The Murderers (Badge of Honor 6)

“Mr. Giacomo is in the bar, Mr. Wohl. You know the way?”

“Yes, thank you,” Peter said, and led Weisbach into the club bar, a quiet, deeply carpeted, wood-paneled room, furnished with twenty or so small tables, at each of which were rather small leather-upholstered armchairs. The tables were spaced so that a soft conversation could not be heard at the tables adjacent to it.

Armando C. Giacomo rose, smiling, from one of the chairs when he saw Wohl and Weisbach, and waved them over.

Wohl thought Giacomo was an interesting man. His family had been in Philadelphia from the time of the Revolution. He was a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the Yale School of Law. He had flown Corsairs as a Naval Aviator in the Korean War. He could have had a law practice much like Brewster Cortland Payne’s, with clientele drawn from banks and insurance companies and familial connections.

He had elected, instead, to become a criminal lawyer, and was known (somewhat unfairly, Wohl thought) as the Mob’s Lawyer, which suggested that he himself was involved in criminal activity. So far as Wohl knew, Giacomo’s personal ethics were impeccable. He represented those criminals who could afford his services when they were hauled before the bar of justice, and more often than not defended them successfully.

Wohl had come to believe that Giacomo held the mob in just about as much contempt as he did, and that he represented them both because they had the financial resources to pay him, and also because he really believed that an accused was entitled to good legal representation, not so much for himself personally, but as a reinforcement of the Constitution.

Giacomo was also held in high regard by most police officers, primarily because he represented, pro bono publico, police officers charged with police brutality and other infractions of the law. He would not, in other words, represent Captain Vito Cazerra, because Cazerra could not afford him. But he would represent an ordinary police officer charged with the use of excessive force or otherwise violating the civil rights of a citizen, and do so without charge.

“Peter,” Giacomo said. “I’m delighted that you could join us.”

“I didn’t want Mike to walk out of here barefoot, Armando, but thank you for your hospitality.”

“I only talk other people out of their shoes, Peter, not my friends.”

“And the check is in the mail, right?” Weisbach said, laughing as they shook hands.

A waiter appeared.

“I’m drinking a very nice California cabernet sauvignon,” Giacomo said. “But don’t let that influence you.”

“A little wine would be very nice,” Wohl said.

“Me, too, thank you,” Weisbach said.

“The word has reached these hallowed precincts of the tragic event in Chestnut Hill this morning,” Giacomo said. “What a pity.”

“Yes, it was,” Wohl agreed.

“If I don’t have the opportunity before you see him, Peter, would you extend my sympathies to young Payne?”

“Yes, of course.”

“He must be devastated.”

“He is,” Wohl said.

“And her mother and father…” Giacomo said, shaking his head sadly.

A waiter in a gray cotton jacket served the wine.

“I think we’ll need another bottle of that over lunch, please,” Giacomo said. He waited for the waiter to leave, and then said, “I hope you like that. What shall we drink to?”

Wohl shrugged.

“How about good friends?” Giacomo suggested.

“All right,” Peter said, raising his glass. “Good friends.”

“Better yet, Mike’s new job.”

“Better yet, Mike’s new job,” Wohl parroted. He sipped the wine. “Very nice.”

“I’d send you a case, if I didn’t know you would think I was trying to bribe you,” Giacomo said.