mine used to say.'
'Shit, you were a monster, Martin. Hell, I guess you still are. You've been prosecutor what, ten years now?'
He nodded. Ten years next month.'
'Long time to wait. That was the promise, wasn't it? Jack would move up to judge and you'd step in.'
'I was never promised anything except a free hand to run the prosecutor's office my way. Besides, promises aren't worth a damn in politics. You know how to tell when a politician's lying? His lips are moving.'
She laughed a throaty laugh. 'Okay,' she said, 'you know what they'd call it if all the lawyers in this room were on the bottom of a lake?'
'No, tell me.'
'A good beginning,' she said, and laughed again. 'Well, if it did happen that way, it was brilliant of them. Taking you out of the game, putting you on their side. I'll bet Jack engineered that whole deal himself.'
'Nope. He was just along for the ride.'
'Who then? Not Shaughnessey!'
'Shaughnessey made the pitch.'
'You're kidding! Now there's a well-kept state secret.'
'It wasn't any secret. Shaughnessey made the pitch and Jack slobbered all over him agreeing. Hell, you were leaving and he didn't have a good prosecutor left.'
'Why'd you do it? You were making what? A million a year or more? You gave that up for a hundred and fifty thou?'
Her remark reminded him again about the Stampler case and the others through the years - dope pushers and mobsters, thieves and rogues he'd saved from-the gallows. 'Money was never the consideration,' he said simply.
'Then why? Just tired of dealing with the scum of society? You put a lot of bad boys back on the street in your day, Mr Vail. Bargain-basement justice.'
'Justice? One thing I've learned after twenty years in the business: If you want justice, go to a whorehouse; if you want to get fucked go to court. I'm paraphrasing Thomas Jefferson.'
'A very cynical attitude for an officer of the court.'
'We're all cynics. It's the only way to survive.'
'So what's next? Finish out Jack's term as DA, run for a term to see how good you look at the polls? Then governor?'
'You sound like a campaign manager.'
She looked at him and warmth crept into her green eyes. 'It's worth a thought,' she said quietly.
He decided to take a stab at it. 'Why don't we have dinner tonight? Exchange secrets.'
'You already know all my secrets, Marty,' she said rather dolefully, but quickly recovering. 'But not tonight. Give me a call. It's an interesting thought.'
'If you change your mind, I'll be up the street at Avanti! eating dinner.'
He started to leave, then walked back and stood close to her and said in her ear, 'All by myself.' He kissed her on the cheek and was gone.
She turned back to the crowded room and the heat and noise and lawyers and calypso rhythm and her shoulders sagged.
Handsome, debonair, the perfect host, and master of Avanti!, the best Italian kitchen in the state, Guido Signatelli had but one flaw: outrageously tacky taste. Plastic grapes and dusty Chianti bottles dangled from phony grape arbours that crisscrossed the ceiling, and the booths that lined the walls were shaped like giant wine barrels. But Guido and Avanti! had survived on the strength of personality, discretion, and dazzling cuisine. Located three blocks from City Hall, Guide's - the regulars never referred to the place by its name - had become the lunch-time county seat and the legal profession dominated the fake landscape. Guide's personal pecking order was as precise as a genealogical chart. Starting at the bottom were the lobbyists, their mouths dry and their palms damp as they sucked up to everybody. They were followed by young lawyers eager to be seen as they cruised the room, hoping for a handshake; then the assistant prosecutors, huddled over out-of-the-way tables and whispering strategy; and finally the kingmakers, the politicos who greased the wheels of the city from behind closed doors in what was jokingly called 'executive session' — to avoid the state's sunshine laws. Many a shady executive decision had been made in the quiet of one of Guide's booths. On the top were the judges, the emperors of justice, each with his or her own preordained table, each patronized by his or her own mewling sycophants and each pandered to by the rest of the room.
