Blood Money

by James Grippando

  “Theo, I came here with one objective: to throw a lifeline to Ellen Bennett, to make her want to reach out to me and talk, one-on-one. Trading insults with Geoffrey Bennett is a waste of energy.”

  Theo dug his keys from his pocket. “Okay, if that’s your strategy, you may be right.”

  “I know I’m right.”

  “But you’re no damn fun.”

  Theo started the engine, the headlights shining across the lawn as they backed out of the driveway. Alongside the house, behind a chain-link fence, Jack spotted the Bennett family’s swimming pool that had figured so prominently in the defense of Sydney Bennett.

  “Lots of lies,” said Jack. “Lots and lots of lies.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Sean Keating watched the Faith Corso Show from BNN headquarters in Manhattan. The CEO of BNN couldn’t watch every show on his network, but Keating never missed Corso. Her show had all the markings of his next mega-success.

  “Damn, she’s good,” said Keating as the show ended.

  His bodyguard nodded in agreement. Roland Sharp had no official title at BNN, but he was known by most as the “Shadow.” Keating rarely set foot outside the building without the Shadow or some other trusted member of the security team at his side, or at least lurking in the background, ready to draw a concealed weapon in defense of one of the most hated CEOs in corporate America. It wasn’t purely paranoia. Hate e-mail arrived by the virtual truckload on a daily basis, and even some death threats had come since Al Jazeera’s profile of Keating and his network’s anti-Islamic bent.

  “She’s the best,” said Sharp. They were alone in “the brain room,” a subterranean office that no one at BNN could enter without special clearance.

  “Tell Faith I want to see her.”

  The Shadow hesitated. The Faith Corso Show had been born in the brain room, but Corso herself had never been invited inside. Her set, however, was not far away, one of several in the windowless expanse below street level. The “BNN bunker,” as people called it, was the gloomy corporate expression of the CEO’s siege mentality, born of Keating’s oft-expressed fears that everyone from Islamic extremists to the Jewish Defense League was out to get him.

  “Go,” said Keating. “Bring her.”

  His bodyguard left the room, which involved bypassing an alarm and deactivating two electronic locks. Keating rose from his old leather chair to refresh his drink.

  Keating loved scotch, and pouring his own glass or two every night was a ritual, his personal reward for another job well done. On the wall behind the bar, right above the bottles of Blue Label, were his two favorite portraits in the entire building. One of Don Corleone. The other, Don Rickles. An old Vanity Fair article about Keating’s creation of the BNN empire had called him a combination of the two. It wasn’t intended as a compliment, but like everything else at BNN, the insult was stripped of all original meaning and spun into something it was never intended to be, something that served the network’s purpose and agenda. In truth, Sean Keating was neither mafioso nor comedian. He was a frustrated political strategist whose on-air remarks in the first and only campaign he had ever managed were so racist that he was fired before the election, and no serious candidate from either party would ever hire him again. Four decades later, the more mature and refined ideology that oozed without apology from each and every one of BNN’s programs was his outlet for those frustrations.

  There was a polite knock on the door. Keating checked the security screen and saw Faith Corso outside the door. He buzzed her in, and the door relocked automatically as it closed behind her.

  “Faith, come on in,” he said. “Have a seat.”

  The pit bull of television news entered like a kitten, aware that she was officially part of the privileged few who had visited Keating’s inner sanctum.

  “Not much to look at, is it?” he said.

  It was a simple room, no fancy furnishings. The conference table was Formica. The chairs around it were covered in dull vinyl. The carpeting showed signs of wear. Only the electronics were state of the art, no expense spared on the monitors and display screens of all sizes, each broadcasting a different show, some from sister companies of BNN, some from competitors.

  “I guess I don’t know what I was expecting to see.”

  He smiled the only way he knew how, which wasn’t much of anything, just a crease across his mouth that rose almost imperceptibly on the right side. He offered her a drink, but she declined.

  “Good show tonight, Faith,” he said as they moved toward a small sitting area, away from the conference table. Corso took a seat on the couch and Keating in his leather chair.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’ve been riding the Sydney Bennett train a long time. How much more steam is left?”

  “Honestly, I thought it would be over already. But this story could be bigger than the trial. Sort of the way the Watergate cover-up became bigger than the break-in.”

  “Interesting way to look at it,” Keating said. “But not what I want to hear from you.”

  “I’m sorry. Did I say something wrong?”

  “I just had a marketing meeting yesterday. When I started BNN, the median age of our viewers was fifty-five. Now, it’s sixty-five. Basically our bread-and-butter commercials cater to the fallen-and-can’t-get-up age group—folks for whom the good, the bad, and the ugly are now the immobile, the infirm, and the incontinent. If we stay on this track, the only things our sponsors will be able to sell are burial plots and quickie cremations. The audience that got us where we are today isn’t going to be here tomorrow. You’re my new girl, my chance to change that demographic and tap into the more lucrative thirty-five-to-fifty-year-old audience. So stop making references to things like Watergate.”

  “I understand.”

  He tasted his scotch, then continued. “I don’t think you do, fully. Here’s a little pop quiz on BNN history. Do you know how many viewers BNN had on the very first day it went on the air?”

  “I don’t know. Half a million?”

  “Twenty-five million.”

  “I don’t see how that’s possible.”

  “No one did. That’s because in the normal course of the television business, cable companies paid content providers like MTV or ESPN for the right to air their programs. I turned that whole paradigm on its head. I didn’t just give BNN away. Before we aired a single program, we paid the cable companies to sign an agreement to put us on the air. As much as twenty bucks a subscriber. A half billion dollars later, before we even went on the air, we had our mass audience, bought and paid for.”

  “That’s not why they keep tuning in, day after day, year after year.”

  “True. But our audience is shrinking, and advertising revenues aren’t what they used to be. It’s not enough for my shows to be a success. We need mega-success.”

  Mega was one of his favorite words. He sat up, leaned closer, looking Corso in the eye. “You are my next mega-success.”

  She could barely contain her glow. “Thank you.”

  “But there are some things to clean up first. Starting with coma girl.”

  Not even Corso had stooped to calling her coma girl. “Celeste Laramore,” she said.

  “Yes. Celeste. I’ve authorized my lawyers to put up to a million-dollar offer on the table to make it go away.”

  That raised her eyebrows. “Excuse my disagreement, but I am a lawyer myself. I have serious qualms about paying that kind of money when we have done nothing wrong.”

  “Well, Faith, consider this your official welcome to the brain room: We did do something wrong.”

  She chuckled, then realized that he wasn’t joking. “What do you mean by ‘we’?”

  “One of our boys in the field,” he said, shooting a sideways glance at the door. He knew that the Shadow was standing guard on the other side of it.

  “Okay, I got it. And exactly what did ‘we’ do?”

  “We got a little too aggressive and cracked into the LIFENET s
ystem that allows the EMS crew to transmit vital signs wirelessly. Again, it’s wireless, so intercepting that data to be the first news station to know if she was dead or alive would have been no big deal, except that somehow our techie crashed the whole damn system. The EMS crew was essentially flying solo all the way to the hospital, no input from cardiologists back at the hospital on how to treat the patient.”

  It took a moment to digest what she was being told. “So . . . we did cause her coma?”

  “No, no, no,” said Keating. “We crashed the wireless system. The thug in the crowd who grabbed her by the neck caused her coma. But that’s a nice distinction that I don’t care to press in a public forum. It happened on your show, and I can’t take the risk of tarnishing the image of my newest superstar.”

  Corso took a breath. “This is . . . disturbing.”

  “Yes. But the fact that we’ve earmarked a million dollars to solve the problem is the good news.”

  “So what’s the bad news?”

  “The million dollars is coming out of your salary.”

  Her mouth fell open. “That’s not fair.”

  “You’re right. It’s not. But like I said: Welcome to the brain room.”

  “I just don’t see why you’re punishing me. I didn’t know anything about this. Why should it come out of my salary?”

  “Are you suggesting that it should come out of mine?”

  “No, but—”

  “If you don’t like it, Faith, there are other networks.”

  He could almost feel her shiver.

  “Sean, I didn’t say, you know, that I was walking out the door. I just said a million dollars out of my salary isn’t fair. But I’m . . . happy. Overall. Just, uh, not about this.”

  It wasn’t easy to make Faith Corso stammer, but Keating had made tougher cookies crumble. “Then help me find another solution.”

  “Okay. How can I help?”

  “My lawyers tell me that the only way to make the Laramore case go away quickly is to settle it. Find me another way to make it go away.”

  “I’d have to give that some thought.”

  “That’s what we do best right here,” he said, opening his arms wide, reminding her that they were in the brain room. He walked to the bar, added another finger of scotch to his glass, and then sat on the edge of the table, facing her. “Let me tell you how I see it. One option is to settle the case and get a confidentiality agreement. That would cost us—excuse me, cost you—a million. Which brings us to option number two: Make Swyteck dismiss the suit, for nothing.”

  “How do you make a lawyer even think about dismissing a personal-injury lawsuit when his client is a twenty-year-old woman in a coma?”

  “We’ve already got Swyteck on the run. Ted Gaines tells me that the judge is furious about the Facebook postings in violation of the court order. Gaines said that cases do get dismissed for willful violations of court orders.”

  “It’s rare,” said Corso.

  “Exactly. Which is why I prefer a more direct approach.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “We need to exploit this jury-tampering story.”

  “I agree that we need to exploit the story,” said Corso. “But I don’t see how jury tampering in the Sydney Bennett trial leads directly to the dismissal of the civil suit by Celeste Laramore.”

  “Let me be clear. Somebody lurking behind the scenes paid a juror a hundred thousand dollars for a not-guilty verdict. We don’t know who paid it, but the guy who took the money is now on the hot seat. You’re a former prosecutor. You know that Mr. Hewitt is getting hammered right now to cough up a name. They’re probably offering him probation and a parade in his honor if he turns state’s evidence.”

  “I don’t know about the parade, but I see your point. A deal is in the works, no doubt.”

  “Right. You know it. I know it. And Jack Swyteck knows it. So, if I’m Jack Swyteck, I’m getting very nervous about which way the finger may point.”

  “I would be nervous if I were the defense counsel of record.”

  “Yes,” said Keating. “You’d be concerned not only about how it might play out in the courtroom, but also how it plays in the media. So, just to make my point, let’s suppose Mr. Swyteck gets a phone call.”

  “A phone call?”

  “Yeah,” he said, putting his thumb and finger to mimic the call. “‘Hello, Sly-teck?’—love that name you gave him—‘Faith Corso here. Let me tell you how it is. We have a reliable source linking you to the payment of a hundred-thousand-dollar bribe to a juror. Now, we can either run with this story, or we can shelve it. Which would you like us to do?’”

  Corso read between the lines—not that his approach had left much in the way of hidden meaning to begin with. “You want Jack Swyteck to convince the Laramores that they have no case against BNN and should dismiss their lawsuit. And to make him do that, you want me to threaten him with a bogus story about jury tampering?”

  “Who said the story is bogus?”

  “You have a source?”

  “Not yet. But we’ll find one.”

  Corso took a deep breath. “That would be one hell of a story. But I can’t make that phone call.”

  “Maybe you prefer to be a bit more subtle. It’s all a matter of style.”

  “Let me push back a little harder: I’m not making that phone call to Jack Swyteck.”

  He noticed the placement of her emphasis. “So what you’re saying is that you’re willing to run with the story, but it’s really not necessary that the phone call come from you.”

  She tightened her gaze, eyes narrowing, so completely repeating herself in both words and tone that it was as if Keating had never asked for clarification. “I’m not making that phone call to Jack Swyteck.”

  She was demanding deniability, he realized, a little distance between the talk-show host and the threat. It was a reasonable middle ground. A commitment to the story was all he’d really wanted from her anyway. Other players on his team were much better at making threats.

  “I think we understand each other perfectly,” he said.

  “Good.”

  He raised his glass and gave her that one-sided smile again. “You are my newest superstar.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t say ‘a star is born.’”

  It took him half a second, then he got the allusion to the wrong demographic. “You’re good, Corso. You are so good.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Game face. Jack put on his as he crossed the street and approached the crowd outside the Criminal Justice Building.

  News reports of a bought-off juror had reignited the army of Shot Mom haters. A busload of them had come from somewhere, and Jack didn’t think it too cynical to wonder if BNN had actually rounded them up from some retirement home, promised them a free lunch, and brought them in for the sake of good television. One thing was clear: None of their anger was for the juror who had taken the bribe. Sydney Bennett, whereabouts unknown, left Jack as the only visible target. Game face was the only way to deal with reporters who pushed one another out of the way and thrust microphones in Jack’s face, prodding him for a comment as they climbed the courthouse steps. Game face was his only response to the barrage of insults hurled from the crowd.

  “Tramposo!”

  “Cheater!”

  Much uglier things were shouted, but that one in Spanish stung the most—because it was from an old Cuban woman who looked like his grandmother. Jack wasn’t trying to torture himself, but he nonetheless allowed himself to consider the remote possibility that this little old woman with the big voice could be someone who knew Abuela, someone his grandmother would have to avoid in shame the next time she showed her face at church. For some lawyers, the out-of-court fallout was “collateral damage.” For Jack, there was nothing collateral about it.

  “Welcome back, counselor,” said the security officer. She was anything but sincere, and even though it wasn’t overly sarcastic, her snide tone of voice was one that J
ack had never heard from courthouse staff. It was a heavy reminder that for anyone who worked in the system, buying a jury was about as low as you can go.

  It was déjà vu as Jack cleared security, rode the elevator to the ninth floor, and started down the crowded hallway to Judge Matthews’ courtroom. Jack passed the same reporters and many of the same spectators who had followed the murder trial. He knew his way through the obstacle course, and the heavy doors closed with a thud as he entered the courtroom. The gallery was packed, though most would soon be disappointed to hear that Shot Mom would not be making an appearance in this encore performance of the Sydney Bennett show.

  “This is for you,” said the prosecutor as she handed him a legal memorandum.

  It was the first Jack had seen of Melinda Crawford since her postverdict press conference. Jack gave her memo a quick look. It was on double jeopardy—the prosecution’s legal argument as to why the U.S. Constitution didn’t preclude the retrial of Sydney Bennett.

  “Read it and weep,” she said.

  Crawford walked to her table with the same confidence she’d displayed before the verdict—maybe more. The prosecution always sat near the jury box, and Jack wondered if it was any coincidence that Crawford had positioned her chair so that it was directly in front of seat five—the seat Brian Hewitt had occupied for nearly a month before he was chosen foreman.

  Jack was still getting ready when he heard the knock on the side door to the judge’s chambers. The bailiff’s announcement—“All rise!”—brought an abrupt end to the buzz of conversation from the gallery. Judge Matthews entered the courtroom and climbed to the bench. It felt like a dream—a nightmare—as the bailiff called the case.

  “State of Florida versus Sydney Bennett . . .”

  It’s freakin’ Groundhog Day, thought Jack.

  “Good morning,” said the judge. “The court has before it the prosecution’s motion to set aside the verdict of not guilty entered in this case on grounds of jury tampering. Ms. Crawford, let me hear from you first.”

  “Thank you,” she said as she stepped to the podium. “Your Honor, I have mixed feelings this morning. Of course I felt that the verdict of not guilty in this case was a miscarriage of justice. Even though I accepted that verdict, in my heart I wished that there was some way to undo it. I’m here to tell the court that it should indeed be undone—that the law requires this court to set aside this verdict and order Sydney Bennett retried on the charges set forth in the original indictment. But I wish to state from the get-go that the grounds for this motion—the affront to the entire judicial system that is jury tampering—is nothing for anyone to celebrate.”