A Deadly Affair (8 page)

“What can I say but the truth? How else can I help you, or myself? I fail to see why you are not questioning this Rastello. The way he had his money folded was perhaps a signal for something.”

“I told you, we been to see Rastello. His reason for keeping his folding money just so has nothing to do with either you or Harry. He’s out of this; that I’m certain of. Were you angry at Harry because he was stalling on selling you his house and you wanted to get things settled before you lost your job?”

“Lost what job? I’m a good mechanic. Ask Mr. Jones.”

London lit his pipe, puffed on it for a moment and the sweet smell seemed the only thing real and alive in the dreaded room. Then he said casually, “I did. He says he was about to fire you, that you considered yourself too good to grease trucks.”

“Fire me? Mr. Jones wouldn’t have said that! Why he once told me I would have his job when he moved up, to the main garage downtown.” But I heard my voice as in a whisper, and for a moment the nightmare stopped. Was London lying, baiting me? Or had Mr. Jones known about me bringing my lunch in, extending my lunch hour five or ten minutes? True, I did feel greasing trucks was not up to my ability, but had I ever openly told Mr. Jones that? If not, how did London know? My tired mind was mixed up now. I wanted time to think; even in a dream things can get too bad. But London was back at firing the rapid questions at me, the light in my eyes. Always the old questions: Where was the murder weapon?
What
was it? How had I got Harry up to the roof?

I kept to my story, not because I was tough or smart, but there was nothing else I could tell him. But it was hard, for I’d practically been up around the clock and my weary mind wandered. At times I even questioned myself, like a crazy man, for in my own mind I could not understand how Harry had ever left the handball courts.

Even clinging to my story, I began falling over my own words and London made a big thing of it. Once I said I thought Harry had taken off his gloves as he ran around the court—we often did that to cool our sweaty hands. I don’t know why I said it, but London took off on that, as excited as if he’d found uranium, since the gloves had been on when Harry’s body was found. So I had to fight to get my mental second wind, keep my guard up. We fenced around with the gloves thing for a while until I screamed I wasn’t sure if his gloves had been on or off, and what the hell difference did it make—I still didn’t kill Harry or have the smallest idea who had!

I was so exhausted at that point, I think if London had come at me, I would have said anything he wanted me to, in payment for a little rest. But he too was tired, and let it go; perhaps knowing the gloves were of no importance. While there wasn’t any window in the hot room, I figured it had to be morning. Cops had been coming in with reports or whispered messages for London or Artie. The last ones looked freshly shaved and very awake, so they must have been a new shift. There was also another sign—in the midst of all my great fear there was a feeling so routine I was almost ashamed of it: I was hungry.

From the little I could hear of the whispered conversations, they had checked to see if I’d had a police record—even in the island—and if Louisa or her husband had ever been in police trouble. Once London said in a loud whisper, “See what we have on his wife. She’s an Indian from upstate, with some pair of headlights.”

The dirty sonofabitch even glanced at me as he said it. I didn’t give him the satisfaction of reacting, on the outside. London went out and Artie came in sipping a container of coffee. He offered me some, and it smelled as fine as Puerto Rican coffee (which is the very best in the world). Much as I wanted it, I shook my head, wary of his friendship act. He then made with his great fat gift of a cigarette, which I didn’t want. Artie carefully finished a thick sugared doughnut I could practically taste, before he put his arm on my shoulder—friendly as a queer—and asked, “Joey, do you know the score? You look like a smart one.”

A smart
one!
“What score?”

Artie’s voice never became hoarse as did London’s. He said softly, “About life and things. You got to separate the crap from the clouds. There’s a crock of bull going around—they teach us American kids the courts work for all, that everybody has an equal chance before the law. The theory is okay, but democracy is a slow machine to work, takes time for all the bugs to be worked out—hundreds of years of time. That’s knowing the score.”

He waited for me to say something. I didn’t know what to answer, although I could tell him a few scores!

“I’m telling you the facts of life, Chico,” Artie went on, his voice as normal as if we were having a chat over a beer, his hand fondling my shoulder again. “Like we say a white man and a colored boy are equal before a jury, that their color isn’t supposed to matter. That’s crap, we know it does sway a jury, they’ll rook the colored boy every time. Don’t we know that, Joey?”

“I am Spanish, not colored.”

He laughed gently. “Joey, I know the score, don’t give me sunshine talk. Up here you know what you are—black. And a dirty Spic too. I’m not saying it, merely stating the score. You have to read between the lines to know the score. Like all the books say any citizen can be president of the U.S.A. You and I, we know that’s a bucket of bull, don’t we, Joey? A gal can’t be president. You can’t, and neither can I because I’m Catholic. London can’t because he’s a Jew-boy. Same goes for the courts. It just isn’t true everybody has their day in court—only a rich man can really have that. You rich, son?”

“You know I’m not,” I told him, wondering where all this was leading to, and so tired I hardly cared. But long as he didn’t talk about me killing Harry, his talk was restful, like between the rounds. But now long was this horror of a nightmare to last? Wasn’t it time to awake to Helen’s arms?

His hand dug into my shoulder, awakening me. “Chico, I’m going to give you some straight advice: you haven’t a chance of a spit in hell. That’s a fact, no matter which way you face it. Suppose you don’t confess, what will happen to you in court? You’ve stuck yourself with a lousy impossible story, a jury will laugh you into the chair. Plus right this second we have twenty men fine-combing the area, and sooner or later we’ll come up with a witness to break even your silly story. How much …”

“I tell the truth!”

“Kid, listen to me, you say truth as if it’s a flag to wave. It’s only a word, one small word. Go in to court shouting the “truth.” How much lawyer do you think you’ll be able to hire with the few bucks you may have in the bank? You think many lawyers give a hoot about defending a black kid? Or suppose the court appoints a lawyer for you, then what: is he going to break his back working to free you, or merely go through the motions to pick up his check? The jury listens to your crazy story and finds you guilty. Now the law says a guilty verdict can be appealed and appealed, up to our highest court. Pure sunshine talk. The trouble is, the law don’t say where you’re supposed to get the money from. Costs like hell to appeal. Meantime, the newspapers will spread you and your wife all over the headlines, and into everybody’s mind. What’s the end result of you being stubborn, making our work harder for us? London and me don’t end up with the big kick in the ass—you do. This money your wife may get, it will go for the first appeal. The papers will make a big thing of your wife being an Indian, they’ll all give her address. She’ll be broke and open to propositions from all kinds of characters. Louisa had to get on her back to feed her kids, do you want your Helen to …”

“Keep still about her!” A shrill scream seemed to echo in the small room … and it took me time to realize it was my own voice.

Artie’s hand worked my shoulder muscles, but now it felt almost as relaxing as a second working in my corner. “Chico, listen to me, I’m not a bad guy. I wouldn’t want that to happen to your wife, or even an enemy’s wife. That’s why I’m showing you what a jerk you are. It’s all up to you: make it easy for us and we’ll help you, your wife and kid. Like I said, you must of had a good reason for killing Harry. Tell me what it was, how you did it. Come clean with us and we’ll see what we can work out for you on this self-defense, or the insanity deal. Here, take some of this cold coffee and think it over.”

Soon as his voice stopped, I gathered my strength to go out for the next round, try to be sharp … even if my mind was dragging. “I can only say what I know. Not who killed Harry or why he was killed. I am a simple man, without imagination to make up such a story.”

He sighed and walked away. “Kid, you’re a fool. Soon you will be a dead fool and your wife a whore.” There was such a real note of sadness in his voice, I became more frightened than ever. Perhaps he was trying to help me….

Now London was walking around me, his shirt open showing the hair on his big chest. He had a length of dull red rubber hose in his right hand, kept cracking it against the wall every few seconds. It made a nasty sound. All my tiredness turned into a deep pain, a fear sickness. After a time he told me, in Spanish, “We have tried our best to treat you good. Yet you refuse to help us in the smallest way. Even if you did not actually kill Harry, you refuse to help with details which will enable us to bag the killer. I have been up all night and am tired, at the end of my patience. If I have to beat the truth out of you, I will do it.”

Artie suddenly opened the door, a smile on his fleshy face. He shouted, “Jack, we got him now! The boys been grilling Helen downstairs and she finally gave in. Says he told her Harry had decided not to sell them the house—the neighbors were raising all this hell—and Joey was so sore at Harry, he told her he was going to beat the slop out of him!”

They both turned to watch me, an expectant look on their faces like boys who have lit a firecracker and are waiting to see it explode. I was ice-cold with dread for a moment at the thought of Helen—with her temper—being grilled. But then it came to me with great speed how this
had
to be a trap! Because Helen was stronger than me in many things, and she would simply never lie: not against me—no matter what they were doing to her. And the knowledge that they were forced to resort to lies gave me a trickle of new hope and strength.

I merely stared back at them trusting my face revealed nothing.

“We had to search her for possible concealed weapons … undress her. Wowie first time I ever saw a buck-naked Indian babe … sultry stuff!” Then in a leering whisper loud enough for me to hear, Artie added in London’s ear, “What a strip tease! Sexier than anything I ever seen on a burlesque stage! Like a stag … before the whole midnight tour going off duty. Ya should of heard the cracks. She was crying but we told her there wasn’t any policewoman on duty and if she didn’t strip herself, we’d do it. And there were plenty of volunteers for the job! So she began pulling her things off slowly … got a sweet little shape … and her nipples—!”

They were still staring at me. I wasn’t upset: this also had to be part of their police act. And a wild guess on Artie’s part about the delight of my wife’s bosom. Nor would he forget what he had seen when they had come to our room for me, Helen sitting up in bed for the moment, with only her thin T-shirt on.

London said, “That’s a lousy thing for a woman to be forced to do, before all the men.”

Artie shrugged. “Only following regulations. Supposed to search all—”

“Still a terrible ordeal for a decent woman to go through. Joe, hasn’t this gone far enough? Perhaps now you’ll tell us the real story?”

I nodded. “I will: Harry ran after the ball and vanished. That’s the real story.”

Artie left, slamming the door. London slashed the air before my nose with his rubber hose. While I was far too frightened to laugh at them, I wanted to, because now I was certain I had won. They would never break me, force me to lie. If I did not break I could not be framed. Their stupid plan had backfired because they could not know Helen the way I did….

Yet there was some uneasiness ticking in the back of my mind, growing louder. It was not the business about undressing Helen, or even the remarks about her
tetitas
. While I would not put anything past
a
cop when it comes to our women, they would not try it in a police station, not with a
bunch
of cops around. But it was possible they had brought Helen here for questioning. Had they not said they were also questioning May someplace in the building? And Louisa? Yes, they could bring Helen here. Then who was taking care of the baby?

When I was a kid in the islands being alone was never a problem—I was always hanging about some member of the family. So I hardly know why I have this absolute fear about Henry being alone. It was something I even had words with Helen about, for I did not trust any baby-sitter with my son either. I’ve heard of
Hispano
kids bitten by rats up here, or run down by cars, or burnt to death by gas-heaters during the winter … while left alone. The
blanco
papers never fail to blame the parents in such cases, as if they are at fault for the high rents and prices forcing both mama and poppa to work. And in my Henry’s case … such a tiny baby.

I watched London pacing the room, swinging the rubber hose like he was in love with it. I felt myself going to pieces, fear melting my insides. It wasn’t fear of the hose, for myself, but the thought of my helpless son.
Oh Dios Mio
, if it should be about eight or nine o’clock now he would be awake, screaming for his bottle, for a diaper change … I knew it was a mistake but I could not help asking, “Did Helen bring the baby here? Who is with him?”

London stopped walking abruptly: a guy who has stumbled onto something. “Gosh, Jose, I don’t know about the kid. But he isn’t here in the precinct house. Won’t one of the other
mujeres
in the house look after him? Or are they all out to work?”

“What has my baby to do with this? Why should he be alone? What if a rat attacks him?” My voice was as shrill as a woman’s.

London nodded. “Don’t you worry, we won’t let anything happen to a little baby.” He picked up a phone from someplace in the darkness outside my ring of light, said to somebody, “Give me the desk. Al, this is Jack London. This Indian dame, the wife of the guy I’m interrogating, when are we going to release her? Oh … sure, sure, but that may take time. Who’s with their kid? What? Sure she has a kid. Yeah, young baby, in the crib in their room. What do you mean you didn’t know? Hell, if you’ve locked the door, how will anybody be able to hear or get to the kid if he cries? That’s good, send a policewoman over right. Hell, what do you mean you’ve sent them all out on assignment? The baby can’t wait until four in the afternoon for the other shift. Kid might starve, or choke on a sheet. What difference does it make who’s to blame? Okay, but I don’t like to call in one of these social work agencies except as a last resort. You know them, once they place a kid in a home … have a hell of a time getting him back. Try to do something soon. Sure, I’ll call you back the second he talks, so you can release the wife.”