Marked Man (11 page)

Judge Sistine was a large,
humorless woman with the forearms of a bear. She sat stone-faced on the bench, taking notes, as I questioned Theresa Wellman. I sneaked glances up at her every now and then to see how Theresa’s story was playing, but Judge Sistine was too good a jurist to show her hand. Still, I had little doubt that the testimony was having an effect.

It was Theresa doing the telling, that’s the way it is in direct examination, but it was my questions that created the setting, that decided where was the beginning, that maintained the pace, that ensured the telling details made it into the record, that slowed everything down at the most emotionally painful parts, giving Theresa the space she needed to break into tears. Nothing lubricates the wheels of justice like a few tears.

It was the classic story of a girl, sheltered and innocent, who is swept off her feet and into a fast and thrilling lifestyle by an older, wealthy man. Gullicksen objected from the start, claiming that none of this was relevant to the matter at hand, but I stated that the background was crucially important, and the judge agreed with me. So I put it all out there and on the record, the parties, the travel, the fine clothes, the luxury apartment, the important people who were suddenly paying attention. It was glamorous, it was exotic, it was simply too fabulous for a young girl from West Philly to turn down. A fantasy come true, with a darkness at the center, because at the center of it all was the unequal relationship between the young woman and the powerful, older man, Bradley Hewitt.

“Let’s go into some details about these parties you mentioned, Theresa,” I said. “Was there drinking?”

“Oh, yes. Wine at dinner, of course, Bradley liked his wine. Often champagne. Liqueurs after dinner and then more champagne or maybe really fine Scotch.”

“Did you drink much before meeting Mr. Hewitt?”

“My parents weren’t drinkers.”

“But you drank with Mr. Hewitt.”

“He developed my taste.”

“Were there any other intoxicants at these parties?”

“Marihuana,” she said. “Cocaine often. Pills.”

“Did you have much experience with drugs before meeting Mr. Hewitt?”

“No, not really.”

“You grew up in West Philly, isn’t that right?”

“I went to a parochial school, Mr. Carl. The nuns were very strict.”

“Did Bradley partake of drugs at these parties?”

“Not so much, but he encouraged the others. And he encouraged me. Strongly. He said he liked having sex when I was stoned.”

“And you acquiesced to his requests.”

“Yes.”

Slowly, we went through the hints of violence, the cheating, the humiliations, the verbal abuse. I didn’t have her go into the physical abuse, since there were no witnesses to it, Bradley Hewitt would just deny it, and I wasn’t quite sure if I believed it anyway. Instead we focused on the pregnancy, Bradley Hewitt’s demand that Theresa have an abortion, her refusal, the bitter end of the fantasy as the relationship died. The birth, the sporadic support from the new child’s father, his complete lack of interest in the baby, her need for more child support, the petition, the response, the fear, the decision to give up her custodial rights in exchange for a financial settlement.

“Why would you do such a thing, Theresa? Why would you agree to give up custody?”

“I thought I had no choice.”

“There’s always a choice, isn’t there?”

“He was too powerful. My lawyer said he would win. I made a
mistake. What can I say, Mr. Carl? I think about it every day. I guess I was afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Afraid of what Bradley would do to me if I kept fighting.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t fear of what would come out at the hearing?”

“I admitted I was having some problems at the time.”

“It was more than just a few problems, though, wasn’t it?” I said as I picked up the big red file folder, opened it, looked inside.

“I was going through things,” she said.

“What kind of things?”

“I was drinking.”

“How much?”

“Too much.”

“How often?”

“A lot.”

“Every day, right? Day and night, even while you were caring for your daughter.”

“I always cared for my daughter.”

“Were you using drugs, too?”

“Not really.”

“Theresa?” I said, waving the big red file folder.

“Some.”

“How much?”

“What are you doing, Mr. Carl?”

“I’m trying to understand a crucial decision in your life. Not every mother agrees to give up the custody to her daughter. Were you addicted to drugs at the time you made that agreement?”

“I don’t think I was addicted.”

“What were you using?”

“Nothing much.”

“Marihuana?”

“Yes.”

“Cocaine?”

“Some.”

“Crack?”

“Mr. Carl, stop this. What are you doing? I just want my daughter back.”

“Were you using crack cocaine at the time you sued for child support?”

“I tried it.”

“How often did you use it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes you do, Theresa. You were addicted to it, weren’t you?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you do know, don’t you? How much was a chunk of crack? Five bucks? And how often did you smoke it? How many times a day, Theresa?”

“I was having a hard time.”

“Constantly, right? As much as you could, right?”

“It’s a disease.”

“So how did you pay for it all, the drinking and the drugs, the rent on your apartment?”

“I lost the apartment.”

“Not right off. For a while you kept up with the rent. How did you pay for everything?”

“I had my job.”

“Until you were fired, right? For coming in late too many times.”

“I was a single mother.”

“How did you pay for everything, Theresa?”

“I found a way.”

I looked inside the file folder. “Do you know a man named Herbert Spenser?”

“No.”

“Do you know a man named Rudolph Wayne? Do you know a man named Sal Pullata? Do you know a man—”

“Stop it. What are you doing?” This is when the tears started. “You’re my attorney,” she said. “What are you doing? Did they buy you off, too?”

“You sold yourself to those men, didn’t you?”

“Mr. Carl, please stop.”

“You sold yourself to those men and to others. Countless others.”

“Stop.”

“You sold yourself while you were still caring for your daughter. She was in the next room sometimes, wasn’t she? When you drank with your clients and used drugs and sold yourself, she was right there.”

“Please stop. I’m begging you.”

“How could you do such a thing, Theresa?”

“I was out of control. There wasn’t enough money. He left me with nothing.”

“You knew you were endangering your daughter?”

“I was doing the best I could. I was sick.”

“And when you signed away your custody, you didn’t do it because the system was against you, or because your lawyer was bought off, or even for the money.”

“No.”

“You did it because you were scared.”

“I needed help.”

“You did it because at the time you couldn’t take care of your daughter like she deserved.”

“Mr. Carl, I love my Belle. More than anything.”

“And you gave up your custody to Bradley Hewitt because, quite simply, it was the best thing for your daughter.”

“I was lost.”

“Of course you were.”

“But that was before.”

“And now you want her back.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I love her.”

“But why now?”

“Because she needs me.”

“But why now?”

“Because now I know I can take care of her.”

I looked up at the judge, who was staring down with something close to pity on her face as Theresa Wellman sobbed on the stand.

“What’s next, Counselor?” said the judge.

“We’re going to talk about the treatment Ms. Wellman has
undertaken, about her new job, and how she has changed her life so that she can once again properly take care of her daughter.”

“Would you like a moment to compose yourself before we go on, Ms. Wellman?” said the judge.

Theresa Wellman nodded.

“Fifteen minutes,” said the judge.

When I sat down next to Beth, Theresa was still crying on the stand.

“You were a little tough on her,” said Beth softly.

“How much of that did you know?”

“None of it is a surprise.”

“Best thing she ever did was give up her daughter. It makes her look almost noble. It’s going to be hard to prove she deserves her back, but that’s what we’ll try to do after the break.”

“You think we still have a chance?”

“If I didn’t bring out all that crap, Gullicksen would have, and he would have been ten times as tough. Now what’s he going to do? Point his finger and call her a bad girl?”

Just then Gullicksen walked by on his way out to the hall. He nodded at me as he gestured at my red folder. “So it wasn’t empty after all,” he said.

“And if you think this one is thick,” I said, with as broad a smile as I could muster, “wait until you see the one I’ve got on your client.”

After Gullicksen had left the courtroom, shaken but not stirred, Beth looked at me with great hope on her face. “Do you have something on Bradley Hewitt?”

“Not yet,” I said. “But give me time.”

I had been putting
it off, but I could put it off no longer. It was time to face the darkest of all my demons and to find some answers to questions that had been plaguing me from the start of the Charlie Kalakos case. It was time to visit my dad.

I didn’t call ahead, there was no need. It was a Sunday afternoon, which meant my father would be home, alone, sitting in his La-Z-Boy watching the game, with a can of Iron City in one hand and a remote control in the other. It didn’t much matter in what month the Sunday fell. In the fall and winter, he watched the Eagles. In the spring and summer, he watched the Phillies. And in the dead months of February and March, when baseball and football were both on hiatus, he watched whatever: beach volleyball, alpine skiing,
Battle of the Network Stars
. Just so long as he could sit and wince, drink his beer, grumble at the television. That’s what Sundays were made for.

When I arrived at the little Spanish-style house in the little suburb of Hollywood, Pennsylvania, things didn’t seem quite right. First, there was a beat-up old yellow taxicab parked right out front. Then, the front door was slightly ajar. It was not like my father to keep the front door slightly ajar. He kept his house like he kept his emotional life, buttoned up and locked tight, all to hold the world at bay. But even stranger was that I heard voices coming from his shabby little living room. It had to be the television, I figured, but it didn’t sound like a couple of announcers discussing the offensive futility of the Phillies’ lineup. It sounded almost like a friendly conversation. Between real people. In my father’s house.

“Dad,” I said. I opened the screen door, knocked on the slightly ajar front door. “Dad, are you there?”

“Who’s that?” came my father’s growl, which would have been a marginally acceptable response if I weren’t an only child.

“Dad, it’s me.”

“What do you want?”

“I just came to say hello.”

“Why didn’t you call first?” said my father. “I’m busy.”

“Dad?”

“What?”

“Can I come in?”

“No.”

“Oh, don’t be unsociable like, Jesse,” came another voice, high and jaunty. “Even a crocodile don’t turn away his own young. Invite the boy inside. This is a fortuitous treat, it is. Might liven up the conversation.”

“I’m coming in,” I said, suddenly apprehensive.

“Boy knows his mind,” said the other voice. “I like that.”

I pushed open the door, stepped into the living room, and there he was, my father, on his La-Z-Boy, beer in hand like every other Sunday, except the television wasn’t on and he wasn’t alone and there was a peculiar worry on his face. Two men sat side by side on the sofa, beers in their hands, both older even than my dad. One was huge, with big hands, a wide jaw, a mop of gray hair cut badly. The other was thin and dark, with a blue captain’s hat cocked on his head. And somehow, in the geometry and atmosphere of the room, I tasted the acrid scent of latent danger.

“Let me guess,” said the thin man with the captain’s hat. “You the tiger cub, right? You that Victor, the one we all been seeing on the television.”

“That’s right,” I said. “And who are you?”

“Old friends of your father,” said the big man in a slow, deep voice.

“I didn’t know my father had old friends,” I said.

“Well, he do,” said the thin man, before he took a swig of his beer. “And we is it.”

“That’s pleasant,” I said, looking once again at my father’s worried
face. “Old friends getting together, drinking beer, talking old times. And the cab outside?”

“Mine,” said the thin man.

“It’s quite yellow.”

“It’s a Yellow Cab, fool.”

“You fellows mind if I grab a beer, sit down and join you?”

“If you’re going to the fridge,” said the thin man, raising up his can, “fetch me another. All this reminiscing, it builds up a thirst.”

I stole a look at my father once more before stepping into the kitchen and pulling two beers out of the refrigerator. I wasn’t just then in the mood to drink, but I figured I’d join in. My father didn’t seem so happy to see his old friends, and less happy that I had stopped by at the same time. And I had a strong sense of why. I had never seen the two men before in the entirety of my life, never in the flesh and never in a photograph, but I recognized them all the same.

“So how do you guys all know each other?” I said when I returned with the beers.

“From the old neighborhood,” said the big man.

“Your daddy was younger than we was,” said the thin man. “But we still remember when he went into the army. All spit and polish, with his feathers preened. From the snappy side of town, he was.”

“That’s enough of that,” said my father. “We don’t need no more old stories.”

“Sure we do,” I said. “I love old stories.”

“He wore his hair all swept up and back, shiny black, it was, and a little wavy. That was the Jewish in him. And he always had a tube of grease and comb with him. Always getting that hair just right.”

“And good with the girls,” said the big man.

“Course he was,” said the thin man. “Take a lesson, boy. Never underestimate the power of a good head of hair.”

We all laughed at that, all but my father, whose hair wasn’t anymore black and shiny.

“So what brings you here this afternoon?” I said.

The two men on the couch glanced at each other. “Just visiting,” said the big man.

“Really? Just visiting, out of the blue?”

“Well, Joey did have some business to talk about.”

“We was talking with your father,” said the thin man, “about a moneymaking proposition. Ralph and me was discussing it together, this opportunity, and we thought we’d give our old friend Jesse here a taste.”

“Why, that is so nice of you,” I said. “Isn’t that nice, Dad?”

“I already told them to keep me the hell out of it,” he said.

“Oh, Jesse’s just not seeing the possibilities,” said Joey. “He’s always been like that, so busy looking down at the sidewalk so he won’t trip over those feets of his that he can’t see what’s up there to be grabbed.”

“I see it all right,” he said. “I just don’t want anything to do with it. And neither does Victor.”

“My dad’s a little shortsighted when it comes to money,” I said, which was something I believed all my life but knew now to be untrue. “Though I myself might be interested.”

“What do you say there, Ralph,” said the thin man. “Think we ought to let the kid in?”

“I guess we don’t have a choice, do we?” said Ralph.

“Not no more,” said the thin man. “Being as you showed up when you did, smack in the middle of our discussions.”

“Good for me, huh?” I said, my grin so wide it hurt my cheeks.

Joey took a long drink of his beer, nodded his head. “So this is it, Victor. We have received an offer, a very generous offer. Something that could change all our lives, and let me tell you, speaking for Ralph and myself, our lives could use some changing.”

“Mine, too,” I said.

“It’s an opportunity to take advantage of, don’t you think?”

“He don’t want nothing to do with it,” said my father.

“Let the boy decide for himself,” said thin Joey, tilting back his cap, leaning forward. “We have an offer from a certain party to purchase an object that belongs to us. It’s simple enough, and the terms couldn’t be more generous.”

“Oh, terms could always be more generous. Getting them more generous is my specialty. Tell me who it is you’re talking with, and I’ll give him a ring.”

“We don’t need you negotiating for us, fool,” said Joey. “I didn’t
spend thirty years driving a cab without learning how to negotiate the fare.”

“But if you like the deal as it is, then sell the damn thing by yourselves and be done with it. You don’t need me or my dad. That’s capitalism.”

“Yes, yes it is. Precisely put.”

“But there’s a problem,” said the big man.

“There always is, isn’t there, Ralph? Let me guess.” I closed my eyes, rubbed my hands over my face as if trying to pull an idea out of the air. “Something makes me think you don’t know where this object is.”

“Jesse, why didn’t you tell us your boy here was an Einstein?” said Joey. “Why didn’t you brag on him? I had a boy like that, I’d tell the world.”

“He’s not as smart as he thinks,” grumbled my father.

“Actually, Joey, since my father isn’t really interested, we don’t need to involve him in these discussions any further, do we?”

“This is the deal of a lifetime, and you want to cut out your own dear dad?” said Joey. “I admire the hell out of that.”

“My father and I have learned never to mix business with blood. Why don’t we go someplace to talk?”

“How about a bar?” said Joey, smacking his lips. “All this talk about money builds up a thirst.”

“I bet a lot of things build up a thirst for you, Joey.”

“Don’t never trust a man who don’t drink or don’t laugh,” said Joey. “That’s what my daddy taught me. That and not to trust nobody named Earl.” He swallowed the rest of his beer. “Which was, unfortunately, my daddy’s name.”

“Then let’s go,” I said. “The drinks are on me when we get where we’re going.”

“Why, that is most generous of you, squire. Most generous. Let’s be on our way, then. I’m sure your dad’s got better things to do than waste his time talking to old friends.”

“I’m sure he does. Just give me a minute with him, won’t you, for some family stuff?”

As soon as they left to wait for me outside in the taxicab, I sidled over to my father, still in his chair. He roughly grabbed my sleeve. “Do you know who they are?” he said.

“Yeah, I know. They’re two of the guys who used to hang out with Charlie the Greek thirty years ago.”

“Then why are you getting involved with them?”

“To remove them from your house, for one thing. They only came to you to get to me, and you didn’t seem so happy to have them here.”

“It’s Sunday. The Phils are on.”

“And you wouldn’t want to miss that.”

“What are you doing here anyways?”

“I wanted to see how you are. And maybe also to ask a few questions. Like why you owe that old witch Kalakos a favor.”

He turned away. “None of your business.”

“It is now, since she’s using it to rope me deeper into her son’s cesspool. You’re going to have to tell me sometime before I get submerged. But not now. Now I have to share a pitcher with Big Ralph and Little Joey.”

“Be careful.”

“Oh, I think I can handle a pair of sweet old guys like that.”

“They’re not that old, and they’re not that sweet.”

I looked at the still-open front door and the Yellow Cab waiting outside for me.

“When they were boys, they roamed the neighborhood like wolves,” said my father. “They beat some kid to near death with a baseball bat.”

“You got me into this.”

“I made a mistake.”

“I don’t think they’d let me ditch them now, do you? Besides, I have a question they might be able to answer.”

“Like what?”

“Like who the hell knew enough to make those two old crooks an offer.”