PART 35 (13 page)

“They wouldn't do anything to innocent citizens, would they?”

“Oh, they wouldn't touch them, no. But what is a barber going to say, or a salesgirl, when a cop from the neighborhood comes in and talks to them. They got their livelihood to think of. These cops are around all the time. They need the cops for protection. Alvarado is just a flash in the pan. Do you know what a pain in the ass these cops can be to these people? And they don't have to make the people say they didn't see Alvardo, lie outright. All it has to be is, well, Alvarado looks like the guy, but they're
not absolutely sure.
If they're not absolutely sure of Alvarado, their testimony is worthless to us. So the cops confuse them a little. How can they be absolutely sure it was Alvarado? And that's the end of your alibi. The cops aren't going to let some spic barber or a nigger salesgirl foul up this case.”

“The sons of bitches!”

“Well, they got a job to do. I'm not sure I would do it any different. We need a hell of a lot to overcome what the D.A. most probably has in his file. You have to remember, Sandro, Ellis has been an assistant D.A. a long time. And he's not going to come into court to make a fool of himself with a case that doesn't hold water. I'm not going into court to make a fool out of myself either. I've got a living to make and a reputation that helps me make it. If I go out on a limb and get it sawed out from under me, I get hurt where it hurts. I'd rather run to fight another day.”

“But, Sam, what if you run to fight another day, and the next time after that you run, and the next time? Hell! You may be sending a lot of guys to jail for no reason. What the hell service is that to an innocent man?”

“Look at the service I am to the guilty when I get them lesser pleas, light sentences. Ninety-nine percent of the defendents are guilty. Besides, clients want successful lawyers to represent them. Not losing crusaders. I have an office to run, a secretary to pay.”

“If you see what has to be done, if you know you could do more, but you don't, what the hell are you?”

“You're making a living.”

Sandro studied Sam.

“Well, I believe Alvarado,” Sandro said with finality. “And I've got statements, written, signed statements.”

“Let's just hope they don't turn around and say that you made them sign the statements, or gave them money to sign, or something like that.”

“Are you crazy? Why would I do that?”

“After the cops finish talking to your witnesses, you can't tell what they'll say. Particularly if the cops know you're breaking your head to get this guy off. Manny Weiss was indicted when a people's witness said he forced him into making a certain statement. Sure, he was acquitted, but look what an indictment did to his practice. No. You're not getting this old bag of bones to poke around with you.”

“I know we're on the right track,” Sandro assured Sam.

“I hope so. I'll be delighted if we are.”

“The only thing that really worries me, Sam, is Hernandez. If he turns state's evidence for a break on his sentence, that'd kill us but good.”

“What a case you want me to get excited about! I'd have to have a hole in my head to waste time on this. But it's good experience for you. I just hope they don't throw us in jail for trying to defend this guy.”

“Joseph Devlin,” the clerk intoned, calling a case.

“That's mine,” said Sandro, rising. “I'm going to stay on this, Sam. Follow it wherever it leads.”

“Sandro, you're a good kid. Crazy, but good. Find the Bellevue records if you find anything.”

Sandro walked to the counsel table to represent his client. As he stood before the bench of justice, he wondered if disillusionment was too high a price to pay for a practical education in the law.

CHAPTER XIII

Sandro sat at the table in his mother's spotless kitchen; the room was filled with the rich aromas of her cooking. From outside came the almost Arabian, lilting, wailing quality of a true Neapolitan singer floating from the loudspeakers on the bandstand of the
Festa di San Gennaro
, the annual celebration for the patron saint of Naples held in New York's Little Italy in the middle of September. Police barricades kept out traffic, and carts and stands lined the sidewalks, while the streets were thronged with people who came to eat sausage and pepper sandwiches on Italian bread and to watch
zeppoli
and
calzone
being dropped into boiling oil. Sometimes the young men from the neighborhood would try to climb a greased pole, and always there were Italian singers and music, and the parade where the men would carry the statue of San Gennaro, and money was pinned to the statue or collected by the officials of the festa.

“I gotta good fettucini for you. Your favorite,” Sandro's mother said, turning from the stove, her wooden cooking spoon in her hand. Sandro was always amazed that that selfsame instrument of childhood punishment could be the helpmate of delicious food. Mama was old now, gray, her hair gathered in a bun at the back of her head; she smiled warmly, pleased to have her Sandro home again, even for one meal.

“It smells great, Mama. I can't wait.”

“You not eat good, Sandro. You thin.” Her eagle eye assessed him.

Sandro wasn't about to tell Mama that the reason he was getting thin was that his roommate for the last few months, a blonde model named Claudia, was no longer cooking for him—or anything else for him, for that matter. She had gone by mutual agreement. Besides, Mama would never have approved of Claudia. She couldn't even pronounce
osso buco
, or
spaghetti carbonara
, or
linguine con vongole
, much less cook them.

“And then some veal
piccata
, just like you like.
E ensalata rugola
” her eyes lit up for Sandro as she said it. She knew what his favorites were.

“Stop, Mama. Stop talking about it. Just bring them out one at a time, and I'll eat my way through them.” He was happy now. How many meals like this he had had to miss as part of the price for his wonderful education!

As he was eating, he wondered, just for a moment, what Alvarado had eaten for dinner this night.

“It was great, Mama, great,” Sandro said as he sat back in the big stuffed chair in her living room, his feet up on a hassock. Her apartment was three rooms—a bedroom, living room, and kitchen. Not much different, in size, from the apartments on Stanton Street, except that Mama was on her hands and knees everyday scrubbing everything, including the public hallway outside.

Her eyes were warmed by the very sight of Sandro as she pretended to watch television. “Take a little nap, Sandro, rest. You work too hard on these case.”

“I can't, Mama. I have to see a fellow called Frankie Sausages.”

“Who? Frankie what?” She laughed. “Sausige?” She pronounced it
saw
-
ZEACH
.

“He's a fellow who has one of the sausage stands down at the feast,” Sandro laughed with her. “He's a fellow Sal Angeletti told me to talk to. He might be able to help me with one of my cases.”

“With a name like Sausige, I should know he's a friend of Sal. And his wife is Peperone, no? They make a good combination.”

Sandro laughed with her. “Where's that sugar bowl of yours, Mama?” he asked, rising.

“Never mind. Leave the sugar bowl alone.” She moved protectively toward the kitchen, where the sugar bowl stood on the sideboard. Sandro was faster. He snared it and quickly slipped a fifty-dollar bill in with the money she kept there. It was all right if he could get the money into the sugar bowl, which was her bank, but she wouldn't accept money outright. He put on his jacket and made his way to the front door.

“Call me.”

“Okay, Mama. Every couple of days.”

They kissed, and he descended the two flights. He was immediately swallowed up in the crowds swelling Mulberry Street like a river coursing to the sea. He started moving in the direction of Spring Street. He felt his senses gorged with the pungent smells of cooking sausages and peppers and onions, the hot oils, the pastry, the coffee, the smoke filling the air, the yelling kids, the gawking tourists, the pushing humanity, the people at the booths shouting their wares, the games where you had to throw quoits onto sticks, PingPong balls into fish bowls, pennies onto small numbered circles, the spinning wheels, and the floating, lilting, Neapolitan singing. He reached the stand where he had been told he would find Frankie Sausages.

“Yeah, how many?” a young, curly haired man cooking sausage on an open grill asked Sandro, ready to stuff the meat into a quarter loaf of bread.

“I want to talk to Frankie,” Sandro said.

“Frankie who?” the man asked, shrugging his shoulders and shaking his head.

“Frankie Sausages,” Sandro said reluctantly.

“Who's 'e want?” asked a second man, in an apron, pointing his chin at Sandro.

“Somebody named Sausage.” The curly haired man's face wrinkled into a question and another shrug. “You know anybody named Sausage?”

“Yeah, right here,” his colleague answered, spearing a sausage with a fork and lifting it, “
u-sausige nabolitan
and all his brothers. You want a sangwich, fella?” They were both smirking.

“Sal Angeletti sent me over here to talk to Frankie,” Sandro said finally.

Their faces suddenly went blank.

“Frankie's in the store,” one of them said quickly. “We didn't know who you were.”

“I know. Which store?”

“Right here, the pork store,” the first man said, pointing to a store on the ground floor of the building directly behind the sausage stand. Sandro entered. A red-headed man was stuffing meat into a sausage machine with one hand, grinding with the other. The ground meat was being forced into a skin, which was winding itself into one large sausage on the counter.

“Frankie?”

The man just looked at Sandro. He stopped grinding, cut the skin from the machine, and started to tie a cord deftly around the long sausage every few inches, making neat joints.

“What d'ya want him for?”

“I'm a lawyer. My name's Sandro Luca. Sal Angeletti told me you might be able to help me.”

The man wiped his hands on his apron, extending the right one to Sandro.

“Hello, Counselor.” They shook hands. “I'm Frankie. What can I do for you?”

“Sal thought you might know some people over on Stanton Street, near Suffolk, Norfolk.”

“Nah, not any more. We useta operate over there, you know, bets, numbers. But no more. Now they got them spics over there. We gave it up. It don't pay no more to bother with them dirty bas-tids. What'a ya need? Maybe I can help ya anyway?”

“I'm representing a fellow who's supposed to have killed a cop over on Stanton Street.”

“You mean that one about two, three months ago?”

“Yes.”

“Nah, I don't know no people over there no more. But I know that cop that was the dead cop's partner that day. I read about it in the papers.”

“Snider? You know Snider?” Sandro asked with surprise.

“Yeah. He was around that section a long time. He was in narcotics, but we didn't have no bother with him, you know? We don't fool with that stuff. He was plainclothes, but I knew he was a cop.”

“Snider was in the narcotics squad?” Sandro asked.

“Yeah. That was maybe five years now, maybe six. Before even he was in the precinct. I tink he got hisself a beef, and they put him back poundin' a beat.”

“Other than that, Frankie, do you think you could help me out, introduce me to anyone who'd still be over in the neighborhood?”

“I hate to say no, Counselor, but I couldn't help ya. That useta be some sweet neighborhood, too. Ahhh,” he sighed. “If I can help ya wit anything else, just let me know, okay? Ya want some sausage, Counselor? I just made it fresh.”

“No thanks, Frankie. Next time.”

“So long.”

Sandro walked back into the surging crowd. The two men at the sausage stand waved to him as he made his way toward the side street where his car was parked.

CHAPTER XIV

As he walked toward the courtroom, Sandro was absorbed with thoughts of the arguments he was about to present to Judge Conboy to support his application for a bill of particulars in the Alvarado case.

Sandro entered the courtroom and sat in the back. He reread his motion papers in which he requested the time of the killing, the exact place, the type of gun used, the wounds inflicted, witnesses' names, statements, photos of the scene of the crime. Ellis, of course, was opposed to revealing any such information. Sandro felt someone reading over his shoulder. He turned.

“Nicholas Siakos, how are you?”

“Hi, Sandro, how are you?” Siakos, Hernandez's lawyer, spoke with a slight Greek overtone to his English. Having handled many Spanish clients, he also spoke Spanish, or at least, Puerto Rican Spanish, that too with a Greek overtone. He was about Sandro's height, but thickset, stockier. He had a thick neck, square jaw, and heavy black hair.

“I'm just fine. How are you doing with the Hernandez situation?” Sandro asked.

“All right. Actually, I haven't had much time to get at it yet, but I think we have a situation here which could prove very interesting. We may have a little bomb on our hands.” Siakos nodded and narrowed his eyes for emphasis.

“Are you going to trial with this case or are you going to see if you can get a plea?” Sandro fished.

“Oh, I don't know.” Siakos smiled slightly, pleased at an opportunity to be sly and noncommittal. “My man tells me he feels very bad about getting your man involved. He says the only way your man got into all this is because of him, and he wants to fight to save your man. But I don't know.” Siakos obviously wanted Hernandez to plead guilty to a charge less than first-degree murder, even at Alvarado's expense.