PLUMMET: A Novel

by MICHAEL ZAROCOSTAS

  "Before we start." She reached into a portable briefcase on the floor, pulling out two sets of papers. "Can you two please sign this confidentiality agreement? I want to make sure that our discussion, especially client confidences or defense strategy, are going to stay in this room."

  Gabe skimmed the document. "I don't need to sign this. Our conversation is privileged. It's in contemplation of retaining me as civil counsel, and I give you my word that we'll preserve any confidence. But I want to make clear," Gabe said, wagging his finger, "that I'm not agreeing to represent anyone yet until I hear the facts of the case. Capisce?"

  "All right." Ani hesitated, looking at the agreements before scooping them back up. "This criminal case I'm about to discuss could result in a potential referral for you, Gabriel. A very, very big referral from a client you would love. My client's name is Carlos Mavros. Ever hear of him?" Ani leaned on her elbows, and Fred stopped typing on his Blackberry.

  "Is he a related to Nine Zero Nick Mavros?" Gabe asked, one eyebrow arched.

  Ani smiled. "You're good. Carlos is Nick's younger brother, named after his maternal grandfather. Carlos runs a small charity and place of worship here in the city-"

  "He was in the papers a few months ago, right?" Raphael said. "Sexually assaulted and tortured some women or something?"

  Ani and Fred looked at each other, and she said, "Allegedly assaulted two women. Let me tell you the whole story before you reach premature adjudication."

  She winked, and Raphael liked her immediately.

  Ani stayed propped on her elbows as she recounted what she knew. "When Carlos Mavros was a kid, his older brother, Nick, was beginning to make his fortune using the family's cargo ships to transport and sell 'Turkish tobacco' in Central America. Carlos was the smart baby brother, and even at a young age he had film star good looks. His family idolized him, and the mother wanted him to become a priest. Nick paid for Carlos' education, private prep schools in the U.S., university in Athens, theology studies at the Sorbonne, and then social research at The New School here in the city. Carlos was a career student and liberal thinker, so he had the luxury of not having to work. Instead, he volunteered for social projects involving the poor and working class, especially immigrants, maybe because his mother was Mexican."

  Raphael watched Gabe's reactions to Ani's story. Gabe had mentioned the Mavros fortune before, talking about bringing them in as a client. But if Gabe were interested now, he showed only a World Series of Poker face.

  She said, "With Nick's help, meaning money, Carlos founded a charity and a church-slash-shelter on the Lower East Side, providing sanctuary for immigrants, mostly homeless runaway girls and single moms. Unlike Nick, Carlos was happy to be out of the limelight, and his shelter became relatively popular. Until the charges were leveled by the two women."

  "So did he do it?" Gabe asked, his blue eyes unblinking at Ani.

  "Come on now, Gabriel. You know any defense attorney worth her salt would never ask a client that." Ani winked again at Raphael, turned back to Gabe. She must've realized that this answer didn't satisfy Gabe, so she said, "He's clean."

  "Give me the dirt on the allegations and why you say he's clean."

  Ani looked a little uncomfortable as she spoke, "One was 18 years old from Mexico, the other in her early twenties from the Dominican Republic. Both were illegal and down on their luck for different reasons, ending up at Carlos' shelter for a few days. A week after they left the shelter, they went to the police and claimed that Carlos had initially asked to take video of them, trying to get them 'modeling' jobs. It later escalated into Carlos drinking wine with them in his office. Then, on different nights, the women each claimed that they got drunk with Carlos alone, unexpectedly passed out, and woke up naked with him on top of them in bed. They were supposedly burned with cigarettes and bruised, but didn't know how or why it happened."

  Raphael started to take notes, but Gabe waved his hand at him to stop.

  "And get this," Ani said, "when they went to the police station to tell this farce, they already had a lawyer with them, supposedly to help translate."

  "Did the police find any evidence to corroborate their story?"

  "You can't do a rape kit test a week later. And, although the women pointed to marks on their bodies, it was unclear whether they were from an alleged assault. The NYPD started an investigation and asked to speak with Carlos. Of course, I intervened and didn't allow it. Meanwhile, the women's shyster starts going to the press and there's a short-lived feeding frenzy over Carlos with stereotypical holyman-molester headlines. One of the rightwing tabloids went ape-shit, pardon my French, probably because Carlos is pro-immigration."

  "I imagine that the publicity didn't make his big brother very happy."

  Ani glanced at Fred, grinned at Gabe. "Boy, you are good. Carlos was an honorary board member of Nick's companies, many of which do business in New York. So, no, Nick was none too pleased."

  "Well, it sounds like you have your hands full," Gabe said, "but you still haven't told me why you think he's innocent or why you need me to begin with."

  Ani reached into her briefcase, drew out a cigarette. "Do you mind if I?"

  "Go ahead."

  Fred lit her cigarette, Ani took a long drag. Raphael watched the smoke curl up, could almost taste the nicotine. He craved one bad, but had quit for four days running.

  "I'll cut right to it," Ani said. "Fred did some investigating and found out that four years ago the older girl was involved in an insurance fraud scheme claiming she'd been sexually assaulted in her apartment building. She wasn't charged because she was going to be deported. Fred also found out that the younger girl's a meth addict, that she recanted her story, and, the kicker: she's completely vanished. We dropped our findings on the D.A., and they said off the record that they want to drop the case for a lot of reasons."

  Gabe said, "Including the fact that Nick generates millions in city tax revenue."

  "More likely because there's no evidence. Whatever the reasons, they still want Carlos to take a polygraph. He passes, they use it as public justification to drop the investigation. Once it's dropped, we retain a civil litigator to sue the shyster and the tabloid for defaming Carlos and the Mavros name." Ani put out her cigarette on a note pad. "I told Nick that you were the best man for the job. So what do you think?"

  Raphael wanted to answer for Gabe that the case smelled. But then Gabe said it more eloquently, "The case is a shit sandwich. First, I don't see what you gain by allowing your client to take a lie detector. I would never do it. Second, the defamation case is a whole lot of nonsense. If Carlos were my client, I'd tell the schmuck to be glad the criminal investigation was dropped and let it go. People have short memories."

  "You're right." Ani wiped a bit of tobacco from her lip. "But you won't change their minds. Nick has a reputation for silencing his critics. Nick also offered something else. You know all of those asbestos mass actions against the Wellington boiler companies? In almost every state now."

  "Yeah, I know about 'em."

  "I know you do," Ani said, "because Nick has a majority stake in the companies, and you've been trying to replace Gill Martin Stover from Horvath as national defense counsel ever since you lost that Beauty Pageant last year."

  For the first time, Raphael saw a chink in the armor of Gabe's face. Gabe smiled.

  "You know how much Horvath makes defending those cases?" Ani didn't wait for an answer. "Beaucoup billables. There must be hundreds of actions, and they'll go on for years. That's more than enough to retire, that's enough to be the envy of every lawyer on the planet. And Nick's unhappy with Horvath. You clear his brother's name, he'll turn over the defense to Sullivan & Adler. To you, Gabriel."

  Gabe ran his thumbs up and down his suspenders, looked at Fred then at Ani again. He sat silent for a few seconds, working it out in his head. He finally said, "We have to make sure that Carlos passes the polygraph."

  Fred put down his Blackberry, saying, "Doesn't matter
. The test is done to extract damaging admissions. That's if the examinee is dumb enough to tell the truth. In this case, we'll all be able to monitor the examination. If he passes, we win. If he fails somehow, I'll testify that the test wasn't administered properly. Still a win."

  "No, Gabriel's right." Ani shook her head at Fred. "We can't afford a fail."

  Gabe squinted and pointed his thick fingers at Ani. "Why can't he pass it straight? You're hiding something. Spill it."

  "The Mavros family is very tight-lipped. Carlos is a very handsome man, and I've heard things myself. Questions about promiscuity could be a Pandora's Box because we suspect he was a pussyhound in college."

  Raphael fought off laughing and smiled instead at Ani. He looked at her hands, noticed there was no ring, and said, "You can take anti-anxiety medication like Lorazepam to beat a polygraph. It's supposed to keep your vital signs depressed."

  Fred shook his head. "Won't do. The test records blood pressure, heart rate, respiration, and skin conductance, which is a function of perspiration. They ask you basic questions at first and then ask you to respond falsely to simple questions like, 'Is your name Jesse Jackson?' You throw anti-anxiety in the mix, and there won't be a baseline for untruthful reactions. No increased pulse, no sweat, et cetera. In other words, it'll be a flatline with neutral physiology. They'll call it inconclusive."

  "There's a better way," Gabe said, looking around at everyone, tapping the table. "You find out who the examiner is, make sure the test is a 'pass.'"

  Fred nodded. "I know some of the examiners. I could make inquiries."

  "No. You contact that PD unit asking questions, then people will start sniffing around internally. " Gabe looked at Ani, patted her hand. "We handled a securities fraud case against a broker for the NYPD's pension fund a few year ago. I ended up friends with an insider, he's top brass there. Let me see what I can do."

  7 Wednesday

  * * *

  The body was still wrapped in the bath towels, hidden behind the ironing board in the storage closet. Gabe was on his knees in the kitchen, doing his best to clean in the dark. He couldn't turn on the bright ceiling lights. He didn't want to attract attention if Rachel woke or if Sarah came home, so he turned on only the blinking fluorescent light over the kitchen sink.

  Rachel had made him promise to fix the loose wire on that tiny light, but Gabe had never felt like he had the time. There was always work at the Firm to do, always something more important. Now, he wished he'd made good on his promise. As the light flickered on and off, the smudges on the floor tile appeared and disappeared. Blink, blink, blink. His eyes seemed to be playing tricks on him. Everything looked like Rorschach tests, and everything became the same color as the blood stains. He looked at his fingers. Red.

  He stopped cleaning in the blinking haze when the floor was bare of any smears he could see. He wiped sweat and silver strands of hair from his brow and thought hard. He'd almost forgotten about the knife. He lifted up off his knees and noticed that it was in the sink. He didn't remember how it got there.

  The edge of the knife was still pristine, still sharp as a guillotine. He'd bought his wife the set of knives and the professional cook station in their kitchen. They had been at a restaurant and fancy food show in the Jacob Javitts Center, and Rachel was looking for a vocation to do while Gabe had just started spending long hours at the Firm. "What if I became a chef?" she had asked. "I could cook for you like I did at Fordham." Gabe had grimaced and kept his sarcasm to himself. Rachel was sweet, but a mediocre cook. They had strolled through the food show, and Gabe had bought her the cook station and the knives and the best French copper cookware. Jean-Georges Vongerichten probably didn't have a fucking set-up as nice or expensive, he thought.

  She was thrilled, at least at first, and the cook station became the island centerpiece of their model Metropolitan Home kitchen. He had designed the kitchen himself for what he hoped would be his wife's culinary masterpieces. He'd moved in a new dining table and painted the kitchen walls robin's egg blue, bought her classes at the French Culinary Institute in SoHo. And, at first, she religiously studied at FCI and worked in the institute's restaurant, L'Ecole. Rachel, though, had never finished any paying job she started, and cooking school was no different.

  What a waste, he thought now.

  He stood between the sink and the cook station, beneath the unused copper pots and pans that hung from a ceiling rack. He couldn't remember the last thing she cooked. Ordering take-out was the regular dinner operation, but Rachel did cook on the rare occasion for Passover or Thanksgiving. One thing she had learned from L'Ecole, and followed with religious fervor, was the importance of hygiene. A ten thousand dollar lesson in cleanliness.

  Gabe blew air through his nose in laughter.

  He washed the knife, thought about Rachel running around, making a Seder dinner.

  "Don't put that knife in the dairy drawer," she would say. "Don't touch that. Are you going to wash those dishes now? Too many cooks in the kitchen. Don't you eat that turkey yet, get out of here, Gabriel!"

  He smiled and polished the knife until it shone like heavenly light. He wasn't obsessively clean like her, but he tried to think methodically now, even though the fluorescent light blinked in and out of his face, distracting him again. Or was it a noise that startled him?

  A thud or a knock. It came again.

  He quickly put the knife away and rushed into the living room.

  He peeked up the stairwell, waited. He listened for the garage door. Nothing. He glanced at the locked door of the storage closet. As if the body would come back to life.

  Paranoia, he told himself, that's all it is.

  He breathed out and decided to take the body out of the closet. It had to go and go now. Outside was his first thought. He dragged it through the living room, moved the gilded end tables out of the way. Then he struggled to carry the wrapped-up body to the patio doors. As he negotiated a coffee table, the lifeless toes struck a statuette of a nude woman, knocking it over with a sharp clack. Gabe froze, looking back to the stairwell. Silence.

  He hoisted the body up, wobbled as he tried to keep his balance. He saw himself in the reflection of a window. There he stood in white shorts and a rose-stained undershirt, a dead man draped over his shoulder. It was an unexpected workout.

  Every other morning at 7:00 a.m., Gabe met with a personal trainer in Sullivan & Adler's fitness center. He had hoped to channel most of his growing aggression and stress into physical exercise. After an hour of stretching, running, and pushing and pulling Cybex machines, he would eat a protein bar and start the business day waiting to feel more relaxed. But the feeling never came. Gabe couldn't relax because he had a compulsive desire to outdo himself and everyone around him. If someone happened to start on the treadmill at the same time as he did, he wouldn't finish running until the other person was done. Even a young junior associate with miles of energy. He secretly had to prove to himself that he was still alive and young, because he actually felt weak and hollow.

  Even with all of his exercise, the weight of the body was becoming too much for Gabe now. He plodded through the living room, dumped the body on the floor. He considered the backyard on the other side of the curtains. There wasn't anything else except the huge hole that was filled up with concrete now, where the swimming pool used to be. A rusting barbecue grill and empty lawn chairs sat abandoned on the flaking concrete patio. The family rarely went in the yard anymore. Gabe himself hated the place, but it made sense now. Rachel had abandoned her vegetable garden long ago, and it was still a deep, soft loam.

  He opened the curtains in front of the sliding glass door.

  A sudden thud on the glass, and Gabe hurled himself backward, gasping.

  A black Labrador retriever pawed at the window, danced in circles.

  "Shh!" Gabe hissed. "No, Sharpton! Be quiet, boy!"

  A wet black nose pressed against the glass and whined.

  Gabe clenched his teeth, swept the curtains shu
t, trying to think. He'd forgotten about Sharpton. There was no way he could bury anything in the yard with Sarah's dog nipping at his heels, digging up the oozing dead flesh. Gabe had no choice now.

  The car.

  Inside the garage, he wheezed, pulled the body through the doorway. He hoisted the limp thing to the rear of the Ford Taurus. He was tired now, sweating and cursing and desperately thinking through his plan. He looked back at the mezuzah as he clutched the body on the concrete floor of the garage. Rachel always reminded everyone to take their shoes off, to kiss the scroll on the wood-paneled wall next to the kitchen door.

  Gabe wanted to laugh now, he wanted to go to temple with his wife for the first time in forever, he wanted to cry at her feet. Here he was with this gruesome thing in his arms, panicking, and still he thought of her. He shook his head, focused his thoughts.

  The Porsche was too small, he decided. It had to be Sarah's car.

  He tried to open the Ford's trunk, but it was locked.

  He ran back inside the kitchen. Rachel had organized a bulletin board with a section of hooks for the family's different sets of keys, complete with identifying cardstock labels neatly printed in her handwriting. Another symptom of her boredom, he realized only now. He snatched Sarah's keys and sprinted back into the garage.

  The trunk was full of clothes, iPods, a purse, tennis racquets. Sarah's sundry shit, which Gabe gathered from the trunk and tossed into the backseat. He grabbed a dusty tarpaulin from a garage shelf and lined the trunk. He noticed on his old workbench, a pair of carpenter's jeans and dusty shoes. They still fit him, but they made the warmth of August and the stifling air in the garage worse. Everything drained him. But he had to get the body into the trunk.

  He hoisted the body on his forearms, shoving with everything he had.

  "Get in there," Gabe whispered, "you son of a bitch."