Black River Read Online Free PDF Page B

Nico seemed to feel as if he were invincible. As if the pair of hard-won mistrials had somehow guaranteed his future infallibility.
    “That’s not the point, and you know it,” he said. “What’s the point of baiting the bear unnecessarily?”
    “He’s been nipping at our heels for years. Harrying us. All those stories and articles. I want to take his measure for a moment.” He hunched his shoulders and spread his big hands. “A little talk. That’s all.”
    “A little talk is often a dangerous thing.”
    Nicholas Balagula emitted a short dry laugh. “If danger was what I had in mind, Mikhail, I’d send Gerardo and Ramón, and then our nosy Mr. Frank Corso would know what danger is all about.”
    Ivanov opened his mouth to object, but it was too late. Nico was already on his feet, already stepping out from behind the defense table and walking across the silent courtroom. His hands swung at his sides as he strolled toward the lone spectator at the other end of the room.
    Behind his stone face, Ivanov inwardly grimaced and then began moving in the same direction, vowing, as he walked, that when this was over and they were both finally free and clear, he would retire to his villa in Nice. Maybe take a mistress. Perhaps a woman with children, upon whom he could dote in his old age.
    At the far end of the room, Raymond Butler stopped talking and pressed the phone hard against his chest. Renee Rogers stood statue-still as Nicholas Balagula walked past the prosecution table and then began to veer toward the rail…toward Corso.
    Balagula stopped at the rail, six feet from the chair in which Corso sat.
    “You would be Mr. Frank Corso,” he said.
    Corso got slowly to his feet. He was four inches taller than Balagula but gave away at least fifty pounds to the older man. “Yes,” he said. “I would be.”
    “You’ve been making quite a hobby out of me,” Balagula said.
    “In your case, I like to think of it as a job,” Corso replied.
    The pair of bailiffs who flanked the judge’s bench began to move toward the men.
    “I am but a poor émigré to your country. I have—”
    Corso cut him off. “In your country you were a murdering piece of shit, and now you’re a murdering piece of shit here.”
    Balagula pressed his thighs against the rail and leaned toward Corso. “I have used better men than you as if they were women,” he said.
    Corso smiled, took a step forward, and leaned down into Balagula’s face. “And afterward, they sent flowers. Right?”
    “You should learn to mind your own business.”
    “Like those babies in Fairmont Hospital?”
    Mikhail Ivanov stepped between the men. He used his arms to push Balagula back a step. “The car is ready,” he said. “We must go.”
    Balagula kept his gaze locked on Corso as the bailiffs stepped into the gap between the two men. “We’ll meet again, Mr. Corso. I’m sure of it.”
    “In hell,” Corso said, as Ivanov steered his boss through the hinged gate and toward the doors. No one moved until the door closed behind the pair.
    A massive sigh from Renee Rogers pulled Corso’s attention from the door. “You do have a way with people,” she said, as she snapped her briefcase shut. Against the far wall, Ray Butler leaned, chatting into the phone, oblivious to the confrontation. “After twenty-odd years of marriage and three kids, Ray and his wife Junie just bought their first house. In Bethesda. They’re like teenagers all over again.”
    “Must be nice,” Corso said without meaning it.
    She inclined her head toward the pair of bailiffs. “These gentlemen have kindly agreed to escort me out through the parking garage. I’m told we can avoid the media that way. Would you care to join me?”
    Corso stared up the aisle toward the door. “Sure,” he said, without looking her way.
    Stopping at the top of the aisle, Nicholas Balagula looked back at Corso and the prosecution team. His color was deeper than usual. Ivanov could tell that his friend’s