Dead Money Page 4

  My client, Juan Perros, had been convicted on the testimony of one witness, his girlfriend, who hadn’t actually seen him commit the crime. Now, I didn’t know whether Juan did it or not. I still don’t. But I did think that something wasn’t right. It didn’t pass the smell test. There just wasn’t enough evidence presented to the jury to take a man’s freedom away. It seemed clear to me that Juan was put away on the basis of nothing more than preconceived notions about guys named Juan from Brooklyn.

  Jury verdicts are awfully hard to overturn, though, and I had to find something other than the fact that Juan’s court-appointed lawyer had slept through large parts of the trial. That didn’t make him any less effective than half the criminal lawyers in town.

  I was lucky. I found Butch. It wasn’t his case, directly. He’d been a minor witness. But he had a sense of justice that was, shall we say, somewhat more nuanced than that of many of his colleagues. And with his help I found the one thing that was guaranteed to spring Juan. Prosecutorial misconduct. Big, juicy prosecutorial misconduct. Up-the-wazoo prosecutorial misconduct.

  When they’d arrested Juan, they’d taken pictures of his car. The car was a black Chevy Impala, just like the one that had been seen at the crime scene. But, as was plain to see from at least two of the photos, photos that appeared mysteriously in my e-mail in the middle of the night, it wasn’t all black. It had a bright shiny red driver’s side door that Juan had gotten from a junkyard to replace the original after he’d been sideswiped in a 3 a.m. drag race on Prospect Boulevard.

  More importantly for the appeal, the prosecutor had never seen fit to share the photos with Juan’s lawyer. And nobody at the trial ever testified that they’d seen a black Impala with a bright red driver’s side door at the crime scene.

  So there I had it: not only prosecutorial misconduct, but misconduct that, especially given the flimsy state of the evidence, had clearly had a material impact on the verdict.

  So I got Juan out of jail. Whether he was re-tried and re-convicted, I don’t know. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know whether he turned around and murdered someone else, either. I felt ambivalent enough about the case as it was. I mean, frankly, the guy probably did do it. It made me remember why I hadn’t gone in for criminal defense work in the first place.

  But the case got me a little publicity for a time. SELFLESS CRUSADER FOR JUSTICE RESCUES INNOCENT MAN FROM PRISON. All that shit. I didn’t bother enlightening the reporters. That I’d only taken on the case to fulfill a pledge the firm had made to the Bar Association. They would have ignored that detail anyway. Why let the facts get in the way of a good story?

  More important, the case got me a friend. Butch admired what I’d done for Juan. And I appreciated what he’d done for me, at considerable risk to his career. We hung out a bit. He’d invite me to the weekly poker game with some of his guys once in a while, when they had an extra chair. Cops and goombahs. A fun crowd. We had a bond. An unspoken, unnamed bond that’s shared by those who have walked the fine, fine lines of legal ethics on the edge. The place where nobody can tell you what the answer is. You have to make the call yourself, and live with it. With others’ freedom in the balance.

  That’s why I knew he’d give me something. At least that he wouldn’t brush me off with a quote from the manual. ‘Members of the force are not to talk to defense attorneys without a member of the Departmental Legal Staff present,’ or whatever.

  11.

  BUTCH’S HANG WAS THE VELVET DOG, across the street from the twenty-ninth precinct. Best to approach him there, where he’d be comfortable. A couple of drinks down and I’d be more comfortable too.

  The place was full of noise when I arrived. Full of noise and beer and friendship. There were groups of two and three and four dispersed throughout the joint, each group enclosed in its own small world of warmth, shared experience and feeling.

  I found a seat in the back. I ordered a Guinness. A meal in itself. Thick, meaty and nutritious. Carbs enough for a week.

  I nursed it.

  I thought about stuff.

  The kind of sweaty camaraderie that now was all around me made me more than faintly uncomfortable. I’d missed the locker room thing. I’d spent my adolescence avoiding it. Cultivating contempt for sweaty guys who’d never heard of Dostoevsky. I was always smaller than the rest, and slower. Lacking killer instinct. Late to sport the hair and manliness you needed to compete for shower space and recognition.

  I was on my second Guinness when I spied Butch, coming in the door, nodding and smiling, shaking hands and slapping shoulders. In his element.

  I let him settle in. When he seemed as comfortable as a man can be, I contrived to sidle up to him.

  Hey Butch, I said, good to see you.

  Rick, my man, he said. How goes the battle?

  It goes. It doesn’t go. Shit happens. Then it doesn’t.

  I think I get the drift, he laughed. Sounds like my life, too.

  I smiled. I put a hand on his shoulder.

  Come on back, I said.

  I nodded to my booth.

  Sure, he said. Give me a minute. I got to talk to some guys.

  I retreated to the back. Butch made the rounds. Some backslapping here, a little joking there.

  He was a big guy. Broad-shouldered and black as Kenyan coffee, with a smooth shaved head that somehow made him look even bigger. But he also had that huge warm smile, and a soft side that he knew how to use to his advantage.

  Ten minutes later, he made his way to the booth. He sat down.

  So what can I do for you, my friend?

  Butch did not stand on ceremony. It was one of the things I liked about him. No need to indulge in the tribal chitchat. Get to the point.

  Hey, I said, I know you’ve got your rules. But I was hoping you could tell me what you can.

  He gave me a knowing smile.

  Hey, Rick, he said, you’re not tight with Internal Affairs, are you?

  Not on this one, I laughed. Next time maybe.

  Okay, just wanted to make sure. Anyway, I don’t mind telling you what I know, because what I know isn’t much. I hear it’s pretty cut and dried, Rick.

  That may be so, I said. But I’ve got my job to do. The kid says he didn’t do it.

  Well, there’s a shock.

  I know, I know, I smiled. But I got to tell you, there’s something very believable about him. He’s an angry kid. But I don’t see any guile in him.

  You don’t need guile to hit a guy upside the head with a blunt instrument.

  All right. I know. I’m not going to convince you of anything.

  You always were a wimp.

  Just tell me what you can.

  He gave it some thought. He ran his hands over his cleanly shaven head.

  Okay, here’s what I know. The guys have a fight. Sounded pretty damn vicious. A lot of thumping and banging and yelling. Then it all goes quiet. We got a time on that. One thirty-five a.m. Almost exactly an hour later, some homeless guy in an alley about three blocks away picks up a big cardboard box. Going to use it for a house or something. And under the box is the body of this kid. His face is half caved in. Blunt trauma. Kid’s dead as a doorknob. They haven’t found the weapon yet.

  Nose broken.

  Whole fucking face broken, Rick.

  Any witnesses?

  Not that I know about. Old lady in the building on the other side of the alley thinks she heard something. But she’s vague about it. So far, nobody saw nothing.

  So how’d they find Jules?

  Somebody in his building called in a complaint about the noise. When they were fighting. Nobody’d got around to showing up by the time the body was found. But after that, somebody made the connection.

  So it’s all circumstantial. Not enough to arrest him on.

  They usually are, my friend, Butch laughed. But yeah. Sort of. Brought him in, but couldn’t hold him. Took them hours to get a warrant to search the kid’s place. Got the wrong judge.

  Al
bertson?

  You got it. What’s the probable cause, he says. Shit.

  Well, there are two sides to that argument.

  I guess, he smiled. They’re doing tests now. The usual forensic stuff. Talk to me in a couple of days. The picture might be different.

  Could have been random. A mugging.

  Sure. Always possible. But it didn’t look like it. Too vicious. Looked like something personal.

  I asked whether they had tracked down Larry Silver’s relatives, friends. Looked for folks with grudges.

  Sure, he said. The family’s in Kansas somewhere. Hadn’t heard from him in two years. Nice old folks. Had Larry late in life. Couldn’t understand what went wrong. His brother is twenty years older. Has a good job down at the feedlot. Comes to dinner every Sunday. Something just clicked in Larry one day, when he was fifteen or so. Gone wild, they said. Like a barnyard dog. Nothing you could do but stay away from him. And then he left town. Didn’t tell anyone. Didn’t leave a note. Never wrote. Never called. They’d just sort of written him off. Hoped one day he’d come to his senses. Give them a call. Send a postcard.

  Friends?

  The usual losers you get with a guy like that. Small-time dealers. Runaways like him. He’d lived in Riverside Park for a while. Stretched some plastic between two trees. Begged for quarters. Til some local punks rousted him out of there. Got lucky. Ran into somebody who got him a job. Flipping burgers somewhere. Didn’t last long. Just long enough for him to get a little place in Williamsburg, pay a couple months’ rent. Nobody really liked him much. He was a moody guy. Chip on his shoulder. But nobody really hated him either. They just tolerated him.

  Not much to go on.

  Not much.

  I don’t have the resources to reinvent the wheel, I said. Do me a favor, if you can, Butch. Just get the details on a couple of kids most likely to have information about him. Who knew him best. Who might know something. I might find something your guys missed.

  Always possible, Rick. I’ll see what I can do.

  From most people, that would be a no. From Butch, it was a yes.

  All right, I said. Hey, I really appreciate this, Butch.

  Rick, I owe you. You know that.

  Actually, I didn’t know that. But I was happy to let him think so.

  12.

  I REMEMBERED DORITA. Damn. I’d completely forgotten we’d arranged to meet the night before.

  I called her up. Begged for forgiveness.

  If you’d remembered, she laughed, I’d have fallen off my chair.

  We arranged to meet at the Monkey Bar. For the first time I noticed the pun. Monkey bars. Hah.

  Despite the name, it was more upscale than the Wolf’s Lair. More Dorita’s style. Plush sofas. Indirect lighting. Colored drinks.

  I spied Dorita in the corner. She’d snagged our favorite spot. A small banquette, largely blocked from view. It made it hard to hail a waitress, but it helped the conversation. You felt you were alone.

  I ordered a Scotch, Dorita a cosmopolitan. Her drink was pale red and pretty. A cherry in it. She crossed her legs. They were pale and pretty too.

  I was thinking, I said.

  You were thinking. I was.

  Dangerous.

  I was thinking that I really ought to give up this racket.

  Here we go again.

  No. I mean it. I really do.

  But you can’t afford to.

  There’s the problem.

  Don’t you owe the IRS a half a million?

  Well, yes. Rehab’s expensive. Fifteen times in rehab is fifteen times more expensive. And not tax-deductible.

  Then stop dreaming.

  There’s always bankruptcy.

  Talk to Mort, darling. They never let you go. A tax debt never goes away. Bankruptcy or no bankruptcy.

  I’ve heard that.

  It’s true. Talk to Mort.

  But that would only matter if I had a job, some assets.

  Oh. I see. Hit the road? Beg for quarters? You’re too old for that, Rick. And anyway, you’re not that romantic anymore.

  You’d be surprised.

  Yes. I would.

  Anyway, the idea is, I could play poker for a living.

  Rick, your brilliance is exceeded only by your naïveté.

  I guess you’re right.

  The Gang of Eight had a meeting.

  My fellow probationists?

  Right.

  I wasn’t invited.

  I’m not surprised, Ricky. You’re such a goddamn recluse.

  True, true. And I wouldn’t be in this mess if I weren’t. Believe me, darling, I try.

  I know you do. You should call up Martin. Tell him to include you. It’s like a support group. They’re all helping each other. Getting together to drum up new business.

  I’ll think about it, I said, in a tone intended to close the topic.

  So, she said, picking up the cue, tell me about your visit with Jules.

  Interesting kid. I kind of like him. Feisty. Doesn’t take any shit. A kid his age, you’d think he’d be terrified. But he isn’t. He’s quite cool about it.

  That could be interpreted two ways. At least.

  Yes. You’re right. And I’m not sure I believe his story.

  Okay. But did he do it?

  I don’t know. And I’m not sure I want to know. I’m not sure he told me the whole truth, and nothing but. In fact, I’m quite sure he didn’t. And he may well have done it. But he’s not evil. If he did it, I’m guessing, there were circumstances.

  She asked me for the details.

  There aren’t a whole lot of details yet, I said. What I know isn’t too helpful. The kid’s story doesn’t buy him much. It’s not a whole lot more substantial than ‘I didn’t do it.’ But they don’t have any physical evidence to tie him to it. Still less an eyewitness. But there’s all this other stuff going on. Between Jules and Dad. Weird stuff. I can’t shake the feeling that they’re all playing some kind of game. At my expense.

  Wow. You’re even more fucked up than usual today. Tell me more.

  I recounted my meetings with FitzGibbon and Jules, my talk with Butch.

  Intriguing, she said. Lots of loose ends. I guess there’s enough for you to play Philip Marlowe for a few more days.

  So come play with me.

  Now you’re talking my language.

  Not that. Butch gave me a couple of names. Let’s check them out.

  Good old-fashioned PI spadework?

  Exactly.

  Could be fun.

  Or not.

  Worth a try.

  Okay, there’s a Sarah Fishlin. Apparently she’d been Larry’s girlfriend for a while. Actually made it through a semester at Brooklyn College one time. Very high-functioning, for this crowd. She’s a stripper now. You take Sarah.

  Sure. Clearly my type.

  And I’ll take Serge. Reportedly a dealer on the neighborhood level. Larry might have bought from him. They knew each other, anyway.

  That sounds vague enough.

  You never know.

  All right. Let’s check them out tomorrow. White Stallion at seven, compare notes?

  The White Stallion. Decent food, good wine list.

  Couldn’t say no.

  13.

  BUTCH HAD GIVEN ME AN ADDRESS for Serge in Williamsburg. I took the subway. Get me into the proletarian mood.

  It wasn’t the funky part of Williamsburg, the land of mediocre poets and art-house filmmakers who couldn’t afford Manhattan. It wasn’t even the upwardly striving immigrant Williamsburg, which in any case was largely indistinguishable from the funky bits. It was bombed-out Williamsburg. Empty lots choked with trash and hopelessness. Crumbling buildings that might once have housed a thriving sweatshop or two. Rows of shabby two-and three-family tin-sided houses. Graffiti so old you figured even the vandals had fled the place long ago.

  I found the address. Boarded-up windows. Broken concrete steps leading to a steel-reinforced door. A casual glance and
you might think the place was abandoned. But the steps were cleaner in the middle than at the edges. If you looked from the right angle, in the sunlight, you could make out a boot print or two. On the door, two ancient heavy-duty locks. Scratches in the grime around the keyholes. Someone with a shaking hand had been there, not so long ago.

  I banged on the door. I listened for movement. I thought I heard a footstep. I couldn’t be sure. I banged again. Nothing.

  I looked up and down the street. Not a soul. I felt exposed. I turned to go.

  A muffled voice stopped me.

  What do you want? it said from behind the door.

  I told the voice I was a lawyer. Not the cops. A private lawyer. Looking into a case. Nothing to do with him. Just had a few questions.

  The voice asked me to wait a couple of minutes.

  Okay, I said.

  More than a couple went by. I sighed. Slipped a twenty under the door. A minute later, the door opened a crack. A long pale face peeked out. Stringy hair. Dark rings around reddened eyes.

  Yeah? it said.

  Serge?

  What’s it to you?

  I took that for a yes.

  Keep the twenty, I said. No obligation. But I’d like to talk to you. Just a few minutes. You don’t have to tell me anything. Just listen to the questions.

  It gave me a good long look. Pronounced itself satisfied. Unhooked a couple of chains. Let me in. Didn’t say a word. Went down a flight of stairs.

  I followed.

  We were in a basement. It was lit by candles. As my eyes adjusted to the dark I looked around. There wasn’t much to see. Stone walls. Concrete floors.

  Serge sat down cross-legged on a cushion on the floor. The guy was junkie thin. He was wearing a tattered Adidas tracksuit. His bare feet were black with grime. A gold chain around his neck glinted in the candlelight. It seemed utterly out of place.

  I sat on the floor next to him. I refrained from pulling up my trousers to preserve the crease. Might have sent the wrong message.

  He looked at me without a trace of interest.

  Serge? I said.

  I got an almost imperceptible nod in reply.