PART 35 (15 page)

“Name, date, and all?”

“Right.” The doctor took a small piece of handwritten paper from the pocket of his white jacket. He read from it. “He came here July ninth, 1967, about ten
P.M.
and was released about two thirty on the morning of July tenth. He was returned to the prison in ambulance number twenty-one. The driver was J. Lacqua, and the attendant was Winston Smylen.”

“Did the ambulance book indicate any diagnosis?” Sandro asked.

“No,” replied the doctor. “There was just the transportation notation. But now that we know what day he was here, we can check upstairs in the prison-ward log. I was really just lucky to find this notation in the dispatch book. No one has access to it except the dispatcher. I took a chance and looked at it today while I was passing. I still can't find any hospital record, the actual diagnostic record. Did you try and get it through official channels?”

“No, George,” Sandro replied. “I want to have a copy in my hands first. Then I'll order it through official channels just to cover us. I don't want to alert anyone and have the records destroyed before I get a copy of it. Besides, if I can produce a copy, it'll make destruction of the record look even worse.”

“You think they'd really destroy such a record?” asked Dr.Travers.

“I don't know. I'm not about to take a chance on it though. That's why Jerry came along tonight with his camera.”

Jerry, tall and lean, lifted his equipment bag forward so the doctor could see it.

“All right. We'll go over there. I'll get the book somehow, bring it to the office, and you can photograph it in my office. Then we can go to the prison ward.”

The three men walked past the cafeteria to the ambulance entrance. An ambulance pulled up, and through the double doors, half-glass, half-wood, they saw the attendant jump from the back of the ambulance, moving toward a stretcher on wheels.

“This one's really a mess,” the attendant announced to other drivers sitting near the dispatch office, awaiting assignment. One of the attendants who had been sitting near the ambulance entrance helped to push the stretcher to the ambulance. Within was a man lying on a pallet. His head was swathed in bandages oozing blood. His hair was matted with dirt and blood. His clothes were old, soiled, ripped, bound on with cords and string. The two attendants eased the body onto the rolling stretcher and moved him through the double doors and turned right into the emergency ward.

Sandro and Jerry watched with fascination. Dr.Travers hardly noticed.

“Wait here for a minute,” said the doctor. “I'll go to the dispatch office. If the book is there, I'll get it now.” Dr. Travers walked quickly down the corridor.

Sandro and Jerry were standing outside the emergency room entrance. Within were people sitting on chairs, sitting on tables, lying on tables, propped against the wall, waiting for treatment, hoping for relief. Some were in wheelchairs. All looked uncomfortable, poor, pained, afraid. A wheelchair with a heavy woman in a nightdress, gasping for air, was being pushed down the hall by a thin, effeminate Negro attendant. A large man with gray hair and purpled cheeks was lying on his side in the emergency waiting room. Except for the blood-lines etched on his cheeks, his face was ashen. His eyes stared numbly at a wall. He did not stir, except for an occasional soft inhalation. A Puerto Rican man carrying a child, wrapped in an adult's jacket, entered the emergency room; a frantic woman and two small children trailed behind.

The waiting room of the emergency clinic was just a long corridor leading into a room outfitted for emergency care. The corridor was filled with a line of sufferers, looking neglected and forlorn, waiting, while some bled, some died, all suffered. And as they waited, more people continued to stream into emergency, to be herded into line to wait their turn.

“This place is fantastic,” commented Jerry as he stood next to Sandro.

“One look at this and you don't want ever to get sick,” replied Sandro.

A man with one leg was wheeled down a corridor in a wheelchair. The stub seemed to be seeping fresh blood.

Another man carrying a child in his arms came through the doors into the hospital. The child was awake, her eyes opened but motionless. She was resigned, content in that fortress of her father's arms where nothing could harm her. The father looked around hopelessly, frantically.

“You want emergency?
Emergencia
?” Sandro inquired.

The man nodded quickly, the slightest hint of a smile of thanks seeping through his strained face.

“This way,” said Sandro, pointing. An attendant was passing. “This man needs emergency,” said Sandro, pointing to the father and child.

“Right in the emergency room. We'll get to him as soon as we can,” replied the attendant, with weariness and apathy.

Sandro shrugged and pointed to the waiting room. The man gave that slight hint of a smile again and walked in to stand at the end of the line with the child in his arms.

“Here's the doctor,” said Jerry as Travers returned, walking quickly, carrying a large ledger book under his arm. He walked past Sandro and Jerry without stopping or turning his head their way.

“Come on,” he whispered as he passed.

Sandro and Jerry looked at each other, hesitated, then began to follow the doctor at a distance which would eliminate any suspicion of their being together. The doctor stopped in front of the huge elevator door in the hospital's A Building. Sandro and Jerry sauntered up and stood beside him. Sandro looked around to be sure they were alone and could not be overheard.

“Is that the dispatch book from that night?” Sandro asked.

“Yes. I'll show it to you when we get upstairs.”

The door slid open, and the three men entered the elevator. At the fourth floor, they alighted.

“It's at this end of the hall,” said the doctor, walking to his right. Jerry and Sandro followed. They entered a small office at the end of the corridor. There was a room for secretaries, a working office for the doctor, and a door marked
LIBRARY
, which the doctor walked through, Sandro and Jerry following him. “Here it is, Sandro. In this book, I found Alvarado's name as having been brought here July ninth, 1967, and having been brought back to the prison on the tenth. Now let me find the exact page,” the doctor thumbed through. “Here it is.”

Sandro moved closer, his eyes scanning the lines until he saw
Alvarado, Luis.
And there it was, the dispatch record indicating Alvarado had been returned to the Tombs from the Bellevue prison ward at 2:30
A.M.
on July 10th, 1967.

“This is tremendous,” Sandro exclaimed. “This can't be denied. No one would ever have thought of looking for this to destroy it. Jerry, can you get pictures of this?”

Jerry, who had been looking over Sandro's shoulder, unbuckled his equipment bag. He took out a camera with flashgun and started to focus several times.

“You know, I feel like Shapiro the spy or something, taking these pictures,” Jerry grinned. He focused again, and the camera flashed. “Okay, I've got pictures of these two pages. Any more?”

“No, that's fine,” said Sandro, closing the book.

“I've got to get this book downstairs before anybody realizes it's gone. You sure you have everything you need from it?” Travers asked, putting the book under his arm.

“Yes, sure. Jerry'll develop the pictures. We don't even have to write anything.”

“Okay, fine. Wait for me here.” The doctor went out. Sandro slouched down into a big leather chair. Jerry took out a medical journal and leafed through it. In a few minutes, the doctor returned without the book.

“I'd rather just you came Sandro. Not that I don't like you, Jerry,” he grinned. “It's just that the less conspicuous we are, the better. Jerry can wait right here for us. Nobody will bother you. If anybody comes in, just say you're waiting for me.”

Dr. Travers led Sandro along the corridor into and through another corridor which led to an adjoining building of the Bellevue compound. They continued through long, dismal, tiled corridors, which were occasionally stirred by moans, into another building, and finally ascended several flights of stairs. They approached an iron-bars-over-sheet-steel door. There was a bell at the side of the door.

“Yes?” asked the policeman, who peered through the Judas eye in the steel door.

“I'm Dr.Travers. I want to come in to see one of the doctors inside.”

“Who's he, Doctor?” the officer pointed his chin at Sandro.

“This is one of my associates. We're just here to check the records, not to go into the ward.”

“All right, Doctor.” The officer unlocked the door and allowed Sandro and the doctor to enter. The room was used as a clerical office, doctors' station, and police office. Opposite the steel door, through which they had come, was a wall of bars separating the office from the prisoners. Beyond, under constant scrutiny, was a roomful of prisoner-patients in blue prison-ward pajamas. Some of the prisoners were in beds lined against the wall on the sides of the ward; some were in wheelchairs; others sat on chairs, talking among themselves.

Dr.Travers approached the nurse and spoke with her. She led him to a large ledger book on the desk. The doctor opened it and began searching its papers. He motioned to Sandro to help him. The doctor's attention was drawn suddenly to one of the pages.

“Look at this, Sandro,” said Travers, pointing to a line in the book under the date July 9th, 1967. It was the name
Luis Alvarado.
The entry indicated that Alvarado arrived at 10
P.M.
, July 9th, and was sent for X-rays and examination. Under the column marked
Diagnosis
was the notation
RO internal bleeding.

“What does this ‘RO internal bleeding' mean?” Sandro asked.

“It would seem there was some reason to make the doctor on duty believe that Alvarado might be having internal bleeding, and he sent him for X-rays and to make sure whether there actually was internal bleeding. RO means Rule-out, a medical abbreviation—check for internal bleeding and rule it out or affirm it as the diagnosis.”

“Well? What happened? Did they find internal bleeding?”

“I don't know. There's no further information here. Let me ask the nurse.” Travers motioned to the nurse. “Miss Dawson,” he said, addressing her by the name-badge pinned to her uniform, at the tip of her left breast. “Is there any record here, other than this book, which would indicate the diagnosis or the treatment the patient received?”

“Well, I don't know,” she said in a soft southern accent. “I only know that they mark everything down here and that's all.”

“Well, doesn't the doctor make out a diagnosis sheet or some report after the examination?” Sandro asked.

“There is a sheet, just a single sheet of paper that the doctor fills out, I guess when he examines the patient,” she replied.

“Where is it in this case?” Sandro pressed, pointing to Alvarado's name. “Do you have it on file?”

“The doctor sends that back to the prison when the prisoner is returned,” the nurse explained. “That's where it probably is now, so the prison doctors can treat the prisoner.”

“Damn. If it's at the prison it will be inaccessible until I subpoena it at trial,” Sandro said. He turned back to the nurse. “Is there any way of knowing the name of the doctor who treated or examined Alvarado that night?”

She studied the ledger. “Dr. Waxman's signature? Yes, this is Dr.Waxman's signature. He probably examined the patient.”

“Is he here? Is he still at Bellevue, Nurse?” the doctor asked.

“No, sir. I think he's at New York University Hospital now.”

“Thank you.” He shrugged at Sandro. “Guard, will you let us out now?” Travers asked.

The steel door shut with a heavy thud as Sandro and the doctor retraced their footsteps toward the library.

“Is there anything else you want to do here, Sandro?”

“I don't think so. I'll have to talk to this Dr. Waxman. Can you set up some sort of appointment with him, George?”

“I can't right now. I have to get back to the clinic. I'll give him a call as soon as I'm free and try to arrange a meeting.”

Jerry Ball and Sandro lounged in the back of the cab as it drove across town. “The weather's getting nippy. Let's have a couple of drinks to celebrate and warm up at the same time,” Sandro suggested.

“Hey! I'm going to like this job.”

“This is the greatest thing in the case so far.”

“But even if you find that this guy of yours was bleeding, how do you prove that whatever he had to go to the hospital for was a result of the cops?”

“I don't have to prove it was a beating. They have to prove it wasn't.”

“I don't follow you,” Jerry said.

“In order to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the confession is voluntary, they have to account for his physical condition. That is, he was healthy when he went into the police station. They have to account for any physical disability that might have developed in there and show that it was not the result of a beating. If they can't, then there goes their case.”

“That makes sense. You think you have enough to make them start worrying?”

“Not yet. But we're closing the gaps.”

CHAPTER XVI

Despite the cold, rainy, October weather, Sandro was still cheerful as he walked into Sam's office. This was his first stop of the morning. The secretary buzzed Sam on the intercom and showed Sandro into his office.

“I've got it, I've got it, Sam,” Sandro announced victoriously. “Dr.Travers found the goddamn record that shows that Alvarado was in Bellevue on the ninth of July. There's your acid proof.”

“Jesus, Sandro,” Sam exclaimed. He stood to shake Sandro's hand. “That's powerful stuff. Where is it?”