Criminal Conversation

by Ed McBain

  “You think he’s gonna take care of this?” Bobby asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Petey said.

  “So what do we do? This is a complicated thing.”

  “Not that complicated.”

  “Should we talk to some of the others?”

  “I don’t think so. I’d rather line up some people. Move ahead on this before it gets out of hand.”

  “I worry about doing that,” Bobby said. “Some of these old wops who knew his father … I don’t know, Petey.”

  “You got a better suggestion?”

  “I’m saying there’s still these old guys around who knew him when he was a kid with big ears.”

  “Yeah, and now he’s a kid with a big mouth.”

  “Petey, let’s be fair. We don’t know for sure he told her anything.”

  “If he’s fuckin’ her, he’s tellin’ her,” Petey said.

  “Yeah,” Bobby said, and sighed heavily. “Still. To the older guys, he’s still Lino, you know what I mean? I think we oughta ask them first. Don’t you?”

  Petey was thinking the first mistake Andrew had made was appointing this jackass his underboss.

  “Petey? Don’t you think we should call a meeting, get their advice?”

  “No.”

  “At least ask Fat Nickie what he thinks.”

  “No.”

  “Because …”

  “What I see here,” Petey said, “is a pussy-whipped snot-nose who couldn’t keep it zipped and who’s gonna get us all in trouble, that’s what I see. I won’t go over your head on this, Bobby, you know I won’t …”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “But I’d like t’line up some people.”

  “They won’t like it, the older ones.”

  “Fuck them and him,” Petey said.

  Lino, Michael thought.

  What goes around comes around.

  It was now a quarter to midnight on the hot Tuesday night immediately following the holiday, and he was sitting in a car opposite Andrew Faviola’s house in Great Neck, waiting for him to come home. Resting on the seat beside him was a tape player containing a copy of the reel-to-reel Sarah had recorded last Wednesday. Despite a waterfall and a river in the background, the fidelity of the tape was exceptionally high. Michael now had close to three hours of conversation that linked Faviola and his goombahs to enough criminal activity to bring racketeering charges against almost all of them. In a breathless, virtually nonstop monologue, Faviola had attested to the family’s involvement in virtually every crime defined in the section on criminal enterprise. You named it, the family was involved in it—from A to Z.

  Arson, Assault, Bribery, Burglary, Coercion, Criminal Contempt, Criminal Mischief, Criminal Possession of Stolen Property, False Written Statements, Forgery, Gambling …

  He told Sarah he’d administered and enforced his father’s gambling operation in Las Vegas throughout the two and a half years he’d attended UCLA, and that he’d personally transmitted orders from his father to two contract hitters who’d cursorily eliminated a heavy gambler who was “into the family for a hundred thousand and change …”

  Grand Larceny, Hindering Prosecution, Homicide …

  The way he’d casually admitted to ordering the murder of the Queens gambler who’d set this whole thing in motion was typical of the abandon he’d felt while talking to Sarah: “I told Frankie Palumbo to take care of him … so it wouldn’t happen again. Frankie’s the capo this jerk stole the money from. It was supposed to be a cash pickup, he stole five grand from the bundle.”

  As offhandedly as that.

  Insurance Fraud, Kidnapping, Narcotics …

  And here he went into vast detail about a three-way Colombian-Italian-Chinese operation that would imminently flood the streets of New York with moon rock. “The ships are already on their way from Italy,” he’d said. “We’ll be offloading and distributing sometime in June …”

  Perjury, Promoting Prostitution, Robbery, Usury …

  Which was loan-sharking and which he described as one of the mainstays of their operation; the others, of course, were gambling, and narcotics, and labor racketeering, and receiving and distributing stolen goods. He described in detail the profitable loan-sharking operation run by Sal the Barber, who—he did not fail to mention—had himself broken many a head in his time, and who had ordered the murder of a punk named Richie Palermo …

  “Do you remember the ring I gave you? The one that turned out to be stolen? I brought this to Sal’s attention, and the kid turned up dead in a basement room in Washington Heights. You have to maintain control over these lower-level people, or they’ll do something dangerous or stupid that can turn against you, and then the law will swarm all over you.”

  Weapons …

  Not only the criminal possession of what amounted to an arsenal but involvement in a vast arms trade that included the manufacture, transport, disposition, and defacement of weapons—as in converting a semiautomatic into an illegal fully automatic rifle.

  Well, no Z.

  And, to his credit, Faviola had not admitted to anyone in the family ever having committed rape.

  But everything else was there. The crimes, in many cases the names of the people who’d committed those crimes, in other instances the places and dates of commission, more than enough to bring charges and seek indictments. In two hours and fifty-three minutes of almost continuous babble, apparently driven by a need to impress Sarah with his acumen, cunning, power, and stealth, Faviola had let out all the stops, and had been rewarded afterward with …

  Michael had turned off the tape the moment they began making love.

  He detested them both.

  The problem he still had, however, was the same one he’d had all along, except that the moment Sarah had actually gone in wired, she’d technically become an “informant” instead of the unknown “subject” she’d been on the previous tapes. He could not now call Sarah to testify without revealing her identity. He could not get this tape admitted in evidence unless Sarah swore under oath that she’d been there at the Rockledge Inn in Norwalk, Connecticut, while the conversation was taking place …

  That this was a complete and accurate tape of the conversation …

  That the man she’d been conversing with was Andrew Faviola …

  And that the conversation had taken place on such and such a date …

  At such and such a time …

  And so on and so forth, if it please Your Honor.

  His unwillingness to call her had nothing to do with his promise to her. He had given her his word of honor that if she delivered the goods, he would never reveal to Mollie or anyone else what kind of woman she was. That was the deal he’d made. Upon more circumspect reflection, however, he felt he’d be justified in telling Mollie all about her mother’s infidelity; she was, after all, a mature child who deserved to know exactly why her parents were divorcing. In truth, then, he was ready to throw Sarah to the sharks provided the sharks didn’t then turn on him.

  He felt he’d adequately protected himself against any due-­process challenges that might have stemmed from deliberately sending Sarah in to exchange sex for information. “Outrageous government conduct,” as defined in U.S. v. Cuervelo—where federal courts warned government investigators against using sex as a means of gathering evidence—had been very much on his mind when he’d presented her with her marching orders. He further knew that no sane defense attorney would ever claim he had been the one who’d initiated or encouraged a love affair between his wife and Faviola. Sarah had started that all on her own, thanks, before the eavesdropping surveillance had begun.

  Besides, it was unthinkable that the DA would even allow him to prosecute this case. Were that to happen—and it couldn’t, it was simply an impossibility—the defense would enjoy an unprecedented feeding frenzy, po
rtraying him as a man with an overly vindictive motive, a man with too much personal interest in the case, a man who was not in that courtroom to see simple justice done …

  “I ask you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, to consider just what kind of man this district attorney is. I ask you to ask yourselves what kind of man would use his own wife as an informant, would send his own wife into another man’s embrace, would listen to his own wife making love to another man, just so long as she betrayed her lover, just so long as she played the role of Delilah to my client’s unsuspecting Samson. I ask you to consider the moral values of this district attorney who’s so very eager to put my client behind bars that he’d sacrifice his own wife to the cause. I ask you to consider whether the evidence he’s offered here in this courtroom is not evidence procured by a zealot and not a man even remotely interested in the even hand of justice. I ask you to consider …”

  No.

  Even if the case miraculously survived a due-process challenge under Cuervelo standards, he himself would never be allowed to try it. In fact, given the circumstances—the close personal relationship of a key informant to someone in the District Attorney’s office—whoever tried it was in severe danger of losing it. The trick was to nail Faviola without ever going to trial. Toward that end …

  A car was turning the corner. A blue Acura. Michael waited until it pulled into the driveway, its headlights illuminating a beige-colored garage door that immediately began opening. He was already crossing the street as Faviola drove the Acura into the garage. The tape player was in his right hand. He was waiting in the driveway when Faviola got out of the Acura, walked to the door-closing button, hit it, and then stopped dead in his tracks when he realized he wasn’t alone. The closing door almost got him. He ducked to avoid it, and then clenched his fists as if expecting immediate trouble.

  “Who is it?” he said.

  “ADA Welles,” Michael said.

  He had expected a boy. The pictures in People showed a handsome college kid, and the voice he’d heard on far too many tapes had sounded very young. But the person sitting opposite him now was a man. Handsome, yes, and bearing himself with the sort of casual ease only the very young can bring off, but there was maturity in those knowing blue eyes and the smirking set of his mouth. Seeing him in person at last, sitting here with him, a cold dark fury began seething inside Michael. The realization that his wife’s seducer had been knowledgeable and mature, a cunning son of a bitch who’d understood all along the consequences of his actions, was almost too much to contain. Michael wanted to kill him. It was all he could do to keep from leaping up and grabbing him by the throat. Strangle the bastard where he sat, listen to him choking and gasping for breath, eyes rolling back in his head, drop him still and gray and lifeless to the thick carpet underfoot.

  The two men sat opposite each other on brocaded chairs in a lavishly furnished living room illuminated only by a tassel-shaded lamp on a marble-topped table. Michael was wearing what he called his prosecutor threads, blue suit, white shirt, dark tie, dark socks, black shoes. He was here on business. Andrew was wearing tan summer slacks and a blue double-breasted blazer, blue tasseled loafers, a pristine white shirt open at the throat. He kept watching Michael in what appeared to be enduring surprise. He did not offer Michael a drink. Michael would have refused one, anyway. He was here to play a tape. He was here to cut a deal with the man who’d stolen his wife.

  They sat in relative darkness as the tape unreeled.

  When it ended, Andrew rose and went to the bar and poured a drink for himself. He still did not offer one to Michael, who, in any case, still would have refused it.

  “So?” he said.

  “So you’re going,” Michael said. “And you’re taking a lot of people with you.”

  “Then what are you doing here?”

  “I want to talk a deal.”

  “Why? You’ve got your fucking tape …”

  “A gold mine, in fact.”

  “Where’d she have the wire?”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “None, I guess,” Andrew said, and shrugged.

  His question suddenly took on new meaning. They’d made love in that room in Connecticut. She’d been naked, he’d been inside her. So where had the wire been? A perfectly natural question. Where had she hidden the wire? Images conjured by the earlier tapes suddenly flashed on the screen of Michael’s mind.

  Let’s see just how hard we can make you, all right? Let’s see what rubbing this ancient Roman ring on your cock can do, all right? My hand tight around you, the black ring rubbing against your stiff cock …

  Again, Michael wanted to kill him.

  “This is my offer,” he said. “You walk in and plead, or I bring down all of you.”

  “Plead to what?”

  “Two counts of murder, an agreed twenty-five to life on each. Consecutive.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  The satyr and the bird. Are you my satyr, Andrew? Am I your bird, Andrew? No no no, not yet, baby. Not till I want you to. Not till I say you can. Just keep looking at the ring. Just keep watching that black ring, Andrew. My hand tight on your cock and the ring moving …

  Kill them both.

  “If I go public with the Connecticut tape,” he said, “you’re a dead man. Your own people will learn you told all their business to a woman, they’ll get to you wherever you are. Even if you’re denied bail, they’ll reach you in jail. On the other hand, if you plead, I forget I ever heard this tape …”

  “Who else has heard it?”

  “Just me.”

  “Who else knows about it?”

  “Just Sarah.”

  “Nobody in law enforcement?”

  “Nobody.”

  “How about the detectives working the case?”

  “I said nobody.”

  “Why should I believe you?”

  “Because I’m telling you.”

  “I’m supposed to believe a man who’s ready to suppress evidence …”

  “It isn’t evidence yet. It’s evidence only when it’s admitted as evidence. Right now, it’s just a man and a woman talking on tape.”

  Andrew was listening.

  “To introduce this tape,” he said, “I’ve got to call Sarah. I can’t try this case without her testimony. The minute I reveal the existence of the tape, I have to …”

  “There are other tapes.”

  “No one knows who she is on those tapes.”

  “You do.”

  You ever do this to your husband?

  Yes, all the time.

  You don’t.

  I do. Every night of the week.

  You’re lying.

  I’m lying.

  Jesus, what you do to me!

  “No one will ask me who she is.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because her identity is a nonissue. On those tapes, she’s merely a subject. We don’t have to know who she is. Those tapes can be introduced through the detectives who conducted the surveillance.”

  “But you, personally, know who she is.”

  “That’s irrelevant,” Michael said.

  Whose cock is this?

  Yours.

  Mine, yes. And I’m going to suck it till you scream.

  Sarah …

  I want to see you explode! Give it to me!

  Oh God, Sarah!

  Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes!

  “She said you’ve also got her on videotape.”

  “She’s unrecognizable.”

  “What you’re saying …”

  “What I’m saying is I’ll only have to call her if I introduce the Connecticut tape. She went in wired for it, that makes her an informant. But I won’t have to introduce anything if there’s no trial. You plead to the two counts …”


  “What’s in this for you? If you can put us all away, why are you willing to settle for me alone?”

  “I don’t want to hurt my daughter. If I call Sarah, the whole thing comes out.”

  “It’s a little late to be thinking about that, isn’t it?”

  “It’s a little late for all of us,” Michael said softly.

  The room went suddenly still.

  “I’m willing to give up the better case just so Mollie … just so my daughter doesn’t get hurt,” Michael said.

  “There’s another reason, though, isn’t there?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “There’s nothing else. You plead to the two counts, I make a small presentation, we get our indictment, and you accept the agreed twenty-five to life. Nobody will know this tape ever existed. Not my daughter, not your paisans. What do you say?”

  “I’ll plead to just the one count. And I do the time in a federal prison.”

  “No. You go to Attica.”

  “Then we don’t have a deal.”

  “You want me to use Sarah, is that it?”

  “You’ve already used her.”

  The room went silent again.

  “I’ll plead to one count,” Andrew said, “or you take it to trial. Once the jury hears you turned your own wife into a whore, I may even walk.”

  “It was my understanding that you loved her,” Michael said.

  Andrew said nothing.

  “I didn’t think you’d want this to happen to her,” he said.

  Andrew still said nothing.’

  “Well,” Michael said, “think about it,” and rose ponderously, and walked to the door.

  Andrew sat alone in the living room, listening to the sound of the car starting outside, listening to it disappear on the night.

  He could not fall asleep.

  He lay upstairs in the big bed in the master bedroom of the house, going over every word of the conversation he’d had with Sarah’s husband, debating over and over again the only viable course of action that seemed open to him.