PART 35 (19 page)

“We can't use him as a witness. Wouldn't Ellis just love to get him on the stand and tear him apart, make us look lousy. It's just too risky.”

“Yeah, right. What about other colored guys? You know, all lined up in the back of the court?”

Sandro shook his head. “Too hard to control, now that I think about it. We'd have to control clothes, color, size, too many things.”

“How about photographs?”

“Maybe we could still do that. Let's hold him on the side, but tell him we may need him again.” Sandro suggested. He handed his card to Eugene. “If anything comes up, anybody questions you, get in touch.”

“I'll do anything you say, man, I mean, mister. You just get in touch with me. If I know anything, I'll tell you.”

“Fine. Mike, tell Francisco if he sees the fellow from the playground who was in here July third when Alvarado was here he should get in touch with us right away.”

Mike told him, said good-bye to both men, and walked out of the shop with Sandro.

“Everything falls into place so beautifully,” said Sandro. “I can't believe it, but here it is. What a rotten deal for Alvarado, though, if we're right.”

They reached the car and got in.

“Where to?” asked Mike.

“Well, we've seen the fellow in the restaurant. We have the barber. We have Eugene for whatever he's worth. We have the girl and the manager from the five-and-ten. Let's start on Hernandez's alibi. We'll see if we can find somebody at the pawnshop on the Bowery near Grand Street.”

“Okay.” Mike started the car and turned across the Williamsburg Bridge. Tugs were gliding toward the sea, pulling garbage scows. They drove through areas where new project buildings loomed up from the midst of the old tenements, where people had hung out of the windows and where ripped paper shades had let the sun in upon the squalor, where kids had run up and down the stoop, and broken beer bottles had been strewn all over the street. Soon the people would hang out of the new windows, and the kids would be running over broken glass into the new buildings, because the people weren't being changed; their income was the same, and so too were their ignorance, hunger, and need.

“If we go right across Delancey to the Bowery, we should be a block from this pawnshop,” said Sandro.

“Right.” Mike drove across Delancey Street to the Bowery and swung left. “There's no pawnshop on the corner,” said Mike as they neared Grand Street.

“There,” Sandro announced. “A couple of doors in. Sid Goodman's.”

Mike parked. They got out of the car, and walked toward the pawnshop. Behind the front window, trays of imitation gold and silver watches and rings abounded, as well as binoculars and knives, radios and cameras, bugles, banjos, guitars, tools, suits, shoes. Mike and Sandro entered. All around the interior were steel gates atop counters and showcases. Behind the cages were all sorts of packages and pawned items. Sandro stepped to one of the counters and waited while a clerk filled out some papers and handed a customer fourteen dollars for a suit. The man pledging the suit made a dissatisfied face as he gathered the money. He counted it, raised a resigned eyebrow, and pocketed the money. Sandro moved up to the window to talk to the clerk.

“My name is Luca,” said Sandro. “I'm an attorney.” Sandro handed him a card. The clerk, a Puerto Rican with a moustache and glasses, stopped working and listened. “I'm the lawyer for a fellow accused of a crime, a murder, on Stanton Street.” The clerk was visibly uneasy now. “Another fellow, also accused of the crime, was in here the day of the killing, pawning some goods.” Sandro took the newspaper clippings out of his briefcase. “I'd like a little help if you can give it. “Were you here that day, July third, or would you have the pledge book from that day so we can check to see if this other fellow was here?” Sandro put the clippings on the counter. He pointed at Hernandez's picture. “This is the fellow. He was supposed to be here on July third pawning a radio or something. He used the name Antonio Cruz.”

The clerk studied the picture. He looked up at Sandro.

“Yeah, he was here.” He was quite positive. “The police already asking me about this.”

“When was this?”

“Oh, they were here, I don't know, a few months ago. When it happened, this thing. They come over and show me some pawn ticket, and they want the stuff this guy here pawned.” The clerk tapped Hernandez's picture. “I showed the stuff, it was a detective, I think, and they put a stop on it.”

“You sure this fellow was here on July third?” Sandro repeated.

“Sure. I got his name in the book. I seen him before. His name is different there in the paper, but he came in before and put down in the book Antonio Cruz. I showed the cops. I'll show you.” The clerk walked around to another counter where large ledgers were kept.

“What's the trouble, Willie?” asked a thin, nervous-looking man who came out of the front office. He was obviously Sid Goodman or Sid Goodman's successor.

“No trouble,” replied Willie. “This is about that radio that some guy pawned over here and the cops came in and put a stop on it. Remember? I think you have the slip up there on the cash register.”

“Oh, yes, yes. I think I remember that,” Goodman answered cautiously. “What's the difficulty.”

“No difficulty,” Sandro answered. “I am an attorney and represent one of the people involved in that case.” Sandro handed Goodman a card. He studied it. “I understand one of these men was here pawning things,” Sandro continued. “I need some information. If this fellow was here pawning something, he couldn't also be at the scene of a crime.”

“Well, I don't know what time he was here or even if he was here,” said Goodman curtly. “Do you know anything about this, Willie?” His tone intimated that Willie didn't either.

Willie had carried a large ledger to the counter where Goodman stood facing Sandro. He opened the book to “July 3, 1967.” “Here, you see his name here,” Willie pointed. “Antonio Cruz. That's the name he use. Antonio Cruz was the same guy in the papers there,” he pointed to Hernandez. “Only I didn't know his real name. You have the signature card on the cash register,” Willie said to Goodman.

Goodman shrugged and walked to the cash register and searched through a pile of papers. Willie went over and took up the search. Goodman watched, somewhat nervous. Willie selected a slip of paper and brought it back to Sandro. “Here, see. See where the cops wrote on it, and they said to hold the radio and not let the goods out. That's why I remember, because the cops made us keep the goods.”

“And did he sign that book there?” Sandro asked.

“Yes, here. See.” Willie twisted the book around so Sandro could see it. At line number 43 on the page was written
Antonio Cruz, Radio, $12.00.

“It's Hernandez's handwriting, all right,” Mike observed. “Like a small kid's.”

Sandro nodded. “Could you tell me what time Cruz was in here that day?”

“Well, I don't know ‘zactly,” said Willie, studying the list of names.

“Well, it's pretty far down the list,” Goodman contributed, warming up. “I would say, from my experience around here, that it must've been sometime in the afternoon. I couldn't tell you exactly what time though.”

“Yes. It must have been sometime in the afternoon,” Willie agreed. “I can't tell you ‘zactly, but I know this Antonio Cruz, whose name is here, is that guy who was in the newspaper. I seen him in the papers the next day, and I seen him here before.”

“Is there any question in your mind that this fellow in the papers was in here that afternoon on July third?” Sandro pressed.

Willie studied the picture and shook his head. “He was here, okay.”

“What did he pawn?”

“A radio. I have it still upstairs.” Willie left and went up a stairway at the back of the shop. He returned with a package wrapped in brown paper. “This is the radio. See, it says here
Hold
on it. The cops made us hold this thing and wouldn't let us do anything with it.”

“Do you know which policemen that was?” Sandro asked.

“It says here Detective Mullaly,” Willie read. “And it got his phone number here. He was the one.”

Willie opened the package and showed Sandro a portable radio in a brown leather case.

“I'd like to write down some of the facts for my own records, so that I'll remember all the things that happened,” said Sandro, taking out a pad.

“Well, I don't know anything about it,” said Goodman, backing off again. “If you want to, Willie, it's all right with me. But I don't know how you're going to tell them exactly what time this fellow was in here.”

“I don't know what time, but I know he was here in the afternoon,” said Willie.

“You know that for a fact?” Goodman asked Willie suspiciously.

“Yeah. See his name on the list, number forty-three out of seventy-six people all that day. And the morning is always slow. And here's the cutoff at sixty-nine. We draw a line when we go to the bank at four o'clock, and that's after sixty-nine that day. So he must've been here in the afternoon,” Willie explained. “Besides, it was after my lunch for sure.”

Goodman picked up the book with its various markings, looked at Willie, pursed his lips, and as if having some confusion on the point, studied the pages. He shrugged, looked at Willie again, then at Sandro, and handed the book back to Willie.

“You say you saw this fellow in the shop before?” Sandro inquired as he wrote.

“Yes. He use the name Antonio Cruz, but I have seen him before in this shop.”

“And you're sure this fellow in the newspaper whose name is Hernandez is the same fellow who came in and used the name Cruz?” Sandro watched Willie's face.

“Yes. I'm sure about that.” Willie was. “The police came in and spoke to me about the radio a couple of days after I saw this in the paper. When I first saw it in the papers, the day after the police was shot, I remembered this man from the shop on the same day the police was kill. I say to myself, my God, you know, I wait on this guy the same day the papers say he kills somebody. It was funny, you know? I remember when the police were here. And that makes me remember now.”

“And what time was it. Can you approximate it?” asked Sandro.

“In the afternoon.”

“About what time?”

Willie studied the book again. He shrugged. “I know it was after my lunch.”

“What time do you eat?”

“Sometime between one and two.”

“Is that every day?” Sandro asked.

“Every day!”

“So this fellow came in after two on July third?”

“Probably earlier. A little after I got back.”

“You sure about that, Willie?” Sandro pressed.

“Sure.”

Sandro wrote quickly.

“Is this the number on the radio?” Sandro inquired, writing all the details on his pad. Willie nodded. Now if only he could tie this radio up with Hernandez's July 3rd burglary in El Barrio, Sandro thought. “And do you have a piece of paper that you say Hernandez signed when he came in?” Sandro asked.

“You have that signature card, Mr. Goodman,” Willie said.

“I do? Oh, you mean this one,” said Goodman, pushing the signature card across the counter.

“Are you sure that this is the same fellow, Willie?” Goodman asked.

“Yes, that's the fellow. The same fellow Hernandez as in this picture,” replied Willie, pointing to the clipping.

“How can you be sure, Willie? I mean, so many people come in here.” Goodman studied Willie's face, obviously impressed by his conviction.

“Because this is the same fellow who sign and pawn a radio, and he's Hernandez. And I remember because the police made us put this signature card to the side. Remember when the detective was here?” Willie looked at Goodman.

“No. No, I don't remember too well,” answered Goodman. “But if it was up on the cash register, then it must be there for a reason. I guess the police did tell us to put it there. If you remember, Willie, that's what happened.”

“May I have this signature card? I don't mean to keep it. I'd just like to take it to get a photostat of it,” Sandro requested.

“Well, the police told us not to misplace it, to take care of it,” cautioned Goodman.

“Mr. Goodman, a man's life is at stake,” Sandro said acidly. “The state wants to put somebody in the electric chair for a crime that he couldn't possibly have committed. The man was here in your store at the time he was supposed to be committing the crime. Willie saw him! And yet the police say he was on Stan ton Street, about ten blocks from here at the same time. If you were accused, Mr. Goodman, would you want someone to help you if you were innocent?”

Goodman looked sheepish.

“I'm not going to destroy this signature card,” said Sandro. “I'm just going to make a photostatic copy of it. You'll have it back within a half-hour from the time I take it.”

“Well, I don't know. I mean, I don't want to get involved with this at all,” said Goodman.

“Mr. Goodman, you won't become any more involved than you are now,” Sandro assured him, letting a threat seep into his voice. “I'll have to subpoena these papers and books to court anyway when the trial begins. So what's the difference if you let me have them now? It'll be back here in half an hour. No one will be hurt, and you'll have done a service to humanity.”

Goodman studied Sandro. He wasn't too concerned with humanity, but the price was right. He didn't have to do anything.

“Well, if you get it right back to me. I want you to give me a receipt for that. Give me your card and I'll write a little something on it, and you can sign it. At least I'll know who took it, you know. I won't get in trouble.”

Sandro handed him a business card. Goodman scrawled words of receipt on it and handed it back. Sandro signed his name.