Blood Money Read online

  “Hey, why are you crying on this most festive occasion?” Nick asked jokingly as he stopped at her desk.

  Celia dabbed as her eyes and shook her head.

  “Come on. What’s up? It can’t be that bad.”

  “Did you read this?” She sniffled, trying her best to compose herself, and pointed to the headline in the Legal Intelligencer with her blazing red acrylic fingertips.

  “Yeah. In this morning’s paper. It’s a shame, but he was really nuts. I guess the stress finally got to him. You know, all this friggin’ fighting we have to do. It’s not healthy…”

  “What do you mean, nuts? He wasn’t nuts.”

  “Hey, what do you care? You didn’t know him, did you?”

  She flushed.

  “You did?” He leaned toward her. She dabbed her eyes again and nodded affirmatively.

  “I went out with him a couple of times,” she whispered, looking around to reassure herself that they were alone. “I’m ashamed. I knew he was married. But it was nothing, just drinks.” “Did he say anything to you about the firm?” Nick’s voice had dropped.

  She shook her head. “No—just that we had all the good cases, and wins.” She looked over her shoulder apprehensively. “And that Silvio and Levin were thieving bastards.”

  “Is that it?”

  “Yeah. Was he supposed to tell me more?”

  Nick shook his head no and breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Nick, why are you so concerned about what Bobby said?”

  “I’m not.” He hesitated a moment. “ He was over the top when I last saw him. Babbling nonsense.”

  “What was it?” She stopped sniveling and looked squarely at Nick. “What nonsense?”

  He smiled. “Just nonsense.”

  “Don’t tell anyone, Nick. You know, about the drinks.” She frowned. “I don’t want…”

  “I know, and I won’t as long as you promise to cheer up. OK? Life goes on. Right?”

  She nodded affirmatively.

  “OK. Settled then.” Nick slapped the marble countertop. “Any messages for me?”

  “Nope. Nobody loves you. At least, last night nobody did.” Deep dimples appeared as she smiled. Then the phones lit up. It was five past nine, and Celia had begun her daily routine, giving away as little information as possible and shielding her bosses from clients who wanted information, and answers.

  The party began promptly at noon with Joe Maglio popping a bottle of Dom Perignon. He lifted the sparkling, crystal flute and made the usual speech thanking all the associates, paralegals, secretaries, and filing clerks for all their hard work making the firm a success. He wished everyone health, wealth, and happiness. He never underestimated the value of the lowest ranking employee. He always had a kind word—a word of encouragement, or a twenty dollar bill for anyone who needed it.

  Joe had come a long way. Son of impoverished immigrants who had dreams for their son, he had fulfilled their dream. He had gotten a scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania Law School where he had graduated at the top of his class. But instead of following many of his classmates into large, conservative commercial firms where he would just push paper, he had gone to the Public Defenders Office where he got to try cases. There he learned to connect with a jury. Persuasion came naturally to him. He had gotten acquittals for many poor, innocent defendants, as well as some guilty ones. But then he became tired of being poor himself and set out to put his skill to work to his own advantage. And that he did.

  Marty Silvio and Harry Levin met twenty years ago at Temple Law School. They were both in the bottom ten percent of their class, but most of the successful plaintiff’s lawyers were not geniuses—just good businessmen and Slivio and Levin were just that. They were natural rainmakers, but neither could find their way to the courthouse. Neither had the guts or the talent to try cases. Both were used to settling cases with little or no effort. They often talked about themselves as “plaintiff’s adjusters” rather than as lawyers. Their job was so easy. But as lawyers they were allowed to charge forty percent. Public adjusters had to be happy with ten.

  But then came “insurance reform.” Small fender-benders,the bread-and-butter cases, dried up. Anti-plaintiff ads appeared everywhere. Silvio and Levin had to either resign themselves to a greatly reduced lifestyle or fight back. They needed bigger cases. And they needed a star to try them. They needed products liability, medical malpractice, construction accident, explosion, and collapse cases. The bigger, the better. The more maiming or death— preferably preceded by several months of excruciating pain—the better.

  And the star was Joe Maglio, supreme litigator, now known as the best criminal defense attorney in the commonwealth. It didn’t matter that he didn’t know much about civil cases. He already had the essential skills of advocacy. The medicine, the engineering, and the math were the province of his experts. It was his job to pull the information from them, simplify it, and play it back to the jury with his style. He always knew which two buttons to push—sympathy and prejudice.

  Joe had never liked chasing cases. It was beneath him. That was somebody else’s job. He loved turning cases into money—big money, money he won and spent with a vengeance to make up for all the years of self-denial. Instead of two five-year-old suits, he had fifty new ones. Instead of a three-room walk-up on Pine Street, he owned manor house in the blue blood suburb of Gladwyne with a horse barn and two thoroughbreds. Instead of a four-year-old Chevy, he drove a Mercedes SL 600. Instead of a mousy, middleaged wife, he had Christy—a leggy Scandinavian fifteen years his junior who liked spending money more than he did. There was always more, even when balances were low. When Joe got an overdraft call from the bank, he simply tapped the partnership accounts. Bank balances bored him.

  But balances were important to Harry Levin, a short, fuzzyhaired Jew who worried over everything. How many cases were coming in, how many they could have gotten but didn’t, how many they must get to keep the engines of the firm running. Levin worried about money—the money Joe was spending so furiously. He worried about being able to keep pace with Joe and Joe’s shiksa wife who was worse than Joe. He was tired of Joe making it so difficult.

  Marty Silvio, a balding, overweight, cocky, cigar-chewing egoist who never really got a good look at himself in a mirror, enjoyed manipulating everything, including the truth. He called it “creative responsiveness.” He never worried. He was too busy being creative. For him worrying was a waste of time. You got what you wanted, when you wanted it if you simply did something about it—and most importantly if you paid for it. It was simple. But not every lawyer was as creative as Silvio at making rain. And only a select few knew his secret, his recipe for success. The tougher it got, the more creative Silvio got. Years went by, and the firm grew and became fatter and greedier. And that’s when the trouble began.

  CHAPTER III

  At the front of the suite, the six-paneled double doors to the partners’ conference room were tightly shut. The room was supposed to be soundproof, but the yelling had been audible for at least twenty minutes.

  Celia Lopez was busy retrieving messages from the firm’s voice mail system. She was worried. Although she couldn’t make out the words, she could hear pushing and shoving and the crashing of expensive furniture. It sounded like a barroom brawl.

  Celia nervously walked to the entrance of the conference room and stopped. Her three-inch spike heels dug into the plush oriental carpet. She waited apprehensively and listened. The Christmas party was over and the strong bodies were gone. What was she to do? It sounded as if the partners were killing each other. She thought she might knock, but she quickly reconsidered, holding her partly clenched fist away from the door.

  Nick Ceratto had gone home with Grace Monahan

  Giorgio Santangelo, the chef, was on his way to Italy to visit his family for the Christmas holidays, and all the guests were long gone. It was nine thirty p.m. and Celia was alone—just her and the insanity in the “big room” as they all called it,
and she was scared.

  The commotion stopped briefly and then resumed as if those inside were aware that someone might be listening.

  Celia could hear Harry Levin yelling something like “Call the cops!” and Marty Silvio spitting out four-letter expletives in rapid fire. She reconsidered knocking, but then she heard a loud scream. She dialed 911 instead.

  Joe Maglio was coaxed out of the conference room by two large Philadelphia police officers who wouldn’t take no for an answer and were impervious to his threats of being sued up the ass for false arrest and false imprisonment.

  “Come on, buddy, let’s go. Let’s calm down before we have to take you in,” said the enormous black cop. Joe unsuccessfully attempted to shake off his grip. He was tattered but looked the best of the three.

  Levin was bleeding from the forehead. He blotted a large, open gash with a white silk pocket handkerchief that quickly filled with red.

  Silvio’s cheek was swelling and becoming darker by the second. His neck was severely bruised from Joe’s grip. And the skin was opened above one eyebrow.

  “Fuck you,” snarled Joe as he looked back. His jacket hung in shreds. But all he bore was a superficial scratch across his right cheek. His clothes had taken most of the abuse as he had dodged and ducked out of the reach of his former partners. Although it had been two against one, Celia knew that Joe had gotten the best of them, and she was glad.

  “You’re out!” screamed Levin. “Expect the sheriff tomorrow, you crazy asshole.” He spat three times. One of the gobs landed on Joe’s chin. “And Merry Christmas.”

  “If I’m out, so are you, you greedy, thieving, cheap kike. If I go down so do you.” Joe pulled an arm free from the police officer’s grip. “I’ll personally see to it.”

  “Get out, you motherfucker.” Silvio threw a lifeless punch and missed completely.

  “Come on, sir,” the burly black officer huffed as he pushed Joe through the open door. “You guys can settle this in court.”

  “Yeah,” said his partner, a six-foot, three-inch, fair-haired cop with broad shoulders and a large paunch. “You guys are lawyers, right? You’re supposed to be better than the crumbs on the street. Work it out,” he commanded in a shrill Fishtown accent. He held the other two partners off with an outstretched arm and closed the door to the suite with the other. “Come on, buddy. It ain’t worth it. Believe me. You got the best of them, anyway.”

  “I know you,” said the black cop as Joe smoothed back his tousled hair. “You’re the lawyer who’s always in the papers—suing the city and the cops and everybody else. Right?”

  “Yeah, I am.” Joe shook himself loose from the cop’s grip aware that this was not an arrest but a routine call to break up a fight. He punched the down elevator button. “And you’re gonna see a lot more of me in the papers, too, starting tomorrow.”

  Sleet fell in continuous sheets coating everything in frozen slush on contact. It was ten p.m., and traffic was mostly nonexistent due to travel advisories. The city was obediently quiet, wrapped in a blanket of ice and freezing rain. Traffic lights blinked eerily in the darkness—yellow then red then green. A few, lone snowflakes fell heavily and instantly melted as they hit Joe Maglio. He was rushing, coatless—pushing against the wind to get to the garage at the Bellevue Stratford Hotel where he kept his car. He was too angry to feel the cold.

  Troy Stone, the night attendant, looked curiously at Joe. “You all right, Mr. M.?” He always called Joe “Mr. M.” because he couldn’t pronounce Joe’s last name. It was too Italian. “Looks like you been in a fight.”

  Joe nodded, acknowledging the genuine concern of the chocolate-skinned man. “Yeah, but I won!” He gave Troy a thumbs up.

  “That’s all I wanna hear,” said Troy smiling broadly. His sparkling white teeth were parted by a huge gap in the center. “You want me to call the police?”

  “No,” Joe quickly responded. “No need. I took care of it.” Joe slapped the usual ten spot in Troy’s palm after he opened the driver’s side door for Joe.

  “Thank you. And you be very, very careful,” Troy warned. “It’s real bad out there, Mr. M.”

  Joe slid into the driver’s seat. “I’ll try my best. You know me. I always do my best to stay alive.”

  Troy tipped his Phillies baseball cap, smiling and shaking his head as Joe started the engine and drove away in a cloud of carbon monoxide.

  Joe reached in his breast pocket for his phone and punched in the number two. The call failed, and, preoccupied, he put the phone down.

  He thought about partnering with Nick and somehow at the same time extricating himself from the mess he was in. He would take his files—his own cases. They were not the bulk of the firm’s business, but most were high-profile cases referred to him by other lawyers. Lawyers who didn’t have Joe’s expertise, or the money to finance the litigation. There would be a fight, but so what? Lawyers always fought over money and cases. He would probably be in professional trouble. The mess he had brought on himself was bound to catch up with him. The books are the books and you can’t hide skimming forever, even with accountants who give you a break and look the other way if you give them a plausible explanation. But maybe he could pull a few strings and dodge the Disciplinary Board. Although he had spent money that wasn’t his, it always came back into the accounts. Payment of settlement funds to clients were always late—sometimes by three months, true—but the clients always got their share even though he had gotten his first. He would borrow from the proceeds from the most recent case he had won or settled in order to quiet those who complained the loudest. Once the client finally had a million in hand, it was a different story. Then it was, “Thank you, Mr. Maglio. You did a great job. You’re the best. I’ll recommend you to our relatives and friends—fellow union members.” They practically knelt at his feet. And then they raced to the bank.

  Money is a wonderful thing, he thought. It changes everything. Warring nations become allies—enemies become friends— bad becomes good. And Joe Maglio needed money. How else would he be able to pay for Woodmere, his ten-acre Gladwyne estate, his Arabian horses, and his wife Christy’s designer wardrobe? Yes, the beautiful Christine Bergheim. The coltish Dane he had met in San Remo ten years ago—model, actress, great athlete, and an even better mother. Joe had never cheated on her—not even once. Why would he? She was his grand prize that he kept in absolute splendor in a gated estate. At first she had protested at some of the extravagances lavished on her by Joe—a four-carat Tiffany diamond, canary yellow and flanked by two blue white trilliants. But she got used to it and graciously accepted each succeeding gift. The Arabian horses were her favorite, though. She was truly thrilled with this gift, especially by its presentation—a double horse trailer decorated with huge red bows had pulled up the circular drive to the front doors. Christy had been blindfolded. She was then led to them, their reins placed in her hands by Joe.

  How could he tell her that this was all about to end? Could he stave off the sheriff from executing on his home, his horses, his life? Would he go to prison? Could he file a feasible bankruptcy plan? Could he at least save his home?

  The road was becoming almost impassable—now ice was forming on his windshield. The wipers strained to move the freezing lumps of slush. The car would occasionally slide, and Joe would tug lightly at the wheel to straighten it. He didn’t know where he was. He drove slower, straining to read an exit sign. It was impossible. It was covered with snow. He strained to distinguish landmarks. Was this the Gladwyn exit? Joe pulled off the road to what he thought was the shoulder. In his rearview mirror he saw a state police car’s flashing lights.

  He picked up his phone and punched number two again.

  “You’ve reached Nick Ceratto. I’m not able to come to the phone at the moment so leave your message and I’ll try to get back to you sometime soon today—maybe tomorrow.” Joe heard a female chuckle in the background and then the beep.

  “Prick.” Joe removed the phone from his left ear and th
rew it into the passenger seat.

  CHAPTER IV

  He wore the expressionless face of a state trooper. He practiced his routine, checked himself out, and was satisfied. He looked authentic. His uniform fit like a glove and his polished jackboots shone. Cars automatically slowed and their drivers looked the other way. His police car was perfectly painted. It carried the official Commonwealth seal on each door, and the plates were government issue but unregistered. It was amazing what you could do with the right contacts. And Rudi, as he was called, had the best that money could buy. He often thought how much fun it might be to borrow Air Force One for the night to do a job. It would be back the next day and no one would ever know. The uniform, the car, the police radio—all brand new and not yet assigned or registered. Friends in Harrisburg were important. And more importantly, they could be bought for the right price.

  Rudi tilted the wide brim of his Mountie hat downward and carefully got out of the car and reached for the bell on the massive iron grates protecting Woodmere. He waited, brushing sleet from his jacket with a black-gloved hand. Nothing. He rang again. He knew that the security camera was trained on him, so he kept his head purposely in a lowered position, the brim of his hat shielding most of his features.

  “Hello,” an accented voice answered. It was female—rich and full with an air of concern about it.