CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

 

 

The DA arrived on time. He was hungry and had no idea what was in store for him. Tommy had invited Sal and the other guys who helped retrieve the journal just to show there weren't any hard feelings. Mark McKinley still had a black eye, and his ribs were pretty tender, but he was in fine spirits.

Tommy passed around some Cuban cigars, and they all talked about family and their jobs. McKinley liked hanging out with Tommy and his ilk. It was exciting. He enjoyed their stories, and they didn't mind sharing the details in front of him. McKinley didn't think of himself as being a crooked DA; quite the opposite. His view was more philosophical. He couldn't stop the mob from running numbers, gambling, selling liquor, and extortion, but he could keep it in check. It worked out well for Tommy, too. He could schedule a time and place for when a bust was going to go down, which cut down on his guys getting killed. They did a few years in prison, some even got off, and they would get their 'time off' bonus as he liked to call it.

The city was big enough that McKinley got plenty of murder convictions without needing to go after Tommy's men. Since it was widely known among the criminal element that Tommy's boys had a fair amount of leeway when it came to torture and killing, it meant that people were more cooperative. Thus, less killing was needed. At least, that was the case until the other families started to make a play for Manhattan.

Tommy raised his glass, "To my friend Mark who has put an end to the bloodshed with his courageous act."

"Salud." They raised their glasses and smiled.

Tommy said, "I just wanted to show my appreciation for helping put an end to all of the fighting. To think, the other families would try to take advantage of rumors of a journal that would show me as criminal...Well, it is disappointing."

They all agreed that Tommy was a fine upstanding citizen who was greatly misunderstood. Tommy smiled and looked at Mark, "Sal tells me you can really take a punch."

"I think your boys eased up a little," Mark said, trying to be modest. His ribs were killing him.

"I didn't," said one of the thugs at the table. Everyone laughed, and the thug slapped the DA on the back. "You take a punch real good, Mr. District Attorney."

Dinner was served, and the good cheer and laughter continued. When the plates were cleared away, the staff closed the doors. It got very quiet. Mark tried to make a joke, but nobody smiled. Tommy just stared at him.

"What's going on, fellas?" Mark said, his nervousness apparent.

Tommy stood up and walked around the table to the sideboard and removed the journal. "I have a few concerns, Mr. McKinley." He dropped the journal on the table with a thwack. "I think you gave me a fake."

"No, I didn't, swear to God. I took it from Henry's office and straight to your guys. When would I have had time to copy it?"

"I didn't say copy; I said fake."

"I don't understand. What's the difference? It doesn't matter - I gave you the journal I got from the detective."

"Maybe you made this fake ahead of time and kept the real one? Maybe you think you want to renegotiate our terms?"

Mark went white when Tommy pulled the tire iron out of the drawer, "I want you to look at it." Mark did as he was told. He flipped through a couple of pages. The expression on his face changed. He held a page up to the light, then another. He went to the back page and checked it, too. He then stood up and went to the lamp on the credenza and looked again.

Tommy wasn't the smartest guy in the world, but he could tell that it wasn't an act. Sal saw it, too, and asked, "What do you have to say for yourself?"

Mark didn't look as frightened anymore, "You are right. It's a fake. I worked a forgery case when I was the ADA. We had an expert on the stand who testified to being tipped off by the uniformity of each page. The pressure of the numbers and letters is the same throughout the entire journal. No matter how precise a person is, they don't always write exactly the same way over many weeks or months. This was done in a matter of days or hours."

"So who made it?"

"I don't have any idea, but supposedly Wood had it for a while, so I am thinking he made the copy."

"How do you know it is a copy and not just a bunch of random numbers?"

"I can't say for sure, but it is slower to make up stuff than to simply copy it. My guess is, Wood kept the original."

Tommy put the tire iron back in the drawer. "You are a smart man, too smart to try to pull something like this."

Sal and the others nodded. The color returned to Mark's face, and Sal poured him another drink.

Tommy told everyone to enjoy themselves; he was going to go consider his options.