PART 35 (16 page)

“A photographer, Jerry Ball, took pictures. I'll have them in a couple of days. Well?”

Sam sat smiling. “They may have denied most of our motion for a bill of particulars, but we don't need it now. Now Ellis has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Alvarado wasn't beaten. That's the Barbato case. That was my case in the Court of Appeals.”

“You think they can justify his condition, Sam?”

“What did the diagnosis say?”

“I couldn't get the diagnosis chart. It was sent back to the Tombs with him. But he went up there for internal bleeding.”

“Goddamn, you got them cold. How can they account for internal bleeding. I mean, Alvarado hasn't got an ulcer, for Christ's sake.”

“We'll destroy them,” Sandro heard himself say. The words sounded familiar, like what Don Vincenzo had said about destroying the D.A. and finishing him off. “Taking some guy walking home from the movies and beating him to get a confession,” he went on. “And now they want to talk him into the electric chair. The merciless bastards.”

“Bullshit. That's pure bullshit, Sandro,” Sam said dryly.

“What do you mean? You think these cops should get away with it?”

“Look, Sandro, I've been on both sides of the fence. So I've got the benefit of a little experience you don't have.”

“And that makes what I said bullshit?”

“No, but I know what I'm talking about. Don't lay all the blame on the cops. Just think about it for a minute. You've got a guy like Lauria, getting paid how much? Nine thousand bucks a year. And for that, every day, day in, day out, he had to be ready to go get his ass shot at, to go into dark apartments with madmen inside, armed madmen. Or maybe jump in the river to save nuts who want to kill themselves, or maybe deliver babies, catch thieves and junkies, a million and one other things full of danger. How much would you want, Sandro, to run into a hail of bullets from a killer or burglar? Would you do it for nine thousand per?”

“I wouldn't do it for anything,” Sandro replied.

“Damn right. Me neither.”

“Does that make busting a guy's head to get a confession out of him right?”

“Of course not, Sandro. There are other things though.” Sam puffed his cigar. “How many cops are there in New York City?”

“About thirty thousand.”

“Okay, thirty thousand, and there are eight million people, maybe more, plus millions of visitors. And all the cops aren't on the street all the time; two, three thousand at one time at most? You know how many people each cop's got to cope with. Thousands. One cop. One guy that bleeds like you and me. A guy that gets scared, too. And he gets paid a lousy nine thousand. Who the hell do you expect to take that kind of job, atom scientists, Nobel Prize winners? You get just ordinary, everyday guys, kids. And they do a goddamn good job keeping your ass and my ass safe while we're sleeping.”

“Climb off the soapbox, Sam—”

“No, let me finish, because I want to be objective about this trial. I've watched you getting more and more hot under the collar with every piece of evidence. Now you've got what you wanted. Okay. But don't go off half-cocked.”

Sandro watched Sam, waiting for him to continue.

“When you give an inadequate force inadequate pay to do an impossible job, there's something wrong with it. You pay for what you get, and you get what you pay for in this life, Sandro. The people want to pay nothing, and get everything. So the cops do the job the best they can, and then the people complain they don't like the methods.”

“You're the one who knows what it's like. You're the one who told me the stories. Do you think that's right?”

“You think you're kidding. That's not such a bad idea. The moon. That's good, Sandro. All the criminals'd be in one place, the court like it was a turnstile? All these professional bleeding-hearts, they want to love everybody. They haven't been in the street, they don't know they're dealing with animals who want to be loved only long enough to get your purse or your wallet. When there's a knife at your throat, it's too late to know you were wrong.”

“That's very nice, in the abstract, Sam. Let's take specifics, take Alvarado. He had three convictions. You want to lock him away for being picked up by mistake, grind him into a wall because he's a junky? That piece of human debris is reading, trying to dope out the law in his cell, so he can understand his own case. Maybe it's too late for him to make it on the outside, but Christ, he's only a couple of generations behind our people,
yours
and mine. Would you want to be treated like that? I've still got people over on Mott Street. I had an uncle with balls and brains enough to be President of the United States if he had had the chances I have. What do you want to do, give the cops a free hand to break people's heads because they come from some shitty neighborhood?”

“Tell that to the goddamn judges, the sociologists, the liberals. Tell that to Lauria's mother.” They stared at each other. “When a guy does something, let him pay for it, let him stand up and pay for it like a goddamn man.”

“Lock a guy away as if he were an animal, throw away the key? What good is that doing him? What good is that doing society?”

“No good. Our system of penology is so out of date we ought to be ashamed of ourselves. You don't want to hurt the dear boys? Well, with all the money this country is spending getting to the moon, we could spend some money to let the scientists devise some new system, some escape-proof place where criminals can be alone, in their own society, to farm, to kill, to do whatever they want. What's more humane than that. No bars, no incarceration. Just a life among their own kind.”

“When do they get back?”

“There could be a system of evaluation. They could return when they're not hostile, bellicose.”

“With all your talents, Sam, I never suspected you were a crackpot visionary. I'd like to see how your evaluators could go in to find out who isn't hostile or bellicose anymore. Maybe we could send all the criminals to the moon. No one could escape that.”

“Listen, you think it's right that cops keep picking up the same crumbs, time after time, because the judges let them go through nice people in another. Then the cops could devote more kid-glove time to defendants.”

“Let's get back to this case. Are you telling me I should forget all about this evidence that the cops beat Alvarado?”

“I guess I didn't make myself clear. Knock them on their ass with it. That's okay. That's the way it should be. Just remember, they're doing a job, same as we are. They don't really give a personal damn about the defendants. They didn't invent the system. They're stuck with it, just as we are. And part of that system is, don't expect cops to be geniuses or saints. Part of the system is that the judges are too merciful; the people too cheap; the politicians too political; the criminals too criminal. Blame everybody for just being human, imperfect. It's not just cops. They're the frontline troops, they're the first to get hit with shit. But we're all responsible for the system. If it stinks, it's not the cops' fault. That's a popular cop-out, if you don't mind a pun. You understand? When we reach the millennium, it'll be better.” Sam paused. “Now, I think we can really kick the shit out of them with this Bellevue stuff.”

“I'm glad we could get together on something.”

Sam smiled. So did Sandro.

CHAPTER XVII

“I tol' you I was in Bellevue, Mr. Luca, I tol' you.” Alvarado was triumphant.

“I believe you, Luis. I saw the record with my own eyes.”

“And you saw the barber and the colored girl with the peaches pits, and they remembered me? She remembered me changing the hundred dollar?”

“Yes. I didn't even have to ask the girl about you. She told me. She knew all about it. I was glad of that. She made your story more true. You know what I mean?”

“Yes.” He nodded and smiled.

Alvarado and Sandro watched each other's eyes. An understanding and confidence passed between them. For Sandro the understanding was belief in the man he defended; for Alvarado, it was confidence in the man defending him.

“I spoken to him, Hernandez,” Alvarado said. “They got him on a different floor from me. In church the other night, I talk a little bit to him. Wait a minute, though. Before I tell you that, you know the barber shop I was to? Before I went to that barber shop, you know, I went to a restaurant. It was after I change the hundred-dollar bill.”

“Now wait a minute yourself, Luis. Every time I come here you tell me more places you were at that day. It's like you sit up nights, making this stuff up.”

“But what I telling you, it's truth, Mr. Luca. You know that. You checking it out yourself.”

“But if all these things happened the day the cop was killed, and it's so important to you, what the hell is taking you so long to tell it to me all at one time.”

“How can I tell you that? I sit in that cell there, and then I remember somesing. I cannot say to my head, remember more things for Mr. Luca. When it remembers things, I tell you right away. I only been to the fifth grades, Mr. Luca.”

“I can't argue with that, Luis. When you remember, you tell me. But think hard, try and bring it all back to mind.”

“I tryin', Mr. Luca, believe me that thing. I tryin'. I been in the death house, cookin', Mr. Luca. It ain't nice there. I don't want to go back there to be cooked.”

“You were in the death house?”

“Once in a while, you know, they have a Spanish guy there, an' they ast him what he want for the last meal, you know. So they have to get a guy which can cook Spanish food for the guy. I cooked for two, three guys up there before when I was doin' time for drugs. They don't eat nothin' though, you know? They always talk about a guy's last meal goin' to the chair. These guys can't eat nothin', Mr. Luca. You neither when they gonna fry you in a few minutes.”

“What do you cook for them then?”

“The guy gonna be executed asts the others guys in the death house what they like. You know, the food is chit in prisons. Excuse my language. This way the guy orders all kinds of things they don't serve for the other guys. It's like a big treat to the other guys, you know. He can't eat anyway, but might as well let them have some good food.”

“Just try to remember whatever you can, Luis,” Sandro said, changing the subject. “Now what about this restaurant you were at?”

“I remembered that later, since I speak with you. I ate somesing in the restaurant after I change the hundred dollar. When I have my money in my pocket I went and eat somesing. Eugene came with me. I ask, ‘Eugene, you want somesing,' and he didn't, and I went inside by myself, into the restaurant. After, then I went to the barber's. It's a long shots, but maybe the person in the restaurant will remember and can say somesing for me.”

“Where is this restaurant?” Sandro took out his pen.

“On the street with the barber's, Roebling Street, down from the barber shop. It's a Spanish restaurant you know, it's got Spanish food there. I don't know the name.”

“Do you remember who served you.”

“No. Only a man.”

Sandro added this information to the long and ever-growing list of things to investigate before the trial. There was even Hernandez's alibi to be substantiated.

“What about Hernandez? You said you were talking to Hernandez in church. What did he say?”

“He told me a couple of things. One was crazy, you know? He tell me about his wife.”

“What about her?”

“I think the cops, you got to excuse my saying these words to you, Mr. Luca, but the cops was doin' wrong things to her, you know?”

“What things?”

“Remember, I telling you I seen her? In the station house?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Hernandez tol' me the cops takes her to her apartments, and they was two cars. She was in one with two cops, and the other fulled with cops followed down the block. When they get her in that apartments, these guys were still crazy angry, and they ripped her clothes right off her. She's standing, her beautiful ass and tits in the wind. Forgive my words, but man, she's some womans!”

Alvarado shook his head admiringly.

“Anyways, the cops lifting her and put her on the kitchen table.”

“What happened?”

“They got her down, no clothes, one guy on one side, another on the other, holding her down, touching her, you know. Two of these rats are holding her legs. Oh, man …”

“Okay, okay. And what did they do?”

“No, Mr. Luca. Just when this guy is going to do her, another cop knocks on the door and stops them. He's yelling and angry and cursing, and they all getting out.”

“I don't believe it, Luis,” Sandro said flatly. “Hernandez is telling you a lot of crap. Did he say his wife told him this?”

“I don't know, Mr. Luca. He tell me he know this thing from some guy who come in from the street. I only telling you what he tol' me.”

“It's idiotic. Especially that part about another cop breaking in to stop it. Somebody's putting Hernandez on, and he's even more stupid to be repeating the story.”

“I don't know. I try to think of this thing myself, but I don't know. I know if someone should teach that Hernandez a lesson by doin' this thing to his wife, it should be me. Oh, man …”

“Luis, I'm not interested in your going loco over a woman. Do that upstairs. I don't believe that story about the cops. Besides, whether it's true or not doesn't help you on this murder charge. Did he tell you anything else? Anything we can use?”

“Not about that. But he said he was in some pawnshops that day, you know. He had somesing to pawn, and he went to a pawnshops before he went home to his house. He pawned a radio.”