Rating: R
Fandom: White Collar
Characters/Pairings: MozzieSpoilers: None
Warnings/Triggers: None
Word Count: ~2000
Summary: Eight Clauses That Define Their Relationship – Just Because You're Paranoid Doesn't Mean They're Not Out To Get You
Author’s Notes:
Previous Parts:
I – We The People
II – In Order To Form A More Perfect Union
III – Establish Justice
IV – Insure Domestic Tranquility
V - Provide For The Common Defense
________________________________
1991, A Major New York City Law Firm, World Trade Center, North Tower
“Hey there, Zuckerman!”
Moz gritted his teeth – he hated people just showing up at his office unannounced. Didn’t they know that’s what secretaries were for, to make appointments?
“What to you want, Brad?”
“It’s Chad.”
Moz knew that, of course. He seriously disliked Chad, with his perfectly coiffed blond hair, $500 double breasted Brooks Brothers suit, paisley braces, matching tie and pocket square, the flat abs and perfect posture. Charles Edward Bennington V, fellow graduate of Harvard Law, Class of ’87. No brains, all GQ looks and a pedigree that went back to the Mayflower. The moron never had to work a day in his life, and he rarely ever did.
“As I said, what do you want, Chad?”
“Listen, I need a favor.”
“Don’t you always” Moz muttered under his breath.
“I need you to fill in for me on a pro bono thing, a preliminary hearing for some idiot down in the Tombs. The Old Man’s gone on an altruism kick, and is having all of the second year associates do some good.” Chad snorted, as if the concept of doing good was something too ludicrous to take seriously.
“I’m a patent lawyer – I know nothing about New York criminal procedure.”
“Come on, Zuck, you took Crim Pro – we were in the same class. Don’t you remember any of it?”
He hated when people called him “Zuck.” Back in high school, as a perennially over-achieving and undersized nerd, the stupid meatheads would taunt him with “Zuck Sucks.” And the only thing worse than being called Zuck was when someone used his full first name, “Mozart.”
“No, I don’t.”
“What about Bar Review?”
“It’s been four years – do you really expect me to remember?”
“You’ve always bragged about a photographic memory, Zuck. Really, can’t you run up to Centre Street and do this for me? The hearing’s set for 3 pm, but I’m heading out of town – my flight’s at 4:30.”
Moz seriously considered the request. The thought of some poor schmuck relying on Chad for representation made his skin crawl. The guy was a mental defective; it took him five tries to pass the Bar. Everyone knew that the only reason he got into Harvard was his family connections, and if it not for the fact that his grandfather’s name was on the firm’s letterhead, he’d be out on his ass. “Give me the file.”
“Zuck – you’re a lifesaver.” Chad dropped the folder on his desk and practically ran out of his office.
Moz called out after him, “Don’t call me Zuck.”
The case seemed pretty straight forward, Amid Wali Yassir, 22 years old and a graduate student in chemistry at Columbia was picked up during a routine sweep of the Morningside Heights area. He had just enough marijuana in his pocket to put him over the legal limit for a personal use charge in New York. The amount he was carrying meant a three-year sentence, minimum under the distribution laws. But since it was the kid’s first arrest, Moz thought there was no reason why he couldn’t get him off with a fine.
At the Centre Street court house, he waited for his client to be delivered, but after two hours and multiple inquiries with less-than-forthcoming bailiffs, no one could give him a reason why the kid wasn’t made available for his own hearing. When he went to the Criminal Parts to request an extension, he was told that the matter wasn’t even on the docket.
Typical – Chad can’t even get the date of the hearing right, and I’m an idiot for not double checking the scheduling order..
But Chad was right – the scheduling order had the preliminary evidentiary hearing set for today at 3 pm. Moz walked across the street to the Manhattan Detention Center Complex, hoping to find out just what was going on. But all he got was a bigger headache. The desk had Yassir listed as a detainee, but couldn’t locate him in the new computer system. A search for his client’s arrest records and finger prints came up empty, but there was a record for the request for a Public Defender, and a copy of the fax noting that the case had been assigned to Moz’s firm for pro bono work. Henkley, the assistant warden that Moz was dealing with, was concerned by the inconsistencies – prisoners weren’t just supposed to disappear. They interviewed two of the corrections officers who were on duty when Yassir was brought in, and both remembered seeing the kid and feeling sorry for him – too young and too pretty to be stuck in a cell with hardened criminals, but since they both went off shift shortly afterward, they couldn’t tell Moz what – if anything – had happened. Henkley reluctantly agreed to follow up with him, after interviewing the guards on the next shift.
The next day came and went, and then it was the weekend. Moz got a call from Henkley on Monday, but the information was disturbing. One of the night shift guards remembers seeing Yassir taken from his cell and never brought back, and he didn’t recognize the corrections officers who had escorted the young man. He had checked the official visitors log and there was a replaced page in the binder – someone had signed in, then whited out the signature, photocopied the page and took the original. Henkley told Moz that the only time that happened was when the visit needs to be kept off the record. Since he valued his job over some stupid mope, he wasn’t going to dig any further.
Moz knew he should probably drop it. He wasn’t a criminal lawyer, he was only filling in, but this disappearance troubled him. He went to check out the kid’s dorm room at Columbia – hoping to talk with his roommate, but that was another frightening dead end. He didn’t have a roommate, but the kids across the hall said that a couple of men in dark suits came and removed everything from the room the day he had been arrested. Yassir was on a student visa from Jordan, so there was no family to follow up with, at least in the U.S.
A check with Immigration confirmed his status, and there was no record of detainment or deportation. When he followed up at the end of the week, INS told him that there was no record of any Amid Wali Yassir in the U.S. on a student visa attending Columbia University.
Moz became obsessed with finding the kid. People weren’t supposed to just vanish into the system. He neglected his own work, spending his days following up leads, calling and faxing and badgering the NYC Corrections department, the criminal court system, and trying to get the police to investigate, but no one was interested in the fate of some stupid foreign kid who got busted for pot. Even the dorm mates at Columbia – the ones who told him about the men in suits emptying the apartment changed their stories. After two months of fruitless, heartbreaking work, all he had was a folder three inches thick with notes and no leads. If it wasn’t for the copy of the arrest record and mug shot in the file that Chad had given him, there would be no proof that Amid Wali Yassir ever existed.
At first, he thought he was just being paranoid when it seemed that someone was following him home. After all, there are a lot of people who work on Wall Street and live in the West Village. Moz took to keeping the file with him at all times, and put a photocopy of it in a safe deposit box. Then he kept hearing clicks on his home phone line, and the second line light on the office phone kept blinking on and off. He called a buddy from his MIT days, and they did a sweep of his apartment. Not only was his phone tapped, there were listening devices in every single room.
The morning after they yanked out the bugs, he was greeted at the office by two men in dark suits and escorted to an empty office in a deserted corridor. A third man was waiting. Moz sat down, carefully keeping his briefcase between his legs. “Who are you?”
The man ignored his question. “You are Mozart Oscar Zuckerman?”
“Yes”
“Interesting name, Mozart…”
He winced. “My mother like classical music, my father was more of a show tunes fan.”
The suits laughed. Moz shivered. He asked again. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“You’ve been looking into the whereabouts of Amid Wali Yassir, chemistry student at Columbia, correct?”
Moz didn’t answer.
“We know what you’ve been doing, who you’ve been talking to, and pretty much everything you know.”
“You’ve been tapping my phone. That’s illegal – you can’t do that without a warrant.”
“Oh, we have a warrant.”
“How the hell can you get a warrant without probable cause, a hearing – I’m entitled to representation! Don’t you know about the Fourth Amendment - unlawful search and seizure?”
“Actually, Mr. Zuckerman, we got the warrant for these documents and the taps on your phones under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. None of that Fourth Amendment nonsense applies.”
“I’m going to do you a favor and let you end this here. You turn over your papers, you agree to drop the matter and your life goes on without interruption. I understand you’re a very successful patent attorney – on partner track here. You wouldn’t want to ruin that, would you? Your friends have busy and successful lives too.”
Moz broke into a cold sweat at the implied threat. “Why are you doing this?”
“You don’t need to know.” At that, the man opened a folder and slid it over to him. It was copies of the copies he had made and put into the safety deposit box.
“We have everything.”
In a fit of bravado, Moz snapped back “Everything except the originals.”
One of suits yanked back his chair, and the other grabbed his briefcase and pulled out his file.
“Now we have the originals. Be smart. Drop this, Mozart and forget you ever met us.”
He watched, frightened and nauseous as the three men just walked out, taking all of the evidence with them.
Moz didn’t know how long he sat in that empty office, but at some point he went to the bathroom and vomited until he sank to the floor, exhausted from the dry heaves. There was no way he could go on here. His life was over. There was no one he could trust, no one he could turn to without compromising their safety. He’d heard about guys that went off the grid, became untraceable. That’s what he needed to do. It wasn’t as if anyone would miss him. Izzy was long gone – probably somewhere in the Gulf shacking up with a jet jockey. As if they were ever really meant to be together anyway. Mom was dead; Dad was on his fourth or fifth wife and couldn’t even remember his firstborn’s name.
It was surprisingly easy to leave the firm. His work in the past few months had suffered badly, and his attitude has been even worse. They were grateful enough for his departure that they cut him his final check, plus his full bonus right then and there. Moz didn’t bother to collect any of the stuff from his office – not the framed diplomas or bar certificates or copies of the articles he’d published.
His apartment was almost as easy to leave. All he took were some clothes, the photos of his mother, and of him and Izzy, his grandfather’s chess set and two favorite novels. Everything else could be replaced. He dumped the keys through the super’s mail slot with a note that he wouldn’t be back, ever and he didn’t give a fuck about the security deposit.
Once he cashed his last paycheck, liquidated his portfolio and emptied his bank account, Mozart Oscar Zuckerman was gone.
GO TO PART VII: And Secure The Blessings of Liberty To Ourselves and Our Posterity
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