Breach of Trust

35

After my workout at the Gold Coast Athletic Club, I returned to my law office. I knew it was only a matter of time before “David Hamlin” would be ringing me to pump me for information. I spent the time on Google, looking up “Dick Baroni,” the guy Cimino had mentioned-someone who supposedly had learned the difference between being “with” Cimino and “against” him.

It didn’t take me long to find that Richard Baroni was a real estate developer who had had a few balls in the air during the housing bubble in the late nineties. I didn’t see anything that mentioned Charlie Cimino, but there were plenty of mentions of Mr. Baroni’s office going up in flames, with him in it, in 1995. He’d managed to escape with a severely broken leg, a few superficial burns, and surprisingly no idea who might be responsible for the fire.

How nice of Cimino to relate that quaint little anecdote.

Tucker called me on my direct line, avoiding my receptionist, Marie, because we figured repeated phone calls from “David Hamlin” would prompt too many inquiries from the ladies in my office. He said he was going to order food from the downstairs diner and to meet him at Hamlin Consulting in Suite 410.

When I knocked on the frosted glass door, a little late, Tucker showed me in. He had a cheese omelet open in a styrofoam container and, across from him at his desk, a Reuben and hash browns with a sweaty bottle of water for me.

“So how did it go?”

“How it went,” I said, settling in, “is I’m glad I wasn’t wearing a wire. We got in his car and went to his club for racquetball.”

“Yeah.” Tucker shook out a bad thought. “Okay, good, then. He was probably checking you.”

“Probably? I left my clothes, wallet, phone, everything in an unlocked locker. We play racquetball for an hour, then we’re hanging out in a lounge area, and he doesn’t say shit to me until some ‘acquaintance’ of his walks up to him and says, ‘Everything’s great, Mr. Cimino,’ and suddenly Cimino opens up to me.”

Tucker’s head fell back against the cushion. “They went through your stuff.”

“Give the man a prize.”

“Could you identify the man? The one who searched your locker?”

“I don’t know. Probably. And you’re sure you’ve never called my cell from an official line?”

“I’m sure-”

“Because I’ll bet Charlie’s friend has my entire call log, Tucker.”

“Relax, Jason. What, we’ve never done this before? There’s nothing that could come back to me. Don’t worry about that. You’re good.”

“I’m good? Easy for you to say.” I let out a long sigh. “Well, I don’t know if I’m good, but I’m definitely in. He gave me a big speech about me not fucking him. He even dropped a name, some guy who apparently didn’t learn the lesson so well. I just Googled the guy and it turns out, life took a bad turn for him.”

“Yeah? What’s the name?” Tucker pulled a small notebook out of his back pocket.

“Richard Baroni. Real estate developer. His office was torched in ninety-five, and he almost went down with it. I can only guess it was a deal gone south or something.”

Tucker scribbled a note. I looked at my sandwich and the burned hash browns, just how I like them, but I had suddenly lost my appetite. I pushed the food around and took a couple of bites but couldn’t taste it. Tucker had no trouble downing his meal.

“So you passed the test,” he said, wiping his mouth.

So far, I had passed. I had a feeling there would be some pop quizzes along the way.

“Tell me about his car. Was there anything unusual in the interior? Like, anything that he stuck to the dashboard or anything that looked out of place. Maybe a clock stuck-”

“An air freshener,” I suddenly realized. “We’re in this souped-up Porsche 911 with this beautiful leather interior and he’s got this cheesy air freshener-”

“Okay.” Tucker nodded. “Okay. It was a detector. It detects transmitter signals.”

“Great.” I pushed my food away. “That’s just great.”

“It just means we can’t use a transmitter, Jason. All you’re wearing is a simple recording device. A small tape recorder. You’re not sending a signal back to us. No detector can pick up a tape recorder. It’s only when you’re transmitting a signal.” He shook his head. “And now we know it’s not even an option.”

“And now we know,” I said, “that he knows he’s being watched.”

“No.” Tucker pursed his lips. “He knows he’s a corrupt motherfucker. And corrupt motherfuckers are paranoid.”

“That makes two of us.” I waved a hand. “I mean, this guy, without notice, takes me somewhere where I have to give up all my clothes, everything on me, and stick it all in a locker that he’s going to search. That can happen at any time, Lee. Or he could just come right out and pat me down.”

“So we need to be careful.”

“That training from Quantico really paid off, Lee.” I got out of my seat. Apparently, it wasn’t registering with this FBI agent that, had it not been for a gut call on my part, I’d be burned right now. Cimino’s thug would have found my recording device, and I might have a piece of concrete tied to my ankle right now, thirty feet under water.

When I pointed this out, Tucker said, “Quit with the drama. You were overly aggressive in your approach with this guy-against my advice-and it’s natural that he’d come back with a check on you.”

“If it’s so natural, why didn’t you think of it?”

Tucker worked a toothpick in his mouth. I thought it was less about removing food from between his teeth, and more about showing me his cool. “Jason, what do you think? You think you told me something I didn’t know? There was no friggin’ way I was going to let you go back there with a wire today. I was just curious if you’d figure it out yourself. And to your credit, you did.” He chuckled.

Tucker reached into a bag at his feet and, with a dramatic flourish, produced a CD. He dropped it into the laptop on the corner of the desk. “From yesterday afternoon,” he said.

“Hello?” It was Greg Connolly, answering the phone.

“Greg, it’s Charlie.”

“Yeah, Charlie. Look, I talked to Hector. He says this kid is the best. He says he hates the feds with a passion because they put his dad away. He says this kid isn’t afraid of nuthin’.”

“Okay.” Cimino seemed to be mumbling to himself. “I mean, listen, I want someone like him as much as anybody. I hear you. But I hardly know this kid.”

“He’s a kid looking for an opportunity, you ask me,” Connolly said. “He’s down on his luck after what happened to his wife and kid, right? Now he’s thinkin’, life owes me a thing or two. Maybe it’s time I take what’s mine. I mean, if he makes you uneasy-”

“No, I’m not saying-”

“-then let’s just try him out, real safe or something. I mean, fucking pat the kid down, if that’s what you’re really afraid of. I mean, here, Charlie. Here it is. I wanna be as careful as you. But this kid, he’s not fresh out of school like these other lawyers we got. The kid has some talent. Sometimes I wonder, if anyone ever took a hard look at us-”

“No, I know-”

“I’m just sayin’, Charlie, a good lawyer can make this look a lot cleaner. I mean, whatever. I’ll do whatever. But just-just think about it. I wouldn’t mind having someone good watching my rear end.”

“Yeah. Yeah, maybe. Maybe what you said about testing him. Patting him down. All right, I gotta go.”

“Yeah, just let me know, Charlie. Whatever you say.”

Tucker smiled at me.

“Thanks for sharing that,” I said, “after the fact.”

He smiled at me. “Better you didn’t know.” He kicked up his feet on the desk. “Now just put your head down and do the work, like I told you in the first place,” he said. “Make him some money, and he’ll fall into his comfort zone. You can handle that. I heard you on that first tape. You’re good at this. Better than most, you wanna know the truth.”

“Oh, gosh, Lee, I’ll bet you say that to all the informants.”

Tucker seemed to be getting a kick out of this. That made one of us. He had withheld information from me and didn’t bat an eye in the process. He would tell me only what he wanted me to know. He would manipulate me and hide the ball and watch me fall when he was done squeezing every last drop of usefulness out of me.

“Maybe I just walk away from this whole thing and roll the dice,” I said.

He gave me a yeah-right smirk.

“Hey, you want to be a cowboy, go for it. But just remember,” he said, “you’re making that decision for Shauna, too.”