Gods and Fathers (4 page)

“You’ve grown up, Michael,” Jade said.

“I don’t remember you.”

“We met once about five years ago at one of your soccer games.”

They were in a windowless ten-foot by ten-foot interview room on the second floor of the 20th Precinct’s modern brick and concrete building on 82
^nd
Street, sitting on metal chairs, facing each other across a dented metal table. Michael’s hands, resting on his lap, were cuffed. Bob Davila stood in the hallway outside, within calling distance, doing his job.

“Is it
Jade
? Or
Miss Lee
? Or
Ms
.
Lee
? Whatever you want me to call you, get me out of here.”

“Has anybody interrogated you?”

“Are you listening to me? Get me the fuck out of here.”

Jade, startled by Michael DeMarco’s ferocity, leaned back in her chair, her features composed. She decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. His girlfriend was dead. Perhaps he had killed her.

“Michael,” she said, her voice neutral, “in a few hours you’re going downtown to be booked. The place is a dungeon. That’s why it’s called the Tombs. Scumbags all over the place. Just follow directions and keep your mouth shut. I’ll meet you in the courtroom at nine o’clock.”

“Is that when I get out?”

“No, you’re charged with murder. You’ll be remanded to custody without bail.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’ll be in the Tombs until Monday. Then you’ll be transferred to Rikers. Have you heard of it?”

“Of course. It’s a shit hole.”

“Correct.”

“And then what?”

“You have to be indicted by a grand jury within five days of your arrest. Then you’ll go before a judge who will set bail.”

“Is that when I get out?”

“The bail will be high, but if you can make it, or your family can, yes.”

“Where’s my father.”

“Your father’s on his way here, but you won’t be able to see him.”

“He’ll get me out.”

“No, he won’t. That’s why I’m telling you this. To prepare you. The Tombs and Rikers are nasty places. Get ready for a rough couple of days.”

“I thought my father was a big shot prosecutor?”

“The president of the United States couldn’t get you bailed until Wednesday.”

Jade, noticing the flash of light in Michael’s eyes, wondered for a second whether he was going to make another sarcastic remark, perhaps about the new president, but he remained silent. Michael’s eyes, she could not fail to notice, were the same as his father’s, dark and wildly beautiful. How far otherwise the fruit had fallen from the tree she did not know, but it seemed pretty far.

“Is she really dead?” Michael said.

Jade looked at her watch. She was wondering when he was going to ask about his dead girlfriend. Ten minutes had passed.
Not a good sign.

“She’s dead, Michael, shot twice in the back of the head and twice in the back of the neck, at close range.”

“Aren’t you going to ask me if I did it?”

“You were there today.”

“That doesn’t prove anything. It was someone else, obviously.”

“They say she was raped too. Did you have sex with her?”

Jade watched as Michael absorbed this, his eyes narrowing, his wheels spinning, trying to get traction.

“We made love,” he said.

“Were you arguing?”

“Yes.”

“They think it was rape.”

“It wasn’t.” His denial was forceful, but Jade did not miss the shadow that fell across Michael DeMarco’s eyes as he spoke, the first crack in his armor of arrogance, always thin, especially in the young.

“And then there’s the gun they found in your room in Pound Ridge,” she said. “They’re pretty sure the bullets will be a match.”

“It’s not mine. I told them that at the house.”

“Your Arab friends must have planted it, don’t you think?”

Jade watched as Michael paused.
This must have occurred to him,
she thought
.
He’s not stupid.

“Who else could it have been?” she said, when Michael did not answer. “You think your father put it there?”

“No, I don’t.”

“You’re sure it wasn’t yours?”

“Of course. I hate guns.”

“Michael, listen to me,” Jade said. “Right now, I’m not interested in whether you did this crime or not. Only in figuring out defenses. If you didn’t do it, the way I see it, the gun had to be planted by your so-called buddies. Do you agree with me?”
And if you did do it, ditto,
she said to herself, planning ahead, thinking of reasonable doubt.

“Yes.”

“O.K. We don’t have long,” she continued. “You need to tell me about them. What are their full names? Where do they live?”

Michael raised his cuffed hands to his face and rubbed his eyes, then returned them quickly to his lap, shaking his head, sitting more upright
.
“I don’t know their last names,” he said. “Adnan’s is F-something.
Farouk
maybe. They work sometimes for Basil, my stepfather. That’s how I met them.”

“When?”

“When they came to New York, a few months ago.”

“Where are they from? What nationality?”

“They’re Lebanese.”

“Did Yasmine meet them?”

“Yes.”

“How do I find them?”

“They live on Long Island, in Locust Valley. They’re house sitting some rich guy’s house. Basil got them the gig.”

“What rich guy? What’s his name?”

“I don’t know.

“Have you been to the house?”

“Yes, a few times.”

“What’s the address?”

“I don’t know, but it’s huge. It’s got a fountain in front with statues of dolphins in the middle. There’s a golf course across the street.”

“Who else knows them?”

“Who else?”

“Yes, other friends, people you hang out with.”

Michael’s handsome features were grim now.
These two had really fucked him.
That was Jade’s educated guess as to what he was thinking. Good old Adnan and Ali.

“Just Yasmine,” Michael answered finally. “The three of us just hung out.”

“Doing what?”

“Getting stoned sometimes, listening to music, sometimes we went to a club.”

“What club?”

“A place called Lucky’s, in Queens.”

“Did anyone know them there?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Bartenders, bouncers, anyone?”

“One bartender did seem to know them. Another Arab guy.”

“But you don’t know his name.”

“I do. Because it’s so weird.
Rex.
”

“Rex. Where in Queens?”

“Near the Whitestone Bridge. I think it’s on Linden Place.”

“O.K.,” Jade said, looking at her watch again. Davila had given her 20 minutes. “A couple of things. Were you questioned when you got here?”

“No. I was fingerprinted, then handcuffed to a desk.”

“Did they do a gunshot residue test, or talk about one? Do you know what that is?”

“No.”

“It’s a chemical test to tell if you’ve fired a gun. It has to be done within 48 hours.”

“It hasn’t happened.”

“You would have no problem with it?”

“I didn’t fire a gun.”

“Did you handle it?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll get it done. We have until four P.M. Sunday. I’ll get someone to come to the Tombs.”

Jade had been making notes on a yellow legal pad. She put the pad back in her briefcase and rose from her chair. Her height seemed to startle Michael. She had been sitting waiting for him when he was brought into the interrogation room. He looked tired, but otherwise not the worse for the wear of the events of the evening, and the afternoon, if he in fact had killed Yasmine Hayek.

“How tall are you?” he asked.

“Five-ten.”

“I do remember you. When you were dating my father.”

Jade nodded.

“What happened there?” Michael asked.

“I’m leaving,” she said, ignoring this question. “I’ll see you in court tomorrow. Is there anybody you want me to call, or talk to?”

“My mother.”

“Your father called her.”

“I did too, but she didn’t pick up. I left a message for her to call my father.”

“When did you call her?”

“They let me make a call when I got here.”

“One last thing, Michael.”

“What?”

“Don’t talk to any inmates at the Tombs or at Rikers about your case. Especially Rikers. They’re all looking to make deals.”

“Sure. Of course. So what happened between you and my father?”

Michael had been looking at her with great interest, the way most men did. Though her sweater was not form fitting and her jeans were just jeans, her body had a way of announcing itself.

“Do you want me to represent you, Michael?” Jade replied, moving to the door and pushing the buzzer on the wall to signal that her visit was over.

“Sure.”

“Then don’t ask me any more personal questions. One more and you’ll have to get a new lawyer. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Matt, lucky to get a taxi to stop in a snowstorm, had had to bribe the cabbie with a twenty-dollar bill to get him to take him across town to his apartment on Columbus Avenue. Could he sleep? He didn’t think so. He had a habit of putting his leftover morning coffee into an old glass milk bottle and refrigerating it for future use. Pouring some into a pan, adding milk and sugar, he stirred himself a poor man’s cappuccino, turning off the flame just as the mixture was starting to boil. They had not let him see Michael at the Precinct. He was in a holding pen in the basement, Matt was told, and would be taken downtown any minute. Bobby Davila had gone off duty. No use waiting. Despite Jade Lee’s admonition not to, he had called Jon Healy, and gotten through. Sipping his coffee in the apartment’s small but comfortable living room, he recalled their conversation.

“Even if I could get bail set,”
Healy had said,
“where would you get the money? It would have to be cash.”

“Let me worry about that.”

“Forget it. He’s remanded.”

“What’s the charge?”

“125-27.”

“You’re kidding.”

“She was raped.”

“Raped? They were going out.”

“This is a tough one, Matt. I’m sorry. Come in to see me on Monday morning.”

“I’m in the middle of a trial.”

“I know. That’s one of the things we have to discuss.”

On Monday he would have to sum up in
Morales,
also a rape/murder, also 125.27 of the Penal Laws, murder one, the death sentence on the table.
That’s one of the things we have to discuss?
What did
that
mean? The ringing of his cell phone startled him. He looked at the screen. It was Debra.

“Hello.”

“Matt? It’s Debra.”

“I know.”

“What’s going on? My phone was off. It was the middle of the night when you called.”

“Michael’s been arrested.”

“There’s a message from him too. I called but his phone must be off. Arrested for what?”

Matt remained silent, his heart heavy, for the first time in fifteen years feeling sympathy for his ex-wife.

“For
what
, Matt,” Debra said. “What’s going on?”

“They say he killed Yasmine,” Matt said.

Debra said nothing. Seconds passed in which the line was so quiet Matt thought they had been disconnected.

“Debra?” he said. “Are you there?”

Nothing.

“Debra?”

More nothing.

Then finally he heard her say, softly, as if she were speaking to herself, “I’m coming home.”

“That’s a good idea.”

“Where is Michael now?” she asked.

“He’s being booked downtown. He’ll go to Rikers on Monday.”

“Are you representing him?”

“You know I can’t do that. I got him a lawyer.”

“Who?”

“Jade Lee. You don’t know her.”

“Yes I do. You went out with her.”

“That’s not relevant right now.”

“I’m coming home,” Debra said, her voice back to normal, or close to it. Normal for her meaning authoritarian, decisive, but, for the moment, without the tinge of disdain for lower creatures that had crept into it since her marriage.

“I’ll call you when I know the flight details.”

Click
. She hung up.

Matt fell asleep on his couch. His last thought was of Debra. It’s not every day you hear your son’s been charged with murder. What had she been thinking in that long silence?

Matt spotted Jade Lee as she came around the corner of the subway entrance. Her long wool overcoat was flared at the bottom and unbuttoned, revealing a stylish navy blue suit and those long graceful legs. A scarlet silk scarf mingled at her collar with her lustrous black hair. Her body was long and regal as she walked toward him across Union Square Park. He rose from his bench and waved as she came nearer. Her face looked grim, but nothing, he thought, surprising himself, could detract from her beauty. The grim set of her features, indeed, only added to it, made it more interesting. A quick smile crossed her face when she saw him, her high cheekbones widening for a split second, accentuating the exotic slant of her eyes, her teeth even and pretty. As beautiful as everything else about her was, it was the sight of these teeth that penetrated his being without warning, turning his heart a few degrees on its axis. The smiles they had exchanged when they ran into each other over the past five years had been fake. This one, brief as it was, was real, and, as a result, it brought back memories he thought he had successfully repressed. Such a small thing, a real smile.

She sat next to him on the slatted park bench, her briefcase on her lap, her breath steaming in the cold gray winter air.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi,” Matt answered.

“How long has it been?” Jade asked.

“Judge Harris’ retirement dinner.”

“Two years.”

“You look great,” Matt said.

“Thank you. Matt…”

“You look like you’ve got bad news.”

“I do. Or maybe it’s not. I’ve been fired.”

Matt paused for a second before speaking. “By Michael, or by his mother?”

“By both, I guess. I just got back from the Tombs. I wanted to hear it from Michael.”

Matt was expecting this. Debra and Basil had returned from Europe on Saturday afternoon. Debra called him while the plane was taxiing at JFK. He told her what he knew about the case. He had visited Michael at the Tombs that morning, just missing Jade, who had been there an hour earlier to handle the arraignment, an open-court affair where Matt decided it was best if he didn’t show his face. He went again this morning, Sunday. On the way out he saw Debra and Basil and a distinguished-looking, gray-haired man in an expensive overcoat, carrying a briefcase, getting out of a limousine in front of 100 Center Street. He called Jade but he got her voice mail. When she returned his call at noon, she told him to meet her at Union Square Park, an old meeting place of theirs, at one.

“What happened?” he asked.

“I got a call from Everett Stryker last night,” Jade said.

“The Wall Street guy.”

“Yes. The white collar guy.”

“That must have been him I saw going into the Tombs this morning.”

“He told me I was discharged. He was going to the appellate division this morning and the Court of Appeals if necessary. And then federal court.”

“If necessary,” Matt said.

“Right, he was preparing a writ,” Jade replied, “while I was at my son’s basketball game.”

“That’s where you were yesterday?”

“And then dinner. He was suspended from the team. It was his first game back.”

“How’d he do?”

“In the game?”

“Yes.”

“He scored five off the bench.”

“Foul trouble?”

Jade smiled at this. Another real smile. When he and Jade were dating, she had gone with Matt to one of Michael’s soccer games, and he had gone with her to one of Antonio’s CYO basketball games. Antonio, a gangly six-foot-three twelve-year-old, arms and legs going in four different directions, determined but rudderless, had gotten quickly into foul trouble, once sending three kids—all five-four or less—sprawling to the floor while trying to force his way through a pick.

“Three in ten minutes,” she said.

Matt smiled too, remembering his high school playing days. He had been a bit of a hacker himself. More than a bit. But not like Antonio, whose motives were pure, but technique bad. Scoring on the sixteen-year-old Matt DeMarco was unthinkable, and so he fouled.

“It’s not good news,” Matt said, returning to the present, turning to face Jade, looking into her eyes and then down at her hands clasping her briefcase. “Stryker represents stock swindlers. I doubt he’s ever tried a murder case.”

“I should have pushed for bail, like he’s doing.”

“It’s a waste of time, all for show—and money—he probably had ten kids working all night on the papers. The grand jury will indict tomorrow or Tuesday and Michael will be out on bail the next day.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. He’ll soon be back in his mother’s arms.”

“One more thing,” Jade said, “and I’ll let you go.”

“What?”

“I got a call this morning from Ken Leyner. He was supposed to go to the Tombs today to do the GSR. He said Stryker called him and cancelled it.”

Matt thought this over. Though Stryker was not known as a street crime guy, he was smart and he had brilliant associates who would thoroughly analyze every issue. He would not lose the chance to do the gunshot residue test unless he did not want to know the results.

“Michael must have handled the Beretta,” he said.

“He told me he didn’t.”

“He must have. There’s no other reason why Stryker would cancel the test.”

Matt caught Jade’s eye again as he said this, tacitly confirming to her that, yes, he believed his son was a liar. He thought back to Friday night, the unbelievably loud volume of Michael’s music that lasted about five minutes. Maybe Ali, the short one with the hooked nose, had gotten Michael to fire the gun out the window while Adnan was in the bathroom.
This will be fun, Michael
.
Come on, try it, there’s nothing but woods out there.
The ultimate set up.

“Manhattan Homicide hasn’t done one,” Jade said, “if that’s any consolation, and I hear there were no prints.”

“I figured Adnan or Ali wiped the gun down,” Matt replied. “And the GSR is a pain in the ass. I’ve never liked it. You’ve seen it.
Two elements, three elements. Inadvertent transfer. Were the hands bagged? Why not?
Blah, blah. It’s red meat for defense lawyers. They probably think they have enough and don’t want to complicate things with an inconclusive test.”

“I agree, but I think Michael was telling me the truth.”

Matt shook his head. He hadn’t known his son to be a liar. If anything he seemed to enjoy hurting people—strike that, hurting Matt—with jabs of honesty that stung all the more because they were so dispassionately delivered. An asshole, but not a liar. Until now.

“Matt?” Jade said.

“Yes?”

“He’s angry.”

Matt nodded. No shit, he thought.

“I don’t think it’s completely at you.”

“Jade…”

“I have a son, too. There’s something…”

“Something what?”

“Something torturing him.”

“Like what?” Just like his mother, Matt thought, making excuses for him, the man-child. It must be a female thing.

“I don’t know,” Jade replied. “I saw the boy in him at the arraignment. He didn’t do this crime.”

“That I agree with.”

“I’m sorry to be butting in like this.”

“You’re not butting in. You’re trying to help.” Who else would do that? Try to help? Matt thought, suddenly very near, uncomfortably near, to a truth about himself, his life, that he had been avoiding for a long time. He looked into Jade’s eyes for a second, thanking her with his own, softened now by this truth, and then down at her beautifully sculpted hands, ivory-yellow, the nails a deep brilliant crimson, resting on the briefcase on her lap.

“I owe you for your time,” he said, looking up. “Send me a bill.”

“No, Matt. I really appreciate that you thought of me. It was only a few hours.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“I’ll buy you dinner.”

“No, I’ll buy
you
dinner.”

“We’ll go Dutch.”

“Sure, call me.”

While they were talking, a flock of pigeons, a hundred or so strong, had gathered on the asphalt walkway nearby. After Jade left, Matt sat and watched an old black guy feed them peanuts from a five-gallon spackle container on the bench next to him. In the man’s lap was a faded paperback copy of Marcus Aurelius’
Meditations
, with the same yellow cover as the one Matt had on a shelf in his apartment. Matt sat, mesmerized, watching. As he had been mesmerized by Jade’s hands.

Basil al-Hassan, swiftly crossing the Atlantic in his private jet, had come to the rescue. Everett Stryker, the super lawyer with a firm of three hundred attorneys at his beck and call, had been hired, and was issuing orders; his retainer probably 500K. He had only been half joking when he told Jade that Michael would soon be back in his mother’s arms. They were too close, those two. And they had defeated him. When Michael was a boy, Matt, recently separated from Debra, had lived close to Union Square, on 17
^th
Street. He had a dog, a mutt with a mangled eye, named Popeye, that he and Michael took to the dog run in the park, which Matt could see from where he sat. Popeye got old and sick, and Matt had to put him down. Michael was sixteen at the time and barely noticed. Michael.

Matt rose to leave, and as he did he saw the black man raise his right hand, index finger extended, pointing at him. It was a slow but surprisingly commanding gesture: stop, it said, hold on a second.

“Yes?” Matt said, staring into a pair of tired, yellowed eyes.

“Have you read Marcus Aurelius?” the man asked.

Matt noticed for the first time that the man’s wrinkled brown hands, his pant legs, and his battered work shoes were covered with white paint or, more precisely, white paste—spackle. He had been working and was finished for the day, or taking a lunch break.

“Yes, I have,” Matt answered.

“You should read him again. You don’t want your anger to turn to despair, or self-pity.” The old man nodded, dismissing Matt, and reached into his bucket, coming out with a handful of peanuts. These he flung at the pigeons, watching passively as they scrambled for them, many of them devouring them shells and all.