by Petrova, Em
I’d been willing to make the sacrifice, to not make waves and wait it out, back when all I had was studying and keeping a low profile. But things had changed. I had changed. Rob was in my life now and I needed to be free of my past to see if it what we had was going to flame out or become something more.
My heart hammered for the ‘something more’, my gut urged caution based on experience and the myth of happily ever after never working out.
I said, “I’m not sure what this all means,” which was an honest statement. These men, including Rob, had kept me out of the loop in the name of protecting me from exposure to the media. And I was slowly realizing that the media might be the least of my problems.
Jackson nodded for Parvi to continue.
“According to this,” and he flashed what looked like a copy of a legal code, “because you had initiated a criminal proceeding against your husband…”
I interrupted. “That never went anywhere. I dropped it when the leagues declined to co-operate.” But by then it was too late and the five year clock started on my suspension from life.
“But it does pertain when the spouses sue each other in a civil case.”
“Shit, the divorce.”
Jackson said, “Exactly.”
“I still don’t understand what this has to do with me providing you with information for your investigation.”
Parvi looked at his boss and at me, then said, “There are cases where spousal testimonial privilege can be invoked, child custody being one. Of if both spouses are joint participants in a crime.” He looked at me sympathetically because, in all honesty, most of what he said was going in one ear and out the other. He tapped on the paper and said, “Under our federal common law that privilege is held by the witness spouse, not what they call the party spouse.”
Great, what the heck was that difference all about?
In an effort to organize it in my own head, I asked, “Does this mean that if Michael gets arrested and is tried in a criminal proceeding,” and took a breath because the what if wasn’t jelling in my pea brain, “…um, does it mean that I can’t be called to testify?”
I didn’t see a down side to that. Surely Michael’s illegal activities in the states would be enough to brand him as a very bad boy indeed. My little sojourn with him on the continent made for a compelling fluff piece but didn’t come close to hammering the nail in that particular coffin.
Jackson said, “The mob’s got some of the best legal brains in the business, both civil and criminal. We can’t possibly know what kind of defense they’ll throw up.” He pointed to Parvi and spit out, “Show her.”
The assistant shoved several photographs to my side of the table. Most were grainy, probably taken with a telephoto lens at long range but I was no expert.
“Do you recognize anyone in those photos?”
What I did recognize immediately was the Piazza del Duomo in Milan. There was a knot of men off-center. One looked familiar, far too familiar.
“Michael?” It wasn’t really a question, I was sure it was him.
“What about the other ones? Do you know any of them?”
I stared hard at the picture but other than Michael, those men were strangers to me. I shook my head and wondered what the heck was going on.
Parvi pointed to a short, older man. “This is the man called Big M, he’s an enforcer for the Gambinos and until he ran into a bullet a couple of years ago, he headed up the family’s illegal gambling operations.”
I gulped and asked, “When was this taken?”
The editor reached over and flipped the photograph so I could read the writing on the back.
“Jesus.” Three years ago. We were still in Milan, I was still playing for the B-1 league and Michael had become my manager, though not yet my husband. I had to ask, “Does this mean what I think it means?”
Jackson got up and went to the window, staring out at skies gone dull and lifeless. When he turned around, he had nothing but sympathy in his eyes.
“The man you know as Michael O’Brien, and who goes by the moniker ‘Malone’ today, is actually Michael Winter. His family roots go all the way back to the late seventies and eighties when the Westies operated out of Hell’s Kitchen. That segment of the Irish mob was never big but they were brutal. After a series of gang wars, the Westies ended up aligned with the Gambino family.”
Eyes glued to the picture on the table, I mumbled, “Michael? Michael Winter. A member of the mob even before he met me?” My belly roiled and reeled with that blow.
“We think you were set up Ms. Richardson. The mob’s been interested in going global for quite some time. It’s possible, even likely, that Winter was sent over to test the waters.”
I wailed, “But he gambled away all my money!”
“Indeed he did.” Jackson pursed his lips and tapped blunt nails on the table. “Like I said, he was testing the waters. And using your funds to do so. It wasn’t until he returned to the states and hooked up with those software developers as their distributor that he finally found the magic bullet to take their operations global.”
Parvi snorted, “To the tune of twenty mil.”
Both Parvi and Jackson rocked back in their chairs, Jackson crossing his arms and looking like the cat that ate the canary.
What was I missing? First they confound me with the spousal testimony thing and now they tell me my husband wasn’t really Michael O’Brien but some thug from the Iri—
“Wait a minute.” I looked up, barely breathing for the clutch of hope invading my chest, “does this mean I married him under false pretenses?” As in you can get this marriage annulled kind of false pretenses?
Parvi smiled broadly, lighting his dark features. “We’re having our legal team take a run at this.”
Fumbling in my purse, I found the business card for Rebecca Finklestein and handed it over. “Call her, she’s been looking into my divorce situation. I think she can help.”
Jackson tapped his man on the shoulder and said, “I’d like a word with Ms. Richardson, if you don’t mind,” dismissing his assistant and fixing me with a look that made me squirm in my seat.
He spoke slowly, choosing his words with care. “I’ve not been fully apprised about your situation, which is unfortunate because I do know how to keep a confidence.”
He sounded vaguely disappointed and intuition suggested that Rob was the object of that sentiment. I had no idea what he thought was being kept from him, so I launched into yet another synopsis of the hell I’d been through only to have him wave me off.
“I know all that, Ms. Ric—”
“Call me Taylor, please.”
“Taylor. Yes, well, here’s the thing. Whatever your official ties with this Winter, Malone, whatever the hell his name is, I don’t want you pursuing your own agenda. Not until we have this locked tight in a bullet-proof box. Do I make myself clear?”
Perfectly clear. He implied that he knew about me and Rob, and he disapproved. It wouldn’t surprise me if he thought our relationship was going to adversely impact him getting his scoop, or whatever they called it nowadays.
I was sick of meddling, I was even sicker of waiting for my life to start.
I stood and gathered my things, taking care to appear composed and in control when I was so far from either that chaos was my middle name.
As I approached the door to the office, he said softly, “Don’t do anything to get him hurt.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Rob
Rico-call-me-Ricky Hernandez was what my sisters would call a player. I actually never understood what that meant, but sitting across from him, the steam coming off the sidewalk in waves, surrounded with sass and scantily clad bodies in a neverending parade of do me convinced me he had the goods and I didn’t.
This wasn’t my first time sampling the pleasures of South Beach, but back then it’d been mostly at night, hitting the dance floor with a different chica every night, not sweltering in the late October heat wave, streetside with a Cuban
version of a publicist who might or might not have seen or heard of a Michael O’Brien aka Malone.
Ricky was smarmy in his namesake Ricardo’s way: teeth whitened to painful brilliance, dusky complexioned, short enough to require lifts in his Italian loafers and chest hair within a day or so of his wax job appointment.
Not that I looked much better. I hadn’t shaved or showered in recent memory, having been holed up in the university archives or prowling the back rooms where money passed hands the old fashioned way. I let Peg run the numbers using the digital ‘Verse. I liked face-to-face transactions, looking the man in the eye and seeing what he was made of. Peg could tell when the computer lied, I couldn’t. So I stayed in my comfort zone and pounded the pavement in the off chance that O’Brien’s last known base of operations had been in the Miami area.
With my out-of-pocket expenses spiraling out of control, I’d forgone amenities like hotel rooms, instead crashing on beach benches or under palm trees, catnapping when I could. The rest of the time I haunted internet cafes, nickel and diming my way through one URL after another.
Staying off the grid was surprisingly easy down here in la-la-land; and even when I changed it up and hit a few Heat players for sound bites, it was as me the sports journalist. Not Snoopdoggydog, the wunderkind investigative journalist.
My erstwhile host finger waved a cutie in a tank top three sizes too small over to the table and had her top off my Long Island iced tea. I was too tired to be horny but not so much that the aerial view of her assets didn’t draw an appreciative sigh. There’s plump. Then there’s perky. She was both.
I like to watch.
So do I…
Stifling the yawn, I pondering the state of my loins, the ones aching for a woman who was looking like ‘the one’. It was either that or my bladder was full. Sometimes when I zen out in sleep deprivation mode, it’s hard to tell the difference.
Ricky plowed through my dossier of photographs that Parvi had texted down the day before. Where my cohort had found the images he didn’t say, but apparently they’d been vetted and authenticated by the fact checkers.
“So, Robbie, when are we talking?” He paused at one, flicking the pic back and forth with his finger, frowning, then moved on.
“Anytime in the last six, seven years.”
The timeline wasn’t as important as tagging when or if O’Brien had been seen in the back rooms I’d been frequenting. I could have asked my contacts in that nether world directly but Jackson wanted us going in through as many backdoors as possible. After what I’d found out about the Gambinos and the Westies during one of my historical searches, that seemed like a very good idea. None of us was undercover material, nor were any of us ex-special forces. Hell, my paper wasn’t much more than a gossip rag on good days, but we had a chance to put ourselves and our corporate sponsors on the map if we played this right.
The trick was … be smart, get the facts ma’am and then let the Feds do the actual wet work while we cheered from the sidelines and gave credit where it wasn’t due.
He handed the smart phone back with, “This one,” and pushed away from the table. “You don’t keep nice company, you know that, don’t you?”
Ricky was bolting and there wasn’t a lot I could do about it. I said, “I need a name.”
“Malone. Just Malone. Might of seen him here last year, maybe like in the summer, ya know?”
“August?” That was when the story broke about the software developers.
“Might be.”
“Any of your boys I can talk to?” Meaning, was he willing to flip through his client list and pull one out of the hat, preferably one who liked a little action on the side.
“What’s in it for me?”
And there it was, another opportunity for Robert van Horn to whore his way into pillow talk over allegations and hints and vague leads that might or might not go anywhere.
“I hear Jamal might have the goods.” I was trying the promotional carrot first, saving the stick, an actual promise of cash, as a last resort. If that made me a corporate slut, well … so be it.
Ricky considered the offer on the table. Jamal Woods was an undrafted free agent, red shirted for two years at State, a late bloomer overlooked because the previous two years had been an embarrassment of riches in the university’s talent department, leaving guys like Woods in the dust.
“The boy does have talent.” Ricky was standing, shifting from one foot to the other, his shades still parked on his bald pate, but he hadn’t left yet.
“Shame nobody knows about it.”
“Yeah, real shame.”
The Long Island iced teas had given me a buzz and an urgent need to empty my bladder. Best to move things along.
“We’re thinking of doing a few spots in my column, you know … highlighting up and comers.” Jamal was neither but as my lady was fond of saying, that don’t make no nevermind. “Can’t hurt, ya know.” Mentally pinging my forehead for slipping into the tedium of ‘ya knows’, I let slip a rumor I made up on the spot, “Heard the Ravens might be looking for a tight end, nothing confirmed,” God help me, “ya know?”
Ricky stopped fidgeting and leaned on the table, palms flat, ears tuned to the prospect of three percent of the action. NFL rules. Not a big percentage of a player’s contract but that wasn’t where the real money came in. Agents like Hernandez squeaked by on the chump change, all the while praying for one of his B-listers to hit it big and score endorsements. That’s where ten or twenty percent of big bucks paid for chest waxes and evenings at LIV.
“Why don’t you set up something for later today? Me and Jamal.” Mister Agent-to-the-Wannabees grimaced, so I quickly added, “And you too, of course.”
Cripes I was going to hate myself in the morning.
Ricky waggled his fingers for a pen and jotted something down on the back of his business card, then shoved it over and said, “He’s doing eighteen to twenty-one months. Might know a little something about your friend.”
I nodded my thanks and said, “Call me with a time, okay?”
We parted, me to the county lockup and Ricky speed dialing his way to the land of opportunity. Somehow it seemed like a fair exchange.
***
When you aren’t a member of the privileged business class, you don’t get to sit in fancy lounges with unlimited WiFi, outlets on every end table and a complementary drink. Coach classers like me sat on the tiled floor next to a pillar, sharing an outlet with a twenty-something geek and a pimply teenager with overgrown thumbs and a permanent tic over his left eyebrow. I’d run out of juice on all my devices, not a wonderful state of affairs when my entire career sat in a digital cloud somewhere over the state of you’re screwed.
Jackson had ordered me home on the first flight out of Miami International, so here I was red-eyeing it home, closing the loops but not quite there. If we were lucky, the others would have better luck than I did. My takeaway positives weren’t exactly impressive. A convicted felon who’d been a minor runner for a group based in Little Cuba. Said group was rumored to be operated by the man known only as Malone. My felon identified the same man as Ricky Hernandez, making for two hits on the same pic. Life was full of co-incidences.
All that did was confirm that Malone was in the country when all the shit hit the fan over the software scandal. My newest informant also suggested that Malone had frequently island hopped during his Miami sojourn. Not exactly news at eleven worthy but possibly something a prosecutor could use. As they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day. My problem was that I was used to the quick fix, the clever headline mocking or rewarding my team’s effort, not this slow slog through excruciating details and innuendo, mining for pearls in an ocean of toxic sludge.
On the up side, I had actually scored a fairly entertaining interview with the young Jamal who should have rocked on charisma alone, but fate hadn’t seen fit to give the kid a chance. We watched a little footage from his first bowl game to his senior year clips that showed a competent but no
t a flashy player. While I wasn’t keen on showboaters personally, they did make up part and parcel of my newsworthy world, so I—like everybody else—tended to overlook the steady eddys. I had a chance to change that.
That it gave bottom feeders like Ricky a bump in income wasn’t my problem. We’d gone tit-for-tat without me forking over any of the paper’s pocket change, and I came away pretending that I was just being a good citizen.
That was the kind of feeling that had me rethinking my career choices and looking at cooking schools.
I called Cordie, hoping for an update on whether or not she’d been able to convince Taylor to head back to my hometown and out of harm’s way, but she didn’t pick up so I left a message. With the dung heap me and my team were excavating, I had a bad feeling about keeping my lady love out of O’Brien’s line of sight. Tay hadn’t been specific the night she’d spilled about him abusing her but it didn’t take a genius to connect the dots. If the asshole had done it once, he would do it again. Not a risk I was willing to take.
Before I left for Miami my boss had assured me he’d taken steps to see to her safety and anonymity. I trusted him, but not enough to leave it in his hands. One of my cousins had married a state cop. I was counting on family to pull together on this one. The only way to do that was to have her in Pittsburgh and not the Big Apple. Out of sight, out of mind.
But not my mind. She hovered there, at the edges. A new sensation for me. Cordie had called it love. I wasn’t disagreeing.
It was after midnight when we touched down at Newark Liberty International. Jackson said he’d send a driver to pick me up. Color me dumbfounded when the man himself met me at the exit ramp.
“Dave?”
“You look like shit, boy.” I was getting a lot of that lately.
“Long week.”
“Uh-huh.”
He’d left his junker idling at the curb so I eased into the passenger side, buckled up and never gave a thought to why he was here and not some nameless hack from the paper’s driver pool.
We drove in silence through the Lincoln Tunnel, still insanely busy in the wee hours of the morning, and stop-lighted our way through midtown. I figured we’d go to his office for a debrief—after all, I’d been up nearly forty-eight hours straight. What was another three or four hours in the big scheme of things?