Alvarado was calm and courteous on the stand. He answered questions directly, and in English. He testified that Mullaly had removed the handcuffs after Johnson brought him into the station house; that they then proceeded directly up to the locker room. While on the stairs, Alvarado stated, Mullaly had hit him in the face. Alvarado was taken into the locker room. There, he testified, he was surrounded by eight or ten policemen who began to fire questions at him. He told them he didn’t know what they were talking about, knew nothing about the death of Lauria. One of them drove a short, ramrod punch into Alvarado’s stomach. Alvarado said that two detectives intertwined their arms in his, one on each side. They also each hooked a leg inside Alvarado’s ankles, thus holding him spread-eagled in a standing position.
Sam had Alvarado step off the stand and demonstrate, with the aid of two court officers, how he was vertically spread-eagled. The jurors moved to the edge of their chairs.
Alvarado resumed the witness chair and testified that the police kept punching him in the chest and hammering him with questions about the roof and the dead officer. At one point, he said, he tried to drop down low enough so that the punch he was about to receive in the stomach would hit him in the face. He wanted to be cut or bleed, so that the evidence of his beating would be obvious. The policemen holding his arms jerked him up quickly.
Alvarado testified that one of the cops, a tall, nearly bald one, with some red hair, had said, “Listen, you black spic, you better talk to me and tell me the way you jump this police on the roof, because if you don’t do it, I am going to kill you.” Alvarado said he had then cried because he was “ascared” of this man. The cops continued to punch him. When he was punched in the chest, he testified, his head was thrown back and struck against the metal lockers behind him. One time, he said, his head hit so hard that he fell to the floor dazed and groggy. He came to and began to pray to God in Spanish. He heard a voice in Spanish inquire, “You want to talk to me?” It was Lieutenant Garcia. He replied in Spanish to Garcia that he did not want to talk to him but he knew nothing about the case. Alvarado testified that Garcia then said: “Round Two. Kick him in the balls.” Alvarado said two detectives lifted him into the air by the legs, and spread one of his legs forward, the other to the rear. Alvarado testified he screamed and pleaded that he had had an operation in his groin area when in Sing Sing, and he’d die if they kicked him there. The detectives put him down and continued the stomach punches.
Alvarado testified that Detective Tracy then came into the room and announced: “Stop hitting that man. Let me talk to him.” Tracy took Alvarado away from the others and said that Alvarado should not be afraid, that he should tell the truth. Tracy said even though he himself had a gun and badge, it was still sometimes difficult to enter a place to go after a man with a gun. And so, if Alvarado had been on the roof, it was certainly understandable that he’d be frightened by the policeman with a drawn gun. Perhaps he panicked. That wouldn’t be murder in the first degree, not for having panicked. Maybe manslaughter.
Alvarado testified he replied to Tracy that a cop was killed, and he knew that whoever shot the cop would get the chair, but he didn’t do it.
Alvarado further testified that when he had returned home that night at about 1 A.M., he observed the lights on in the superintendent Jorge’s apartment. He knocked on Jorge’s door. Jorge opened the door and immediately said to him, “Luis, you kill a cop?” And Alvarado replied, “Jorge, you crazy?” And Jorge told him there were three detectives upstairs waiting to see him about the cop-killing. Alvarado testified he had had a newspaper with him that contained a story that a policeman had been killed, and the police were looking for the killer, a five-foot-ten Negro. Alvarado testified he said to Jorge: “I don’t have anything to do with this, I don’t have anything to hide. I’m going up to talk to them.” Alvarado then walked outside, talking to Jorge in Spanish, and started up the stoop to where he was told the detectives were waiting. A Negro detective, now known to be Detective Johnson, rushed out from behind the door at the top of the stoop, his gun drawn.
Alvarado testified that the detectives searched him in the station house and took from him the stubs of the movie tickets and $141 in cash, which he had in a money clip in his pocket.
Alvarado told the jury that he had that money as a result of receiving three one-hundred-dollar bills from someone who wanted Alvarado to buy heroin for him.
He had spent some of it, since part of the money was to be for his services.
While in the station house, Alvarado explained, he was brought down from the locker room to the detectives’ office, where there was a door with a two-way mirror. A woman, whom he could not see, was on the other side of the mirror, trying to identify him. After that, Alvarado said, he was taken out into the detective squad room, where he was handcuffed to a steam pipe. After some while, he was taken back into the lieutenant’s private office, and one of the detectives said to him that he should confess because the property taken from the apartment, which had been abandoned on the roof, had his fingerprints all over them. Alvarado testified that he had replied to the detective that whatever prints they found could not be his, since he was never near that property.
The detective, in fury, told Alvarado that they were going to bury him.
Another detective entered the room and told Alvarado that the district attorney had arrived, and that if Alvarado didn’t confess to the district attorney, he didn’t yet know what a beating was.
Sometime afterward, he spoke to the district attorney and, he said, told the D.A. that he did not commit the crime. Alvarado said he told the D.A. that anything about the case that the police might say, connecting him to the crime, was a lie. He told the district attorney that the police beat and punched him. Sam had no further questions.
The judge called a short recess before Ellis started his cross-examination of Alvarado.
Ellis stood to cross-examine. He studied Alvarado; Alvarado watched Ellis.
“Now, Alvarado, On July third, 1967, where were you employed?”
Sandro’s eyes narrowed as he too watched Ellis cross-examine. He was struck by Ellis’s addressing the witness as Alvarado. People might be indirectly referred to or spoken about in court, but a lawyer did not address a witness by his surname only.
During cross-examination, Alvarado testified he had not worked from August, 1965, to July 3rd, 1967. During that time, he helped the superintendent in his building in exchange for his room. In addition, he hustled, sometimes lending a hypodermic needle to a needy junky, occasionally helping a junky to locate drugs. He was paid in cash or in a donation of heroin, so that his habit and spending money were cared for at the same time.
Alvarado replied to Ellis that it was The Daily News he had had in his hand when Johnson arrested him, and that he had read about the cop being killed and the five-foot-ten Negro suspect in that paper.
Alvarado testified he saw Mrs. Hernandez in the station house after he was brought in at 1:30 A.M. He said she was nearby when Mullaly accompanied him to the third-floor locker room and, while ascending, hit Alvarado in the face with the edge of his hand.
After he was inside the locker room, Alvarado testified, he was dripping a little blood from his nose. He repeated that, at one point, when his head snapped back and hit the lockers, he lost consciousness. It was then that Lieutenant Garcia spoke to him in Spanish.
The judge recessed the court until the morning.
CHAPTER XVII
Sandro walked along St. Mark’s Place, past shops displaying bell-bottom pants, embroidered vests, beads hanging from wires in the windows, granny glasses with clear lenses, psychedelic colored scarfs, felt hats, shirts.
Almost all the people he passed on the street were dressed like the shop windows—men and women, boys and girls, with long, stringy hair, beads, flowing clothes, capes, ponchos, colored kerchiefs tied around their legs or heads. These people, Sandro thought, had dropped out of one establishment into another, abandoned one world’s
conventions for another’s. They were descended in a line of generations that went from the bohemian to the beat to the hip to the stoned.
Sandro entered the coffeeshop-bar called POT-tery. It was dark and smoky. The room rocked and throbbed with a loud, rhythmic sound that eliminated all other sounds; people’s mouths moved, but no one could hear what they said; people walked, but they had no footsteps. Red, yellow, blue, and green lights were swaying across the room, moving and twisting as the patrons of POT-tery did.
Charlie D’Andrea, dressed in bell-bottoms and sporting dark glasses and a chain with a large, cross-shaped pendant around his neck, was sitting at a table near the door.
Sandro approached, he, too, wearing bell-bottoms, with a dark turtleneck sweater.
“Out of sight, baby,” Charlie smiled, as Sandro sat. “Watch some fuzz don’t bust you before you get home tonight.”
“That’s what I worry about when I go into places like this,” said Sandro. “No matter how way-out my clients may be, I’ve got a suit of armor and I ride a white horse. Once I get arrested, I’m just some guy standing around in his underwear.”
“You don’t have to worry tonight. I’ll tell them you’re okay. Want something?”
A girl in a suede miniskirt, with beads around her neck, an Indian headband at her forehead, her hair hanging long and straight, walked to the table.
“Peace.”
“Peace,” said Sandro. “A cup of coffee.”
She nodded and walked away.
“I’m sorry you had to come down here to meet me, Sandro, but I just couldn’t get away. I’ve got something big coming up.”
“That’s all right. It gives me a chance to get away from the neighborhoods I’ve been in lately and enjoy some real class.” Sandro looked around.
“I checked this fellow Snider out for you,” said Charlie. “You were right about the reason he was thrown off the squad a few years ago. Some big investigation, when they ended up deporting Jimmie Pearl. But the traffic and the doping kept going. I checked a couple of guys who know Snider. He’s not too bright. Honest, though. When I say honest, I mean he’s okay, you know, a little natural larceny here and there, but no way-out graft. He’s not on anybody’s payroll. He’s supposed to be a good cop, just got caught up over his head in that investigation, and they dumped him.”
“Are you telling me the guy’s not a doper himself.”
“He may be a dope, but he’s not a doper,” replied Charlie. “At least the way I get the story. It’s pretty reliable information. Matter of fact, I understand he busted some guys a couple of months ago, they were pretty big dealers. He arrested them with twenty-eight thousand dollars in cash. And he turned the twenty-eight over to the property clerk.” D’Andrea’s head nodded. “Most guys would have turned in two or three, kept the rest. This guy turns in the cash. That’s what I mean, he’s a little dopey.” He smiled. “You can’t get straighter than that, can you?”
“Guess not.”
A tall, lean, blond young man walked over to the table. His hair was long enough to be tied in a ponytail, which it was. He wore a purple shirt with a huge collar and bell-bottom jeans. He had a thick, jeweled bracelet on his left wrist.
“Peace, brother,” said Charlie.
“Peace,” the young man said. He looked at Sandro.
“This is a buddy of mine,” Charlie said. “Sandro, I’d like you to meet Raymond. Sit down, Raymond.”
Raymond shook hands with Sandro.
“Hey, Raymond, telephone,” called the bartender.
“Be right back,” said Raymond. He walked to a booth near the bar.
“This is my man for tonight,” said Charlie. “You want to come to a little party with us?”
“Am I going to get busted?”
“If you leave when I tell you to, you won’t. I’m going to get busted though.”
“You’re going to get busted? For what?”
“This guy is a little dealer. But we want his supplier. So I’m trying to flush them out. If I get busted with him, I’ll be in a little tighter.”
“You guys have to go through a lot.”
Charlie shrugged. He looked up and smiled. “Sometimes it’s not so bad.”
A young girl came over to the table. She wore a silky blouse and pants. Her eyes were heavily made up. She wore no bra, and pronounced nipples pressed through the silk.
“I’m hip,” said Sandro, watching the girl slide her arm around Charlie’s neck. She gazed absently down at Sandro. Her eyes were vague, floating circles of blue-green.
“Baby, say hello to Sandro. This is Iris.”
She smiled wanly. “Charlie, Charlie, I’m getting all strung out. All way-out all over this place. You have anything for me tonight?”
“I told you, baby. Things are kind of tough. There’s a lot of heat lately.”
“Come on, Charlie. Give me something. I’ll treat you good. Just something.”
“Not tonight. I can’t help you tonight.”
“Charlie, go get something and bring it over to my pad. Bring your friend too,” she said, looking at Sandro. “Just bring something with you. Let’s get out of here for a while.”
“Okay, baby. I’ll try.”
“Don’t hang me up, Charlie. Don’t hang me up.” She started rubbing the sides of her head with both hands. It made her breasts jiggle.
“I’ll take care of it, baby. Just go ahead now and wait for me.”
Iris walked slowly toward the door. She turned and made an appeal with her mouth and arms.
“She must have been a nice-looking girl, Charlie,” Sandro said. “What’s she on?”
“Heroin. She’s all fucked up. Nice kid. What can I do? She can’t help herself. I throw her some stuff once in a while.”
Raymond returned. He sat at the table.
“What’s happening? Are we going?” Charlie asked.
“Yeah, baby.” Raymond studied Sandro, then looked at Charlie.
“Don’t worry about Sandro. He’s with me.”
“Let’s go then.”
They walked out into the street and started toward Second Avenue. Just before the corner, Raymond led the way into a tenement. They followed him up three flights of stairs. Raymond knocked on a door.
“Who is it?” a voice on the other side whispered.
“Raymond and a couple of friends.”
The door opened. Within, the room was dark, except for a wash of color that a revolving light played upon the ceiling. Sitar music stroked the thick air, made thicker by the heavy incense smoking near the door to mask odors of burning hashish or marijuana. Sandro’s eyes fought through the dark. On the floor, sitting around a table, was a group of people, all with long hair, all dressed in levis and sheepskin jackets, with chains and beads around their necks. They were passing a small white pipe from hand to hand. Each person around the table was taking long drags on it.
Charlie led Sandro to a couch, a short distance from the table.
“Come on, man, let’s sit down and float,” Raymond suggested to Charlie.
“Okay, go ahead, you sit in there. I’ll sit here.”
“What are they smoking?” Sandro whispered.
“Hash.”
Someone rose and offered the pipe to Charlie. He declined, taking a gnarled thin cigarette from his pocket. He gave another one to Sandro.
“Don’t worry,” Charlie assured him. “It just smells bad. This stuff is straight oregano.”
Two of the longhairs around the table rose.
“I’m going out to take a ride on my bike,” one announced. He was high out of his mind. The other turned out to be a girl. Sandro couldn’t tell until he saw she had breasts.
Charlie smiled, nodded. He was studying the room, clocking the faces. He wasn’t going to forget anyone.
“I’m going too,” said the girl. She was as high as the motorcyclist.
They walked to the door. “Peace and love,” the girl announced.
“Et cum spiritu t
uo,” Sandro added softly.
“You were an altar boy, too,” said Charlie.
“What’s a nice Italian kid like you doing, working in a place like this?” Sandro asked.
“If you ask the Wasp bastards from Westbury or Greenwich, they’ll tell you all the Italians are in the Mafia selling junk to their kids.”
“Charlie, they couldn’t out-navigate, out-think, out-paint, out-sculpt, out-sing, or out-fuck us, so they have to knock it. They were still living in caves in Saxonia when Giulio Caesar sat in a palace in Roma.”
Charlie nodded. “You better start making your move. This joint is going to be busted in about fifteen minutes.”
“How do I get out of here?”
“Say you’re going down for something. Nobody’ll be here when you get back.”
Sandro stood. “Thanks, Charlie.”
“You blow my mind, man. You fit right in, you know?”
“Peace.”
“Peace,” said Charlie. He smiled as Sandro made his way to the door.
CHAPTER XVIII
Friday, April 12th, 1968
Alvarado resumed the witness chair the next morning. After the jury was polled and the judge entered the courtroom, Ellis rose and began to chip away at Alvarado.
Ellis questioned Alvarado’s testimony that Lieutenant Garcia was in the locker room and spoke to Alvarado in Spanish. Alvarado repeated the story, testifying that when the two detectives held him aloft by the legs, the lieutenant said, “Kick him in the nuts.”
“Did he say ‘Kick him in the nuts’ or ‘Kick him in the balls?’”
Alvarado thought momentarily. “He said, ‘Kick him in the balls.’”
“Well, which was it now? You testified in answer to Mr. Bemer, the lieutenant said, ‘Kick him in the balls.’ Today you said, ‘Kick him in the nuts.’”
“I see too many ladies today in the courtroom,” Alvarado said, pointing to the spectators. “I don’t want to be without respect.”
“Isn’t this a fine state of affairs and a fine cross-examination?” Sam whispered. “Ellis is compiling a glossary of scatology, while Alvarado is on trial for his life.”
PART 35 Page 37
