PART 35 (22 page)

“When were you in Lexington?” Mike asked.

“Just before I got busted the last time. I guess I didn't get so clean down there, you know?” Salerno had nothing inside him, he was washed out and washed up, and he couldn't have passed twenty-five long ago. “I can't help you, honest.”

“Do you know Robert Soto, the fellow whose apartment was broken into that day?” Sandro asked.

“Nah, not really. He moved in while I was away. I think I seen him once since I been home, maybe said hello, but that's it.”

“Do you know Asunta?” Mike asked.

“I know who she is. I see her around. That's about it. I got enough trouble, you know.” His wife walked over to him, now carrying the baby, who looked to be less than a year old. He slipped his arm around her waist.

“Just one more thing,” Sandro said. “Have the police come around to speak to you about this killing?”

“Yeah,” Mrs. Salerno answered for both of them. “They come snoopin' around here, too.” She glared at Sandro pointedly. “That Detective Mullaly is over in this neighborhood as much as you.”

“I guess that's it, then. Thank you,” Sandro said as they walked out into the hall. The door closed quickly behind them.

“She's as sweet as usual,” Mike said, as they descended. “The winter really agrees with her.”

“The hell with her. This whole thing is still up in the air, Mike. He says he was in jail. Okay. He says he doesn't know anything. Now where the hell are we? What's going on?”

“Yeah. Soto tells you this guy is asking all kinds of questions, and Salerno tells you he hardly even knows Soto. It doesn't make sense. None. Somebody is snowing us.”

“You know who I trust more?” Sandro evaluated. “Soto. He's been cooperating with us right along. We don't even know this guy, except he's a junky.”

CHAPTER XXIII

Mike and Sandro ascended the creaking wooden staircase leading to the second floor of the rooming house where Alvarado had been living when he was arrested. The building had a drab interior, painted a flat, continuous white, its monotony of dull walls unbroken by pictures, colors, artifacts, or diversions. A bare bulb lit the top of the landing. At the rear of the hall, a door stood ajar. It was the common bathroom. Mike knocked on one door after another. Only a woman who lived in the rearmost room was at home. She peered through the space of her chained door. Mike spoke to her in Spanish. She shook her head. Sandro and Mike walked down the stairs and out into the street.

“She's only lived there four weeks,” said Mike. “She knows nothing.”

“Let's see if we can find that superintendent, Jorge,” Sandro suggested. “He was the one who was here with Alvarado during the day, and the one who told Alvarado about the detectives waiting for him.”

“Maybe he lives down here,” said Mike, descending three stone steps, which led to an iron gate beneath the stoop. He rang the bell. No answer. He rang again, turning to look at Sandro.

“Who are you looking for?” asked an attractive, dark-haired young woman standing at the top of the stoop of the next building.

“Jorge.”

“Jorge who?” She studied them suspiciously.

“The super. I don't know his last name. His first name is Jorge. He's the superintendent of this building.”

The girl descended the stoop and stood on the sidewalk. She knew something; her face was trying hard to conceal it.

“I'm a lawyer. I represent a fellow named Alvarado. He lived here, and last July he was arrested here, charged with killing a policeman,” said Sandro. “Jorge was with him that day and knows that Alvarado couldn't have done it.”

“I don't know anything about that. I don't know if Jorge knows anything about that.” She still studied Sandro.

“I'm not the police. I'm trying to save Alvarado from the police. He's charged with killing a policeman, and because he's Puerto Rican, the district attorney and the cops are going to give him the works. He's in a very tough position. That's why I need Jorge. If the Puerto Ricans refuse to help their own kind when they get in trouble, what kind of help can you expect from the people downtown, who think every Puerto Rican is a no-good junky.”

“Jorge isn't here. I don't know where he is,” she said sincerely. She was afraid of something.

“What's your name?” Sandro asked.

“I'm Jenny. Jorge is my brother.”

“Well, Jenny, you can see how important it is that I talk to your brother. He was here with Alvarado when the cop was supposed to have been killed. He knows Alvarado didn't do it. I just want to talk to him. I'm not going to get him in trouble.”

“I don't know where he is right now.”

“Well, when will he be back?”

“I don't know. He's in Puerto Rico.”

“What's his address? I'll write to him,” said Sandro.

“I don't have his address. My father might. I'd have to talk to my father.”

“Look, Jenny, I don't want to get Jorge in trouble. I only want to talk to him, write to him, if necessary. You call him, have him call me. I don't even want to know his phone number.”

“I don't know where he is to call him.”

“Well, talk to your father. I'll talk to your father,” Sandro suggested. “If Jorge is out of town, let me write a letter to him. You can address it so I don't even know where it's going. I don't want Jorge. I only want to talk to him. A man's life is at stake, Jenny. It's important. It's a matter of life or death, frankly.”

“I understand. But I really don't know where he is.”

“When will he be back?” Sandro pressed.

“I don't know.”

“Does his wife know? Is he married?”

“Yeah, he's married. His wife is with him, though. I don't know where they are.”

“Let me talk to your father then. Is he here?”

“No, he's not here. I'll have to talk to him. If there's anything I can do, maybe I can call you. You got a phone?”

Sandro handed her his card. “Do you have a phone here where I can call you?”

“No, I don't have a phone.”

“Is there one in the hall where I can get you?” Sandro asked.

“No. Look, I'm not trying to make it tough for you. I can't help it right now, you know.” She pleaded with her eyes.

“Yes, I know. I understand. But you have to understand, make your father understand, that this is a man's life at stake. Tell your father I don't even want to know where Jorge is. You get in touch with him for me. I must talk to him or write to him.”

“All right. I'll tell my father. I'll call you and let you know. Okay?”

“It'll have to be okay, won't it?” Sandro replied. He smiled. She returned his smile.

“Okay. I'll let you know.” She stood watching Sandro and Mike walk toward Roebling Street.

“I wonder what the hell Jorge is on the lam for?” Mike said to Sandro.

“Damn, if that doesn't beat all. Alvarado's friends are all in trouble with the law. What the hell kind of witness would Jorge make anyway? They'd probably arrest him on the witness stand. Well, we'll see after we talk to him.”

“Okay, Sandro. Say, you want to stop off and see the barber and the others, see if they're still okay, if the cops have been bothering them?” Mike asked.

“Might as well as long as we're here.”

They walked to Roebling Street and turned toward the barber shop. There, they found Francisco Moreno. They all said hello, smiled, talked for a few minutes. Sandro checked if Francisco's recollection of Alvarado on July 3rd still stood. It did. They spoke to the other witnesses in the neighborhood—Annie Mae Cooper in the five-and-ten, Pablo Torres in the restaurant. All stood firm. And the police had not been around to talk with anyone.

“As we're driving into New York, stop on Stanton Street,” Sandro directed Mike. “This time I want to go take a really good look at that backyard. That woman across the yard had an awfully long view of whatever she says she saw. I want to see what her windows look like again, too.”

“Okay.”

The rotting fences that separated the rear yards of the Stanton Street buildings from the rear yards of the Rivington Street buildings were broken through here and there to form a no-man's-land of weeds and concrete. The Stanton Street yards were approximately fifteen feet deep and had no fences separating them. They served as an alley that extended to Suffolk Street. Near Suffolk Street, there had once been a fence to block the way, as evidenced by remnants of wire mesh and cement, but it was long since gone.

The yard behind 153 Stanton Street was really the top of the one-story extension on the building. A ladder was bolted to the wall of the extension. This was the ladder Lauria had climbed on the way to his death.

Mike and Sandro walked through the alley from Suffolk Street, climbed over some rubble where the fence was broken, and stopped directly beneath the Italian woman's windows. These were on the first level above the yard, starting approximately nine feet from the ground. There were two windows. One opened onto a fire escape. An air-conditioner protruded from the bottom half of the other.

“You see that air-conditioner?” Sandro was whispering so that their presence would not attract attention.

“Yes.” Mike whispered.

“And look at the fire escape at the other window. Both windows have some kind of obstruction. And look at the fire escape up by Soto's old apartment,” Sandro turned full around.

The tall, narrow building loomed five stories above the one-story extension in its rear yard.

“Look at the bottom of the fire escape outside Soto's apartment. From down here at this angle you have to look right through the steel slats on the bottom of that fire escape to see Soto's windows,” said Sandro.

“Yeah. That's a tough view to get a good look at a dark-colored guy on a rainy day,” agreed Mike.

“Especially if you've never seen him before. She'd have to look through the railing of her own fire escape, or through the window where the air-conditioner is …” Sandro turned to look at the air-conditioner in the Italian woman's apartment again. “Look at that! In order to install the air-conditioner, the windows had to be raised at the bottom, right?”

“Right.”

“And the window above the air-conditioner is then a double window, right? The top half plus the raised bottom half.”

“That's right,” said Mike, studying the window.

“And to seal the room so the hot air doesn't come in, the windows are locked in position and some insulation is placed between them.”

“Yeah, some kind of rubber or foam stuff,” Mike added.

“Right. And that's a sort of permanent installation with almost a sealed vacuum between the windows. And except for inside the apartment, the windows never get washed because they're locked and sealed. Look at those windows. They're kind of grimy and hard to see through.” Sandro was smiling.

“You're right. It's like black and sooty between the windows.”

“Right! And that's at the very height that a person would have to look to see the Sotos' fire escape.”

“In other words, it'd be real tough to see through that sooty window, through the dark and the rain, through the fire-escape slats up there, and recognize a colored guy, especially a real dark guy like Alvarado, if you never saw him before in your life.”

“Exactly,” agreed Sandro. “And if she looked through her other window, she'd have to look through the railing of her own fire escape. And there are stairs that come down from the apartment above hers. Look at them.”

“They come down right by her window.”

“Exactly. That's another obstacle in her way. Now, if she only wears glasses or something. I have to get pictures of these windows. Maybe also some motion pictures of that fire escape.”

“Motion pictures? What for?”

“I want motion pictures to time how long it takes to go up and down that fire escape. It may be that she only saw all of this for a bare few seconds. I've got an old client who looks like Alvarado. I'll get him for the motion pictures. Then I'll bring the photos and the motion pictures into court to cross-examine this woman. She's the crux of their case. If we break her, we break their case. What do you think?”

“I think we're going strong now.”

“Drive me back to the office, will you, Mike? I want to make some phone calls. Arrange for photographs so we can get ready for this Italian woman.”

CHAPTER XXIV

The early-morning January sun was bright. The sky was blue and clear. The fire escapes loomed dark and ugly above. Sandro turned to Mike.

“Go up to the old Soto apartment, see if anybody is in there. If anybody's there, tell them you're the insurance man and you want to inspect the fire escapes.”

“And then what do you want me to do?”

“Then you just stand on the fire escape looking down toward the Italian woman's apartment, while Jerry takes some pictures. But don't go up right away, because I want Jerry to be able to get some shots of the building without you in them.”

“Okay,” said Mike.

Jerry began to assemble his camera equipment. Mike walked across the rear yard and turned to make his way to the street through the refuse-strewn passage between the buildings. These passages, actually airshafts, provided air and light for the interior apartments.

“Rehearse me in my lines,” said Jerry. “What do I say if anybody asks what we're doing?”

“Tell them we're from the insurance company. Somebody is buying the buildings, and we have to take pictures to evaluate them for coverage estimates,” Sandro replied.

“I sure hope you know what the hell you're doing,” Jerry grunted as he picked up his camera bag. “I'm glad you asked me to bring this movie camera along.”

“Sorry. That guy I wanted just couldn't make it today.”