Final Appeal

by Lisa Scottoline

  “You’re going to be in a play?”

  Maddie nods and sips her milk, leaving a tomato-sauce stain on the rim of the glass and a milk mustache on her upper lip. Then she grabs her napkin in a professional way and wipes her mouth.

  “What’s the play about?”

  “Spring.”

  “That sounds nice. Is it a musical?”

  She rolls her eyes. “No, Mom. That’s in the olden days. We don’t do anything as dumb as that.”

  “What a relief. Jeez.”

  Maddie squints at me to see if I’m kidding. I squint back, and we squint at each other like moles for a minute.

  “Maddie told me some good news today, Grace,” my mother says. She turns to Maddie. “Tell your mother how you made a new friend.”

  “You made a friend?” It’s too much to hope for.

  Maddie beams. “At recess.”

  “Terrific!” I feel my heart leap up. “I propose a toast. To Maddie and her new friend.” I hoist my glass in the air, and so does my mother. The heavy tumblers clink loudly.

  “She won’t tell me any more about it,” my mother says. “She says she’s only allowed to tell you.”

  “Oh, a secret! So you played with this friend at recess? What did you play?”

  “Digging.”

  “Like with Madeline?” I think of the day I watched her near the edge of the playground.

  “Yep. He likes Madeline.”

  “Oh, he’s a boy, huh? Is he cute?”

  She wrinkles her nose. “Kind of. He’s big.”

  “How big? Like a second grader?”

  “No, bigger than that. Almost as big as Daddy.”

  My mother laughs. “That means fifth grade.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “It’s a secret. He’s my secret friend.”

  I wonder if he’s imaginary. “But he’s real, right? Not like Madeline. A real boy.”

  She looks confused. “He’s a man, Mommy, not a boy. He helped me and Madeline dig a hole. He’s strong.”

  “What? A man?”

  My mother puts down her fork in surprise. “Not a stranger!”

  “Maddie knows not to talk to strangers.” I turn to Maddie. “Right, honey? He’s not a stranger, is he?”

  Her face flushes red. “He knows you and that’s not a stranger.”

  “Who is he?”

  “He said it’s a secret. I told you. He knows you and your work. He knows your judge and the lady on the TV. That’s not a stranger.”

  “What did he look like, Maddie?” my mother says, her voice thin with anxiety. “Tell Grandma.”

  Maddie looks from my mother to me, becoming uncertain. “I didn’t do anything bad, Mom. He said he was my friend, and you said make a friend.”

  “Of course you didn’t do anything bad,” I say as calmly as I can. “Which recess did he play with you, Mads? Recess in the morning or recess after lunch?”

  “He knows things. He said it’s good to be careful, like you say. He said, Tell Mommy too.”

  I feel my gut tense up. “Tell me to be careful?”

  “Maddie, what are you talking about?” my mother says. “How could you—”

  “Ma!” I snap at her. “Let me talk to her.”

  My sudden anger makes Maddie’s lower lip buckle. “Mom, I didn’t do anything wrong.” Her eyes well up with tears.

  “It’s all right, baby,” I say. I scoop her out of her seat and she burrows into my neck. I think of the man and my skin crawls. Is this for real, and does it have anything to do with this afternoon? “Can you remember what he looks like, Maddie?”

  “No,” she sobs.

  “That’s okay. It’s all right, now.” I hug Maddie close and catch sight of my mother over the top of my daughter’s tousled red head. Her face has gone gray and drawn with fear; her gnarled fingers shake as she reaches for her water glass. “You okay, Ma?” I ask her.

  She looks up, startled. “Fine,” she says.

  Later, after we’ve cleaned up and Maddie’s safely in bed, my mother makes coffee in silence while I call the principal at Maddie’s school and tell him what happened during a recess that’s allegedly supervised. He reminds me that the back field is huge, that there are only two playground aides for 350 children, and that Maddie was playing at the far end. I suggest politely that he hire more aides, then show my fine upbringing by not threatening grievous bodily harm, although I let him know a lawsuit is always an interesting alternative. Then I call Maddie’s teacher, who mentions that Maddie has a vivid imagination. Not that vivid, I say to her, before I hang up.

  I call the police in my tiny borough to report the incident; they seem happy to leave their game of checkers to come over and do real police work, like on TV. One even has braces on his teeth. My mother lubricates them with hot coffee and I give them free legal advice, so they promise to cruise around the house tonight and the playground tomorrow and the next day. I decide not to tell them about Armen’s murder or what happened to me at the courthouse; it’s out of their distinctly suburban league.

  But I’m getting the message the killer is sending, loud and clear. Someone is using everything they can—including my six-year-old—to warn me off, but it won’t work. It only makes me want to fight back harder. Where do they get off threatening my child? They haven’t met up with the fury of a single mother. Especially one who’s run out of alimony.

  19

  The phone rings after the police leave. “Grace.” It’s a man’s voice, almost in a whisper. “It’s Winn.”

  “Who?”

  “Winn. Shake and Bake. Get down here fast.”

  “What? It’s eleven o’clock at night.”

  “Please. I can’t talk long.”

  “Listen, you, somebody tried to grab my daughter today. And somebody hit me from behind.”

  “Are you all right?” He sounds stricken, but not as stricken as I am and only half as stricken as my mother.

  “She’s fine, we both are.”

  “Was she hurt?”

  “No, but only because she was at school. I can’t have this, Winn.”

  “I’ll protect her. I’ll get somebody on her.”

  “Who, kindergarten cop?”

  “I’ll make him a teacher. A janitor.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “I can’t talk now, just come down here. It’s Artie. He needs help.”

  “Artie? Where?”

  “Northern Liberties.”

  Not one of Philadelphia’s showcase neighborhoods. “What are you doing there?”

  “We’re at Keeton’s. On the corner, at Third. There’s a sign.”

  “Is Artie okay? In danger?”

  “Nothing like that, but come now.” He hangs up.

  I hang up slowly, looking at the phone. I hate to leave Maddie tonight, after what happened to her, nor am I excited about driving around, after what happened to me. On the other hand, it might help to talk to Winn, and Artie’s in trouble. There’s a caffeinated couple of cops driving circles around my house and a bulldog of a grandmother seething in the living room; my daughter has never been safer. I decide to go, mumbling an excuse to my mother, like in high school.

  I drive into town with an eye on the rearview mirror, and no one appears to be following me. I reach the warehouse district in a half hour. The streets are wider here than they are in the rest of Philly and almost deserted. Trash mars the sidewalk, and the homeless beg from the traffic on the expressway ramp. One man, apparently crazy, is draped in a blanket despite the warm, breezy night. I look away until I remember that it’s an apparently crazy man I’m looking for. I look back, but it’s not Winn.

  I drive around the block, past a graffiti mural on an electrical wholesale store, until I find a ratty tavern. An old-time window of thick glass block is stuck into a dingy brick facade. Over the black-painted door a pink neon sign glows KE TON’S. Artie is lying in front, passed out under a dim streetlight. Winn is propped up against the lamppost,
fuzzy-faced and dressed in a raincoat, looking oddly like a degenerate Paddington Bear. I pull up to the curb and get out of the wagon.

  Winn smiles vacantly when he spots me. “Harvard’s sick, Miss Rossi.”

  I kneel over Artie. There’s stubble on his formerly handsome face, and his clothes are a mess. But then they always are. “Artie? You okay?”

  Artie opens one eye, then covers his startled face with his hands. “It’s alive! Make it go away, Grace. It’s heinous!”

  Winn smiles. “Harvard drank too much.”

  “I figured.”

  “I figured you figured.” Winn claps his hands. “I figured you figured I figured you figured.”

  “He’s crazy as a fuckin’ loon, Grace,” Artie says, his eyes still closed. “Sarah was right.”

  “Bye-bye, Sarah,” Winn says.

  Artie looks up at me, his mouth curving down in Pagliacci’s exaggerated frown. “Sarah went bye-bye, Grace.”

  “I’m sorry, Artie.”

  “She was in love with Armen, she admitted it.” His eyes fill up with drunken tears. “She never loved me.”

  Poor kid. “I’m sorry.”

  “I knew it all along, Grace. She thinks I’m stupid, but I’m not.” He licks his dry lips. “I knew from the way she looked at him.”

  I grab the folds of Artie’s denim jacket; it occurs to me that I have picked up a drunk before. This drunk budges only an inch.

  “Armen was my friend, Grace. He was my friend.”

  “I know, Artie.”

  “I was right! I am a genius! I made law review!” he rails into the night, then his head lolls to one side. A piece of wax paper rolls over him like urban tumbleweed.

  I struggle to move him but can’t. “Would you help me, Shake and Bake?”

  “No.” Winn wags his head back and forth, ersatz autistic before my eyes. “I’m busy.”

  “That’s funny, Shakie.” My lower back begins to ache; I’m too old for this and in no mood. I straighten up and glare at Winn. “Now get up and help Mommy.”

  Artie’s eyes fly open suddenly, like a corpse reanimated. “Look, Grace! Look what I got!” He starts to unbutton his fly.

  Oh, Christ. “I know what you got, Artie. Keep it in your pants.”

  “No, no, Gracie! Something totally awesome! Look!”

  I look down. Artie’s work shirt is yanked up to his neck. Directly north of his stomach, between two rather erect nipples, sits a basketball, regulation size. Its surface is brown and pebbled, and in the center, in familiar script, it says Wilson. “What is that?” I say, aghast.

  “I got a tat! Isn’t it so excellent?”

  “A tat?”

  “Artie has a tat-toooo,” Winn says, singsong.

  “No pain no gain,” Artie mumbles. “Today I am a man.”

  “I got one, too,” Winn says, getting up. He brushes off his soiled pants, which does nothing to improve them. “Two tats. One for Harvard, one for me.”

  “Terrific.”

  “Barukh attah Adonai,” Artie says, “Eloheinu meleckh ha-olam. Let’s light the candles!” He waves his hand in the air, then it flops back against the cracked sidewalk.

  “Want to see my tattoo?” Winn asks, standing a little too close for comfort. He smells like cheap beer and body odor.

  “Keep your shirt on, Shakie,” I say.

  “Grace’s being mean to me, Artie,” Winn says, pouting.

  “Don’t be mean to him,” Artie says, eyes closed, from the pavement.

  I look at Winn, unamused.

  “Two points,” says Winn. “For me.”

  Artie caterwauls in the shower while Winn sits forward on the beat-up couch in Artie’s apartment, quizzing me about what happened to Maddie and me. He looks uneasy when I finish the story and takes off his rain bonnet to run his fingers through his greasy hair. “This is too dangerous for you, for your daughter. I never should have gotten you involved in it.”

  “So why did you?” I sit back on a folding chair in front of a secondhand coffee table.

  “I had no choice. I had nothing on the leads I was running and I know something’s there.”

  “What do you think’s going on? You said Galanter’s not the only judge involved.” I sip a Coke to hide my anxiety.

  “Everybody dance now!” Artie sings in the shower, to C + C Music Factory.

  Winn glances at the bathroom door, then leans close enough to give me another whiff of his rich stench. “Allegedly involved. I’m not sure yet, but I think Galanter’s in on it and maybe Townsend.”

  I feel stunned. And no Armen. “A conspiracy?”

  “It happened before, in this circuit, in the nineteen forties. Judges Buffington and Davis, together they sold a group of cases. One of ’em was working with a Second Circuit judge, too, who took half a mil. You could buy a lot of justice for that much money back then.”

  I think of the $650,000. “But that was then.”

  “Last year, Judge Aguilar in California told a Teamster who was embezzling union funds about one of our wiretaps on him. And Judge Collins, my personal favorite, took a hundred thou to give a drug dealer a lesser sentence. Both federal judges. Collins even collected his salary during the six years he spent in jail.”

  “This a hobby of yours, judicial misconduct?”

  “It’s what I do. All I do, in fact.”

  “Like a specialty?”

  He nods. “It’s fun, it’s brainwork, and it’s mostly bloodless.”

  “The Quaker part.”

  “In a way. I like taking these guys down. They’ve had every advantage, every privilege, and still they go bad. They’re hypocrites. They’ve got no excuse except greed.”

  It doesn’t sound like Armen.

  “Now it’s Galanter’s turn. It’s a scandal, Grace. It’ll blow the courthouse wide open.”

  My heart sinks. For the court and for Armen, when they find out about the bank account.

  “You still upset about today? You look kind of sick.”

  I chug some Coke. “Just the gal for undercover work.”

  “You’re not working undercover anymore. I want you out of it. Clear.”

  “Why?”

  “You need to ask, after today?”

  “You’re assuming I want to get out. Tell me what you think is going on.”

  “You remember the case that was argued Monday, the one I blew up? Canavan?”

  “The racketeering case, with the florists.”

  “Yes. The Mob was behind it. The lawyer just couldn’t figure out how.”

  I force out the words. “The Mob?”

  “I believe they got to the judges and paid somebody off to make it come out their way, either Galanter or Townsend or both. Artie told me the judges vote right after the cases are argued, and I needed more time to gather evidence. So I had to make sure the argument didn’t happen. Ticktickticktick.”

  I put down my Coke and look at him with wonder. “They did postpone that argument.”

  “Of course they did, and I got more time to watch everybody play the game. I told you I’m smarter than I look.”

  I feel my pulse quicken. If Winn is right, the $650,000 couldn’t have been a bribe for Canavan. Armen would have voted to reverse, sending the defendants to jail: clearly not the desired outcome from the Mob’s point of view. “I don’t understand something. Does this have anything to do with Armen’s death?”

  “I think so. He may have been killed to prevent him from voting in Canavan.”

  “My God. Who killed him?”

  “Somebody they paid to do it. Some scumbag.”

  “Or Galanter.”

  “What?” He rears back slightly. “That’s not how these cases work.”

  “Maybe this one did. There was no break in, and Bernice wouldn’t have let just anybody in.” I tell him how Bernice attacked Galanter, getting excited as I speak; it renews my determination to work for him.

  “Where’s the Canavan case now?” We both hear Artie turn off
the water in the shower; Winn looks worriedly at the bathroom door. “Has it been scheduled for argument again?”

  “I don’t know, it was Sarah’s case. It’ll probably be listed with the next sitting, a month from now. What is it you want me to do, when I work for Galanter?”

  “Do you have the job already?”

  “No, but I’ll get it.”

  “Don’t. I told you, I want you out.”

  “I’m going ahead, so you might as well tell me what I’m looking for. I want to find out if Galanter killed Armen.”

  He rubs his gritty forehead. “I knew this was going to happen. I must’ve been crazy to—”

  “All I need is for you to protect Maddie at school. I’ll be with her the whole weekend. Plus I have the local police.”

  “You what?”

  “I want you to park a car right across from the school field. Here’s her picture.” I fish one out of my wallet and hand it to him. “It’s not a new one, she’s actually cuter than that.”

  “Freckles. I like freckles.” He smiles at the picture and slips it into his pocket. “I’ll have her watched, but I still want you to bow out. Quit now, I’ll handle Galanter. You’re too exposed. I don’t like it, Grace.”

  “Tell me what I’m looking for. Where do I start, the Canavan record?”

  He looks directly at me. “Are you really going to do this?”

  I think of Armen. He loved me; he was murdered. And he didn’t take any goddamn bribe. “Yep.”

  “Christ.” He rubs his beard. “All right. If you insist on this, then all you should do is keep your eyes and ears open around his office. Try to answer the phones. That’s it.”

  “Why? What am I looking for?”

  The toilet flushes in the bathroom and Winn snatches a Times crossword puzzle from the debris on the coffee table and scribbles in the blank squares. “Call me if Galanter gets phone calls from any of these characters. Or if he has lunch with them, meets with them at all. That’s all I want you to do, got it? I’ll take it from there.” He tears out the puzzle and hands it to me. “I also wrote down the number of the pay phone at the shelter. I’m there most of the time now. If you call, say you’re my cousin. Ask for Rain Man.”

  I look at the crossword puzzle. After a phone number, reading down is THESAURUS, and reading across is SPOOL. Underneath that is a list of names, all as Italian as mine. I feel a twinge of shame, then fear. A mobster, that close to my child?