Despite his youth, Hootie’s not naïve about cops. Far from it. He’s even aware of the part of the Miranda warning that goes ‘anything you say can be used against you’. But he can’t stop thinking about Amelia, can’t stop thinking that he has to get out of here, even though he doesn’t have any idea what he’ll do next. He feels like he’s in a dream, opening doors, stepping into rooms that turn out to be the same room he left. That changes abruptly when the wounded cop makes his entry. Now he’s just scared.
‘Hi,’ the cop says, ‘I’m Detective Chigorin. In case you forgot.’
Hootie stares at the bandage on the Russian’s head. ‘I want to know what I’m here for. I have a right to know.’
Chigorin shakes his head. ‘The first thing you’re gonna do is sit down.’ He points to the chair behind the table, the one against the wall. ‘In the hump seat.’
The Russian waits until Hootie complies, then says, ‘Now, can I get you something? A Coke maybe? Or if you need to hit the john, this would be a good time.’
Hootie wants to maintain a defiant attitude, but his bladder is indeed full. And he’s thirsty, too. ‘The bathroom,’ he says.
Chigorin opens the door, waits for Hootie to pass before him. He points to the men’s room. ‘There ya go,’ he says. ‘I’ll meet you back here.’
When Hootie returns, there’s a can of Coke sitting on the table. He pops the tab and drinks. The cop’s failure to accompany him to the bathroom caught him by surprise. Does it mean he’s not a suspect? Or does the cop think he’s too much of a punk to attempt an escape?
‘Ya know,’ the cop says, ‘what I’m supposed to do now is explain your constitutional rights. The only problem is I don’t know who you are.’
‘Judson Binay,’ Hootie says.
Chigorin eases himself into the chair opposite Hootie. He leans forward to gingerly probe the swelling around his ankle. ‘I got bit by a dog, a tiny little dog, if you could believe that. The fuckin’ mutt had teeth like needles.’
The room they occupy is smaller than a prison cell. Wood table and chairs, tiled floor, dirty brown walls, dirty white ceiling, dirty mirror. Hootie feels the trap closing.
‘Are you gonna tell me why I’m here?’ he asks.
‘No, I’m not. Not until you identify yourself. That driver’s license in your pocket? It’s bogus, my man, completely bogus.’
‘Only the age,’ Hootie claims. ‘So I can drink in bars.’
‘So you can drink in bars? Let me see if I’ve got this right. You’re saying that if I run your prints, they’ll come back Judson Binay? That’s what you’re tellin’ me?’ Chigorin’s narrow lips expand into a humorless smile. ‘By the way, what are you? I mean what nationality?’
Hootie ignores the question. ‘You have no cause to fingerprint me. I haven’t committed any crime.’
‘You need to face the facts, kid. You’re not getting’ out of here until you’re properly identified.’
Hootie watches the cop settle back in his chair. This is not Hootie’s first time in the box and he knows that silence is a technique cops employ to get suspects talking. He knows, too, that if he resists, the cop will definitely run his prints. Another humiliation.
‘My name’s Judson Hootier,’ Hootie admits.
‘You have a street name, an alias?’
‘Hootie.’
The Russian nods. ‘How old are you?’
‘Nineteen.’
‘Are you on parole?’
Hootie shakes his head. ‘I haven’t committed any crime,’ he insists. ‘This ain’t right.’
‘Just answer the question.’
‘I’m on probation.’
‘For what offense?’
‘Burglary.’
‘You do any time?’
‘Nine months. On Rikers.’
‘When did you get out?’
The question stops Hootie in his tracks. It seems like a million years since he stepped on to a DOC bus for the ride to Queens Plaza. Without warning, Bubba’s voice sounds in his ears. Every great fortune begins with a crime. That was wrong and he should have recognized the problem right away. Maybe every great fortune does begin with a crime, but it has to be an unpunished crime.
‘Ten days ago.’
Chigorin recoils. ‘That’s tough, Hootie. Ten days? You’re not even adjusted yet.’ He stands up and limps to the door. ‘There’s somethin’ I have to do right now, but I’ll come back in a few minutes. Then we’ll get down to business.’
The Russian doesn’t doubt Hootie, but he checks anyway. He runs Judson Hootier’s rap sheet, noting the middle name, Two-Bears. Then he heads for the bathroom, feeling good about the future. Hootie’s honesty was a concession and it’s rapidly becoming clear that he’s still a kid. Chigorin enters a stall, takes another pull on the flask, empties his bladder and washes his hands, all the while contemplating a full-out attack on Hootie Hootier’s well-being.
Chigorin re-enters the room bearing another gift, a glazed doughnut wrapped in a paper towel. He lays the doughnut and towel before Hootie. ‘In case you’re hungry.’
Hootie starts to say thanks, but stops himself. The cop’s pulled a card from the inside pocket of his jacket and he’s reading off Hootie’s rights. That done, he produces a form and a pen.
‘Sign here.’ He unfolds the form and pushes it in Hootie’s direction. Hootie reads the form, taking his time, but there’s nothing in it about waiving his rights and he signs without protest.
Chigorin slides the form into his pocket. ‘I got some bad news for you, kid. I just got off the phone with your probation officer. He says if I wanna violate you, I should go ahead.’
‘Violate me for what?’ Hootie’s heart nearly stops in his chest. The fall has been too steep and too quick. Despite the room and the cops and the fucking doughnut, some part of his brain insists this can’t be happening. ‘I haven’t committed a crime.’
‘Carrying false identification is a crime by itself. Plus, you’re not livin’ at the address you gave to your probation officer and the cellphone in your pocket is probably stolen.’ Chigorin hesitates, but Hootie doesn’t dispute any of his claims. ‘And the worst part, the absolutely most fucked-up part, is that you’re implicated in a homicide investigation. Hootie, I want you to sit back and look at the situation from your parole officer’s point of view. You’re only out of jail ten days and already you’re a pain in his ass.’
‘You can’t put a murder on me,’ Hootie finally says.
‘No? Tell me where you were at three thirty-five on Monday morning.’
‘Asleep in my bed.’
The Russian’s mouth curls in distaste. ‘What bed? Where?’
‘Right where I was supposed to be. In my mom’s apartment.’
‘You sure about that, Hootie? Because lyin’ to me is not gonna help your case. Not unless your goal is a cot on Rikers Island. Bear in mind, you’ll be sitting in jail for a month before you even get a probation hearing. And if you should lose the hearing, you’ll have to serve the two years still left on your sentence. That means upstate, Hootie. That means prison.’
Hootie surprises himself. Now that the cards are on the table, now that the threat is real, his mind’s becoming focused. The cop’s talk of Rikers Island has transported him right back to Otis Bantum and the mindset that allowed him to survive. Hootie was first challenged shortly after his assignment to a dormitory. The battle that followed, a battle he could not afford to lose, was especially brutal. As a parting gesture, he’d slammed the sole of his shoe into his unconscious opponent’s bent knee.
‘I was asleep in my bed,’ Hootie repeats.
‘You’re sayin’ that if I produce surveillance tape from the a hundred and forty-fifth street subway station, your face won’t be on it? That what you’re tellin’ me?’
The questions cheer Hootie. If the cops have a surveillance tape, they must know that he didn’t fire the gun.
‘Before you jump to any foolish conclusions,’ the cop
adds, as though reading his mind, ‘the tape in question shows the subway entrance, not the platform. So I know you jumped the turnstile and I know you didn’t run off when the shots were fired. What I don’t know, and what you’re gonna tell me, is what happened in between.’
When Hootie lets his hands fall into his lap, the keys Bubba dropped into his pocket jingle softly. Despite himself, he smiles.
Chigorin notes the smile, but says nothing. He’s bluffing here. The shooting on Hamilton Place was called in at 3:25, exactly when, according to the surveillance tape, Hootie entered the subway station. He could not have killed Almeda.
‘When I spoke to your parole officer, he told me that your middle name was Two-Bears. Is that right?’
Hootie hesitates before replying. Don’t talk to cops was the common wisdom among his peers at the Otis Bantum Correctional Facility. Cops lie all the time and their promises are less sincere than the encouragement of street whores.
‘Hey, I asked you a question,’ the cops says.
Hootie leans forward before answering with a question of his own: ‘Do you think I need a lawyer?’
‘Only if you want me to violate you right now. Only if you want to be printed, photographed and strip-searched. Only if you want to spend the next two years in prison.’
‘How does sending me to jail help you?’
‘If you understood how cops think, you wouldn’t be asking that question.’ Very carefully, Chigorin crosses his legs. The pain at the back of his head is more or less constant now.
‘And how do cops think?’
‘Cops think taking a mutt like you off the street by any means available is a major victory. That’s why I won’t hesitate when it’s time for me to testify. I’m gonna take the stand, swear to tell the truth, then claim that you’re a vital witness in a homicide investigation. I’m gonna say that you’re a vital witness, but you not only won’t cooperate, you’re a likely co-conspirator. See, I can put you in the station when the shots were fired, not only beyond a reasonable doubt, but beyond any doubt at all.’
Hootie runs his fingers through his short hair. He’s thinking there’s no jury at a probation hearing, only a judge who can pretty much do anything he wants. And the truth is that he was on the platform. He did see what happened and the best lawyer in New York won’t be able to explain away his failure to cooperate. Which is not to say that he’ll have the best lawyer in New York. Far from it.
Suddenly, the cops rises. ‘Tell you what, Hootie, I’m gonna take a little break here, give you a chance to think it over while I talk to your partner. Who knows? Maybe he’ll put the gun in your hand. Myself, I don’t make you for a killer. But any port in a storm, right?’
FIFTEEN
Hootie’s tempted to relax when the door shuts, but then he remembers the trick mirror on the wall. The cop might be watching – hell, a dozen cops might be watching – and he doesn’t want to squirm. So, he stays right where he is, in his chair, and goes to work on the doughnut lying in front of him. The cop was right about making a choice, but not about the factors involved. Somebody, he or Bubba, has to get out tonight. Otherwise, Amelia … But Hootie doesn’t want to go there. He doesn’t want to be distracted and he forces himself to answer what he now understands to be the only relevant question.
Will the cops release Bubba if Hootie Hootier refuses to cooperate?
Because if only one of them is free to help Amelia, Bubba’s the logical choice. That bit about killing Sherman Cole’s wife and kids? Bubba’s already killed two people, the first with his bare hands and the second in the coldest of cold blood. When the time comes, he won’t hesitate.
But what if Hootie refuses to cooperate and Bubba’s arrested anyway? What if they’re both arrested? Bubba’s on parole, not probation. He can be violated for any reason by any cop in the city. That means weeks on Rikers Island before he gets a hearing.
Initially, Hootie’s unable to draw the logical conclusion. There’s too much guilt in the way, too much street macho about not being a rat. At Otis Bantum, snitches were not tolerated. Even a rumor could get you shanked.
But it comes to him, finally. The only way to guarantee that somebody’s out there to find Amelia is for Judson Two-Bears Hootier to put that gun in Bubba Yablonsky’s hand. Otherwise, it’s a toss of the dice.
Hootie draws this conclusion five minutes after the cop leaves. Then he gets to think about it, to stare at the closed door, to fight off a sense of relief that leaves him giddy.
Noble Hootie. Hootie the White Knight … well, not exactly white, but what the fuck. He can be the Beige Knight, or maybe the Mixed-Race Knight. According to Bubba, there’s a gun in the apartment. The gun will be his lance, the Crown Vic his gallant steed. Hootie took a few drivers’ ed classes before he dropped out of school. With luck, he might even get off the block without wrecking the car.
The Russian stops in the john for a quick drink, then heads for Bubba’s room. He finds the man pretty much as he left him, a giant tethered to the Earth, his size now as much a liability as an asset. If he was less threatening, he wouldn’t be handcuffed and shackled.
‘Bad news for you, Bubba. Your pal ratted you out.’ Chigorin drops on to the chair. He’s expecting a heated reaction, but Yablonsky seems almost relieved. Instantly, the Russian’s antennae begin to twitch. ‘I mean, you can’t blame the kid. Nineteen years old? Ten days out of jail? What would you do in his place?’
‘Tell you to go fuck yourself, which I’m officially doing right now.’
Chigorin ignores the remark. ‘Look, Bubba, if you have something to say, you’d best get it off your chest. I’ve got a surveillance tape that puts you on that platform and a witness who puts the gun in your hand. You hear what I’m sayin’? And there’s somethin’ else, too, somethin’ you might not even know about. When you recovered those shell casings on the subway platform, you missed one. That’s right. You missed a casing which we subsequently matched to the casings found next to Flaco Alameda’s body. They were fired from the same gun. Your gun. Tell me something, Bubba, what the fuck were you thinkin’ when you shot that rat? Was that some kind of psychotic breakdown?’
The last two questions produce the first discernible reaction in Bubba other than anger. His face reddens and he bites at his lower lip. ‘Are you good at anything?’ he asks.
‘How good?’
‘Better than almost anyone else on the planet.’
Chigorin thinks it over, then responds honestly: ‘No.’
‘So, you’re just another cog in old wheel, mediocre, a nonentity.’
‘I’m like everyone else. I’m the center of my own world.’
‘That’s good.’ Bubba shifts in his seat, the chains that bind him clinking softly. ‘But me, I was at the center of other people’s worlds, or as close as another person can get. Every game I played, there were pro scouts in the stands. I got dozens of calls from agents who wanted a heads-up in case I decided to skip my senior year. And the money? All those zeroes? I could have lived forever on the money they were talkin’ about.’
‘I hear ya, Bubba, and I’m sympathetic. But some things you can’t walk away from, like killin’ a teammate.’
‘It was a fight, nothin’ more, a fight I didn’t start. But the information the cops and the prosecutor leaked made it sound like I stalked the guy, like he was a helpless victim. Like he wasn’t six-four and didn’t weigh two hundred and twenty pounds and wasn’t a trained athlete.’ Bubba pauses long enough to shake his head in disgust. ‘The worst part came at a press conference. Some reporter asked the prosecutor if the state was gonna charge me under the hate crimes statute. They weren’t, of course, and the scumbag knew it. But what did he say? “We’re not ruling anything out.” Nice, right? By the time the case was ready to go to trial, the atmosphere was poisoned. That’s the word my lawyer used: poisoned. If we put the case before a jury, he’d have two burdens. First, he’d have to prove me innocent beyond a reasonable doubt, then he’d have to overcome the
charge that I was a racist.’
And that’s all Bubba has to say. Chigorin’s attempts to revive the conversation fail utterly and fifteen minutes later he walks out the door. The squad room is humming now as the detectives approach the end of their tour. Handcuffed to a bench, three perps talk loudly amongst themselves. They speak in rapid-fire Spanish, too fast for Chigorin to pick up more than a word or two. But he can hear the defiance in their tone. Macho, macho, macho. The Russian wonders who’ll be the first to break, the flip from badass to cooperating witness being a phenomenon he’s witnessed many times.
‘Hey, Detective.’
Chigorin looks up to find Sergeant Vincenzo standing to his left. ‘Sarge?’
‘I gotta have one of the rooms.’ Vincenzo strokes a silky mustache and smiles. He gestures to the men on the bench.
‘No problem. The big one’s on parole and I’m gonna violate him. You want, you can dump him in a cell till I get to the paperwork. Thing is, though, I could use a heads-up on the timing.’
Ten minutes later, Chigorin invades Hootie’s little space. Right away, he knows something’s hinky. The kid’s looking directly into his eyes and he seems to have aged ten years.
‘Up ya go,’ Chigorin says, ‘time to hit the john.’
The demand takes Hootie by surprise, but he recovers quickly. He walks past Chigorin and out the door just as two cops lead Bubba, still cuffed and shackled, across the squad room. Hootie turns, drawn by the sound of Bubba’s rattling chains, and they look into each other’s eyes for just a moment. The Russian notes the pregnant nature of the exchange. These are two men in basic agreement.
Chigorin waits patiently by the door as Hootie goes about his business. He’s intrigued now, but exhausted as well. So tired, in fact, that he’s thinking he’d better call his boss and ask for reinforcements, maybe Nick Campo. It’s Nick’s case, after all. But the Russian has a lot of cowboy in him and he decides to take one more shot at Hootie Hootier.
Cracker Bling Page 11
