Operation Greylord Read Online Free Page A

got around to the subject some time later, he told me, “You were chosen from a list of one.” From this I inferred that no one else had complained about the corruption.

    So there I was, pretty much as I had been on the first day of my undercover work, but deciding that Jim “Big Bird” Costello was my best bet for an entrance into another world. Like my father I’m naturally friendly, but until now I had always kept my distance with hallway hustlers, as if they went around with a little bell saying “unclean … unclean.” Butnow every morning I said hello to Jim and patted his arm and asked how things were going.
    The essence of courthouse hustling was dressing well and talking knowingly so that a defendant from a high-crime neighborhood might believe he would be in good hands. That was about Jim’s only qualification. He had been in private practice for just a year, but he already seemed part of the dull-gray architecture. At least Costello kept an office, unlike those who worked out of their cars, keeping a clutter of case files on their back seats and picking up messages from an answering service.
    In our exchange of small talk that first week of our friendship, I learned a few things about him. Like me, he had studied at Loyola University in Chicago and spent some time as an assistant state’s attorney. But whereas I grew up in a nice suburb, Costello came from a tough South Side area, and after an army stint he was a policeman for a dozen years. That was when he learned how things were done in one of America’s most corrupt cities. The City That Works. And he began taking bribes.
    A little more confident now, I felt that I could play my role better if I stopped trying to look like someone I’m not, so I shaved off my mustache and acted more naturally. In my first overt move, I asked Costello if he wanted to have lunch down the street at Jeans Restaurant. “Yeah,” he said.
    We crossed the railroad tracks running past the courthouse and walked half a block down California Avenue to the corner restaurant and bar. Prosecutors had their witnesses eat there because it was close, and Jeans would bill the State’s Attorney’s Office. Since court workers dropped by to talk shop, the jukebox was just a silent ornament.
    â€œYou’re a jerk to stay in the State’s Attorney’s Office,” Costello said after the waitress took our order. “I was in it three years, and I just had to get out. Know what I finally did? I called in sick thirty days in a row while I was setting up my own practice. You know Mike Ficaro? He sent an investigator to follow me around and found out I was just sick of work, so he fired me.”
    As always, Costello was only saying whatever came into his head, and I found myself enjoying his company even though I was looking for a way to trap him. He jerked his head toward a few prosecutors sitting around the place. “Look at those dorks. They’re making, what, twenty-five, thirty thousand a year and think they’re tough shit. Let metell you about the courts. There are certain ways of making things easier for everybody. Cops, you ASAs [assistant state’s attorneys], the judge—everybody. Why clog up the calendar, know what I mean? If you go by the rules, you won’t get nothing done.”
    Simple as that, a few words over a beer and sandwich. Costello was not suggesting that he ever did anything illegal. He was only letting me know that he hung around fixers and that I could, too, if I stuck with him. Then we went back to our work on opposite sides of the system, only now I was delighted at having found a chink in the wall. At last I could imagine myself walking down the corridors as defense attorneys ran after me with money in their fists. Only it didn’t happen that way.

2
THE CLOSED WORLD
    A Lawyer’s Education
    In a way, I was out of place as an assistant prosecutor because of my