Night Watch

THIRTY-FIVE

“So they got you,” Paul Battaglia said, shaking his head. “Right at your own front door.” He had been waiting for me when I walked into his office at 8 A.M. on Thursday.

The district attorney didn’t like it-with good reason-when his lawyers became the headline rather than the backstory.

The New York Post stringer and the photographer who snapped the photos last night had convinced the editor to find room for the dreadful picture of me, cowering beside Mercer with my eyes covered against the blinding flashbulbs, on the front page. Baby Mo still owned the top-of-the-fold space, but there I was with an equally cheap caption just below: MURDER SUSPECT ‘COOP’ED UP WITH PROSECUTOR?

“I apologize, Paul. There’s not much else for me to say.”

“It really compromises your credibility on MGD,” he said, tossing the newspaper on top of the unanswered correspondence on his desk. “I want you standing next to me when I announce the indictment this afternoon. I need you to field questions, and this outing doesn’t help a whole lot.”

“I can do that with you, if it’s what you need. This has nothing to do with my credibility. Luc’s not staying with me. I’m not harboring a felon.”

“That’s kind of missing the point, isn’t it? They’ve tagged your gentleman friend as a murder suspect.”

“The police haven’t.”

“The tabloids have,” he said, lighting what was probably his second cigar of the morning. “How the hell did they get this?”

“Mike says the Homicide detectives squealed. Thought the Brooklyn DA would like it if you had a little egg on your face, in the form of me as the sacrificial lamb, since you get all the big-time publicity.”

“You’re off your game, Alexandra. You should be more careful.”

“I’m not dating a wiseguy or a thief or a-a crooked politician,” I said, causing Battaglia to scowl at me. “The man’s in the hospitality business.”

“Not so hospitable to have folks dropping dead all around him.”

“He’s aware of that, Paul. We both are.”

“What time will the indictment be filed?”

“We’re meeting now to proofread and edit it. We’ll have it in front of the foreman as soon as they convene at two P.M. and get it right up to the clerk’s office. The arraignment has been scheduled for three in front of Judge Donnelly.”

“Four o’clock for my press conference. And I’ll tell Brenda to instruct the reporters that we’re not taking questions about anything else except MGD. No sideshow about the Gowanus Canal case.”

“Understood.”

“When I look your way, you talk. Other than that, you’re silent as the grave.”

Those were the usual rules. Battaglia had always been squeamish about details of sexual assaults. He left it for me to fill in factual blanks that supported the criminal charges.

“Yes, Boss. I’ll see you later.”

The whole team was arriving in the conference room, as planned, each carrying morning coffee and pastries from the cart in front of the courthouse. Mercer pulled his chair up next to mine, potential armor against the slings Pat McKinney was likely to throw.

“You’ve been in with Battaglia?” McKinney asked. “Boy was smoke coming out of his ears when I got here today. You know how to bring out the best in a guy.”

“Still smoking, Pat,” I said.

“I was thinking of going to Umberto’s for lunch today,” he chuckled, “but not if your pal, Luc, has taken over the lease.”

Just a few steps from the rear of the courthouse, Umberto’s Clam House was put on the map years ago when Colombo family kingpin Joey Gallo was shot to death in the middle of his lunch, his face slamming straight down into a plateful of spaghetti alle vongole.

“Suit yourself, Pat. I prefer Midtown myself. Mercer and Ryan were planning on lunch at Sparks Steak House,” I said. I knew he’d catch the reference to Big Paulie Castellano, who took six bullets to the head on his way in to a holiday dinner on East 46th one snowy night. “Fine dining and murder often go hand in hand. Ellen, do you have the indictment ready?”

Restaurants and mob murders. Maybe that’s what Gina Varona had been so defensive about last night.

“Yes,” Ellen said. “I’ve got a copy for each of you.”

Four pairs of legal eyes in the room should guarantee that there were no errors. Date and time of occurrence in the county of New York, victim and perp named, and the precise tracking of the penal code definitions that would stand up to a defense motion to inspect and dismiss. We spent the better part of the next hour scouring the document to catch every possible typo and correct two minor substantive errors.

“Will you take Ellen with you to the grand jury for the foreman’s signature?” Pat asked me.

“Sure. Then we’ll file it in the kitchen,” as the busy court clerk’s office was known, “and be ready for the arraignment at three. I assume you want Ellen to stand up for the bail application in front of Donnelly?”

Ellen grimaced. “Ugh, she’s so tough.”

“But she’s smart and she’s fair. We couldn’t ask for a better judge.”

Once the indictment was filed and Mohammed Gil-Darsin was formally charged as a felon, the case would be moved to a higher court-New York State Supreme-and his lawyer would be able to renew his bail application in front of this judge.

Mercer’s cell rang and he walked to the window to answer it. We all paused and looked over at him. “What news from France?”

He listened again while Ryan Blackmer raised his eyebrows. Then Mercer pointed at the TV screen mounted on the wall.

I got up and flipped the dial to CNN.

“Breaking news,” Mercer said. “About Gil-Darsin.”

We were between cycles, and the reporter on-screen was covering an earthquake in Indonesia that locals feared might trigger a tsunami. The lead story would come up again on the half hour, and we were all riveted to the screen.

Six minutes later, a young American journalist stood in front of the gates of the American Embassy in Paris, adjusting her earphones.

“It’s late afternoon here, Anderson, and we’re just getting word that the furor about Mohammed Gil-Darsin, the head of the World Economic Bureau, is about as fierce as the storm that’s brewing in the Pacific Ocean.

“Executives of two business firms are under investigation for their alleged role in a prostitution ring that officials believe has been linked to the brilliant but controversial WEB leader known to the world as Baby Mo. The Ivorian-born French resident is now incarcerated in the United States on charges of sexual assault unrelated to today’s stunning news.”

“What else do you know at this time?” Cooper asked.

“There goes my last chance of slowing this case down,” Ryan said. “You guys win. I guess bail’s a no-brainer at this point.”

“To be clear, Anderson, the early reports carry no suggestion that Gil-Darsin was an organizer or key figure in the criminal enterprise of this prostitution ring, or controlling it in any way. However, the government is looking into rumors that Baby Mo hired some of the women employed by the network, as escorts-or for sexual encounters.”

“In France? Are you saying this happened in France?”

“In this country, actually, it’s not illegal to trade sex for money. Soliciting or trafficking in prostitutes, however, is against the law here. This matter was uncovered in a luxury hotel in the city of Lille, where a business firm is alleged to have provided women to the prominent men under investigation, some of whom have been named today. These women were imported, if you will, from Belgium and Germany and the Netherlands.”

“Hence the trafficking charge. And what’s the connection to the United States?”

“The answers aren’t all in yet, Anderson, but it’s apparent that in some instances, corporate funds of some of the businesses engaging in this enterprise are involved. One of the first arrests today was of a high-ranking local police official in Lille, who literally flew to Washington, DC, with one of the women, when engaged by another World Economic Bureau bigwig, to have her take part in what are being called ‘sex parties.’”

“Mohammed Gil-Darsin is expected to appear before one of New York’s toughest judges later today. How does his name figure in this newest scandal?”

“Too early to know for sure, but it’s believed that texts from Baby Mo were intercepted by investigators, in which the disgraced leader tried to hire women in the past-mostly Belgian-to be flown to meet him in New York, in Washington, and at a recent WEB conference in San Francisco, for the purpose of sexual activities.”

“Thanks for bringing us-”

Mercer grabbed the clicker from me and turned off the television. “Well, I’ll bet Byron Peaser is doing a happy dance right now. This will put new steam under Blanca’s sails.”

“I wouldn’t want to be in Lem Howell’s shoes, going in front of Judge Donnelly with this just off the wires,” Ryan said. “And on the outside, poor Lem’s probably got to deal with Mrs. Baby Mo, too. That must be one unhappy broad.”

“You know the French,” Pat McKinney said. “Anything goes. She’s probably copacetic with the whole thing.”

“Don’t be so sure,” I said. As an American involved with a Frenchman, the mores and attitudes of his countrymen had always remained foreign to me. The first news image of Kali’s screams piercing the air like a wounded animal had become embedded in my mind. “Madame Gil-Darsin is African. She only lives in Paris.”

“Well, if I were Baby Mo,” Ryan said, “I’d be thrilled to bunk down at Rikers Island for a couple of weeks, rather than face the wrath of the missus. Order in some takeout, get a delivery of a stack of classic DVDs, do a bit of jailhouse lawyering to stay safe when he’s on his cot. I’m just sayin’…”

“I think, Alex, that we’d better tell Battaglia about this,” Pat said. Then to the rest of the team, “Give us fifteen minutes with the Boss.”

Rose was surprised to see McKinney and me arrive together. “Go right in.”

The district attorney was on the phone with his stockbroker when we entered. He ended the call abruptly and asked what had brought us back.

Pat McKinney outlined the story about the possible involvement of MGD in an international ring of businessmen and call girls.

“Looks like I made the right call about indicting him this week, don’t you think?” Battaglia said, jamming another cigar between his front teeth while he reached for his lighter. “How’s this going to play with Judge Donnelly?”

“She’s not likely to be budged by uncorroborated rumors,” I said.

“So gather some facts before three o’clock. Give her something to work with. Get your whole team on this, Pat, do you understand? And, Alex, I want you to write an op-ed piece for me to submit for tomorrow’s Times.”

“On a pending case?” I had written for Battaglia before. There were days I thought I could nail his voice with more accuracy than my own, but I’d never considered doing it when a charge was active before the court.

“Pending my ass. Steer clear of the instant mess. Make it a grand riff about power and dignity, race and class, about giving women access to the system, no matter who the offender is-one of those speeches you do all the time for the ladies who lunch and their charities. What did Leona Helmsley call folks like Blanca? The little people. Make it about the little people-I mean, say it more tactfully than that-having a day in court against the rich and famous, against men in high places.”

“For tomorrow, Paul? We’re overloaded with work on this case all afternoon.”

“Think of the trouble it’ll keep you out of while you polish it up tonight. Have a draft ready before I leave here at six.”

For once, I believed Pat McKinney when he told me he felt sorry for me as we walked back to the conference room.

He began handing out assignments to the team. He would call sources at the State Department and the Department of Justice to get access to French government officials, while he directed Mercer to tackle Interpol. Ellen and Ryan were responsible for revising the indictment and getting all the facts bullet-pointed for the bail application.

I returned to my desk. Laura was manning the busy phone lines and had set me up with more coffee. “Nobody from the press gets through,” I told her. “Absolutely nobody. And yes, Luc is here in New York, and no, he won’t be calling in today. You don’t need to worry about me in that regard.”

She knew me well enough not to say another word about him.

“Lem won’t be trying to get me either. Some rough stuff going on in his camp, which will keep him from triplicating me about his client’s bail all morning. And Mike? Send him directly to Mercer, who’s using the conference room. I’m working on something for the district attorney.”

I sat at my desk and scrolled through the avalanche of e-mails that had come in since the morning papers had saturated subway riders. Most of my well-meaning pals had checked in with humorous or consoling remarks. I couldn’t help but wonder how Luc was feeling and what he was doing for the day, undoubtedly overwhelmed by everything that had come crashing down on his world, personally and professionally.

I searched my document file for several of the speeches I had prepared in the last few months. The office had triumphed in many cases with an uneven power dynamic-a teenage girl against a physician who had molested her during an office procedure; a mentally challenged young adult over a teacher at a vocational school; and a woman who cleaned offices late at night who had convinced a jury that the head of a world-renowned ad agency had sodomized her in a deserted corridor after he drank too much at an office party.

Each of these cases would fit into the template for Battaglia’s remarks, although the timing of the piece wouldn’t allow for subtlety. I channeled myself into his speaking style-rougher than mine, with fewer adjectives and all traces of feminine style made to disappear-and began to fashion a narrative.

There was no way I could concentrate. I was more attracted to e-mails and outreach from friends and certain that this was an exercise in futility, created by Battaglia to keep me out of harm’s way and headlines for the better part of the day and night.

At one-thirty, with the bare outlines of a draft under way, I drifted down to the conference room to chill with Mercer for a while. Laura had called out for lunch, and I nervously ate half a turkey sandwich-still hungry because I hadn’t eaten last night-while Mercer told me about his slow progress. He had made more than a dozen calls, but the small police unit in Lille had been swamped with attention from media everywhere in Europe and America.

Shortly before two, Ellen came in with the revised indictment. We went upstairs to the grand jury to get the required signature, then took the elevator to the tenth floor and filed the papers with the clerk of the court.

We returned to the conference room to gather the rest of the team. Then another elevator ride to the eleventh-floor courtroom in which Donnelly presided. The enormous double-wide corridor was packed with journalists and photographers from just about every newspaper on both sides of the ocean. Uniformed court officers marched our formidable band of MGD prosecutors, followed by Mercer Wallace, into Part 30 of the Supreme Court of the State of New York. Every seat on every bench in the room was full, except the front row, from which Pat, Ryan, and Mercer would watch the arraignment.

Lem Howell was already planted in the well of the courtroom. On the right-hand side, next to the counsel table at which Ellen and I sat, two sketch artists had taken up positions in the jury box, at work on Lem’s profile.

Jan Donnelly took the bench as soon as we were in place. Lem smiled at her and got up to walk toward her.

“Step back, Mr. Howell. Is there anything to discuss before we bring the defendant in?”

“I just thought I could give Your Honor a brief overview of-”

“On the record, Mr. Howell. We’ll do this all on the record. Both sides ready to proceed?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” Ellen Gunsher said. She seemed intimidated by the stature of the judge, whose stern demeanor seemed incongruous with her pretty face and warm smile, on those occasions that she chose to smile.

“Bring in the defendant.”

The court officers exited through the door on the far side of the courtroom. I could hear the sound of the handcuffs jingling as they were removed from Gil-Darsin before he was brought inside. The door opened and he walked in, head held high, dressed in a suit, shirt, and tie that Lem had taken to him in his jail cell. He looked every bit as imperious as though he was about to call to order a meeting of the top dogs of the World Economic Bureau.

Lem leaned over to whisper something to him. I scanned the row behind their seats and was surprised that Baby Mo’s wife wasn’t there in his support-not even as a prop, to weigh on the conscience of the judge. Knowing Lem, he was saving her for a more dramatic appearance at a later time.

The judge introduced herself to the defendant. The clerk read the charges from the indictment and asked Mohammed Gil-Darsin what plea he wished to enter.

“Not guilty.” Two words, spoken firmly in his best upper-class British accent, with a twinge of his native Ivorian French.

“Please be seated, sir,” the judge said. “I’ll hear the People on bail.”

Ellen rose to her feet, armed with a detailed list of facts in support of her request to keep the defendant remanded without bail. She did well until she ventured into today’s news of the Lille-based prostitution scandal.

“Do the French authorities intend to charge Mr. Gil-Darsin with a crime, Ms. Gunsher?” Donnelly asked.

“I don’t have that information at this time.”

There were six more rapid-fire questions that Ellen could answer only with guesses and gossip. “Sit down then, Ms. Gunsher. Save those arguments for a day when you’re more properly informed of the facts. Mr. Howell?”

“Good afternoon, Judge Donnelly. My client and I thank you for this opportunity to correct the terrible injustice of the original bail application,” Lem said, grandstanding for the audience at the same time as he struck a pose for the scribbling sketch artists. “As you can see from the criminal court arraignment proceedings, my client-who commands, who deserves, who enjoys worldwide respect for his financial acumen and diplomacy-has been deprived of his liberty when he most needs it: to help to prepare for his defense in this case that apparently takes-let me see-four, four prosecutors to shepherd through the treacherous waters of the criminal justice system.”

“What’s your point?”

“Remand status, Your Honor, is generally reserved for the most heinous of criminals, for homicides and murder cases-like the one in which my dear friend Ms. Cooper finds herself entangled today.”

Low blow, Lem. I fixed my eyes on the portrait of Lady Justice hanging on the wall behind the judge.

“Strike that remark from the record,” Donnelly said. “Go on. Any circumstances of which the court was not aware on Sunday, when bail was set at remand?”

“First, Your Honor, my client’s family was not able to be here with him at that time, which presents a very different picture of any man. But now his wife has arrived in New York. Madame Gil-Darsin-Kalissatou, as she is known-is an exceptional woman, an international superstar, and a woman of great character as well as independent means. The only reason she is not present today is that she is actually securing a lease-a twelve-month lease-on a furnished apartment on Central Park South. So we can assure you that my client will indeed have roots in this community-very expensive roots, I might add-for as long as it takes to dispose of the allegations against him.”

“Is that all, Mr. Howell?”

Lem covered every angle. He went on about Blanca Robles’s fifty-million-dollar civil suit, the connection to an imprisoned lover, the possibility that she had lied to police about her grounds for asylum.

“How about DNA, Mr. Howell? How does DNA lie?” Judge Donnelly asked. “Do you care to offer any explanation about how it came to be on the uniform of the complaining witness, as well as the walls and floor of your client’s hotel room?”

Unlike me, Lem never gave the slightest hint that the wind had been taken out of his sails. He bent his head in the direction of the judge and in a clipped voice said, “Not at this very moment, Your Honor. I’ll save that conversation for another day, after the prosecution has provided me with their lab reports so that our own experts can advise about any improprieties. We all know that mistakes can happen.”

“Very well then. You’re welcome to return to me when the ink dries on your client’s lease and you have any new grounds for reconsideration of his bail. I agree with you that remand on these charges, for a first offense, is a highly unusual position for Mr. Battaglia’s office. Feel free to renew your application when you think it’s appropriate.”

“Thank you, Your Honor.”

“Until such time, however, the defendant is remanded.”

Mohammed Gil-Darsin stood up, appearing far less sanguine about the news than did his lawyer. Lem chatted with him, and patted him on the shoulder as he sent him off to the holding pens behind the courtroom to await the bus ride to Rikers Island, then tried to make his apologies to me before we could follow the crowd out into the hallway.

“Well, at least Donnelly didn’t close the door on me entirely, did she?” he asked.

“Not so hard as I’d like to do.”

“How about I buy you a cocktail at the end of your long day, Alex? I think you and I have a lot to talk about.”

“It’s such a tempting offer, Lem,” I said, holding my arms out, palms up, imaginarily weighing each side like Lady Justice over my shoulder. “A drink with you tonight or root canal? Tough choice, but I think I’m leaning toward the latter.”

We were interrupted by Mickey Diamond, who’d come forward from the press section to select for tomorrow’s paper one of the sketches the Post artist had rendered.

“It’s not my fault, Alex,” he said. “I wasn’t working last night. I hated what they did to you with that headline this morning.”

“I know it wasn’t you. Don’t even think about it.” It was my own damn fault-the entanglement, as Lem called it, in the two murders that had occurred, the fact that Mike had been drawn in to help Luc on my behalf, and my bickering with him last night in the driveway in front of my building.

“How’s this?” Diamond said, holding several drawings in his hands. “Pick your favorite one. I’ll make it up to you. Your best angle, Alex.”

I laughed. “I’d prefer to be left out of it all together. Use this one of Ellen-it’s very flattering. Or this one of Lem, posturing like a peacock. I’ll even write the caption for you.”

“They’re going with the line I got already. I mean, it’s not my fault. I texted it in after Lem made his crack about you to the court.”

“Dare I ask?” I was so low on adrenaline that I couldn’t even muster the juice to blush with embarrassment or engage my bad temper.

Diamond lifted his pad to show me. SEX CRIMES PROSECUTOR DINING IN HELL’S KITCHEN?