Lazzaro erased with his hand
anything Billy Pilgrim might be
about to say. 'Just forget about
it, kid,' he said. 'Enjoy life
while you can. Nothing's gonna
happen for maybe five, ten,
fifteen, twenty years. But lemme
give you a, piece of advice:
Whenever the doorbell rings,
have somebody else answer
the door.'
– Kurt Vonnegut Slaughterhouse-Five.
Hell's Kitchen had changed. The streets were no longer swept daily and graffiti marred many of the buildings. A scattering of low-income high-rises had replaced stretches of run-down tenements, and storefronts now needed riot gates to guard against the night. Many of the Irish and Italians tenants had left the area, heading for the safer havens of Queens and Long Island, and the Eastern Europeans had deserted the neighborhood altogether, moving to Brooklyn and New Jersey. Replacing them were a larger number of Hispanics and a mixture of uptown blacks and recent island immigrants. In addition to these groups, young middle-class couples, flush with money arrived, buying and renovating a string of tenements. The young and rich even set about changing the neighborhood's name. Now, they called it Clinton.
The old order was in turmoil, guns and drugs replacing gambling and stolen goods as the criminals' best route to a fast dollar. Cocaine use was rampant and dealers dotted the area, openly selling on corners and out of parked cars. Residents fell asleep most nights to the sounds of police sirens. There were many gangs, but the deadliest was Irish and numbered close to forty sworn members.
They called themselves the West Side Boys and they controlled the Hell's Kitchen drug trade. The deadliest gang to invade the neighborhood since the Pug Uglies, the West Side Boys would do anything for money, both within and the area beyond. They hired themselves out to the Italian mob as assassins; they hijacked trucks and fenced the stolen goods; they shook down shopkeepers for protection money; they swapped cocaine and heroin with uptown dealers for cash and then returned to shoot the dealers dead and reclaim their money. Heavily fueled by drugs and drink, the West Side Boys considered no crime beyond their scope.
They even had their own style of dress – black leather jackets, black shirts and jeans. In winter, they wore black woolen gloves with the tips cut off. They also left their signature on every body they discarded: bullets through the head, heart, hands and legs. Those they didn't want found were hacked up and scattered throughout the five boroughs of New York City.
Hell's Kitchen was not alone in the changes affecting its streets. Similar sounds of violence and decay were being heard in cities and neighborhoods throughout the country. In Atlanta, a serial killer was still on the loose, preying on young black children. Eleven people were crushed to death at a Who concert in Cincinnati. Sony introduced the Walkman. The first test-tube baby, Louise Brown, was born in a London hospital. The Camp David peace accord was signed and England's Lord Mountbatten was killed by IRA terrorists. Chrysler was saved from bankruptcy by an act of Congress and John Wayne died of cancer.
During all these changes, a few familiar faces remained. King Benny still ran a piece of Hell's Kitchen, working out of the same dark room where I first met him. He openly ignored the drug and gun trade, content with his profits from less violent, if equally illegal, enterprises. He was older, a little wiser, and still as dangerous as ever. Even the West Side Boys conceded him his turf.
Time had not mellowed Fat Mancho, either. He still stood in front of his bodega, snarling and screaming at all who passed. But time had also brought him another wife, a new Social Security number, one more apartment and another monthly disability check.
Bars and restaurants still dotted the neighborhood, though many were new, designed to draw an uptown clientele. But the best establishments were old and frayed, and among them, the Shamrock Pub on West 48th Street, with the sweetest Irish soda bread in town, was the finest place to eat in Hell's Kitchen. It was a joint that kept true to the past, where a local could run a tab, place a bet and even spend the night on a cot in the back. It was also a place where a secret could still be kept.
The Shamrock Pub was unusually crowded for a late Thursday night. Two men in outdated suits, ties undone, sat at the center of a wooden bar that ran the length of the restaurant, each clutching a sweaty Rob Roy, arguing about the economic policies of President Jimmy Carter. An old, raw-faced Irishman in a heavy wool coat sat at the far end of the bar, nursing his third beer, pointedly ignoring their conversation.
Five leather booths faced the bar, each positioned next to a window and lit by lanterns hanging overhead. Four circular tables, draped with white tablecloths, lined the rear wall. Framed photos of champion racehorses hung above them, along with tranquil Irish settings and a color portrait of the restaurant's original owner, a sour-looking Dubliner named Dusty McTweed.
The Shamrock Pub was a neighborhood institution, known to all who lived or worked on the West Side. It catered to an odd assortment of locals, publishing types with a taste for ale, beat cops with a thirst, tourists and, in recent years, to the volatile members of the West Side Boys.
A young couple sat at one of the tables, their backs to the bar, holding hands, a half-empty bottle of white wine between them. Another couple, older, more friends than lovers, sat in a front booth, their attention fixed on their well-done lamb chops and second basket of Irish soda bread.
Two waitresses in their early twenties, wearing short black skirts and white blouses, stood against a side wall, smoking and talking in whispers. They were actresses and roommates, earning enough in tips to pay the rent on a third-floor Chelsea walk-up. One was divorced, the other had a relationship with a long-haul trucker with a drinking problem.
There was one other customer in the restaurant.
A chunky man in his late thirties sat in the last booth. He smoked a cigarette and drank a glass of beer while the meal in front of him cooled. He had ordered the day's special – meat loaf and brown gravy, mashed potatoes and steamed spinach. He had asked for a side order of pasta, which was served with canned tomato sauce. On top of the sauce, he had placed two pats of butter, turning the overcooked strands until the butter melted.
The man had long, thick blond hair that covered his ears and touched the collar of his frayed blue work shirt. His face was sharp and unlined, his eyes blue and distant. The shirt of his uniform was partly hidden by a blue zippered jacket with Randall Security patches on both arms. A.357 magnum revolver was shoved into his gun belt. A small pinky ring decorated his right hand.
Putting out the cigarette in an ashtray lodged between the glass salt shaker and a tin sugar cannister, he picked up his fork, cut into his meat loaf and stared at the television screen above the bar. The New York Knicks and the Boston Celtics were playing their way through a dreary second quarter on the soundless screen.
Outside, a crisp fall wind rattled the windows. The overhead sky threatened rain.
It was eight-fifteen in the evening, less than a week before the Presidential election.
At eight twenty-five p.m., two young men walked through the glass and wood doors. They were both dressed in black leather jackets, black crew shirts and black jeans. One was bone-thin, with dark curly hair framing his wide, handsome face. He wore black gloves, the fingers on each cut to the knuckle, and a pork-pie hat with the brim curved up. He had a half-pint of bourbon stuffed in one back pocket of his jeans and three grams of coke in a cigarette case in the other. He was smoking a Vantage and was the first one through the door.
The second young man was heftier, his black jeans tight around his waist, the open black leather jacket revealing the bulk of his neck and shoulders. His mouth was hard at work on a wad of chewing tobacco. He wore a longshoreman's watch cap atop his light brown hair. His calf-length black boots had a fresh spit shine and he walked into the tavern favoring his right leg, damaged in childhood.
The bartender nodded in their direction. He knew their faces as well as most of the neighborhood knew their names. They were two of the founding members of the West Side Boys. They were also its deadliest. The thinner man had been in and out of jail since he was a teenager. He robbed and killed at will or on command and was currently a suspect in four unsolved homicides. He was an alcoholic and a cocaine abuser with a fast temper and a faster trigger. He once shot a mechanic dead for moving ahead of him on a movie line.
The second man was equally deadly and had committed his first murder at the age of seventeen. In return, he was paid fifty dollars. He drank and did drugs and had a wife he never saw living somewhere in Queens.
They walked past the old man and the couple in the first booth and nodded at the waitresses, who eagerly smiled back. They sat down three stools from the businessmen and tapped the wood bar with their knuckles. The bartender, Jerry, an affable middle-aged man with a wife, two kids and his first steady job in six years, poured them each a large shot of Wild Turkey with beer chasers and left the bottle. The thinner man downed the shot and lit a fresh cigarette. He nodded toward the bartender and asked what the two men in suits were discussing. He didn't change expression when he was told of the Carter debate. He leaned closer to the bar, his eyes on the young couple at the table in the rear of the pub and poured himself and his friend another double shot. He told the bartender to bring the two men in suits a drink and to run it on his tab. He also told Jerry to tell them that Republicans were not welcome in Hell's Kitchen and that either a political conversion or a change in conversation was in order.
The chubby man checked his watch and nudged his friend in the ribs. They were running late for an appointment. A dealer named Raoul Reynoso was holed up at the Holiday Inn three blocks away, expecting to complete a drug deal with them no later than nine p.m. Reynoso was looking to buy two kilos of cocaine and was ready to hand off $25,000 as payment. The two men had other plans. They were going to take his money, put four bullets in his heart, cut off Reynoso's head and leave it in an ice bucket next to the television set in his room.
The thin man reached over the bar, grabbed a menu, looked at his friend and shrugged his shoulders. He hated to kill anybody on an empty stomach. He gave the menu to his friend and asked him to order for them both. He needed to use the bathroom. The chubby man took the menu and smiled. He had known the thin man all his life, they had grown up together, gone to the same schools, served time in the same prisons, slept with the same women and put bullets in the same bodies. In all those years, the thin man, without fail, always had to use a bathroom before a meal.
The thin man stood up from his stool and finished off his beer. He then turned and walked down the narrow strip of floor separating booths from bar stools, his hands at his sides, his face turned to the street outside. At the end of the bar, across from the rear booth, his eyes moved from the passing traffic and met those of the man eating the meat loaf special. Both men held the look for a number of seconds, one set of eyes registering recognition, the other filled with annoyance.
'I help you with somethin', chief?' the man in the booth said, his mouth crammed with mashed potatoes.
'Not right now,' the thin man said, heading to the back. He smiled down at the man in the booth and told him to enjoy the rest of his meal.
He stumbled into the men's room and ran the cold water in the sink, looking at himself in the mirror. He looked much older than his twenty-six years, the drugs and drink taking a toll on an Irish face still handsome enough to coax a smile from a reluctant woman. He took off his gloves and checked his hands, calm and steady, the skin raw, the scars across both sets of knuckles white and clear. He put the gloves back on and stepped over to the urinal.
'Reynoso, you're one lucky fucker,' he thought to himself.' This piss saved your life.'
He walked out of the men's room and past the man in the back booth. He took his seat next to his friend, put a cigarette in his mouth and poured himself a refill.
'I ordered brisket on a roll,' his friend said. 'With fries. And two baskets of soda bread. I know you like that shit. That okay by you?'
The thin man's eyes were on the small mirror above the bar, riveted on the man in the uniform finishing his meat loaf dinner.
'C'mon,' his friend said, tapping him on the shoulder. 'Let's take the booth behind us. We can spread out all we want.'
The thin man turned to face his friend. He asked him to take a look at the last booth in the pub. To take a good look and study the face of the man sitting in it.
His friend turned in his stool and stared at the man in the zippered jacket. His face stayed blank for the few moments it took to link the man to memory, but his eyes betrayed his swirling emotions.
'You sure it's him?' he asked, his voice harsh, his upper lip twitching. 'You sure it's really him?'
'You know me,' the thin man said. 'I never forget a friend.'
They stayed at the bar long enough to release the safeties on the guns hidden beneath their jackets. They stood up together and walked toward the booth at the back of the pub, the thin man leading the way.
'Hello,' the thin man said, pulling up a chair. 'It's been a long time.'
'Who the fuck are you guys?' the man in the booth demanded. He didn't seem particularly afraid, merely annoyed at the intrusion. 'And who the fuck asked you to sit down?'
'I thought you'd be happy to see us,' the chubby man said. 'Guess I was wrong.'
'I always thought you would do better,' the thin man said, looking at the patches on the sleeves of the jacket. 'All that training, all that time you put in, just to guard somebody else's money. Seems like a waste.'
'I'm askin' you for the last time,' the man said, his temper as hot as his coffee. 'What the fuck do you want?'
The thin man took off his gloves and put them in the front pocket of his leather jacket. He laid his hands flat on the table, the tips of his fingers nudging the sides of the security guard's empty beer glass.
'See the scars?' he asked. 'Look at them. Take your time. It'll come to you.'
The guard stared at the thin man's hands, his upper lip wet with sweat, his body tense, sensing danger, feeling cornered.
Then, he knew.
The knowledge fell across his face like a cold cloth. He sat back, his head resting against the top of the leather booth. He tried to speak but couldn't. His mouth went dry as his hands gripped the edge of the table.
'I can see how you would forget us,' the thin man said softly. 'We were just somethin' for you and your friends to play with.'
'It's a little harder for us to forget,' the chubby one said. 'You gave us so much more to remember.'
'That was a long time ago,' the security guard said, the words coming out in a struggle. 'We were just kids.'
'We're not kids now,' the thin man said.
'Whatta ya' want me to say?' the security guard asked, anger returning to his voice. 'That I'm sorry? Is that what you want? An apology?'
'No,' the thin man said, moving his hands off the table and onto his lap. 'I know you're not sorry and hearin' you say it won't change a fuckin' thing.'
'Then what?' the security guard asked, leaning over his empty platter. 'What do you want?'
'What I've always wanted, Nokes,' the thin man said. 'To watch you die.'
The thin man, John Reilly, and his chubby friend, Tommy 'Butter' Marcano, were on their feet, a gun in each hand. All movement in the pub ceased. The young woman at the back table took her hand off her boyfriend and clasped it over her mouth.
The bartender clicked off the Knicks game.
The two waitresses slipped into the kitchen.
Sean Nokes, thirty-seven, was a security guard with a gambling problem. He was two months behind on his rent and his wife was threatening to leave him and take their daughter home to her mother. He had not fared well since his years at Wilkinson, moving from job to job, small town to small town. He was hoping he had finally turned the corner, working a Manhattan job that paid decent money. He had come to Hell's Kitchen to pay off a debt and stopped into the pub for dinner before heading home to his wife, hopeful of landing one more chance at a reconciliation. He never planned on a Wilkinson reunion.
'Too bad you ordered the meat loaf,' Tommy said. 'The brisket's real good here. Only you'll never know it.'
'You were scared little pricks,' Nokes said. 'Both of you. All of you. Scared shitless. I tried to make you tough, make you hard. But it was a waste of time.'
'I had you all wrong, then,' Tommy said. 'All this time, I just figured you liked fuckin' and beatin' up little boys.'
'You are gonna burn in hell!' Sean Nokes said. 'You hear me! You two motherfuckers! You are gonna burn in hell!'
'After you,' John said.
The first bullet came out the back of Nokes' head, the second went through his right eye and the third creased his temple. Nokes rested with his head back and his hands spread, mouth twisted into an almost comical grimace. Tommy stepped out of the booth and walked over to Nokes' side. He put a bullet into each of his legs and one into each hand. John stood his ground and pumped three slugs into Nokes' chest, waiting for the body jerks to stop each time before pulling the trigger again.
The bartender closed his eyes until the gunfire stopped.
The young couple fell to the ground, hovering for cover under their table.
The couple in the first booth sat frozen with fear, staring at one another, still holding their knives and forks.
The two businessmen never turned their heads. One of them, the pretzels in his hand crushed to crumbs, had wet his pants.
The two waitresses stayed in the kitchen, shivering near the grill, the cook by their side.
The old man in the corner had his head on the bar and slept through the shooting.
John and Tommy put the guns back in their holsters, took one final look at Sean Nokes and turned to leave the pub.
'Hey, Jerry,' Tommy called over. 'Be a pal, would ya'?'
'Name it,' the bartender said, his eyes now open, trying not to look over at the fresh body in the back booth.
'Make those brisket sandwiches to go,' Tommy said.
It had been eleven years since my friends and I had been released from the Wilkinson Home for Boys.
In all those years, we had never once spoken to each other about our time there. We remained caring friends, but the friendship had altered as we traveled down our separate paths. Still, we were friends. By the time of Nokes' murder, the friendship had become less intimate, but no less intense.
Michael Sullivan, twenty-eight, had moved out of Hell's Kitchen shortly after being released from Wilkinson. Never again would he have a problem with the law. Father Bobby called in a handful of chits to get Michael accepted at a solid Catholic high school in Queens, where Michael was sent to live with his mother's sister and her accountant husband. He continued to date Carol Martinez, twenty-seven, until the middle of his sophomore year, when the distance and their evolving personalities finally conspired to cool their longing. But he continued to see his Hell's Kitchen cohorts as often as he could, unwilling to give up the friendship, needing to be with us as much as we needed to be with him.
Michael graduated with honors from high school and moved on to a local university. Then, after a hot and fruitless summer working as a waiter at a Catskills resort, he decided to enroll in a Manhattan law school.
At the time of Nokes' shooting, Michael was rounding out his first six months as a New York City assistant district attorney.
We tried to share a meal once a week, the bond between us difficult to sever. When we were together, often joined by Carol, Michael still held sway over the group. He was always our leader and still the toughest of the group. Only now, his strength was of a different part, not physical and violent like that of John and Tommy, but carried quietly within. The months at Wilkinson had changed Michael in many ways, but they could not strip him of his drive. If anything, the horrors he endured gave a focus to his life, a target toward which he could aim.
He worked out at a gym, two hours every morning, a strenuous mix of aerobics and weights. He didn't smoke and he drank only with dinner. His fellow students and coworkers considered him to be a loner, a reticent man with a sharp humor but a gentle manner. He had grown tall and good-looking, his boyhood freckles giving way to the clear face of a confident man. He had a deep, soulful voice and a twelve-inch scar running across his shoulders.
Michael kept his world private.
He had an apartment in Queens that few were permitted to see. He dated frequently, but never seriously. His loves were kept to a minimum – the Yankees, foreign movies, Louis L'Amour westerns, the silent halls of museums. In a loud city, Michael Sullivan was a quiet stranger, a man with secrets he had no desire to share.
He walked the streets of Hell's Kitchen only occasionally, and then only to visit Father Bobby, who by now had risen to principal of our former grammar school. He loved his work and buried himself in studying ways the law could be maneuvered.
'There are a thousand different crimes that someone can commit,' he said to me shortly before the shooting. 'And there are more than a thousand ways to get him out of any one of them.'
John and Tommy had both stayed in Hell's Kitchen, finished grammar school then attended a technical junior high, close to the neighborhood, for less than the required two years. In that time, they continued to do odd jobs for King Benny, took in some numbers action for an Inwood bookie and occasionally strong-armed players late on loan shark payments. They also began carrying guns.
They never recovered from the abuse of Wilkinson. In our time there, Michael and I realized that we weren't anywhere near as tough as we had thought. John and Tommy, however, came away with an entirely different frame of mind. They would let no one touch them again, let no one near enough to cause them any harm. They would achieve their goal in the most effective way they knew – through fear. It was a lesson they learned at the Wilkinson Home for Boys.
By the mid-seventies, John and Tommy had helped found the West Side Boys, farming the initial five-member group out as enforcers, thugs for hire. As the gang grew, they progressed to more lethal and lucrative action, including moving counterfeit cash and buying and selling large amounts of cocaine. They also took on contract murders. Their specialty – dismembering their victims' bodies and disposing the pieces throughout the area -evoked fear in even their closest associates.
When they killed, they got rid of everything except for the hands.
Those they kept in freezers in a select number of Hell's Kitchen refrigerators, preserved to provide finger prints on the guns used by the gang. It was a tactic that made it virtually impossible for the police to pin the crew to any one murder. When prints were checked, the patterns led back to men who were already dead.
Along the way, both John and Tommy got hooked on cocaine and began to drink heavily. They remained best friends and lived in the same West 47th Street tenement, two floors apart. They were respectful toward King Benny, who, recognizing the changing times, gave their operation the space it needed to thrive and survive.
They still joked with Fat Mancho, played stickball in front of his candy store and helped his bookie operation rake in thousands a week, their powerful support insuring that no one dared back down from a phone-in bet.
I saw them as often as I could and when we got together, it was easy for me to forget what they had become and only remember who they were. We went to ball games together, took long Sunday morning walks down by the piers and helped Father Bobby with the basket collections at mass. I seldom asked them about their business and they always teased me about mine.
Like Michael, I moved out of Hell's Kitchen soon after my release from Wilkinson. Father Bobby also pulled some strings for me: I was admitted to a first-rate Catholic high school for boys in the Bronx. By my late teens, I was taking night courses at St. John's University in Queens, working a nowhere day job in a Wall Street bank and wrestling with a fresh set of demons – the discovery that my father was a convicted murderer who had served nearly seven years for killing his first wife. I divided my time between a bed in my parents' Bronx apartment and a two-room basement sublet in Babylon, Long Island.
One summer afternoon in 1973, I was reading an early edition of the New York Post on my lunch hour, sitting on a bench in front of a noisy and crowded outdoor fountain, half a ham sandwich by my side. There, under the heat of a New York sun, I read a Pete Hamill column about former Vice-President Spiro T. Agnew. By the time I got to the last paragraph, I knew I wanted to work on a newspaper.
It would take three years before I would land a job as a copy boy for the New York Daily News, working the midnight-to-eight shift, sharpening pencils, making coffee runs and driving drunken editors home after a night on the prowl. By the time of Nokes' death, I had worked my way up to the clerical department, typing movie schedules for the next day's editions.
It was easy work, leaving me with plenty of free time and most of it was spent in Hell's Kitchen. I still liked the feel of the neighborhood, no matter how much it had changed. I still felt safe there.
I had coffee twice a week with King Benny, once again seeking refuge in the stillness of his club, as much a home to me as any place. Benny's espresso was as bitter as ever, his mood as dark and he still cheated at every hand of cards we played. The years had made him older, his black hair touched by lines of white, but no one in the neighborhood dared question his strength.
I bought sodas from Fat Mancho every time I passed his store. He ran enough businesses from that front to fill a mall and was easily spotted in his loud shirts, sprayed with colorful birds and palm trees, which his older sister sent over from Puerto Rico. Every time he saw me he cursed. We had known each other for more than twenty years and I remained one of the few people he fully trusted.
On weekends, I would drive down and endure two-hour one-on-one basketball games against Father Bobby more than twenty years older than me and still two steps faster. We all were aging, but Father Bobby always looked young, his body trim, his face relaxed. Whatever problems he had, he handled beneath the silent cover of prayer.
On occasion, I would have dinner with Carol, who still lived in the neighborhood and worked as a social worker in the South Bronx. She had moved with ease from awkward teenager to a young woman of striking grace and beauty. Her hair was long and dark, her face unlined, covered by only the softest makeup. She had long legs and spend-the-night eyes that lit up when she laughed. Her concern for us was undiminished by the passing years.
Carol was passionate about her work and quiet about her life, living alone in a third-floor walk-up not far from where we had gone to school. She dated infrequently and never anyone from outside the neighborhood. Though I never asked, I knew she still held strong feelings for Michael. I also knew that when that relationship ended she had been with John during his more sober periods.
She always had a special affection for John, could always see the boy he once had been. Whenever we went out as a group, Carol would walk between Michael and John, grasping their arms, at ease and in step between the lawyer and the killer.
These were my friends.
We accepted each other for what we were, few questions asked, no demands made. We had been through too much to try to force change on one another. We had been through enough to know that the path taken is not always the ideal road. It is simply the one that seems right at the moment.
Wilkinson had touched us all.
It had turned Tommy and John into hardened criminals, determined not to let anyone have power over them again. It had made me and Michael realize that while an honest life may not offer much excitement, it pays its dividends in freedom.
It cost Father Bobby countless hours in prayer, searching for answers to questions he feared asking.
It made Fat Mancho a harder man, watching young boys come out stone killers, stripped of their feelings, robbed of all that was sweet.
Wilkinson even touched King Benny, piercing the protective nerve he had developed when it came to the four laughing boys who turned his private club into their own. It awakened the demons of his own horrid childhood, spent in places worse than Wilkinson's, where he was handled by men more fearsome than those who tortured us. It made the hate he carried all the heavier.
None of us could let go of the others. We all drifted together, always wondering when the moment would arrive that would force us to deal with the past. Maybe that moment would never come. Maybe we could keep it all buried. But then John and Tommy and luck walked in on Sean Nokes halfway through a meat loaf dinner. And for the first time in years, we all felt alive. The moment was out there now, waiting for us to grab it. Michael was the first to realize it. To figure it out. But the rest of us caught on fast. It was that we had been living for, what we had waited years for. Revenge. Sweet lasting revenge. And now it was time for all of us to get a taste.
Michael sat across from me, quietly mixing sour cream into his baked potato. We were at a corner table at the Old Homestead, a steak house across from the meat market in downtown Manhattan. It was late on a Thursday, two weeks after Nokes was killed in the Shamrock Pub.
The second I read about the shooting, I knew who had pulled the triggers. I was as afraid for Tommy and John as I was proud of them. They had done what I would never have had the courage to do. They had faced the evil of our past and eliminated it from sight. Though Nokes' death did nothing to relieve our anguish, I was still glad he was dead. I was even happier when I learned that Nokes not only knew why he died, but at whose hands.
John and Tommy did not remain fugitives for long.
They were arrested within seventy-two hours of the shooting, finger-printed, booked and charged with second-degree murder. Police had four eyewitnesses willing to testify – the older couple in the first booth and the two businessmen sitting at the bar. All four were outsiders; strangers to Hell's Kitchen. The restaurant's other patrons, as well as its workers, stayed true to the code of the neighborhood: they saw nothing and they said nothing.
John and Tommy were held without bail.
The two hired a West Side attorney named Danny O'Connor, known more for his boisterous talk than for his ability to win. They pleaded not guilty and admitted to nothing, not even to their lawyer. There seemed to be no connection between the deceased and the accused, and both the press and police shrugged the murder off as yet another drug-related homicide.
'Have you gone to visit them yet?' Michael asked, cutting into his steak. It was the first time either of us had talked about the shooting since dinner began.
'The day after the arrest,' I said, jabbing a fork into a cut of grilled salmon. 'For a few minutes.'
'What did they have to say?' Michael asked.
'The usual small talk,' I said. 'Nothing with any weight. They know enough not to say anything in a visitor's room.'
'What about Nokes?' Michael said. 'They talk about him?'
'John did,' I said. 'But not by name.'
'What'd he say?'
'All he said was, "One down, Shakes." Then he tapped the glass with his finger and handed me that shit-eatin' grin of his.'
'How do they look?' Michael asked.
'Pretty relaxed,' I told him. 'Especially for two guys facing twenty-five-to-life.'
'I hear they hired Danny O'Connor to defend them,' Michael said. 'That right?'
'That's temporary,' I said. 'King Benny's gonna move in one of his lawyers when the trial starts.'
'No,' Michael said. 'O'Connor's who we want. He's perfect.'
'Perfect!' I said. 'The guy's a fall-down drunk. Probably hasn't won a case since LaGuardia was mayor. Maybe not even then.'
'I know,' Michael said. 'That's why he's perfect.'
'What are you talking about?'
'You covering this story for the paper?' Michael asked, lifting his beer mug and ignoring my question.
'I'm a timetable clerk, Mikey,' I said. 'I'm lucky they let me in the building.'
'Anybody at work know you're friends with John and Butter?'
'No,' I said. 'Why would they?'
'You didn't finish your fish,' Michael said. 'You usually eat everything but the plate.'
'I'm still used to my old hours,' I said. 'Eating dinner at five in the morning and breakfast at eleven at night.'
'You should have had eggs.'
'I will have a cup of coffee.'
'Order it to go,' Michael said, waving to a waiter for the check. 'We've got to take a walk.'
'It's pouring out,' I said.
'We'll find a spot where it's not. Down by the piers.'
'There are rats down by the piers,' I pointed out.
'There are rats everywhere.'
The rain was falling in soft drops, loud blasts of thunder echoing in the distance. We were standing in an empty lot along the gates of Pier sixty-two, West Side Highway traffic rushing by behind us. Michael had thrown his raincoat on over his suit. His hands were stuffed inside the side pockets and his briefcase was wedged between his ankles.
'I'm going in to see my boss in the morning,' Michael said, the words rushing out. 'I'm going to ask him to give me the case against John and Tommy.'
'What?' I looked at his eyes, searching for signs that this was nothing more than the beginning of a cruel joke. 'What are you going to do?'
'I'm going to prosecute John and Tommy in open court.' His voice was filled with confidence, his eyes looked square at me.
'Are you fuckin' nuts?' I shouted, grabbing his arms. 'They're your friends! Your friends, you heartless fuck!'
A smile curled the sides of Michael's lips. 'Before you take a swing, Shakes, hear me out.'
'I should shoot you just for talking about shit like this,' I said, easing my grip, taking in deep gulps of air. 'And if anybody else hears it, I'll have to open a freezer door to shake your hand.'
'You decide who else knows,' Michael said. 'Just you. You'll know who to tell.'
'You take this case, everybody's gonna know!' I shouted again. 'And everybody's gonna be pissed.'
'You'll take care of all that,' Michael said. 'That'll be part of your end.'
'Do something smart,' I said. 'Call in sick tomorrow. It might save your life.'
'I'm not taking the case to win,' Michael said. 'I'm taking it to lose.'
I didn't say anything. I couldn't say anything.
'I've got a plan,' Michael said. 'But I can't do it without you. I can only work the legal end. I need you to do the rest.'
I took two steps forward and held my friend's face in my hands.
'Are you serious?' I asked. 'You crazy bastard, are you really serious?'
'It's payback time, Shakes,' Michael said, water streaming down his face and mixing with tears. 'We can get back at them now. John and Tommy started it. You and I can finish it.'
I let go of Michael's face and put my hands in my pockets.
'Let's walk for awhile,' I said. 'We stand here much longer; we'll get arrested for soliciting.'
'Where to?'
'The neighborhood,' I said. 'Where it's safe.'
We huddled in the doorway of my old apartment building, rain now lashing across 10th Avenue. Down the street, two old rummies argued over a pint of raspberry brandy. Michael's plan was as simple as it was bold. At nine in the morning, he would walk into the office of the Manhattan District Attorney and ask for the murder case against John Reilly and Thomas Marcano. He would explain that he was from the same neighborhood as the two shooters and that he understood the mentality of the area better than anyone else in the office. He would tell the D.A. he knew how to keep the witnesses from running away scared, hold the case together and win it. Other than that, Michael would admit to no connection to either John or Tommy and was counting on me to quell any neighborhood talk about their friendship.
There was also no need to worry about the link with Wilkinson. Like all juvenile records in the state, ours had been destroyed after seven years. In addition, he would have someone alter the Sacred Heart School records to eliminate the evidence of our one-year absence. Besides, for the D.A., it was a can't-miss proposition. There were four eyewitnesses and two shooters with murderous reputations. The perfect case to hand an ambitious young attorney like Michael Sullivan.
Michael took a deep breath and wiped the water from his face. There was more to this, a lot more. I knew Michael well enough to know that Nokes wasn't it for him and that freeing John and Tommy wouldn't do. He needed to go after the other guards. He needed to go after Wilkinson. I felt nervous watching him, waiting for him to continue, fearful that we would all be caught and once again be brought to such a place.
He crouched down and laid his briefcase across his knees. Inside were four thick yellow folders, each double-wrapped with rubber bands. He handed all four to me. I looked at them and read the names of the guards who tormented us all those months at the Wilkinson Home for Boys stenciled across the fronts. The first folder belonged to Tommy's chief abuser, Adam Styler, now thirty-four, who had scotched his dreams of being a lawyer and, instead, worked as a plainclothes cop.
Styler was assigned to a narcotics unit in a Queens precinct. It didn't surprise me to learn that he was also dirty, shaking down dealers for dope and cash. He had a major coke problem that was supported by $3000 a month in bribe money. The rest of the folder contained personal information – daily routines; women he dated; food he liked; bars he frequented. There were lists of trusted friends and hated enemies. A man's life bound inside a yellow folder.
The second bundle belonged to my tormentor, Henry Addison, thirty-two. I felt nauseous as I read that Addison now worked for the Mayor of the City of New York as a community outreach director in Brooklyn. He was good at his job, honest and diligent. But, his sexual habits hadn't changed much since our time at Wilkinson. Addison still liked sex with young boys. The younger they were, the more he was willing to pay. Addison belonged to a group of well-heeled pedophiles who would party together three times a month, paying out big dollars for all-nighters with the boys they bought. The parties were usually taped, the kids and the equipment supplied by an East Side pimp with the street name of Radio.
The third folder belonged to Ralph Ferguson, thirty-three, the man who helped give John Reilly a killer's heart. He wasn't a cop, though I'd expected him to be. He was a clerk, working for a social service agency on Long Island. Ferguson was married and had one child. His wife taught preschool during the week and they both taught Catholic Sunday school. He sounded as clean as he was boring. Which is exactly how Michael wanted him to be. Ralph Ferguson was going to be called as a character witness, to talk about his best friend, Sean Nokes. Once he was on the stand, Michael could finally open the door to the Wilkinson Home for Boys.
I moved further into the hall, trying to keep the folders dry, trying to absorb all that Michael was telling me. He had waited twelve years for this moment, planned for it, somehow knowing it would happen and, when it did, he would be prepared.
He insisted that John and Tommy be told nothing of our plan, that it would play better in court if they didn't know. There was to be no jury tampering. The 'not guilty' we sought had to be a verdict that no one would dare question. Danny O'Connor was to remain as the defendants' attorney. We needed to keep him sober and alert and, since he was going to be as deeply involved as we were, too scared to tell anybody what we were up to.
Michael would relay the information I needed through a system of messengers and drop boxes. I would pass information back to him in a similar manner. He pulled three keys out of his coat pocket and handed them to me. They belonged to lockers at the Port Authority, the 23rd Street YMCA and a Jack LaLanne Health Club on West 45th Street. Once I had the packets in hand I would pass them on to O'Connor. I would make sure we weren't seen.
For the plan to succeed, we needed total secrecy and the involvement of only people we completely trusted. My first step was to get to King Benny. He would be our weight, our muscle and could get us through doors we didn't even know existed. He would put enough fear into Danny O'Connor's heart to gently seal his lips. King Benny would also call off the West Side Boys, who were sure to be gunning for Michael the minute they knew he had taken the case against John and Tommy.
I also needed Fat Mancho to turn over some rocks and Carol Martinez to open some more files.
After this night, Michael would not be available to any of us. The only time we would see him would be in court.
It was a foolproof plan in one respect. If it worked, we would avenge our past and, in the process, bring down the Wilkinson Home for Boys. If it didn't work, if we were caught, people would want to know why we did what we did. Either way, information would get out.
Michael's way, however, insured that John and Tommy would walk with us and share in the victory.
'Is that it?' I asked, gazing down at the folders in my arms. 'Is that all you need?'
'Just one more thing,' Michael said.
'What?'
He sighed, leaving the best for last. 'We've got four witnesses who say they saw the shooting and are willing to testify. We need to knock that number down.'
'I'll work on it,' I said. 'But if you lose more than two, it might get some people nervous.'
'I'll take two,' Michael said. 'If you can get us one for our side.'
'One what?' I asked.
'One witness. A witness who'll put John and Tommy somewhere else the night of the murder. Anywhere else. A witness they can't touch. Strong enough to knock out whatever anybody else says.'
'Don't they have a name for that?' I asked.
'A judge would call it perjury,' Michael said.
'And what are we calling it?'
'A favor,' Michael said.
King Benny stood behind the bar of his club, drinking from a large white mug of hot coffee, reading the three-page letter I had written and left for him in a sealed envelope on the counter. When he had finished, he laid the letter down and walked to the edge of the bar. He looked out at the streets of Hell's Kitchen, the mug cradled in both hands.
'Tony,' King Benny said to one of four men sitting around a card table, sorting early morning betting slips.
Tony dropped the slips from his hands, pulled back his chair and walked over.
'Bring Danny O'Connor to see me,' King Benny said, his eyes never leaving the window.
'Danny O'Connor the lawyer?' Tony asked.
'You know more than one Danny O'Connor?' King Benny said.
'No, King,' Tony said.
'Then bring me the one you know,' King Benny said.
King Benny turned from the window and moved further down the bar, stopping at the empty sink next to the beer taps. He put down his coffee mug and grabbed a book of matches from the top of the bar. He took one final look at my letter and then dropped it into the sink. He lit a match and put it to the letter and stood there, in silence, watching as it burned.
Then, for the first time in many years, King Benny laughed out loud.
'You got time for me, Fat Man?' I said, standing in the middle of Fat Mancho's bodega, watching him as he bent over to open a carton of Wise potato chips.
'I'm a busy man, fucker,' Fat Mancho said, standing up, hugging his bulky pants above his waist, a smile on his face. 'I got a business. Ain't like you paper boys, with time on my fuckin' hands.'
'This won't take long,' I said, grabbing a pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum from one of the racks. 'I'll wait for you outside.'
'You gonna pay me for that, you little prick?' Fat Mancho asked.
'I never did before,' I said, putting two pieces in my mouth and walking out into the cool of the day. 'Why ruin a good habit now?'
Fat Mancho came out carrying two wood crates for us to sit on and a cold, sweaty Yoo-Hoo for him to drink. I sat down next to him, leaned my back against his storefront window and stretched my legs. I pointed to the fire hydrant in front of us.
'Kids still use that in the summer?' I asked.
'It still gets hot, don't it?' Fat Mancho said. 'That pump's the only beach they know. Just like you fuckers. You all cut the same.'
'I need your help, Fat Man,' I said, turning to look at him. 'A big favor. It would be easier for you to say no. A lot smarter too. And there's no problem if you do.'
Fat Mancho downed his Yoo-Hoo in two long gulps and wiped his mouth with the rolled-up sleeve of a green shirt dotted with orange flamingos.
'I bet you would like me to say no,' Fat Mancho said, laying the bottle by his feet. 'Then you can tell your buddies that the Fat Man don't stand up. Don't back his friends.'
'Are you callin' me your friend?' I said with a smile. 'I'm touched, Fat Man.'
'I ain't callin' you shit,' Fat Mancho said. 'I'm just tellin' you I'm here. You fuckers can't pull off anything alone. You ain't got the brass and you ain't got the brains. There's two of you in jail right now. Ain't lookin' to make it four.'
'I guess King Benny's been around to see you,' I said.
'Some fuckin' team we puttin' together,' Fat Mancho said. 'A drunk lawyer on one side, fuckin' kid lawyer on another. A paper boy makin' like Dick Tracy. Four eyeballs swear they saw the whole thing. And the two on trial killed more people than cancer. That motherfucker Custer had a better shot at a walk.'
'Nobody's expecting it,' I said. 'That's the biggest card in our favor.'
'This ain't no fuckin' book, kid,' Fat Mancho said. 'You best remember that. And this goes bad, it ain't a fuckin' year upstate in a kid jail. This is real. You get caught on this, you lookin' straight at serious.'
'There's no choice,' I said. 'Not for us.'
'They were good boys,' Fat Mancho said. 'That little fucker Johnny give you his shirt he thought you need it. That other prick, Butter, always chewin' on a mouthful of somethin', his lips covered with chocolate.'
He turned to look at me. 'But they ain't good boys anymore. They killers now, cold as stone.'
'I know,' I said. 'I know what they were and I know what they are. It's not about that.'
'Ain't worth throwin' away a life just to get even,' Fat Mancho said. 'You and the lawyer got a shot. You can make it out the right way. You ready to flip that aside? Just to get even with three fuckin' guards?'
'I think about what they did every day,' I said, looking away from Fat Mancho, my eyes on the street in front of us. 'It's a part of me, like skin. When I look in a mirror, I see it in my eyes. Sometimes, I see it in other people's faces. It's a nasty feeling. It's a feeling that makes you think a piece of you is already dead. And there's no way to bring it back.'
'Gettin' away with this gonna make you feel all better?' Fat Mancho asked. 'Gonna make you forget every fuckin' thing that happened?'
'No,' I said, turning back to face him. 'It'll just give me something a little sweeter to remember. Somethin' nicer to think about.'
'I read that shitty paper you workin' on now,' Fat Mancho said, standing and picking up his soda crate. 'Read it every day. Still ain't seen your fuckin' name anywhere.'
'Be patient,' I said. 'Some day you will. Just keep on buyin' it.'
'I don't buy shit,' Fat Mancho said, walking back into his bodega. 'I never put any of my money in a stranger's pockets.'
'You still married to two women?' I asked him, standing and dusting the back of my pants.
'Two wives and a lady friend,' Fat Mancho said. 'They can't get enough of what I got.'
'Must be good,' I said.
'They like it,' Fat Mancho said. 'That's what counts.'
'Thanks, Fat Man,' I said, leaning against his doorway. 'I owe you. I owe you big time.'
'Bet your ass you owe me, fucker,' Fat Mancho said. 'And you ain't leavin' this spot till you pay me for that fuckin' pack of gum.'
I was sitting on the hallway steps, my back inches from the apartment door, a bag holding a six-pack of beer by my side, when Carol Martinez lifted her head and saw me.
'Mug me or marry me, Shakes,' Carol said, searching through her open purse for her keys. 'I'm too tired for anything else.'
'Will you settle for a couple of beers?' I asked, tapping the paper bag.
'If that's your best offer,' she said.
'I'll throw in a hug and a kiss,' I said.
'Sold,' she said.
I stood up and put my arms around her waist and held her close to me, feeling her soft curves, even under the layers of thick jacket and sweater. She looked as pretty as I'd ever seen her.
'You need something, don't you, Shakes?' Carol asked, warm hands rubbing the back of my head and neck.
'I could use a glass,' I said. 'I hate drinking out of a can.'
Her apartment was clean and orderly, filled with books and framed posters of old movies. The kitchen had a small table in its center and a large cutout of Humphrey Bogart in a trench coat smoking a cigarette was taped to the fridge.
'You pour the beer,' Carol said, taking off her jacket. 'I'll put on some music.'
'You got any Frankie Valli?' I asked.
'You're so old-fashioned, Shakes,' Carol said with a laugh. 'Valli was gone before the pill.'
'At least he's alive,' I said. 'Which is more than I can say for your pal Bogart.'
'Bogie's always gonna be cool,' she said. 'I can't say the same about the Four Seasons.'
'Well, don't throw away their albums just yet,' I said, handing her a glass of beer, watching as she put a Bob Seger record on the turntable.
'I don't have any to throw away,' she said, sitting down next to me on the small, pull-out couch in the center of the living room.
We sat there quietly, listening to Seger frog his way through 'Tryin' to Live My Life Without You', sipping our beer, my head resting against a thick, hand-quilted throw pillow.
'You look tired,' Carol said, placing a hand on my knee. 'They don't give you time for sleep on this new job of yours?'
'How much do you know?' I asked, turning my eyes toward hers.
'Just what the neighborhood says,' Carol said.
'And what does the neighborhood say?'
'That they're going to put John and Tommy away,' she said, sadness touching her eyes and voice. 'And that their best friend is going to be the one to do it.'
'You believe that?'
'It's hard not to, Shakes,' Carol said. 'I mean, unless we all have it wrong, he did take the racking case.'
'Yeah, he did take the case,' I said.
'Then what else is there to say?' she asked, drinking the rest of her beer and trying not to cry.
I sat up and moved closer to her, our hands touching, our eyes on one another.
'You know Michael very well,' I said. 'Maybe even better than I do.'
'I thought I did,' Carol said. 'I really thought I did. Now, I don't know.'
'You do know, Carol,' I said. 'You know he loves you. And you know he'd never do anything to hurt you or me or Johnny or Butter. Never.'
'Then why take the case?' Carol said. 'For God's sake, he even went in and asked for it. What the hell kind of friend is that?'
'The best kind,' I said. 'The kind who will throw whatever he has away, just to help his friends. The kind who never forgets who he is and what he is. The kind who's crazy enough to think he can get away with what he's trying to do.'
'What are you telling me, Shakes?' Carol asked. 'You've lived in this neighborhood a long time, Carol. Long enough to know that everything is a shakedown or a scam. Why should this be any different?'
'I'll go get us another beer,' Carol said, walking back into the kitchen. By now, Bob Seger was singing 'Against the Wind'. 'You want a sandwich with it?'
'You got any fresh mozzarella and basil?' I asked,
'How about a couple of slices of old ham on stale bread?'
'With mustard?'
'Mayo,' Carol said.
'You got me,' I said.
We ate our sandwiches, drank our beer and listened to music, the two of us relaxed in each other's company and lost in the valleys of our own thoughts. After many moments had passed, I asked her why she had stopped dating Michael.
'It just happened,' Carol said. 'He was living in Queens, working and going to school. I was here and doing the same. We'd go weeks without seeing each other. After a while, it was easier to let it go.'
'You still love him?'
'I don't think about it, Shakes,' Carol said. 'If I did, I'd say yes. But Michael needed to get away from Hell's Kitchen. Get away from the people in it. I was one of those people.'
'And you're with John now,' I said.
'As much as anybody can be with John,' Carol said. 'The man I know is not the boy you remember. But there's something special about John. You just have to look harder to see it.'
'You visit him?'
'Once a week,' Carol said. 'For about an hour.'
'Good,' I said. 'Keep that up. Just don't tell him you see me. In fact, don't tell him anything. The more it looks hopeless to him the better this might work.'
'Why not tell him?' Carol said. 'Might make things easier.'
'He'll put on a tougher act in court if he thinks he's cornered,' I said. 'I want that little baby face of his looking straight at the jury and I don't want it to look happy.'
'Why didn't you ever ask me out?' Carol said, a thin hand running through her thick hair.
'You were Mikey's girl,' I said. 'He got to you first.'
'And after Mikey?' she said, her face shiny and clear.
'I never thought you'd say yes,' I said.
'Well, you were wrong, Shakes,' Carol said.
'Will you say yes to me now?' I said, holding her hand in mine. 'No matter what I ask?'
Carol leaned over and put both arms around me and rested her head against my neck.
'Yes,' she whispered. 'What do you want me to do?'
'Break the law,' I said.
Michael's plan relied heavily on Hell's Kitchen to deliver information and to keep silent. Both were skills the neighborhood had in abundance.
The plan also depended on keeping Michael alive, which meant that word had to get to John and Tommy's killing crew that he was not an open target. Within days of Michael taking the case, the West Side Boys got a visit from King Benny. The King requested that the verbal abuse directed toward Michael continue, but that there never be a death move against him. The hit on Michael Sullivan, if there were to be one, could only come from King Benny.
While the neighborhood, led by King Benny, Fat Mancho and Carol, worked their end, I received and relayed the information I got from Michael back down the line. In turn, I fed Michael all that he needed to know.
We had set up a simple method of communication.
If Michael was sending, messages were left at work for me to call my nonexistent girlfriend, Gloria. Once I received the signal, I would send one of King Benny's men to pick up an envelope no later than noon of the next day at one of three designated drop spots.
If I needed to get word to Michael, I would have someone from the neighborhood pick up an early edition of the New York Times, script the word Edmund on the upper-right-hand corner of the Metro section and drop it in front of his apartment door. Later that day, Michael would pick up his envelope at an upper East Side P.O. box.
We spent our early weeks going beyond Michael's files, digging up information that could be used either in a courtroom or on the street against the three remaining guards. We also were working the witnesses, gathering their backgrounds, finding their weak spots. A full folder was also being developed on the Wilkinson Home for Boys, finding former guards, employees and inmates willing to speak out, hunting down wardens and assistants, locating the names of juveniles who died during their stay there and checking on the given cause of death.
Michael supplied us with a list of questions for O'Connor to ask in court. He also gave us the questions he intended to ask and the answers he expected to receive. Any additional information on the guards or on Wilkinson that he came across was also passed along.
All written messages, once delivered, were destroyed. Phone conversations were permitted only through the use of coded numbers on clear third party lines. There was never any personal contact between the main participants.
Our margin of error was zero.
Hell's Kitchen, a neighborhood that came to the aid of its allies as quickly as it rushed to bury its enemies, thrived under Michael's plan. The verbal shots at Michael continued, cries of traitor and gutter rat heard up and down the avenue, but those were bellowed for the sole benefit of strangers. The underground word, the only one that mattered, had spread through the streets with the speed of a late-night bullet – King Benny's 'sleepers' were making their play. 'Sleepers' was a street name for anyone who spent time in a juvenile facility. It was also a mob phrase attached to a hit man who stayed overnight after finishing a job. There were many 'sleepers' in Hell's Kitchen, but my friends and I were the only four King Benny considered his crew.
'You want a Rolls Royce, you go to England or wherever the fuck they make it,' Fat Mancho said. 'You want champagne, you go see the French. You want money, find a Jew. But you want dirt, scum buried under a rock, a secret nobody wants anybody to know, you want that and you want that fast, there's only one place to go – Hell's Kitchen. It's the lost and found of shit. They lose it and we find, it.'
King Benny sat on a park bench in De Witt Clinton feeding pumpkin seeds to a circle of pigeons, the late fall sun scanning his back. It was one week past Thanksgiving and three weeks into our work. The weather had begun its turn to New York cold.
He wore the same black outfit he usually wore in his club, ignoring the frigid air much as he ignored everything else. He had a coffee cup resting next to his right leg along with a small bottle of Sambuca Romana.
'I didn't know you liked pigeons,' I said, sitting down next to him.
'I like anything that don't talk,' King Benny said.
'I heard from Mikey today,' I said. 'The case goes to trial first Monday in the new year. It'll be a small story in the papers tomorrow.'
'You only got two witnesses who are gonna testify,' King Benny said. 'Two others changed their minds. That won't be in the papers tomorrow.'
'Which two?'
'The suits at the bar,' King Benny said. 'They said they had too many drinks to know for sure who they saw walk in.'
'That leaves the couple in the booth,' I said.
'For now,' King Benny said.
'Everything else is falling into place?' I asked, blowing breath into my hands.
'Except for your witness,' King Benny said. 'That pocket's still empty.'
'I've got somebody in mind,' I said. 'I'll talk to him when the time's right.'
'He good?'
'He will be,' I said. 'If he does it.'
'Make sure then,' King Benny said, tossing more seeds at the pigeons, 'that he does it.'
'None of this would work without you,' I said.
'You'd find a way,' King Benny said. 'With me or without.'
'Maybe,' I said. 'But I'm glad you're with us on this.'
'I don't know if I coulda been any help to you back in that place,' King Benny said. 'But I shoulda tried.' It was the only time he ever alluded to the fact that he knew what had gone on when we were at Wilkinson.
'Things happen when they're supposed to,' I said. 'It's what you always said to me.'
'Good things and bad,' King Benny said. 'Goin' in, you never know which one you're gonna find. Always be prepared for both.'
'And most of the time,' I said, 'bet on the bad.'
'You better go now,' King Benny said. 'You don't wanna be late for your appointment.'
'What appointment?'
'With Danny O'Connor,' King Benny said. 'He's waitin' for you in Red Applegate's bar. Should be on his second scotch by now. Get to him before he has a third.'
'Is he ready to go along?' I asked.
'He'll go,' King Benny said. 'He's too young to have his friends drive their cars with their lights on.'
The court officers led John Reilly and Thomas Marcano into the crowded court room, both defendants walking with their heads down and their hands at their sides. They were wearing blue blazers, blue polo shirts, gray slacks and brown loafers. They nodded at their attorney, Danny O'Connor, and sat down in the two wooden chairs by his side.
The court stenographer, a curly-haired blonde in a short black skirt, sat across from them, directly in front of the Judge's bench, her face vacant.
The chairs of the jury box were filled by the twelve chosen for the trial.
Michael Sullivan sat at the prosecutor's table, his open briefcase, two yellow legal folders and three sharp pencils laid out before him, his eyes on the stenographer's legs. He was in a dark wool suit, his dark tie crisply knotted over his white shirt.
I sat in the middle of the third row. Two young men, both of whom I knew to be part of the West Side Boys, sat to my left. Carol Martinez, eyes staring straight ahead, was to my right. She held my hand.
Judge Eliot Weisman took his place behind the bench. He was a tall, middle-aged man with a square face topped by a cleanly shaved head. He appeared trim and fit, muscular beneath his dark robes. He was known to run a stern courtroom and allowed scant time for theatrics and stall tactics. Criminal attorneys claimed his scale of justice almost always tipped toward the prosecutor. The assistant district attorneys themselves called him fair, but by no means an easy touch.
Michael knew that Judge Weisman's initial take on John and Tommy would be one of disdain, a response that would be further fueled by the facts of the case. Michael also knew that the evidence against the two defendants would be so heavy that, combined with their history of violence, it would prod Weisman to try to avoid a trial. He expected Weisman to pressure both sides to work out a plea-bargain agreement.
Three times the Judge privately asked both counsels for such an agreement and three times they refused. John and Tommy stuck to their not-guilty plea and the Judge stuck to holding them without bail. Michael insisted that the people, as represented by his office, would want these men prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. As the case entered the jury selection phase, Judge Weisman did not appear pleased.
At no time during those early weeks in that uncomfortable courtroom did Michael give any indication of what he planned to do. He interviewed and selected his jury carefully, as well as any young assistant district attorney would, asking all pertinent questions, attempting to weed out, as honestly as possible, any juror he felt would not or could not deliver a fair verdict. Both counsels settled on a jury of eight men and four women. One of the women was Hispanic as were two of the men. Two other men were black. Three jurors, two men and a woman, were Irish.
When mentioning the defendants, Michael always referred to them by their names to establish their identities and so move them beyond a pair of anonymous faces. He insisted that prospective jurors gaze at the two men on trial while he cataloged their reputations and asked anyone fearful of those reputations not to feel compelled to serve. John and Tommy always made a point of looking at Michael, but he carefully averted their gaze, not willing to take the chance that some spectator would notice even a hint of their relationship.
Michael's vision on where he wanted this case to go was very clear.
He was aiming for a guilty.
A charge of guilty against the Wilkinson Home for Boys; a charge of guilty against Sean Nokes, Adam Styler, Henry Addison and Ralph Ferguson.
Michael sat impassively through Danny O'Connor's unemotional opening statement, listening to the grizzly voiced attorney refer to John and Tommy as two innocent pawns, quickly arrested and just as quickly prosecuted on the slightest threads of evidence. O'Connor would prove, he insisted, beyond any reasonable doubt, that John Reilly and Thomas Marcano did not kill Sean Nokes on the night in question. That, in fact, they were nowhere near the Shamrock Pub at the time of the shooting.
No one was impressed by O'Connor's performance, least of all Judge Weisman who fidgeted throughout the fifteen minutes it took for his statement. The few reporters covering the case, scattered through the front rows, stopped taking notes after O'Connor's initial remarks. Veteran spectators, accustomed to more volatile defense attorneys, shook their heads in boredom.
'He's not exactly Perry Mason,' Carol whispered.
'He got their names right,' I said. 'For him, that's a great start. Besides, if he wins this case, he'll be bigger than Perry Mason.'
Michael stood up, unbuttoned his suit jacket and walked in front of his table, toward the jury box. He had his hands in his pockets and a friendly smile on his face.
'Good morning,' he said to the jurors. 'My name is Michael Sullivan and I am an assistant district attorney for the county of Manhattan. My job, like most jobs I suppose, seems, on the surface, an easy one. I have to prove to you and only to you that the two men who stand accused killed a man named Sean Nokes in cold blood, without any apparent motive. I will present to you evidence and offer into account testimony to prove that. I will place them at the scene of the crime. I will bring witnesses to the stand who will confirm that they were there on that deadly night. I will present to you enough facts that you can then go into the jury room and come out with a clear decision that's beyond a reasonable doubt. Now, I know you all know what that means since you probably watch as much TV as I do.'
Three of the women on the jury smiled and one of the men, a postal employee from the Upper West Side, laughed out loud. 'I hear that,' he said, pointing a finger at Michael.
'Let me remind one and all that this is a courtroom,' Judge Weisman said in a somber tone. 'Not a living room. With that in mind, will the jurors please refrain from making any further comments.'
'My fault, your Honor,' Michael said, turning to face the judge. 'I gave the impression that a response was required. It won't happen again.'
'I'm sure it won't, counselor,' the Judge said, relaxing his tone. 'Proceed.'
'Look at their faces,' I said to Carol, nudging her attention toward the jury box. 'Their eyes. They're falling in love with him.'
'That's not a hard thing to do,' Carol said.
'The past history of these two young men is not important and not an issue in this case,' Michael said, turning back to the jury, his hands on the wood barrier, his eyes moving from face to face. 'Violent or peaceful, criminal or honest, saints or sinners. None of it matters. What does matter is what happened on the night of the murder. If I can prove to you that these two men were the men who walked in, had two drinks and shot Sean Nokes dead, then I expect no less than a guilty verdict. If I can't do that, if I can't put them there, put the guns in their hands, put the body before them and make you firmly believe that they pulled the triggers, then the weight of guilt is cleanly off your shoulders and on mine. If that happens, I will have failed to do my job. But I will do my best not to fail you and not to fail to find the truth. I will do my best to seek justice. And I know you will too.'
I was twenty minutes late. I had told Carol to meet me in front of the church at six, but had lost track of time kneeling in prayer in one of the back pews in Sacred Heart. I walked out of the church and saw her sitting on the steps, the collar of her leather jacket lifted against the strong winds whipping up from the river.
'Sorry I'm late,' I said. 'I was lighting candles.'
'Now you've got St. Jude in on this too,' Carol said. 'Anybody else?'
'Just one more,' I said.
'We supposed to meet up with him here?' Carol asked.
'No. He's waitin' for us at his place.'
'Which is where?'
'Which is there,' I said, pointing a finger at the red brick building next to the church. 'The rectory.'
'Oh, my God!' Carol said, her eyes opened wide. 'Oh, my God!'
'Not quite,' I said. 'But it's as close as I could come on short notice.'
Father Bobby sat in a recliner in his small, book-lined first floor room, his back to a slightly opened window. He lit a cigarette and took a deep drag, letting the smoke out his nose. He held a bottle of Pepsi in his right hand. Carol sat across from him, her legs crossed, elbow on her knee, chin in the palm of her hand. I sat on a window sill in the corner of the room that looked down on the school yard, hands in my pockets, my back brushing white lace curtains.
'How was court today?' Father Bobby asked, his voice tired.
'Like the first round of a fight,' I said. 'Everybody just feeling each other out.'
'How do the boys look?'
'Like they wished they were someplace else,' Carol said. 'I think that's how we all felt.'
'I've been in this parish nearly twenty years,' Father Bobby said, flicking cigarette ash into his empty bottle of soda. 'Seen a lot of boys grow into men. And I've seen too many die or end up in jail for most of their lives. I've cried over all of them. But this one, this one's been the hardest. This one's cost me every prayer I know.'
Father Bobby knew that it wasn't the streets that had chilled John Reilly and Thomas Marcano. And it wasn't the allure of drugs or gangs that led them to stray. You couldn't blame their fall on the harsh truth of Hell's Kitchen. There was only one place to blame.
'You did what you could, Father,' I said. 'Helped me. Michael too. We'd all be on trial today, wasn't for you.'
'It's the sheep that strays that you most want back,' Father Bobby said.
'It's not too late, Father,' I said, moving away from the window and closer to his side. 'We still have a chance to bring in a couple of stray sheep. One last chance.'
'Is that one chance legal?' Father Bobby asked.
'Last chances never are,' I said.
'Is King Benny behind this?'
'He's in it,' I said. 'But he's not calling the shots.'
'Who is?'
'Michael,' I said.
Father Bobby took a deep breath and leaned forward in his chair.
'There's a bottle of Dewer's in the middle drawer of my desk,' Father Bobby said. 'I think we're going to need some.'
I told Father Bobby everything. If he was going to be involved, he deserved to know what he was getting into. If he wasn't going to help, I still trusted him enough to know that the truth would move no further than his room.
'I should've smelled it,' Father Bobby said. 'The minute Michael went for the case, I should have figured something was up.'
'It's a good plan,' I said. 'Mikey's got it all covered. Every base you look at, he's got it covered.'
'Not every base, Shakes,' Father Bobby said. 'You're still short something or else you wouldn't be here.'
'Don't shit a shitter,' I said with a smile.
'That's right. So, spill it. Where do you come up short?'
'A witness,' I said. 'Somebody to take the stand and say they were with John and Tommy the night of the murder.'
'And you figured a priest would be perfect?' Father Bobby said.
'Not just any priest,' I said.
'You're asking me to lie,' Father Bobby said. 'Asking me to swear to God and then to lie.'
'I'm asking you to help two of your boys,' I said. 'Help them stay out of jail for the rest of their lives.'
'Did they kill Nokes?' Father Bobby asked. 'Did they walk into the pub and kill him like they say?'
'Yes,' I said. 'They killed him. Exactly like they say.'
Father Bobby stood up and paced about the small room, his hands rubbing against the sides of his legs. He was still dressed in the black street garments of a priest, short-sleeve shirt under his jacket, keys rattling in a side pocket.
'This is some favor you're asking me,' Father Bobby said, stopping in the center of the room, staring at me and Carol.
'We know, Father,' Carol said.
'No,' Father Bobby said. 'I don't think you do.'
'You always said if there was ever anything I needed to come and ask you,' I said.
'I was thinking more along the lines of Yankee tickets,' Father Bobby said.
'I don't need Yankee tickets, Father,' I said. 'I need a witness.'
Father Bobby undid the top button of his shirt and peeled out the Roman collar beneath it. He held the collar in both hands.
'This is my life,' Father Bobby said, holding up the collar. 'It's all I've got. I've given everything to it. Everything. Now, you two come walking in here with some plan that asks me to throw it away. To throw it away so two murderers can walk free. To kill again. And you ask me that as a favor.'
'Two lives should be worth more than a Roman collar,' I said.
'What about the life that was taken, Shakes?' Father Bobby asked, standing inches from my face. 'What's that worth?'
'To me, nothing,' I said.
'Why not, Shakes?' Father Bobby asked. 'Tell me.'
I sat in the chair next to the desk, Father Bobby and Carol on the other end of the room. I stared at the shelves crammed with the books I had read as a child and the many more I wanted to read. I held an empty glass in my hand, struggling to recall the faces and images that had, for so long, been safely buried.
Faces and images I never wanted to believe were real.
I sat in that chair and told Father Bobby what was in my heart. It was the first and only time I've ever told anyone – until now – exactly what the life of Sean Nokes was worth.
I spoke for more than an hour, my words weighed with anger and urgency, letting Father Bobby and Carol know the things I never thought I would be telling anyone. To Father Bobby, it was a shock, a jolt of pain straight to his heart. Carol had been close enough to Michael and John to suspect, but the specifics stunned her, made her sit bolt upright and took her breath away.
I told them about the Wilkinson Home for Boys.
I told them about the torture, the beatings, the humiliation.
I told them about the rapes.
I told them about four frightened boys who cried themselves to sleep and who prayed to Father Bobby's God for help that never came. I told them about endless nights spent staring into darkness, rats owning the corners, keys rattling jail cell locks, nightsticks swinging high in the air, a guard's grip, a boy's scream.
I told them everything.
And when I was done, Carol said, quietly, in almost a whisper, 'Now you tell me, Father. What would a good priest do?'
Father Bobby stared straight ahead, as he had for the past hour, only his eyes registering any change. He blew out a mouthful of breath and then looked toward the ceiling, his hands resting on the soft edges of his chair.
'It's getting late,' he finally said. 'You should go. You both look tired.'
He stood up and placed a hand on my arm.
'I've got a decision to make,' Father Bobby said. 'All I can do is pray that it's the right one.'
'It will be, Father,' I said. 'Whichever way you go.'
'The boys were on target about you,' Father Bobby said, reaching out for Carol and holding her in his arms.
'About what?' Carol asked, lifting her head.
'They always said you had balls,' Father Bobby said. 'And they were right.'
'I'll take that as a compliment,' Carol said. 'Especially coming from a priest.'
Michael smiled at the witness, a dark-haired, handsome woman from New Jersey. She had her legs crossed under the chair, her skirt pleated, her white blouse buttoned to the throat. Her hands were folded on her lap.
'Mrs. Salinas how often have you had dinner at the Shamrock Pub?' he asked.
'Just that one night,' she answered, her voice assured, speaking in the manner of a woman with nothing to hide.
'What night would that be?' Michael asked.
'The night of the murder,' she said.
'What time did you get there?'
'Near seven-thirty,' Mrs. Salinas said. 'I met a friend for dinner.'
'What's the name of your friend?'
'David,' she said. 'David Carson.'
'Who was the first to arrive?'
'I was,' she said. 'But only by a couple of minutes.'
'You waited for Mr. Carson outside?'
'No,' she said. 'By the coat rack. As I said, it wasn't much of a wait.'
'Okay,' Michael said. 'You and Mr. Carson go in, sit down, order a drink, start catching up on your day. That right?'
'Pretty much,' Mrs. Salinas said. 'We hadn't seen each other for a few weeks. David had been away on a business trip.'
'Who decided to eat at the Shamrock Pub?'
'I did.'
'Why?'
'I read about it in a magazine,' she said. 'They said it was colorful.'
'And was it?'
'Up until the shooting,' Mrs. Salinas said.
I looked over at the defense table and caught a smirk from John and a smile from Tommy. Their lawyer, head down, was furiously scrawling notes on a legal pad.
'What's he taking notes for?' Carol whispered. 'He knows the questions he's supposed to ask.'
'Maybe he forgot them,' I said. 'Left them on a bar stool.'
'She's good,' Carol said, indicating Mrs. Salinas.
'We want her to be,' I said.
'Had Mr. Carson ever been there before?' Michael asked now. 'With or without you?'
'No,' she said. 'It was the first time for both of us.'
'Where were you seated, Mrs. Salinas?'
'In a booth,' she said. 'The one closest to the door.'
'Was that by choice?'
'Yes,' she said. 'All but one of the booths was free, so we could have sat anywhere. But David likes fresh air and I don't mind it either.'
'Do you remember what you ordered?'
'I asked for the lamb chops,' she said. 'It was one of the specialties mentioned in the magazine. David had his usual.'
'For those of us not familiar with Mr. Carson's eating habits, could you tell us what his usual consists of?' Michael asked, throwing Mrs. Salinas a wide smile.
'Steak,' she said. 'David always orders steak, baked potato and a tossed salad.'
'Did you have anything to drink?'
'We ordered a bottle of red wine,' Mrs. Salinas said. 'A chianti I believe.'
'That's all?'
'Yes,' she said. 'That's all.'
'Did you notice the number of people in the pub?'
'There were only a few scattered about,' she said. 'It was quiet. A good place to meet someone and talk.'
'Did you notice the victim, Sean Nokes?'
'No,' she said. 'I did not.'
'You didn't even see him when you walked in?' Michael asked.
'No,' she said. 'Our table was right near the coat check and I didn't bother looking around.'
'Your attentions were focused on Mr. Carson,' Michael said.
'Yes, they were,' Mrs. Salinas said. 'As I said, I hadn't seen him for a while.'
'Which way were you facing?' Michael asked. 'Which side of the booth were you sitting on?'
'The one facing the rear of the pub,' she said.
'The side facing down the row of booths?'
'Yes.'
'The side facing Mr. Nokes' booth,' Michael said.
'I believe so,' Mrs. Salinas said. 'Yes.'
'But you couldn't see him from where you were sitting?'
'I wasn't looking to see him,' she said. 'I knew there was someone sitting in the rear booth. I just didn't notice.'
'Did you notice the two men who walked in shortly after you sat down for dinner?'
'I heard them come in,' she said. 'You couldn't help but hear them.'
'Why's that?'
'They were loud,' she said. 'They caused a commotion. I'm sure everyone noticed.'
'Did you see their faces when they came in?'
'No,' she said. 'Not when they came in.'
'Why not?'
'I was talking to David,' she said. 'When I finally looked up, they had moved past me.'
'Did you notice their faces when they went to the bar?'
'From the side,' she said. 'I could see them in profile.'
'Both of them?'
'Yes,' Mrs. Salinas said, the confidence in her voice never wavering. 'Both of them.'
'Did you see them approach the booth where Mr. Nokes was sitting?' Michael asked.
'I noticed it,' she said. 'Yes.'
'Did you hear what was said between them?'
'No,' she said. 'I didn't.'
'Did you see them pull out their guns?'
'No,' she said.
'Did you hear the shots?'
'Yes,' Mrs. Salinas said. 'I heard the shots.'
'What did they do after the shooting?' Michael asked.
'They walked out of the pub,' she said. 'As if nothing had happened.'
'Did you see their faces then?'
'Yes,' she said. 'I looked up as they walked by.'
'Are you positive of that, Mrs. Salinas?'
'Yes,' she said. 'Very positive.'
'And are the two men you saw in the Shamrock Pub in this room today?'
'Yes,' Mrs. Salinas said. 'They are.'
'Can you point them out to me, please?'
'They're sitting right over there,' Mrs. Salinas said, aiming a finger at John and Tommy.
'Your Honor, will the record reflect that Mrs. Salinas identified defendants John Reilly and Thomas Marcano as the two men in question.'
'Noted,' Judge Weisman said.
'I have no further questions,' Michael said.
'Counselor?' Judge Weisman said, lifting an eyebrow in Danny O'Connor's direction. 'Are you ready to proceed?'
'Yes, your Honor,' Danny O'Connor said. 'The defense is ready.'
'It better be,' Carol whispered.
Danny O'Connor was wearing a charcoal-gray suit that needed cleaning and a white shirt tight around his neck.
His shoes were scuffed and his blue tie stopped at an Oliver Hardy length.
'He's got that Columbo look down,' I muttered. 'All he's missing is the cigar.'
'It's probably in his pocket,' Carol said. 'Still lit.'
'Good morning,' Danny O'Connor said to Mrs. Salinas.
'Good morning,' she said.
'I just have a few questions,' he said. 'I won't take up too much more of your time.'
'Thank you,' she said.
'You said you only had wine to drink with dinner,' O'Connor said, looking away from Mrs. Salinas and making eye contact with the jury. 'Is that correct?'
'Yes,' she said. 'That's correct.'
'Are you sure about that?' O'Connor asked. 'Are you sure that was all you ordered, one bottle of wine?'
'Yes,' she said. 'A bottle of red wine.'
'Had you had anything to drink prior to that?'
'What do you mean prior?' Mrs. Salinas asked.
'At lunch, maybe,' O'Connor said. 'Did you have anything to drink at lunch?'
'Yes, I did,' she said. 'But that was hours earlier.'
'What did you have, Mrs. Salinas?'
'I went shopping and stopped for lunch at a place on Madison Avenue,' she said.
'I didn't ask where you went,' O'Connor said. 'I asked what you had to drink at lunch?'
'A martini,' she said.
'And what else?'
'And some wine,' she said.
'How much wine?'
'One glass,' she said. 'Maybe two.'
'Closer to two?' O'Connor asked.
'Yes,' Mrs. Salinas said, her cheeks turning a light shade of red. 'Probably two.'
'What time did you have lunch, Mrs. Salinas?'
'Objection, your Honor,' Michael said, without standing. 'What Mrs. Salinas did on the day of the murder has nothing to do with what she saw the night of the murder.'
'How much she had to drink does, your Honor,' O'Connor said.
'Overruled,' Judge Weisman said.
'What time, Mrs. Salinas,' O'Connor said, 'did you have lunch?'
'About one-thirty,' she said.
'And what did you have for lunch?'
'A salad,' she said.
'A martini, two glasses of wine and a salad,' O'Connor said. 'Is that correct?'
'Yes,' Mrs. Salinas said, her eyes looking to Michael for help. 'Yes, that's correct.'
He gave her none.
'And then you had wine at dinner,' O'Connor said. 'About six hours later. Is that right?'
'Yes, that's right,' she said.
'How much wine did you have to drink by the time my clients allegedly walked into the Shamrock Pub?'
'Two glasses,' she said, anger now undercutting the confident tone.
'Do you drink this much every day, Mrs. Salinas?'
'No,' she said. 'I do not.'
'So would you say four glasses of wine and a martini in a six-hour period is a lot for you to drink?' O'Connor asked.
'Yes it is,' Mrs. Salinas said.
'Are you married, Mrs. Salinas?' O'Connor asked.
'Yes, I am,' she said.
'Happily?'
'As happy as anyone married for fifteen years can expect to be.'
'I've been divorced twice, Mrs. Salinas,' O'Connor said, smiling at the jury. 'Fifteen years sounds like a lifetime to me. How happy would that be?'
'I'm still in love with my husband,' Mrs. Salinas said.
'Objection,' Michael said. 'This line of questioning is out of order.'
'I'll allow it,' Judge Weisman said, looking at O'Connor. 'But get to your point.'
'Yes, your Honor,' O'Connor said. 'Thank you.'
The defense attorney now walked alongside the jury, one hand inside the pocket of his wrinkled pants, his thin brown hair combed straight back.
'What is your relationship with Mr. Carson?'
'I've already said.'
'Tell me again,' O'Connor said. 'Please.'
'We're friends,' she said. 'Very old and dear friends.'
'Is Mr. Carson a friend of your husband's as well?' O'Connor asked.
Mrs. Salinas paused and pursed her lips before she answered.
'No,' she said. 'He isn't.'
'Mrs. Salinas, what were you talking about at dinner?'
'The usual,' she said. 'Catching up on things.'
'What things?'
'His family,' she said. 'Mine. Things like that.'
'And did you and Mr. Carson have any plans beyond dinner?' O'Connor asked.
'What do you mean?' Mrs. Salinas asked.
'I mean, was your evening going to end with just a dinner?' O'Connor asked.
'No,' she said, her eyes cast down. 'It wasn't.'
'Sounds romantic,' O'Connor said.
'Objection,' Michael said. 'The twice-divorced counsel seems to have an overactive imagination.'
'Sustained,' Judge Weisman said. 'Let's get on with it, Mr. O'Connor.'
'Had you ever heard a gun fired, Mrs. Salinas?' O'Connor asked, shifting his questioning and walking closer to the witness stand. 'Prior to the night in question, that is.'
'No, I hadn't,' she said.
'How would you describe the sound?'
'Loud,' she said. 'Like firecrackers.'
'Did the sound frighten you?'
'Yes, very much,' she said.
'Did you close your eyes?'
'At first,' she said. 'Until the shooting stopped.'
'Did you think the men who did the shooting were going to kill everyone in the pub?'
'I didn't know what to think,' she said. 'All I knew was that a man had been shot.'
'Did you think you might be shot?' O'Connor asked. 'Shot dead by two cold-blooded killers?'
'Yes,' Mrs. Salinas said, nodding her head firmly. 'Yes I did.'
'Yet, despite that fear,' O'Connor said, 'despite the risk to your life, you looked at their faces as they left the pub. Is that right?'
'Yes,' she said. 'Yes, that's right.'
'Is it?' O'Connor said, his voice rising. 'Did you really look at their faces?'
'Yes.'
'Did you, Mrs. Salinas, really look at their faces?' O'Connor asked, now standing inches from her.
'I glanced at them as they walked by,' she said. 'But I did see them.'
'You glanced,' O'Connor said, his voice hitting a higher pitch. 'You didn't look?
'I saw them,' Mrs. Salinas said.
'You glanced at them, Mrs. Salinas,' O'Connor said. 'You glanced at them through the eyes of a frightened woman who may have had too much to drink.'
'Objection, your Honor,' Michael said, his hands spread out in front of him, still sitting in his chair.
'No need, your Honor,' O'Connor said, clearly relishing his first dance in the spotlight. 'I have no further questions.'
'Thank you, Mrs. Salinas,' Judge Weisman said to the now shaken woman. 'You may step down.'
'Looks like Columbo did his homework,' Carol said.
'Today anyway,' I said, my eyes on John and Tommy, watching them wink their approval at O'Connor.
'Have you got time for lunch?' Carol asked.
'I'll make the time,' I said.
'Where would you like to go?'
'How about the Shamrock Pub,' I said. 'I hear it's colorful.'
The detective in the front seat kept the engine running, his hands on the steering wheel, a container of coffee by his side, the lid still on. I sat in the back, opposite the driver's side, a heavy manilla envelope on my lap. Another detective sat to my left, looking out the window, watching the wind whip shreds of garbage down Little West 12th Street. The defogger was on and all four windows of the late-model sedan were open a crack, letting in thin streams of January air.
It was six-fifteen on a Sunday morning and the downtown streets were empty.
'So, you gonna show me?' the detective to my left asked, pointing down at the envelope. 'Or you just gonna ride the suspense?'
His name was Nick Davenport. He was twenty-eight years old and a sergeant in the Internal Affairs Division of the New York City Police Department. It is the unit responsible for dealing with corrupt cops.
'You've got to agree to a couple of things first,' I said. 'Then we deal.'
'Frankie, what is this shit?'
'Hear the kid out, Nick,' the detective in the front seat said. 'It'll be worth your time. Believe me.'
The detective in the front seat, Frank Magcicco, worked out of a Homicide unit housed in a Brooklyn precinct. He grew up in Hell's Kitchen and remained friendly with many of the people who lived there. He was a first grade detective with an honest name and a solid reputation. He was thirty-three years old, owned a two-family house in Queens, had two preschool children and was married to a woman who worked part-time as a legal secretary.
He was also King Benny's nephew.
'Okay,' Nick Davenport said. 'What's it gonna cost?'
He had a blue-eyed, boyish face hidden by a three-day stubble and an older man's voice. He'd been on the force seven years, two as a patrolman in Harlem and two working plainclothes in Brooklyn, before making the move to I.A.D. He was cold to the fact that most cops hated anyone associated with Internal Affairs and ambitious enough to want to make captain before he hit forty. He knew the fastest way up that track was to reel in the maximum number of dirty cops in a minimum amount of time.
'I don't want any deals cut,' I said.
'How so?' Davenport asked, shifting his body.
'You don't offer him anything.' I said. 'You don't use him to finger other cops. You bring him in and you bring him down.'
'That ain't up to me,' Nick said. 'Once a case starts, a lot of other people get involved. I can't shut 'em all out.'
'I heard you can,' I said, toward Frank in the front seat. 'But, maybe I heard wrong. Maybe I should take this to somebody else.'
'Where'd you find this fuck?' Nick asked Frank, chuckling as he pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket.
'I were you, I'd do what the kid says,' Frank said, staring out through the windshield, sipping his coffee. 'You make this one, you're gonna be havin' breakfast once a month with the Commissioner.'
'Okay, Eliot Ness,' Nick said to me. 'You got it. He won't be offered any deals. No matter how much he talks, no matter who he fingers. No deals. Anything else?'
'Two more things,' I said.
'Let me hear 'em,' Nick said.
'He gets convicted, he gets state time,' I said. 'I don't want him sent to one of those cop country clubs. He's gotta do prison time.'
'You got a real hardon for this guy,' Nick said. 'What's your beef with him?'
'There's one more thing,' I said. 'You wanna hear it or not?'
'I can't wait,' Nick said.
'It's simple,' I said. 'Nobody knows who fed you the information. How you got it. How you found it. And I mean nobody.'
'How did you get it?'
'It fell into my lap,' I said. 'Just like it's falling into yours.'
'That it?' Davenport asked, tossing his cigarette out through the crack in the window. 'That's all you want?'
'That's all I want,' I said.
Davenport stared at me for a few long moments and then turned to look back outside. One hand rubbed the stubble on his face, one foot shook nervously back and forth.
'You okay with this, Frank?' he asked the detective in the front seat.
'I'm here ain't I?' Frank said, watching him in the rear view mirror.
'Okay, Mr. Ness,' Davenport said, putting out his hand. 'You and me got ourselves a deal.'
I handed him the thick envelope. Inside was the file that Michael had given me on former Wilkinson guard Adam Styler, plus additional information dug up in the past three months by King Benny and Fat Mancho.
'Christ Almighty!' Davenport said, sorting through the material. 'You got everything in here but a confession.'
'I thought I'd leave that to you,' I said. 'And my preference is that you beat it out of him.'
'Dates, times, phone numbers,' Davenport said, his eyes wide, a smile spread across his lace. 'Get a load of this, Frankie, there's even surveillance photos. This piece of shit's pulling in about five grand a month. Rippin' off pushers. Has been for about three years.'
'More like four,' I said.
'He ain't gonna see five,' Davenport said. 'I'll tell you that right now.'
'Do you have enough to get a conviction?' I asked.
'That ain't up to me, kid,' Davenport said. 'That's up to a jury.'
'Then show the jury this,' I said.
I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out a plastic bag. In it was a snub nose. 44 revolver and three spent shells.
'Whatta ya' got there, Ness?' Davenport asked, taking the bag.
'Three weeks ago the body of a drug dealer named Indian Red Lopez was found in an alley in Jackson Heights,' I said. 'There were three bullets in his head and nothing in his pockets.'
'I'm with you so far,' Davenport said.
'That's the gun that killed him,' I said. 'Those are the shells.'
'And what's behind door number three?' Davenport asked.
'The prints on the gun belong to Adam Styler,' I said.
'Do me a favor, would ya', Ness?' Davenport said, putting the gun in his pocket.
'What?'
'I ever make it onto your shit list, give me a call,' he said. 'Give me a chance to apologize.'
'You'll find a woman's name and phone number in the folder,' I said. 'Pay her a visit. Her English isn't too good. But it's good enough to tell you she saw Adam Styler put the gun to Lopez's head and pull the trigger.'
Davenport lit a fresh cigarette, folding the spent match in his hand. He put Styler's folder back together and slid it into the envelope.
'I'll take it from here, Ness,' Davenport said, putting out his hand. 'You did your part.'
'You need anything else, Frank knows how to reach me,' I said, shaking hands.
'Want us to drop you off anywhere?' Frank asked, turning to face me.
'No, it's okay,' I said. 'I'll get out here.'
'Say hello for me,' Frank said.
'I will,' I said, opening the car door. 'And thanks, Frank. Thanks for all your help.'
'Take care of yourself, kid,' Frank said, winking at me as I got out of the car. 'Water gets choppy out your way.'
'I'll do what I can,' I said, leaving the car and closing the door behind me.
'Hey, Ness,' Davenport said, sliding over to where I had been sitting and rolling down the window.
'What?' I said, standing by the curb.
'You ever think of becoming a cop?' he asked, smiling.
'And leave the good guys?' I said with a laugh. 'Never happen.'
By the end of the first week of the trial, Michael had done all that could be expected of an assistant district attorney seeking a conviction in the murder case of People vs. Reilly and Marcano. He had presented a detailed drawing of the interior of the Shamrock Pub, giving the jury a picture to go along with the verbal scenario. He had a replica made to scale, with little wax figures sitting in place of the patrons and employees. He then showed the jury how it was possible for two wax figures to walk into the pub, sit at a bar, have a few drinks, move to the rear booth, shoot dead another wax figure and leave the pub without a problem.
He just never put faces on the two wax figures.
He had the crime scene photos blown up, with Nokes' riddled corpse surrounded by two plates of jelled food and a cold cup of coffee, then displayed them for the jury. He had a forensics expert detail the make and caliber of the gun that killed Nokes and encouraged the coroner to drone on about the bloody manner of his death.
He just never had a weapon, the murder weapon, to show them.
The officers at the scene all testified as to what they found when they first arrived at the Shamrock Pub on the night of the shooting. They ran through the statements presented to them by those present. Michael then brought on the detectives assigned to the case, two veteran cops who combined those statements with other information they gathered to bring in John Reilly and Thomas Marcano.
He just never gave the jury a motive for the murder.
Michael kept to the plan, a plan that called for the action to stay simple.
He had left doubt in the minds of the jury. He had given them dozens of facts, but no weapon, no motive and, more importantly, no prints that would put John and Tommy at the scene that night. The gloves they wore helped some. Jerry the bartender quietly took care of the rest. Michael had brought two eyewitnesses to the stand, but both were shaky and one, David Carson, had his back to the shooting and saw nothing but leather jackets and blurred faces come in and out of the Shamrock Pub.
Danny O'Connor did his part as well, asking the questions he was told to ask and occasionally throwing in pertinent queries of his own. His sloppy attire and lack of finesse played well with the working-class jury Michael had helped to select. He came off as a seasoned pro, a ruffled man of the people who had seen his share of victories and defeats. He talked to them and never lectured, but always made time, when the moment called for it, for a touch of Irish drama.
Michael had been right. Danny O'Connor was perfect.
At two-thirty p.m., a half hour before the close of the Friday session, Michael Sullivan prepared to announce the final witness in his prosecution of case docket number 778462. Judge Weisman asked him to hold the witness until Monday morning, as Michael knew he would. He agreed and wished both the Judge and jury a pleasant weekend, then sat down, the first part of his job nearly finished.
He looked about five years older than he did when he and I met on that rainy night nearly four months earlier. The tension of his task, the hours we were all keeping, the uncertainty about the outcome all weighed heavy. If the plan worked it would be everyone's success. If it failed, the fault would fall to Michael.
We still didn't know if we had Father Bobby locked in as a witness and wouldn't know up until he walked into that courtroom. We decided it would be best for him to deal directly with O'Connor and not risk being seen talking to either me or Carol. If Father Bobby were to take the stand, we wanted it to be as late into the trial as possible, allowing the impact of his testimony to stay with the jury as they headed into the deliberation room.
Father Bobby Carillo, a priest with the best outside jump shot on the West Side, remained the key to a plan that called for all involved to get away with murder.
King Benny stood in front of his club, hands folded at his back, eyes staring straight ahead. Three of his men huddled close by, stamping their feet against the cold. The door to the club remained open, the lilting sound of Doris Day singing 'Que Sera, Sera' easing its way onto the street.
It was King Benny's favorite song.
'I see you've still got a thing for Doris Day,' I said, coming up next to him.
'She's a good woman,' King Benny said.
'You like her movies?' I asked.
'I don't go to movies,' King Benny said. 'C'mon, let's take a walk.'
We crossed llth Avenue and walked down 52nd Street. I kept my head down and my collar up, the wind blowing hard, the air now cutting sharp as ice. King Benny was, as usual, dressed in black shirt, slacks and jacket. His hair was slicked back and his bum leg dragged, but he walked with a slight jaunt and seemed not to notice the weather.
'This guy Addison,' King Benny said. 'The one works for the Mayor.'
'I know him,' I said.
King Benny went after Henry Addison with a vengeance. It went beyond mere business. King Benny took Henry Addison and made it personal. He knew that he was part of a young, well-to-do crowd that paid lots of money for sex parties with little boys. It didn't take King Benny long to find out who supplied those boys and how much their bodies were worth. The East Side pimp with the street name of Radio gave up everything – names, dates, videotapes and photos. Enough material to cost Henry Addison a cushy city job that was handed to him by a friend in the Mayor's office.
It took King Benny even less time to find out that, unlike his other friends, Henry Addison didn't have much money. So, he was forced to borrow for his pleasure. This put him in debt to the kind of people who charged interest in return for their loans.
'He's gonna quit his job in two weeks,' King Benny said.
'Why's that?'
'He don't want nobody to know the kind of guy he is,' King Benny said. 'Don't want nobody to see pictures of him they shouldn't see.'
'He knows this?'
'He will,' King Benny said.
'That it?' I said.
'The boys he buys for parties are expensive,' King Benny said, taking a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiping the edge of his nose. 'Addison makes good money. He don't make real money.'
'What's he owe?'
'Eight grand,' King Benny said. 'With a heavy vig.'
'To who?'
'Three small-timers downtown,' King Benny said. 'They were letting him pay it off for a piece a week. Until this morning.'
'What happened this morning?'
'They were paid off,' King Benny said. 'In full.'
'Who paid 'em?'
'Henry Addison's chits belong to me now,' King Benny said.
'You hate debts,' I said.
'I hate Henry Addison,' King Benny said.
We stopped at the corner of 52nd Street and 12th Avenue. I looked over at King Benny and saw in his dark eyes the dangerous void that he usually hid so carefully. It was an emptiness his enemies had good reason to fear. It was an emptiness about to be filled with Henry Addison.
His black sedan was across the street, one of his men behind the wheel, the windows up, the engine running. We walked slowly toward the car. 'We going for a ride?' I asked him.
'I am,' he said. 'You're going home. To sleep, in case anybody ever asks.'
'Where are you going?'
'Pick up my money,' King Benny said.
'Take me with you,' I said. 'I want to be in on this.'
'Go home,' King Benny said. 'We're in the dirty end of the field now. That's where I play. And I like to play alone.'
King Benny watched as his driver opened the back door of the sedan. He looked over at me and nodded.
'You're a good kid,' King Benny said. 'You always were. Don't let this change it.'
The living room was dark, the only light coming from two bare windows and the glimmer of a floor lamp. All the furniture was new, two black leather couches taking up one end, a white shag pull-out sofa shoved against the opposite wall. In the center of the room was a long butcher-block table surrounded by four black leather chairs on rollers. There was a framed wall poster of Dr. J hanging on one wall and a cardboard cutout of Earl 'The Pearl' Monroe leaning against a door that led to the small kitchen. The room smelled of fresh paint and incense.
A tall, reed-thin black man sat in one of the black leather chairs, his feet flat on the floor, his hands folded and resting on the butcher-block table. He was wearing a black turtleneck and black leather slacks. He had a Rolex on his left wrist and a diamond pinky ring on his right hand. He wore black Gucci loafers and no socks.
His mother named him Edward Goldenberg Robinson, after her favorite actor. To continue the Hollywood connection, Eddie Robinson took the street name Little Caesar as he made his way up the ranks of the lucrative drug trade. He was Brooklyn's number one mover among black dealers and was rivaled only by the remains of the infamous Nicky Barnes' crew for power over the entire city. He earned close to $50,000 a day on cocaine, raked in another $25,000 on heroin and skimmed a ten percent fee off any marijuana that sold on his streets.
Eddie Robinson was thirty-six years old and had already fathered six kids with three different women. His oldest child, a son, was twelve years old and attended a private school in upstate New York, where he lived with his mother. Little Caesar named his son Rizzo after his youngest brother, who died while in the custody of the Wilkinson Home for Boys.
'You alone?' Eddie Robinson asked King Benny, who was sitting on the other side of the butcher-block table.
'Got a guy downstairs,' King Benny said. 'In the car. Your guy shoulda told you before you let me in.'
Eddie Robinson smiled and turned toward a thick-muscled black man in a sweatsuit standing in a corner by the window.
'Bip can't talk,' Eddie Robinson said.
'Smart move,' King Benny said.
'I'm not looking for partners,' Eddie said, thick mustache highlighting his thin face. 'If that's your reason for the meet.'
'I don't want a partner,' King Benny said.
'Then what?' Eddie Robinson said.
'I want you to give me some money,' King Benny said.
'How much money?'
'Eight thousand dollars,' King Benny said.
'I'll play along,' Eddie Robinson said with a smile. 'Say I give you the eight grand. How long before you pay it back?'
'I'm not paying it back,' King Benny said, reaching a hand into his jacket pocket and taking out a folded piece of paper. 'Somebody else is.'
'This somebody somebody I know?' Eddie Robinson said, taking the paper from King Benny and placing it in his own pocket.
'Your little brother knew him,' King Benny said.
'Rizzo?' Eddie Robinson asked, a sudden deadness to his voice. 'How did he know Rizzo?'
'The man was a guard at an upstate home,' King Benny said. 'Was there the same time as Rizzo. Before and after he died.'
'Bip,' Eddie Robinson said, not moving his eyes from King Benny. 'Count out eight thousand and put it in an envelope.'
King Benny and Eddie Robinson stared at one another in silence, waiting for Bip to walk into the kitchen and come back out with a white envelope. Bip handed the envelope to Eddie Robinson.
'You go back a long time, old man,' Eddie Robinson said as he passed it on to King Benny.
'Old men always do,' King Benny said.
'Ran with the guineas back when the guineas were tough,' Eddie Robinson said.
'Ran when I could run,' King Benny said.
'Maybe you and me can do some business,' Eddie Robinson said. 'Close us a deal.'
'We just did,' King Benny said, putting the envelope in the side pocket of his jacket and turning to leave the room.
'I'll look up our friend soon,' Eddie Robinson said as King Benny walked away. 'And collect the money he owes me.'
'He owes you somethin' more than money,' King Benny said, standing in the entryway, his face in the shadows. 'Something worth more.'
Eddie Robinson stood up from his chair, hands spread out before him. 'Ain't nothin' worth more than the green.'
'This is,' King Benny said.
'What, old man?' Eddie Robinson said. 'What's this guy owe means more to me than dollars?'
'He owes you Rizzo,' King Benny said. 'He's the man that killed your brother.'
King Benny walked past the light, opened the apartment door and disappeared.
'You have a witness for us, counselor?' Judge Weisman asked Michael.
'Yes, your Honor,' Michael said.
'Let's get to it then,' Judge Weisman said.
'Your Honor,' Michael said. 'The prosecution would like to call Ralph Ferguson to the stand.'
I took a deep breath and turned to my right, looking at Ferguson as he walked down the center aisle of the court room. Twelve years had passed, but I still recognized the sound of his walk and the slight, feminine manner in which he moved his shoulders. He had gained some weight and lost some hair and appeared uncomfortable in his baggy blue blazer.
The last time I saw Ralph Ferguson I was tied up in my cell, my mouth taped shut, Sean Nokes holding me down, watching him rape and beat one of my friends. It was a night of terror that Ferguson probably dismissed soon after it happened. It is a night that, for me, has never ended.
Michael kept his head down as Ferguson walked past, heading for the stand to be sworn in by the bailiff. Michael and Ferguson had not yet met. He had another attorney in his office handle Ferguson's deposition and the initial Q & A, not wanting to tip his hand before he and O'Connor were to question the former guard in open court.
Ralph Ferguson and Sean Nokes had remained friends beyond their years at Wilkinson. They spent vacations together hunting deer in upstate woods and long weekends in a rented cabin by a lake fishing for bass. They drank beer and whiskey, talked about old times and made plans for the future. They hoped one day to go in as partners on a bait and tackle shop in central New Hampshire.
The unhappily married Nokes often visited the happily married Ferguson and his wife, Sally, staying in the spare room in the small tract house they owned in the Long Island town of Freeport. Ferguson had been best man at Nokes' first wedding, a union that had lasted less than a year. Nokes was godfather to Ferguson's only child, his four-year-old daughter, Shelley Marie.
On the surface, Ralph Ferguson was a model citizen. Pee-Wee soccer coach. A dedicated employee who never missed a day and helped organize company parties. He even handled the Sunday collections at his church.
A perfect character witness.
Ferguson fidgeted on the stand, too nervous to focus his attention on Michael, gazing instead at the faces of the jury and the spectators.
John and Tommy sat quietly, staring at him with open contempt.
'Doesn't look so tough up there, does he?' I whispered to Carol.
'Nobody does,' she said.
'He looks like anybody,' I said. 'No one would ever know he did the things he did.'
'Sit tight, sweetheart,' Carol said, slowly rubbing my arm. 'They're gonna know today. Everybody's gonna know. Saint Ferguson is about to fall on his ass.'
'Good morning, Mr. Ferguson,' Michael said, buttoning his jacket and standing on the far side of the witness stand. 'I'd like to thank you for coming. I realize it's a long trip for you.'
'I'm sorry I had to do it,' Ferguson said. 'I'm sorry it had to be for something like this.'
'I understand,' Michael said, his voice coated with sympathy. 'You and the victim, Sean Nokes, were good friends. Is that right?'
'We were great friends, yeah,' Ferguson said. 'The best. You'd have to look hard to find a better friend.'
'How long did you two know each other?'
'About fourteen years,' Ferguson said.
'How often did you see each other?'
'We got together as much as we could,' Ferguson said. 'I'd say about ten, maybe twelve times a year. On weekends, holidays, vacations. Things like that.'
'Would you say you were his best friend?'
'His closest, that's for sure,' Ferguson said. 'We could talk to each other, you know. Talk about things that only good friends talk about.'
'What sort of things?' Michael asked, walking past the defense table, his head down.
'Normal stuff,' Ferguson said, shrugging. 'Women sometimes, sports during football season, our jobs all the time. Nothin' you would call deep. Just talk. Plain talk between friends.'
'What kind of man was Sean Nokes?' Michael asked.
'He was a good man,' Ferguson said. 'Too good to be shot dead by a couple of street punks.'
'Objection, your Honor,' O'Connor said, standing. 'Statement is one of opinion, not fact.'
'He was asked his opinion,' Michael said.
'Overruled,' Judge Weisman said. 'Please continue.'
'When you say Sean Nokes was a good man, how do you mean that?' Michael asked, moving closer to the witness stand. 'Did he give money to charities, adopt stray pets, shelter the homeless? Tell us, please, Mr. Ferguson, how Sean Nokes was a good man.'
'Nothing like that,' Ferguson said, a smile creasing his nervous exterior. 'Sean just cared about you. If you were his friend, there's nothing he wouldn't do for you. I really mean that. There was nothing.'
'Did he have any enemies you were aware of?'
'You mean, other than the two who killed him?' Ferguson asked.
'Yes,' Michael said with a smile. 'Any enemies other than the two who killed him?'
'No,' Ralph Ferguson said. 'Sean Nokes had no enemies.'
'Thank you, Mr. Ferguson,' Michael said, turning his back to the stand. 'I have no further questions, your Honor.'
'Mr. O'Connor,' Judge Weisman said. 'He's your witness.'
'Can you tell us how you and Sean Nokes first met, Mr. Ferguson?' O'Connor asked, sitting in his chair, elbows on the defense table.
'We worked on a job together upstate,' Ferguson said.
'As what?'
'We were guards at the Wilkinson Home for Boys,' Ferguson said.
'What is that?' O'Connor asked. 'A prison?'
'No,' Ferguson said. 'It's a juvenile facility for young boys.'
'Young boys who have broken the law,' O'Connor said. 'Is that correct?'
'Yes, that's correct,' Ferguson said.
'And your function was what?'
'Standard stuff,' Ferguson said. 'Keep the boys in line, see they got to their classes on time, keep an eye out for trouble, put them down for the night. Nothing exciting.'
'As guards, were you and Mr. Nokes allowed to use force to, as you say, keep the boys in line?' O'Connor asked, pushing his chair back and standing by the side of his desk.
'What do you mean, force?' Ferguson asked, looking over at Michael.
'I mean, were you allowed to hit them?'
'No, of course not,' Ferguson said.
'Were any of the boys hit by any of the guards?'
O'Connor asked, walking around his desk, arms folded at his chest. 'At any time?'
'I'm sure something like that may have happened,' Ferguson said, sweat starting to form around his neck. 'It was a big place. But it wasn't a common practice.'
'Let's narrow the place down, then,' Ferguson said. 'Did you or Mr. Nokes ever hit any of the boys under your care at the Wilkinson Home?'
Both Judge Weisman and Ferguson stared at Michael, waiting for the obvious objection to the question.
Michael sat at his desk and kept his eyes on Ferguson, not moving.
John and Tommy turned and gave Michael a quick glance, one filled with curiosity and confusion.
'Would you like me to repeat the question, Mr. Ferguson?' O'Connor asked, walking toward the witness stand.
'No,' Ferguson said.
'Then answer it,' O'Connor said. 'And remember you're under oath.'
'Yes,' Ferguson said. 'A few of the boys we considered to be discipline problems were hit. On occasion.'
'And these discipline problems, how were they hit?' O'Connor asked.
'What do you mean how?' Ferguson asked.
'Fist, open hand, a kick,' O'Connor said. 'A baton, maybe. What was the best way, Mr. Ferguson, to calm a discipline problem?'
'It depended on what the situation called for,' Ferguson said.
'And who determined that?'
'The guard on the scene,' Ferguson said.
'So you and Sean Nokes would decide in what way a discipline problem would be dealt with,' O'Connor said. 'Is that correct?'
'Yes,' Ferguson said. 'That's correct.'
'That's a lot of power to have over a boy,' O'Connor said. 'Isn't it?'
'It came with the job,' Ferguson said.
'Did torture come with the job?' O'Connor asked.
'No, it did not,' Ferguson said.
'But boys were tortured weren't they?' O'Connor said, his face turning a shade of red. ''Weren't they, Mr. Ferguson?'
The spectators all leaned forward, waiting for Ferguson's answer. Judge Weisman poured himself a glass of water and rolled his chair back, his angry eyes focused on Michael.
'On occasion,' Ferguson said, looking as if he were about to faint.
'Who tortured them?' O'Connor asked.
'The guards,' Ferguson said.
''Which guards?' O'Connor asked.
'I can't remember all of them,' Ferguson said.
'Remember one,' O'Connor said.
Ferguson wiped at his lips with the back of his hand. He looked over at Michael who sat in his chair, hands folded before him. He looked at John and Tommy, who stared back impassively. He put his head back and took a deep breath.
'Sean Nokes,' Ferguson said.
O'Connor waited for the court room murmurs to quiet. He watched as Judge Weisman lifted his gavel and then placed it back down, as troubled as everyone else by the testimony he was hearing.
I looked over at Carol and saw tears streaming down her face. I put my arm around her and moved her closer.
'Let me ask you, Mr. Ferguson,' O'Connor said, standing next to him, one hand in his pocket. 'Was there any sexual abuse at the Wilkinson Home for Boys?'
'Counselor,' Judge Weisman said to O'Connor. 'This line of questioning better lead someplace having to do with this case.'
'It will, your Honor,' O'Connor said, keeping his eyes on Ferguson.
'For your sake,' Judge Weisman said.
'Answer the question, Mr. Ferguson,' O'Connor said.
'Was there any sexual abuse at the Wilkinson Home for Boys?'
'Yes,' Ferguson said. 'I heard that there was.'
'I'm not asking if you heard,' O'Connor said. I'm asking if you saw.'
'Yes, I saw,' Ferguson said in a low voice.
'Did you and Sean Nokes ever force yourselves on any of the boys?' O'Connor asked, taking two steps back, his voice hitting full range. 'Did you and Sean Nokes rape any of the boys at the Wilkinson Home? And again, I remind you that you are under oath.'
The courtroom held the silence of the moment, no moving, no coughing, no crumbling of paper. All eyes were on the witness stand. The twelve heads of the jury were turned at an angle. John and Tommy sat at attention. Carol gripped my hand as Michael looked above the bench at the painting of blind justice gripping her sword.
'Counselors,' Judge Weisman said, breaking the silence. 'Approach the bench. Now!'
Michael and O'Connor moved to the sidebar, on the end furthest from the witness stand.
'What the hell is going on here?' Judge Weisman asked Michael, temper flashing above his calm demeanor.
'Well, your Honor,' Michael said, glancing over at Ferguson, 'it looks like I called the wrong character witness.'
'And what are you going to do about it?' Judge Weisman asked.
'Nothing, your Honor,' Michael said. 'There's nothing I can do.'
'Or maybe, counselor,' Judge Weisman said, 'you've already done enough.'
The lawyers returned to their positions.
'Please answer the question, Mr. Ferguson,' Judge Weisman ordered.
'Yes,' Ferguson said in a choked voice, tears lining his face.
'Yes what?' O'Connor asked.
'Yes, boys were raped,' Ferguson said.
'By you and Sean Nokes?' O'Connor said.
'Not just by us,' Ferguson said.
'By you and Sean Nokes?' O'Connor said, repeating the question, raising his voice even louder.
'Yes,' Ferguson said.
'On more than one occasion?' O'Connor asked.
'Yes,' Ferguson said.
'With more than one boy?'
'Yes,' Ferguson said.
'Now, do you still think Sean Nokes was a good man, Mr. Ferguson?' O'Connor asked.
'He was my friend,' Ferguson said.
'A friend who raped and abused boys he was paid to watch over,' O'Connor said. 'Boys who could maybe grow up and become an enemy of such a good man.'
'Are you finished?' Ferguson asked, his eyes red, his hands shaking.
'Not just yet,' O'Connor said.
'I want it to be over,' Ferguson said. 'Please, your Honor, I want it to be over.'
'Mr. O'Connor?' the Judge asked.
'This won't take long, your Honor,' O'Connor said.
'Proceed,' Judge Weisman said.
'Sean Nokes spent a lot of time at your home, is that right?' O'Connor asked.
'Yes,' Ferguson said.
'As much as a week at a time, is that also correct?'
'Yes,' Ferguson said.
'And you have a child, is that correct?'
'Yes,' Ferguson said. 'A daughter.'
'In all the time your good friend Sean Nokes spent in your home, all the days, all the hours, did either you or your wife ever allow him to be alone with your daughter?' O'Connor asked. 'At any time? For any reason?'
Ferguson stared at O'Connor, his fear evident, his body leaning toward the Judge's bench for support. 'No,' he finally said. 'No, we never did.'
'Why was that, Mr. Ferguson?' O'Connor asked. 'If he was such a good, man.'
'Objection, your Honor,' Michael said for the first time, looking at Ferguson. 'Question doesn't call for an answer.'
'Counselor's right, your Honor,' O'Connor said. 'I withdraw the question.'
'Witness is excused,' Judge Weisman said.
'Thank you, your Honor,' Ferguson said, stepping down from the stand.
'Mr. Ferguson, if I were you, I wouldn't stray too far from home,' Judge Weisman said. 'People will need to talk to you. Do you understand?'
'Yes, your Honor,' Ferguson said meekly, his eyes darting from John to Tommy and then to Michael, slowly, finally recoiling in recognition. 'I understand.'
Michael waited until Ferguson walked out of the courtroom and then stood up.
'The prosecution rests its case, your Honor,' he said. 'We have no further witnesses.'
'Thank God for that,' Judge Weisman said.
Fat Mancho bounced a spauldeen against the ground, his eyes fixed on the brick wall in front of him. He was wearing a long-sleeve wool shirt, a Baltimore Orioles baseball cap, scruffy blue jeans and high-top PF Flyers.
I stood five feet to his left, wearing a leather jacket, two black wool gloves and a pull cap. My jeans felt stiff in the windy cold and my sneakers and thin white socks weren't enough to prevent the late Sunday afternoon chill from seeping through.
Carol stood with her back to the chain fence separating the open lot from the sidewalk. She was on her third cup of coffee and had two thick winter scarves wrapped around her neck.
'Most people play handball in the summer,' I said to Fat Mancho, rubbing my hands together. 'It's easier to see the ball without tears in your eyes.'
'I give a fuck about most people,' Fat Mancho said.
'What do you have planned for after the game?' I asked. 'A swim?'
'Your balls all twisted up 'cause you gonna lose the game,' Fat Mancho said. 'And you one of them fuckers that can't live with losin'.'
'Freezing, Fat Man,' I said. 'I'm one of those fuckers who can't live with freezing.'
Fat Mancho slapped the ball against the wall, a hard shot, aimed low, with a heavy spin to it. I took three steps back and returned the hit. Fat Mancho was ready for the return, crouched down, hands on his knees, not wearing gloves, his eyes on the ball, looking like an overweight third baseman who forgot his Old-Timer's Day uniform.
His right hand whipped at the ball, sending it higher than the serve, faster, forcing me to move back, the soles of my sneakers slipping on a thin slab of ice. I watched as the ball bounced over my head.
'That's six for me, loser,' Fat Mancho said. 'Two for you.'
'You never play this game,' I said, my breath coming heavy. 'How can you be good?'
'You never seen me play, fool,' Fat Mancho said. 'I was your age, I was all-spic. Played the best. Beat the best.'
I looked over his shoulder and saw Carol walking toward us, a cup of coffee in one hand and a cold beer in the other.
'Good news,' I said. 'It's halftime.'
We sat against the handball wall, sitting on top of three copies of the Sunday Daily News, Carol and I sharing the coffee, Fat Mancho slurping gulps of Rheingold.
'How's Irish holdin' up?' Fat Mancho asked about Michael.
'I only know what I see in court,' I said. 'That end seems good. His side of the table's finished.'
'He did good,' Fat Mancho said. 'I seen lawyers weren't tossin' the case look more fucked up. You didn't know, you won't know. That kid's colder than a hit man.'
'John and Tommy are starting to smell something,' I said. 'They just don't know what.'
'A spic be livin' in the White House time it reaches their fuckin' brain,' Fat Mancho said.
'O'Connor's come through big,' Carol said. 'He looks like F. Lee Bailey's twin brother out there.'
'He was a good one,' Fat Mancho said. 'Then he lost a few and he found the bottle. Been chasin' nothin' but skid cases since.'
'He sobered up for this,' I said. 'He's got a shot at a win. Even without a witness.'
'He's a drunk, but he ain't a fool,' Fat Mancho said, putting the can of beer on the ground next to him. 'He wins this, every killer both sides of the river have his card in their pocket.'
'Is that true?' Carol asked, lifting one of the scarves up to where it covered everything but eyes.
'Is what true?' I said.
'Can we win the case without a witness?'
'You already won,' Fat Mancho said. 'You got the taste. Now, you're just lookin' to get away with it.'
'They've got to walk, Fat Man,' I said. 'We only win when John and Tommy walk.'
'Then you gotta get 'em outta the shootin' hole,' Fat Mancho said. 'Put 'em someplace else. Only your witness does that. And he's doin' a Claude Rains so far. Nobody's seen the fucker.'
'What if he doesn't show?' Carol said. 'What if we go in the way we are?'
'You got street justice,' Fat Mancho said. 'That's the real. You come up with empty hands on court justice, that's the bullshit.'
'They both take your life away, Fat Man,' I said. 'The street just does it faster.'
'Street's only one matters,' Fat Mancho said. 'Court's for uptown, people with suits, money, lawyers with three names. You got cash, you can buy court justice. On the street, justice got no price. She's blind where the judge sits. But she ain't blind out here. Out here, the bitch got eyes.'
'We need both,' I said.
'Then you need a witness,' Fat Mancho said, standing up, taking the black rubber ball out of his pants pocket. 'And I need to finish beatin' your ass. Let's go, loser. You down to me by four.'
'Can we finish this later?' I asked, too numb from the cold to stand.
'When later?' Fat Mancho asked, looking down at me.
'The middle of July,' I said.
Danny O'Connor pieced together a credible defense for the jury to ponder during the course of his first three days on the attack. He called to the stand a limited range of John and Tommy's friends and family, most of them middle-aged to elderly men and women with sweet eyes and trusting faces. All of them testifying that while both boys were sometimes wild, they were not killers.
None of them had ever seen John Reilly or Tommy Marcano hold a gun.
The two waitresses on duty the night of the shooting testified that they knew both defendants and found them to be pleasant whenever they entered the pub. Neither remembered seeing John Reilly or Tommy Marcano the night Sean Nokes was killed. The women said they were in the kitchen at the time of the shooting and did not come out until the police arrived.
'Were the two shooters in the pub when the police got there?' O'Connor asked one of the waitresses.
'No,' she said. 'I guess they already left.'
'Why do you guess that?'
'Killers don't wait for cops,' she said. 'In the neighborhood, nobody waits for cops.'
'You're from the neighborhood,' O'Connor said. 'And you waited.'
'I was getting paid to wait,' she said.
Jerry the bartender testified he served the defendants two drinks and two beers on the afternoon of Nokes' death. They sat quietly and were gone in less than an hour. They paid tab and tip with a twenty left on the bar. He was in the back picking up his dinner when the shooting occurred and therefore did not see anyone pump shots into Sean Nokes. Jerry also phoned the police as soon as the gunfire died down.
Through it all, Michael kept his cross-examinations simple, never venturing beyond where the witnesses wanted to go, never calling into dispute any parts of their accounts. He was always polite, cordial and relaxed, easily buying into the professed innocence of those called to the stand.
O'Connor's intent was to continue to mine the doubts planted in the jury's mind, doubts that had first taken root with the testimony of the prosecutor's key eyewitness, Helen Salinas.
To that end, Dr. George Paltrone, a Bronx general practitioner who also ran a detox clinic, was called to the stand as an expert witness. In Dr. Paltrone's opinion, if Mrs. Salinas drank as much alcohol as she claimed in the amount of time that she stated, her testimony had to be deemed less than credible.
'Are you saying Mrs. Salinas was drunk?' O'Connor asked Dr. Paltrone.
'Not quite drunk,' Dr. Paltrone said. 'But she had more than enough drink in her to impair judgment.'
'Wouldn't witnessing a shooting sober her up?'
'Not necessarily,' Dr. Paltrone said. 'The fear she felt may have made a rational judgment even more difficult.'
'In other words, doctor, drink and fear don't always lead to truth?'
'That's right,' Dr. Paltrone said. 'More often than not they don't.'
I sat through the three days of O'Connor's defense, in my usual third row seat, barely listening, unable to focus on the action before me. My mind was on Father Bobby and what he had decided to do. I knew without him that our best chance was a hung jury, which meant nothing more than another trial and an almost certain conviction.
I had not seen Father Bobby since the night I asked him to take the stand. I thought it too risky to approach O'Connor and find out what he knew, and Michael was beyond my reach. Everyone in the neighborhood seemed aware that we had a witness stashed.
But no one, not even King Benny, had the word on who the witness was and when he would show.
'If he's not here tomorrow, then forget it,' I said to Carol as the third day ground to an end. 'It's over.'
'We could try to find somebody else,' Carol said. 'We still have some time.'
'Who?' I said. 'The Pope's in Rome and I don't know any rabbis.'
'We can go and talk to him again,' Carol said. 'Or maybe have somebody else talk to him.'
'He's not afraid of King Benny,' I said, walking with Carol down the courthouse corridors. 'And Fat Mancho won't even go near a priest.'
'Then we can force him to do it,' Carol said with a shrug and a half-smile. 'Put a gun on him.'
'You want your witness to have one hand raised in court,' I said. 'Not two.'
We stopped by the elevator bank and waited, Carol pushed closer to me by the surrounding cluster of court officers, reporters, lawyers, defendants and their families. The down arrow rang and lit and the double doors to the elevator creaked open. We squeezed in with the pack, pushed to the back of the car. We both managed to turn and face forward, my eyes looking at the scarred neck of a husky Hispanic wearing an imitation leather jacket with a fake fur hood. He was breathing through his open mouth and his dank breath further fouled the musty air. As we rode down the nine floors, the elevator stopping at each one, I looked over to my far left and saw Danny O'Connor standing there. He had his back against the elevator buttons, a tudor hat on top of his head and his eyes on me. He was chewing a thick piece of gum and had an unlit cigarette in his mouth.
If he knew anything, his face wasn't showing it.
The doors finally opened onto the main floor and the passengers stormed out of the car. I grabbed Carol by the arm and made my way closer to O'Connor, who was content to let the rush of people pass him by before he stepped off. The three of us came out of the elevator at the same time, my elbow brushing against O'Connor's side.
'I'm sorry,' I said.
'Not a problem,' he said, looking at me and Carol. 'Riding these elevators is like riding the IRT. Only not as safe.'
'Lucky it's cold,' I said. 'I'd hate to see what it's like in there during a heat wave.'
'It was nice bumping into you,' O'Connor said with a smile, moving toward the revolving exit doors.
'Why the rush?' I asked, watching him leave.
'Gotta go,' he said over his shoulder. 'I'm late.'
'Late for what?'
'Mass,' O'Connor said.
'Call your next witness,' Judge Weisman said to Danny O'Connor.
'Your Honor, the defense calls to the stand Father Robert Carillo.'
Father Bobby walked through the courtroom with the confidence of a fighter heading into a main event. His thick hair was brushed back, his eyes were clear and his care-worn face shone under the glare of the overhead lights.
'Raise your right hand,' the bailiff said. 'And place your left hand on the Bible.'
'Do you swear that what you say shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?'
'I do,' Father Bobby said.
'Take the stand,' the bailiff said.
'Father Carillo, to which parish do you belong?' Danny O'Connor asked.
'The Sacred Heart of Jesus on West 50th Street.'
'And how long have you been there?'
'It will be twenty years this spring.'
'And what is your position there?'
'I'm a priest,' Father Carillo said, smiling.
O'Connor, the spectators and the jury all joined in the laugh; even Judge Weisman cracked a smile, but John and Tommy sat in stone silence, hands cupped to their faces, while Michael chewed on the end of a blue Bic pen.
'I'm sorry, Father,' O'Connor said. 'I meant, what do you do there?'
'I'm the school principal,' Father Bobby said. 'I teach seventh grade and coach most of the sports teams. I'm also acting Monsignor, serve mass daily, listen to confessions and try to repair whatever needs fixing.'
'They keep you busy,' O'Connor said.
'It's a poor parish,' Father Bobby said. 'Low on funds and short on staff.'
'Do you know most of the people in your parish?'
'No,' Father Bobby said. 'I know all the people in my parish.'
'Do you know the two defendants, John Reilly and Thomas Marcano?'
'Yes I do,' Father Bobby said.
'How long have you known them?'
'Since they were boys,' Father Bobby said. 'They were students of mine.'
'How would you describe your relationship with them today?'
'We try to stay in touch,' Father Bobby said. 'I try to do that with all my boys.'
'And how do you do that?'
'Through sports, mostly,' Father Bobby said. 'We either organize a game or go to one. It's a common ground. Makes it easier to get together.'
'Father, do you recall where you were on the night of November first of this past year?'
'Yes I do,' Father Bobby said.
'And where was that?'
'I was at a basketball game,' Father Bobby said. 'At the Garden. The Knicks against the Celtics.'
'What time does a Knick game begin?'
'They usually start at about 7:30,' Father Bobby said.
'And at what time do they end?'
'Between nine-thirty and ten,' Father Bobby said. 'Providing there's no overtime.'
'Was there any that night?'
'No, there wasn't,' Father Bobby said.
'And who won the game, Father?'
'Sad to say, it was the Celtics,' Father Bobby said. 'Kevin McHale and Robert Parish were a little too much for our guys that night.'
'Were you at the game alone?'
'No,' Father Bobby said. 'I went there with two friends.'
'And who were those two friends, Father?'
'John Reilly and Thomas Marcano,' Father Reilly said.
'The two defendants?'
'Yes,' Father Bobby said, gesturing toward John and Tommy. 'The two defendants.'
The spectators sitting behind the wooden barrier gave a collective cry. Carol put her head down, her hands covering her mouth, her shoulders shaking. Michael took a deep breath and looked toward the ceiling.
John and Tommy turned around, scanning the spectators, their bodies relaxing. As they turned to face the bench, they looked over at me. I smiled as they looked down at the cover of the book in my hands.
John had tears in his eyes.
I was holding a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo.
'What time did you meet with Mr. Reilly and Mr. Marcano?' O'Connor asked, soon after Judge Weisman hammered a call to order.
'They picked me up outside the school playground,' Father Bobby said. 'It must have been about six-thirty or thereabouts.'
'How did you get to the Garden, Father?'
'We walked,' Father Bobby said. 'It's less than twenty blocks.'
'And Mr. Reilly and Mr. Marcano walked with you the whole time?'
'Yes,' Father Bobby said. 'We walked together.'
'And at eight twenty-five p.m., the time police say the victim, Sean Nokes, was murdered, were you still with Mr. Reilly and Mr. Marcano at the basketball game?'
'Yes I was,' Father Bobby said. 'If they were out of my sight at all during the game, it was either to go to the bathroom or to get something to drink.'
'What did you three do after the game?'
'We walked back to the parish,' Father Bobby said.
'Was it a cold night?'
'Windy as I recall,' Father Bobby said.
'Did you stop anywhere?'
'At a newsstand on Eighth Avenue,' Father Bobby said. 'I bought an early edition of The Daily News.'
'And at what time did you, Mr. Reilly and Mr. Marcano part company?'
'About ten-thirty, maybe a few minutes later,' Father Bobby said. 'They left me in front of the rectory, near where they picked me up.'
'Did the two defendants tell you where they were going after they left you?'
'No,' Father Bobby said. 'But I would imagine after a night spent with a priest, they went looking for the first open bar they could find.'
O'Connor waited for the snickers to subside.
'So then, Father, if the two defendants were with you on the night of the murder, they couldn't have shot and killed Sean Nokes, as the prosecution claims. Isn't that correct?'
'Unless they shot him from the blue seats at the Garden,' Father Bobby said.
'No, Father,' O'Connor said with a smile. 'He wasn't shot from there.'
'Then he wasn't shot by those boys,' Father Bobby said.
'I have no further questions,' O'Connor said. 'Thank you, Father.'
'It was my pleasure,' Father Bobby said.
'Your witness, Mr. Sullivan,' Judge Weisman said.
'Thank you, your Honor,' Michael said, standing up and walking over to Father Bobby.
'Did you buy the tickets for the game, Father?' Michael asked. 'Or were they given to you?'
'No, I bought them,' Father Bobby said.
'On the day of the game?'
'No,' Father Bobby said. 'I went to the box office about a week before.'
'How did you pay for the tickets?'
'With cash,' Father Bobby said. 'I pay for everything with cash.'
'Did you get a receipt?'
'No,' Father Bobby said. 'I didn't.'
'Did anyone know you were going to the game?' Michael asked, 'Other than the two defendants?'
'I don't think so,' Father Bobby said.
'When did you ask the defendants to go to the game with you?'
'The Sunday before,' Father Bobby said.
'Was anyone else present?'
'No,' Father Bobby said.
'So, no one saw you buy the tickets,' Michael said. 'There's no record of any purchase. And no one else knew you were going with the defendants. Is that right?'
'That's right,' Father Bobby said.
'So how do we know you were there?' Michael asked. 'How do we really know you and the two defendants were at the game on the night of the murder?'
'I'm telling you both as a witness and- as a priest,' Father Bobby said. 'We were at that game.'
'And a priest wouldn't lie,' Michael said. 'Isn't that right?'
'A priest with ticket stubs wouldn't need to lie,' Father Bobby said, putting a hand into his jacket pocket and pulling out three torn tickets. 'And I always keep the stubs.'
'Why's that, Father?' Michael asked, standing next to him. 'Why do you keep them?'
'Because you never know,' Father Bobby said, looking straight at Michael, 'when someone will want more than your word.'
'Has anyone questioned your word before today?'
'No,' Father Bobby said. 'No one ever has. But there's a first time for most things in this world.'
'Yes, Father,' Michael Sullivan said. 'I guess there is.'
Michael turned from Father Bobby and looked up at Judge Weisman.
'I have no further questions at this time,' Michael said. 'Witness is free to go.'
The spectators applauded as Father Robert Carillo, a Catholic priest from Hell's Kitchen, stepped down from the stand.
I put one foot on a rusty mooring, my hands in my pockets as I looked out at the Hudson River. The skies were overcast and the winter air felt heavy with impending snow. Carol had her back to me, staring past the iron legs of the West Side Highway toward the streets of Hell's Kitchen. It was early evening, six hours removed from Father Bobby's testimony.
I still hadn't recovered from seeing him take the stand and lie for us. He didn't just testify for John and Tommy, he testified against Wilkinson and the evil that had lived there for too long. Still, I was sorry he had to do it, to tell the lie that I know must have cost him dearly, just to help us get our ounce of revenge.
I was sorry any of us had to go through this trial. I wondered about Carol, and how these days would affect her. She was smart and attractive, and should have been spending her time meeting men who did more than simply combat the ghosts of their pasts. I prayed that the trial would free Michael of his demons and allow him to go on with his life. As for John and Tommy, I hoped the best for them, but feared only the worst.
It just seemed that no matter how hard we tried, no matter how many of them we got, we could never rid ourselves of the Wilkinson Home for Boys. My friends and I had to live with it. Now, Carol and Father Bobby had to live with it as well.
Carol turned toward me and, sensing my unease, leaned over and hugged me.
'That place is a part of me and a part of Father Bobby too,' Carol said. 'In different ways, maybe. But it's in our lives. And it's going to stay in our lives. No matter what we do now.'
'None of it helps make it even,' I said. 'We've got a long way to go till we get to even.'
'But you've got to admit,' Carol said, 'you're off to a helluva nice start.'
'I was real proud of him up there,' I said, wiping at tears I couldn't control.
'We were all proud of him,' Carol said. 'And Father Bobby did it not because we asked him to. But because it was the only thing he could do. He had no choice either, Shakes.'
'He looked like Cagney up there,' I said. 'Looked everybody square in the eye. Didn't back off for a second.'
'More like Bogart, you mean,' Carol said, smiling, putting an arm around my waist.
'I'll never understand how you could have grown up around here and still think Bogart's better than Cagney,' I said.
'I suppose you think the Three Stooges are better than the Marx Brothers, too.'
'Hands down, porcupine head.'
'And you probably like John Wayne westerns too,' she said.
'There's where you're wrong,' I said. 'I love John Wayne westerns.'
'You're hopeless.' And then Carol Martinez laughed out loud. It was the first time I'd heard real laughter in a very long time.
'We're all hopeless,' I said, walking with her alongside the dock, up toward Pier eighty-two, her arm under my elbow. 'That's why we're still together.'
'But I swear, if you tell me you still think Soupy Sales is funnier than Woody Allen, it's gonna be all over,' Carol said. 'I mean it.'
'Can Woody Allen do White fang? I asked her.
'Probably not,' she said.
'That's right,' I said. 'Nobody does what Soupy does, because nobody can.'
'No, Shakes,' Carol said. 'It's because nobody wants to.'
The sound of our laughter echoed off the empty steel piers and out into the rough waters of the Hudson.
At nine-ten a.m., on a rainy Thursday morning in January of 1980, Michael Sullivan stood in the well of a courtroom and addressed a jury for the last time in his career.
That morning, he had carefully chosen his dark grey suit, blue tie and black loafers. Two thin specks of dried blood clung to his right cheek, thanks to a close shave with an old razor. He had a Superman wrist watch on his left hand, an egg-shaped college graduation ring on his right and a cherry Life Saver in his mouth.
'Is counsel ready?' Judge Weisman asked.
'Yes, your Honor,' Michael said. 'I'm ready.'
'Please proceed,' Judge Weisman said.
Michael pushed his chair back and walked toward the jury box, twelve faces studying his every move. He put one hand in his pants pocket, caught the eye of the eldest member of the panel and smiled.
'You have to admit, it's been an interesting couple of weeks,' Michael began, his free hand rubbing the rail of the jury bench. 'And it sure beats deciding a civil court case.'
He waited with his head down for the scattered laughter to fade.
'But now, you have a decision to make. A very difficult decision. A decision whose weight will determine the fate of two young men.
'You've heard the arguments from both sides. My side tells you the defendants, John Reilly and Thomas Marcano, shot and killed the victim, Sean Nokes. The other side tells you they didn't. In fact, if you really want to know the truth, they weren't even there to kill him.'
'So, who to believe? That's what you must now decide.'
Michael moved slowly down the jury box, taking care to look at every member of the panel, looking beyond their faces, beyond their eyes.
'So how do you reach a decision? You start by going over what you know based on the evidence that was presented. You know that Sean Nokes was murdered on November 6, 1979 at eight twenty-five in the evening. You know he was shot to death while sitting in the back booth of the Shamrock Pub. And you know he was gunned down by two men in black jackets. But which two men? That's where things start getting a little fuzzy.'
Michael had both hands in his pockets now as he walked past the court stenographer, his head raised, his back to the jury. The spectators in the crowded courtroom were, with a handful of exceptions, all from Hell's Kitchen.
'You heard testimony that painted the two defendants as less than ideal citizens. Does that make them killers! Then you heard testimony that described Sean Nokes as a man with an ugly past. Does that make it less than a crime to kill him? You heard from an eyewitness who saw the two defendants walk out of the Shamrock Pub moments after shooting Sean Nokes dead. Then you heard from a priest who said the two defendants were with him at a Knicks game, eating hot dogs and drinking beer at the same time Sean Nokes was sitting up dead in a back booth. So, who do you believe? Who's lying? Who's telling the truth?'
Michael ambled past the defense table, inches away from John and Tommy, hands still in his pockets, his eyes back on the jury.
'It's not going to be easy for you to decide,' Michael said. 'It's not supposed to be. Decisions where people's lives are at stake should be hard. They should take time.
They should take a great deal of search and thought. You have to look at the facts, and then beyond them. You have to listen to the testimony, and then read through it. You have to weigh the witnesses and then go past their words and search out their motives. You have to go beyond the one victim and the two defendants. You must look to the lines that connect them.'
Michael stopped at his desk and sipped from a cup of cold coffee. He put the cup down, unbuttoned his jacket and moved back toward the jury box.
'With this case, I'm asking you to do what few juries are asked to do,' Michael said. 'I'm asking you to look at the facts and then look at the reasons for those facts. I'm asking you to find the truth in what you've heard, in what you've seen and in what you believe. It might be the only way for you to come up with a decision you can live with. A decision that will not cause you doubt. A decision that you will know is the right one.'
Michael had both hands spread across the jury rail, his body leaning against it, his eyes focused on the men and women before him.
'You have to make your decision based on the guilt of two men and the innocence of one, and you have to believe it. You have to go beyond a reasonable doubt; you have to go to where there is no doubt. You take everything you know to be true and then take all the time you need to move past the truth and past the doubt and come out with a decision we can all live with. A decision that many may question, but you know to be the right one. Because now, you are the only judges. In your hands will rest the evidence and the testimony. In your hands will rest the facts. In your hands will rest the fate of two men and the memory of a third. In your hands will rest the truth.
'I have confidence in those hands. I believe in those hands. And I believe those hands will find a verdict that will be filled with truth. And filled with justice. An honest truth and an honorable justice.'
Michael Sullivan then thanked a jury for the last time, walked back to his seat and put his legal pads into his black briefcase.
'Do you have anything to add, counselor?' Judge Weisman asked.
'No, your Honor,' Michael Sullivan said. 'There's nothing else. I've said it all.'
'Let me have a hot dog with mustard, sauerkraut and onions,' Michael told a chubby vendor in a leather flap cap, standing on the sidewalk outside the courthouse. 'And let me have a Coke, too.'
'No ketchup?' I asked.
'I'm on a diet,' he said without turning around.
It was a snowy, windy Monday afternoon and the jury had been in deliberation since the previous Thursday night. The courthouse rumor mill was working on overdrive, with most of the gossip predicting a verdict of guilty.
'You got a place to eat that?' I asked Michael, pointing to his hot dog.
'Behind you,' Michael said, lifting the bun toward a park bench over my shoulder.
'Okay if I join you?'
'What can they do?' Michael asked. 'Arrest us?'
'You did good in there, counselor,' I said to Michael, sitting on the bench, taking a bite out of a pretzel.
'How I did won't matter until they come back in and hand me a win,' Michael said.
'Will you settle for a loss?' I asked, smiling over at him.
'I can live with it,' Michael said, finishing his hot dog and snapping open his soda can.
'What happens to you now?' I asked. 'After this ends?'
'I walk away,' Michael said. 'Wait a few weeks and then hand in my notice. After the way I handled this case, there won't be a rush to keep me from the door.'
'You can switch to the other side,' I said. 'Work as a defense lawyer. More money in it, probably, and you'll never be short on clients. There are always going to be more bad guys than good. The work from John and Tommy's crew alone will get you a house with a pool.'
'Not for me,' Michael said. 'I've seen all the law I want to see. It's time for something else.'
'Like what?'
'I'll let you know when I know,' Michael said.
'You're too old to play for the Yankees,' I said. 'And you're too young to take up golf.'
'You're shooting holes all through my plans,' Michael said, smiling. 'I'm starting to panic.'
'You'll work things out,' I said, finishing the last of my soda. 'You always have.'
'It's time for quiet, Shakes,' Michael said, staring down at the ground. 'That I do know. Give things a rest. Find a spot where I can shut my eyes and not have to see the places I've been. Maybe I'll even get lucky and forget I was ever there.'
'It took pieces out of us, where we were,' I said. 'What we had to do to get out. Big pieces we didn't even know we had. Pieces we gotta learn to do without or find again. All that takes time. Lots of time.'
'I can wait,' Michael said.
'You always seemed to know how,' I said. 'The rest of us didn't have the patience.'
'I've got to get back in there,' Michael said, standing up and moving toward the courthouse building. 'The jury may be coming in.'
'Don't disappear on me, counselor,' I said, my eyes meeting his. 'I may need a good lawyer someday.'
'You can't afford a good lawyer,' Michael said. 'Not on your salary.'
'I may need a good friend,' I said.
'I'll find you when you do,' Michael said. 'Count on it.'
'I always have,' I said, watching Michael walk through the revolving doors of the courthouse to the elevators and up nine floors to face a jury's verdict.
The area outside Part forty-seven was crowded with the familiar faces of Hell's Kitchen. They stood against stained walls, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee, or sat on long wooden benches, reading the Daily News and Post. Others jammed the phone banks, calling in their bets and checking in on either an angry parole officer or an impatient loan shark.
They were waiting for the verdict.
Walking past them, I shook a few hands and nodded to a few faces before finding an empty spot in a corner near the black double doors.
After fifteen minutes, the doors swung open. A court officer, tall and muscular, his gun buckle hanging at an angle, held the knob in one hand, his body halfway in the hall.
'They're coming in,' he said in a listless voice. 'In about five minutes. You wanna hear, better come in now.'
I stood to the side and watched as the crowd slowly trooped in. Then I moved away, and walked over to a bench and sat down. I leaned over, my head in my hands, eyes closed, sweating, shaking, praying that we could finish this the way we planned. I went over everything we did and tried to think of things we should have done. The plan had only one flaw. Its success or failure hinged on the whims of twelve strangers.
'You're not going in?' Carol asked, standing above me.
'I don't want to go in alone,' I said, taking my hands from my face.
'You're not alone,' she said.
'I don't want to lose, either,' I said.
'You're not going to lose.'
'It sounds like you've got all the answers,' I said, standing up and taking her by the arm.
'Maybe I do,' Carol said. 'Maybe I do.'
'Has the jury reached its verdict?' Judge Weisman asked, sitting impassively behind his bench.
'We have, your Honor,' answered the jury foreman, a stocky, bald man in a plaid shirt.
The bailiff took the folded piece of paper from the foreman and walked it over to Judge Weisman. The Judge opened the paper and looked down, his face betraying nothing.
I looked past the wall of heads and shoulders surrounding me and glanced over at John and Tommy, sitting up close to their table, their hands bunched in fists. Danny O'Connor sat next to them, rubbing a hand against the back of his neck, beneath the frayed collar of his shirt. Across from them, Michael sat and stared at the empty witness box. He was taking deep breaths, his fingers twirling a felt tip pen over his knuckles.
Judge Weisman nodded to the foreman, who stood in front of his seat.
'On the count of murder in the second degree, how do you find the defendant, John Reilly?' Judge Weisman asked.
The foreman bit his lips and looked around the courtroom with nervous eyes.
'Not guilty,' the foreman said.
'On the count of murder in the second degree, how do you find the defendant, Thomas Marcano?'
'Not guilty,' the foreman said.
The courtroom erupted in a thunder of applause, screams, shouts and whistles, few hearing the Judge's call to order and dismissal of charges against the defendants.
I stood up and hugged Carol.
'You did it, Shakes,' she whispered in my ear.
'We did it,' I said, holding her tight. 'We all did it.'
I looked over and saw Michael pick up his briefcase, shake hands with Danny O'Connor and walk into the crowd, where he was swallowed up by the mass of bodies. I saw John and Tommy smiling and laughing, reaching out for as many hands as they could, cries of not guilty filling the air around us. I saw Judge Weisman walk down from his place behind the bench.
Flashbulbs popped.
A pair of women in the middle of the room began to cry hysterically.
Four young men in the back, heading out of the room, sang the words to 'Danny Boy'.
An old lady behind me stayed seated and fingered the beads of her rosary, her lips moving to a series of silent prayers.
The jury members filed out of the box, some with their heads bowed, a few waving to people in the crowd.
Danny O'Connor, all smiles and sweat, walked out of the courtroom to a chorus of men and women chanting his name.
John and Tommy stood by their places, arms in the air, basking in the glory of their moment.
Michael Sillivan was already in the elevator, heading down to the lobby, his mission completed, his career over.
I took Carol by the hand and led her out of the courtroom, the loud, happy sound of the crowd following us down the corridor.
It was the sound of justice.
Spring 1980
The long table and chairs ran nearly the length of the restaurant's back room, just off the main dining hall. Pitchers of beer and bottles of Dewar's and Johnny Walker Red dotted the cloth, along with candles flickering inside hurricane shells. Two large floral arrangements, resting in the middle of a pair of wicker baskets with half-moon handles, anchored the ends.
A full month had passed since the acquittal. In those few weeks, our lives had reverted back to what they had been prior to the murder of Sean Nokes.
Carol returned to her stack of social service files, helping troubled teens and single mothers fight a system that had neither time enough nor funds enough to care.
John and Tommy went back to the streets, running the West Side Boys, drinking heavily and once again breaking laws with abandon. No one had expected them to change. It was too late.
King Benny went back to his club and Fat Mancho returned to his bodega.
I was promoted from clerk to reporter trainee, covering the entertainment beat. It meant I got to go to the movies for free, just like I used to do when I was a kid. Except now I didn't have to sneak my way in.
Michael was the only one of us who had made any significant change in his life. As he had promised, he had resigned from his job, three weeks after working the losing end of a can't-miss case.
I was the first to arrive and chose a seat at the center of the table, my back to the wall. A young waiter in white shirt and black bow tie came into the room and asked if I wanted anything. I looked at the line of beer and whiskey and smiled.
'This is an Irish table,' I said. 'And I'm Italian.'
'What's missing?' the waiter asked.
'Wine.'
'Red or white?'
'Both,' I said.
The waiter bumped into John and Tommy on his way out of the room. I stood up and we stared at each other for a few minutes. Then they both came around the table and squeezed me in a long, silent hug.
'I don't even know how to fuckin' thank you,' Johnny said, holding me even tighter.
'I can't believe what you did,' Tommy said. 'And I can't believe you got away with it.'
'What do you mean?' I said. 'Don't tell me you really killed him?'
They both laughed, and loosening their hold, pulled back chairs on both sides of me.
'Besides, I had nothin' to do with it,' I said, sitting down as well. 'It was all Mikey. It was his plan.'
'I gotta tell you,' John said, pouring himself a glass of beer, when I first heard he took the case I was gonna have him burned.'
'What stopped you?'
'He was a friend,' John said. 'And if you're gonna go away on a murder rap, who better to send you?'
'Then, the way he was handlin' his end of the case, I thought he just sucked as a lawyer,' Tommy said. 'I started feelin' sorry for the bastard.'
'Never feel sorry for a lawyer,' Michael said, standing in front of us, a wide smile on his face.
'Get over here, counselor,' John said, grabbing Michael's arm and dragging him around the table.
Tommy rushed in from the other side and squeezed me against them as they hugged. We were nothing more than a small circle of arms and crunched faces.
'You're the real Count!' John shouted. 'Alive and well and working in downtown New York City!'
'Not after this week,' Michael said. 'This Count's on the dole now.'
'What'd you do with all that buried treasure?' Tommy asked. 'Gamble it away?'
'How do you think we paid off King Benny?' Michael said.
Carol stood in the entryway, her arms folded, laughing and shaking her head.
'What is this?' she asked. 'A gay bar?'
We turned when we heard her voice. Her hair was freshly cut and styled, and she wore a short, tight black dress, a black purse hanging off her shoulder on a long strap.
'It was,' John said. 'Till you walked in.'
'You want us to hug you too?' Tommy asked.
'How about just a hello,' Carol said.
'How about a kiss to go with the hello?' John asked.
'Deal,' Carol said, coming around to our end.
'Hurry up,' I said. 'Before the waiter comes in.'
'Yeah,' Tommy said. 'Then we're gonna have to kiss him too.'
'I saw him on my way in,' Carol said. 'He's cute. I'd throw him a kiss.'
'That's funny,' John said. 'That's what Shakes said.'
We sat around the table, ordered our dinners, poured our drinks and talked until night turned to morning.
We talked about everything we could think of, five friends with so many shared moments, afraid to let our time together come to an end. We talked about everything but the trial. And the months we had sworn never to resurrect with speech.
Carol let loose her frustration with city bureaucracy and the battles she lost each day.
John and Tommy talked about their lives of crime. They knew it was a fast lane that could only end with a bullet or iron bars. But it was the only way they knew to feel control, to push away the demons that gnawed at them during their rare sober moments.
Michael was at peace with his decision and curious about where it would take him. He had saved enough money to live for a year without working and had already invested in a one-way ticket on a plane leaving for London the following weekend. He had made no plans beyond that.
I half joked that my career choices were narrowed down to two. I was either going to be a reporter or an usher at one of the theaters whose running times I knew so well.
Eventually, the beer, wine and liquor took hold and we switched gears, laughing over simpler times, in the years before Wilkinson starved us of laughter. Over and over we recalled our many pranks, relishing the freedom and foolishness a Hell's Kitchen childhood allowed.
'You guys remember when you formed that stupid singing group?' Carol asked, pouring water into a glass.
'The Four Gladiators,' Michael said, smiling. 'Best quartet to ever hold a Hell's Kitchen corner.'
'Remember what Shakes wanted to call the group?' Johnny said, lighting a cigarette.
'The Count and His Cristos,' Tommy said. 'Man, that woulda sent albums flyin' outta the stores.'
'We weren't that bad,' I said. 'Some people wanted to hear us sing.'
'That group from the deaf school don't count,' John said.
'Why not?' I said. 'They applauded.'
'You guys were awful,' Carol said, laughing. 'Kids cried when they heard you sing.'
'They were sad songs,' I said.
'Fat Mancho was gonna be our manager,' Tommy said. 'And King Benny was gonna be the bankroll. You know, get us suits and travel money, shit like that.'
'What happened to that plan?' Carol asked.
'They heard us sing,' I said.
'Fat Mancho said he'd eat flesh before he put his name next to ours,' John said.
'What'd King Benny say?' Carol asked.
'He didn't say anything,' I said. 'He walked back into his club and closed the door.'
'We stole from everybody we liked,' Tommy said, finishing a mug of beer.
'So what's changed?' Carol asked, watching me pour her a fresh glass of wine.
'We had enough cuts to make an album,' I said. 'We ripped off Frankie Valli, Dion, Bobby Darin.'
'The cream,' Carol said.
'Only with us it was sour cream,' Tommy said.
'Let's do a song from our album,' Michael said, leaning across the table, smiling. 'For Carol.'
'Don't you guys have to go out and shoot somebody?' Carol said, hiding her face in her hands.
'We always got time for a song,' John said, standing and leaning against the wall.
'You pick it, Mikey,' Tommy said, standing next to Johnny. 'Nothin' too slow. We wanna keep Carol on her toes.'
'Let's do "Walk Like a Man",' Michael said. 'Shakes does a good Valli on that one.'
'Back us up,' I said to Carol, handing her two soup spoons. 'Hit these against some glasses when I point.'
'Not too loud,' Carol said, looking through the doorway behind her. 'Some people might be eating.'
'We sing better in men's rooms,' Tommy said. 'The walls there hold the sound.'
'There's one downstairs,' Carol said. 'I'll wait here.'
'This is like The Beatles getting together again,' I said.
Carol just snorted.
The four of us huddled in a corner of the room, me in front. Michael, Tommy and John each kept one hand on my shoulder, snapping their fingers to an imaginary beat.
Carol sat back in her chair, looked at the four of us, and smiled.
She clapped her hands as we started to sing.
' Walk like a man, fast as you can, walk like a man my son? We began in our best Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons voices. 'Go tell the world, forget about the girl and walk like a man, my son.'
Then we all cupped a hand to an ear, fingers still snapping, and hit all the right acapella notes.
Carol stood on her chair and slapped the spoons against the side of her leg, mixing in with the beat.
Three waiters stood in the doorway and joined in.
Two diners standing behind them whistled their approval.
The bartender drummed his hands against the counter and handed out free drinks to all.
An elderly couple, in for a late-night espresso, wrapped their arms around each other and danced.
It was our special night and we held it for as long as we could. It was something that belonged to us. A night that would be added to our long list of memories.
It was our happy ending.
And it was the last time we would ever be together again.
Early on the morning of March 16, 1984, John Reilly's bloated body was found face up in the hallway of a tenement on West 46th Street. His right hand held the neck of the bottle of lethal boiler room gin that killed him. He had six dollars in the front pocket of his black leather coat and a ten-dollar bill in the flap of his hunter's shirt. A.44 caliber bulldog nestled at the base of his spine and a stiletto switchblade was jammed inside his jeans.
At the time of his death, he was a suspect in five unsolved homicides.
He was two weeks past his thirty-second birthday.
Thomas 'Butter' Marcano died on July 26, 1985. His body was found in an empty cabin in upstate New York, five bullets shot into his head at close range. The body lay undiscovered for more than a week, the heat of summer and the gnashing of animals rushing its decay. There was little in the cabin beyond a dozen empty beer cans, two bottles of Dewar's and three fully loaded semi-automatics. There was a crucifix and a picture of St. Jude in the pocket of Butter's crewneck shirt. Thomas Marcano was thirty-three years old.
Michael Sullivan lives in a small town in the English countryside, where he works part-time as a carpenter. On his infrequent visits to New York he has never returned to Hell's Kitchen. He no longer practices law and has never married. He lives quietly and alone. He is forty-four years old.
Carol Martinez still works for a social service agency and still lives in Hell's Kitchen. She too has never married, but is a single mother supporting a growing twelve-year-old son. The boy, John Thomas Michael Martinez, loves to read and is called Shakes by his mother.
Neighbors all say he has his mother's smile and her dark olive eyes.
The rest of his features come from his rather, John Reilly.
Carol Martinez is forty-three years old
.
Father Robert Carillo is the Monsignor of an upstate New York parish where he still plays basketball every day. He keeps in touch with all his boys and is always there when needed.
He prays every day for the boys he lost.
Father Bobby is sixty years old.
King Benny lives in a home for the elderly in Westchester County, miles from his Hell's Kitchen kingdom. He still drinks strong coffee, hiding his stash from the duty nurses charged to his care. He still hates to talk and suffers from Italian Alzheimer's. 'I forget everything these days,' he says. 'Everything except my enemies.' King Benny is seventy-eight years old.
Fat Mancho suffered a mild stroke in the middle of August, 1992. It left his right hand numb and blinded him in his right eye. He passed the bodega on to a nephew, but still takes half the profits. He divides his time between his three Hell's Kitchen apartments and a new house in Queens.
He still bets on stickball games.
Fat Mancho is seventy-two years old.
Sean Nokes was shot to death in a back booth in the Shamrock Pub on November 6,1979. His killers have yet to be apprehended.
Sean Nokes was thirty-seven years old at the time of his death.
Adam Styler was fired from the New York Police Department on February 22, 1982, brought up on corruption and murder charges. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a twelve-year prison term as part of a plea-bargain agreement. He served eight of those years in a maximum security prison. He was transfered to a minimum security facility only after a fourth attempt on his life left him paralyzed from the waist down. He was paroled in the spring of 1991 and now lives in a New Jersey suburb in a home for the disabled. Adam Styler is fifty years old.
Henry Addison resigned from his job as community outreach director working for the Mayor of the City of New York in the spring of 1981. He found work in a downtown investment banking firm. After six months of impressive earnings, he was in line for a promotion. On New Year's Day, 1982, his body was found in a marsh off a LaGuardia Airport runway. Autopsy reports indicated he was beaten and tortured to death.
His killer or killers have never been found.
Henry Addison was thirty-six years old.
Ralph Ferguson's wife filed for divorce soon after he testified at John and Tommy's trial, gaining custody of their only child. He quit his job and fled the state, fearful of being brought up on multiple charges of child endangerment and rape. He eventually settled in California and, under another name, opened a hardware business. A second marriage ended when his wife was informed of her husband's true identity and hidden past. The business closed after a fire gutted it in 1989. He now works as a shoe salesman in the San Francisco area. He lives alone, is heavily in debt and has trouble sleeping at night.
He was the man brought to me by King Benny in 1993 to beg my forgiveness. I lived for nearly a year afraid of his every move. He will live the rest of his days equally afraid of mine.
Ralph Ferguson is forty-nine years old.
In the fall of 1982, a board of inquiry impaneled by the New York State Department of Juvenile Justice looked into allegations of abuse at the Wilkinson Home for Boys. They were confronted by a list of forty-seven witnesses, including the parents of three boys who died under the care of the institution and a dozen guards who were witness to a variety of assaults. In a report condemning all past and present directors of the Wilkinson Home for Boys, the board of inquiry called for a complete and total overhaul of the system and method of operations at the juvenile facility. A new warden was appointed and video cameras were installed on every block. Inmate privileges were extended and the hole was eliminated. Even the cells were freshly painted.
Edward Goldenberg 'Little Caesar' Robinson is serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison in upstate New York, convicted on charges of drug trafficking and murder in 1990. He will be eligible for parole in twenty-one years. He was never questioned in the murder of Henry Addison.
Edward Goldenberg 'Little Caesar' Robinson is fifty-one years old.
Gregory 'Marlboro' Wilson retired on a full pension and lives on a Pennsylvania farm. He spends his days reading books, writing letters to his children and playing cards with friends. Every Christmas he gets two cartons of Marlboro cigarettes from a Sleeper who remembers. Gregory 'Marlboro' Wilson is sixty-three years old.
I am now forty years old, with a wife and two children. I love my wife and adore my son and daughter. My family has helped me escape from many of the pains of my past. But the haunting memories of childhood are always close at hand. My body is older than its years and my mind is filled more with horror than with the pleasures of life. The dreams I have are still vivid, the nightmares painful, the fears steady. The nighttime hours always carry a sense of dread.
I sometimes feel that the lucky Sleepers are the ones who died.
They no longer have to live with the memories.
They are free of the dreams.