Breach of Trust

24

The rest of the week passed without my even thinking about the Procurement and Construction Board, or Charlie Cimino, or anyone else. I stayed home from work on Thursday, worked about a half-day on Friday, and had an uneventful weekend. Shauna and I went to a movie Saturday night, but I lost focus halfway through and then I didn’t have an appetite for dinner afterward. I was finding it hard to be interested in much of anything; I didn’t even think my disinterest was interesting. I was tired of the malaise but that probably made it even harder to shake.

I went to the state building on Monday morning, in preparation for the PCB meeting the following night. Patrick Lemke was bouncing around even more than usual. Strap a battery pack on his back and he could have been in commercials-he keeps going and going. .

Three other lawyers, also working for the PCB, were also milling about. I was introduced to each of them and forgot each of their names instantly. “You should meet Greg,” Patrick told me, meaning Greg Connolly, the chairman of the Procurement and Construction Board.

Connolly had a medium-sized office on the floor above me. Patrick knocked on the door and introduced me. The board chairman was a big guy with graying hair that he tried to tamp down with hair grease, with moderate success. He wore a nice suit but he looked like a guy who might be more comfortable at a ball game wearing a sweatshirt. He had blotchy skin and droopy eyes and was about twenty pounds overweight. “I hope Hector bought you a nice dinner afterward,” he said. It shouldn’t have surprised me that everyone around state government had taken note when the feds lost a case. It didn’t happen often.

“It was an interesting case,” I told him, because I never give an editorial on the outcome of a case to a stranger. Besides, I wasn’t sure how easily words like good or bad applied to Hector’s acquittal. I thought the feds and their stool pigeon, Joey Espinoza, had been overly ambitious, but that didn’t mean that Hector had been a Boy Scout, either.

Connolly didn’t speak for a while, preferring to nod his head and smile at me while he sized me up. “You’ve done good work so far,” he said. “I’ve seen your work product. The memo on the DOC sanitation project-the two bidders who underbid Higgins Sanitation.”

“Those bidders were well qualified,” I said.

“Course they were.” He chuckled. “Course they were. That’s why I’m saying, good job.”

Interesting that he would say that. I’d stood up to Charlie Cimino, and he seemed to be applauding me. And he was the chairman of the PCB. How did he rank compared to Cimino?

“Charlie talked to you about the bus contract, too. I saw that analysis you did.”

“There’s no way that’s a sole-source,” I said. “Providing a bus? A hundred companies could do it.”

Connolly smiled with approval. I figured there must have been some kind of rift between Cimino and him, a turf battle. He tapped his fingers on his desk. “So, again, good job on that. You’ll do very well here, Jason, if you want to.”

It wasn’t a question, as my former partner Paul Riley would have said, so I didn’t answer.

But it was interesting. Greg Connolly had summoned me to his office to give me a pat on the back for defying Charlie Cimino.

Why, I wondered, would he do that?

I hustled back to my law office, where I had a one o’clock appointment, a client who had cold-called me yesterday about representation.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” I said to a man sitting in our small reception area. I took him back to my office. I probably should have offered him water or coffee but didn’t. I grabbed Shauna, whom I had asked to attend the meeting, because I was told the conversation would include some transactional issues, and I only did trial work. I was hoping I could throw Shauna some work, as she had done for me several times since I moved into these digs.

“Jack Hauser,” the man said, introducing himself to Shauna and me. I could see from his hands and the weathering on his face that he worked in the trades. “Hauser Construction,” he said. “We’re located out west but we do a lot of subcontract work on jobs here in the city. Flooring, mostly.”

He gave me the skinny on why he was here. He had an airport job and the city was screwing him. Also, he wanted to form a joint venture with another company for a downstate stadium renovation-transactional work that was Shauna’s domain.

I nodded along as he spoke, scribbling notes on my pad of paper. “How’d you get my name?” I asked.

He looked surprised. Most lawyers don’t look a gift client in the mouth. “How did I–I thought you did trial work and things like this.”

“I do, sure.”

“You probably heard about that corruption case with that state senator?” Shauna said, pumping me up, and probably unhappy with the question I’d asked. It’s not good business to seem surprised that a client has come to your door. “Jason defended the senator and won.”

Hauser nodded, like that rang a bell. He still hadn’t answered my question.

Shauna said, “The joint venture shouldn’t be a problem. I did one last year for Ralph Reynolds. We’ll just have to be careful with any local business preferences.”

I didn’t follow very much of what Shauna was saying, but it was clear that Jack Hauser did, and he seemed to like what he was hearing.

“Okay. Well, you’re hired, obviously,” he said.

I didn’t understand what was so “obvious” about that, but I wasn’t going to complain.

“So, what do you charge?” he asked, preparing himself for the bad news.

“Three hundred an hour,” I said. If it was low enough for the state, why not Jack Hauser, too?

He didn’t seem to see it that way. He winced like I’d stuck him with a hot needle. “Any chance we can work on that?” He held out his hands. “I mean, okay, fine, I’ll hire you, but-any way to knock that number down?”

We settled on two-fifty, which was still a decent chunk of change. He showed me the complaint the city filed, left me a retainer, and gave me some basic information on the case. Before the end of the day, I had signed an appearance to enter the case as counsel for Hauser Construction, which Marie took to court to file.

Maybe, I thought, hanging a shingle in private practice wasn’t as hard as I’d thought. Shauna, dutifully impressed, offered to take me out to dinner of my choosing. “Doubling your clientele in ten days is cause for celebration,” she said. Actually, zero times two was still zero, but I didn’t want to pass up the chance to pick the restaurant, where I ordered two racks of barbecue ribs with extra vinegar and sweet-potato fries.

I had three glasses of their homemade brew-a red ale-and then Shauna and I had the wonderful idea of staying out a bit longer. We found a tavern down the street, I switched to vodka, and sometime around midnight, I found myself staggering out of a cab. I was bloated and dizzy and thinking about Talia, but otherwise I felt great.

Great, that is, until I saw the car parked in the driveway of my townhouse.

They got out of the sedan in tandem, all four of them, moving in sync, smoothing out their coats, heads darting side to side-all they were lacking were the trademark sunglasses, as it was midnight.

“Jason Kolarich?” One of the four men, from the driver’s-side rear door, approached me. He didn’t need to bother with the credentials. I’d made them before I had two feet out of the cab. “Special Agent Lee Tucker, FBI.”

“How nice for you.” I kept walking to my door, trying to mentally steel myself through my intoxication.

“We’ll need a minute of your time, sir.”

“Not now. I promised my hamster a bath.”

“It’ll have to be now,” said the man behind him. I recognized the voice, and as he approached, his soft Irish features came into focus. It was Christopher Moody, lead prosecutor on U.S. v. Hector Almundo. These were serious customers, all four of them, most of all the humorless Moody, but I swore I saw the seeds of a smile cross his face.