54

RICHIE CARDELLA WAS SITTING with Terry Reardon in the latter’s fourth floor office. There were five days to go before August 1st and the Herald’s initial negotiating session with Tommy Arena whose local union represented its delivery drivers. It was shortly after ten o’clock in the morning. Their work began two hours earlier with a review of the new contract proposals Arena sent to Reardon in the mail. The current agreement didn’t expire until the last day of September, but Reardon decided early on to take advantage of the full sixty days in which the contract was open for modification. He was concerned about the possible difficulty of having Cardella available for meetings with the union when his campaigning heated up and took him on the road for days at a time. Reardon fully expected his lawyer to win the September primary, and was fearful that Richie would have little time for labor contracts after that.

Cardella said he intended to bring Mike Donlan, one of his younger partners, to all of the early meetings. He expressed confidence that Donlan, sitting with Terry, could handle the negotiations anytime he couldn’t be there himself. “Don’t worry about Mike,” he said. “He’s very bright, and has already been through a few contracts on his own.”

“Any with the Teamsters?” Reardon asked.

“No, but I’ve told him all about Arena. He’ll know how to keep it moving when I’m not around, and he’ll make sure I’m up to the minute on everything that happens.”

Cardella’s eye caught the red digital reading on his calculator and he reached over to push the “off” button before continuing. “Arena will have the usual two-man committee of drivers with him at the meetings. As always, he’ll be looking to get together and agree to things ahead of time. I’m convinced he does it just for the dinner and the booze. I’ve never seen him pick up a tab. But we’ll only set it up when I can be there with you. I don’t trust Tommy for a second, and he knows it. Even when we’re off the record, I take notes. I do it so he won’t try to pull any shit later on and say we reached an understanding on something if we didn’t.”

Reardon took a muffin out of the Dunkin’ Donuts box, broke it roughly in half and put one piece back. “I’ve been wondering, Richie, what do you think’s going to happen to Arena at that trial in November?” Word of the impending trial was published in the Herald just several days after Arena received his notification in the mail.

Cardella shook his head. “I don’t know. It depends on the evidence. If they’ve got enough on him, they could get him thrown out of the Union.”

“Could he appeal it, or what?”

“Yeah. He’s entitled to an appeal. There’s a judge in New York who’s got jurisdiction over the whole deal between the Teamsters and the Justice Department. But his chances of getting the decision reversed would be pretty thin.”

“I know the guy’s a bastard, but do you think he has connections with Federal Hill? As I get it from the grapevine, the government’s accusing him of playing footsy with the Tarantino family. He’s either supposed to be on their payroll for something he does for them, or he’s moving money from the Union into their pockets for some reason. That’s what they’ve got to prove, right?”

Cardella chose his words carefully. “I guess that’s the case they’re going to try to make.”

Reardon wasn’t put off that easily. “You didn’t answer my question, counselor. Or let me make it a little clearer. Do you think they’ll prove it? You’ve known him for years.”

Cardella got up to stretch his legs. “Tommy brags a lot, you know that. He likes people to think he’s a big man on campus, can do anything he wants, that he’s got good connections. Sometimes what he says is true, but usually he’s full of shit. He makes most of it up as he goes along, I think, just to sound tough, just for the effect. It might depend on whether he ever talked about stuff that really was true just to get a rise out of the people he was with. Maybe he wished later on he kept his mouth shut. That’s why I said it’ll depend on the evidence.”

Reardon turned his chair partway around so he could face Cardella who had walked to the other end of the room. “His trial is a week after the election in November,” he said. “I don’t see it having any effect on our negotiations, do you?”

Richie moved slowly back toward the table. “None, none at all,” he answered. There was a certainty in his voice. “I figure Tommy, you and I will probably be sitting down for breakfast on September 30th, working out the final settlement before the last meeting starts later that morning. Just like we’ve done it the other times, Terry. And if Arena’s satisfied, he’ll sell the package to the committee and jam it home at the ratification meeting. It’s good to know exactly what his routine is all the time. If the feds make an ex-Teamster out of him, I think I’ll miss the guy.”