Read Online Operation Greylord by Terrence Hake - Free Book Online Page B

around in June to encourage lawyers to take their bribes to me, Jim decided to make his payoffs to Olson in person. The transactions were not always simple. Such as when Olson was on the phone in his chambers and Jim found a young lawyer was waiting at the door to talk to the judge.
    Costello wondered how he could deliver the money before his case came up. As he told me at a restaurant that summer, a deputy sheriff walked in, momentarily blocking the young lawyer’s line of vision. “I just fuckin’ whipped out that money and Olson grabbed it, and I was out of there like lightning.” And so Costello put another drug dealer back on the street.
    I forced a laugh in pretended admiration and asked, “How do I start selling cases down there? Or is it worth getting involved in something like that while I’m still an ASA?”
    â€œDon’t do it, Ter. Don’t take money from anybody you don’t know. Believe me, they’ll hurtcha. You’re too nice a guy for that. Get to know them good first.”
    â€œHow can they hurt me?”
    â€œJust take my word for it.”
    As he went on, I wondered why he was spending so much time trying to help me. Although I kept suggesting that I might be “dirty,” I couldn’t change my Boy Scout appearance and soft voice. I seldom speak coarsely, and I rarely used profanity while undercover because I didn’t want to put off any jurors listening to my tapes. Who knows, maybe my drawbacks as a mole were an advantage in the long run. Perhaps in some corner of Jim’s mind he thought he could relive his long-ago innocence through me.
    In that rambling conversation with me, he got around to saying that the deputy sheriff who ran the Narcotics Court lockup had sent him the case of a prisoner found with seven hundred dollars. “I charged the client six hundred and eighty-one dollars for my fee, and I gave one hundred of that to the lockup keeper.”
    â€œWait, wait, wait,” I said, “you charged him exactly six hundred and eighty-one dollars? Isn’t that a little strange? Why didn’t you round it off?”
    â€œThe theory behind that is leave ’em with a few bucks. Remember that when you go private. Don’t empty their pockets. That’s not class.”
    A passing waitress refused to give Costello any more martinis. Jim shrugged it off and made a mock pass at her. Then he wiggled some money at me from under our table. “Hey, Ter, take this and have a nice dinner with your girlfriend.”
    I glanced at the denomination as I put it in my pocket. “You don’t have to give me a hundred,” I said for the tape.
    â€œDon’t gimme that, you been a super guy. Believe me. I made six hundred today, you know what I mean? This hundred—that’s bullshit. Terry, either I take care of you or it goes to somebody else’s pocket. Don’t worry about it.”
    He was so tipsy it was a struggle for him to get up, so I asked if he wanted me to drive him home. Costello made a dismissal gesture that so upset his balance he dropped back into his chair. “I gotta take a piss,” he groaned.
    â€œCan you go through the kitchen?”
    Unable to get up by himself, he sat back and looked down at his clothes. “I got my best suit on,” he said. “I paid a lot of money for this suit. It’s from Capper & Capper.” Not even bladder strain could stop Jim from looking at me with soulful eyes and sounding like a commercial.
    He towered over me as I helped him to his feet, and he reached the tiny washroom in time. Soon we were walking across the parking lot in an afternoon breeze. I talked him into giving me the keys of his newly waxed Ford Thunderbird. “Always buy black cars,” Jim would tell me from time to time, “they’re classier.”
    A few blocks away, Jim slumped again into his guilty phase. “Look at you,” he mumbled as I drove,