F Train (15 page)

“He did some time, not a lot. Last I heard he got deported back to China.”

“So it couldn't be him in the picture. He couldn't get back in the country, not after a felony conviction. Not legally anyway.”

“Let's look at those snapshots again.”

Flo produced photocopy pictures of John James Reilly, Marie Priester, and, occasionally, mandarin Wall Street lawyer William Eng lurking around the fringes. Slowly, she moved through the pictures, shot after shot, restaurant to bar to restaurant.

“Here, Flo, this one, this guy.” Frank pointed at a shot of FBI special agent John James Reilly, the paralegal Marie Priester, and a server, possibly a bartender, standing right behind them. No one in the frame seemed to realize a photograph was being taken.

“This Asian guy back here in the white shirt and the black bow tie looks like the guy who maybe was Keating's client. A real resemblance, I got this strong sense.” He tapped the face in the photo. “To me, he looks like the guy I'm talking about, a convicted killer. Tall for a Chinese, tough build, athletic, at least maybe midthirties by now. Like in the picture. Sly, and I don't mean slant-eyed, I'm not being racist here. I mean just very smart and very tough. It was a loan shark killing and he did the hit.” Frank tapped the photo again. “Some other Chinese guy caught it, a bullet in the head, he was a developer in Chinatown. But this guy here, the perp, he kept his mouth shut, wouldn't say who paid him to whack the developer. And golden mouthpiece Bobby Keating, miracle man, he still got him reduced time.”

“Then golden Bobby ought to know,” said Flo. “At least he can tell us if the face in this picture was his client. No violation of the confidence privilege doing that. But it's a different kind of miracle, if his former client is back in the country. Compare this shot to the files first. I'd love to see Keating's reaction, if it's the same guy.”

“Maybe he can also tell us who paid him his fee that last time. Counselor Keating doesn't come cheap.”

“He can always say he doesn't remember anymore.”

“Keating? No way, memory like an elephant. Almost as big as one, too. And just as thick skinned.”

2:20
P.M.

Robert J. Keating, Attorney-at-Law, aka Golden Bobby, bore a
resemblance—certainly
not to an elephant, not to Flo's eyes—closer to an African Buddha, if such a demi-deity existed, an omniscient-seeming, mirthful, otherworldly mass of a man.

Cappuccino colored, six feet tall, and, at about three hundred pounds, perhaps the same footage in circumference as in height. Golden Bobby's shaved head, impeccable tailoring, manicured nails projected a tranquil air of proximate perfection with a demeanor to match, as close to divinity as one could ever expect to encounter on earth. Hard for Flo hard to know whether to genuflect or shake his hand or kiss his ring, a ruby number at least the size of a cherry.

She extended her hand and Golden Bobby raised it to his lips. “I'm so honored, Lieutenant.” His voice was basso profundo, his tone Sunday church choir jubilant, sincerity enlivening his every word. “You've got a reputation, Lieutenant, scares the devil out of us defense lawyers. But I, for one, thank God almighty for you. Because if it weren't for peace officers like yourself, Ms. Ott, I'd be out of business. I'd be on Wall Street, just another working stiff at the daily grind, making millions.”

He smiled a broad smile, so warm it made Flo laugh, a smile exposing a mouth full of brilliant gold teeth, as welcoming as a burst of Caribbean sunshine after an ice storm. Golden Bobby certainly deserved his appellation. He noticed Flo staring at his mouth, his smile incandescent. “It's my fallback pension, Lieutenant, the only jewelry a man can wear that women really love him for.”

“I think they're beautiful,” she was surprised to hear herself say. “Wish I could get some of my own. But gold is beyond this detective's pay scale.”

“Certainly for an honest cop like you. You been out collaring more clients for me, Lieutenant Ott? Hope so. Mind you, I'm not offering any kickbacks on my fees.”

“Now that you mention it, counselor, we just collared some Russians with a drugstore's ten-year supply of Oxy stuffed in an antique trunk.”

“I heard. Big congrats. But the Russians want us black folk only as customers. Not as defense attorneys.” Golden Bobby flashed the sunshine smile. “Russians haven't learned yet, takes time, you see, they're still new to this country.”

“There's an American woman with them, a Southerner.”

“White? Dixie cracker? Even less likely to want my services.”

He released a thunderclap of laughter and again Flo laughed right along with him. She could see how Golden Bobby's reputation as a jury charmer, a backroom negotiator, a lustrous aureate mouthpiece, was well earned. Golden Bobby could melt even a killer's heart.

The Keating law office, however, was rather less impressive than its tenant. Not much persuasive potency in molded plastic chairs (worn, green) of a style often found in small-town backwater airports, and a metal desk (scuffed, khaki) no better than the municipally issued model assigned Flo. Golden Bobby's bare-boned premises were inescapably low-rent: rubber-tiled floor (black squares, green squares), carpetless. A single window looking out on an airshaft. Bobby Keating's office, light years removed from Wall Street, was a second-floor end-of-a-hall two rooms on East Twelfth and Broadway, an aerie diagonally across from the Strand bookstore, the dusty landmark establishment where Flo had difficulty picturing Golden Bobby as a customer, his resplendent bulk blocking at least two book-jammed aisles, bringing all literary trade to a halt.

Keating wasn't a man to waste money on inessentials. If it didn't help acquit, to paraphrase, it certainly didn't fit—not in Bobby's domain. In the golden one's estimation, a mere prodigal
extravagance—like
office furniture—said nothing to anyone who counted, not to juries or to judges, and as for his clients, the radiant counselor usually met them on their own turf in holding cells where furniture was sparse and nothing to brag about.

“A few years back, you represented a defendant of Chinese descent.”

“Many. Mainly drugs. Dealers are about the only defendants who can afford fifty-two weeks of good solid lawyering. Except for the affable brothers of Saint Anthony, of course. And rap stars. And snakeheads, the inestimable people smugglers, they're really rich.” Again, the merry thunderclap, the cascade of cappuccino chins shivering with laughter, the luminous smile.

And the penny dropped for Flo. Snakeheads. Snakeskins. She was in the right place here. “That time it was murder one,” she said. “You bargained it down to manslaughter one.”

“That was Lee Ho Fook. Anyway, that's the name he used here in this country. That's the same name you'll find in the records. He was an undocumented alien. He did some time, he paid his debt to American society.” Golden Bobby shrugged his eyebrows. “The victim was one of his own and Lee got deported. End of story. What do you want him for this time?”

Flo opened her briefcase and extracted a copy of the bar scene photograph. Excised: Special Agent John James Reilly and paralegal Marie Priester.

“This him?”

Golden Bobby glanced at the picture. “You don't have files? Mug shots?”

“We do. We're just looking for confirmation.”

“To what end?”

“The F train killings. The other people in that picture were two of the victims. Here's the whole shot.”

“Whoa, now that's something.” Counselor Keating examined the picture.

“Is he Lee Ho Fook?” Flo said.

“Could be. That's not a great shot, it's a little out of focus.”

“How did Lee Ho Fook, an undocumented immigrant, manage to pay your fees?”

Golden Bobby stood and started pacing the floor, his shoes squeaking on the rubber tiles. “Weeelll now…” And a deep, rough chuckling commenced, like the sound of a man trying to bring up phlegm. “That was such a
looong
time ago, Lieutenant Ott. And How Long is a Chinaman's name, right?” Again, the thunderclap, but this jolly bolt enticed no more than a tight smile from Flo. “I don't honestly remember the specifics, Lieutenant, but you know what Eric Hobsbawm said…”

Hobsbawm, Eric
.

“Hobsbawm?”

“British professor, my philosophy and history tutor at Oxford when I was a Rhodes Scholar.”

Golden Bobby paused to let that one sink in, true or false. He stopped pacing and straddled a plastic chair. Under his great glittery mass, the chair seemed to vanish.

“Oxford,” said Flo. “That, counselor, sounds pretty impressive.”

“It was okay. Most of them were snobs there, bigots, heads halfway up their derrières. Otherwise, it was an all right place, not overly hard. I stayed two years, could've stayed three but got bored. They don't exactly kill themselves with work at Oxford, which I suppose is good preparation for the lives most of them lead. Great talkers, glib, never shut up. Oxford is a wonderful place for precisely that, lots and lots of talk. Oxford is terrific for anything you're going to do that involves jaw-jaw, as long as you're not talking with people who wear their pants halfway down their butts, do dope, tote guns, travel in posses, and, instead of neckties, flaunt diamond-studded platinum crosses weighing a couple of pounds. But as I was saying about Eric.”

Eric
…“Hobsbawm?”

“Right. I got along with Eric. Eric had a theory about the underclass and their natural leaders, how the established powers interpret acts by underclass leaders as crimes. And legislate accordingly.”

“Interesting. But what's this got to do with Lee Ho Fook? And murder one.”

“Not to get too philosophical about it now, Lieutenant, but Mr. Lee was a natural-born leader. His undocumented people here are an underclass. And the underclass look after the leaders they look up to. Logical when you think about it. And by the way, Lieutenant, please don't forget, manslaughter one, that's what we pleaded and that's what we got. And I didn't probe the whys or wherefores of how his people got the money to pay Lee's legal fees, but they did. Honest, hardworking people, the Chinese. I believe we owe them a lot. In fact, I know we owe them a billion dollars a week now, every week forever and ever, no amens, ever since Iraq and Afghanistan. Our best bankers, the Chinese. And I for one don't ever want to argue with our Chinese bankers. No way, not me. Never know when they might seek my good counsel again.”

Leader of the underclass
…“So how did Mr. Lee, working-class hero, get in the country? The first time, I mean.”

“Remember Riis Park?”

“The beach? Next to Breezy Point, I'm out there every summer.”

“Right. I'm talking about the night a leaky tin can freighter washed up in the surf there, turned over on its side and dumped a few hundred undocumented Chinese into freezing waters. Many of them drowned. Lee Ho Fook was one of them. But he didn't drown. And he didn't get caught. He was a strong swimmer, Lee.”

Flo recalled the event, a notorious slice of New York history that, over the years and not all that many years, congealed in the collective New York memory with a million other dark slices. “Yes,” she said, “I remember that incident. The survivors got picked up by the park police. I think it was midwinter, middle of the night. And no one else around.”

“Lee didn't get picked up. He saved a few of the others in the water and he hid them way far out in the dunes. Until the next night. And then they walked with Lee leading them.
Walked
, Lieutenant. On a New York winter night, in thin, damp, sandy clothes. They walked across the Marine Parkway Bridge and all the way down Flatbush Avenue and over the Brooklyn Bridge right into Chinatown. Direct. No deviations, no detours. No wandering around Brooklyn to somewhere like Bensonhurst or winding their way up into Astoria in Queens. But straight to the heart of the gold mountain. You know, Lieutenant, the Chinese banks in Manhattan Chinatown take in more cash per day than all the other retail banks in the city, combined. Lee knew that. He knew where his future lay. He did his homework before he came to this country. And that's determination. Like I said, a natural-born leader, Lee Ho Fook. No sidetracking him.”

“He killed someone, he did a number for a loan shark.”

“That's one story. There were others. So many stories, Lieutenant Ott, from so many sides. All a question of
interpretation.
You have yours, they have theirs, I have mine. But in the end, it comes down to a jury and a judge. And the New York County district attorney. If Lee hadn't been undocumented, I might have gotten him off one hundred percent scot-free innocent, clean as the driven snow. I'm not saying I'm a Johnnie Cochran, none of that ‘If my arguments rhyme, he can't do time.' No, Lieutenant, you won't hear that from me. But we could've had
all
those charges dismissed, just like that, if he had a Green Card.” Golden Bobby snapped a pair of sausage-sized fingers. “Not gone to trial and forget about a jury. A Green Card–carrying hero, our Lee Ho Fook, a model immigrant, you get the picture. Too good to fail, too good to jail—if you'll pardon my rhyme. But Lee wasn't in that privileged class. Lee had no Green Card, only a forged Social Security card and a forged driver's license. They're fairly easy to counterfeit, maybe because they make them that way on purpose. Anyway, I told him, I said, ‘Lee, I can't lie about all that. You are what you are, Lee. And I'm not going to get disbarred for you. I may not be one of your people, but I can still do more for you in our criminal courts than any of your own kind here.' ”

“And what did he work at? Besides whack jobs.”

“The usual, to start out. Dishwasher, food prep, busboy, deliveryman, waiter. Lee worked his way up the food chain, fast. And all over the place, Manhattan, Boston, Chicago, D.C. A job ends? Get another job. He had a debt to pay off to the snakeheads, the people who brought him in the country. You see, Lieutenant, the fact is they all have to live almost like slaves, plugging away until they pay off that big debt to the snakeheads. That's what they call the people smugglers from China. Snakeheads. Coming up from Mexico they got another name, coyotes or something. Anywhere from thirty-five thousand to fifty thousand U.S. dollars a pop. That's what Chinese snakeheads charge, and that's a lot of green, if you're making minimum wage or less. Living in tenement dormitories like prisoners and then on top of that they're charging you rent for your crumby little cot.”