Down Here

“That’s a long way back,” I said.

“Sure. From when he was an ADA in the same office that’s prosecuting Wolfe now. Toby’s gone up in the world since then. Moved over to the feds. He was the boss of Narco there for a while, then he kind of dropped out of the public eye. But he’s the same man.”

“Meaning . . . ?”

“Meaning, you know how it works in our business. A man’s no better than his word. And Toby’s has always been gold.”

“Okay,” I said, neutral.

“So, anyway, Toby gives me a call, says we haven’t had lunch in a long time. How about Peter Luger’s, his treat?”

“Did he pat you down when you showed up?”

“Asked me to give my word that I wasn’t wired.”

“This was about Wolfe, right?”

“I’m getting to it,” Davidson said.

I went quiet again.

“Toby said it would be in my client’s interest not to push for discovery right now. He said, if we could be a little patient, he was absolutely confident—that’s the exact phrase he used—that the case would just go away.

“I told him we weren’t interested in a case going away. That happens, the case can always come back. He said he meant go away for good. Disa-fucking-peer.

“I told him he knows the game as well as I do. I can’t just sit on motions, or I end up waiving my right to them. He went over the time lines with me, said another few weeks and it would all be over.”

“So he’s just trying to save you time and aggravation?”

“I asked him the same thing. He fenced for a while. Finally, after he could see he wasn’t getting over, he told me Wychek’s going in the Grand Jury soon.”

“How is that supposed to—?”

“He’s not going in as a victim, he’s going in as a witness,” Davidson said. “His appearance has nothing to do with Wolfe, or her case.”

“So?”

“So, by way of preamble, first they’re going to immunize him. Full boat—use and transactional. Then he’s going to tell the Grand Jury that he made it all up about it being Wolfe who shot him. When the DA’s Office gets ‘notified’ of that, they then introduce a transcript of his statement during a presentation of her case. And No True Bill it.”

“Sure.”

“It sounds fishy to me, too,” Davidson said, tilting his chair back. “If we’re a target, we’re entitled to Grand Jury notice, and we haven’t gotten any. But it could work the way Toby says. A federal grand jury—investigating who knows?—brings Wychek in. He makes a statement under oath. Suppose he does say that he lied about Wolfe? The feds have to turn that statement over to the DA in Manhattan. And then they’d have to drop the case. If the statement ever came to light, they’d be cooked. Not just legally, politically.”

“What’s in it for us, to wait?”

“That’s where Toby stopped being blunt. But I got the distinct impression that Wychek is telling the DA’s Office one story and the feds another. And that they’re not sharing.”

“He’s in federal custody?”

“He’s not in anyone’s custody,” Davidson said.

“You mean he’s still in the hospital?”

“Nope. That’s why I’m inclined to go along with Toby. He said the DA’s Office is giving Wychek an allowance, maintaining him as a protected witness. But Wychek knows, long-term, it’s got to be the feds, if he wants the total package—new ID, maybe even a new face, some serious maintenance money, you know.”

“So Wychek goes in the Grand Jury—the federal one—and then he gets gone?”

“What Toby says.”

“Toby say where Wychek’s staying?”

“I never asked him,” Davidson said.

^“You had a successful trip?” Laura asked.

“In my business—actually, I’ll bet it’s a lot like your business—you don’t always know right away. You make an investment, then you wait to see if it pans out.”

“That sounds a lot more like gambling than investment.”

“Isn’t that what investment is, gambling?”

“At some end of the continuum, it is.”

“What do you mean?”

“A person who buys shares of stock—or of a mutual fund, or any similar instrument— is gambling. Their idea of ‘research’ is maybe fifteen minutes on the Internet . . . and that’s for those who even go that far. For most investors, it’s more like religion than it is science. They trust; they have faith; they believe. They believe in a broker, or a mutual-fund manager, or in something they heard on a TV program. Everybody in the business knows this is true, but nobody knows why.”

“If people didn’t want to believe, they wouldn’t,” I said. “I don’t care if it’s a televangelist or a stockbroker; it’s easier for people to say ‘I trust you’ than to find out the truth for themselves.”

“You make it sound like they’re all suckers.”

“And volunteers for the job,” I agreed.

“I’m not in any of that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t sell stocks or bonds. I don’t even analyze them. What I do is, I put deals together. There’s big sharks and little sharks, sure. But all the players are sharks, do you see what I mean? There aren’t any fish.”

“Then where do the little sharks get their food?”

^“You haven’t asked about him at all,” she half whispered, her mouth against my ear. “Have you changed your mind?”

We were lying on her bed in the dark. Me on my back, she on her stomach. It was the first time we’d had sex that she hadn’t lit a cigarette afterwards.

“Changed my mind?”

“About your book.”

“No,” I said, my tone suggesting that would be absurd. “I’ve made the commitment. I took the advance. And spent most of it, too. Your brother’s case didn’t give me the idea for the book—it was something I came across during my research.”

“But you said he’d be perfect.”

“He might very well be. But I can’t believe he’s the only one. There were two things that drew me to him —”

“What?”

“—and neither was the underlying fact pattern,” I went on, ignoring her interruption. “One, I have to be honest, was nothing but convenience. He was—at least, I thought he was—right here, and available for in-depth interviews. Everything about his case is right here, too: the court records, the local newspapers, the judge who sat on his case, maybe even some of the jurors. The second thing, of course, was him getting shot.”

“Couldn’t you—?”

“But, the more I think about it, I’m not so sure.”

“Not so sure about what?”

“Whether the hook is really such a good one after all. At first, I thought it was perfect. If you’re writing a book about overzealous prosecutors, what’s better than one who tries to kill a man they convicted, after the courts set him free?