PART 35 (27 page)

“That's right.”

“Did you ask if the daughter saw the guy looking out of Soto's window?”

“She said she didn't see the guy's face at all. So what's the difference where she saw him?”

“Did you get the old lady to sign a statement?”

“She doesn't read English. But she said to come over later, and her daughter would be home. We can get one from the daughter.”

“Jesus Christ!” Sandro exclaimed. “Jesus Christ! That's fabulous.”

They were both happy and smiling.

“You mind if I get out of here before you guys start kissing?” Jerry said.

“Listen, Mike. You go back there later when we're finished and get the daughter's statement in writing, including the bit about the window. That's fabulous!”

“That's their case you hear crashing, baby. That's their whole case,” Mike exclaimed happily.

“We've only eliminated this one,” Sandro said, suddenly cautious.

“Wait just a minute, you guys,” Jerry interjected. “Does this mean that I've been taking all these pictures and films for nothing?”

“No, not for nothing, Jerry. We need pictures of the rear anyway. As well as the roof and the front of the building. We've been planning around witnesses we know of, or at least think we know of. They may have some, however, that we don't expect. This way we're prepared for anything they throw at us. And now, Miguel,” Sandro said, turning to Mike. He smiled mischievously.

“No. Whatever it is, no!”

“Come on, Mike. This is easy. All I want you to do is run up the fire escape.”

Mike looked blankly from Sandro to Jerry. “Are you kidding me?”

“No. I'm serious. I've got a stopwatch. I want to time you running.”

“What the hell for?”

“I'm just following up on something I've got in my head. Now run up the fire escape, will you?”

“It's in
your
head? Then you run up, and I'll time
you.
”

“No. You're about the same age and condition Lauria must have been in. I'm too young, too good condition.”

Leaning over the back edge of the roof, Sandro watched Mike run, climb the ladder onto the one-story extension behind the building, jump for the bottom rung of the fire-escape ladder, and start up the fire escape. Mike began banging up the steel steps. Sandro watched the face of the stopwatch:
fifteen seconds.
Mike twisted around the steps, edged sideways along the landing, and ran the second flight in short, jerky, side-to-side motions as his feet hit each step:
thirty seconds.
Sandro moved back approximately fifteen feet from the rear edge of the roof to await Mike's arrival. Mike clambered up the last flight of steps and jumped to the roof.

“Run to this spot, to here,” Sandro called, pointing. Mike ran to the spot. Sandro pressed the stop button.

“Sixty-five seconds,” said Sandro. “That's not much time at all.”

“How long should it have taken?” asked Mike, slightly winded.

“I don't know, but it didn't take too long. Okay, Mike, old buddy, we're almost finished,” Sandro announced.

“Whatever it is, screw you,” said Mike.

“Come on, Mike, you're doing great. This is the most important part now.”

“What now, jump off the roof?”

“No, just run up again,” said Sandro. “This time up the stairs inside the building from the same spot in the yard.”

“Now I get it,” said Mike. “The way I just ran up was the way Lauria ran up. Snider ran up inside the building and didn't get to the roof until after Lauria was shot and the killer was gone. You're checking out Snider's time.”

“That's right. Now, go back down, run through the alley to the street, and up the inside stairs to this same spot.”

“Well, here goes nothing.” Mike started for the steps. He turned to Jerry. “You know, I must be crazy doing these things.”

Mike turned and disappeared. When he was down on ground level again, beside the extension, Sandro gave him a signal. Mike was off. Sandro walked back to the finish line. Soon Mike's feet could be distinctly heard pounding on the landings. His steps were getting closer and closer. The timer passed thirty-five seconds. Mike burst through the door and ran to the spot.

“Forty-seven seconds,” Sandro announced. “
Only forty-seven seconds!
”

Mike was gasping for breath. Sandro and Jerry grabbed him under the arms and began to walk him in a circle. The blood was drained from his face.

“And Snider didn't have to run up the stairs twice,” Mike gasped out.

“That means he could have gotten here even quicker than forty-seven seconds,” said Jerry.

“Exactly. Lauria's time would have been about the same as Mike's. But Snider's time would have been even faster. So where the hell was Snider? That's what's been banging around in my head.
Where was Snider
?”

“You should feel my heart banging around in my chest, you bastard,” Mike rasped. They continued to hold Mike up as they walked him around in a circle.

“You were great, just great, Mike,” Sandro said absently as they walked. “How could Lauria beat Snider up to the roof, get in a fight, have his gun taken away, and get shot five times, with enough time for the killer to escape, before Snider even reached the roof?”

“The son of a bitch killed Lauria, that's how,” Mike gasped out.

“The run damaged his brain,” said Jerry.

“That's too incredible, even for you, Mike,” said Sandro.

“Why?” Mike's breathing was slowing to near normal as he warmed to the theory. “Let's just suppose Snider shot his partner.”

Both men watched Mike.

“It's possible. Who had an easier shot? No one around. While Lauria is struggling with some burglar, Snider gets the idea this is the way to be rid of him. Maybe Lauria was going to spill the beans on some racket Snider had going. You told me he had his ass in trouble before, didn't you? Thrown out of the narcotics squad?” Mike was sitting on the rear wall now. Sandro and Jerry stood listening.

“Mike, you're off your head.”

“Then explain where Snider was if, after I was all pooped out, I could have beaten Lauria up here by twenty seconds.” Mike's chest was still heaving.

Sandro and Jerry just stared at Mike, unable to answer. Mike nodded, smiling. “See what I mean? It's more than just crazy ideas. And I'll bet Mullaly knows it too. And that's why that bastard's been doing so many suspicious things, screwing us up, ignoring evidence that might save our guys. He's covering up for a cop! Snider!”

“That's horseshit,” said Jerry flatly.

Sandro studied Mike. “It's hard to buy. But, still, where was Snider?”

They stared at one another silently. Sandro shrugged and started for the stairway. Jerry and Mike followed.

“Listen, Sandro,” said Mike. Sandro turned. “This guy, Alvarado. He burns before I run up or down anything again.”

CHAPTER XXIX

The steel door clanged shut behind Sandro and Siakos. In front of them, sitting side by side on the wooden bench were Alvarado and Hernandez.

“Over here,” Sandro motioned to Alvarado. Siakos nodded to his man to come to the same place, and Sandro let them precede him into one of the interview cubicles.

“Say, Mr. Luca,” said Alvarado, stopping short before they too entered. “How come we're together today?”

“I want to interview Hernandez to see if he can remember anything about the apartment he burglarized that day. I want to find the fellow he burglarized and bring him to court to prove that Hernandez was in El Barrio, pulling a job. Listen to everything he says so you can tell me.”

“Okay. Listen, I just remembered something else. When I was over on Roebling Street that day, the day the cop got killed, I went to another store to buy a belt.”

“What? When were you going to tell me about this other store, after the trial?”

“I just remembered.”

“Where is the store?”

“Right across from the barber's store on Roebling Street.”

“What's the name?”

“Of the store? I don't remember that,” said Alvarado, shaking his head. “But it's a Spanish guy there. Two Spanish guys, one tall, one short. I bought a belt, a black belt.”

“When did you go there?”

“Musta been before I eat.”

“I'll check out the store. On Roebling, across from the barber, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, now come on,” said Sandro, “and listen to everything Hernandez says about El Barrio.”

Sandro and Alvarado walked into the cubicle. Sandro took a chair next to Siakos. There were no other chairs. The two prisoners stood facing the two lawyers.

Siakos spoke to Hernandez in Spanish, and Hernandez answered. Sandro just listened as Siakos made notes. Occasionally, Alvarado, who was listening intently, snickered.

“What's the matter?” Sandro asked Alvarado.

“This fool doesn't remember anything,” said Alvarado. Alvarado turned and spoke sharply to Hernandex in Spanish. The harangue between Siakos and Hernandez continued. Hernandez attempted to gesture, to show the shapes of buildings, the position of a tall building.

“What's he saying?” Sandro asked.

“He says there was a church, the color of limestone or something like that, white, on the same street where the house was that he burglarized,” Siakos replied.

Siakos continued at Hernandez in Spanish. Alvarado assisted, trying to clarify an occasional point for Hernandez.

“He says he parked his car in the parking lot of a housing project,” Siakos said to Sandro. “He doesn't remember which project it was.”

Sandro was angered by Hernandez's ignorance. He had caused the entire difficulty, and now he was almost useless in clearing it up.

Siakos asked further questions. Hernandez answered, but when his replies were translated, he didn't know, couldn't say, even if he were above or below 116th Street, east or west of Lexington Avenue. His face seemed to indicate that the existence of compass points was a revelation to him. Siakos kept after him, with Alvarado still adding to the interrogation from time to time. Sandro added questions for translation.

Hernandez kept screwing his face into a knot, kept gesturing, talking rapidly, but he didn't know anything except that he pulled a
robo
at about noontime on the third of July. He knew he was near a housing project at the time, but did not know which project or how far from the project he walked after parking his car. He knew there was some sort of edifice, a church or something similar, nearby. He knew that when he left that street, which was in El Barrio, he went to meet his wife.

Sandro was disappointed. Finding the right limestone church or school in El Barrio was going to be nearly impossible without more information.

Hernandez told of how, after he pulled the job, his wife gave him a dollar for gasoline. He got the gasoline, drove downtown :o the pawnshops and pawned the suits and a radio. He said he finished the pawnshops about 2:15
P.M.
, and then he drove to a place on Allen Street and bought some heroin from a pusher. Then he drove home. When he got back to Stanton Street, the street was alive with policemen, ambulances, and the like. Patrol cars were blocking the street.

Hernandez said that at that time he was going through the torture of need for heroin, and with total unconcern for a ticket, unable to move the car, he left it in the middle of the street and went upstairs to take his fix. Shortly after he got to his apartment, the police arrived and asked questions. He said to them he was not the one who left the car there, he had not been out all day. He didn't realize they were after a murderer, and he wasn't about to tell them of the burglary he had just committed or the remaining stolen goods still in the trunk of the car. The police felt his coat. It was wet. They took him downstairs to the double-parked car. The wet jacket and the double-parked car were enough to make his story suspicious. The police took him down to the station house to ask a few gentle questions.

Other than the repetition of that story, which Sandro was pleased to hear directly from Hernandez, Sandro had gained nothing. Hernandez couldn't remember where that burglarized house was to save his life. And that's exactly what he had to do.

Sandro called Mike the moment he left the Tombs, and they drove across the bridge to Williamsburg to look for a haberdashery on Roebling Street.

“This is crazy, you know that?” Mike suggested. “This guy Alvarado gives birth to his information like an elephant. One piece every two years.”

“I know. But it's all been true, so far.”

The Del Gato Haberdashery was the only haberdashery on the block. It was directly across from the Imperial Barber Shop. Sandro went ahead as Mike locked the car. Glass counters filled with clothes were spotted about the store. A tall young man emerged through curtains separating the store proper from the back.

“Can I help you?” he asked Sandro. He was a light-skinned Puerto Rican with dark-rimmed glasses. His face was expressionless behind them.

“My name is Luca. I'm an attorney. I represent a man accused of a crime. But he tells me that about the time he was supposed to be committing the crime, he was in here buying a belt.” Mike entered the store and walked toward Sandro. The young man watched Mike, his eyes following him until he stood next to Sandro.

“I don't know anything about a crime,” the young man said slowly. His slowness seemed to come more from dullness than wariness. “I can't remember everybody who comes in here.”

“Let me show you his picture,” suggested Sandro. He removed the clippings from his briefcase and spread them on the counter. The young man took a long time to plod through the text.

“This is it, the guy who killed the cop?” he asked finally.

“That's right. He told me he was here the day of the crime, and bought a belt. I represent the colored one, by the way. Do you remember him?”