Judge & Jury - James Patterson [32]
“That would be priceless.” O’Flynn cackled. “I’m in. I think even Judge Seiderman would get a charge out of it.”
Lorraine must’ve liked the image, because she let another one loose. Shrill and penetrating. Everybody laughed even louder than the first time.
Andie had to admit that over the past week she had gotten close to these people. Maybe it was the nature of what they were doing. Sharing the same room, hearing the same sick, unsettling testimony.
She looked around the room. “Listen, it’s my kid’s birthday tomorrow. I arranged for him to come back with us and spend the night. What do you guys say about soda and cake in my room after dinner?”
“Hey, a party,” O’Flynn said, nodding for all of them.
“We’ll get party hats and noisemakers!” Rosella exclaimed. “Like New Year’s Eve. Be a birthday he’ll never forget.”
“Courtesy of the United States government,” Marc said. “They owe us something after all this, right? What’s the little guy’s name?”
“Jarrod.” Andie smiled. “That’s great. Thank you, guys. There’s just one other thing. I kinda promised you’d all bring presents.”
Chapter 35
I WATCHED THE JURY file back in for the afternoon session. Minutes later, another star witness was on the stand. He was an ex-mobster named Joseph Zaro, a former union official in the Local 407. The 407 was the contracting union Cavello controlled in New Jersey.
Zaro explained how for years contractors were squeezed for payoffs to get building contracts. How it literally took a hundred thousand dollars in a suitcase dropped at union headquarters if you even wanted workers to show up for the job. Or, if a contractor wanted a mix of union and nonunion labor to save money, that cost you 20 percent of the savings up front.
For years, we knew it was the biggest racket going in New Jersey, and that Cavello was literally skimming millions off the top. We just couldn’t catch him.
“How many contracts did you rig for Mr. Cavello?” Joel Goldenberger asked Zaro.
“Dozens. Hundreds?” The witness shrugged. “And there were two other guys like me doing the exact same job.”
“The exact same job? Meaning extortion?” Joel Goldenberger pressed him.
The witness shrugged again as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “Yeah.”
“And what would happen,” the prosecutor asked, “if the contractor refused to pay?”
“Then they wouldn’t get no labor, Mr. Goldenberger.”
“And if they still refused to pay? Or if they used outside workers?”
“You mean outside our union?” the witness asked.
“Yes.”
Zaro looked around blankly for a second; then he scratched his head. “You understand, we were talking Dominic Cavello here, Mr. Goldenberger. I don’t think I ever recall that happening.”
A few people around the courtroom laughed.
Goldenberger smiled, too. “So this was basically a monopoly? Mr. Cavello over there could dictate terms to the entire construction business?”
“There wasn’t a building went up in north Jersey, and parts of New York, that Dominic Cavello didn’t get a piece of.” The witness laughed out loud.
Even Cavello seemed to curl a smile at that one. As if he was proud of his business acumen. We had him dead to rights. Murder. Union tampering. Fraud. You could read it on every face in the courtroom. You could even read it on Cavello’s face, beneath the cold stare that seemed to say, This doesn’t bother me at all.
Now the prosecution had one final witness, one who could testify about an even uglier side of Cavello. One who could drive the nail into his coffin for good.
Me.
Chapter 36
I TOOK THE STAND the next afternoon.
“Please state your name.” Joel Goldenberger stood up and faced me. “And what your association is with this trial.”
“Nicholas Pellisante,” I said. “I’m an SAC in the New York office of the FBI. I’m the head of a unit known as C-10. We oversee organized crime.”
“Thank you. And in your role as head of this unit, Agent Pellisante,