“Benzidine,” I said.
“Nah, I got a better idea.”
“Honey says we can’t go near Lloyd.”
“She don’t mean we can’t process him, paisan. Besides, she don’t know everything about the law. Hey, remember how the three of us used to go up to the Phillies games with passes from the Philly cops?”
“Shy, you, and me. I’ll never forget those days. How about Shy coming up with tickets for that final series game in Pittsburgh? Hal Smith and Mazeroski. That was my last World Series, Rock. I don’t even know who won last year.”
“The Reds. They beat the Red Sox. What a series. Bernie Carbo and Carlton Fisk. Like Smith and Mazeroski, only the Red Sox lost. Did I ever tell you I pitched against Carl Furillo? It was a charity game in Reading for the milk fund.”
“No, Rocco, I don’t believe you ever did.” I grinned and got out of the captain’s chair.
We headed out for the walk down to the lockup. In the hallway near my old locker, he put a big arm around my shoulder. “You know,” he said, “the thing I missed most about you being in Brazil is talkin’ baseball. No one wants to hear my baseball stories.”
“Maybe I did hear about the time you pitched to Furillo. Did he ground to short? Wasn’t there a movie on that with Tab Hunter playing you? Or am I thinking of the time you walked Billy Cox in Montreal and then you struck out Preacher Roe, Bobby Morgan, and Wayne Belardi? I know they made a movie out of that one.”
“Hey. What?” he said and squeezed me, and we both laughed on the way to the basement.
When we got to the small, brightly lit processing area next to the dimly lit disinfected cells where I had put Lloyd, DiGiacomo suddenly banged his fist hard on the wooden countertop, and all talking in the cells stopped abruptly. A pale-skinned, thin young uniformed patrolman with buck teeth responded on the short flight of stairs behind the counter linking lockup to the radio room.
“Who are you?” asked DiGiacomo belligerently.
“Patterson,” said the cop.
“Where’s Scagle?” DiGiacomo boomed.
“He knocked off sick a half hour ago.”
“Look, kid, I want one of your prisoners, Harrison Lloyd.”
“What for?”
“Never mind what for. Because I’m a sergeant.” DiGiacomo sounded like ten sergeants.
“Oh yeah, well, you know the rules. I can’t give him to you.”
“Kid, you’re screwing up the Shy Whitney homicide investigation. I hope that means somethin’ to you. This Lloyd here knows where the .22-caliber rifle is that killed a cop. There are no rules for cop killers. Harrison Lloyd’s coming with me.” DiGiacomo punched the countertop again and sweat flew from his hair. Patterson didn’t look impressed.
Then a door buzzer sounded, and Patterson scurried down the rest of the steps, reached under the counter, and pressed a button that released the lock on the entrance to lockup from the outside courtyard.
Two uniformed black patrolmen escorted a thickset white male in his forties wearing cuff’s on his wrists, a brown plaid suit, and a green-and-brown-striped tie hanging loosely from around his white button-down collar. He had thick, greasy black hair and bushy eyebrows and wore black horn-rimmed glasses with heavy lenses. His skin was very oily from perspiration.
“A flasher,” said the tallest of the uniformed officers. “He’s the stud we’ve been getting reports on in the hotel parking lot. We nailed him with his pecker in his hand in plain view, sitting in a blue Seville, and this mask was on his face.”
The officer put a blue bandanna and a small jar of Vicks on the countertop.
“What’s the Vicks for?” asked Patterson.
“Ask him. He had it all over his pecker. It must be good for his sinuses.”
“Right on,” said Patterson, looking at the prisoner. “You can catch a bad cold with your dick hanging out. Is ’at why you need the Vicks? One of the tools of your trade? Hah, hah, hah, hah. One of the tools of your trade to put Vicks on your tool. Hah, hah, hah, hah.”
“I know my rights,” the prisoner said.
“That he does,” said the tall officer. “This man’s a counselor-at-law. We’ve got us the flashing lawyer. I’m serious, man. This guy’s in the DuPont Company legal department. He’s really a lawyer.”
“I’m terribly sorry,” said Patterson, coming around from behind the counter. “I’d like to give a man of your status your own room, but we’re booked solid tonight. You should have called for a reservation. That’s always how it works in the summer season. One night you can’t fill a cell, the next night you’re booked solid.”
“Fuck the lockup humor, Patterson. You can let him have Lloyd’s cell,” said DiGiacomo gruffly. “He’s coming out with me right now. He’s gonna show me where he hid the rifle that killed a police officer. It’s as simple as that.”
“Look, Sergeant, I don’t want no problems. You ask my captain’s permission and I’ll let you have him,” said Patterson. “Meanwhile, I’ll just stick this lawyer in here with Lloyd in the first cell. You don’t mind spending the night with a cop killer that smells like he’s been hiding in a sewer, do you?” The tall uniformed officer unlocked the lawyer’s cuffs, and Patterson grabbed him by the arm and unlocked Lloyd’s cell. The lawyer was given a little shove by Patterson and disappeared through the cell doorway into the cell where we couldn’t see him but could hear him mutter, “Motherfucking pig.” Patterson locked the cell, went back behind the counter and up the steps to the radio room. The two uniformed officers left the way they came in.
DiGiacomo and I were alone. Rocco put his finger to his lips and tiptoed over to the side wall of Lloyd’s cell. I followed his lead, and we stood where we could hear the lawyer muttering about the cuffs having hurt his wrists.
“You really a lawyer?” asked Lloyd in a soft tone of voice.
“What are you?” asked the lawyer loudly. “The FBI?” He sounded big-city.
“Shh, man,” said Lloyd. “Listen, lawyer, you gotta be my witness if they take me outta here.”
“What do you mean take you out of here? The only way anybody can take you out of here is if you make bail or they have a writ of habeas corpus. They can move you to another cell, but nobody, I repeat, nobody can take you out of this building. Not as long as I’m here. The only thing is, I’m not going to be here very long.”
“Oh, yea-yah.”
“Oh, yeah. I’ve been arrested before on this charge. It’s a sickness not a crime. I’m a sick man, and when my father learns I’m here he’ll make two phone calls, at the most, and they’ll destroy every record of this arrest and I will go home. It’s a piece of cake. Daddy dear doesn’t approve of my sickness, but then again he doesn’t want any publicity, and he’s a big enough man that everybody in this town does what he wants.”
I wrinkled my face as if something smelled and looked at Rocco. He put his finger to his lips again and motioned with a tilt of his head for us to keep listening.
“Yea-yah,” said Lloyd, “and me I’m sitting here facin’ murder and you’re walkin’. Ain’t that the motherfuckin’ way it is? What are you, a DuPont?”
“Never mind my name,” said the lawyer.
“You gotta help me they try and take me outta here.”
“Sure, kid. I’ll help you. I hate these fucking bourgeois pigs. They treat a man like a jungle animal.”
“Dig it. I help you and don’t never say nothin’ to nobody ’bout your thing, you know, and you help me. Like you find me a real lawyer, right. Listen, dig, I help you keep the publicity down, and you pay for my lawyer so I don’t have to use no public defender.”
“Listen, kid.” There was a rapid tapping noise coming from the cell.
“What you tappin’ for?” asked Lloyd.
“If they have this room bugged, it keeps anybody from making out our words,” said the lawyer
as he continued the hard rapid tapping. “Listen, kid, it sounds to me as if your biggest dilemma is that rifle the obese fucking pig was talking about. I hope you destroyed it.” Tap, tap, tap…
Silence from Lloyd, but the tapping went on.
“Oh, kid, you’re not too smart, are you? Did you finish high school?” Tap, tap, tap…
“Quit the jive, man. And I ain’t your kid. If I was gonna be somebody’s kid, I’d be your poppa’s kid.”
“That’s not all it’s cracked up to be, young fellow. But I like you. I’ll help you. Is this rifle located anyplace where the pigs can find it?” Tap, tap, tap…
Silence.
“Whisper in my ear” — tap, tap — “where the thing is, and I will arrange to have it destroyed. Don’t worry. I’m an attorney, and right now you are my client. I am trying to protect you, and nobody had better try to stop me.”
There was a brief unbearable silence, then talking resumed for two to three minutes, but no distinct words could be made out of the whispers and the tapping, no matter how hard I tried to listen.
Abruptly the tapping stopped.
“Don’t worry, kid, I will take care of you.”
Rocco tiptoed back to the counter and I followed. Patterson reappeared from the radio room.
“Okay, lawyer,” said Patterson, “you must be a real big shot. My captain said to send you home.”
Patterson ambled to the cell, unlocked it, and the lawyer came out and went up the steps with Patterson.
DiGiacomo and I followed them up the same steps. When we got to the top and into the radio room, DiGiacomo shut the glass door behind us.
The lawyer took off his thick glasses, squinted his eyes a few times, and said, “These fucking lenses are killing me, you obese bourgeois enemy of the people.” He turned from DiGiacomo and pointed at me and asked, “Who’s he?”
“Don’t worry about his fancy spic clothes. He’s my partner,” said DiGiacomo. “He’s a stand-up guy.”
“All right, he says the rifle is at his ‘ahnt’s’ house at twenty-three-oh-one Connell, third house from the hairdresser. Name’s ‘Ahnt’ Esther Vesper. Esther doesn’t know it’s there. It’s broken down in two parts. The barrel’s tied to a bed slat with a nylon stocking, and the butt’s behind the refrigerator. When are you releasing my men from the other cells?”
“It’s gotta be gradual over the next half hour,” said DiGiacomo. “We’ll have the four of youse back home in bed in two hours tops. If we can do anything for you guys in Philly, ever, call me. Day or night. This one means a lot to us down here. Shy Whitney was somethin’ to us.”
“Anytime, Rock. Nice meeting you,” he said to me and sat down in a wooden chair and tilted his head back and closed his eyes.
“I don’t want you to think we do these tricks and traps all the time,” said DiGiacomo to me on our way back up to dicks. “Only when it counts.”
21
Daybreak. It was a-coming as I walked down the steps of the gray Public Building, the color of daybreak itself. The air brightened when I stepped onto the morning-wet green grass of Rodney Square on the way to the Hotel DuPont. The faint early rays of an unseen sun bothered my eyes.
Before I’d left, Landis and Augrine had reported back. The murdered dog’s remains and whatever other evidence they’d held had been cremated and melted two weeks ago by the SPCA.
I had told DiGiacomo that I wasn’t going with them to the Lloyds’ to question the parents and brothers on the whereabouts of the .22-caliber rifle. He was disappointed. He wanted me in on the hunt, but as far as I was concerned the hunt was over. Of course, I didn’t say that.
Honey was right. Time had passed me by. To me, there could be no thrill, no pride, in cruising all over Wilmington to “look” for a murder weapon in a dozen different places when I knew all along where it was, just so I could “prove” my lie if I ever had to deny with a straight face that I knew it was at Aunt Esther’s. And just so I could gaily laugh and say that Lloyd was having hallucinations if he ever told his public defender about a phony perverted lawyer with a jar of Vicks who tricked him into telling where the rifle was. In case the story ever surfaced, and it never would. It would be Lloyd’s parents themselves who would unintentionally “give” DiGiacomo the “clue” where the rifle might be. The Lloyds would be coddled and questioned and manipulated into giving possible locations of the rifle, and all the vacant leads would be followed until, lo and behold, the rifle would be found. Surely Aunt Esther’s name would come up and surely she’d give consent to search her house. A lie with an ending in the beginning, and truth that could never be told. Puke. It’s the kind of thing that gives an investigator a nervous twitch. They didn’t need me. I’d have handled it in a maneira mais simple e rapida to a bossa nova beat. I’d have gone straight to Aunt Esther’s.
I had a little more than two hours to kill before I was due back in Youth Diversion and so went straight to my hotel room and Honey. Who could blame me?
22
Half of a fresh Puerto Rican pineapple scooped out in the center and stuffed with fresh strawberries, honeydew, cantaloupe balls, apple chunks, blueberries, walnuts and honey, and fresh pineapple pieces shouted at me when I opened my hotel room door. A large glass of freshly squeezed orange juice with the pulp risen to the top stood at attention next to the pineapple on the room-service tray resting on one of the beds. Honey slept under the covers of the other, with the air-conditioning on full blast. Her red hair looked perfect against the white pillow.
She had eaten her own tray of fruit, which was on the floor, and drunk her juice and now looked as cozy and contented as a sleeping three-year-old.
I quietly lifted my tray from my bed and went into the bathroom, shut the door, put the tray on the makeup vanity, and began to eat standing up, starting with the blueberries and working my way through each fruit. It was the first free and unblemished pleasure I had experienced by myself since being back. In Korea there was nothing I liked better than opening a can of peaches. I doubted that “fruit of the poisonous tree” tasted this good. When I finished the last drop of orange juice, I went out and got the phone, brought it into the bathroom, and asked the desk clerk to wake me at 7:30. I stripped to my boxer shorts and opened the door.
Honey had switched to my bed. She turned her head and smiled a closed-lips smile.
“Let’s just cuddle,” she said. “I’m beat. Don’t wake me in the morning.”
I smiled and climbed in beside her.
“Is it solved?” she asked sleepily.
“I think they’re about to recover the murder weapon,” I said and fell asleep as the warmth of her body made me feel cozy, too.
23
The first phone ring sounded like an air raid drill at Wilmington High. I leaped to silence it, and my momentum carried me stumbling into the bathroom, where I’d left the phone. I found myself on my bare feet, standing on the cold white tile. The phone receiver and its long extension cord were dangling from my hand. I literally forced my eyes open by moving the muscles in my forehead up and down. I looked at Honey through the bathroom doorway. She was still asleep, the bird. The clock on the nightstand said 7:15.
I lifted the receiver to my face and I heard Marian’s voice: “Lou, Lou. Don’t hang up.”
“Yeah, Marian.” I kicked the door partially shut with my toe and sat on the toilet.
“Am I calling too early? You were always an early riser. I’m dreadfully sorry about last night. I really am. You’re a sensitive paradox to Sarah. She wants to know you, but she’s afraid to know you. Perhaps I built you up too much for her.”
“Marian.” I was trying to get awake. “What are you talking about?”
“Sarah. I’m talking about Sarah and you. I created an image of you for her. I told her how wonderful a detective you were, that sort of thing. Frankly, I sculpted a masculine image for her out of the clay o
f our existence.”
“Maybe it’s me, Marian, but I’ve been getting the feeling that you’re on the verge of telling me something. Are you trying to tell me something about Carlton?”
“No. I’m not trying to tell you anything about Carlton, per se. It’s not that. Certainly Carlton is an eccentric person, and I suppose that adds to the overall picture, the gestalt, if you will. Carlton can be loving and masculine to Sarah one minute, a total father, and then without warning or reason he can become a withdrawn, suspicious stranger the next, and he has such strange beliefs. She reacts to his moods by trying to please him, the way I used to. It’s not the best situation for her.”
“I guess it is hard on…” I didn’t know whether to say Sally or Sarah, and I didn’t know what I was doing sitting in the bathroom talking about her husband to Marian. I decided not to totally waste my time. I slipped my shorts down to my ankles and sat down on the john.
“I made such a thing out of providing her with a good name, a father, and a secure life. It’s strange. What was once important to me is not so important now. Wilmington was the only world I knew in 1961, Lou. I hope we get a chance to talk…before you leave.”
“In a small town like this it’s important to have a good name. Razzi was not much more than blue-collar so-so even in the best of times.”
“Lou, I’m trying my best to make all this work, but I keep bumping into your bitterness. I didn’t call to quarrel with you. We’ve all read the article, and we want you very much to come to dinner tonight. We want you to bring your lady friend if you would like. Sarah was positively exhilarated by the article. She read it before catching the school bus. And Carlton thinks you’d make a terrific character in a novel he’s been writing for a number of years.”
“What article?”
“Don’t tell me you haven’t seen it. Lou, you are a hero. The front page says: FRAMED COP SOLVES ASSAULT ON CHILD. Can’t you see now what I’ve been saying about Sarah? One day back and you’re already the hero I told her you were.”
The Right to Remain Silent Page 13
