PART 35 (8 page)

“Listen,” Don Vincenzo said, continuing to eat, “she's a nice girl. Now everything is okay. And who was hurt? Buy her something nice, a jewelry, something, anything you say. Whatever it costs, I pay. Tell her you got a silly old man for a father, and he apologizes, and give her the present. If it shines enough, she'll be quiet real soon. Now come on, have something to eat, something to drink.”

“I'll have a light Scotch and water,” Sandro said to Joey.

“How's school?” Don Vincenzo asked. “That's more important. Your exams'll be coming soon. You ready?”

“Sure. Sure.”

“Sure, you're ready. You'll pass them eyes closed. And then law school. Sandro, I pray only that I live long enough to see you a lawyer.”

“You won't die. Who'd want you? Not even the devil.” Sandro smiled.

So did Don Vincenzo. He squeezed Sandro's cheek affectionately.

“I been in court a lot, Sandro. I never got a conviction, but I got arrested enough times. I seen a lot of lawyers. I would have liked to be a lawyer, but I couldn't go to law school, cause I had no education. I was too busy hustling to stay alive. I would have been some lawyer. I'd wipe up the courtroom with the D.A. I'd destroy him, and when he was down, I'd kick him. That's what you're going to do. And you'll have respect. Me, I have respect, but it's because of this”—he raised his solid fist—“and because of them”—he pointed his chin at the men at the front table—“But you, just with your mouth, your words, you'll do more things, have more respect. If you can do that with just words, you'll be more powerful than me. Understand?”

“I understand.”

“If only I live that long, Sandro. I want to sec you wipe up the district attorney. You're going to be a beautiful lawyer.”

“I'll try, Uncle Jim.”

“What try? You're my family, you got the same blood in you I have. You got guts, and you got brains. You think I'm going to let some little girl you want to go out with this week mess all that up?”

“Let's not go into that again, Uncle Jim.”

Joey set the drink on Sandro's table, a twelve-year-old Scotch on the rocks, more potent than the drink of that early evening years ago, when he was a student and Don Vincenzo was alive. “You want something to eat, Counselor?”

“No, Joey.” He looked over to Don Vincenzo's chair and watched Sal finish his business. As Sandro lifted the glass to his lips, he could almost hear Don Vincenzo say, “Drink hearty.”

“Sandro, how are you?” Sal said, smiling, standing in his place as the two men left his table. Sal was tall and thin, stooped now and gray. He was about seventy-three years old, a couple of years younger than Don Vincenzo would have been.

He took the cigar from his mouth with his left hand, shaking Sandro's hand with the right. He studied Sandro for a moment. “Jesus, you lookin' like a million bucks, Sandro, real class.”

“Thanks, Sal, how've you been?” They sat at the table.

Sal stuck his cigar back in one side of his mouth. “Ah, what's the use of kickin'?
Vecchiai ena carogna, ma non ciarriva, ena vergogna.
You understand?—it's a bitch to get old, but it's even worse if you don't.” He lifted his eyebrows and his head in a shrug of resignation. “That lousy bastard doctor. If it was up to him, I'd be in a wheelchair. Pills for this, pills for that. He don't even want me smoking cigars. Who the hell wants to be so healthy anyway?” Sal waved his hand through the air. “One of these days I oughta have that doctor hit in the head,” he laughed. “But what brings you around anyway, Sandro? I ain't seen you since six, seven years. You got trouble?” Sal studied Sandro carefully.

“No, no trouble, Sal,” Sandro assured him. “I've got a heavy case over on the East Side, over by Stanton Street, I'm defending a fellow accused of killing a cop.”

“Good for him. That's one less rat.” Sal shifted his cigar. “But what can I do for you? You know, anything, anything you want, you name it.”

“I really just wanted to know if you know anybody who's still over in Stanton Street, somebody who might have a finger in things there.”

“Naw, that neighborhood's all changed now, crummy. Used to be Jews, but now it's all full of crazy spics. It stinks there now. Most of my friends aren't over there any more.”

“I thought maybe somebody taking bets or numbers. I want to get a friendly introduction to the neighborhood, see if I can find anyone who knows anything about this case.”

“I'll send somebody to look around. Maybe I can find somebody over there for you. I doubt it, but … Can I buy you a drink?”

“I just finished one, thanks. Shall I call you in a couple of days?”

“Better you come around,” Sal said. “You never know some bastard is tapping on the phone. Especially with you—
Buon Anima
Jimmy would come down to hit me in the head if I let you get in trouble.” He slapped Sandro on the back.

“Oh, by the way,” said Sandro as he rose to leave, “it was somebody who used to live around here who assigned me to this case—Judge Porta.”

“No kidding? Tommy Porta! How is he?” Sal thought for a moment. His head began to nod slightly. “I ain't seen him neither since maybe thirty years. Not since he became a big-shot politician. He hangs around with me, he's in trouble,” Sal laughed.

“Okay, Sal, and thanks,” Sandro said, laughing also. “I'll drop back to see you next week or so.”

Sandro walked toward the door. As he passed the front table, the men looked up, nodded, a hint of a smile coloring their lips.

CHAPTER VII

It was now mid-August. The dog days, held down by humidity, hung around the city's neck like a steamed towel. The huge doors were swung open to allow Sandro into the Tombs. He sat beneath the misery of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

“Alvarado?” the guard asked, holding a slip of paper.

“Here,” said Sandro, rising. He found Alvarado sitting at the far end of the bench with other prisoners. He smiled, rose, and shuffled toward Sandro in floppy slippers.

“Say, Mr. Luca,” said Alvarado, sitting, “when you come here next time can you bring me a bar of soap?”

“Soap?”

“Yeah. The stuff they got here makes me itch. They only got one soap here. If you could bring me some Dial, I be okay.”

“All right, if I remember it, I'll bring it. It's as hot as blazes in this place.” Sandro looked for a window to open. There were none. “You have air conditioning upstairs?”

Alvarado snorted. “Air conditioning? You kidding? You see that little hole up at the top of this windows?” He turned and pointed toward the window, thick translucent glass barred from the sill to the top of the frame. At the top were two small louvered openings through which air passed. During the winter these openings were covered with a metal plate. “That's our air conditioning.”

“You mean that's all the air that gets into your cell?”

“That's it. But I got a good system. I take my blanket, they give us a blanket upstairs, I soak it in the sink until it's soaking wet and then I put it on the cot and I sleep on that.”

“You'll get arthritis. Does it keep you cool?”

“It keep you soggy but not too bad. It helps.”

“Listen, Luis, I wanted to talk to you alone today because I want to get to the bottom of this story of yours. Once and for all.”

“Okay, Mr. Luca. What you want to know?” Alvarado pulled a single cigarette from his shirt pocket. It was a Pall Mall again. Filter cigarettes aren't allowed in prison—supposedly because prisoners can do funny things with filters, make something to get high. Pall Mall, as the original king-size cigarette, has never relinquished its popularity in prisons, where smoking is a luxury to be prolonged. It outsells all other brands there two to one.

“First, let me explain this to you,” said Sandro. “I want you to tell me the truth. No phony story. Understand?”

“I tol' you, I got no reason to lie to you, Mr. Luca,” Alvarado said firmly, looking directly at Sandro. “I know you trying to help me.”

“That's right. And we told you that if you give us a story that's not true and we accept it and build your defense on it, and it blows in our face, it's your hide. Understand? Your hide's going to find itself in jeopardy, not ours.”

“I understand.”

“So what I'm suggesting,” Sandro said very carefully and slowly, leaning toward Alvarado, “is that you don't know the law, and if you want to make up a story or alibi, at least you should make up a story that's right, that'll help. I know the law.” Sandro was hoping to lead Alvarado into the truth through the back door. “We can work out the story together. At least, if it's going to be manufactured, it will be manufactured right.” Sandro didn't intend to manufacture the story, or suborn perjury, but he did want the truth.

“I already telling you the truth. I know it's no good for my case to hide anything from you,” replied Alvarado.

“All right. Tell me again all that happened.”

“Like I told you. I was in the house. Oh wait, I remember something I didn't tell you and Mr. Sam Bemer last time. About a quarter after two, two thirty, before I went home to get a shower and then go in the subway, I took a haircut on Roebling Street.”

“A haircut. You got a haircut about two fifteen or two thirty?”

“Yes, I didn't tol' you last time you was here. I remember being out of the house and being near Broadway and Roebling Street. I did some things, killed time, and then I went to take a haircut. After, I wented home and taking a shower and dressed and talking to Jorge. Then I went to Times Square.”

“Are you sure about the time at the barber shop?” Sandro studied Alvarado closely.

“Sure.”

“Where is this barber shop?”

“It's on”—he studied the ceiling, his eyes zeroing in on the barber shop—”I think between Broadway and South Ninth on Roebling Street on this side of the street.” His hand motioned toward his left.

“What side of the street is that? Is it the east side or the west side of the street?”

“I think it's the … well, when you looking from Broadway to South Ninth Street it's on the left side. What side is that?”

“East. It's on the east side of the street between Broadway and South Ninth Street?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know who the barber was or what he looked like?”

“A short guy with a moustache. Young.” It sounded like “jung.”

“Was he Puerto Rican?”

“Yes.”

“And he gave you a haircut around
two fifteen or two thirty
on the afternoon of the day the cop was killed?”

“Yes, sir. I remember it was about that time and there was another guy with me, Eugene,” Alvarado explained. “I gave a guy a dollar to let me go ahead of him.”

“How long did this haircut take?”

“I don't know. How long a haircut take?”

“Fifteen, twenty minutes?” Sandro suggested.

“Somesing like that, I guess.”

“And then what happened?”

“Then home, like I told, took a shower, talk to Jorge, then got in the subway and wented down Times Square.”

“And when you were in Times Square you went to the movies?”

“Yes, sir. First I look aroun' for a while.”

“And what time did you get out of the movies?”

“I guess about twelve midnight, twelve fifteen, somesing like that.”

“And then?”

“And then I go home, and walking up the street I see Jorge's lights on. I go in Jorge's, and Jorge says, ‘Hey, Luis, you kill a cop?' And I say, ‘What's the matter, you crazy?' And then he says, ‘No cause there're three cops upstairs waiting for you.' I walked to go up, and then the cops come jumping out the door.”

“And when you were at the station house, they questioned you?”

“Question me?” Alvarado gave off a bitter chuckle. His eyes grew wide, the black pupils round and hard. “They didn't question me, they told me—with punches. They beating me and saying ‘We know you up there, Luis, make it easy on yourself.' and I told them I can't make it easy cause I was not there and I kill nobody. And they bring these things in, you know, a radio and a TV and they say, ‘Your fingerprints are all over these things.' And I say, ‘You better go back to school to learn to read prints, cause they can't be mine.'

“And then this big red-hair baldie guy gives me a couple of punches in the stomach again. And then there was a skinny cop that stopped them from beating me. And he was sitting there with me. Last time I didn't say to you what he told me. He sits down with me and he says, ‘Hey, Luis, you're thirty-five, like me. Luis, he says, ‘you know when we arrest a guy we afraid too. Just we carry a gun, a badge, doesn't mean we're not ascared sometimes. Tell the D.A. you were on the roof and you got panicky, you know. You saw the cop and you fought with him and you got the gun and you were ascared and you fired the gun. You wind up with manslaughter.'

“‘You're okay,' I tell the guy, ‘but killing a cop is death,' I tol' him. ‘I didn't do it. I not goin' to say nothin'. An' then this skinny detective says, ‘Well, it's up to you, you know.' And then there was the other detective behind the door. The guy who liked to beating me, and he comes out, he's angry, you know, and he's all red in the face. Even his baldie head was red. I smell whiskey on his breath. And he was listening, and he says, ‘You think you're goin' to beat this case, hanh Luis?' And I said, ‘I think so. I don't know, cause I wasn't there.' And he says, ‘Listen, Luis, we goin' bury you. And I says, ‘Well maybe, if you frame me up. Sometimes I read books what open up my mind.'”

“You said what about books?” Sandro asked.

“I says that sometimes I read books what open up my mind and I can understand things, and this cop says, ‘Books don't mean chit. You can be sure we're going to bury you.' And I said, ‘I know you can frame up your own mother just to get an arrest.”