I sat back down, the chair still warm from where I'd been waiting all morning. I motioned for him to take his seat, a momentary truce.
"Let me paint the picture for you so you won't jump to any more incorrect conclusions and get me in hot water with Evan."
He bristled, but he did take his seat. He was giving me a chance, so I would return the favor.
"When I started this investigation, I quickly realized Castille wasn't your average Ponzi-scheming asshole. He was smart. He cast a wide net, but he also went for quality. He would fuck over a grandma living on Social Security with $20,000 in savings to show for her entire life and he would also fuck over the grampa with $10 million sitting in various investments and bank accounts. He was a real democratic sort of guy.
"Now, you know I want to nail him for all of the victims-the wrinkled princes and the paupers. But the princes caught my attention. I did some more digging and discovered they were the parents, uncles, aunts, and even ex-wives of some of the biggest players in the underworld of New Orleans, New York, and Chicago. One in particular would be a legendary get."
"DiSalvo," Jonesy said.
"Right. The rest are pretty big, too. And they are dirty. Their money is dirty. Even though it was passed through and laundered into the accounts of their nearest and dearest, it is still the same cash that they collected through their illegal enterprises. You have all that right. What you got wrong is that I'm going after Evan for it. She would have been collateral damage."
"So you've been working this bigger investigation, but all of a sudden you're changing course? Why?"
"I met her." Simple, but true. Evan had changed the game. And wasn't this the goddamn rub? "Once I met her, I realized I couldn't allow that damage to happen. So all the leads and paths and schemes that led to her, all the wrongdoing that could be proven by a raid on her files-gone. I'll have to prove it up some other way, a way that doesn't involve Pallida & Associates."
He raised an eyebrow. "You have a chance to blow the lid off one of the hugest RICO and money-laundering schemes in federal history and you are passing it up? I don't buy it."
"Not passing it up, no. But I'm not going to drag her into it. This case will give me convictions of the biggest organized crime bosses this side of Eliot Ness. I will make my name and career on this case. Straight to the top. But it won't be at her expense." I looked around at his commendations. Jonesy had been beating the path of his own ascension for quite some time.
Jonesy pinched the bridge of his nose and leaned back in his chair. It squeaked under his weight. "You're telling me that you are going to get a conviction on Castille-if you even can-and then let Evan go?"
"That's exactly what I'm telling you." I nodded.
He was finally figuring out what I'd known since I'd first seen Evan sitting in the bar and working her magic on Jonesy. She was once-in-a-lifetime lightning in a bottle. I couldn't pass her up, no matter how much it would have pleased me to use her as a shortcut to bring down DiSalvo, or maybe a syndicate. Hell, I would have kicked up my heels with even one straightforward conviction. But that was before I met her. I would make do with Castille for now. Lighting up that prick would go a long way to assuage my ego.
I shrugged. "The bigger case wouldn't have been that much of a cakewalk with her files anyway. I have to trace the money, every last cent, back to its origination point, link it with the original crime, and then hope double jeopardy or the statute of limitations didn't kick the case out of court before it even got started."
"Those are just excuses." Jonesy dropped his gaze back to me.
I felt like this was the first real conversation I'd had with the guy since I'd been here. He really wasn't so bad. He'd be a lot better if he got a hard-on for someone other than Evan.
"They are," I agreed, "but I already told you the main reason."
"Have you considered that Evan's clients are going to get wind of what you originally had cooking and blame her? Especially since you two have been . . ." He shook his head, as if trying to erase an image from his mind. "They are the sort who shoot first and ask questions later."
It was a definite worry of mine. Evan could take care of herself, but if some of her more vicious clients thought for a second she was a threat to them, things would get ugly fast.
"That's why I've dropped the deeper part of my investigation entirely for the time being. I can't undo what I did before. I have no doubt that I got some buzz going in the criminal community in the months I spent tracing them to Evan's door, but she hasn't mentioned anything-"