The Girl in White Pajamas (15 page)

As her personal life deteriorated around her, Bailey sat next to her clients in the Dorchester District Court trying to look lawyer-like. She didn’t need to sit at the front table with other attorneys because her clients were, for a change, witnesses, not defendants. Young, good-looking black men, David Thompson and Mark Curtis claimed they were victims of mistaken identity when they were thrown out the third floor window of a building on Irwin Avenue in Roxbury. They said they were shooting some baskets in the neighborhood, although they didn’t live there. It started to rain and they looked for shelter in a nearby tenement building with an open front door. As they stood in the vestibule, men armed with knives forced them to accompany them to a third floor apartment. There, they were robbed of their cash plus the gold chains around their necks. A black man in charge of the others ordered his men to throw them out the windows. First David Thompson, then Mark Curtis were pushed out the window onto the asphalt below. David had internal injuries and lost a kidney. Mark’s shin bones were smashed through the bottoms of his feet, and the doctors weren’t optimistic that he’d walk again.

When Bailey’s uncle, Rubin Goldstein, brought her to the hospital to meet the young men, she felt so bad for them she almost cried. Two months later, she found the facts of the case got murkier. The clients were actually two-bit criminals who had juvenile and adult records for unarmed robbery, assault and shoplifting. There were warrants out on both. The apartment where they were robbed and assaulted was a crack house in a neighborhood of crack houses. Even the Boston cops were reluctant to accompany Bailey to the building when she naïvely wanted to take witness statements.

She met with the detective handling their cases, and he explained that the police were willing to look the other way with the outstanding warrants as long as David and Mark testified against the man who was the head of a Jamaican gang that was terrorizing Roxbury. The cops believed that after David and Mark testified, they were sure to screw up again and then all bets were off.

As the detective spoke to Bailey, her clients sat next to her ready to testify. He asked her why she was representing the young men. Bailey explained that David and Mark sustained life-threatening injuries and had amassed huge hospital bills.

“So you’re looking for compensation from this bozo for the bills?”

“Oh, no, we’re suing the owner of the building for lack of security,” Bailey responded.

The cop laughed so hard he almost fell out of his chair.

Angry at being ridiculed, Bailey got up and went to the ladies’ restroom. As she started to splash cold water on her face, the girlfriend of the Jamaican gang leader moved toward her with a shiv. Bailey’s screams brought the young detective, who was standing outside the door, charging through it. He later admitted that he was waiting outside the door to apologize. The detective really wanted to hit on her again and thought an apology might help convince her to go out for a couple of drinks.

Shaken, Bailey returned to her seat and watched as David testified. He was well-spoken and sincere as he explained how a bishop from his former congregation had an apartment in that building. David planned on finding the man of the cloth to ask for shelter from the rain.

Under cross-examination, David was asked if he was aware that the bishop died four years earlier. David said he wasn’t and he was saddened to learn this.

As Mark was brought to the bench in a wheelchair, he glanced over at the gang leader who mouthed ‘I’m going to kill you’! Mark told how he accompanied David to the old neighborhood where they shot some hoops and reminisced to celebrate David’s birthday. When he started to tell how they were forced up to the third floor, tears rolled down his cheeks.

The gang leader was led away, and he made a gesture with his index finger across his throat while looking at the witnesses. Other threats, open and covert were hurled at David, Mark and their stunning red-headed attorney. The group was forced to leave the courthouse under police protection with cops in front and back of them with guns drawn.

Mark was wheeled out a back exit and taken home by the handicapped transportation The Ride. Angel Fernandez jumped out of the Escalade and ran toward Bailey as he saw the police surrounding her. He stood frozen as the cops yelled for him to ‘Stand Down’ when he moved toward them.

Bailey was still shaking when she and David got in the Escalade. After they dropped off David and drove to her office, she continued to tremble.

When she arrived on the twenty-sixth floor, Bailey quickly walked down the hall to Uncle Rubin’s office. With his spray tan and perfectly coiffed hair, Rubin folded his manicured hands on his desk and asked, “Where the hell have you been all day?”

After she explained what had happened, he turned pale and asked, “Do you think they might have followed you here?”

Bailey’s color rose as she used all her self-restraint to stop from cursing at this ego-maniac. She walked to her office mentally adding the day’s experience to her growing list of reasons why she hated her job.

Wearing a thin white tee shirt and cut off shorts with her white Nikes, Amanda walked through the large front door of the main building carrying a notebook. Zoe was rushing through the back door into the lobby and almost collided with Amanda. When Amanda saw Zoe’s tear filled eyes, she grabbed her arm and asked, “What’s the matter?”

Zoe shook her head as she tried to pull away.

“What’s the matter?” Amanda repeated louder.

“Your fuck’n aunt!”

“What did she do? What did she say?”

Zoe sniffled. “I was trying to be nice to that cunt and keep her company till you got home. She was sitting there sipping her drink then out of nowhere she says ‘You must be proud of yourself since you’ll be graduating from the Benjamin. Too bad your friends had to take the fall for you. But you Jews always wind up on top and to hell with everybody else’.”

Amanda bit the knuckle of her index finger as Zoe started to cry.

Amanda tried to stop her, but Zoe successfully pulled away. “I’ve got to go… I’m late.”

“No, stay!” Amanda insisted.

Zoe shook her head and ran toward her Volkswagen.

After Bogie had a heart attack on the way to Palm Beach four years earlier, he was told he needed immediate open heart surgery. Rose arrived hours after Bogie was hospitalized and found a sublet in North Palm Beach where Bogie and Amanda could stay while he recuperated. Since it was apparent Bogie and Amanda would be in Palm Beach for a while, Ann found the Benjamin School for Amanda. Ann paid her tuition for one year, and Amanda attended the school.

Amanda wasn’t very happy at the Benjamin until she found Zoe and Tiffany who believed school should be a place for social networking rather than reading boring books. They enjoyed making mischief until it came time for final exams. But they aced their exams and came out with almost perfect scores. Zoe, a non-involved C student, might have found religion and studied for the finals. But the teachers at the Benjamin all agreed that if Baby Jesus tutored Tiff and Amanda all night, they still wouldn’t come out with those high scores. Amanda and Tiffany were expelled. Zoe stayed at the school with the staff watching her every move for the next three years.

Amanda threw her notebook on the couch and marched out to the pool area where Dolores was about to take a seat across from Ann. Walking quickly toward the table, Amanda said to Dolores, “Would you please excuse us for a minute?”

Dolores nodded and walked away as Amanda sat down. Amanda studied Ann’s bloodshot eyes then said, “You know, I always liked you. You were always nice to me and my father worries about you because he thinks you’re like fragile or something. But you know what? You’re not. You’re just plain fuck’n nasty. Where do you get off talking to my friend like that? You know you were the one who wanted me to go to that fuck’n school. It’s not like I wanted to go there and be with a bunch of snobs. I didn’t ask you to spend all that money. You know it was all your idea! I hated that school and so did Zoe and Tiff. I could leave there, Tiff could leave, but Zoe had nowhere to go! If she was out of there, she was out of Florida and back to Great Neck with her mother and her new boyfriend. I was the one who got the answers, not Zoe! Do you hear me? I got them! You have a problem with Jews!? This family acts so high and mighty! But you’re all nothing but a bunch of drunks and murderers!” Tears streaming down her face, Amanda pushed away from the table and ran to the main building.

Ann covered her face with both hands and sobbed. Dolores came to her, sat down next to her and put her arm around Ann’s shoulders. “Don’t, Ann! She’s just a child. Don’t let her upset you like this!”

Dolores picked up some paper napkins from the table and handed them to Ann. “You know what your problem is?”

Tears and snot running down her face, Ann McGruder stared at Dolores. “I don’t think I can stand one more person telling me what’s wrong with me today.”

“Well, honey, you’re going to listen to me! You’re too good! You’re just too good to people and you let them walk all over you! How many women your age would give up their lives to play nursemaid to an old lady?”

Ann sniffled.

“You’ve worried about everyone around you for too long, and now it’s time for you to worry about the most important person,
you
! When was the last time you had your hair done? A manicure? A pedicure? A massage?”

Ann just shook her head from side to side.

“I’m going to make appointments for you to get the works! There’s a place over at City Place called Anushka’s. You’re going there for a day of beauty.”

“Will you come with me?” Ann asked hesitantly.

Dolores shook her head. “When houses were selling, I went there every three weeks just to treat myself. But now that the real estate market collapsed, that’s out of my league. But I’ll give you a ride.”

Ann brightened. “No! If it’s the money, don’t even think about it! You’ll be my guest!”

When Rose returned to the house in Weston, it was three fifteen. Bogie stood in the middle of the cleaned kitchen holding his cell phone. “I know, Margarita, but you can’t…listen…listen, Margarita. How the hell am I supposed to remember what he was wearing? Where are we going with these questions?...I’m sorry you feel that way. Good bye!”

Rose looked at him and asked, “Carlos playing the cheating game again?”

“When the hell did he ever stop? What a dog!”

“So what does she want from you?”

“She told me that Mandie told her he was wearing a tee shirt and shorts when he came over the Sunday after Bud died. Carlos told her he was going to church, and he gets dressed up for church.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her that if she thought he was fucking around, then he probably was and not to get me in the middle of it.”

“Oprah Winfrey retired. Maybe you could go on TV with one of those feel-good shows. You always know just the right thing to say to people.”

Bogie gave her one of his Bogie smiles. “Thanks, Rose, I knew you’d see it my way! I can’t believe Mandie got involved in their shit. And just as an aside, Margarita mentioned that Mandie told off Annie and had her in tears.”

Rose just shook her head. “The family tradition goes on! Where’s your little sidekick?”

“I wore her out. She’s taking a nap.”

“You wore her out? I thought it would be the other way around.”

“I took her for a long walk. What did you find out about Kim?”

“Let me tell you about Kim Nguyen. She lives on Dorchester Avenue with about a hundred thousand of her tribesmen. There are so many Cambodians in that area that folks have taken to calling it the Ho Chi Min trail. Anyway, she worked in a nail salon owned by her boyfriend until two or three months ago. They have a child and she collects Aid for Families with Dependent Children. The boyfriend, of course, handles all her money. They had a bit of a misunderstanding and he beat the crap out of her and kicked her to the curb. She heard someone in Weston was desperate for a nanny and would pay her under the table.”

“Tell me you’re shitting me!”

Rose shook her head. “She claims she can’t remember the name of the person who hooked her up with this job, can’t remember if it was a man or a woman.”

“This is insane! Bailey has to be out of her mind! She brings in this druggie and pays her under the table to watch a child?”

“Calm down! I mean it! I told you now so you’d have time to deal with it and not make a big scene tonight. What happened before is in the past, leave it there! We’re moving forward. She pushed the set of car keys over to him. Go work out! Angel’s at the shop, and Tommie is coming in today. You can kick box with one of them in the back room.”

Bogie laughed. “Lover Boy or Tiny Tommie, who should I choose?“

“
Lover boy
could sweep the floor with you, and if Tommie sits on you, you’re road kill!”

“Is that bitch coming back?”

“Which one?”

Bogie laughed. “Kim.”

“Kim said she’d be at the MBTA Station in Fields Corner around five. I’ll be surprised if she shows. We’re bringing Bailey home after six.”

“You just let Kim go?”

“No. I know where she lives. I had Angel follow her after we dropped her off. We can always pull the string and bring her back if we have to.”

“I have a lot of questions for that—”

“Down, boy! Go work out! You’re wound up tighter than a drum. Get some exercise, sweat, you’ll feel better! Oh, I just thought I’d mention this. After we dropped her off, Kim talked to somebody on her cell phone. She stood on the corner for about ten minutes and a dark sedan pulled up. She got in and they drove about three blocks then parked. When she got out of the car, her little purse was stuffed and she had a smile on her face.
Then
she went home!”

“Her dealer?” Bogie asked.

“I hope not,” Rose answered. “That car’s registered to Maureen MacDonald, Matt’s wife.”