Page 88 of The Honest Affair
Dolci
Chapter Twenty-One
April 2019
Matthew
“Idon’t know how to tell you this, Zola. But you’re out.”
I slumped in the chair next to my former investigative partner, Derek Kingston, while we faced Greg Cardozo, an executive assistant DA and head of the Bureau of Organized Crime and Racketeering. And my—now former—boss.
It killed me that I hadn’t been able to attend the verdict with Nina or be there on the days she was put on the stand. Eric and Jane had shown up, of course, but I’d been confined to my house, staring at my cell phone like a desperate teenage girl, waiting for text updates while I refreshed the Post coverage of the trial again and again.
Today, though, Cardozo had been nice enough to invite me to his office to go over the verdict. Out of respect, he said, since Derek and I had been the ones who spent nearly a year building the damn thing—more if you included the case against John Carson and our successful prosecution of Jude Letour. I appreciated it, too. It wasn’t Cardozo’s fault the jury had swung toward Gardner, who had clearly greased the wheels at some point—how, I wasn’t sure, but these assholes seemed to collect the secrets of the judiciary like pennies on the subway. I’d seen it time and time again. The second I heard there was a new judge on the case, I knew they would lose.
“I’m out?” I asked. “Are you kidding me?”
On some level, I’d expected it, of course. But after months of silence, a small part of me had hoped that with my careful discretion, the whole thing had blown over. Gardner was free, yes, but the DA was now absolved of a conflict of interest when it came to his prosecution.
And yeah, it’s one thing to expect. Another to hear it out loud.
“Greg, come on,” Derek put in. “He’s paid his due. It’s been almost eight months since de Vries confessed. She pled and served. It should have been done a while ago. Do you really think people will care?”
“Ramirez seems to think so,” Cardozo replied. “Considering he was voted back in by the skin of his teeth, I think his exact words were ‘the last thing I need is a goddamn sex scandal.’”
“Really?” Derek replied. “Didn’t that public defender sleep with his own damn client? He got, what, a month off, and then he was right back to work.”
“That’s the Bronx,” Cardozo said like he was referring to a cockroach. “Not Brooklyn. We got different standards here.”
“So it’s not enough the fucker somehow bought the judge and won?” I cut in. Usually I was happy to get into a pissing match over the differences between boroughs, but right now, I didn’t give a shit. “He has to get me fired too?”
“Give us a little credit, Zola. This isn’t coming from that bastard Gardner,” Cardozo said. “It’s from Ramirez. I’m sorry, but someone told him about you and Ms. de Vries. He got a call from someone in Italy, I think, checking on your credentials. Woman named Ruggeri. She mentioned your girlfriend.”
I slumped further down into my chair. Fuck. “She’s not my girlfriend,” I said. Technically I wasn’t lying.
“What were you doing in Italy with Gardner’s wife, Zola?” Cardozo pressed.
“I—her cousin hired me as an interpreter. I went with her to Florence to…interpret.”
Derek’s mouth dropped. Cardozo looked like he wasn’t sure whether to sock me or congratulate me.
“Not your girlfriend, huh?” was all he said in the end.
I ground my teeth. “Well, if I’m fired, does it really matter if she is?”
Cardozo rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I think I’m supposed to say it would look really unprofessional and we certainly don’t condone it,” he said evenly. “But I’ve heard of worse, like Derek said. I mean, we aren’t the Bronx, but we aren’t perfect either.”
I snorted. “Give me a break.”
Greg reached across the desk and offered me his hand. “Done. You’re a good man, Zola. And a damn good attorney. You’ll land on your feet. And I’ll provide any reference you want. That’s a promise.”
* * *
I sleepwalkedout of the building, but only after I was given the other bad news: that in six months, I’d be losing my exemption license to carry as well. Under New York’s strict gun laws very few people were allowed firearms outside their homes, but prosecutors could have them, depending on the DA. I’d taken my military-issue Beretta with me to and from work for seven years, having heard too many stories of guys jumped by former defendants or their associates in a madcap vendetta.
Jesus, Ramirez must have been really mad. Why didn’t he just chop off my balls while he was at it?
Outside, the sky darkened with the threat of thunder. Usually I liked the spring storms. They pooled in the sky and opened up with a deluge of water to wash away the city’s sins, give it another chance to start over.