“Waiting for Friday and my seal pup impersonation.”
“Okay. Carry on.”
It is Wednesday Story Day, and last week we were in the room when Pricilla started her interrogation of Lazar. We learned that Cortez and Taggert were the guys in charge of the illegal activities around Reno. We also learned that Nikola Stanković was not involved in the nefarious activities of Cortez, Taggert, and Lazar. Now the question is, do we believe lazar? I see Pricilla took a break from Lazar and is leading the discussion in the conference room with our gang. Let’s go and see what she’s thinking.
“Okay, guys, here are my thoughts. I think Lazar has a lot to lose by fingering Stanković, and so he might be hiding something.”
“Excuse me.”
“Sure, Larry. Go ahead.”
“Stankovic was the one who told us about Lazar. If he was involved, why would he do that?”
“I could think of a few reasons.”
“Well, he did say he wanted to eliminate the competition.”
“That sounds like a good front. Stanković knows Lazar won’t rat him out, so he has nothing to lose by throwing Lazar under the bus.”
“Okay, but let’s look at the other side.”
“Which is.”
“Suppose Taggert and Lazar are a pain in Stanković’s side. Suppose he wants to get rid of them. What better way than to use us?”
“Yeah, I get that. What makes him think we won’t come after him?”
“I can answer that.”
“Yes, Robert.”
“Half the city council, most of the state representatives, a few congresspeople, and one senator owe him a ton of favors.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I wish I were. He has done a lot for those people. Believe me, if we go after him, all hell’s going to break loose.”
“You know I represent the Federal Government and could prosecute those folks as well.”
“The sad part is I don’t believe Stanković’s help could be classified as crimes.”
“What about bribery?”
“You would have to prove a quid pro quo, and I’m not sure there is one.” Most of these favors were legal contributions, charity donations, jobs for kids in his legitimate businesses. Would be tough to prove bribery.”
“You sound like a fan.”
“I worked in his auto garage all through college. I didn’t know it was his, though.”
“Has he ever mentioned it?”
“You looking for a case, madam prosecutor?”
“I guess it sounded that way. You do know Stanković pretty well.”
“Enough to respect when he says he wants to eliminate Lazar, Cortez, and Taggert, he means it.”
“Okay. Let’s assume he is not involved in this mess. Let’s go back in and find out how deeply Lazar knows about the Taggert and Cortez connection.”
“Good idea, Pricilla. I don’t buy that he is just a small-time distributor who took a payment from Taggert. I also don’t buy that his knowledge of Cortez is just cause he heard the name from Taggert.”
“I’m with you, Robert. I also want to know if he was the one who ordered those thugs to kill Andrew and me?”
“If so, Larry, this would be an interesting tie to your Sandusky. Case.”
“Thank you. Robert.”
“You gentlemen are going to need to fill me in on all of this. Let’s go and find out more about Cortez and we can talk more later.
