Break and Enter

by Colin Harrison

  Where had Hoskins come in? he wondered. The irony in all this was that that man didn’t give a pea-sized shit about the death of Whitlock but had apparently used his death to attach himself to the Mayor. Hoskins, who each day seemed to metamorphose further into a dense, evil bullet of a man, would fight Carothers every step of the way, twist every angle, tweak his own mother’s nose with his meaty fingers if it would bleed evidence that supported a conviction and his own career.

  Driving aimlessly across the city, it occurred to Peter that Hoskins had selected him for exactly the opposite reasons as he had told him the morning of the murders. The praise and encouragement! How could Hoskins not have noticed that Peter had been in trouble these last few months? The occasional lapses, having to depend on Berger from time to time, the problems at home? The man was not stupid, and he had been in the game far longer than Peter.

  Hoskins made his decision thinking he had the killer in hand. If he hadn’t known about Johnetta Henry at the time he’d called Peter early that morning, then that might be proof that he himself hadn’t gotten the whole story, at least not initially. But Hoskins had made a mistake: He’d never complained angrily about the fact that he’d been informed of only one homicide, not two. Such an oversight usually sent him into a rage. But he’d been complacent about that fact, never bringing it up. That suggested he did not want to emphasize the differences between the homicides, did not want Peter thinking that they had different causes. Was it possible Hoskins felt Peter’s attention would be scant and hoped that he would groove on the media attention that came with quickly having a suspect, and not do a thorough job, not dig behind the facade of facts the police provided him? Is this why Berger hadn’t been chosen? It was conceivable Hoskins was way ahead of all of them—somehow making sure Berger was in Harrisburg the morning of the murder, putting heat on Berger all along, maybe even planting the comment on coke-snorting by the detective at the murder scene. But that would mean that he’d known the murders were coming and that was impossible, since Carothers had acted spontaneously. It was more likely that Hoskins had been called by the Mayor in the early hours after the murders, and had seen an opportunity in Berger’s absence and Peter’s unsettled state.

  Figuring backward and forward, getting caught in knots of logic and speculation, Peter circled past City Hall and down Market and over to Delancey. He wouldn’t be able, he realized, to deduce everything that had happened. His house was dark and Cassandra’s car gone. A night such as this was no big deal to her; she would find other men, he supposed. He would let his membership at the club expire and never see her again. As for the ring, that was, he supposed, lost. Unless she had somehow regurgitated it in a soupy puddle of vomit, an unlikely effort.

  ACROSS FROM HIS HOUSE, he saw two men sitting in a car. Dark shapes behind the windshield, almost invisible.

  They, somebody, were watching him and meant him ill will, wanted to make sure he did what they wanted him to do. He receded into the shadows, returned to his car and drove down to the big industrial sites by the Delaware River, parked, and walked along a high chain fence. He knew exactly where to go to get what he needed. If not here, then somewhere else, one of the all-night bars. He kept walking, turning up the thick collar of his coat to cut off the sides of his face. The L. L. Bean hat came down far over his forehead.

  Two cars were parked within a triangular shadow of a brick warehouse. As Peter neared, one of the cars started and drove off. Once within the shadow, his eyes adjusted. Two men lounged on the trunk of the car, smoking. Peter checked the cash in his pockets.

  “Yeah?” greeted one man, recognizing Peter as an unlikely customer. “We got a sale on, mister. This here is John Wanamaker’s, Strawbridge and Clothier’s.”

  The man slapped a gloved hand on the other man’s hand.

  “You are a motherfucker, man.” The other smiled. “Gimme that shit there.” A confetti of colored crack capsules littered the asphalt.

  Peter spoke in a dead, unrecognizable voice: “What do you have to show me?”

  “Depends on what you want. Lingerie on the fourth floor.”

  Peter waited for the men to stop laughing.

  “Something small.”

  The man unlocked the trunk and opened it.

  “Okay, okay.”

  He pulled a small flashlight from his coat and swept it over a wooden crate. Inside lay dozens of different handguns. Pistols and semi-automatic assault rifles—Chinese-made AK-47s, Uzis, MAC-10s, semi-automatic guns with collapsible stocks. Revolvers. Cartridge clips. Enough for a small army. The man pulled out an assault rifle.

  “The President says it’s illegal to import these motherfuckers,” he cackled. “But we ain’t importin’, we just keepin’ them in circulation.” He held up the gun. The bullets from these guns penetrated policemen’s vests, brick walls, even municipal garbage trucks.

  “No.” Peter shook his head.

  “Fuck, man, this thing fires two hundred fucking bullets a minute!” The man pulled out another gun from the crate. “Semi-automatic, hair-trigger. This one’s forty. With a clip, forty-five.”

  Peter was silent.

  “What else you want to know about it?” came the man’s irritated voice. “It’ll shoot.”

  “Safety on it?”

  “No. You want safety, don’t carry a gun.”

  The two men cracked up. This was the funniest thing they had ever heard. Peter handed the man two twenties and a five. The other man rummaged around in a smaller box, pulled out a few clips, tested them until he got the right size, loaded the gun, and handed it, barrel down, to Peter.

  “Tell your friends about us!” the first man called after Peter. Their laughter followed him.

  STUFFING THE GUN UNDER THE CAR SEAT, his mind deadened from lack of sleep, he felt compelled to figure the situation further. The District Attorney, an elected official, could not be fired by the Mayor.The D.A. was a smooth-talking man, a good man in his forties given to gold tie pins and stern law-and-order statements to the press. Perhaps Hoskins wanted to be the next District Attorney. As Chief of Homicide, he was in excellent position to run for the position. But if Hoskins wanted to rise politically, he was going to have to consider the black leadership of the city, which controlled the black voting base. This was tricky: There were the old black leaders who had been around a long time, who knew their constituencies, who were considered men of the utmost honor. Then there were the younger leaders, such as the Mayor, who were steadily changing the power relationships in the city. Once he had jockeyed his way through the intra-party struggle of the primary, the Mayor had utilized the black Democratic machine to its fullest, as could be expected. His appointments were everywhere. He had an excellent organization and appeared to have strong if silent financial backing. He had moved into office with great vigor and was the pole around which the power in the city was slowly magnetizing. The Mayor could use a man in the District Attorney’s office, for the office traditionally operated autonomously and even in conflict with the Mayor’s office. There were plenty of incentives for the Mayor to develop a relationship with someone such as Hoskins who knew the legal community well and who had ties to all the big firms in town. And if Hoskins decided—however stupidly—to run for the D.A. office in the future, and was running a cover-up, then he already had a favor coming from the Mayor. It was conceivable that the Mayor would then support a candidate for D.A. who offered only token resistance to Hoskins. Or, more likely, after the current D.A. moved on, Hoskins might not actually run for the office but would be in a position to deliver it to whomever the Republican machine assigned as its candidate. Assuming that the Mayor was at least indirectly culpable, all of this would have been feverishly reasoned as soon as the Mayor knew of the murders. A phone call in the early hours, then some fast decisions, a call put in to Hoskins. The back-door possibilities were endless. Both the Mayor and Hoskins would be in positions of power in the city for the foreseeable future.

  If Peter told the D.A. what h
e knew, the man would have a choice to believe him or not believe him. If the D.A. believed Peter, then they could either act or not act. If they dropped charges against Carothers for the murder of the girl, they would have to answer to the Mayor, the police, and to the press, which would seize on this event as a major twist in the story, since it implied that someone else killed the girl. All this seemed unlikely, considering the evidence of fingerprints, witness testimony, ballistics match, and the obvious motive of the ex-lover. The police administration—also ambitious—would know the D.A.’s office was on to something, and might be unhappy at the public embarrassment. The Mayor, who also knew how to strum the strings of the media, would understand that the investigation was dangerously close to his own family. The Mayor could allude to the D.A.’s political aspirations. In short, to go public and drop the second charge against Carothers with what amounted to meager evidence would put the D.A. in a precarious public position.

  That was only one option the D.A. had if he, Peter, was believed. The D.A. could believe yet ignore what Peter had to say, which meant Peter would have to decide whether he was able to go along with the office. That meant prosecuting Carothers for a murder he didn’t commit. Stein, whom he respected, would be furious and quite willing to march into court, and, with nothing to lose, might blow the whistle on their secret meeting. Peter would either be isolated within the office or knowingly be prosecuting a man for a murder he didn’t commit, which was probably the best way to lose a trial, not to mention one’s soul. A second murder conviction could easily be the difference between life in prison—which Carothers was going to get anyway—or electrocution …

  … because two murders, one of a promising young man, following an evening of armed robbery, were just about a lock for a death sentence. The murder and the robbery charges would be tried separately, but it was stupid to think that the homicide jury wouldn’t know about other charges. If, however, the homicides were separated into two cases, and it were shown convincingly that Carothers was responding to a cry for help by rushing over to West Philadelphia, then one had a very different story. The homicide of Whitlock would be seen as the unfortunate result of grief: second-degree murder.

  He drove on. Perhaps he should resign before having to go to trial. Carothers would be tried by someone else, maybe Hoskins himself, while Peter sat at home. Quitting was cowardly; he’d save his neck but not Carothers’s. But should Carothers be saved? Really? The guy had killed Whitlock, had been involved in armed robbery, was more or less fated for prison. Was he just another scumbag no different from the rest of them?

  It came down to how much Peter believed in the law. The pure law. By the law, given the aggravating circumstances, such as the fact that he had been carrying a concealed deadly weapon, and the mitigating ones, such as the fact that he had just found the mother of his son brutally murdered and had no idea that Whitlock would enter the apartment, Carothers should go to prison but should not die. The law, at the moment, was the only thing Peter could believe in. Furthermore, Carothers should not pay for someone else’s crime. Whoever killed Johnetta—he assumed it was the sad man—should do the time. The first murder was premeditated, the second spontaneous.

  Inside all these choices, Peter decided, there existed an improbable outcome called justice.

  If Peter went to the D.A., there was the possibility that the D.A. already knew of the situation or would not believe him. In that event, he would be removed from the case and possibly even asked to resign. Whatever happened, the machinery would go on and he’d be shut out from helping Carothers. But, and this prospect attracted him in a secretly righteous and prideful way, if he did not go to the D.A. right away and continued to oversee the case, he could also continue probing what he had discovered, in effect prosecute a priori. No one would know about this—except, of course, if the sad man knew Peter had been with Mrs. Banks and told the Mayor. He assumed the old woman wouldn’t tell whom she had been talking to. No—that was stupid. They would get it out of her—and probably that had already happened, since the two men were now outside his house.

  There had to be a way out. He could play along with Hoskins and, before going to trial, present the information to the D.A. and threaten to go to the papers if he didn’t cooperate. They would both know that Peter could blab about a cover-up and ruin the man’s chances for the Senate. This might work, no? No one else in the office would know the case as thoroughly as he, and the D.A. would be in a tough spot, what with all of the city waiting for the trial. Perhaps by then he could offer the D.A. a proverbial “yesable proposition,” an alternative course of action—in this case another defendant, such as the sad man. Perhaps the D.A. then would separate himself from Hoskins’s version of the events and see Hoskins as a threat to his reputation, garner a little righteousness for himself. Whether or not Peter accomplished that would be a matter of luck, what with the police controlling the evidence and names of witnesses. But if he could locate Mrs. Banks on his own and then get her to give him some more names, that was a start.

  Beyond this architecture of analysis, something else drew him toward altruistic action—there was the self-serving aspect to all of this. Which he freely admitted to himself. Yes, that was the beauty—the necessity—of it. Once the papers found out how he alone had fought so diligently to uphold the law and spare a man’s life, then the Mayor would be powerless to seek retribution. The media would paint him as a man who walked the lonely path to truth. Most important, Janice and his parents would know; they would see that he had undergone immense risk to seek justice. How could they not help but admire him? They would see that their betrayals of him were unjust and that they should return to him.

  Chapter Ten

  FOUR-THIRTY IN THE MORNING. Preserve thyself, Peter Scatter-good chanted under his breath, get some sleep, just a few hours. The hotel, a squat four-story brick building, stood tucked underneath the north side of the new glass office towers, a remnant of the old city. It was frequented by hookers working the area and cost only thirty dollars a night.

  And thirty dollars was nearly all that Peter had left in his pocket after buying the gun, having left his wallet and credit cards on his kitchen counter and Cassandra sitting up in his bed. Hours ago, decisions ago. The old man behind the bulletproof glass didn’t give him a second look. Cash only, out by noon. He could rob the place now—but, of course, he didn’t wish to do that. He pushed bills through the window slot, scrawled illegibly on the register card, and asked for an eight A.M. wake-up.

  Everything was bolted to the floor. Rotten mattress, laundered pillowcases. He pulled off his clothes, careful to hang them, since he’d be wearing them to work. With breakfast, he’d be broke. On the bed, peering up at a water-stained plaster ceiling, he tried to calm himself. How could he have just bought a gun? There was this fear. Don’t worry about Vinnie, he thought, the guy’s a hustler, a nobody. The key was the important things: Remember Janice, and the work toward the truth in the Carothers case, seek justice wherever you can … He sat upright, his mind tugged by childhood—there it was, coming back to him when he least expected: the Quaker queries he’d heard as a boy, sitting on the long, uncomfortable wooden benches in Meeting for Worship. Do you seek justice in your daily tasks? With his grandfather holding his hand, eyes shut, aging veins pulsing in his forehead, a man plumbing his own mystic depths while communing to Peter through the slightest variations in the grip of his fingers that there were ways that one must live one’s life. He had feared and hated and occasionally loved his grandfather. Never did he suspect that his grandfather had actually struggled to behave justly; it had seemed, always, quite the opposite, that the man who clung to the plain speech of “thee” and “thou” while American B-52s napalmed Vietnamese children did not experience difficulty in restraining himself. Yet, of course, Peter reflected, the man must have warred against himself, as was evident from the veins straining in his grandfather’s forehead as he sat rigid as a gravestone, the moments of anger, the judgmental prono
uncements at the way the world tended. Grinding his teeth till the day he died. Temperamentally, his grandfather had been a violent man.

  And so was he, but that did not mean—oh, what insanity to buy a gun! A moment of small-hearted fear. The world would come to an end if every Peter Scattergood bought a gun the first time he was scared. He lay on the greasy blanket, arms outstretched. How psychologically blind, how impotent! It was almost a joke that he’d bought a gun! A man with his education and upbringing—ridiculous. He turned off the light. He would get rid of the gun in the morning.

  But the sound, puncturing his thin membrane of certainty, was of a woman getting the screwing of her life, emitting an unending throbbing of moans, cries, testimonials to technique and rhythm, and exhortations to the gods. Oh jesusjesusjesus. Oh-ho-oh, that, yes, oh jesus. She was superb and she drove Peter crazy, and his mind, inflamed with a distracted lust, flipped in hallucinogenic clarity from Cassandra (his crotch still smelled of her) to Janice (must not think about John Apple) and then to Johnetta. The sounds insinuated into his mind, wrapping around him, touching a polished fingernail to his ear. It was too late for this kind of crap—he was almost sick with exhaustion.

  “Where’s that shoe?” a man’s voice muttered.

  “Here. This is a well-made shoe, a nice shoe. How come you buy good shoes like this and you don’t give me nothing extra?”

  “Always the same,” the man exhaled. “I’m going.”

  “It’s a reasonable question.”

  “Fuck off, woman.”

  “I just did.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Ah-ha, you loved it,” she protested playfully.

  “Do you always believe everything you imagine?”

  A bitter silence.

  “Throw that away. I hate wearing those things. I don’t have to wear them with my wife.”