Play Dead

I could pursue this further now, or I can wait until “maybe tomorrow.” I think I’ll wait.

Tomorrow actually starts earlier than I would like, as Karen Evans calls me at six o’clock in the morning. She apologizes for calling so early, but she wanted to get me before I went to work. She must think I’m a dairy farmer.

If there’s any sleepiness in her voice, I can’t detect it; my guess is, she’s been up since four staring at the clock and resisting the urge to call. I wish she had resisted a little longer. But Karen is, in a very real way, fighting for her own life as well as her brother’s, so I understand her impatience.

“I talked to Keith Franklin,” she says. “He said he’d contact you.”

“Good. When?”

“He’ll call you at your office. He said he has to figure out the best time and place. He seemed a little nervous about it.”

I have no idea what the hell I’m doing, yet everybody is nervous about talking to me. I guess ignorance can be intimidating.

I head for the office to wait for Franklin’s call and do whatever other work I can think of doing. Hanging over our heads is the knowledge that the decision on whether to grant us a hearing can come down at any moment. If we don’t get that, we’re obviously dead in the water, and I’ll start kicking myself for having pressed for the hearing so soon. It makes me nervous every time the phone rings, which isn’t quite as bad as it sounds, because the phone hardly ever rings.

I place a call to Cindy Spodek, an FBI agent currently assigned to the Bureau’s Boston office. Cindy and I were on the same side of a crucial case a while back, and she showed immense courage by testifying against her boss. Since he was a crook and murderer, it was the right thing to do, but it caused her considerable pain.

I consider Cindy a friend, and Laurie and I have been out with her and her husband a few times. As a friend she has the honor of my repeatedly asking her for favors, which is why I’m calling her today.

Her office tells me that she is currently at a conference in New York, one of the few breaks I’ve had lately. They promise to give her the message that I called, and she thus takes her spot alongside Franklin as a caller I am anxious to hear from.

Kevin and I spend some time going over our strategy for the hearing, in case it is granted. We’ve asked for a speedy resolution, and the prosecutor has not objected, so if we get the hearing, it will happen quickly. We have to be ready.

We’re about an hour into it when Cindy Spodek returns my call. “Andy, it’s such a pleasure to hear from you. Other people, when they call once every six months, it means they only want a favor. But in your case, it means you just want to express your friendship.”

“How true that is,” I say. “And so beautifully put.”

“So how is everything?” she asks.

“Everything is fine, just wonderful,” I say. “And that’s all I wanted to say, besides expressing my friendship.”

“I’ve got to be back in a meeting in ten minutes,” Cindy says. “So this might be an appropriate time to cut the bullshit.”

“Works for me. I need some information.”

“What a surprise,” she says.

“Somebody tried to tap my phone. The government. The government you work for.”

“Are we getting paranoid, Andy?”

“It happened soon after somebody else tried to kill me.”

Her tone immediately changes and reflects both personal concern and businesslike efficiency. “Can you meet me at three o’clock in the coffee shop of the Park Central Hotel, Fifty-sixth and Seventh Avenue? I have an hour between meetings.”

“Thanks, Cindy.”

“How’s Laurie?” she asks.

“She’s great. We still have the long-distance relationship, except right now it’s not such a long distance. She’s in town.”

“Can you bring her? I’d love to see her.”

I tell her that I’ll try, and when we hang up I call Laurie. She likes Cindy a great deal and very much wants to come along. I pick her up at the house, and we drive into the city. I take the lower level of the George Washington Bridge, which always reminds me of the scene in The Godfather in which Solozzo’s driver makes a U-turn in the middle of the bridge, so as to remove the chance of being successfully followed. If I ever tried that, I’d wind up in the Hudson River.

Cindy is waiting for us when we arrive, explaining that her meeting ended a little early. It’s just as well, since the first fifteen minutes are taken up by her and Laurie talking girl talk, relationship talk, job talk, and talk talk. With a significant amount of laughing thrown in, this could go on forever.

Finally, I can’t take it anymore. “Hello, remember me?”

They look at me as if trying to place the face. “Oh, right,” Cindy says. “You’re the guy who defends the scum balls.”

I nod. “That’s me.” I take out the phone tap that was removed by Sergeant Paulsen at my house, and I hand it to her. “Ever see one of these?” I ask.

Cindy takes it and looks at it from all angles. “This was on your phone?”

“Yes.”