CHAPTER SIX

Nora, Benny, and Nora’s supervisor, Violent and Organized Crime unit chief Carmen Garcia, stood staring at the big framed black-and-white photo over the couch. Hundreds of people, mostly white men, and all in formal attire, were seated at round tables and smiling up at the camera, which must have been near the ceiling of the huge banquet space. Georgene Jackson, the US Attorney’s secretary, was sitting at her desk watching them look at the picture, like a museum docent. She was a heavyset woman in her early sixties, with a round face, thick braids kept tied back for work, and warm eyes. Her voice combined the dropped er of a longtime “New Yorkah” with the lilt of her childhood in Trinidad. “That’s from the office’s two hundredth anniversary dinner, at The Plaza,” she said. “Years ago. Been on that wall forever”—it came out fa-ev-ah—“Nothing changes here.”

She lowered her voice and added, “Except for the rug.” Nora, Benny, and Carmen turned to face her just as she gestured with her head toward the closed door to the US Attorney’s private office, and added in a whisper, “He stole my rug.”

They had heard stories about the rug. Georgene had served as secretary to many presidentially appointed US Attorneys, who came and went about every four years. On leaving office, one of them thanked her by giving her a burgundy and blue six-by-ten Persian rug. For years, it occupied the space in front of her desk and she beamed whenever a visitor glanced down at the striking carpet. “You know, Nathaniel Seymour gave me that rug,” she always said. The legendary New York lawyer was long retired, but his rug remained, a reminder of Georgene’s value to the office.

Until Freddy Simpson stole it. The newly appointed Simpson, still smarting from the water damage to his photos along the HVAC cover, brought his wife in one weekend to help him decorate. Together, they decided the beautiful rug in the reception area would look spectacular under the coffee table in his office, perfectly tying the oxblood couch and armchairs to the royal blue carpet. So they dragged it into his office. Georgene never said a word to him. Of course, it was possible the Simpsons simply assumed it was all government property, but no matter.

She hated him over the rug. Also over “the girl”—a full-grown woman really, but quite a bit younger than the boss. They had also all heard the stories about her as well.

Assistant US Attorney Jill Untermeyer was a junior prosecutor in the office, in the introductory unit, handling cases involving counterfeit currency and illegal gun possession. She had no cases that warranted the attention of the United States Attorney, and no obvious business on the eighth floor, where the leadership offices were, yet she frequently found herself up there, in private conference with the US Attorney himself, usually in the evenings. Georgene resented it for a bunch of reasons, maybe the lack of discretion most of all. Two or three evenings a week, the tall, attractive Jill would walk briskly into the reception area after seven P.M., her long brown hair held back by a gold band and swaying behind her as she walked. She would stand where the rug should be, and ask with a broad smile, “Hi Georgene. Is he available?” Georgene would pick up the phone and press the intercom, informing her boss, “Ms. Untermeyer is here.”

Simpson invariably answered, “Send her in. And thank you, Georgene, that’ll be all for tonight. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Jill Untermeyer then disappeared into his office, closing the door. It infuriated Georgene, sometimes more than the rug theft, which was why she told so many people.

The three of them now stood in awkward silence. “You sure you don’t want to sit?” Georgene asked. “He knows it’s urgent, but you never know. He gets delayed sometimes, although I don’t know of any appointments this evening.” They began shuffling their feet, trying to decide whether to sit and who should sit where, when they were startled by the sound of a valve toilet loudly flushing. The noise roared through the wall just to the right of the closed office door. “Oh, he’ll be with you shortly now,” Georgene said, her voice taking on an odd sing-song quality. “He’s finished whatever he was doing.”

The intercom rang, Georgene answered, and then hung up. “Mr. Simpson will see you. Go right in. I’m sure he appreciates your patience while he handled his business.” Nora smiled at her as they walked toward the office door. She liked Georgene. But this is some dysfunctional shit.

Simpson was behind his desk at the far end of the triangular office. He was middle-aged, with a slight olive tint to his skin and a prominent chin and long nose, between which were two rows of capped white teeth, seemingly too large for his mouth. His most prominent feature was his forehead, which would have extended uninterrupted to the back of his head but for an aggressive comb-over of his straight, dyed black hair, which was plastered in an arc from his left temple up and across to his right.

Nora hadn’t been in the eighth-floor office since Simpson became the United States Attorney, but it felt the same. To her right, forming the office’s hypotenuse, was the wall of windows looking out over the lights of the plaza to the Manhattan landing of the Brooklyn Bridge. Nora and Carmen took the two chairs closest to the enormous wood desk; Benny pulled a side chair from the wall and sat behind the two of them.

Simpson lifted his chin toward Carmen. “So, what can I do for you?”

“Thanks for seeing us on short notice, sir. You may know Nora Carleton from my unit and”—turning to look over her shoulder—“Benny Dugan, the office’s lead organized crime investigator.”

Simpson nodded and didn’t make it clear whether he knew them or not, answering, “Nice to see you both.”

She then launched into a briefing on the developments with D’Amico: the secret note about having information on Tony Burke’s murder, the judge’s appointment of shadow counsel, the secret meeting.

Simpson seemed riveted. “Very cool,” he said. “So what’d he give you on Kyra Burke?”

“That’s just the thing, sir,” Carmen said. “He says she didn’t kill the former governor; the mob did.”

Simpson made a face. “Oh, that’s some bullshit, for sure. DA says he has her dead-to-rights. Trying to save his own ass, I’m guessing.”

“Well, sir,” Carmen continued, “we don’t have details yet, because this was just a preliminary meeting, but Benny—and Nora—both assess D’Amico as credible. He is taking an enormous risk to cooperate here. We’d like to continue the debriefing and explore whether there are opportunities to use him proactively to get more information on the killer, or killers. Since he’s on the street—out on bail—maybe wire him up to get some conversation about it.”

Simpson was shaking his head. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. You’re getting way ahead of yourself. Isn’t this D’Amico a seriously bad guy, somebody we’ve been trying to nail for years?”

Nora answered. “He is.”

“And won’t he be looking for some kind of deal with us in exchange for his cooperation?”

“He will,” she said. “What that might look like, I can’t say at this point.”

Simpson raised his voice. “Well, I sure can. We aren’t gonna do it. That’s what I say. We aren’t gonna get in bed with some piece-a-shit mobster over some bullshit about a case that’s already being prosecuted by the DA down the street. Nope. Not gonna happen.”

Carmen stepped in. “Sir, he is offering us information that the Mafia murdered a significant public figure and that an innocent woman may go to jail for it. It’s our obligation to pursue this.”

Simpson’s face reddened and he began almost shouting. “No, it’s not. That case is the DA’s responsibility. I’ve had to work hard enough to repair our relationship with that office after my predecessor crapped all over them. And, as I recall, your unit was part of that—stealing their cases. Our job—” he said, before pointing to Nora, “your job—is to convict Dominic D’Amico, and not get manipulated by this nonsense. We are not—”

Carmen interrupted, her tone on the edge of insubordination. “Sir, with all due respect, that makes no sense. We’ve always made mob cases through cooperators. D’Amico could give us all kinds of things. We haven’t even debriefed the guy, so to cut it off now isn’t right.”

Somehow Simpson’s face grew redder. “Don’t talk to me like I’m a child. The President of the United States appointed me to run this office and make decisions, and I’ve made one. We are not getting in bed with a mafioso over some fairy tale. Nope. No negotiations with this maniac. Hasn’t he murdered thirty people himself? I only wish you had come to me sooner; we wouldn’t have dragged Judge Whitney into this sideshow. But it ends here. Am I clear?”

Carmen answered. “Yes. Very.”

Simpson broke the awkward silence that followed. “Good. I wish you luck with the rest of the trial.” He looked down at his desk and began reading something.

Without speaking, the three of them filed out, the windows now on their left, the sitting area just to the right of the doorway. Nora glanced at the Persian rug. Looks kinda nice there.