The Arraignment Read Online Free

pop out like acne on his forehead.
    “Mind if I smoke?” he says.
    “Prefer it if you don’t.”
    He exhales a deep breath. If he is called before the grand jury, the man is going to sweat a river.
    I read through the papers he has handed me.
    “Didn’t even know these people. Met ’em once,” he says.
    “Uh-huh.” What I’m seeing are a lot of first names on the salutations of their letters to him: “Dear Jerry.”
    From the left sleeve of Metz’s blazer pokes an expensive-looking gold Rolex. He keeps sneaking peaks at it as he talks.
    “Do you have another appointment?” I ask.
    “Hmm. No, no.” He tugs the sleeve down to cover the watch and puts his hand over it.
    “I’m just wondering if this is gonna take long.”
    “That depends. Are these all the papers you have?”
    He nods. “That’s it.”
    There’s a hint of an accent, nothing strong. I’m thinking Florida by way of New Jersey.
    “We didn’t even do the deal,” he says. “The whole thing fell apart.” Comes the flood of nervous talk. “Can’t figure why they’d be interested in me. Maybe you could just call ’em and tell ’em that.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “You know, tell the attorney I don’t know nothin’.”
    “The U.S. attorney?”
    “Why not?”
    I look at him and smile. “If I did that, they would subpoena you for sure.”
    “Why?”
    “Trust me.”
    “Fuckin’ government always on your ass. Last time it was an audit.”
    “When was that?”
    “I don’t know. Few years ago. Screwed me around for over a year. IRS demanding every scrap I had. Fourteen months they couldn’t find a damn thing. Now this. You ask me, I think it’s retaliation.”
    “For what?”
    “Cuz they’re pissed that they couldn’t find nothin’. All I know is my name keeps coming up in this grand jury thing. Word gets out, it’s gonna kill my business.”
    “What do you mean, your name keeps coming up?”
    “People called to testify, former employees of my company. They call and they tell me that they’re being asked all kinda questions about me and my business—you know, with these people down in Mexico.” He nods toward the letters on my desk.
    “These witnesses, did they call you or did you call them?”
    “Hell, I don’t know. What difference does it make? One of them called me; I called somebody else. After a while they’re all telling the same thing. This attorney. This federal guy.”
    “The deputy U.S. attorney.”
    “That’s the one. He keeps bringing my name up asking questions.” He thinks for a second. “I didn’t do anything wrong by talking to these people. The witnesses, I mean.”
    “Probably not.”
    “What do you mean probably?”
    “They’re free to talk to you about their own testimony. If they want to. You say they’re former employees? What type of work did they do?”
    He gives me names. “One was a secretary; the other was my bookkeeper.”
    “How did you find out she had appeared before the grand jury?”
    This stumps him for a second. He can’t remember. He tells me he heard it on the grapevine. The construction industry being a small community.
    “So it sounds like you called her, this witness?”
    “I probably did. It pissed me off. Can they do this? Some government lawyer asking a lot of questions about my business. Can they do that?”
    “A prosecutor in front of a federal grand jury can ask almost anything he wants. What did he want to know?”
    “Mostly financial information, from what I was told.”
    This would make sense if the feds are investigating money laundering.
    “What kind of financial information?”
    “The business thing down in Mexico. They seemed to be interested in the one deal.”
    “Tell me about that.” I look at the letter on the desk in front of me, the signature block at the bottom. “Tell me about this man Arturo Ibarra.”
    “Two brothers. Arturo and Jaime. Arturo was the brains. I don’t think Jaime can write,” he says.
    “Then you