Bino's Blues Page 5

  About a month after Clinger’s acquittal in the Darius Fontaine matter, Bino began to hear from his jailed clients that Goldman had been visiting certain inmates in the Lew Sterrett Justice Center. The fact that old Marv was showing interest in the welfare of pimps and prostitutes made the white-haired lawyer’s antennae stand erect, and Bino was just about to tip off Tommy Clinger that more trouble was afoot when Goldman saved him the effort. After making the usual leaks to his media stooges—and giving the local channels a week to air their stories of corruption in the police department—the federal prosecutor brought indictments against Nolby, Tommy Clinger, and a fistful of lesser-ranked cops, alleging a bottom-to-top funneling of bribe money from gambling businesses and whorehouses.

  Bino had a call in to Tommy Clinger for about a week before the indictments, but Clinger was on vacation and out of town. Goldman knew about Clinger’s trip, of course, and got plenty of mileage out of having the police lieutenant arrested as he and his wife stepped off a flight from Albuquerque at DFW Airport. With newsfolk taking notes like mad and mini-cams grinding, FBI agents cuffed Tommy Clinger in front of Molly and hauled him off for a night in the cooler. Captain Terry Nolby’s arrest as he returned to his office from lunch drew equal media coverage. Bino’s next contact with his client came the following morning at the arraignment and bond hearing in front of Judge Hazel Burke Sanderson. As Bino, Clinger, Terry Nolby, Rusty Benson, and the other cops along with their lawyers stood in a cluster before the bench, old Hazel listened in rapture to a series of we-the-people speeches from Goldman, then set bond for all of the policemen at ten grand apiece. Bino had already made arrangements with a bondsman, and Tommy Clinger was free in short order. Clinger then accompanied Bino back to the Davis Building. There occurred the first in a series of meetings which were to convince the big lawyer that keeping Tommy’s chestnuts out of the fire this time was going to be a real bitch of an assignment.

  At first Bino had thought that the rather vacant expression on Clinger’s face was the result of the night spent in jail. Tommy looked like a former tackle who’d let the groceries get out of hand once his football days were over, a thick strong body with an extra layer of fat, a round pleasant face over a once-firm chin beginning to sag. His five o’clock shadow had lengthened overnight into the beginnings of a full-blown beard. He sat on the sofa beneath Bino’s old basketball photo. Bino tilted his swivel chair and crossed his ankles on the corner of his desk.

  “There’s going to be a big difference between this deal and the other case, the beating charges,” Bino began.

  “How’s that?” Clinger’s tone was dull, his expression disinterested. Somewhere in Bino’s mind, a warning bell sounded.

  “Because in your first trial we had some evidence. Now it’s just going to be your word against a bunch of pimps and whores that Goldman’s going to drag over from the county jail.”

  “Those shitheels are liable to say anything,” Clinger said.

  “Right on,” Bino said. “The main thing we’ve got going for us is that our skirts are clean. Witnesses that are full of bullshit generally trip themselves up, one way or the other.”

  Clinger studied his knees and didn’t say anything.

  Bino’s head tilted. “Tommy?”

  Clinger pulled out a wadded handkerchief and blew his nose.

  “Our skirts are clean, aren’t they?” Bino said.

  Clinger folded the handkerchief into a rectangle, then into a square. “Well, there were a couple of deals.”

  Bino looked at the ceiling. “Uh-oh.”

  Clinger put up the handkerchief. “Now, I didn’t get any money.”

  “Since you’ve got a wife, please don’t tell me you opted for a free piece of ass from one of the hookers,” Bino said. “Goldman would really get his jollies over that.”

  Clinger’s lips tightened. “I haven’t gotten a free anything. No money, not a dime.” He scratched his cheek. “It’s control.”

  “Oh? Control of what?”

  “If you’re going to know what’s going on in a neighborhood, you’ve got to have information. Any cop will tell you that. Without cooperation from somebody, you can’t catch a cold. So we … ”

  Bino folded his arms.

  “Look,” Clinger said. “Say there’s a guy been hitting liquor stores. Every one of these holdup artists is into drugs, and ninety-nine percent of ’em run with whores. They want to brag to somebody, and their main audience is a broad they’re screwing.”

  Bino grinned. “That’s been my main bragging place, okay.”

  “So you just … ” Clinger said. “You make deals. So a guy’s running a bar, maybe operating a few poker machines and paying off under the counter. You bust the guy, he gets a two-hundred-dollar fine and he’s out of business. You leave him alone, he tells you who blew two clerks away in a holdup. Which is better?”

  “I wouldn’t touch the answer to that one,” Bino said. “But I’m getting your point.”

  “Same with the hookers,” Clinger said. “You drag in a carload, they get a blood test and a fine, big deal. Those girls got the inside scoop on murderers, robbers, you name it. So you go easy on them and learn a lot, or really let the hammer down and know zilch about the real serious beefs coming down.” He lowered sleepy-lidded eyes. “I didn’t create the world, Bino. I just live in it.”

  Bino took his feet down and thumbed through some papers on his desk. “So nobody’s actually taken any bribes, huh?”

  Clinger rested his forearms on his thighs, interlocked his fingers, and regarded the floor.

  “Tommy?” Bino said.

  Clinger rubbed his eyes. “I said I hadn’t taken any money.”

  “Meaning, somebody else has?” Bino said.

  “Now, I don’t talk about other people,” Clinger said, “even if it means going to jail.”

  “Goddammit, Tommy, I’m not the FBI,” Bino said. “I’m your lawyer. If you don’t want to level with me, find yourself another guy.”

  Clinger’s cheek twitched. “You’re working for me. Not the other way around.”

  Bino intertwined his fingers behind his head. “No, I’m not, Tommy. I’m representing you, and that means exactly what it says. When we get in the courtroom, I am you, and if I don’t know everything that’s going on I’m going to do a fucked-up job. So fill me in, right now, or tomorrow I’m filing a motion to withdraw.”

  Clinger’sjaw slacked. “You’d do that?”

  Bino blinked. “You betcha. I’ve represented everything from paperhangers to pedophiles, and I tell ’em all, You don’t want to let me in on the details, then fuck you.”

  Clinger licked his lips. Finally, he said, “Anything I tell you is between us.”

  “Like I said, I’m your lawyer.”

  Clinger sighed. “I didn’t start this. It’s been going on long before I even thought about being a cop.”

  “Most things have,” Bino said.

  “There’s some beat guys that do make a little money on the side. I couldn’t testify to that, I’ve never seen a cent changing hands.”

  Bino couldn’t say anything for a moment, then said, “Jesus H. Christ, don’t you see what’s going to happen? Goldman’s already cut deals with the hookers, he’s going to have them telling who they paid what. Once he gets them to finger the cop that took the money, he’ll cut a deal with the cop to say he passed the money along to you. The bottom line is that you’re probably fucked.”

  “They didn’t pass it to me,” Clinger said. “Not a quarter.”

  “But they did pass it to somebody,” Bino said. “Come on, Tommy, give me a break.”

  “I already told you, I’ve never seen a dime changing hands.”

  “No,” Bino said, “but you know about it.”

  Clinger expelled air, accepting the fact that he was in a world of hurt. “There are certain cops,”
he said. “Officially they report to me, but they really don’t. Some doors upstairs are always open to them.”

  “Whose door?” Bino said. “Terry Nolby’s?”

  “You said that,” Clinger said. “I didn’t.”

  Bino cocked his head, getting it now. “Sure. Vice was Nolby’s, before he moved up the ladder.”

  “I said I’m not talking about anybody.”

  “So what’ve we got?” Bino said. “We got you, the guy in the middle, that’s going to claim his skirts are clean while all this shit’s been going on around him.”

  Clinger’s face softened. “Just don’t throw me to the wolves.”

  “I won’t do that,” Bino said. “I’ve never done that to a client in my life. Christ, Tommy, how could you let all that go on?”

  Clinger shrugged. “I wanted to be lieutenant. Right now I wish I’d never heard of the job. But it meant a lot to me, you know?”

  That had been eight months ago, and the closer the case moved to trial, the more Bino felt up the creek without a paddle. Instead of his usual leaking of information to the media every week or so, Goldman had kept his battle plan under wraps until just a few days earlier when the series of articles smearing Tommy Clinger had begun. This morning’s newspaper hatchet job pretty well cleared things up: Rusty and his client were joining up with the feds and throwing Tommy Clinger to the dogs. As he made his grim and determined way to court, Bino did his best to shake the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. It wasn’t going to be easy.

  6

  HE APPROACHED THE EARLE CABELL FEDERAL BUILDING FROM the east, walking on the south side of Commerce Street against the flow of noisy one-way traffic. The sky was a hazy blue dotted with wispy cloud banks; though it wasn’t yet nine in the morning and he was in shade, Bino’s forehead was damp and his collar stuck to his neck. Directly ahead, the mammoth glistening ball atop Reunion Tower crowned the skyline. He reached the federal building and did a column-left through the revolving door into the lobby. Sudden refrigerated air raised goose pimples along his jaw. His head throbbed like a thousand beating tom-toms.

  He rode the elevator up to the courtroom level, set his briefcase on the conveyor, and passed through the security arch as the U.S. marshal on guard yawned and looked away. The plush-carpeted hallway was a subdued madhouse, lawyers and clients conversing on corridor benches, minicam operators standing ready for the action to start. Bino dodged around a gang of newspeople—three voting guys in sport coats and two young women in calf-length skirts, all with pads and ballpoints in hand—and took two long strides toward the courtroom entry before halting in his tracks.

  Three corridor benches were jam-full of what looked like a Quaker convention, women in long gray dresses with white starched collars and men with Abe Lincoln beards and stovepipe hats. Bino turned around and said to the reporters in general, “Who’s the Pilgrim’s Progress bunch?”

  “Mountainites,” a big-nosed newsman said. “Big Preacher Daniel goes to trial today, right across from you guys. Good for us, we can kill two birds with one stone. If nothing’s going on in the cop trial, we can skip across the hall and check up on the Mountainites.”

  “Good thinking,” Bino said. “Just don’t get my client confused with the Big Preacher, okay?” He shuddered as he looked at the stone-faced religious nuts. At closer glance the men were younger than they appeared; the beards could fool you. The women’s mouths were set in rigid lines.

  Mountainites, huh? Bino thought. Repent, brother, or we’ll blow your ass off. Big Preacher Daniel had drawn a pretty firm judge, Edgar Bryson, quite a Bible-banger in his own right. Bryson was strictly dunk ’em to save ’em and Peace on Earth, Brother, right up until he strapped the thirty or forty years on unsuspecting defendants. Bino wondered who would win in a Scripture-quoting contest, Big Preacher Daniel or the judge. He edged away from the newspeople and treaded lightly toward Hazel Sanderson’s courtroom.

  He came abreast of the Mountainites, watching them from the corner of his eye and recalling what he knew about them. A synagogue bombed. A Jewish reporter cut down by machine gun bullets. Blacks dragged screaming from their homes in the middle of the night, the men castrated and then executed firing squad style. The latest episode in the Mountainites’ East Texas reign of terror had to do with the burning of a church rumored to admit homosexual members. Bino whistled nonchalantly as the Mountainites glared at him. He supposed that they glared at everybody.

  From down the hall a deep male voice said loudly, “Stand back. Back up, please.” Bino turned.

  Coming off the elevator was Judge Edgar Bryson, surrounded fore and aft by U.S. marshals in Stetsons and western boots. Judge Bryson was only a couple of inches shorter than Bino’s six-six, had thick silver hair, razored and combed, and wore glasses in dark plastic frames. The jurist walked erect among his escorts, wearing a dove gray suit and red tie, and he returned the stares from the Mountainites like Samson about to raise some hell among the Philistines. As the envoy drew near the benches, the Mountainites rose as one.

  The largest of the cultists, a broad-shouldered man with flecks of gray in his beard, began a basso, singsong chant: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want … ” One by one his brothers and sisters joined in, and by the time he got to “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures,” he led a full-fledged chorus.

  Bino thought that Edgar Bryson did a marvelous job of not letting the cultists buffalo him. Bryson ignored the chanting as he nodded and smiled in Bino’s direction. The judge’s lower lip trembled slightly, but otherwise Bryson looked as calm as if he were on a stroll through the park. “Morning, Mr. Phillips,” Bryson boomed, and Bino squeaked back, “Hi, Judge.” Then the judge and his escorts did an abrupt right turn to enter Bryson’s courtroom. As the Mountainites joined hands to sing “Amazing Grace,” Bino went on into Hazel Sanderson’s court.

  Bino spotted Marvin Goldman beyond the rail on the prosecution side. The Assistant U.S.D.A. had close-cropped black hair—too black of late, and Bino suspected that old Marv was using Grecian Formula—and was hunched over talking a mile a minute to Terry Nolby. The police captain was dressed in a brown suit, had a pointed nose and receding chin, and his head was cocked in a listening attitude. Rusty Benson sat on the other side of his client, and Rusty had on a pale blue iridescent which contrasted nicely with his tan. Involuntarily, Bino’s lip curled.

  He passed through the gate and neared the prosecution’s table on his way to the defense side. Rusty looked up, half smiled, and raised a hand in greeting; Bino shot the handsome lawyer a look that would wilt roses. Rusty dropped his gaze, and suddenly was very interested in whatever Goldman was saying to Nolbv. Goldman showed Bino a happy grin. Bino ignored the prosecutor, went straight to the defense table, and set down his attaché case with a solid thump. Screw Goldman, screw Rusty, screw Nolby, and screw the horses they all rode in on.

  Bino pretended to go through his file—which he already had committed to memory—as he watched Goldman from the corner of his eye. The prosecutor rose, took a couple of steps in the direction of the defense side—Son of a bitch is going to rub it in, Bino thought—then came to a screeching halt. The courtroom bailiff, a wheezy older guy who walked with a limp, hobbled out to stand at attention before the bench and bellow, “Awwl rise.”

  Clothing rustled and papers rattled as the spectators stood. There were muted clanks and snaps as lawyers put away the briefs and motions—or more likely, Bino thought, the sports pages—which they’d been studying. Judge Hazel Burke Sanderson strode majestically in from her private entry, favored one and all with a scalding glare, and ascended to her throne.

  Hazel the Horrible was in rare form. She was a blocky, square-shouldered woman of about sixty with steel-gray hair the consistency of papier-mâché. Martha Washington glasses rode the hump in her broad nose. She wore no makeup, her lips firmly pursed to show that if anybody intended to give her any guff
they’d better think twice about it. Hazel Sanderson didn’t like Bino Phillips for shit; Bino knew it and didn’t particularly care. She looked first at Goldman, and, fleetingly and contemptuously, at Bino, then swept the courtroom at large with her fearsome gaze. She said, “Be seated,” in a voice like doom, then sank grandly into her chair. Bino sat, thinking, Come on, Tommy Clinger. Get here, and fast.

  The judge cleared her throat. “There’s a hearing this morning which is going to take quite a bit of time.” Her raspy voice reminded Bino of the Wicked Witch of the West just as the old broad was about to put the screws to Dorothy and Toto. “In view of this hearing,” she said, “all other matters before this court are hereby suspended until further notice. Emergencies, writs of habeas corpus and whatnot, will be heard at the court’s discretion. This means that anyone may … ”

  Bino tuned old Hazel out as she droned on, explaining to the other lawyers in court that they now had an excuse to fuck off for a couple of weeks, and turned his attention to Terry Nolby. The police captain resembled a damp rat. Bino had made it a point in recent weeks to learn everything he could about Nolby—though he hadn’t told Tommy Clinger, Bino had suspected the captain all along as a potential rollover artist—and every time he looked at Nolby, the white-haired lawyer couldn’t help picturing damp, stinky underarms. According to Clinger, Nolby’s perspiration problem caused him to go through as many as four shirts in a single day. Another tidbit on the captain: None of the detectives liked to go to lunch with Nolby because, even though he made more money than anyone else in the unit, the captain was too cheap to leave a tip. Neither his stinky underarms nor his tightness with the dollar provided any defense ammunition, but Nolby’s Ebenezer Scrooge tendencies brought something else to mind.