Mean Streak Read Online Free PDF Page B

me or Riordan—yet. They were here because Riordan’s former client, Frankie Cretella, was on trial in a RICO case. The reporters were waiting for Cretella’s new lawyer—who just happened to be Riordan’s former associate, Kurt Hallengren. Kurt was riding the case for all it was worth; he was well on his way to supplanting his old boss as the preeminent criminal lawyer in New York.
    Come next week, when I showed up for Riordan’s arraignment, the reporters would beg me for a sound bite; today, they didn’t know me from Eve, and that was fine with me. I wrapped myself in anonymity and strode up the stone steps, then pushed open the heavy door that led to the lobby.
    The ceilings were higher than St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and decorated almost as elaborately. Gold-edged bas-relief flowers painted in blue and rust-red, long-stemmed chandeliers, and windows which let the light through in shafts that illuminated the building like well-placed track lights. I looked up and stifled the quick feeling of awe, the sense of being dwarfed by a place of quiet power. What I was feeling was exactly what the architect of this building wanted me to feel, which was reason enough to resist the emotion.
    I pulled out my lawyer’s identification and showed it to the uniformed guard, then bypassed the metal detectors and made my way to the elevator banks. There were two sets, one to the tenth floor and the other from ten to twenty. I pushed the button for the second bank and waited.
    In Brooklyn, they say it is better to know the judge than to know the law. Here in federal court, I knew neither the judge nor the law; I’d come to get a sneak preview of what I’d be up against the next time I walked through the gilded doors.
    My old friend Lani Rasmussen, who’d transferred from Brooklyn Legal Aid to Federal Defender Services, sat behind her desk, stockinged feet propped up on a half-open file drawer, loafers on the floor next to three huge piles of file folders. She wore a drip-dry khaki blazer and a shapeless navy skirt with an Oxford-cloth shirt. A female version of the standard Legal Aid uniform. Clothes for the woman who hates clothes.
    â€œI guess you want some idea of what you’re up against,” she said by way of greeting. She stood up and slipped her shoes on.
    â€œI also want lunch,” I said, nodding assent. “Where shall we eat?”
    â€œI know just the place,” she said with a grin. “You’ll love it. You can have any kind of food you want, and the atmosphere can’t be beat.”
    I couldn’t believe it when my old pal marched me down the stone steps to the row of food booths that were set up every summer in the plaza between the courthouse and the Municipal Building.
    True, you could get any kind of food you wanted, from Greek salads to Chinese lo mein to Ferrara’s tart lemon ices. But you had to sit at metal picnic tables that were chained to the ground so that enterprising New York thieves didn’t haul them away in pickup trucks during the night. And the food was just short of fast-food bland, for all the pretense to ethnic diversity. Why were we eating here when the neighborhood held such a wealth of really good restaurants?
    â€œI have a client coming by in a half hour,” Lani explained. “She has to sign an affidavit for me on a motion to suppress. I think I’ll go for a black bean burrito,” she went on, making her way to the line of customers waiting at the booth marked “The Whole Enchilada.”
    A black bean burrito sounded good; I stepped into line with her. “Anything you can tell me about Lazarus’ case against Riordan,” I began, “even the most off-the-wall courthouse gossip, could help. What have you heard?”
    â€œI know what everybody knows,” Lani replied. “That the minute Eddie Fitz said he could bring down Matt Riordan, Nick Lazarus had him transferred out of