“I got some interesting information,” Franco added.
“What is it?”
“Your wife asked me to go out to Butler aviation, the private air field over at La Guardia airport,” said Franco.
“Yes?”
“That’s where I was just now. I checked out Zack Lord’s plane for the evening of the fourteenth of August, the night Wainwright was killed. His plane didn’t leave until two-thirty in the morning. About an hour or so after Wainwright was killed.” Franco waited for Marc to react. He was pleased with himself.
“Two-thirty?” Marc repeated. “You think that ties in with your concept about someone else—maybe Zack Lord—shooting Wainwright while his wife was drunk out of her head?”
“It could,” said Franco. “You told us to work on it. That’s what we’re doing.”
Marc smiled.
“What are you smiling about?” Franco asked. “I do something dumb?”
“No. I’m just smiling because if I leave it to you and Maria you’ll come up with something wild. And make it sound logical to boot. Coming out of your mouth, the possible rises out of the impossible. But objectively, what does it really mean? So Lord didn’t leave until two-thirty. The other things we discussed, the why, the how, getting Wainwright to go there in the first place. These are the imponderables of real significance.”
“Give us some time, we’re working on them,” said Franco.
Marc laughed. “Don’t get lost now. I’m almost finished. Then we’re going to the Federal District Court in Brooklyn. I have to make a new bail application for The Crusher. Now that he’s spent the weekend without making bail, maybe I can get it down from a hundred thousand.”
“I’ll be right out front,” replied Franco. “What do you really think about this Zack Lord thing?”
“I don’t know. It’s really crazy, of course. But follow it up and see where it leads. Later on I’m going to see Mrs. Wainwright again. Alone,” he added. “I hope to find her sober this time.”
“Fat chance,” said Franco.
19
Tuesday, August 22, 4:15 P.M.
Marc and Michael Malone, the assistant U.S. Attorney, stood outside the Magistrate’s courtroom in the Federal District Courthouse. Malone was smoking a cigarette. He and Marc both kept glancing into the courtroom to see if the Magistrate was still conducting a previous arraignment.
“You think Pellegrino will get a hearing here today?” Marc asked, not really expecting an affirmative answer.
“Not today, Marc,” said Malone. “This is only on for a bail application.” He took a puff on his cigarette. His eyes narrowed as the smoke swirled upward.
Marc pushed the door to the courtroom open slightly, peered in, then let the door shut again.
“When was the last time you were involved in a hearing in this court?” Marc asked.
“I can’t remember,” Malone said with a slight smile.
“I can’t remember when I was either,” said Marc. “I don’t think I ever had a preliminary hearing in the Federal Court.”
“We usually indict before the hearing.”
“What’s the sense of having a preliminary hearing procedure outlined in the law, when in fact it’s just there for the hell of it? Nobody ever gets a hearing around here,” said Marc.
“The grand jury is your hearing, Marc,” Malone said. “You don’t really need a Magistrate’s hearing too.”
“How come, if the federal system is so fair, you refuse to let the defendant have a hearing so he’ll know exactly what evidence he’s faced with?” asked Marc. He was feeling argumentative as he waited.
“Do you get hearings over in the State Court?” Malone asked.
“Yes, fairly often,” Marc replied. “At least you’ve got a shot at one over there.”
“I think this court is much fairer than the state courts anyway,” said Malone. “It’s run better, more lawyerlike, more dignity. And when you get an indictment here, the defendant knows he’s not going to get the courthouse in plea bargaining. Over here, you have to face the music.”
“You must think you’re still in grammar school—where neatness counts. The state courts have twenty times the cases you have over here.”
Malone shrugged.
“Do you think merely because you’re less flexible than a D.A. that that makes this court fairer?”
“It’s not inflexibility, Marc.”
“Oh yes it is,” Marc countered. “You get an indictment, and then you sit like prima donnas and refuse to discuss the plea, the sentence, and if the defendant doesn’t cop out, you go out of your way to sink him with an all-embracing count of conspiracy to commit a crime.”
“What’s wrong with conspiracy as an indictable offense?”
“Everything—when it’s used as a substitute for solid evidence of a crime,” said Marc. “Clarence Darrow, who I’m not so crazy about in the first place, was very correct when he said conspiracy, the crime of thinking about doing something, has been the dearest weapon of every tyrant in recorded history. The way the judges around here charge the jury, the audience is lucky they’re not convicted of conspiracy.”
Malone peered into the courtroom again. “Let’s go,” he said, dropping his cigarette to the floor. “I’ll go along with thirty-five thousand dollars bail, if that’ll help you out,” Malone whispered.
“Are we playing games?” asked Marc. “If it’s so unimportant, make it five thousand.”
“I can’t do that just now, Marc.” Malone was holding the door half open as they spoke. “Things aren’t that cool in the streets yet. You know why this is being done. Do you want it, or do you want to argue in front of the Magistrate?”
“I know he’s not going to do me any favors. Make it twenty-five, and I’ll go along with it for today.”
“Make it twenty-five then,” agreed Malone. He pushed the door open to the courtroom.
“Where to now?” asked Franco as he drove back toward Manhattan across the Brooklyn Bridge.
“I told you I made an appointment to talk with Mrs. Wainwright this afternoon,” said Marc. “I have to have more information from her.”
“You also said I didn’t have to go with you, again. Right?” asked Franco.
Marc laughed. “Not if you don’t want to.”
“Nah. The two of us don’t get along too good,” Franco cursed softly as another car, speeding to Manhattan, cut too closely in front of them. “You think now that the bail was lowered to twenty-five, that The Crusher’s going to hit the street?”
“I don’t know,” replied Marc. “Patsy said he’d try to make it today. If he can’t, I’ll just make another application in a couple of days to get it reduced even further. The way Malone is acting right now, that may not be too difficult.”
Franco nodded slowly. “They got it by the balls, those Feds, don’t they. They can get whatever they want, even put you in jail a few days to cool you off, and everybody else’s got to like it.”
Marc was silent. He was thinking how true, and at the same time, how frightening such a prospect was. A government which reveled in law and order, which could brand certain people criminal by means of publicity, which could break into homes, trammel constitutional privileges, was too close to Nazism for comfort. Hitler was put in office on a platform of law and order, on promises to clean up crime in the streets. Every time Marc heard the terms law and order, crime in the streets, he remembered Hitler. He also thought, however, that as long as he and other defense attorneys could keep talking, defending, the system was reasonably okay. They would be among the first to be quieted; but then it would be too late.
As the car neared Manhattan, City Hall loomed majestically across the park at the foot of the bridge. Franco turned the car onto the cloverleaf that led to the East River Drive.
“Remind me, Franco, to see George Tishler in the next couple of days. I have some information he wanted about the courts.”
“Okay, boss,” Franco said. “And, okay,” he
added quickly, “I won’t call you boss.” He and Marc both laughed. “You want me to drop you off at Mrs. Wainwright’s apartment?”
“No. She said she was going to be shopping. So I made an appointment to meet her at five-thirty at Bob Dick’s.”
“That’s that little restaurant on Fifty-sixth Street off Park?” asked Franco.
“Right.”
“You think it’s a good idea meeting this one at a restaurant where there’s liquor?”
“I’ll talk fast,” Marc kidded.
The car rolled along easily on the highway until they slowed into some heavy traffic at Twenty-third Street, which was bumper to bumper, until Thirty-fifth Street, where there was a stalled car with its hood up. A woman was at the rear of the car waving a handkerchief to the oncoming traffic. A man had his head inside the motor compartment. Once past, traffic rolled more quickly, until another stalled car under the tunnel at Fifty-fifth Street slowed them again. Finally, they reached the Sixty-third Street exit where they headed across and then downtown.
“You want me to wait for you?” asked Franco, as he stopped the car in front of Bob Dick’s canopy. He looked at his watch. “It’s a quarter to six now.”
“No, I don’t know how long this is going to take. I’d rather you tidy up the boat for tomorrow instead. I’ll take a cab home when I’m finished.”
“Better watch this one,” cautioned Franco. “She’s like the original snake.”
“I will,” Marc smiled. He got out of the car and walked to the front entrance of the restaurant. Once inside, there was a short stairway leading up, then a turn to the left. The bar was on the left Tables lined the right side. In the back, there was a doorway leading to a dining room. Marc peered into the darkness which was hardly pierced by occasional amber wall lighting. As he waited for his eyes to adjust, he could see only shadows and silhouettes, and hear murmurs of conversation.
“Marc, Marc,” he heard a female voice call.
He looked in the direction of the sound, then saw a shadow waving to him. Toni Wainwright was sitting at a table near the back with an attractive blond woman about thirty-five years old.
“Hello, Mister Lawyer,” said Toni.
“Hello,” said Marc. He gauged from her voice and manner that Mrs. Wainwright was probably only on her second drink; still sane and safe. He resolved to keep her, if he could, that is, from drinking too heavily until he finished with his questions. Either that or talk faster, he thought, kidding himself.
“This is Shani Dunlop,” Toni Wainwright introduced the blonde. “Shani, this is my legal eagle, Marc Conte.”
Shani smiled. She was heavily bosomed, and her face had indications that she had been a beautiful woman. While still quite attractive, her face was beginning to puff up from drinking.
“Sit down, sit down,” Mrs. Wainwright said, smiling widely. Marc sat. She put her arm on his back, patting it “This man is the greatest lawyer in the whole U.S. of A.,” she said to Shani. “Mauro, Mauro,” she called to the waiter. “A drink for the barrister. And another for us.”
Marc ordered a drink, which was shortly delivered along with fresh drinks for Toni Wainwright and Shani.
“Now, what did you have to see me about?” asked Toni Wainwright “Not that I don’t want to see you even if you didn’t have to talk about the case,” she added. She and Shani laughed girlishly.
“No offense, Shani,” said Marc. “Do you want to talk about it in front of Shani?” he asked Mrs. Wainwright.
“Of course. Shani knows almost as much about me as my mirror.”
“Okay,” said Marc. “I wanted to talk to you about the night your husband was killed. And about Zack Lord.”
“I’ve told you about the night Bob was killed about five times already. There’s nothing new,” Mrs. Wainwright said.
“I know. It may seem useless to you, but I like to keep going over it again and again, listening to anything that I might have missed, something you may have forgotten,” said Marc.
A tall, lumbering man with fair hair, came over to their table, a drink in his hand. From his face, Marc saw that the man had already held several drinks in that hand today.
“Well, if it isn’t old thimble belly himself,” Toni Wainwright said to the man.
“Who’s your loudmouth friend, Shani?” the man cut sarcastically. “She’s got a big mouth for a little broad.”
“She always speaks well of you,” Shani laughed. She finished her drink in one gulp.
“Marc Conte, my lawyer, say hello to Bard Stone,” said Toni Wainwright.
Marc stood and shook hands with Stone. Stone had a large ham hock of a hand, strong and meaty.
“Pleasure, Counselor,” said Stone. “Sit down, sit down, I want to stand. How’s the case going?”
“Fine,” said Marc.
The conversation was halted now as Stone stood draining his drink.
“Come on, Brad,” said Shani. “How about you and I have a drink at the bar?” She rose and winked at Toni Wainwright.
“Oh, oh. Confidential stuff, eh? Okay, let’s see if we can find ourselves a little trouble,” said Stone.
“See you later,” Shani said to Toni Wainwright and Marc.
“Now what is it you want out of my life?” Toni Wainwright asked Marc as she drained her glass. “Wait, before you tell me let’s have another drink.”
“I’d rather if, for a few minutes more, we’d stay off the drinks and concentrate on the facts in this case,” said Marc.
Toni stared at him. “Are you going to order me a drink, or do I have to do it myself? Mauro,” she called, turning to the waiter without waiting for a reply.
“Yes, Mrs. Wainwright?”
“Get me a very, very dry Beefeater martini, straight up.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I don’t like being treated like a little girl,” said Toni Wainwright.
“I wasn’t treating you like a little girl. I just want to work without interruption or distraction. If that sounds to you like you’re a little girl, I think you’re mistaken.”
The waiter brought her drink. She took it directly from the tray and began to sip at it.
“I’ve got a drink now, no thanks to you,” she said caustically. “Now let’s get on to what you want to know so we can be finished with it.”
“Fine,” said Marc. “Tell me about the actual shooting. Tell me what happened.”
“I told you. I saw this shadow come into the room—after it broke my door into a million pieces.”
“Then you said the shadow came at you,” added Marc. “And you moved backwards. You had the pistol. Then you realized it was your husband. Then everything went black, and then there was the tremendous explosion and the flash of light.”
“That’s right Why do I have to go over this again and again? You know the whole story already.”
“Because this way I can ask you questions about what happened,” said Marc. “Questions that I can’t answer by myself.”
“For instance?”
“For instance, are you sure that the explosion and the flash of light came after and not before everything went black?”
Toni Wainwright thought for a moment. “Yes, everything went black, and then the explosion and the flash of light. Now that I think of it, I don’t know how. What does that mean?”
“I don’t know yet. Did anyone else have a set of keys to your apartment, besides yourself?”
“Zack. He’s the only one. Except for the maids.”
“What about Bob Wainwright, your husband?” Marc asked.
“No, he didn’t have a key to the new locks. I had them changed after he left.”
“How about the building manager? Does he have a key?”
“Yes, the building has a key, too.”
“Tell me some more about Zack Lord,” said Marc.
She puffed a cigarette impatiently. “Zack is very green if not very blue. That is, he’s very wealthy, although not very social. That doesn’t mean he i
sn’t nice to be with, by the way,” she said. “It means his name isn’t in the social register. What else is there to tell you? He’s in mutual funds, and his mutual funds own all kinds of businesses and corporations. That’s about all I can tell you, except his empire is about one billion big.”
“You said something the last time we spoke about your husband saying that Zack Lord’s empire was going to crumble and fall apart some day.”
“That’s right, he did. He was always saying that Zack overextended himself too fast and it would blow up in his face one of these days. But he was only jealous. I also told you that He was lousy at being jealous.”
“Besides being jealous, as you say,” probed Marc, “did your husband ever give a reason why he said these things about Lord’s business?”
“Well, first of all,” she said, “Zack got his first real money to expand, go public, whatever the hell he did, from Wainwright and Company.”
“Your husband’s company handled the underwriting for Zack Lord’s operations?”
“Originally, yes.”
“And then?”
“After that, Zack was making deals all over the place,” she said. “He didn’t need any money. He was dealing in swapping stock with other companies.”
“When was this?” asked Marc. “The first underwriting.”
“About two, two and a half years ago.”
“So your husband had more information about Zack Lord’s finances than just casual conversation.”
“Absolutely. Bob knew Zack’s entire operation. And, as a result of the original underwriting, Wainwright and Company owned a large portion of Zack Lord’s operations. Aren’t you drinking anything?” she asked as she finished her drink.
“I’m still nursing this one.”
“Well, I’ll have another.”
Marc said politely as he could: “Maybe we can finish this conversation quickly, so I don’t interfere with the rest of your evening.”
“Oh, you’re all right, as long as you don’t start your temperance preaching,” she said. “Are you Catholic?”
The liquor was becoming more apparent; and Marc wanted to finish even more quickly now as Mrs. Wainwright opened into one of the drunkard’s classic conversations.
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