"A big mistake. One that could get me on the hit list."
"You covered it well. It won't happen again."
"Promise me, Tarrance. Promise me no one will ever again approach me in public."
Tarrance looked down the aisle and nodded.
"No, Tarrance. I need to hear it from your mouth. Promise me."
"Okay, okay. It won't happen again. I promise."
"Thanks. Now maybe I can eat at a restaurant without fear of being grabbed."
"You've made your point."
An old black man with a cane inched toward them, smiled and walked past. The rest-room door slammed. The Greyhound rode the left lane and blew past the lawful drivers.
Tarrance flipped through a magazine. Mitch gazed into the countryside. The man with the cane finished his business and wobbled to his seat on the front row.
"So what brings you here?" Tarrance asked, flipping pages.
"I don't like airplanes. I always take the bus."
"I see. Where would you like to start?"
"Voyles said you had a game plan."
"I do. I just need a quarterback."
"Good ones are very expensive."
"We've got the money."
"It'll cost a helluva lot more than you think. The way I figure it, I'll be throwing away a forty-year legal career at, say, an average of half a million a year."
"That's twenty million bucks."
"I know. But we can negotiate."
"That's good to hear. You're assuming that you'll work, or practice, as you say, for forty years. That's a very precarious assumption. Just for fun, let's assume that within five years we bust up and indict you along with all of your buddies. And that we obtain convictions, and you go off to prison for a few years. They won't keep you long because you're a white-collar type, and of course you've heard how nice the federal pens are. But at any rate, you'll lose your license, your house, your little BMW. Probably your wife. When you get out, you can open up a private investigation service like your old friend Lomax. It's easy work, unless you sniff the wrong underwear."
"Like I said. It's negotiable."
"All right. Let's negotiate. How much do you want?"
"For what?"
Tarrance closed the magazine, placed it under his seat and opened a thick paperback. He pretended to read. Mitch spoke from the corner of his mouth with his eyes on the median.
"That's a very good question," Tarrance said softly, just above the distant grind of the diesel engine. "What do we want from you? Good question. First, you have to give up your career as a lawyer. You'll have to divulge secrets and records that belong to your clients. That, of course, is enough to get you disbarred, but that won't seem important. You and I must agree that you will hand us on a silver platter. Once we agree, if we agree, the rest will fall in place. Second, and most important, you will give us enough documentation to indict every member of and most of the top Morolto people. The records are in the little building there on Front Street."
"How do you know this?"
Tarrance smiled. "Because we spend billions of dollars fighting organized crime. Because we've tracked the Moroltos for twenty years. Because we have sources within the family. Because Hodge and Kozinski were talking when they were murdered. Don't sell us short, Mitch."
"And you think I can get the information out?"
"Yes, Counselor. You can build a case from the inside that will collapse and break up one of the largest crime families in the country. You gotta lay out for us. Whose office is where? Names of all secretaries, clerks, paralegals. Who works on what files? Who's got which clients? The chain of command. Who's on the fifth floor? What's up there? Where are the records kept? Is there a central storage area? How much is computerized? How much is on microfilm? And, most important, you gotta bring the stuff out and hand it to us. Once we have probable cause, we can go in with a small army and get everything. But that's an awfully big step. We gotta have a very tight and solid case before we go crashing in with search warrants."
"Is that all you want?"
"No. You'll have to testify against all of your buddies at their trials. Could take years."
Mitch breathed deeply and closed his eyes. The bus slowed behind a caravan of mobile homes split in two. Dusk was approaching, and, one at a time, the cars in the westbound lane brightened with headlights. Testifying at trial!
This, he had not thought of. With millions to spend for the best criminal lawyers, the trials could drag on forever.
Tarrance actually began reading the paperback, a Louis L'Amour. He adjusted the reading light above them, as if he was indeed a real passenger on a real journey. After thirty miles of no talk, no negotiation, Mitch removed his sunglasses and looked at Tarrance.
"What happens to me?"
"You'll have a lot of money, for what that's worth. If you have any sense of morality, you can face yourself each day. You can live anywhere in the country, with a new identity, of course. We'll find you a job, fix your nose, do anything you want, really."
Mitch tried to keep his eyes on the road, but it was impossible. He glared at Tarrance. "Morality? Don't ever mention that word to me again, Tarrance. I'm an innocent victim, and you know it."
Tarrance grunted with a smart-ass grin.
They rode in silence for a few miles.
"What about my wife?"
"Yeah, you can keep her."
"Very funny."
"Sorry. She'll get everything she wants. How much does she know?"
"Everything." He thought of the girl on the beach. "Well, almost everything."
"We'll get her a fat government job with the Social Security Administration anywhere you want. It won't be that bad, Mitch."
"It'll be wonderful. Until an unknown point in the future when one of your people opens his or her mouth and lets something slip to the wrong person, and you'll read about me or my wife in the paper. The Mob never forgets, Tarrance. They're worse than elephants. And they keep secrets better than your side. You guys have lost people, so don't deny it."
"I won't deny it. And I'll admit to you that they can be ingenious when they decide to kill."
"Thanks. So where do I go?"