Black River Read Free Page A

sixty-three people, forty-one of them children. Subsequent investigation revealed the structure had been built amid a web of extortion, falsified bids, and assorted frauds, including substandard concrete, nonexistent earthquake protection, and fabricated inspection records. They also found that all roads, however tenuous and well disguised, led to one Nicholas Balagula, a former Russian gangster who had, over the past decade, carved out a substantial U.S. criminal empire beneath the noses of the California authorities. As the bulk of the hospital’s financing was provided by a federal grant, the case was deemed to be within the federal jurisdiction and assigned to the federal prosecutor’s office.
    “Oughta just take that Balagula guy out and shoot him,” the sergeant said.
    “I’m with you there.”
    Forty yards north, the crowd now filled the entire northbound lane of Sixth Avenue. The Lincoln’s taillights blinked twice and then went out, as it stopped in front of the rear entrance to the courthouse. Both rear doors popped open.
    First out was Bruce Elkins, Balagula’s attorney. He carried an aluminum briefcase in one hand and a brown overcoat in the other. He was a short barrel-chested specimen who, these days, favored Armani suits and hundred-dollar custom-made shirts. On two separate occasions, he had attempted to resign from the case. The courts, however, mindful of a defendant’s right to the counsel of his choice, had respectfully disagreed.
    Next out was Mikhail Ivanov, Nicholas Balagula’s longtime right-hand man. He was a nondescript man of sixty-three with a full head of gray hair and an unreadable face as bland and blank as a cabbage. In the last fifty years, Ivanov had helped Balagula cut an unparalleled criminal swath across three continents, picking up scraps as Balagula amassed a personal fortune rumored to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Faithful as a dog, on two occasions with the law closing in he’d saved his boss by stepping forward and confessing to the crimes. He’d served seven years on the first occasion and four the next. These days, he billed himself as Balagula’s financial planner. Sources said he’d been squirreling money away lately, in foreign banks. Looked like he might be about ready to retire.
    Ivanov turned in a full circle to survey the scene and then leaned down and spoke into the car.
    Nicholas Balagula emerged from the limo at a lope. His shaven head reflected the dozens of flashbulbs that were firing all over the street. For court, Balagula dressed strictly off the rack, wearing a blue Sears, Roe-buck suit that made him look every inch the beleaguered building supply dealer his attorney painted him to be. He acknowledged the snarling crowd with a small wave. The air was filled with shouts of his name and the whirring of cameras as he hurried across the sidewalk and disappeared through the doors, with Mikhail Ivanov bringing up the rear.
    Elkins had bellied up to the barricades to work the media. For the past week, during jury selection, he’d been a fixture on the evening news, claiming that the seating of an anonymous jury behind a one-way Plexiglas screen was a clear violation of his client’s right to face his accusers and that bringing his client to court a third time was little more than vengeful retribution by a defeated and embarrassed prosecution, whom, as everyone knew, he was going to best for a third and final time.
    “Frank!” a woman’s voice called.
    Corso turned toward the sound. Six feet tall without the big Doc Martens, Meg Dougherty was striding along in front of the cops. One camera dangled from her neck, another was slung over her shoulder. Everything black: clothes, hair, nails, everything—a cross between Morticia Addams and Betty Paige in a full-length black velvet cape.
    “What a zoo,” she said, with a grimace. She stopped a pace away from the line of cops. “You suppose you boys could step aside for a minute, so a girl could