Inside Out

55

New Orleans, Louisiana

Bertran Stern was waiting for the Saturday morning FedEx delivery. Four decades as Sam Manelli's personal attorney had given him something of a cast-iron constitution. Bertran didn't worry about anything, didn't fear anyone but his own best client-and only then what his client was capable of doing to those few people Bertran loved. The lawyer had willingly traded his morals, ethics, and very soul to the devil for a seven-figure income and substantial perks.

Bertran had once believed he was better than Sam Manelli. His superiority complex had been a shield he had hidden behind-a lie worn so thin it was transparent as window glass. He now knew he was infinitely worse than the mobster he worked for because he had entered his world with his eyes open, even if he'd been blinded by pure greed. He'd lunged at the opportunity to skip the hard work of building a practice. He had known from the beginning what Sam Manelli was, who he was getting involved with.

Out in the open, Stern's firm handled Sam Manelli's legitimate businesses. Stern amp; Associates prepared contracts, filed incorporation papers, foreclosed on collateral, collected debts, and filed lawsuits for Sam's companies.

Bertran rarely had to defend Manelli's companies from lawsuits because there had only been one that made it to a courtroom. The injured parties either dropped the suit as soon as they discovered who owned the company, or they gladly accepted the first offer Bertran made them. On the only occasion someone had insisted on taking their grievance to court, the judge demanded it be settled. The judge was a man who had an appetite for high-dollar male prostitutes. In New Orleans, all prostitutes worked, however indirectly, for Sam.

Stern hand-delivered cash to judges, cops, and politicians. He carried the money in a briefcase that was designed so that when he pressed a button on the handle, an envelope filled with cash dropped on the floor or desk, depending on the recipient's paranoia level. Bertran had specific knowledge of thousands of crimes. In fact, he had lost track of how many felonies he had been the conduit for. He received his orders from Sam's mouth only, usually at Sam's favorite meeting place-his sauna room in the basement of his house. Even naked in this sauna, deep in the bowels of his home, Sam spoke in code. Luckily Bertran dealt with Johnny Russo only when neither could avoid it.

Bertran had daydreamed about pulling a gun and killing Sam a million times. But Bertran, for all his complacency, was not a killer.

The receptionist buzzed in the FedEx delivery guy who deposited three overnight letters on her desk. Bertran took the envelopes from her and his heart almost stopped when he read the return address he'd been expecting on one of them. FARNEY, JAMES amp; COMPANY, 221 STONE STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10016. The letter had been sent out from some drop-box service, paid for in cash.

The lawyer strode straight back to his office and slammed the door shut.

Johnny Russo sat behind Bertran's desk, his hand already out for the envelope. Russo opened it, and three pictures spilled out on the blotter. Bertran didn't care to inspect the images. In the split second before he closed his eyes and turned away, he saw what he needed to see. The instant and sickening impression was of blood and heads with features rearranged into perspectives that a cubist painter might have imagined.

“Mission accomplished!” Johnny Russo's enthusiasm for violence repulsed Bertran. “Smart cops. You can tell by the fucking brains.” He snickered. “Herman's guys are something. Christ, will you look at this!”

“I'm glad Sam got his money's worth,” Bertran murmured.

“You got a problem with this?” Johnny gloated over the pictures. “It was necessary.”

“Necessary or not, it's grotesque.”

“Then get out,” Johnny snarled. “You don't need to look, you fucking hook-nose, liver-lip, sack-a-shit-kike fuck!”

“You just make sure you turn those pictures into confetti,” Bertran reminded him calmly. “You get caught with those and you'll get buried so far under the jailhouse you'll be hearing Chinese through the walls.”

He stepped out, softly closing the door behind him.

Johnny Russo stared down at the photos, each showing another view of the carnage inside the cabin of an airplane. This was too good. He was elated, he wanted to laugh out loud, to yell and destroy things. It had seemed impossible, but here was the evidence. Here was something wonderful, something rare and beautiful. The whole thing was coming together more perfectly than he had hoped. He stared at each of the pictures as long as he dared. Then he fed all but one into the shredder beside the chair, turning them into tiny squares of confetti.

In the remaining photograph, Dylan Devlin's eyes were open and the front of his shirt was covered with blood and gobs of brain tissue. The entrance wound looked like a dot applied with a Magic Marker. Another man's shattered head was resting on Dylan Devlin's shoulder. In the background, there was what had once been Avery Whitehead, a man Johnny Russo was familiar with. “Now, this shit is art.”

Johnny lifted a pencil and pushed the photo under some papers on Bertran's desk. “You'll get a close look now, you prick.” Johnny loved screwing with the stuffy lawyer's head. If it weren't for Sam, Johnny would have made the guy vanish years earlier. But Sam needed the lawyer and knew Bertran loved money and his family too much to rat Sam out. Besides, a lawyer couldn't testify against a client. But Johnny believed the old attorney knew too much about too many things. The second Sam was gone, Johnny would take him out. There were lots of greedy attorneys to replace him with.

Johnny fed the FedEx's address sheet into the shredder, stood, and opened the seemingly solid bookcase by twisting the ornamental column on it. He exited into a secret hallway that led into the next building, which was used as a storage facility for retired amusement games. Sam had a business that refurbished the bell-ringers and other vintage arcade games, then sold them to dealers across the country, who in turn sold them to rich people who liked to put them in their fancy houses.

Johnny's driver, Spiro Feretti, was waiting in the Lincoln. Johnny slid in beside him and lifted the magazine Spiro had laid down before he started the car.

“You been reading this rag for a solid week, Spiro,” Johnny told him.

“I like to take my time. It only comes out every other month.”

Johnny thumbed through the pages. “You know, I gotta wonder about this bodybuilding shit. I mean this staring at greased-up men and bodies of those she-he muscle chicks is sort of…” He stared down at a fold-out of a well-oiled man on a stage, posing. “Spiro, it's queer.”

Spiro was pressing a remote door opener. “You mean odd, right?” he said, staring ahead at the opening garage doors. “Not fagola.”

“This muscle shit is dick-sucking queer. There's nothing normal about looking at this shit.”

“I work out hard to maintain this-”

“Hey, don't sulk on me,” Johnny cut in. “You got a build scares the shit outta people. You are one strong-looking bull. Enough already. Maybe I have to get a new guy who don't look like some fucking sausage filled with marbles, like he's gonna explode.”

“Sure, Johnny. I got the cuts, the definition I like. I ain't going to compete or nothing. I mean, that takes pumping eight hours a day.”

“Just remember, Spiro. You start looking at me like you want me to screw you, you're a dead man.”

Spiro turned and looked at Johnny with wounded eyes. “I ain't ever had no such a thought,” he declared solemnly.

Johnny laughed and popped Spiro in the shoulder. “Of course not! I'm just messing with you. I know you ain't no sissy. You'd look like shit in a dress. Chill-those steroids are supposed to shrink just your dick, not your sense of humor!”

Spiro drove out into the street and waited for the garage door to close before proceeding. As they neared the intersection, three vehicles crossed in front of them and pulled up at the curb. Men and women, all wearing jackets with FBI emblazoned on them, streamed out of the cars and ran up to Bertran Stern's front door.

“What they doing?” Spiro asked. “Can they go into a lawyer's office like that?”

Johnny slunk down in his seat. “Get the hell outta here!”

Spiro steered the car away from the attorney's office and drove in the other direction. Johnny stared out the back window.

“He knows a lot of shit, Johnny,” Spiro said.

“He can't tell-it's client privilege. And he has a big family that can't hide out with him. Anyway, we can always pay to have some guys we know whack him. It would be real expensive, but doable.”

“Like an investment in the future.”

“You know, Spiro, it's too fucking bad we can't write hits off as a business-related expense.”

Spiro laughed.

“See,” Johnny said, “you still got your sense of humor.”

Bertran was in the kitchen making a mug of English breakfast tea. He planned to wait until Johnny was gone before returning to his office. He would spray Lysol to kill the eye-tearing cologne odor Johnny always left lingering in the air.

He was sitting there sipping his tea when he heard his receptionist squeal, “They, they're… the FBI!”

“What?” he said. “What the devil?” He felt his heart race, then the icy grip of real fear. He thought about the photographs that had been delivered to his office. Did the feds know about them? Was it possible they had already seen them? He heard fists pounding at the door.

“What should I do, Mr. Stern?” the receptionist shrieked from her desk, in full view of the people demanding to come inside.

“Give me a few seconds.”

Bertran bolted into his office and slammed the door. Johnny was gone. He grabbed up the shredder and looked in at the confetti before he opened the bookcase and set the machine in the secret passageway. He pushed the bookcase closed until it clicked into place, then sat at his desk. Sweat poured from every pore in his body. He mopped his brow with his handkerchief and gulped down a glass of water.

The agents didn't bother to knock. The door flew open and the room filled up with blue jackets and hard eyes set in determined faces.

“You people have a legal emergency?” Bertran Stern joked.

One of them handed him a search warrant. He made a show of looking for his glasses, then read the warrant, summoning whatever courage he could pull together into a wall of bluff to hide behind. There is no evidence. It doesn't exist. Even the scraps are not on my property. I never touched those pictures. No evidence equals no arrest. How did the FBI know about the pictures?

The warrant, issued by a federal judge named Horn, sought evidence of conspiracy between Sam Manelli and other unidentified parties to commit murder. The warrant didn't specify which murders had taken place, but Bertran knew good and well from the images what murders the warrant referred to. The smug expressions on the feds' faces said they knew that he knew. A “John Doe” informant was credited with furnishing the information.

“This warrant seems a bit vague,” Bertran pointed out. “A fishing expedition. But there is nothing here that could possibly help you.”

“That right?” an FBI agent said.

“Search away, ladies and gentlemen,” he said graciously. “If you have no objections, I have paperwork to catch up on.”

“Would you open your safe?” The man in command was short and not particularly threatening in either his speech or manner.

Bertran pointed his finger at the safe. “It isn't locked. I never keep much of anything in it. I don't deal with cash or dark secrets.”

He didn't keep any records of anything incriminating in his office. There was nothing like that within miles. Russo certainly had books on what came and went on the dark side of Manelli's empire, but Bertran had never even seen the “dirty” books. He envisioned thick leather-bound volumes, but they could be computer diskettes or images carved into wax tablets, for that matter.

The agents opened the safe door and started removing the items and laying them on the coffee table.

“Just put it all back in when you are done,” Bertan said.

“We'll be taking them,” the agent in charge told him.

Bertran felt their eyes on him, felt the hate, the anger. But he knew the agents were going to be a lot madder when they left. He lifted a stack of papers from beside his blotter and placed it tidily before him.

The agent in charge stared down at something that had been under the papers Bertran had moved and was now exposed.

When the lawyer realized what he had just unwittingly uncovered, a vise tightened on his left arm near the shoulder and his eyes felt like they were being vacuumed out of his skull. Something took his heart in its jaws and crunched it.

The rectangular image of three obliterated heads stayed with him until he was swallowed up by absolute darkness.