One Man's Paradise

by Douglas Corleone

“Let me guess. Priests?”

  “Close. Federal agents.”

  “Are you telling me agents have been tailing Lopardi and Antonazzo since they came to the island?”

  “We’ve already told you more than you need to know.”

  “If you want me off their tails,” I say, “I need to know what the hell they were doing here in the first place.”

  He tightens the grip on my right arm, and a shrill sound escapes my mouth. If I want any more information, it’ll come, if it comes at all, with a price.

  “We’re not here to satisfy your idle curiosity, Corvelli. But, if you must know, they came to follow the Gianforte boy, to make sure he didn’t go and get himself into any kind of trouble.”

  “Well,” I manage through deep breaths, “they did one hell of a job.”

  “The boy spotted Lopardi and Antonazzo tailing him, and he lost them. Instead of trying to find him, Lopardi and Antonazzo decided to go to a strip club and get tanked. The boy’s father doesn’t know that part, or Lopardi and Antonazzo would probably be floating facedown in the Pacific by now.”

  “Shannon Douglas was killed because of her role in the Fiordano investigation, wasn’t she?” I say, fear still evident in my voice. “Don’t you have an interest in helping to find her killer?”

  “The Honolulu Police Department already found her killer, Counselor. It’s your client.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “You saw the photos, Corvelli. You know how she was killed. Does that look like a professional hit to you?”

  “Not all professionals do things by the book,” I say. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t be in this goddamn armlock, having this conversation with you with my face buried in the hood of your car.”

  He loosens his grip. But not by much.

  “You’re not looking for the killer, Corvelli. You’re looking for reasonable doubt. And you better start looking elsewhere, because Lopardi and Antonazzo are off-limits. Do you understand me, you fucking shark?”

  Anything other than a yes and my arm would be snapped in two.

  He lifts me off my feet and drags me to the side of the road. He throws me to the ground, and I have some dirt to wash down the taste of their hood. I feel a steady, warm trickle down from my nose and onto my upper lip. I touch it, and my finger turns a familiar shade of crimson.

  Their headlights smack me in the face as they turn back onto the blacktop. As I watch their taillights speed away down the dark roadway, I realize I forgot to ask one more question. One question, the answer to which would have solved the greatest problem I now face. The one problem that, if left unsolved, renders all other problems in my life and law practice utterly meaningless.

  I am still lost.

  CHAPTER 27

  “Well, that wasn’t very aloha of him,” says Jake, eyeing the bruises Palani tattooed on my face. Jake has a look on his own face as if he just discovered a long, black hair in his soup. “That shiner will get worse before it gets better,” he adds helpfully.

  This morning we sit in the conference room waiting for Flan. I’ve told Jake about my entire yesterday, from the point I left him here to go out for my run.

  “Let Flan interview the professor’s prostitute,” he says, taking a hit off his flask. “He’s doing a fine job with Carlie Douglas so far as we know. Besides, at the rate you’re going, she and her pimp will be bitch-slapping you all the way down Kuhio if you show up at the Leilani Inn for a chat.”

  “Fine,” I say. “I’ll let him interview the bellhops, too. And J. J. Fitzpatrick. We’ll need to know where he went after he left the Waikiki Winds that night. Or at least, where he’ll say he went.”

  “So, we have the professor, who has four alibis. We have Evil Knievel and his moped. We have J. J. Fitzpatrick, who has no discernible motive or opportunity. I’ve got to tell you, son, it doesn’t look good.”

  “And we have the mob.”

  “Are you kidding me? After what the Feds told you? The agents were watching Lopardi and Antonazzo like hawks. You can’t finger those two as suspects anymore.”

  “There was a third man,” I tell Jake, “one the agents didn’t mention last night.”

  “You said there were only two goons at the aquarium.”

  “Someone else pulled Nikki away by asking her for help feeding the sea lions. Then he disappeared. That’s how Lopardi and Antonazzo were able to get me alone for so long.”

  “How do you know it wasn’t just a coincidence, son?”

  “There are no coincidences. Right, Jake?”

  “I believe I said juries don’t buy into coincidences.”

  “Well,” I say, “this was no coincidence. In fact, the woman at the front desk at the aquarium also said she saw three men leave together.”

  “Your girlfriend, Nikki, saw this third guy. Can she identify him from the photographs Cashman had sent to you?”

  I pause at the mention of her name, but more so at her being labeled my girlfriend. I haven’t thought of her as my girlfriend; I simply don’t think in those dimensions. I don’t want Nikki to become involved in Joey’s murder case. She knows I represent Joey and she knows what she has read in the papers, but that is essentially all she knows. I never talk to her about the case. She doesn’t know about the Mafia soldiers at the aquarium. She doesn’t know Palani roughed me up. She doesn’t know about my late-night run-in with the Feds. But she may be the only one who can identify this third man.

  I nod my head solemnly. “I’ll ask her.”

  The mood in the conference room has suddenly shifted, and Jake’s voice takes on a serious tone. “Kevin.” It is, perhaps, the first time Jake’s used my first name. Not that I mind him calling me son. He puts the flask to his lips to help him say whatever he has to say. “I’m sorry I got you involved in all of this.”

  “You have no reason to apologize.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “What is it, Jake?”

  “I owe you a tremendous apology, Kevin.” He finishes off his flask. His eyes are moist, his voice strained. “When you walked in here two weeks ago today, you breathed new life into this office. There I was, on the brink of retirement, handling petty crimes, misdemeanors, traffic tickets, jaywalking citations. And I saw in you a possibility, a possibility to get back in the game. I knew I couldn’t do it myself. Not at my age. Not with my drinking.”

  “Jake, you didn’t hold a gun to my head.”

  “I might as well have. The way I dangled that fifty-thousand-dollar check in front of you.”

  “You were right to do it. I needed the money, Jake. Joey’s parents came to you, and you were good enough to offer them to me.”

  He eyes his empty flask, wishing it full. “That’s not quite how it happened, son.”

  “What do you mean, Jake?”

  “Before we left for Sand Bar with Hoshi that first day, I told you I had to make one phone call. The phone call I made was to a friend of mine at the jail. A deputy sheriff. I had read about Joey’s arrest in the newspaper. I asked my friend if the Gianforte boy was lawyered up yet. He told me no, the boy’s parents had just arrived at the jail. I told him to give the parents my number, to tell them that there’s an aggressive, young attorney from New York in town. A hotshot that specializes in violent felonies. I told my friend to tell the parents that his name is Kevin Corvelli.”

  I sit stone still, silent as a tomb. He waits for my reaction, his eyes holding back tears, his face full of regret. I lean forward on the conference-room table. I stare him dead in the eyes.

  And let out a long, hearty laugh.

  “Jake, the reason I wanted to forgo felonies for misdemeanors wasn’t that I disliked the work. I disliked myself. And I disliked the way I handled the work. In New York, I was a criminal attorney for all the wrong reasons. The money and the spotlight were all that mattered to me. The client was nothing more than a means to an end. I felt like a fraud. Hell, I was a fraud. I wanted to win only so I could say I won. I was scared to pick up here in Honolulu righ
t where I left off in Manhattan. But I don’t think I have.

  “My priorities have changed a lot, even in the past two weeks. Just as you said they would. I am handling Joey’s case in a way I’m comfortable with. I made a promise to him, and I’m sticking to it. I am glad that I took this case. And no Mafia soldier or federal agent or local punk with a good right hook is going to change that. And they sure as hell aren’t going to succeed in scaring me off. My greatest fear was that Joey Gianforte was my next Brandon Glenn. But I think Joey is more like me than anyone else. So I suppose my utter selfishness will be an asset to him. Because I don’t think either of us deserve to spend the rest of our lives rotting in prison.”

  Jake fiddles with his empty flask. I sit back and get comfortable in my conference-room chair. Despite everything that’s happened, I feel oddly at ease.

  “I admire you for that,” says Jake, “and I sympathize with your plight. But you can’t let your own future hang on the fate of this case. The cards are stacked against us. The circumstantial evidence is overwhelming, and we’d be fools to think some physical evidence is not forthcoming. Prosecutors can be crafty sons of bitches, whether in New York or in Houston, or even in Honolulu.”

  “I realize that, Jake. We’re conferencing the case before the judge the day after tomorrow. In all likelihood, that’s when we’ll see their hand.”

  Jake and I push the file aside and wait for Flan. We take the time to talk about the things men talk about when they’re not talking about homicide. We talk baseball and beer, starlets and hard liquor. In the middle of a full-throttle belly laugh over Buckner’s error in ’86, we are interrupted by Hoshi’s voice over the intercom.

  “Mr. Corvelli, Mr. Flanagan is here to see you and Mr. Harper.”

  “Mahalo, Hoshi,” I say. “Send Mr. Flanagan directly to the conference room.”

  Sixty seconds later, the conference-room door opens and a somber Ryan Flanagan steps in.

  “Gentlemen,” he says, “we have a serious problem.”

  CHAPTER 28

  The courtroom is silent. It’s the kind of silence that looms in the principal’s office as your less-than-exemplary conduct report is being reviewed. You could hear a pin drop. And if I had one, I’d drop it to prove just that. But I don’t. So I stand silent, biting my nails, while Judge Hideki Narita mulls over, with great displeasure on his face, the news he just heard.

  Judge Hideki Narita, I’ve learned, is a former prosecuting attorney from the Big Island of Hawaii. A paunchy Japanese man in his midsixties, he has been on the bench for more than eleven years. His face is framed by short, jet-black hair, and he wears glasses three times the size of his face. Standing five foot five with the absurdly large spectacles, he would make a comic figure if not for his no-nonsense demeanor and quick trigger-finger when it comes to charging lawyers with contempt.

  “Mr. Corvelli,” Narita says from the bench, “am I hearing this correctly? Your investigator, a Mr. Ryan Flanagan, befriended the victim’s mother under the guise of a grieving father in order to obtain from her information about the victim herself?”

  I am in trouble. Jake was right. The practices that were acceptable in the Wild West courtrooms of Manhattan do not necessarily fly here in paradise. This is the serious problem Flan brought to my office two days ago. Luckily, we had forty-eight hours to devise some sort of strategy. Luckily, too, I am heavily skilled in the art of bullshit.

  “Your Honor,” I say, “the issue is not as cut-and-dry as that.”

  “Judge, if I may,” says the prosecuting attorney, cutting me off. “Ms. Carlie Douglas discovered in Mr. Flanagan’s wallet evidence of his true identity and his relation to Mr. Corvelli’s law firm in the form of business cards and telephone messages.”

  The prosecuting attorney is Donovan Watanabe, a tall and lanky Japanese man in his late thirties, who is believed by many to be the most dynamic and effective prosecutor in the state of Hawaii. His meticulous style and superexpensive wardrobe have earned him the nickname Dapper Don in legal circles around the islands.

  “How did Ms. Douglas come to observe the contents of Mr. Flanagan’s wallet?” asks Narita.

  In New York, I often felt like an outsider not being Jewish. I was sure that judges were conversing with my adversaries in Yiddish behind my back. Here, now, I feel much the same way. The Japanese culture, I’ve read, is based largely on honor, something I know nothing about. And it seems unfair that my Japanese adversary and I have drawn a Japanese judge.

  Dapper Don Watanabe takes a deep breath and pauses for dramatic effect. He exhales slowly, turns to me, and asks, “Would you like to tell the judge or shall I?”

  “Be my guest,” I tell him. Although I’m not exactly sure what the hell he’s about to say.

  “Mr. Flanagan,” Dapper Don says, “was taking a shower in Ms. Douglas’s hotel room, Your Honor, after he engaged in sexual relations with her.”

  This Flan did not tell us. He told me he got made but nothing more. And, yes, I’m certain he said made, not laid. My poker face vanishes from the room, and my eyes dart to Flan, who is seated alone in the front row behind the defense table. Luckily, the judge cleared the courtroom for our appearance. I look at Flan in disbelief, mouthing the words, “You slept with her?”

  Flan shrugs as if to say he’s guilty as charged.

  I turn back to the bench, where the judge seems as shocked as I am.

  “You mentioned ‘his true identity,’ ” says the judge. “You mean to say he lied to her about who he was?”

  “Your Honor,” says Dapper Don, “he told the victim’s grieving mother his name was Benjamin Dover.”

  Ben Dover? Are you shitting me? I look back at Flan, whose face seems to have contorted into a permanent grimace. That’s the last time I let an investigator choose his own fake name.

  “Your Honor,” I say, trying to clean the shit from the fan, “even if these allegations are true, they have no bearing on this case. I submit to you that they are brought before the Court by Mr. Watanabe in an effort to cast dispersions on the defense, and on me in particular. Frankly, I am outraged by Mr. Watanabe’s conduct in bringing this matter to the Court’s attention. He knows as well as anyone that the defense has every legal right to hire investigators to interview witnesses and obtain information by any lawful means necessary. As Your Honor well knows, some witnesses are less forthcoming than others, and certain strategies must be employed in order to extract vital information that is crucial to the defense.”

  Narita holds his right hand in the air. He’s heard enough bullshit. He wants me to reholster my shovel. If I get through this one unscathed, I’ll send a copy of today’s transcript to Milt Cashman in New York. He’ll get a real kick out of something like this.

  “Enough, Counselor,” says Narita. “While the actions taken by the defense are appalling to this Court to say the least, they are not, to my knowledge, unlawful. The ethical issues concerning Mr. Corvelli’s so-called strategies are not for this Court to address. This Court will, however, remind Mr. Corvelli that this is not New York City, and that whatever tactics he employed on the island of Manhattan may not be well received here on the island of Oahu. If this charade is indicative of the way you practice law, Mr. Corvelli, then you not only risk becoming a fast outcast in the legal community here on the islands, but you risk becoming the subject of inquiry by the state’s ethics committee. Is that understood, Counselor?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “Good,” says the judge. “Then let’s move on to more pressing matters.”

  Judge Narita leafs through his file, no doubt searching for the recent motion I filed.

  “Mr. Corvelli, you have requested a gag order in this case. Tell me why I should grant it.”

  “Your Honor,” I say, “cases of this nature are not news. The media exploits them not for the benefit of the public, but for the benefit of their own ratings. They are intended to appeal to the public’s voy eur is tic proclivities and serve no redeeming s
ocial purpose. This case in particular is being buoyed in the national news media by comparing this case with events in the Caribbean. In fact, much of the commentary on this case has been prefaced by videos and photographs connected to other island fiascoes. Before long, the commentators will be questioning the Hawaiian system of justice.”

  “Mr. Corvelli,” interrupts Narita, “enough of the rhetoric. You said in your motion papers that this attention is negatively affecting your client’s ability to gain a fair trial. Tell me how that is so.”

  “Firstly, Your Honor, the public here on Oahu will inevitably fear the backlash of the negative national attention that would come with an unpopular verdict. Simply put, the media’s continued coverage of this case will all but assure a verdict of guilty against my client.”

  “Well, Counselor,” says Narita, “even a gag order will not prevent the media from covering this case.”

  “Of course not, Your Honor. But it will prevent all parties involved from adding fuel to the fire. When defense attorneys, prosecutors, and victims’ families are permitted to give constant interviews, it allows for endless around-the-clock coverage that could not otherwise occur if everyone were ordered silent.”

  “You said in your papers that there was specific information about your client’s associations that was in imminent danger of being released.”

  “I did, Your Honor. Which brings me to my second point. Upon information and belief, Ms. Carlie Douglas is alleging that my client is associated with a northern New Jersey Mafia family. In fact, she alluded to this allegation in an interview with Gretchen Hurst two weeks ago. Obviously, this allegation would be highly prejudicial to my client, and should the allegation be made public, it would make it utterly impossible for my client to receive a fair trial.”

  “Mr. Watanabe, what say you on this matter?”

  There is little Dapper Don can argue. Clearly, he would love to try this case in the press. It is a prosecutor’s wet dream. A Mafia son accused of killing a bright, beautiful, young girl in a tropical setting. But Dapper Don can’t tell the judge that. All he can argue is that my allegations are unfounded.