Bone in the Throat - Anthony Bourdain [98]
"But he's seen a lot, hasn't he?"
"Nothing we can't use another source for—tapes, Harvey, Tommy. There's things he could say on the stand we don't want to get into, like the drugs, like Harvey skimming. Even the weapon used in the Manso killing. It could be suggested he planted it. To get drugs, stay out of jail. I'd rather not use him if we don't have to. He could undermine other witnesses on the stand."
"Any Brady material?"
"Not to my direct knowledge."
"Okay, we'll leave that for the time being. Hopefully we won't have to use him. You really think we have a shot at Sally?"
"Once he's facing life without possibility for the Manso thing? We have a shot. Charlie hates him. I imagine the feeling's mutual. Sally feels like he's gotten the short end of the stick for a long time, doing all the dirty work. We got some tapes of Charlie talking about Sally. Nothing incriminating . . . But if we were to play them for Sally on top of a murder indictment, make it look like he's gonna be the one holding the bag again . . ."
"Uh-huh . . ."
"How about you? What are you going to do about the Brooklyn DA? The two DBs out there?"
"I'm going over to see him this afternoon. Hopefully, I can bring him around. I'll make it clear we have to have first bite of this thing, that I can't jeopardize our investigation. I have things to trade. I can make it a lot easier for him with his case. I'll tell him 'bout that tape of the two Calabrese goons talking to our guy, show him some pictures if I have to . . . I can make things a lot easier on him and he knows it. After we get our indictments, he can call a news conference and tell how he's cracked the case out there all by his lonesome. I think he'll see reason. Like everybody else, he wants to be mayor someday. Torpedoing a major federal investigation for reasons of jealousy won't look good on his resume. I'll whet his appetite. He wants our CI to testify in the Brooklyn case, back up the tapes, he's going to have to make nice, take a few more days to conclude his investigation. It'll be worth it in the end. I'll make it worth it."
"He'll be discreet?" asked Al. "I don't want anything to happen to our sources here. Harvey's ready for a rubber room . . . Any more leaks he could dry up on us, run away, or worse. Sally's stupid, but he's not that stupid. He's already breathing down his neck."
"He'll be discreet. I won't tell him too much. I'll keep it within certain bounds of. . . of good sense."
"I hope so," said Al. "I told him to put away the wire, to just lay low, hang tight."
"Good. Don't worry about the Brooklyn DA. Just make sure we have Tommy Pagano sitting down there by the weekend. That's as far as I can go. After that, I can't promise anything. Don't forget the memo. Copy me on that."
"Right."
Thirty-Eight
THERE WERE THREE men in the room with Harvey in the basement of Testa Produce, Inc. Danny Testa stood in the open doorway of the refrigerated room, blowing cigar smoke through an opening in the plastic curtain. Sally stood on one side of Harvey, pulling on the end of a length of metal wire. The wire was wrapped once around Harvey's neck. Skinny stood on the other side, the other end of the wire wrapped around his gloved hand. Harvey sat in a chair, his wrists tied behind him with duct tape. His ankles were taped together also, and a rope around his waist kept him lashed to the chair. He was making a rattling sound as Sally and Skinny tugged on the wire, and his pants were wet.
"Look at that," said Skinny. "He pissed himself."
"Couldn't hold it?" said Sally, giving the wire another jerk. "Witta baby couldn't hold it? I told you, you shoulda gone before we left."
Sally laughed and gave his end of the wire another