Presumed innocent

Chapter 17

Around the office, Tommy Molto was nicknamed the Mad Monk. He is a former seminarian; five foot six inches if he is lucky, forty or fifty pounds overweight, badly pockmarked, nails bitten to the quick. A driven personality. The kind to stay up all night working on a brief, to go three months without taking off a weekend. A capable attorney, but he is burdened by a zealot's poverty of judgment. As a prosecutor, he always seemed to me to be trying to make facts rather than to understand them. He burns at too high a temperature to be worth much before a jury, but he made a good assistant to Nico-he has qualities of discipline that Della Guardia lacks. He and Delay go all the way back to grade school at St. Joe's. Dago society. Molto's one of the guys who were included before they were old enough to worry about who was cool. Tommy's personal life is a cipher. He is single and I've never seen him with a woman, which inspires the usual conjecture, but if I were to guess, I'd imagine he's still celibate. That singular intensity seems to have a subterranean source.

Tommy, as usual, is whispering to Nico, hotly when I come through the reception room. There's been a lot of rubbernecking in the office, file clerks and secretaries rushing to the receptionist's window to see what the new boss looks like. As if they could have forgotten in nine months. The TV crews followed Nico up here and did their takes of Nico and Tommy sitting in hard wooden chairs, waiting to meet with Horgan, but that is over now. The reporters have dispersed, and the two of them actually look somewhat forlorn when I come by. Nico does not even have his flower. I cannot resist giving it to Molto.

"Tommy Molto," I say. "We once had a guy of that name who worked here, but we think he might be dead. Keep those calls and letters coming, Tom." This joshing, which I intend in all good humor, seems not merely to fall flat but to inspire a look of horror. Molto's heavy brows knit and he actually appears to recoil when I offer my hand. I try to ease the moment by turning to Delay. He takes my hand, although he, too, seems somewhat reluctant to accept my congratulations.

"I will never say you did not tell me so," I admit.

Nico does not smile. In fact, he looks the other way. He is extremely ill at ease. I do not know if the campaign has left a wake of bitterness or if Delay, like so many of us, is simply scared to death now that he finally has what he so long wanted.

One thing I am certain of after this encounter: Nico will not be bidding to retain my services. I go so far as to call the file room and ask them to begin putting together some boxes. Late in the morning, I call Lipranzer's number at McGrath Hall. His phone, which is never answered when he's out, is picked up by someone whose voice I do not recognize.