Operation Greylord by Terrence Hake Read Free Book Online

Take it.”
    â€œIt’s not necessary, Jim, you’re a friend.” My hesitance might even have been in my favor, since Costello probably would have been suspicious if I were eager for a bribe.
    â€œJust put it in your pocket and shut up, will you?”
    Don’t do this, Jim , I thought, can’t you see I’m poison to you? I had stopped regarding him as a fixer weeks ago, he was now a friend, and yet my fingers tightened on the money.
    â€œWell, okay,” I said and pushed the bills into my pocket. “Have a good weekend.”
    He waved and went out the door.
    The rest of my filing seemed to take forever because my thoughts ping-ponged over whether to report Costello or find a way to return the two fifties. When I went down a short hall and turned to the block-long concourse linking the old courthouse with the new administration tower, a couple of prosecutors from the other Narcotics Court asked ifI wanted to go with them to Jeans, their ritual to end another week in the arena. I went along, but my heart wasn’t in it.
    In the 1980s, Jeans was the hub of the criminal court subculture. No one taking a peek inside the pale-yellow brick building would believe all the deals made there, or imagine the anguishing moments as defendants and relatives of victims sat at the tables waiting out deliberations.
    The restaurant was larger than it seemed from the front window because the inside took a partial turn, like a lazy “L.” The tables in the front third were covered with checkered oilcloth and the rest were bare, since the clientele liked things simple. Along the back wall were three tiers of liquor bottles kept only for decoration because the patrons seldom ordered anything more exotic than a martini. The bottles followed the long bar this way and that from the front counter to a tiny back passage where a warped back door needed a shoulder-push to close.
    Jeans never encouraged off-the-street customers. On weekdays, the front door was locked at three p.m. and regulars came in through the back, near the kitchen. White-haired lawyers often played cards at the front table, where the natural light was best. Waitresses addressed the police officers, court clerks, and bailiffs by their first name.
    Jeans was still open for street customers when we arrived, but it was already looking like a seedy private club. Some patrons were drinking beer straight from the bottle because they thought only sissies used glasses. As conversations floated around me, I kept feeling that these insiders could tell from my face or voice that I had just accepted dirty money.
    After ordering a beer and grilled cheese sandwich, the least greasy thing on the menu, I wondered how I could even think of turning Costello in. He was real to me and would help me with problems, while the agents at the Chicago FBI office were only telephone voices I heard once or twice a week. They were so morally strict they could not comprehend that people in any courthouse moved about in a world of gray.
    I kept trying to convince myself that since the hundred dollars I had taken wasn’t payment for a specific favor, it wasn’t really a bribe and so I would have nothing to report. As I dithered I kept glancing at the old-fashioned wooden phone booth just inside Jeans’ front door. It was the sort of place you would expect a Capone mobster to be shot in. After a few minutes, I told myself that Costello had stepped over theline without any encouragement from me, and this made it my duty to set the law in motion against him. If I couldn’t turn in a cheap hallway hustler, how could I think of going after Olson, Roth, Silverman, and others?
    Stepping into the booth, I pulled the hinged door shut so no one could overhear. An FBI switchboard operator told me that my contact agents, Lamar Jordan and Bob Farmer, weren’t around. So I dialed the U.S. Attorney’s Office, but Sklarsky wasn’t in, either. Maybe they were