ask him, so as to prepare him. I don’t make the questions too difficult, since Dylan would have no reason to attack him.
Once we’re finished, we chat in more general terms about football and the Giants’ prospects without Kenny. His hope is to have Kenny back in a couple of weeks, which would be ample time for a play-off run.
I tell Bobby that I’ll give him at least twenty-four hours’ notice before he testifies. I leave out the part about ripping him apart on the stand and about making sure he spends the rest of his life in a seven-by-ten-foot cell. There’ll be time to tell him that later.
I head home and prepare for my meeting with Dominic Petrone. His people pick me up at eight P.M. sharp. Except for shrinks, mobsters are the most punctual people I know. The driver tells me to sit in the passenger seat, and I notice when I do that his partner is stationed directly behind me. I feel like Paulie being driven by Clemenza into the city to find apartments where the button men can go to the “mattresses.” This driver doesn’t have any cannoli, but if he pulls over to get out and take a piss, I’m outta here.
They drive me to the back entrance of Vico’s, an Italian restaurant in Totowa. It has always been considered a mob hangout, a rumor that I can now officially confirm.
The driver tells me to walk in through the back door, which I do. I’m met by an enormous man who frisks me and brings me into a private room where Dominic Petrone is waiting.
Petrone is a rather charming man, early sixties, salt-and-pepper hair, with a dignified manner that one would expect of a successful head of a large business. He’s a typical CEO of a company where the “E” stands for “executions.” He greets me graciously, as he might an old but not terribly close friend, and suggests I sit down. I find it a smart thing to do what Petrone suggests, so I take a seat opposite him.
The table is set for dinner for one, and in fact Petrone is already eating his bruschetta appetizer. I’ve got a hunch I’m not invited for dinner. “What can I do for you?” he asks.
“I may be able to give you Cesar Quintana,” I say.
“Give him to me for what purpose?”
“That’s up to you,” I say. “Whatever you decide, all that I care about is that he no longer wants to kill me.”
“You say you ‘may’ be able to give him to me?”
I nod. “I’m pretty sure I can, but I haven’t decided yet if I want to. I won’t know that until I’m in the moment.”
I proceed to tell him my plan, the bottom line being that I will place a call to him if I’m going to give him Quintana. If I do, he’ll have to be ready to move immediately, though I’m not yet telling him where this will take place.
He nods, as if it all makes perfect sense, though I’m sure he considers this the most ridiculous plan he’s ever heard. It’s also got to be, from his perspective, almost too good to be true. “Is there something else you want from me, something you haven’t yet mentioned?”
“Just one thing,” I say. “Can you cash a check?”
* * * * *
TODAY MIGHT BE the weirdest midtrial Sunday I’ve ever spent. I have witnesses scheduled for tomorrow, but they’re part of a strategy that I’ve decided to abandon, so there’s no reason for me to call them.
All I can do is wait to see if Sam can come up with enough information to make my new strategy viable, and if he does, I’ll have to figure out how to convince Judge Harrison to let me use it.
The first thing I do is call Willie Miller and tell him that Petrone has agreed to my terms and that he should tell Marcus to move forward on our plan. I haven’t brought Laurie into this operation because it’s both dangerous and illegal. She would try to stop me, or perhaps get involved herself, and neither of those options is acceptable to me.
With that call accomplished, I have to fill the rest of the day. I would take Tara out for a long walk, to clear my head and enjoy the autumn air, except for the fact that a Mexican drug lord is sworn to kill me. I’m trying to deal with that, but for now the idea of bullets flying through that autumn air puts a damper on things.
With no other viable alternatives, I am forced to sit with Tara and watch NFL football all day. I have seen less football so far this season than in any other in recent memory, and I can’t make up for that in one day, but I’m going to try.
The Giants game is particularly interesting to me. On the field their running game looks as if it’s mired in quicksand, and on the sidelines I catch occasional glimpses of Bobby Pollard, taping ankles and generally performing his job as trainer. If I do my job right, both the on-and off-field situations are about to change dramatically.
Laurie plays her “little woman” role perfectly, bringing Tara and me whatever chips, beer, biscuits, and water we might need. I haven’t thought about Laurie leaving in a while, and when I do, it is with increasing confidence that she won’t. How could she give up this much fun?
Sam and Kevin come over at seven. Sam has tracked down some of Pollard’s medical records and vows he will get the rest. The fact that some of it originated in Europe makes things a little more complicated, but Sam has total confidence.
Kevin and I kick around our legal strategy to introduce this new slant on matters. The decision will completely rest with Judge Harrison, and Dylan will be crazed by the prospect of it. We agree that we will ask for a meeting in chambers before the start of court tomorrow, and we’ll take our best shot.
I wake up early and call Rita Gordon, the court clerk, and tell her of our desire to hold the meeting in the judge’s chambers, thereby delaying the start of court. I tell Rita that it is an urgent matter, because I want the judge to fully expect to be dealing with a very important issue.
Kevin and I arrive before Dylan, and we informally chat with the judge for the five minutes until he does. We are prohibited from talking about the case, and because of the occupation of the defendant, we can’t even do what would come naturally and talk about football.
When Dylan does arrive, I get right to it. “Judge Harrison,” I say, “there has been a very significant new development which causes us to ask for a continuance.”
Continuances are not something Judge Harrison willingly dispenses, and he peers down his glasses at me. “I would suggest you’ll have to be slightly more specific than that” is his understatement.
I want to dole out as little information as possible, but I’m fully aware that I’m going to have to be forthcoming. I tell him about the high school all-American weekend and the fact that the majority of the young men on the offensive team have died.
His interest is obviously piqued. “They were murdered?”
“The police in those jurisdictions did not think so, but I believe that since there was no way they could have been aware of the connections, they came to the wrong conclusion.”
“Why couldn’t they have made the connections? You did.”
I nod. “That’s because we were looking for it, and we were still lucky to find it. The police in these areas couldn’t have known where to look. These young men for the most part did not know each other, and the all- American team for this magazine was obscure. Besides, many publications pick all-American teams; there would have been no reason to focus on this one.”
“And your client has an alibi for these other deaths?” he asks.
“At this point he does not, Your Honor. In fact, he was geographically close enough to each one to have committed them.”
Judge Harrison interrupts. “Let me see if I understand this. You are abandoning your view that the murder in this case was drug-related, and you have developed a new strategy, which is to tell the jury that while your client is on trial for one murder, he may well be a serial killer?”
I’m nervous as hell, but I can’t help smiling at how he puts it. “You find that unconventional, Your Honor?”
“That’s not quite the word I would use.”
“Your Honor, in the interests of justice, I want the jury to see the entire truth. I believe that this truth will also enable me to create a reasonable doubt as to my client’s guilt.”
Harrison turns to Dylan, who seems stunned by the direction this session has taken. “Mr. Campbell?”
Dylan is in a quandary. On the one hand, he would be thrilled to see the specter of Quintana and drugs out of
