PUNKS Ch. 35: Ace in the Hole

Tina didn't answer. She sat at the dining table staring straight ahead. "All this means is they start over, right? This shit is never going to end."

"That's only if the government chooses to pursue a retrial. The Times says prosecutors are being tight-lipped about their next move." Joe looked Tina in the eyes. "He could walk."

Tina took the newspaper from Joe's hands and began reading the article. She sat quietly. Joe watched her read. She looked up when she reached the end. "The judge didn't dismiss the case, so that's good."

"What do you mean, T. Do you want him to go to jail?"

Tina exhaled. "I think it's possible that he might belong in jail,".

"Think? Possible? Might? What do you mean?"

"He may have taken the money. Joe. Well, I think he did. I'm not positive."

"How do you know? Do you have proof?"

"I might know where the money is."

"Where is it?"

"I can't tell you. If I tell anyone it will be the feds."

"And Troy has no idea you know where the money is?"

"I'm not certain, but I have something. He thinks I'm clueless. Troy has so many investments and accounts it's hard for me to know what's what, but I know for sure has offshore accounts."

"He's hiding money? That's your ace in the hole?" Joe thought for a moment. "If you use this, T, you have to be careful to avoid the perception of blackmail, exchanging this information for something from Troy."

"I want my divorce. That's all I want; my business, my apartment, and some of our cash and investments - which aren't what they used to be after paying his fucking attorneys. He can keep his dirty money. I just want out."

Joe thought about it for a bit. He furrowed his brow.

"So you'd let him walk on his crimes, knowing he stole the money of blue-collar pensioners?"

"I struggle with that, Joe. I really do. But I'm not certain these accounts are the pension money. I only know he's stashing cash offshore." Tina paused for a few seconds. "I can only fix one thing for sure, get my divorce. I need to call Barry and see what this mistral means."

Joe suddenly found himself in a moral conundrum. He first felt it when T told him she had something on Troy that could send him to jail, but he let it pass because her husband might still face justice. This mistrial changed everything.

How could she let Troy get off if she knows he has the money? He couldn't conceive of not handing the evidence over to the feds and being done with Troy. If he's actually guilty, no one will care if he does time. The idea of letting him get away with the crime and keep the money weighed on Joe. He said nothing to Tina about it.

The mistrial was granted not because of the divorce and spectacle the defense made of Tina's life. The prosecution withheld evidence in discovery and then tried to cover that up. The Times reported that the withholding was an unintentional oversight, but when the lawyers realized their error they chose to hide the mistake. That's what ended Troy Giacomo's trial. The Times also speculated the defense was aware of the prosecutorial misconduct for months but waited to play that card.

Two days later, in The Times opinion section, a financial crimes reporter said, 'The fact Mr Giacomo went to trial while his colleagues and co-defendants took deals irked prosecutors.' The reporter speculated the Feds will seek a retrial but the case was weakened by the mishandling of evidence and mistrial. There was a great deal of speculation but no one knew for certain if the government would pursue Troy Giacomo further.

Tina had been in California for four weeks. She felt had to go home to deal with her galley business and meet with Troy to see where his head is.

"I'm going with you," Joe said when she told him.

"No, you're not."

"Yes, I am. I can't protect you if I'm not with you. I'm going to New York, T."

"You want to be seen with me after The Times article?'

"Baby, The Times reported the facts. You are shacked up with me in LA. Why would I run from the truth?" Joe pulled Tina closer, "If we always tell the truth we don't have to remember the lies."

Tina looked at Joe with a confused expression.

"Look," he said, "We should accept the truth and say what we know to be true, even if it's inconvenient. It's better, in the long run, to be on the side of truth."

Joe was trying to nudge Tina towards giving up the evidence she had on Troy without saying it directly. He spent days pondering the possible outcomes. The ending where Troy gets off and walks with his stolen wealth made Joe feel ill, literally sick to his stomach. It went against everything he believed in.

-- Tompkins Park --

Joe walked into Tina's East Village apartment not far from Tompkins Square Park, placed his carry-on on a bench just inside the door, and rolled his suitcase against the wall. Tina was steps ahead, flipping on lights and placing her bags on a chair and sofa. Joe paused to look around.

"This is more like it," he said.

"What do you mean?"

"This is you, unlike that soulless, cold contemporary you've been living in." He gestured to the tapestry hanging on a wall. "This is your style, colors, and textures."

"I did decorate myself, so yes, these are all my choices. I had the entire place professionally cleaned before I flew to LA. I knew I'd be calling this home again."

Joe walked the room, taking in her decor as she did in his place weeks before. "This is nice, T."

"C'mon, I'll show you around."

Off the back of the living room was an average size dining room with a big table and sideboard squeezed in. Beyond that a full kitchen, but small by most standards. She led him back to the living area and down a hall leading to two bedrooms and the bath. The apartment was sparsely but tastefully furnished, all the basics were there.

"I can live here," Joe said. He took Tina into his arms in the master bedroom. "New York and LA. We can make that work, right? I can work with Marty and Laura when I'm here."

"I think we can, if we're both in the same city." Tina put her face in his chest, "I don't want to be apart for long."

"I'm with you there."

"I'm actually looking forward to having some time here," Tina said as she dragged her bags into the bedroom. "I bought it in the spring of '88 and then moved into Troy's places sixteen months later. I barely had a chance to make it my home."

"It's good that you kept it." Joe had his bags right behind her.

"This apartment is the one thing I did against all advice. Do you remember the Tompkins Park riots?"

"I read about it, but don't remember much."

"This area was a shithole ten years ago, prostitution, drugs, and the homeless turned the park into an open sewer. It was really bad. When the cops tried to clear them out it got ugly."

"I remember the outrage over police brutality, not much else. You were living here through that?"

"Yes, only a few months after I moved in, and my dad was very upset about it. I'm far enough from the park. I was fine, but it was still bad. At the time, property values were way down. Investors started grabbing buildings and apartments. A couple of Wall Street clients convinced me this area was going to rebound. My father was against me buying here, as was Troy. He and I weren't really dating yet, but we were good friends."

"You went against Dad's advice?"

"I know. That was a shock to everyone. When the riots happened he was telling me to sell. Others were saying the riots would force the city to clean up the East Village. They were right. It's still a little sketchy in spots, but it's far better and still improving."

"And the property values came back."

"Oh yeah," Tina smiled wide. "buy a lot. And I'm sitting pretty. When my Dad says he was wrong and I was right..."

"That must have felt nice."

"Yup."

The day after arriving Tina met with her divorce attorney, Barry Rosen. He has been in contact with Troy's people, trying to get a sense of what effect the mistrial would have on the divorce. When she returned home she broke the news to Joe.

"Barry said Troy feels he has a new lease on life. The defense thinks the case is dead and won't be retried. Troy wants to focus all his attention on fighting me."

"What does Barry think about that?"

"He thinks Troy is just acting out of spite and only delaying the inevitable."

"What do you think?"

"I think I need to get back to my life."

Tina returned to The Amethyst Gallery while Joe took residence at Guerilla Studios in Chelsea. Marty and Laura were happy to see him, and happy he and Tina were back together, and hoping they'd be seeing more of Joe in the future.

The first two weeks in Manhattan were mostly uneventful. They got settled in the apartment, buying things Tina didn't have on hand, and making a home.

Joe got to know his new East Village neighborhood and the new ethic reality of his life. He found coffee shops, an Armenian grocer, Ukrainian butcher, and bakeries he'd need to survive. His favorite pizza joint was run by Turks. Milos made a tasty, greasy pie... if that's your thing.

He intentionally wore his Red Sox and Celtics caps around town to poke the natives. Some of the shopkeepers and clerks broke his balls, and Joe gave it back. He enjoyed the verbal sparring. The young baristas called him Boston Joe. Others were less kind. The grocers tagged him as the douchebag from Boston. The butchers called him a Masshole.

It didn't matter that Joe never lived in Massachusetts. He was a Rhode Islander who resided in California. He kept that to himself. No one in the East Village knew who Joe was. He enjoyed the anonymity.

Shopping for dinner became an almost daily mission. He'd return home each day with supplies to prepare a meal he planned that morning. Tina loved the fact she had her manservant back.

Jenna was thrilled her best friends were in the city. She was genuinely concerned Tina might decide to move to LA, especially with the gallery sale moving forward. Having them in New York eased Jenna's worry. She had dinners with Joe and Tina at the apartment and they did a weekly happy hour. Joe noticed when Tina told Jen all the reasons she loved California, she didn't seem very interested.

Jenna's feelings for Joe made it awkward at times but the three amigos managed to keep those emotions under the surface.

-- Private Dicks --

The first indication of where Troy was taking the divorce came in mid-October, week three in NYC. Barry contacted Tina to break the news. It wasn't good. She hung up the phone and turned to Joe.

"His team is using private investigators. They know we had an affair, but Troy thinks it's been ongoing for five years. Barry said they know I'm back in town."

"How do they know that?"

"I guess his investigators are doing their job."

"What did Barry say about you meeting with Troy?"

"He's not for it. He said they might go public with the affair if I don't agree to Troy's terms."

"What are his terms?"

"We don't know yet."

"Sounds a little blackmaily to me."

"Me too."

Tina learned of Troy's terms a week later, in a phone call he arranged so he could deliver the offer himself. Tina was in her gallery office at the end of a busy day. She didn't like what Troy was pitching.

"You're not getting any money from me,"' she said. "I can fight you for fifty percent of everything, your penthouse, your precious sports car, all the investments, and bank accounts. I'll fight for half and I'll win half."

"When my lawyers expose you as the whore you are and prove you and your boy planned this all along, you won't be getting shit."

"You can't prove what never happened. I came into this marriage with my apartment, my business, and my accounts. That's far less than half of what we have now, but that's all I want to get out. You're being unreasonable."

"Your apartment wasn't paid off until three years ago. I own a piece of that and the law will be on my side."

"The law applies both ways, Troy. I own half of your place too. If I get that in the judgment, you won't have the cash to pay me. Your lawyers took most of it. You're not negotiating from a position of strength."

"If I make your affair public, it'll ruin you."

Tina paused and pondered whether she should tip him off to the fact she knows his big dirty secret. She opted against it.

"Troy. Go ahead and make it public. Joe and I did have an affair years ago and I ended it. That's the truth. Your scandalous scoop isn't as big as you think it is."

A few days later Troy called Tina at home. Joe had just put dinner on the table when the phone rang. She took the call and sat quietly while Troy issued his next threat. Joe watched Tina as he served dinner. When Troy was done speaking, Tina remained silent for a moment.

"Are you familiar with Migros Bank?" She asked. "It's a Swiss bank."

Troy didn't reply so Tina continued. "How about the Bank of Nevis or Queensgate? Are you familiar with those offshore banks?"

Troy was still silent.

"I wonder if the Feds are familiar with these banks. They should probably look into them. It would be really helpful if they had account numbers."

Tina hung up, not allowing Troy a chance to respond. The phone rang a minute later. She ignored it, smiling, while enjoying the tequila lime chicken Joe had made. Troy left a message.

"Are you blackmailing me? That would be a bad move. You might fuck yourself while trying to take me down." There was a pause. "We need to talk about this before you do something stupid."

Tina took a bite, "Well, I went and did it. Now he knows what I got."

Joe stared at Tina, his fork inched from his lips. "You have account numbers?"

"I do," she said while chewing chicken. "plus other information, like the dates they were opened, balances, and his contacts in those banks."

"How much is he sitting on?"

"At least four million, but that was more than two years ago, so who knows what he has now?" Tina looked Joe square in the eye. "He just told me they were going to the press with our affair. He mentioned the Carlyle Hotel."

"That's why you told him?"

"Yes, I'd rather not have my family know I cheated on him before filing for divorce."

Joe set his fork down. "Jack already knows and I think telling your parents yourself is a better play than tipping off Troy that you have the accounts."

"Maybe you're right," she said. "I just reacted to his threat."

"How did you get the account information?"

Tina exhaled and explained, "Days before the FBI knocked on our door, Troy's lawyers told him he should assume a search warrant was imminent. When he told me this I realized he had already been preparing for a search. For two days he'd been running around, in and out of the house, in a frenzy. I didn't know why until he told me we might get searched."

"He had evidence at home?"

"He moved file folders out of our home office. I saw him going through papers. He shredded some and saved others. When he told me of the possible search, he was in the middle of his spring cleaning, as he called it. The next day he got a phone call and said he had to run an errand. He left in a rush. I assume he was meeting someone."

"So you snooped?"

"It didn't take much. I went into the office and looked at the papers. It was all gibberish to me, but then I found a small notebook filled with handwritten lists; dates, dollar amounts, and abbreviations. I didn't know what they were. I made copies of the pages."

"He left that out for you to find?"

"No. It was locked inside his desk. I know where the key is. When I opened that notebook I knew it was something because I saw him scribbling in it, copying information from his files, and then shredding the originals."

"So you suspected Troy was guilty before the FBI searched your home?"

"Yes, two days beforehand."

"And you sat on that information?"

"I didn't know what to do. So I waited for things to play out. I thought about flipping, a few times, but I felt it would be better for me to wait."

"What's it been T, three years?"

"Almost."

Joe's discomfort only grew with the knowledge that Tina had suspected all along that her husband had millions of dollars in money he'd stolen from pensioners. What was she waiting for? She could have used this information to be rid of Troy years ago. She could have divorced him. They could have been together long ago. Why did she wait?

At the end of October, Joe and Tina had been together for ten weeks, the first five spent in Venice and the last five in the East Village. Joe saw this bicoastal arrangement as a possibility with them keeping two homes. It wasn't ideal, but he was willing to make it work. As they moved into November and the weather got cold, Joe was thinking that he wanted to go back to LA. He hated winter and it was coming fast. Before he had a chance to tell Tina, she had news. Troy wanted to meet face-to-face to discuss their divorce. She decided to take the meeting, against the advice of her attorney. Joe insisted he goes with her. First, they had another date.

-- Family Reunion --

Tina was so anxious she asked Joe to drive. She fidgeted on the way to Brooklyn. Joe glanced over at her hands, kneading her lap not dissimilar from a cat. He drove south on Flatbush Ave, less than a mile from her parent's home in Marine Park.

"I don't know why you're so nervous. You say your parents are happy you're leaving Troy and they're looking forward to seeing me. Everything will be fine."

"There's a little more to it than that, isn't there?"

"I'm sure they'll have an opinion, but they're not going to disown you."

"I don't want them to think less of me... like they failed as parents."

"They won't." Joe turned on Fillmore Street, the road she grew up on. "I have cards to play that will make them happy."

Tina turned to look at him, "Like what?"

"Don't worry about it. I got this."

Tina was very worried. They came here to have dinner with John and Mary Costello, as well as Jack and April. They arrived an hour early because they had to speak with Tina's parents about recent developments in her divorce. The visit was Joe's first time in Marine Park since 1984. He wasn't nervous at all. He liked her family, and they liked Joe, so he was feeling good about seeing Mr. and Mrs. C for the first time in twelve years.

As he pulled into the driveway of their modest brick home with a well-manicured lawn, the emotions Joe wasn't feeling came to the surface in a flash. He cut the engine and sat, staring straight ahead, as Tina checked her makeup in the sun visor mirror.

"Are you ready?" She asked.

"Man. I just got hit with memories of this place."

"What do you mean?"

"Just feeling that I once thought I was part of your family and I'd have many visits and..."

"Let's go. We can talk about that inside. I need to get this over with."

John and Mary were at the back door standing in the kitchen when Tina walked in first. After a brief hug from his daughter, John smiled at Joe and extended his hand. Joe took it.

"It's great to see you, Joe. We're happy you're here." Mr. C. embraced Joe with his free arm.

"You're so early," Mrs. C said to T. as they embraced.

"Yes. I need to talk to you before Jack gets here."

Mrs. C. then came in for her hug. "It's so nice to have you back, Joseph. It's been so long."

"I'm happy to be here. I just told Tina that I felt a wave of emotions in the driveway. I have good memories of this house."

"Would you like to buy it?" Mr. C. laughed, "It's going on the market."

"When?" Tina asked with her mouth agape.

"Next year. We told you it's gonna happen eventually."

"So you're moving to Florida full-time?" Joe asked.

"That's the plan. I'm retiring and I'm sick to death of winters here. We're driving down to work on the house next week. We'll be back here for Christmas and then back down there in January."