Courthouse (32 page)

“Is that tall one The Crusher?” Maria asked.

“Yes to both of you,” replied Marc as he got out of the car. “I'll be right back.”

“Hey, here's the greatest counselor in the world. Come on over here, Counselor,” Pellegrino exclaimed, crouching playfully, coming at Marc. He snared Marc around the waist, and lifted him high in the air. He twirled in a circle, Marc still in his arms. “One thing I always say, you pay the bondsman and the lawyer first, because they're always the ones you need when the going gets rough. Right, Philly?”

“Right,” grunted Pellegrino's friend with the large nose, and five o'clock shadow. He wore a patterned sports shirt, the shirt tail outside his pants.

The Crusher let Marc down. “What are you doing here, Counselor?”

“I came to see if everything went all right.”

“See that? See that?” The Crusher said, turning to the others. “Didn't I tell you he was the greatest in the world? Saturday morning, what time is it?”

“Nine-fifteen,” said one of The Crusher's sons.

“Nine-fifteen on a Saturday morning, in the summer, and here's the Counselor worried about his client. How many other guys do that, Philly?”

Philly stuck out his bottom lip and shook his head. “None.”

The Crusher turned back to Marc. “You know, Counselor, no matter what happens, I'm with you all the way. And you know, Counselor,” he said, leaning close now to Marc, speaking more softly, “anything,
anything
you want, you just”—The Crusher pointed to himself—“you just get me and it's done.
Anything.
You get me?”

“I get you, Patsy,” said Marc. “Well, as long as everything is okay, I guess I'll go now.”

“Thanks a lot, Mister Conte,” said Mrs. Pellegrino. She smiled demurely.

“Yeah, she missed all the aggravation I give her, right, baby?” The Crusher asked raucously. He slapped her playfully on the bottom.

Mrs. Pellegrino looked at The Crusher sharply. He shrugged playfully.

“Okay, Counselor,” said The Crusher. “I'll call you when?”

“Monday or Tuesday. We have to be in court on Wednesday, August 30.”

“What case is that on the thirtieth?” The Crusher asked, smiling. “I got so many cases,” he said proudly to Philly, “I don't even know which one is which any more.”

Philly chuckled silently.

“The gun case in the State Court is on the calendar on the thirtieth; that's next Wednesday,” said Marc.

“I thought we was already arraigned on that case in the State Court,” said The Crusher.

“That was in the Criminal Court. Now that you've been indicted, it starts all over again in the Supreme Court.”

“Whatever you say, Counselor,” said The Crusher. He crouched playfully, coming at Marc again.

“Not again, Patsy,” said Marc, backing off.

The Crusher laughed. “Okay, I'll talk to you in a couple of days. Thanks a lot, hanh?” He shook Marc's hand. “And don't worry about a thing. I'll put everything together for you in a couple of days.” He winked.

“That's not necessary, Patsy,” said Marc. “The Federal Court and the State Court are each paying me for your cases because you're indigent.”

“I know,” he said laughing. “But I got to do the right thing by you. Just a little something on the side.”

“No, Patsy. I can't accept it. The court is paying me. That's enough.”

The Crusher looked surprised. “What a lawyer, right?” he said to Philly. He nodded in agreement. “I'll talk to you, Counselor, all right?”

“Right,” said Marc. He got back in the car.

“Now where?” asked Maria.

“A Hundred and Seventh Street and Fifth Avenue.”

“Why are we in this lousy neighborhood?” Franco asked as he drove through East Harlem. Acrid smells rose in the streets and poured from the buildings. “We could have seen the cook at Toni Wainwright's.”

“I wanted to see Hattie in her own home,” Marc said.

“How come?”

“I thought it would be better to talk with her away from Toni Wainwright's. Sometimes it's easier to get at the real story when the person questioned feels safe, in a familiar atmosphere.”

Maria asked, “You think this Hattie knows the real story?”

“I don't know. But Hattie is the only person in the world, besides Mrs. Wainwright, who was there to see or hear anything the night Wainwright was killed.”

“As far as we know
now
,” added Maria. “Remember, we're still working on our theory that there may have been someone else there who did more than hear what was going on.”

“Right you are,” said Marc. “And besides, Mrs. Wainwright may not be giving us an accurate account of what occurred. She may have been so out of it, she doesn't actually remember what really happened.”

“Maybe she's giving us a line,” said Franco.

“That's also a possibility,” said Marc. “That's why I wanted to see Hattie away from Mrs. Wainwright's.”

“Hattie's house is over there,” said Franco. He pointed to a house on the north side of 107th Street close to Fifth Avenue. He parked the car. A fire hydrant near the corner of Madison was open, and a thick stream of water was flowing from it onto the gutter, coursing rapidly to the sewer. Kids were taking turns holding a large tin can, open at each end in the flowing stream just in time to direct a heavy blast of water at passing cars. In the buildings people were leaning on pillows on their window sills shouting in Spanish or English, urging the kids to flood the cars.

“Here we go again,” said Franco.

Inside Hattie's building, the acrid smell of urine, garbage, oily cooking, mustiness, humidity, and rotting plaster, broiled to intensity in the summer heat, was almost overpowering.

Marc looked at the mailboxes on the wall to find one with the name Adams. The mailboxes were scarred, scrawled on, bent open to be looted, but there were no names in any of their name slots.

Maria spoke in Spanish to a man in a strap undershirt coming down the stairs. He wore a gold cross on a chain around his neck and a panama hat on his head. He smiled courteously to Maria and pointed over his shoulder up the stairs.

“Up this way,” said Maria.

“Where does she live?” asked Marc.

“Third floor.”

Franco knocked on the door of apartment 3R.

“Who is it?” a woman's voice muffled through the closed door.

“Marc Conte, Mrs. Wainwright's lawyer.”

The door was opened as far as the inside chain allowed. A short, heavy-set, Black woman peered out.

“I'm Mister Conte, Mrs. Wainwright's lawyer,” Marc said. “Are you Hattie Adams?”

She looked at them in silence. “That's right,” she finally allowed.

“Who is it?” asked a male voice from the background of the apartment.

“Hush,” said Hattie, half turning. “You Miss Toni's lawyer?” she asked hesitantly, the chain still holding the door shut.

“That's right,” said Marc. “This is my wife and my investigator. We'd like to talk with you for a couple of minutes. I would have called you at Mrs. Wainwright's, but they told me you were on vacation.”

Hattie nodded, looked them over again, studied Marc's face, then looked at Maria and Franco. She slid the chain open. “I guess you are,” she smiled now. “Miss Toni said how her lawyer was nice-looking. You better not say I told you that,” she said chuckling.

Maria looked at Marc with a sly smile.

The room they entered was the kitchen. There was a porcelain-topped table in the center, a refrigerator, a stove, and a sink. Beyond, they could see a living room. A bedroom, separated from the kitchen and living room by a curtain, was off to the side. Through a slit in the bedroom curtain, Marc saw a man brushing his hair in a dresser mirror.

Hattie led the three of them into the living room. She took a newspaper and some magazines off the couch, replaced an antimacassar that had fallen from the arm of the couch, and asked them to sit. She turned off the television.

“How come you want to see me?” asked Hattie.

“I just wanted to ask you a few questions,” said Marc.

The man from the bedroom, dressed in a T-shirt and trousers, scuff slippers without socks, came into the living room.

“This here's my husband,” said Hattie. “Charles, this is Miss Toni's lawyer, Mister Conte. And this is his wife, and this is …”

“Franco,” said Franco, shaking hands.

“Can I get you a little something to drink?” asked Charles, lifting his right hand, his thumb and index finger indicating an inch shot.

“Too early in the morning for me,” said Marc.

“Me too,” said Maria.

Franco shook his head.

Charles sat on the couch, next to Hattie, watching. He offered a Benson and Hedges cigarette box to the others. No one wanted to smoke. Charles fitted a cigarette into a plastic holder and lit it.

“Hattie, tell me about the night Mister Wainwright was killed,” said Marc.

She pursed her lips and shrugged. “I can't tell you much. I was asleep most of the time.”

“Did you hear anything at all?” Marc asked.

She shook her head. “I didn't hear no talking. I did hear plenty of noises. At first, I thought the dead was coming to take me,” she recalled ominously. “I was in my room, in the back of Miss Toni's. And I hear this terrible pounding. Then I sat up, and just listened. It was real all right, I said to myself. I put on my robe, and went out through the kitchen into the dining room. I hid behind the door, watching out to where Miss Toni's room was.”

“Did you see who was doing the pounding?” asked Marc.

“No, it was all over by then.”

“Could you see Mrs. Wainwright's door?” asked Marc.

“That was all broken in. I couldn't see nothing beyond it. It was all dark in there.”

“What happened next?”

“Then I heard this here explosion,” Hattie explained. “It was something terrible. I near fell down just from the sound. It was a gun, all right. I got me into the nearest corner and sat on the floor and just stayed there, praying. I hear some movement in there, like footsteps. Didn't see nothing. I thought, maybe Miss Toni was hurt. So I crawled and looked around the corner. And I still didn't see nothing. I didn't even hear nothing no more. So I creeped over there on my hands and knees, over there where the door was broken, and I listened. I called,
Miss Toni, Miss Toni.
And I heard a man's voice. I didn't recognize it to be Mister Bob, 'cause it was kind or more like moaning. He called
Zack, Zack.
And then …”

“He called what?” Maria asked with sharp surprise.

“Zack. He just said Zack a couple of times,” Hattie repeated. “That was all I heard. Then I ran inside and called the police. That's all I know.”

Maria looked at Marc, then Franco.

“You didn't see anyone, or hear anything, other than Mister Wainwright calling Zack?” Marc asked.

“I heard some footsteps, someone walking around just after the explosion.”

“Did you tell all of this to the police?” Marc asked.

“No.” She shook her head.

“How come?”

“Because I didn't know if I was supposed to or not. So I just kept quiet. I figured Miss Toni'd get herself a good lawyer—now don't you tell her I told you she said her lawyer was good-looking. I figured I'd tell the lawyer 'cause I'm not going to get Miss Toni in no more trouble than she's got.”

“Did the police question you?” asked Marc.

“Sure, that night. They asked all of us all kinds of questions.”

“And you didn't tell them about the footsteps or the voice calling Zack?”

Hattie shook her head.

“I want to write all of this into a statement for you to sign, Hattie,” said Marc. He took out some large folded pages from his pocket.

“How come she has to sign something?” asked Charles.

“That's just to save you any more bother,” replied Marc. “Even if a person doesn't know anything about a case, I like them to sign a statement. This way, I don't forget what they said, and I don't have to come back and bother them again.” Marc failed to add that when a potential witness signed a negative statement, that potential witness couldn't easily change his or her story later on and be helpful to the D.A. with evidence they couldn't remember for Marc.

Hattie carefully and slowly read the statement Marc prepared. She read it over twice, her lips forming each word as she read, then signed it.

“Okay, Holmes and Watson,” said Marc as they walked down the stairs. “I know neither of you could have come this far down the stairs without already hatching out a scheme. What's in your heads?”

“You notice how he always makes wisecracks?” said Maria. “But he always asks too.”

“Every time,” agreed Franco.

Marc smiled. “Well, what do you think?”

“I'm more convinced than before that Zack Lord must have had something to do with it,” said Maria. “Wainwright called out his name. He must have been there. It must have been he who shot Wainwright.”

“And how about the walking movement? That's when Lord slipped out of the room,” Franco added. “We know Toni Wainwright fainted before the explosion. So she wasn't the one walking around.”

“There was definitely someone else there,” said Maria.

“I must admit we have a little more about another person now,” said Marc. “But as far as Zack Lord is concerned, how did he know that Wainwright was going to go to the apartment? Wainwright wasn't living there at the time. So how could Lord or anyone else know Wainwright would be there to be killed? And second, how would Lord have gotten into and out of the apartment without being seen? Forget the keys. We know he had a set. But how did he get up to and down from her apartment on the eighteenth floor without someone seeing him?”