The Arraignment

by Steve Martini

  “There’s an old saying,” says Nick, “that the truth shall set you free. I’m living proof. I told her the truth, and she divorced me. But at least I left her with a song in her heart.”

  With this he smiles. Nick’s parting was not exactly a class act. It was talk all over town, gossip at all the watering holes. A man possessed of a tongue gilded with enough silver to waltz embezzlers and corporate confidence artists out of court couldn’t figure out how to tell his wife he wanted another woman.

  Even after she caught him with Dana, Margaret was prepared to forgive him. But Nick thought of a way to save her from herself; with the lyrics to a piece by Paul Simon—“Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover”—playing on an old turntable and a farewell note propped above it on the shelf.

  Margaret had her revenge in the divorce and the support hearings that followed. Nick is likely to be practicing well into his eighties to pay the bills, though I suspect his annual income before taxes is into seven figures. I can imagine he might now be in a financial pinch.

  “You’re probably wondering why I asked you to come over.” He cuts to the chase.

  The hair on the back of my neck goes up. Nick wants a favor.

  “I want you to understand it isn’t me asking; it’s really Dana.”

  “That makes it easier to say no,” I tell him.

  “Be nice. She likes you. She’s the one who suggested I come to you.”

  Now I am nervous.

  “She has a friend. This guy sits on the county arts commission with her. Seems he got himself involved in some kind of grand jury probe.”

  I’m already shaking my head.

  “Listen, don’t be negative,” he says. “Hear me out. The guy’s just a witness. He may not even be that. He hasn’t even been served with a subpoena yet.”

  “Then why does he need a lawyer?”

  “Well, he thinks he will be. I know. And I wouldn’t ask you to do it, except I got a conflict. I can’t represent him. The man’s in business.”

  “So is the Colombian cartel. It’s nothing personal,” I tell him.

  “As far as I know, he’s clean. No criminal history. He’s a local contractor.”

  Knowing Nick, the guy is probably drilling tunnels under the border crossing at San Ysidro. Nick would tell a jury his client was drilling for oil, and they’d probably believe him.

  “So why would the U.S. attorney want to talk to a local contractor?”

  “They got some wild hair up their ass on money laundering. That’s all I know. Probably one of their snitches got into a bad box of cookies. The feds go through this every once in a while. It’s like the cycles of the moon,” he says. “One of their snitches has a bad trip, starts hallucinating, and half a dozen federal agencies go on overtime. From what I gather, it’s the people down in Mexico they’re looking at.”

  “What people down in Mexico?”

  “You can get all the details when you talk to the guy.”

  “That assumes I’m going to talk to him.”

  “Dana’s friend’s name.” He ignores me. “Actually he’s not even a friend. She just met him a few months ago. Apparently his name was mentioned by another witness in front of the jury.”

  “How did that happen? More to the point, how do you know what a witness said in front of a grand jury? Last time I looked, they lock the door and pull all the blinds inside grand jury rooms.”

  “Don’t ask me things I can’t tell you,” he says. “Hell, if I was subpoenaed in front of a grand jury, I’d probably end up mentioning your name.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No. I mean it. If I told ’em ‘I went to lunch with my friend Paul,’ the FBI would start sifting through your trash. They do this all the time. They’ll spend two years doing an investigation, dig up your garden, talk to all your friends, tell your boss it’s nothing to worry about, they just want to look in your desk for heroin, and then they stop. Nobody gets indicted, and nobody ever knows why. Of course, all your neighbors drag their kids in the house, draw the drapes, and chain their doors every time you walk by. But that’s life in a democracy, right?”

  I’m still wondering who’s down in Mexico.

  “Listen. All I’m asking is that you talk to the guy. It’ll probably just go away. I doubt if they’ll subpoena him.”

  “They were sifting my garbage a couple of seconds ago.”

  “Yeah, but you’re not as squeaky clean as this guy. Listen, all he needs is somebody to hold his hand.”

  “Sounds like a perfect case for you, to turn over a new leaf,” I tell him. “You said he was a businessman.”

  “I would if I could. But we’ve got a conflict. The firm did some work, a civil case against his company a few years ago. You know how it is? Dana did this big buildup on her husband the lawyer. She’s new on the arts commission. She wanted to make a good impression. So when this guy tells her about his legal problems, she says ‘I’ll have my husband talk to you.’ Now she can’t. What do you want me to do? You want her to lose face?”

  Knowing Dana, the guy was probably trying to come on to her. I don’t share this thought with Nick.

  “She’s trying to make an impression,” he says. “Besides, the man’s a big giver. He digs deep for all the right causes.”

  “So if he’s into so many good works, why does the grand jury want to talk to this Brother Teresa?”

  “It’s probably nothing.”

  I begin to waffle and Nick can smell it.

  “You’d be doing me a huge favor. I’d owe you my life,” he says. “Well, maybe not that much.”

  “What you mean is I’d be doing Dana a big favor.”

  “Same thing.”

  I can already see him edging her toward the sack tonight whispering in her ear about how he took care of her friend, put him in good hands, all the while looking for a little sweet reciprocity.

  “What’s his name? This client?” I got one of his business cards and my pen to make a note.

  “Gerald Metz. I’ll have him give you a call.”

  “No drugs, Nick. I don’t do drug cases. You know that.”

  “I know. It’s not drugs. Trust me. As far as I know, the guy’s clean. His name is being dragged into it because he had one business deal with some people. You know how it is?”

  “I know how it is.” I hold up a hand and cut him off before he can start all over again. Chapter two, Rush on civil rights.

  “Listen to his story, tell him not to worry, and charge him a big fee,” he says.

  “What if the grand jury calls him to testify? Does he understand I can’t go into the jury room with him?”

  “You’re borrowing problems. Hey, if he gets called, you advise him of his rights. Tell him to take the Fifth.”

  “I thought you said he was clean.”

  Nick gives me one of his famous smiles. “Why would anybody need a lawyer if they were totally clean?” Then he laughs. “I’m only kidding,” he says.

  “Nick!”

  “Listen, I gotta go. I got a client waiting outside. I’m already late. But we’ll talk,” he says.

  “I thought you were going to spring for lunch.”

  “I know, and you said yes. But you said it too easily,” he says. “Next time make it a challenge.” He’s around the desk, his hand on my arm, ushering me toward the door. “Next week. It’s on me. I promise. We’ll do it at the club. You haven’t seen the club. It comes with the partnership,” he says. “That and a window.”

  Nick has what he wants: me on the hook. “Dana told him you’d give him a call to set up an appointment.”

  “I thought you said he was gonna call me?”

  “Did I? You better call him. He might forget. I told Dana you’d understand.”

  I was wrong. Nick has already gotten his treat from Dana.

  “Listen, I’m sure this guy’s clean. I mean, my wife doesn’t run around with felons.” He looks at me over the top of his half-frames. “That’s my job.”

  He’
s got me by the arm now, guiding me toward the side door, the one that leads to the hallway outside instead of reception where he has clients stacked up like planes at La-Guardia.

  “How well does Dana know this guy?”

  “Listen, I gotta tell you a story.” Nick changes the subject. He’s good at that.

  “A couple of weeks ago, Dana takes me to this exhibit. The guy who gets the blue ribbon. Catch this. His piece of art is a cardboard wall painted dark blue with all this glitter shit on it. It’s covered with condoms, all different colors, glued on like deflated elephant trunks. The artist calls the thing ‘Living Fingers.’ I ask Dana what it means. She says she doesn’t have a clue.”

  “Maybe it’s in the eye of the beholder,” I tell him.

  “Something’s in somebody’s eye,” says Nick. “Because later that night this particular Picasso sells for twenty-seven hundred bucks to some old broad wearing a silk cape and a felt fedora with a feather in it. I guess she figures the fingers will come to life when she gets it home. Don’t get me wrong,” he says. “I like art as well as the next guy.”

  This from a man who in college took art history early in the morning so he could sleep through the slide presentations in the dark.

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “What’s that?” he says.

  “How well does Dana know this guy?”

  “Who, the guy who did the painting?”

  “Gerald Metz,” I say.

  “Oh, him. She doesn’t know him at all. They meet once a month. Give him a call. And next week we’ll do lunch,” he says. He looks at me with those big brown eyes, the last thing I see as I find myself standing just across the threshold of his door, watching the walnut paneling as it swooshes closed in my face. Chalk another victory up to Nick Rush.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “It’s bullshit. I don’t know what Rush told you, but you can take my word. I never been involved in anything illegal. Check me out if you don’t believe me. I never even been arrested.”

  Gerald Metz is fit, tall, and tan. He has the look of a man who works out-of-doors, except that he doesn’t do this with his hands. His nails are manicured and his palms uncalloused, causing me to suspect that the only thing they’ve grasped recently are the drivers and irons from a golf bag.

  His speech is a little rough, hints of the self-made, up from what may have been some rough streets in another life. He is not what one conjures when thinking of the arts and those who patronize them. He wears a polo shirt under a blue blazer.

  “That’s why when this stuff came up, I was surprised. Why the hell would the grand jury want to talk to me?”

  It has been two weeks since I met with Nick, and Metz is in my office, a thin leather folio in his lap and a lot of nervous chatter on his lips.

  If I had to guess, I would say he is in his mid-forties. He is angular, with a high forehead and receding hairline slicked back on the sides.

  He hands me a bunch of papers from his briefcase, then leans back in the chair, trying to put on an air of confidence like someone putting on a suit of clothes that doesn’t quite fit. The fingers of one hand tap a cadence on the arm of his chair, one leg crossed over the other, while his eyes dart nervously around the office, trying to find something to settle on besides me. Beads of perspiration pop out like acne on his forehead.

  “Mind if I smoke?” he says.

  “Prefer it if you don’t.”

  He exhales a deep breath. If he is called before the grand jury, the man is going to sweat a river.

  I read through the papers he has handed me.

  “Didn’t even know these people. Met ’em once,” he says.

  “Uh-huh.” What I’m seeing are a lot of first names on the salutations of their letters to him: “Dear Jerry.”

  From the left sleeve of Metz’s blazer pokes an expensive-looking gold Rolex. He keeps sneaking peaks at it as he talks.

  “Do you have another appointment?” I ask.

  “Hmm. No, no.” He tugs the sleeve down to cover the watch and puts his hand over it.

  “I’m just wondering if this is gonna take long.”

  “That depends. Are these all the papers you have?”

  He nods. “That’s it.”

  There’s a hint of an accent, nothing strong. I’m thinking Florida by way of New Jersey.

  “We didn’t even do the deal,” he says. “The whole thing fell apart.” Comes the flood of nervous talk. “Can’t figure why they’d be interested in me. Maybe you could just call ’em and tell ’em that.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know, tell the attorney I don’t know nothin’.”

  “The U.S. attorney?”

  “Why not?”

  I look at him and smile. “If I did that, they would subpoena you for sure.”

  “Why?”

  “Trust me.”

  “Fuckin’ government always on your ass. Last time it was an audit.”

  “When was that?”

  “I don’t know. Few years ago. Screwed me around for over a year. IRS demanding every scrap I had. Fourteen months they couldn’t find a damn thing. Now this. You ask me, I think it’s retaliation.”

  “For what?”

  “Cuz they’re pissed that they couldn’t find nothin’. All I know is my name keeps coming up in this grand jury thing. Word gets out, it’s gonna kill my business.”

  “What do you mean, your name keeps coming up?”

  “People called to testify, former employees of my company. They call and they tell me that they’re being asked all kinda questions about me and my business—you know, with these people down in Mexico.” He nods toward the letters on my desk.

  “These witnesses, did they call you or did you call them?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. What difference does it make? One of them called me; I called somebody else. After a while they’re all telling the same thing. This attorney. This federal guy.”

  “The deputy U.S. attorney.”

  “That’s the one. He keeps bringing my name up asking questions.” He thinks for a second. “I didn’t do anything wrong by talking to these people. The witnesses, I mean.”

  “Probably not.”

  “What do you mean probably?”

  “They’re free to talk to you about their own testimony. If they want to. You say they’re former employees? What type of work did they do?”

  He gives me names. “One was a secretary; the other was my bookkeeper.”

  “How did you find out she had appeared before the grand jury?”

  This stumps him for a second. He can’t remember. He tells me he heard it on the grapevine. The construction industry being a small community.

  “So it sounds like you called her, this witness?”

  “I probably did. It pissed me off. Can they do this? Some government lawyer asking a lot of questions about my business. Can they do that?”

  “A prosecutor in front of a federal grand jury can ask almost anything he wants. What did he want to know?”

  “Mostly financial information, from what I was told.”

  This would make sense if the feds are investigating money laundering.

  “What kind of financial information?”

  “The business thing down in Mexico. They seemed to be interested in the one deal.”

  “Tell me about that.” I look at the letter on the desk in front of me, the signature block at the bottom. “Tell me about this man Arturo Ibarra.”

  “Two brothers. Arturo and Jaime. Arturo was the brains. I don’t think Jaime can write,” he says.

  “Then you do know them?”

  “Not really. Met ’em a few times. Just that Jaime’s got the slanted head. Know what I mean? What do they call ’em, ’Anderthals. Caveman.”

  “You mean Neanderthal?”

  “Whatever.”

  “What about the other one, Arturo?”

  “He was business. Educated. The brains. You know, I don’t
like to ask. But I got one question. How much is this gonna cost me?” He’s looking at his watch again.

  “That depends how long we take.”

  He fumes, looks up at the ceiling. “Is there any way I can get my legal fees back on this? I mean if I’m not involved, why should I have to pay legal fees?”

  “Unfortunately, that’s the way it works.”

  “Can I take it off on my taxes?”

  “Talk to your accountant,” I tell him.

  He looks at me, as if to say “fucking lawyers.” “So whadda you want to know so we can get this over with?”

  “Whatever you can remember.”

  “These two brothers, they owned some property with their father.”

  “What was the father’s name?”

  “Hell, I don’t know, Mr. Ibarra. I never met the man. All I was told he was a big-time developer down in Quintana Roo. Southern Mexico,” he says. “On the Yucatán. You ever been there?”

  I shake my head. “I’ve heard of it.” In the press it’s been called the first Mexican narco-state. Bordering Guatemala and Central America, it’s a pipeline for drugs.

  “How did you find this job?” I ask him.

  “The two brothers came to me. Said they wanted to develop this property into a resort. It was on the coast, beachfront. Mostly swamp land. South of Cancún on the highway, down toward Tulúm, what they call the Mayan Riviera. The two brothers took me down to their property, a few hundred acres of cactus, swamp, and mosquitoes, probably snakes and alligators if you wandered out that far. I took their word for it that there was a beach out there somewhere.”

  “Why did they come to you?”

  “My company’s got heavy equipment. We were the closest. Just across the border. Most of the work down there is done with hand labor. Pick and shovel stuff. Labor being cheap.”

  “Why did they want your equipment?”

  “They wanted to move fast. A window of opportunity in the permitting process. All I know is what they told me.”