The Law of Second Chances

66

On Wednesday night, Jack met Molly at an Italian restaurant in the West Village. He was a little late, as usual, and Molly was waiting for him outside in the cold. She was dressed warmly in a knit cap and Navy peacoat over jeans and black boots. She looked good. She always looked good.

“My client’s father, Luis, recommended this place,” he told her as the maitre d’ seated them. “He said the food is great.”

The restaurant itself was not much to look at. It was small-maybe twenty tables. The walls were pale yellow and hung with painted landscapes of the Italian countryside. The place was clean, and each table had a white linen tablecloth.

“It’s very quaint,” Molly commented as she took off her peacoat, revealing a black wool turtleneck that accentuated her fine figure. About ten minutes later, Luis and Benny walked in.

Luis saw Jack and Molly and headed toward their table with Benny in tow. Jack saw him coming and started to stand.

“Don’t get up,” Luis told him. “We’re not staying. I left my credit card here the other night and I just came in to pick it up. We’ve got reservations elsewhere.”

Jack stayed seated. “Luis Melendez, I want you to meet Molly Anderson.”

Luis took Molly’s hand graciously. “Pleased to meet you,” he said.

“And that’s his son Benny behind him.” Benny did not come forward. He stayed behind his father and nodded to Molly. She remained seated and nodded back.

As they headed for the exit, Benny turned and gave Jack a thumbs-up. He was not smiling. Molly saw it and understood.

She had come to this dinner to break off the relationship in a natural way so there would be no lingering suspicion. Her excuse was going to be the geographical distance between them. She had planned a short speech, and she had wanted to make it before they ordered dinner. Her plan had been foiled, however, and she no longer needed to give an explanation. It was simply time to go.

“Jack, I just remembered there’s something I have to do. I’m sorry. It completely slipped my mind. I’ve got to go.”

It was Jack’s turn to understand. “You’re not even going to give me the chance to lay it out for you?” he asked.

Molly stood up. “I’m not going to sit in this restaurant after what just happened.”

“You don’t need to worry about Benny coming back or anything like that. Luis and I made sure that wouldn’t happen before we set this up. They’re gone.”

“Sorry, Jack, I can’t take your word on this one. If you want to, you can walk with me.”

Jack called the waiter over and handed him a fifty. “We have an emergency. We have to leave.”

“I understand, sir,” the waiter replied, bowing slightly.

Outside the restaurant, Molly sidled up close to him. “Don’t worry, Jack, I’m not going to molest you in public,” she said as she undid the middle buttons of his overcoat and ran her hands over his chest, then his stomach and his groin. She then bent down and checked his ankles and all the way up his legs. Jack didn’t move.

“I’m not wearing a wire,” he told her.

“I know,” she replied. “Now we can talk.” They started walking down the street again as if they were taking a moonlight stroll. “When did you find out?”

“I didn’t know for certain until tonight, when Benny gave me the thumbs-up. I had my suspicions before that. Every night during the trial when we met, you only asked me one question about what was going on, and then you went on to something else. Pat would have grilled me for hours.”

“I’m obviously not Pat.”

“I know, but it just seemed that if you were that interested in me, you would have been more interested in what I was doing. Then I thought about when we first met. I was on the front page of the New York papers on Sunday, and you conveniently walked into the Pelican diner on Monday morning and sat a stone’s throw away from me. By Wednesday, we were having an affair. That’s pretty quick work.”

“You’re jumping everywhere, Jack. I’m not following you.”

“You’re following me fine, Molly, or whatever your name is. We don’t need to pretend anymore. You used Angela Vincent; you used Benny; and you used me. Where was I? Oh, yes, after I went back and traced the steps of our relationship and realized it was a setup all along, I knew that you or somebody who worked with you was in court every day following this case as closely as the most conscientious reporter. All you really needed to know at the end of the day was how I perceived things. You knew I’d never tell you my strategy. So every night, you’d simply ask me how it was going.

“You had an idea Spencer’s case was going south on Thursday night. When I confirmed it, you decided to help the prosecution along with the anonymous tip about the gun.”

“Just being a good citizen,” Molly replied.

Jack couldn’t believe how calm she was. She probably had a gun in her pocket and could blow him away at any time.

“Not exactly, Molly. After the trial was over, Benny and I talked. On the night of the murder you gave him a revolver, which means that you had to switch guns at his place before calling the police. It also explains to me how the murder occurred. You had gotten close to Angela Vincent in order to find out about Carl’s habits so you could kill him. Benny just happened to fall into your lap. I figure you got the idea the night he stole Angela’s credit card. You knew Leonard Woods was going to be killed around the same time Carl was. If one of the murders looked like a robbery, nobody would ever connect the two. So you enticed Benny with the promise of a ten-thousand-dollar score, and then you pretended to trip and fall so that Benny had to take center stage. You gave him the revolver, told him it had a hair trigger and not to shoot under any circumstances, and then you filled his head with cocaine. When Carl got out of his car, you were across the street and you shot him right between the eyes. You even had Benny believing he was the murderer. It was almost perfect.”

“What do you mean ‘almost’? It was perfect.”

“Not any longer. Now Benny can tell his story. Angela can identify you, and there’s a bartender in the Village who Benny believes can finger you as well.”

“Finger me as to what, Jack? A woman who was with Benny and Angela and eventually you? And that gets you where? The state already has enough egg on its face. It’s not going to prosecute me for anything, even if your theories had any merits.”

“You may be right.”

“I am right, Jack. Knowing you, if I wasn’t right the police would have picked me up already. You wouldn’t wait until after dinner to report what you know.”

Jack refused to acknowledge that she was right. He also refused to get angry at her attitude. He wanted some answers.

“At least Carl’s plan won’t be thwarted,” he told her.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Jack. In the year and a half since Carl’s death, all his gas stations have been purchased out of his estate, as have his factories and his trucks-so his grand plan is over even though the existence of a formula has been revealed.”

“How come you didn’t get rid of Milton?”

“We didn’t know about him. Besides, the existence of a formula means nothing without the financial backing, and Milton won’t get that. He won’t even try.”

“If the trial didn’t matter, why did you kill Sal?”

“It didn’t matter a year and a half later. Six months ago, everything wasn’t in place. And Sal made the mistake of finding out about Leonard Woods’s relationship with Carl and the close proximity in time between their deaths. He wasn’t able to put things together like you were-and I have to tell you, Jack, you did an incredible job against overwhelming odds-but Sal had to go. It gave us an additional six months.”

“You keep saying ‘we.’ Who do you work for?”

Molly looked at him and smiled. “You’ve already gotten more out of me than any man or woman alive. Now you want to know who I work for?”

“There’s no harm in asking.”

“Oh, yes, there is. If I gave you names I’d have to kill you right after I told you. Here’s the general answer: I work for the powers that be-the people who get things done in the world.”

“The government?”

Molly shook her head. “The people who run the government are like the officers of a corporation. I work for the owners.”

“You’re not going to tell me any more than that, are you?”

“No.”

They were at the corner. She stopped and looked at him, her hands in the pockets of her peacoat. Jack figured she had the gun in there. “Good-bye, Jack,” she said, knowing there would be no polite exchange of kisses.

“You know, you’re really good at your job, Molly. There were times there that I thought we had something going on between us.”

“We did, Jack, we did. If we hadn’t, you wouldn’t be standing here.”

She turned and walked away.