Skin Games (7 page)

Owens was sitting, facing me, his chair turned backwards, his arms wrapped around the chair as if he were hugging it.

Gambini was pacing the length of the room while muttering.  Did he really hate his job so much?  I was sure he was gonna go off and kick my ass at any moment.

“Okay, Sean.  I’m here to help you.  You know that don’t you?”

I looked straight ahead and stayed silent.

Owens continued, “I really am, kid.  I want to be your friend.  You don’t seem like a bad kid.  It’s not too late for you.  You have a nice mom who loves you.  Nice house.  Roof over your head.  You still have a chance to make something of yourself.  All you have to do is work with me.”

The guy was kicking the same bullshit.  Same lines as last time.  Same delivery.  Did he read off a cue card or just memorize this routine?

“Sean.”  Owens paused and looked back over his shoulder.  Gambini’s muttering grew louder.  “There’s only so much I can do for you, kiddo.  You have to play ball.”

Gambini stopped pacing and walked quickly towards me.  He got right up into my airspace and spit angry words at me: “Listen, pal, you are in deep shit this time.  Grand larceny.  That is no fucking joke.  You are going to do some serious time.  Hard time.  You aren’t a minor anymore.  Your sweet momma isn’t going to save your ass.  So tell us what we already know.”

I kept inching backwards, shuffling in my chair.  Gambini inched forward, keeping his face so close I could smell the coffee and jelly donut he’d recently eaten.

“We know you work for Vinny Macho,” Gambini said.  “We know you work with Scrubby Mike.  We know you’re just a small fry.  We want the big potato.  Understand?”

I looked straight down, tapping my Nikes to a beat in my head.

“Do you fuckin’ understand, kid?  We already fuckin’ know everything and if you play ball, you get to go home.  If not, you are going to the pokey where big gargantuan gorillas will make you their bitch.  Do you hear me, pal?”

I squirmed in my seat and shifted.

Owens leaned forward in his chair, putting his arm on Gambini’s shoulder.  Gambini leaned back, slightly.

“Come on, Sean,” Owens said softly.  “Let us help you.”

The room went quiet.  I could hear Gambini’s teeth grinding, then his breath blowing.

Owens said, “All you have to do is cooperate, and you go home.”

I sniffled and shifted again in my chair.

Gambini took another loud breath, his head inching closer.  Our three heads were all at the center of the small table, almost touching one another.

“Sean, I don’t know how else to convince you, we are your friends.  We want to get you out of this mess.  Okay?”  Owens lightly pushed Gambini back again.  Then he said, “So, what’s it gonna be, Sean?”

Gambini added, “Fess up and save your pretty little Irish ass.”

“I’m half Irish, sir.”

Gambini’s face went red, he pushed Owens back with one hand and grabbed my shirt with the other while shouting, “That’s it wiseass!”  He yanked my shirt and I heard the collar rip in the back.  “I’ve had enough of your bullshit!”

“Vito,” Owens said to his partner.  “Just relax, man.”

Gambini let go of my shirt, then turned and started pacing and mumbling again.

“Sean,” Owens said, “You’ll have to excuse my partner.  He just doesn’t understand why you wouldn’t want to help yourself.”

“I really have to take a leak.”

Owens shook his head, looked at Gambini, then back at me.  “Fine.  Fine, have it your way.”

Gambini quickly walked out, his jet-black dress shoes stomping against the grungy black and white tiles.  Owens walked more slowly towards the door that Gambini’d left open.  He turned around and looked at me, as if giving me one last chance to be a rat, something that would never, ever happen.  Then he, too, walked through the door; he closed it shut behind him.  I heard the lock click shut.

I guess I still wasn’t going to get to take a piss.

Finally, sometime later, a uniformed cop came in and took me from the interrogation room and walked me out to a waiting car.  The cop drove to Central Booking, a big ugly building with red bricks faded from sand blasting and heavy steel doors that had multiple coats of non-matching paint.  We walked down two flights of steps to the bullpen.  The pen held about thirty men, and it was full.  The cell stank of stale wine and body odor.  In the far corner there was a wide open area with a toilet.  I walked quickly towards it.

As I made my way across the room, a man stepped in my way.  He was tall, with broad shoulders and big arms.

“You got any money, pal?” he asked.

“No.  I ain’t got shit,” I said, trying to get by without slowing too much.

“What’s your problem, man?  You scared?”

“No.  I just really have to piss.”

Another man joined him, blocking my way.  This guy was wearing a black ski cap and hadn’t shaved in a couple of days but didn’t exactly have a beard.  He came at me and really smelled bad.

“Empty your pockets.  Now.”

“I told you I don’t have anything.  Now back off!”  If there was one thing I learned growing up in the Bronx it’s that these guys were like hyenas: they smelled weakness.  So I didn’t show any.

Ski Cap Guy looked at Broad Shoulder Guy, then they both looked over at the guard, who was reading a newspaper on the other side of the cell, not seeming to care about anything.

Ski Cap Guy stepped back, and Broad Shoulder Guy looked away.  I walked through, bumping shoulders with Broad Shoulder Guy who wouldn’t give any ground.  Then finally, I got to take my piss.

I waited in the bullpen for hours.  Occasionally some guy would come up to me asking for something: do you have a cigarette, or what are you in here for, kid?  I mostly ignored them, but sometimes people were so persistent that you had to humor them with small talk for a few minutes.  I didn’t mind small talk, but really, I preferred to be left alone.  Other than a few grizzled-looking dudes, most of the guys in the bullpen weren’t intimidating at all.  Most were in for traffic warrants or pissing in public or maybe got caught smoking a blunt in the park.  There was a drunken bum asleep on the floor—right in the middle of the floor, legs fully extended, arms sprawled out each way.  By the smell of it, I was pretty sure he took a shit in his pants.  No one paid him any mind; they simply stepped over him or walked around him as we did our dance of waiting and waiting.

I’d spend a few minutes sitting on a bench, then walk to the other side of the pen.  Then I’d take a seat somewhere else.  Everyone was doing the same dance.  There was a Daily News sitting on one bench.  And I picked it up and thumbed through it, then put it back down where it was grabbed by the next man.

Two kids lit up a joint, and the place started to reek.  The guard looked up and shouted, “Who’s smoking?”

One kid stomped out the joint as the other kid sort of blocked him from the guard’s view.

The guard stood up from his chair and walked to the edge of the cell.  He looked in.

“Put that shit out,” he said; then he went back to his chair and sat down.

The two kids looked at each other and laughed.  They were pretty proud of themselves that they got away with it.  I was just kind of wondering how they got the weed inside.  The place was so lax.  Were these guys even frisked?  What else were they hiding?  It didn’t make me feel all that safe.

A uniformed woman appeared.  She carried a podium and set it up right at the front of the cell.  She opened a folder and laid it on the podium’s shelf.  She put on a pair of reading glasses, then called out a name.

“Jose Gonzalez?”

The room went silent.

“Yeah?”  A tall, slender man with an overgrown but thin moustache got up from one of the benches and walked over to her.  She started talking to him, and the silence of the room evaporated into the noise of ten or fifteen separate meaningless conversations.

The woman finished with Jose Gonzalez, and he found an empty seat on one of the benches.  Then she called another name.  Then another.  Eventually, she got to mine.

“Sean O’Donnell?”

I got up.  Ski Cap Guy and Broad Shoulder Guy were sitting on a bench about ten feet away from me.  They both looked at me, Ski Cap Guy licking his lips while Broad Shoulder Guy punched his right fist into his left palm.

When I got to the front of the cell, the woman behind the podium said, “You’re Sean O’Donnell?”

“Yes.”

“Mr. O’Donnell, you’ve been charged with grand larceny.  Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have an attorney?”

“No.”

“Very well.  The court will appoint one for you.  Can you speak English?  Do you require a translator?”

“No, ma’am.  I don’t need a translator.”

“Are you injured?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Are you of sound mind, and otherwise fit to appear before the court?”

I put my hands in my pockets and shifted my legs. 

She looked up from her paperwork and took off her reading glasses, glaring at me impatiently.

“Yes, ma’am.  I’m fit to...”

“Very well.  Take a seat.  You’ll be called before the judge in a few minutes.”

Their measurement of time was a lot different from mine because at least another hour passed.  The woman at the podium continued calling names, and one by one men walked purposefully over to talk to her and then moseyed back to an open spot on one of the benches.

A new guard appeared from around a dark corridor.  He removed keys from his waistband, opened the door and called out, “Jose Gonzalez?”

The man marched quickly to the front and out the opened cell door.  The guard shut the door then followed Jose Gonzalez down the corridor and out of sight.  This happened several more times until I heard, “Sean O’Donnell?”

I waved.  “That’s me.”  And I started walking towards the door.

Broad Shoulder Guy stood between me and the door, and as I walked past, he said in a mock-soprano voice, “Sean O’Donnell, that’s me.”

I must have been tired because I made a rookie mistake: I looked at him.  For just a second we made eye contact, and the look on my face said:
Leave me alone.

“Don’t be givin’ me no screwface, O’Donnell,” he said.  And as I walked by, he intentionally shoulder-blocked me, this time harder than before.

I lost my wind for just a second.  As I blinked and gasped, Broad Shoulder Guy strutted towards the back of the bullpen.

I got up to the door, and the guard grabbed my shoulder.  “Let’s go,” he said as he pushed me ahead of him, and followed me down the corridor.

We walked up two flights of steps then the guard took the lead and unlocked another door.  He led the way down a short hallway and opened a wooden door with a small window running along the side.  It let us out along the side of a mostly empty courtroom.

The room was pretty large.  There was seating for at least forty or fifty, although only a handful of those seats were taken.  Along the far side wall was the jury box, which was totally empty.  The side closest to me had wood benches with about five sorry-looking guys occupying them.  More benches.  The guard gestured for me to sit.  These benches were wood coated with glossy shellac.  I sat down and the guard stepped away.

At the front of the wide room with high ceilings was the bench.  A court stenographer sat on the side and sitting tall at the top was a crusty old, female judge.  She had short brown hair and even from where I was sitting I could see way too much makeup on her face and huge bags under her eyes.  But it was the expression that said it all: her top lip and bottom lip didn’t touch.  Whether she was speaking or listening, her two lips seemed to push away from each other like magnets that no matter how hard you tried you could never quite make them touch.

I sat on the bench waiting.  A name was called and a guy to my right rose up.  He sidestepped towards me and I backed up to let him pass.  He walked around the bench and to a small table where the public defender, a middle-aged guy in a middle-aged suit, stood waiting.  The public defender said a few words in hushed tones.

“Are you ready to proceed, counselor?” the judge asked.

The middle-aged suit continued whispering to the guy, who didn’t seem to care or understand a word of what was being told to him.  Finally, the middle-aged suit said, “Sorry, Your Honor.  Yes, ma’am.  I’m ready.”

“Good.  Let’s move this along.”

I heard the door open to my left, and I looked over.  Ski Cap Guy walked in and sat down next to me.  The door opened again, and Broad Shoulder Guy walked in.  He stepped over Ski Cap Guy and planted himself in the tiny opening between us.  I slid to my right.  So did he.

“Sean O’Donnell,” the court clerk called.

“Yes,” I said and I stood.  “That’s me.”

I looked to my left, but Broad Shoulder Guy wasn’t moving.  I lifted my leg up and shimmied over the wooden bench, then I walked quickly to the middle-aged suit.

“Mr. O’Donnell,” he said in a whisper while staring down at some paperwork.  “You are charged with grand larceny.”  He flipped through the papers.  “The state is going to request bail.  Can you post bail?”

“I don’t really know.  How much?”

“I’d guess ten thousand.”

In back of me, I heard Ski Cap Guy and Broad Shoulder Guy laughing.

“I don’t think so.”

“Okay.  I’ll see what I can do.”

“Counselor,” the judge said in a long, drawn-out tone.  “Can we get going here, please?  I’d like to finish before next Tuesday.”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

Sitting at the table across from mine was a younger guy in a younger suit.  His blond hair was parted to the side and he wore stylish prescription glasses.  You could just tell he was fresh out of law school.  “Your Honor,” he said with an energy level that doubled anyone else in the room, “The people request bail in this case to be set at...”  He stopped mid-sentence as the doors opened and Owens and Gambini walked quickly down the aisle.  “I’m sorry, Your Honor.  Just a moment please.”

“Make it snappy,” she said.

The young suit conferred with Owens and Gambini, then he said loudly, “Your Honor, the people request bail to be set at twenty-five thousand.”