officer of the court, not a judge or even a politician. I can only hope that our young citizens choose to make decisions that don’t put them at the table across from me.”

  She was absolutely brilliant. I could see Bear even looked proud of her responses to some really tough questions, and we spent the next several hours going over the possible topics that could arise during the town hall meeting. Mateo had confirmed the event for tomorrow evening at a local American Legion building.

  By the time Bear and the team finally called it quits on practicing, I was starving.

  “Hey, you want me to drive you home?” I offered Alessia. “We can grab some takeout on the way.”

  “Oh, yeah, it’s your turn to buy,” she giggled.

  We headed out to my car with the Chrysler parked behind it, and I waved to the security duo inside before we slid into my Mercedes. I pulled out of the gravel lot, and Alessia craned her head to watch the sleek gray 300 drive behind us.

  “It’s just a precaution,” I assured her. “Where do you want to eat?”

  “I’m having the weirdest craving,” she admitted as she turned back around with a sigh. “I know it’s not healthy at all, but I want Taco Bell.”

  “Taco Bell it is,” I laughed.

  Alessia waited in the car while I collected our food at the take-out window, and then we took our bag that smelled of ground beef and cheese back onto the road. I weaved in and out of traffic until we arrived at her co
ndo. I parked on the street and hopped out to open her door. My security guys parked across the road with eyes on the building, and I followed her past the doorman into the huge, marbled lobby. We had to wait for an elderly couple to leave the elevator, but we stepped on as soon as they cleared the doors and traveled up to the twelfth floor.

  I was glad I hadn’t offered the stairs like I typically took at my own apartment, though I would probably need the workout after I chowed down on my large order of Tex-Mex food.

  Alessia led me into her apartment, and she kicked off her heels the moment the door shut behind me and then gestured to the zipper on the back of her skintight blue dress.

  “Unzip me?” she asked and batted her eyelashes.

  “Happily,” I growled as I dropped the brown paper bag on the floor.

  Our food remained untouched for a while before my stomach finally growled with starvation. I groaned and rose from the bed.

  “We’re probably going to need to warm up our burritos,” Alessia giggled as she pulled the sheet up to cover her naked body.

  “Probably,” I agreed with a grin. “But it was worth it.”

  I tossed the food in the microwave and brought it back to her in bed. I flipped on the TV and found a mindless sitcom to watch as we dug into our greasy dinners. After we ate and burned a few more calories, Alessia finally fell asleep next to me, and I laid on my pillow with satiated contentment.

  Then a memory sprang into my mind.

  Bear had asked if I even knew what I was doing with my gun, and I had to admit that I had no idea. I’d watched a few videos online and held it in the gun shop, but that was the extent of my experience handling the Smith & Wesson.

  I decided to go to the shooting range in the morning. Carrying around a weapon for self-defense did no good if I was stumbling through the motions when I needed to use it. Plus, if someone did try to kidnap Alessia again, I would have to be able to actually aim the damn thing. I couldn’t shoot blindly if she was between us.

  Once the decision was made, I fell asleep easily. I woke to the shower running, and I decided to join Alessia in the warm water. After a while, she finally kissed me and pushed me to the other side of the stall.