Breach of Trust

3

“The tapes, the tapes, and the tapes,” said Paul Riley, his feet up on his desk and his tie pulled down. “That’s what it comes down to. Hector’s own words caught on tape.”

“And Joey Espinoza,” said our investigator, Joel Lightner. Joey Espinoza was Senator Hector Almundo’s chief of staff. The feds, who had caught wind of the Cannibals’ shakedown scheme as early as February of 2005, liked Espinoza for one of the ringleaders. Thus, one early morning in April of 2005, as Joey Espinoza carried a mug of coffee and briefcase to his car, FBI agents stormed his garage and did what FBI agents do best-they scared the shit out of him. They told him his life, as he knew it, was over. They had him cold. His only chance of survival? Wear a wire and help them nail his boss, Senator Hector Almundo.

Joey eagerly complied and covertly recorded four conversations with Hector before Adalbert Wozniak’s murder in May. At that point, the feds made the call that they couldn’t continue to lie low and risk more bloodshed, so they closed in, arresting eleven gang members, fourteen co-conspirators, and the illustrious Senator Almundo.

“Joey’s not the problem,” Paul argued. “He’s a scumbag, but that doesn’t change what’s on the tapes. Hector still said what he said.”

Hector’s words on the tapes were pretty damning, instructing his chief of staff, Espinoza, to continue working with the Columbus Street Cannibals and their extortion scheme. We didn’t have much to refute it, other than to argue that Joey was really calling the shots, and Hector was an absent-minded leader who didn’t sweat the details. That wasn’t the easiest sell, however, when he was on tape telling Joey to keep doing what he was doing with the street gang.

“So find a way to refute it,” Lightner said.

“Oh. Thanks, Joel.” Paul turned to me. “You get that, Jason? Lightner says we should find a way to refute it. You can’t put a price on those pearls of wisdom.”

Paul and Lightner went back to the eighties, during a mass murder in the south suburbs, when Paul was the prosecutor and Joel the cop. Lightner left the job fifteen years ago and opened a private investigation agency that has benefited mightily from its association with this law firm.

“Jason,” Lightner said to me, “you’re new, so you may not know-when Paul gets frustrated, he takes it out on poor underlings like me. What he really means is he appreciates my contribution to this case. Also, I don’t know if he told you yet, but as a condition of working on this case, you have to name your child after Paul.”

“Jason’s child is going to be a girl, Lightner, which you would know if you didn’t start drinking before noon every day,” Paul replied.

“Okay, Paulina, then. Paulina Kolarich.”

This usually happened at the end of the workday, these two getting on each other before they went out for steaks and martinis that night. They were both bachelors, Paul once-divorced and Lightner twice. They could be pretty amusing when they got going. Their deliveries were so dry that it still took me an extra moment to separate sarcasm from sincerity.

“And I don’t start drinking until three o’clock, at the earliest,” Lightner protested.

I felt something pull at me, a clearing of some clouds in my head. Maybe. .

“What kind of a name is Kolarich, anyway?”

Could that work? Was it that simple. .?

“He’s in a state of shock,” Lightner went on. “He’s so mesmerized by your intelligence, Riley, that he can’t speak. You’re gonna have a long career at this place, Jason. Just repeat after me: Paul, you’re so brilliant. Paul, you’re so brilliant.”

I looked at Lightner, then at Paul. Riley nodded at me out of curiosity.

I cleared my throat and gave it one more thought.

“Hang on,” Lightner said. “I think he’s about to say something.”

“Yeah, I am,” I said. “I think I know how to defend this case.”