Godchild

by Vincent Zandri

  The bald-headed Judge Howe called out for the police, just as Tony buried the knife a good two inches into the table. Tony then referred to the judge as a “No-good, head-up-your-ass, woman-hating son of a bitch,” for which the entire courtroom, including the twelve-member jury (two-thirds of them women), exploded in applause.

  In my humble estimation it took only twenty seconds flat for the armed security to pounce on Angelino, cuff him, and drag him out of court to an awaiting mob van for an all-expenses-paid visit to the Albany County lockup.

  It had been one hell of an introduction.

  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

  Actually, it all goes back to one Friday night in September of 1984 when I was still the Acting Deputy Superintendent for Security at Coxsackie Correctional Facility in Greene County, during which one of my corrections officers—a very attractive young woman by the name of Donna Payton—was raped and killed while working the four-to-midnight action shift. Around six that evening, not long after chow, a disturbance had been reported coming from the vicinity of the prison chapel. Against the better judgment of her shift commander, Donna volunteered to check it out.

  But what should have turned into a routine check turned into something else entirely. Lenny Jones, the Schenectady-born-and-raised serial killer whom I’d placed in charge of chapel maintenance at the direct request of the prison padre (thinking perhaps that he and Jesus could somehow rehabilitate the cold-blooded killer), lay in wait for Payton.

  The night when she entered the chapel, nightstick in hand, Lenny closed the wood door behind her and barricaded it with a church pew. He cornered her, beat and raped her with her own baton. Because the religious worship areas were all located on the opposite end of the prison, her screams and cries for help could not be heard. Not that old Lenny ever attempted to muffle them.

  Screams and cries made up just a part of his MO, made up just a small portion of what got him off on the killing experience. That and literally biting off her nipples while she lay on the altar beneath a wooden statue of the crucified Christ, bleeding hopelessly, inside and out.

  So it was during that Murder One trial that I was finally able to get a glimpse of what would one day come to be known as the, and I quote, “Tony Angelino Experience.”

  Through all of the morning and most of the afternoon I watched Tony in action from up in the marble balcony of the State Supreme Court. I watched him meticulously lay out the facts of the Lenny Jones/Donna Payton case for the jury, not just with the spoken word but with the use of story-boards tacked to four separate bulletin boards. To add some real emotional weight to the case, he then proceeded to pass around graphic photos of the dead corrections officer, causing one jury member (a twenty-something white man) to become physically sick. And at another point in the trial, when his oration in defense of Payton’s heroics (heroics that “defied all boundaries of gender”) caused another jury member (an elderly black woman dressed entirely in white) to burst out in tears, I became convinced that Tony had the talent to fool Jesus Christ Himself.

  What he did not have, I would later discover, was the talent to change the mind of a bigoted and biased old judge who took perverse pleasure in handing out thirty-day jail sentences for contempt of court to lawyers who would never see things his way. Regardless of who was in the right, who was raped, who was murdered by a convict already serving out a life sentence for Murder One.

  As for the upshot of the trial?

  Tony did do his thirty days in the county lockup as decreed, while the jury handed Jones yet another life sentence in Coxsackie Prison’s general populace. The new sentence didn’t deter him from killing two more young inmates, both transvestites hooked on smuggled hormones and synthetic heroin.

  But as you might have already guessed, no amount of bigoted old judges or bleeding-heart prison padres or repealed death-penalty laws or even Jesus Christ Himself could save Jones from dying—dare I say it—by the sword. For on the late afternoon of December 24, 1989, almost five years to the day after the brutal murder of Donna Payton, Lenny found himself cornered inside that same prison chapel by a couple of inmates who harbored no grudge against him in particular.

  In the end, the strangulation and mutilation of Lenny Jones had been nothing personal. Call it another day’s work for the two killers, both of whom were already serving out life sentences. In other words, they had nothing to lose on an outside they’d never see again. But then, they had everything to gain inside a concrete and razor-wire world that placed a certain value on men who had the balls to take out an infamous serial killer.

  But here’s the real sweet spot of the story:

  It couldn’t have been more than an hour after Lenny Jones’s murder that Fran and I were attending a party at Tony’s condo. Naturally I assumed the purpose of the party was to celebrate the final Christmas of the 1980s, but later on I learned through a very trustworthy source that the party had been intended to celebrate the “very sudden and very unfortunate death” of Jones.

  And just to prove it, he began passing out little mass cards with a portrait of the Virgin Mary on the front and a Hail Mary printed on the back along with the name Leonard L. Jones and his—get this—birth and death dates printed below that. The cards were beautiful, with little gold lacing embroidered around the edges and embossed printing. A timely and expensive job, at least according to Fran. A job that would take a week or more to produce.

  So when Fran asked about how in the world Tony would know that Mr. Jones was going to die that very afternoon, my confidential source simply raised his hands in the air, stuck out his bottom lip, and went back to the bar to freshen his drink. And when Fran turned to me, looked me in the eye, and said, “Oh my sweet Jesus, he had him killed,” I quickly pulled the drink out of her hand and dragged her onto the dance floor under a piece of mistletoe that hung on a string from the cathedral ceiling. I kissed her until embarrassment alone caused her to forget—at least for the time being— about the death of Lenny Jones and the legal counsel who arranged it.

  Now, ten years later, you could say that Tony had calmed down a lot. But as a lawyer he was still arranging deaths. In this case, the death of me and Val.

  We were sitting inside his Porsche Carrera, parked on the Port of Albany. To our right, the rusted hull of a massive cargo ship was being loaded with wood pallets that contained four fifty-gallon drums apiece. The stenciling on the black drums spelled out MOLASSES in bold white letters.

  Not ten feet from the car, a telephone pole was embedded in the macadam-covered dock. The pole was leaning drastically to the right, as though all it would take was a stiff gust of wind to send it into the river. Stapled to the pole was an artist’s rendering of the Bald Man, and the ten-thousand-dollar reward leading to any verifiable information as to his whereabouts. It was still there after two years, a faded reminder of my failure.

  Tony asked for the envelope he had given me earlier.

  From the passenger seat I watched the powerful movements of the enormous booms and cranes that lifted the pallets off the dock. The booms swung like giant arms, hauling the cargo up to the ship’s deck, then loading it down inside a hull I had no way of seeing from where I was sitting.

  “The envelope, please,” he said.

  Without looking at him I reached inside my blazer, slid the envelope out from the interior pocket. Not ten feet before us, the Hudson ran fast and wide and very dark. Seagulls flew circular patterns around the cargo ship. You could feel the Carrera bucking in the wind. The gusts caused the pallets of molasses to sway like pendulums as they rose up off the docks.

  Tony snatched the envelope out of my hands. “I’ll do it for you,” he said.

  He tipped back the brim of his navy blue fedora and slipped his thumb inside the flap, ran it down the length of the envelope, tearing it neatly open.

  “I’ll get straight to the point,” he said, holding the contents of the envelope in his hand. “Last night Val obtained a court order preventing you from hav
ing any contact with her whatsoever. With her and her son, Ben. This is your copy of the order.”

  “Are you issuing me an affidavit, counselor?” I said, staring at a family of black ducks floating on the surface of the water, bobbing up and down in the wake.

  “Yes,” he said, softly.

  I took the document in my hand, unfolded it, stared down at it. The very top of the paper had been dated for the day before and stamped with the number 813.12 in the left-hand corner. In the top center appeared the words Family Restraining Order and Injunction. A few spaces below that could be found Definitions.

  I read the first paragraph.

  In this section of the document, domestic mistreatment means any of the following engaged by an adult family member or adult household member against another adult family member or adult household member against his or her former spouse or, as in the case of cohabitation, common-law spouse, or by an adult against an adult with whom the person has a child in common, biological or guardian. Intentional and/or possible infliction of physical pain, physical injury or illness…

  I was tired of reading. The words meant nothing to me anyway. I folded the document up, stuffed it back inside the envelope, and back inside my jacket pocket.

  “They just don’t pass out restraining orders at will.”

  “You’re no stranger to the process,” Tony said. “Restraining actions can be easily filed even without the help of an attorney. County clerks have the forms on hand. From there you hand in the completed form along with a certified check for one hundred eighty bucks. Within a few hours, you’re in business.”

  I focused on the Bald Man’s face, flopping in the breeze coming off the river—the smooth egg head, the wide eyes, the thin mustache, the hoop earring in his left ear-lobe.

  “How’d she get the state to act on it so quick?”

  “Val has as many contacts in the legal field as anyone else who’s spent their entire adult life in law enforcement,” Tony explained. “After she got wind of your performance last night at Bill’s Grill, she thought it prudent to pull a few strings. In the protective interest of her and her son. As you know, her first husband was abusive — ”

  “I know what the hell he was,” I said.

  Tony looked directly out the concave windshield of the Porsche, toward the river. He inhaled gently and then released it. “I know you’re not dangerous,” he said. “I’m sure deep down, Val knows you’re not dangerous. It still does not change the fact that you walked out on her or that you shot up a local bar with your own personal hand cannon.”

  “The Buick, Tony,” I said. “The fucking Buick showed up again.” I looked down at my lap. “I want to go back to the cemetery, Tone. Take another look.”

  “You do that, paisan, and you will never forgive yourself.”

  “What if I find something?”

  “What if you don’t?”

  He was right. The thought of not finding something frightened me way more than finding something that would finally lead me to the Bald Man. I looked one last time at the artist’s rendering. I actually made eye contact with the poster. One day I would find him. Sooner or later. I wanted it to be sooner.

  “Oh for Christ’s sakes, Keeper,” he said. “You can’t carry Fran’s cross forever.”

  I turned to him. “Go to hell,” I said.

  “But here’s the reality of it,” Tony said. “If you try anything, anything at all, if you even breathe in her direction, she’ll call the police and they’ll bust you, and by then there’ll be nothing more I can do for you.”

  “Cut the bullshit, Tony,” I said. “What’s this court order stuff really all about?”

  He turned slowly, back to facing the river. He pulled the brim of his fedora down low on his forehead. “Revenge,” he said. “Simple revenge. For walking out.”

  “Just like that,” I said. “No second chance?”

  Tony raised his hands in the air, dropped them in his lap.

  “You left her standing at the altar,” he said. “Now tell me, how would you feel?”

  The river.

  Black and deep.

  I felt like jumping in.

  Drowning. For a little while at least. If it were possible.

  “No comment,” I said finally.

  “No further questions, Your Honor.” he said.

  Chapter 6

  “I’ve done some rather extensive—and expensive — research in the days since Ms. Barnes was arrested in Monterrey,” announced Don O’Brien, the tall, balding, nattily dressed young lawyer belonging to Richard Barnes and his Reel Productions. “And, in turn, I’ve learned quite a bit. The main point being that Mexico is a country consisting of two worlds. One of extreme wealth and resource. Another of poverty and not-so-silent desperation.”

  We were sitting inside Tony’s rectangular-shaped office. Like Tony himself, the penthouse office was sleek, with polished hardwood floors and mahogany-paneled walls accented with custom-framed prints, including an original Picasso torso sketch.

  On the glass coffee table in the far corner of the room sat the remnants of our lunch — mostly just the white deli paper our roast beef sandwiches had come wrapped in. Tony sat at his desk, jacket off, the sleeves of his white oxford rolled up to his elbows, the thumbs of each hand positioned under gray-and-black-striped suspenders.

  Barnes sat in the wood chair beside me.

  If I had to guess, I’d say he was about forty, with well-groomed salt-and-pepper hair and a narrow face. He wore a charcoal gray single-breasted suit, similar to the one his lawyer wore, and rimless eye glasses that made him appear the filthy rich public-relations man he had become in recent years since latching onto political candidates and their causes, including our present Republican governor. As for me, I had changed into my power-lunch best: Levis jeans, Tony Lama cowboy boots, and a black leather jacket.

  O’Brien paced the floor. “What we’re clearly looking at in Mexico, gentlemen,” he said, hands folded behind his back, eyes gazing out the window, like a professor who’s been over the same material a thousand times before, “is a land of haves and have-nots.”

  “Brilliant,” Richard Barnes interrupted, from his chair. “But can we please dispense with academic jargon and get to the heart of this matter, Donald, while my wife still has a shot at staying alive?”

  O’Brien looked like he’d just been kicked in the shin. Both shins. “Please. Richard,” he said, “I feel it’s of the utmost importance to establish a little historical background,”

  Barnes shook his head. “Just make it quick, please,” he said.

  I looked at Tony. He was leaning back in his swivel chair, elbows planted on the armrests, fingers locked together and pressed up against his mouth, choking back a laugh.

  O’Brien coughed. “Now, where was I?”

  “To have and have not,” Tony volunteered, speaking through his fingers.

  “Oh yes,” O’Brien said. And then he began pacing again. He told us that during the sixteenth century, Mexico was considered the El Dorado of the Spanish-speaking hunters blinded by greed over its vast gold treasures. “That precious gold,” he went on saying, “has now been replaced by cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and cheap labor.”

  While O’Brien went on with his lecture, I sat far back in my chair and noticed that set on the floor besides Barnes’s feet was O’Brien’s briefcase. The case was wide open. Set on a stack of papers was a small paperback book. From my chair I could see that the book was titled In Focus Mexico: Guide to Politics and Culture. The cover photo depicted two Mexican natives dressed in festival garb — wide-brimmed hats, bright red vests with swirling patterns of yellow and purple over plain white linen pullover shirts. The natives appeared to be members of a larger team carrying a heavy wooden platform that supported a tall statue of Jesus Christ. Draped all around the statue was an array of colorful flowers and gold vases.

  I’d been sitting in one spot for too long.

  I decided to cross my legs.


  In the process I hit the open lid of the briefcase, tipped it back, spilling out the contents, including the papers and travel guide.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, bending over to collect the papers and the book. “Let me get that for you.”

  Barnes bent down too. “That’s not necessary. Mr. Marconi.”

  I sat up, handed him the papers, but slipped the travel guide into the side pocket of my leather jacket. While an annoyed Barnes once again focused on O’Brien, I slipped the book back out and scanned the first few pages until I came to a chapter that had been marked with a yellow Post-it note. Some of the type on the pages had been highlighted in transparent yellow marker.

  “You see, Mr. Angelino, Mr. Marconi,” O’Brien went on, now standing at the window, hands casually in pockets, “my extensive knowledge of Mexico tells me that this is a land of un — ”

  “—predictable extremes,” I said, reading directly from the guide. I lifted the book up high so everyone, including Barnes, could make it out.

  “What’s the point, Keeper?” Tony asked.

  I slapped the paperback down on my lap.

  “Let’s face it,” I said. “This man doesn’t know squat about Mexico. Nor does he know squat about how to get Barnes’s wife out. Meanwhile, it’s my ass that goes on the line if I decide to take the job.”

  O’Brien affected this hand-caught-in-the-till kind of smile. I turned to look at Barnes. He had a tight, that’s-my-till-you’re-stealing-from expression on his face.

  “You’re right, Mr. Marconi,” Barnes said in a calm, dry voice, eyes never veering from O’Brien. “We don’t know ‘squat,’ as you put it, about Mexico and its recent wave of drug-related atrocities, other than what’s reported in the papers. So there’s no use pretending we do.” He turned to me. “But we do know this about Monterrey Prison.” He reached inside his suit jacket and pulled out two neatly folded sheets of 8½-by-ll paper, which he then smoothed out on his lap.