The Ledger

14.19 Nowhere Man: The Mayor Bloomberg Episode

Mayor Bloomberg guest-stars in this episode (14.19) about a talented Assistant District Attorney who is found murdered in Central Park. The attorney was a close colleague of Jack McCoy's, but McCoy soon realizes he didn't know the victim as well as he thought he did.

Pictures

Here's the fun stuff:

• Screenshot of Bloomberg at first press conference. Notice L&O DA Arthur Branch standing behind him.
• Screen shot of Lt. Van Buren watching Bloomberg on TV. A pretty post-modern image, if you think about it: we're watching TV and seeing a fake character watch our real mayor on TV.
• Bloomberg's second press conference, at the end of the episode. Branch is behind him again, and that looks like Serena Southerlyn's blonde hair and Jack McCoy's gray hair in the foreground.
• MP3s of Bloomberg speaking in the episode.

Plot Summary

Ok, here we go.

The episode begins with a woman walking through the park chatting on her cellphone about an upcoming party. Just as she's saying, "My caterer lives for me" or some such, she notices a dead body a few yards away, behind a rock. She hangs up, saying she has to call 911. Briscoe and Green arrive on the scene and learn that the victim is an Assistant District Attorney from the Appellate Bureau, and that he has been stabbed at least 12 times. He's also been shot in the chest. His name is Daniel Tenofsky.

After the teaser, the episode continues with a press conference featuring our hero, Mayor Bloomberg. Bloomberg, with DA Arthur Branch standing behind him, says that such acts will not be tolerated, and everything necessary will be done to "bring down" the perpetrators. Tough talk. He does a decent job acting-wise, and sounds convincing, although he has the advantage of being able to read from a prepared statement. Cut to Lt. Van Buren watching the press conference on TV, and -- in a voice that suggests she has a cold -- tells Serena Southerlyn she'll ask for extra help if she needs it. Briscoe says it sounds like McCoy is "on the warpath." Briscoe and Green tell her what they know so far: he was supposed to be heading home to Park Slope, Brooklyn, but instead he turned up dead in Central Park 6 hours later.

Briscoe and Green visit his apartment to look for clues. They find that their victim was a meticulous record keeper, but lived a very quiet life: not very social, no messages on his machine, etc. Green flips through the Tenofsky's Filofax, but doesn't find anything useful. He suggests they check his email, and Briscoe uncharacteristically comments that his email is probably "all spam." Along with the rest of America, Green shoots back, "I'm impressed you even know what that is." They check his answering machine, and all they get is a message from the video store that the director's cut of Repo Man* is available for him to pick up. Green says Repo Man is a classic, but Briscoe says he thinks The Wild Bunch is a classic. Although there's only one message on the machine, the handset has caller ID, and indicates another call came in later that night, which Tenofsky answered. They trace the number to a local pizza shop, though the owner says no one would have had access to the phone at that time. He seems credible.

Green and Briscoe next visit Tenofsky's bosss, Appeals Bureau Chief Mike O'Dwyer. O'Dwyer and his assistant tell them they haven't even found his next of kin yet. They give the detectives a run-down on Tenofsky's career: he graduated from Brooklyn Law School, had a promising career and was considered a brilliant lawyer. They say he was even considered "the Next Jack McCoy," and that McCoy and he worked on a case together 10 years ago -- the Hiltbrant trial -- that involved a serial killer. (I'm not sure if this is a case that was depicted on the show. Will check later.) Just as his career was really taking off and he was offered a promotion, he requested a transfer to the appeals division, which Green points out was "a big step down." O'Dwyer says he soon appointed Tenofsky to the position of Senior Appellate Counsel, and that Tenofsky worked all the time, never complaining, always doing outstanding work.

To get more insight into their victim, the detectives next visit his office mate of 4 years, a junior ADA named Susan Yee. Yee says he was not very social, and called her "Ms. Yee" the whole time he worked with her. She turns out not to have much insight into him, and Briscoe comments, "The more we learn about Tenofsky, the less we know." Yee helpfully adds, however, that she heard a rumor that he once dated another ADA, an assistant in Frauds.

Briscoe and Green visit this woman, and she says they had a nice time dating, seeing Zeffirelli's Aida and watching science fiction movies. But just when it started to get serious, he backed out and never called her again. Briscoe refers to Tenofsky as "the nowhere man." The ex-girlfriend gives one clue, however: he had a brother in Arizona, and Tenofsky and his brother used to attend a swap meet their together, in Quartzite.

Back at the precinct, Briscoe and Green try to figure out what they have, and it's not much. Green says both ADAs were pretty hot, so maybe Tenofsky was gay, since he didn't get involved with them. Good detective work, Eddie. If you're not involved with your co-workers, you're gay. Briscoe ignores this theory of motive and they turn their attention back to Tenofsky's records. Briscoe says T. was so thorough, he saved his renewal notices for magazine subscriptions. They find ticket stubs to Arizona, and a pamphlet about the swap meet. Green reviews T.'s rent receipts, which date back over 20 years. He find some of these from 1977-1978 for an apartment in Arizona, but the degree on Tenofsky's wall said he graduated in 1980. How could he be attending law school in Brooklyn while apparently living in Arizona? Briscoe says, "It's a long commute."

They visit Brooklyn Law School and a reluctant clerical worker tells them that someone named Tenofskie -- not Tenofsky -- was enrolled there around that time, but never graduated. It begins to look like Tenofsky is not really Tenofsky, and that he stole this Tenofskie's identity. They visit the other Tenofskie -- now a dock foreman -- and he says he couldn't handle law school and dropped out. When they asked him if he had revealed his personal info anywhere, perhaps by enrolling in another school or program, he says that he enrolled in a professional correspondence program...in Arizona. A connection! The detectives theory that while in school in Arizona, Tenofsky (or whoever he was) came into contact with all this personal data, and took on the identity.

McCoy says he's mystified. He describes Tenofsky as a first-rate attorney, and has no explanation for what the detectives have learned. He says, "Who did I eulogize last night?" He says T. had no friends or family present at the funeral...it was all professional acquaintances. McCoy says all T.'s cases must be reviewed to make sure that they are still solid. Southerlyn asks them if the convictions are at risk, and he says no.

Soon after, the Phoenix police department faxes the detectives and the DA's all kinds of info on Tenofsky: his real name is Jacob Dieter. Under his real name, he attended University of Phoenix, the institution where Tenofskie enrolled in correspondence school, he worked as a paralegal, and had an assortment of other jobs. Branch tells McCoy he has to go visit the head judge of the appellate division, who isn't happy about learning that Tenofsky was not who he said he was, and all these cases could be in jeopardy. The judge tells Branch that he, the judge, will have to investigate 25 of Tenofsky's 50 appellate cases, and McCoy and SS will have to investigate the other 25.

SS and McCoy review the cases, but don't find anything suspicious until SS turns her attention to T.'s earlier trial cases, where she finds a suspiciously thin case folder that appears to have been stripped of crucial information. Now we're getting somewhere: the case involves a Mr. Tortomassi, an underboss of the Misucci crime family (I think the Misucci's have been mentioned before on the show.) The case involves the disappearance of Robert Parenti, and employee of -- get this --The New York Ledger, the imaginary newspaper on the show which is the namesake of this blog. Parenti, a loading dock employee, was never found, but two wiseguys named Biscotti and Libretti (aka "Biscuits and Books") were considered suspects in the murder. Tenofsky looked into getting them into the witness protection program, but apparently never followed through, and a bill of indictment was never filed against them or anyone else related to the case. McCoy wonders why the case didn't stick? There's very little evidence in the file to go on -- witness statements and many other documents are missing -- so it certainly looks like someone got to Tenofsky and made him abandon the case. McCoy figures it was Tortomassi, and tells SS to tell Green and Briscoe to get on the Parenti case.

Briscoe and Green head over to the OCCB, where a detective stands in front of one of those mafia family tree bulletin boards and tells them about the Misucci family and the Parentis case. The detectives next visit Parenti's widow, who tells them she already told everything to Tenofsky years ago. Briscoe asks her to tell the story one more time, which she does. Parentis, it turns out, was not a completely innocent victim: he had a no-show job at the Ledger, where he'd get paid but never have to show up. He had to split his paycheck with his superiors in the organization, but he complained about it, and wouldn't stop complaining. Eventually this caught the attention of Biscuits and Books. He told his wife that if anything ever happened to him, it would be Biscuits and Books.

Hearing this, McCoy says Tenofsky "had Tortomassi dead-to-rights" on the Parenti case, so why didn't he go after him. Green says that B&B must have gotten to him. We learn that some Misucci associates previously owned the pizza shop where the late night phone call to Tenofsky came from, and still had keys, so this seems to further connect the Misuccis to Tenofksy's death. But McCoy wonders, Why kill him now? The Parenti case is almost many years old. He instructs SS to assemble a grand jury to look into the Parenti case ("There's no statute of limitation on murder," like he always says) so that he can drum up evidence on the Tenofsky case. SS is reluctant, but complies.

Briscoe and Green get back on the Parenti case, and begin by visiting the headquarters of the Ledger. (Shoot! I wish they had the HQ of Ledger!) The foreman there tells them he saw Parenti get followed by Biscuits and Books one pay day all those years ago, the same day Parenti disappeared. He told this to Tenofsky back then, too. In the background of the scene, you can see Ledger delivery trucks (that look suspiciously like NY Post delivery trucks) with the motto lettered on their sides: "ALL YOU WANT TO KNOW." We're about 33 minutes into the episode now.

Still digging, the detectives visit the detective who originally worked the Parenti case. When they talk to him, he's on scene at an apparent murder/robbery involving an armored truck heist. This guy is like the alternative-universe Lennie Briscoe: He looks at the shot guard and says, "He forgot it wasn't his money." The detective says a snitch told him B&B killed Parenti, and B&B started to co-operate but then hired a "mob laywer" who advised them not to co-operate.

Southerlyn visits this attorney, a Mr. Wachtler, and B&B are there, too, but are silent. She doesn't get much out of Wachtler, and he tells her it's clear to him she has no case. Nonetheless, after the meeting, McCoy sends Briscoe and Green out to arrest Biscotti and Libretto. Biscotti is picked up in one of those back room social clubs where mob guys apparently always hang out, and Libretti is picked up at a construction site he appears to be managing.

At their arraignment, one of them pleads not guilty and when asked how he pleads, Libretti cracks, "Me, too." Post-arraignment, McCoy meets with Wachtler to discuss a deal. During the whole conversation, McCoy has his feet up his desk, a stance which is oddly unsettling and seems inappropriate. Oh, McCoy, always the rebel. (Like when he's taking his pants off in front of ADA Claire Kincaid.) Anyway, McCoy looks over his shoes and tells Wachtler that he's not really interested in the Parenti case...he just wants to know the truth about Tenofsky. Wachtler says tough nuts: his clients already have immunity from when they testified to the grand jury all those years ago when Tenofsky was first looking into the case. McCoy says, well, the immunity statute is subject to interpretation, and besides, we don't really have any evidence that Biscuits and Book ever actually testified before the grand jury: Tenofsky threw his notes out, etc. After McCoy tells Branch that there's truly no physical evidence that B&B ever testified (the tapes have gone missing, the jury ward is dead), they take the dispute to the stern, sharp-tongued Judge Bradley who sides with McCoy refusing to believe that the men actually testified just because Wachtler says they did. This whole development stretches credulity, but like we always say about post-2001 L&O episodes, Whatever.

McCoy now has some leverage to learn about the Tenofsky murder: if B&B don't cooperate, he'll go after them for the Parenti case. While sitting around with SS deciding what to do next, he has a realization that will prove crucial. He has just a few pieces of evidence from Tenofsky's Parenti file left, but one of them sparks a connection in his mind. B&B's alibi was that they were at work on a construction job for an on-ramp for the Manhattan Bridge. He and the detectives head down there, and and a steam shoves mashes up the concrete, revealing a dismembered hand and the remains of...Mr Parenti! Good hunch, Jack. It's hard to tell exactly how he explains it, but it seems the document that led him to this realization was a Department of Public Works order for current work being done on the ramp. He reasons that Tenofsky heard about the work being done, knew that it would uncover Parenti's body, and decided to come forward. The contractor on the original construction job was Tortomassi Concrete.

McCoy uses this new treasure trove of physical evidence to strong-arm Libretti and Biscotti. He says they have skin from under Parenti's finger nails that they can get DNA from. After conferring with their lawyer in the conference room, they agree to tell McCoy what happened in both murders, and they offer to testify against Tortomassi in exchange for leniency. The deal they're offered in Manslaughter I, 12.5 to 25 years.

McCoy's first question is: How did you get Tenofsky to drop the investigation into the Parenti murder all those years ago? Their answer is that they simply bribed him with $50,000. McCoy doesn't believe it, and neither should we. After all this talk about how much Tenofsky loved his job and lived for it, it should be clear to everyone that they must have threatened to expose him as the fake that he was. Although McCoy's suspicious, he hasn't put that together yet. Based on B&B's statement, McCoy orders the arrest of Tortomassi, who talks to McCoy and denies involvement in Tenofsky's death. "I'm old school: no cops, no DAs," he tells McCoy, and he offers him condolences. McCoy seems to believe Tortomassi, but unsure what to do. He procedes with the trial anyway.

At trial, B&B testify against Tortomassi, saying that he ordered both hits, but McCoy notices an inconsistency in their testimony. One of them says Biscuits received the order, the other says Books did. This causes McCoy to be even more suspicious about what was going on, and he concludes that Wachtler, their defense attorney, manipulated their testimony for some reason. He tells Southerlyn to "get everything" on Wachtler.

This investigation happens off-camera, and soon enough McCoy is confronting Wachtler in his office. He tells Wachtler what we might have begun to suspect: Wachtler knew the real Tenofskie back in the day at Brooklyn Law School, and then ran into the fake Tenofsky while he was representing B&B during the original investigation into the murder of Parenti. McCoy accuses Wachtler of blackmailing Tenofsky, via B&B. Wachtler says, You want me to testify against them? I'll have to go into witness protection. McCoy replies, Sorry, pal: "You'll testify and you'll go to jail." Wachtler immediately implicity admits involvement and says Tortomassi didn't know about any of this. Tenofsky, he said, learned about the work on the bridge ramp and "was talking about coming forward." How Wachtler would know Tenofsky was talking about it, or why Tenofksy -- who has been set up by the entire rest of the episode to be an intensely private person -- would go "talking" about such a private matter is beyond me, but whatever. So now we know everything that happened, and it's left to his honor, Mayor Bloomberg to wrap everything up.

In his second press conference of the episode, Bloomberg says that the sentencing of the three men -- B&B and Wachtler -- has concluded "this sad chapter" of the city's history.

Outside city hall, McCoy and SS discuss Tenofsky. In a rather bad bit of episode-closing dialogue, SS asks Mccoy, "So, who was he really? Dieter or Tenofsky?" McCoy replies, "Who knows?" Well, actually, we all know: he was Dieter. Wasn't that the whole point of the episode??

Analysis

After all that summarizing, I don't have much to say about the episode except that it's pretty well-written and engaging, even if everything isn't always explained well. For instance, Dieter/Trenofsky's motivation for assuming the identity of another person is never even hinted at, let alone explained. Why not? It's a major weakness in the script, and hinders believability. Also, as I said above, how would Wachtler know that Trenofsky was planning to come forward? That doesn't make any sense either. And there's more minor stuff, too: Why would B&B break into a pizza shop to call Trenofsky? Were they hungry? Why not just pick up a fricking payphone and call? And so on.

The episode is filled with a few more jokes than usual, and the first half, especially, has a slightly different tone to it, I guess because of the seriousness of the crime, its connection to McCoy, and the appearance of Bloomberg. You get the impression that the producers and writers were treating this as "a very special episode." Nonetheless, it works, and the episode's unusual tone is not annoying.

Quick casting note: the wiseguy Libretti, aka "Books," is played by Steven Schirippa, still playing Bobby on The Sopranos. He's the big guy who takes care of Uncle Junior.

Anyway, let's not forget that Bloomberg is not the first sitting mayor to appear on Law & Order: Mayor Giuliani appeared in the episode Endurance, which also marked the first appearance of Dianne Wiest as DA Nora Lewin.

*By this they must mean that collector's edition that came out a few years ago in the license-plate packaging and was paired with the soundtrack.

Posted by adm at April 1, 2004 02:52 AM

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