Rage of Angels

Robert Di Silva was a fiercely ambitious man who had fought his way up to his present position with neither money nor connections to help him. During his climb, he had assumed the veneer of a civilized servant of the people; but underneath, he was a gutter fighter, a man who neither forgot nor forgave.

Under ordinary circumstances, District Attorney Di Silva would not have been in this courtroom on this day. He had a large staff, and any one of his senior assistants was capable of prosecuting this case. But Di Silva had known from the beginning that he was going to handle the Moretti case himself.

Michael Moretti was front-page news, the son-in-law of Antonio Granelli, capo di capi, head of the largest of the five eastern Mafia Families. Antonio Granelli was getting old and the street word was that Michael Moretti was being groomed to take his father-in-law’s place. Moretti had been involved in dozens of crimes ranging from mayhem to murder, but no district attorney had ever been able to prove anything. There were too many careful layers between Moretti and those who carried out his orders. Di Silva himself had spent three frustrating years trying to get evidence against Moretti. Then, suddenly, Di Silva had gotten lucky.

Camillo Stela, one of Moretti’s soldati, had been caught in a murder committed during a robbery. In exchange for his life, Stela agreed to sing. It was the most beautiful music Di Silva had ever heard, a song that was going to bring the most powerful Mafia Family in the east to its knees, send Michael Moretti to the electric chair, and elevate Robert Di Silva to the governor’s office in Albany. Other New York governors had made it to the White House: Martin Van Buren, Grover Cleveland, Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt. Di Silva intended to be the next.

The timing was perfect. The gubernatorial elections were coming up next year.

Di Silva had been approached by the state’s most powerful political boss. ‘With all the publicity you’re getting on this case, you’ll be a shoo-in to be nominated and then elected governor, Bobby. Nail Moretti and you’re our candidate.’

Robert Di Silva had taken no chances. He prepared the case against Michael Moretti with meticulous care. He put his assistants to work assembling evidence, cleaning up every loose end, cutting off each legal avenue of escape that Moretti’s attorney might attempt to explore. One by one, every loophole had been closed.

It had taken almost two weeks to select the jury, and the District Attorney had insisted upon selecting six ‘spare tires’ – alternate jurors – as a precaution against a possible mistrial. In cases where important Mafia figures were involved, jurors had been known to disappear or to have unexplained fatal accidents. Di Silva had seen to it that this jury was sequestered from the beginning, locked away every night where no one could get to it.

The key to the case against Michael Moretti was Camillo Stela, and Di Silva’s star witness was heavily protected. The District Attorney remembered only too vividly the example of Abe ‘Kid Twist’ Reles, the government witness who had ‘fallen’ out of a sixth-floor window of the Half Moon Hotel in Coney Island while being guarded by half a dozen policemen. Robert Di Silva had selected Camillo Stela’s guards personally, and before the trial Stela had been secretly moved to a different location every night. Now, with the trial under way, Stela was kept in an isolated holding cell, guarded by four armed deputies. No one was allowed to get near him, for Stela’s willingness to testify rested on his belief that District Attorney Di Silva was capable of protecting him from the vengeance of Michael Moretti.

It was the morning of the fifth day of the trial.

It was Jennifer Parker’s first day at the trial. She was seated at the prosecutor’s table with five other young assistant district attorneys who had been sworn in with her that morning.

Jennifer Parker was a slender, dark-haired girl of twenty-four with a pale skin, an intelligent, mobile face, and green, thoughtful eyes. It was a face that was attractive rather than beautiful, a face that reflected pride and courage and sensitivity, a face that would be hard to forget. She sat ramrod straight, as though bracing herself against unseen ghosts of the past.

Jennifer Parker’s day had started disastrously. The swearing-in ceremony at the District Attorney’s office had been scheduled for eight A.M. Jennifer had carefully laid out her clothes the night before and had set the alarm for six so that she would have time to wash her hair.

The alarm had failed to go off. Jennifer had awakened at seven-thirty and panicked. She had gotten a run in her stocking when she broke the heel of her shoe, and had had to change clothes. She had slammed the door of her tiny apartment at the same instant she remembered she had left her keys inside. She had planned to take a bus to the Criminal Courts Building, but now that was out of the question, and she had raced to get a taxi she could not afford and had been trapped with a cab driver who explained during the entire trip why the world was about to come to an end.

When Jennifer had finally arrived, breathless, at the Criminal Courts Building at 155 Leonard Street, she was fifteen minutes late.

There were twenty-five lawyers gathered in the District Attorney’s office, most of them newly out of law school, young and eager and excited about going to work for the District Attorney of the County of New York.

The office was impressive, paneled and decorated in quiet good taste. There was a large desk with three chairs in front of it and a comfortable leather chair behind it, a conference table with a dozen chairs around it, and wall cabinets filled with law books.

On the walls were framed autographed pictures of J. Edgar Hoover, John Lindsay, Richard Nixon and Jack Dempsey.

When Jennifer hurried into the office, full of apologies, Di Silva was in the middle of a speech. He stopped, turned his attention on Jennifer and said, ‘What the hell do you think this is – a tea party?’

‘I’m terribly sorry, I –’

‘I don’t give a damn whether you’re sorry. Don’t you ever be late again!’

The others looked at Jennifer, carefully hiding their sympathy.

Di Silva turned to the group and snapped, ‘I know why you’re all here. You’ll stick around long enough to pick my brains and learn a few courtroom tricks, and then when you think you’re ready, you’ll leave to become hotshot criminal lawyers. But there may be one of you – maybe – who will be good enough to take my place one day.’ Di Silva nodded to his assistant. ‘Swear them in.’

They took the oath, their voices subdued.

When it was over, Di Silva said, ‘All right. You’re sworn officers of the court, God help us. This office is where the action is, but don’t get your hopes up. You’re going to bury your noses in legal research, and draft documents – subpoenas, warrants – all those wonderful things they taught you in law school. You won’t get to handle a trial for the next year or two.’

Di Silva stopped to light a short, stubby cigar. ‘I’m prosecuting a case now. Some of you may have read about it.’ His voice was edged with sarcasm. ‘I can use half a dozen of you to run errands for me.’ Jennifer’s hand was the first one up. Di Silva hesitated a moment, then selected her and five others.

‘Get down to Courtroom Sixteen.’

As they left the room, they were issued identification cards. Jennifer had not been discouraged by the District Attorney’s attitude. He has to be tough, she thought. He’s in a tough job. And she was working for him now. She was a member of the staff of the District Attorney of the County of New York! The interminable years of law school drudgery were over. Somehow her professors had managed to make the law seem abstract and ancient, but Jennifer had always managed to glimpse the Promised Land beyond: the real law that dealt with human beings and their follies. Jennifer had been graduated second in her class and had been on Law Review. She had passed the bar examination on the first try, while a third of those who had taken it with her had failed. She felt that she understood Robert Di Silva, and she was sure she would be able to handle any job he gave her.

Jennifer had done her homework. She knew there were four different bureaus under the District Attorney – Trials, Appeals, Rackets and Frauds – and she wondered to which one she would be assigned. There were over two hundred assistant district attorneys in New York City and five district attorneys, one for each borough. But the most important borough, of course, was Manhattan: Robert Di Silva.

Jennifer sat in the courtroom now, at the prosecutor’s table, watching Robert Di Silva at work, a powerful, relentless inquisitor.

Jennifer glanced over at the defendant, Michael Moretti. Even with everything Jennifer had read about him, she could not convince herself that Michael Moretti was a murderer. He looks like a young movie star in a courtroom set, Jennifer thought. He sat there motionless, only his deep, black eyes giving away whatever inner turmoil he might have felt. They moved ceaselessly, examining every corner of the room as though trying to calculate a means of escape. There was no escape. Di Silva had seen to that.

Camillo Stela was on the witness stand. If Stela had been an animal, he would have been a weasel. He had a narrow, pinched face, with thin lips and yellow buckteeth. His eyes were darting and furtive and you disbelieved him before he even opened his mouth. Robert Di Silva was aware of his witness’s shortcomings, but they did not matter. What mattered was what Stela had to say. He had horror stories to tell that had never been told before, and they had the unmistakable ring of truth.

The District Attorney walked over to the witness box where Camillo Stela had been sworn in.

‘Mr Stela, I want this jury to be aware that you are a reluctant witness and that in order to persuade you to testify, the State has agreed to allow you to plead to the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter in the murder you are charged with. Is that true?’

‘Yes, sir.’ His right arm was twitching.

‘Mr Stela, are you acquainted with the defendant, Michael Moretti?’

‘Yes, sir.’ He kept his eyes away from the defendant’s table where Michael Moretti was sitting.

‘What was the nature of your relationship?’

‘I worked for Mike.’

‘How long have you known Michael Moretti?’

‘About ten years.’ His voice was almost inaudible.

‘Would you speak up, please?’

‘About ten years.’ His neck was twitching now.

‘Would you say you were close to the defendant?’

‘Objection!’ Thomas Colfax rose to his feet. Michael Moretti’s attorney was a tall, silver-haired man in his fifties, the consigliere for the Syndicate, and one of the shrewdest criminal lawyers in the country. ‘The District Attorney is attempting to lead the witness.’

Judge Lawrence Waldman said, ‘Sustained.’

‘I’ll rephrase the question. In what capacity did you work for Mr Moretti?’

‘I was kind of what you might call a troubleshooter.’

‘Would you be a little more explicit?’

‘Yeah. If a problem comes up – someone gets out of line, like – Mike would tell me to go straighten this party out.’