by Scott Turow
He did not make it, of course. The good, they say, never do. It was Kenneally who told me they’d found Morgan. They had a call from the Public Forest district command, he said, and it didn’t sound encouraging. When I arrived, there was already that funny scatter of cops and paramedics and reporters familiar to a murder scene. Nobody wants to talk to anybody else; nobody wants to be near the body. People were all over, shot out in different places like spores. I couldn’t figure where he was. Lionel was there already, with his hands dug deep in his windbreaker. He gave me that low look of his, the varlet’s eye. We fucked up bad, he was saying; and then his eyes drifted back enough for me to guess the general direction.
He had died of drowning. So Coroner Russell later determined—I would not let Kumagai near the body. He had died of drowning, the coroner found, in the waste pool of a public outhouse. That was where he was. Upside down, with his head, and his two broken shoulders, pushed through the wooden seat. Rigor mortis had set in, so that his legs were spread at a kind of scarecrow angle, and his plain twill workpants and raveled nylon socks and worn oxfords created an atmosphere of unbearably humble address. His skin—the band of flesh visible where the pants and socks didn’t meet—was purple, a royal shade. I stood in that tiny wooden shack, where a fly or two still buzzed even though it was now November, where the air was rank even without the summer heat, and contemplated Morgan Hobberly’s strange humor and the ether on which I always thought that he could float. I believed less then in angels and ghosts, because I had thought surely that this was one man who, as he made his way through the world, could not be touched.
Lipranzer is looking cold—not unemotional or distant, but actually cold, although the nighttime temperature in August is still verging on the seventies. His shoulders are hunched close and his windbreaker is zipped tight. I know him well enough to recognize this is a sign of discomfort, if not fright. On this turf, I am probably more experienced.
“How you doin, Charlie Chan?” I ask him as we head up the concrete staircase.
“Me no likee this one, boss,” he says. “Uh-uh. No fuckee way.”
In the projects, a staircase is a building’s main thoroughfare. The elevators are seldom operable, and when they are, nobody will get on them anyhow, since there is no mercy for him who finds himself between floors with a carload of Saints. Instead, all commerce is transacted in this stairwell. Dope is sold here; wine is drunk here; love is made. It is near 3 a.m. and still this vertical Ganges is not completely deserted. Near floor 4 two young men are drinking something in a bag and trying to romance a young woman whose head is lolled back against the cinder blocks. “How you doin, brother?” they say to a black man who happens to be climbing up ahead of us. To Lip and me, they say nothing, but their looks are insolent and cold, and Lip, without missing a step, flips out his tin as we are going past. He does not want to be mistaken for an ordinary white man.
At the top of the stairway, the eighth floor, Lip holds a finger to his lips and quietly pulls the steel fire door back. I follow him into the corridor, a typical project hallway; brightly lit to discourage intruders, trash along the sides in isolated pieces, an uncut smell of human use. About halfway down the wall, the sheetrock has been smashed out in a shape which for all the world resembles someone’s head. In a hallway like this, one of Lionel Kenneally’s guys shot Melvin White, the night after we returned the first round of indictments. I was outside to supervise the arrests, but it was about twenty minutes after we all heard the gunfire before the coppers would let me go in. By then the ambulance had arrived, and I went up with the paramedics. Along with the surgeons, they eventually saved Melvin’s life, making way for his return to Rudyard. When I saw him, however, Harukan’s chances did not seem good. They had laid him out in the middle of the hallway next to his automatic rifle. He was making a sound too labored, too desperate to be called groaning, and his stomach and his arms, which lay upon it, were painted with blood. Between his hands, a little twisted purple piece of tissue protruded. And above him stood Stapleton Hobberly, Morgan’s brother, who had begun snitching for us after Morgan was killed. Stapleton had his penis in his hands. He was urinating in Melvin White’s face while a number of coppers lounged against the walls and watched.
And what the fuck am I supposed to say if this guy dies of drowning? one of the paramedics asked me.
Now Lip is rapping on the door.
“Open up, Leon! Wake up! It’s the po-lice. Come on, man. We just wanna talk.”
We wait. The building, in a way that is almost beyond the threshold of detection, seems more silent now. Lip raps again with the flat of his palm. There is no kicking this door in. They are all reinforced steel.
Lipranzer shakes his head. And at that moment the door suddenly, silently, swings open. It is very slow. Inside, the room is totally black, no sign of light. Somehow an extraordinary adrenal rush has begun. If I were to pick out the details that key this response, I could only identify the little metal click, but even before that there is an instantaneous perception of alarm. Danger is palpable in the air, as if the threat of harm were an odor, a stirring like wind. When I hear the sound of the gun being readied, I realize that we are perfect targets, standing backlit in the bright hallway. Yet clear as the thought is, I have no impulse to move. Lipranzer, though, is going. Somewhere along he has said, “Motherfucker,” and as he is on the way down, he slides in my direction and cuts my legs out from under me. I land, painfully, on an elbow and roll away. We both end up lying on our bellies on the floor, staring at one another from either side of the door. Lipranzer has his pistol gripped with both hands.
Lip closes his eyes and yells at top volume.
“Leon, I am the po-lice! This man is the po-lice! And if your piece is not out here in ten seconds, I am callin this in, they are blasting your ass away before you can say shit. Now I’m gonna start countin!” Lip gets to his knees and presses his back to the wall. He motions with his chin for me to do the same thing. “One!” he yells.
“Man,” we hear, “if you are the po-lice, how am I gone know it. Huh? How am I gone know it?”
Out of his windbreaker, Lip draws his creds—the star and his picture i.d. He inches toward the doorway, then allows only his hand to cross its plane as he pitches them in.
“Two!” Lip yells. He is backing away. He points up at the lit exit sign. We are going to run for it soon. “Three!”
“Man, I’m puttin on the lights now. Okay? Okay? But I’m keepin my piece.”
“Four!”
“Okay, okay, okay.” The gun scutters over the tiles and lands against the molding of the hallway with a thump. A heavy black item. Until it stopped, I thought it was a rat. Light from the apartment angles out of the threshold.
“Out here, Leon,” Lip yells. “Down on your knees.”
“Oh, man.”
“Down!”
“Shee-it.” He comes knee-walking right out the doorway, his arms extended before him. He is quick and comical now. The cops, man. Always so serious.
Lip pats him down. Then he nods. And the three of us get to our feet. Lip snatches his creds back. Leon has on a black sleeveless T-shirt and a red headband. On the bottom, he is wearing only his Jockey shorts. Apparently we roused him. A smooth-skinned, powerfully built man.
“I’m Detective Lipranzer. Special Command. I’d like to come in and talk.”
“And who’s he, man?”
“He’s my goddamned friend.” Lip, who still has his gun in his hand, pushes Leon. “Now get back inside.” Leon goes first. Lip covers the doorway; with his gun held by his face, he flashes from post to post, staring inside. Then he goes in to search. After a moment he emerges and motions me in. He holsters his pistol again, at his back, under the coat.
“Man, would we have been a headline,” I say to him, my first words since this started. “If he was shooting, you might have saved my life.”
Lip makes a face, meant to disparage me. “If he was shooting, you were dead by the time I
knocked you down.”
Inside, Leon is waiting for us. His apartment is a galley kitchen and a couple of rooms. There is no sound of anyone else, but he is seated on a mattress on the floor of the living room. He has put on his pants. A plastic alarm clock and an ashtray are by the bed at his feet.
“We want to ask you a couple of questions,” Lip says. “If you’re straight, we’re out of your face in five minutes.”
“Hey, man. You come in here three clock in the mornin. Come on, man. Gimme a break. Call Charley Davis, man, he’s my ’torney, man. Talk to him, Jack, cause I’m tired and I’m goin to sleep.” He leans back against the wall and closes his eyes.
“You don’t need an attorney, Leon.”
Leon, still with his eyes closed, laughs. He has heard that one before.
“You got immunity,” Lipranzer tells him. “This guy’s a P.A. Aren’t you?”
Leon opens his eyes in time to see me nod.
“See, now you have immunity.”
“7-7-2,” says Leon, “5-8-6-8. That’s his number, man. Charley Davis.”
“Leon,” says Lip, “about eight, nine years ago you dropped fifteen hundred bucks on a deputy P.A. to make some problems you had go away. Do you know what I’m talking about?”
“No chance, man. Okay? I mean, you come bustin into my home, three clock in the mornin, man, askin me shit like that. Am I a fool, man? Huh? Am I a fuckin fool? I’m gone be talkin to some fuckin white-ass po-liceman about shit like that? Come on, man. Go home. Let me sleep.” He closes his eyes again.
Lip makes a sound. For some reason I get the idea that he is going back to his gun, and I have an impulse to stop him, but instead he walks slowly over to Leon. He crouches, right at the head of his bed. Leon has watched him approach, but he closes his eyes once Lipranzer has reached his level. Lip takes his index finger and jabs Leon a couple of times in the forearm. Then Lip points at me.
“See that guy? That guy’s Rusty Sabich.”
Leon opens his eyes. Captain Saint Killer. Right in his living room.
“Bullshit,” says Leon.
“Show him your card,” says Lipranzer.
I am hardly prepared for this, and I have to empty the pockets of my sportcoat. In the process I discover that my coat is gray across its entire front with the hallway’s soil. I have brought along the documents Lip obtained months ago from Leon’s court file, my appointment diary, my wallet. In there I find one dog-eared card. I give it to Lipranzer, who hands it to Leon.
“Rusty Sabich,” says Lipranzer again.
“So?” asks Leon.
“Leon,” says Lip, “how many of your blood brothers do you think have been on his pad, huh? Twenty-five? Thirty-five? How many Saints do you think he’s paid to snitch? You go back to sleep, Leon, and Rusty Sabich is gonna get on the phone tomorrow morning. He’s gonna tell every one of them how you go out to the Forest to suck off white boys. He’s gonna give them who and when and where. He’s gonna tell them how they can find out all about this stone faggot deacon they got, name of Leon Wells. Okay? You think this is bullshit? This is not bullshit, my man. This is the guy who let Stapleton Hobberly take a piss in Harukan’s face. Have you heard that story, huh? Now, all we want is five minutes of your time. You tell us the absolute truth and we’re gonna leave you alone. We gotta know a couple of things. That’s all.”
Leon has not moved much, but his eyes are wide open as he listens to Lipranzer. There is no more play in his expression.
“Yeah, man, and next week, you need somethin else and you be bustin in the door at three clock in the mornin pullin this shit again.”
“We’ll tell you right now if we’re ever gonna need anythin else. Just as soon as you answer our questions.” What we’ll need is for Leon to come down to court to testify, if he nails Molto. But Lip knows the ropes; you don’t tell them that for a while. “Now don’t bullshit me, Leon. Here’s my first question: Did you or did you not pay fifteen hundred to make that case go away?”
Leon makes a sound. He sits up straight.
“That fuckin Eddie,” he says. “You already know, man. Right? So why you be botherin me?”
“Leon,” says Lip quietly. “You heard my question.”
“Yeah, man. I paid fifteen hundred.”
My heartbeat has become very solid now. Thump thump. I expect to see my pocket jumping when I look down at my shirt.
I speak for the first time.
“Did the woman have anything to do with it? Carolyn? The probation officer?”
Leon laughs. “Yeah, man. You might say that.”
“What?”
“Come on, man,” he says. “Don’t shit me. That bitch set the whole thing up, man. You know that. She tell me I don’t have to be mopin round, she know how to take care of everythin. Real smooth. Real smooth. Man, I bet she did it a hundred times. Tell me where to go. How to bring the bread, man. Very cold lady. You hear me?”
“I do.” I crouch down now like Lipranzer. “And was she there when you made the drop?”
“Right there. Sittin right there. Very cool. You know, man; ‘How you do. Sit right there.’ Then the dude start talkin.”
“He was behind you?”
“You got it. She be tellin me when I come in. Don’t turn round, just do what the man say.”
“And he told you to put it in his desk?”
“No, man. The desk where I was. He say just leave it in the top drawer.”
“That’s what I mean. It was the P.A.’s desk, right?”
“Yeah. That desk.”
“And you paid him, right?” asks Lipranzer. “The P.A.?”
Leon looks at him with irritation.
“No, man, I ain’t gone be payin no little toad P.A. Am I a fool? He gone take my bread, man, and be sayin, Oh no, can’t do it, just got the word from downtown. I heard enough of that shit.”
Lipranzer looks over to me. He has not gotten it yet. But I have. Just now. Finally. God, am I dense. Dense.
“So who was it?” asks Lip.
Leon mugs. He does not like to tell a policeman anything he does not already know. I say it for him.
“The judge, Lip. Leon paid the judge. Right?”
Leon nods. “Black dude. Was him, too, man. Behind me? I could tell the voice when I heard him in court.” Leon snaps his fingers, trying to get the name. But there is not any need for him to bother. It’s right on the order of dismissal. I take it out of my pocket to check. There’s no missing that signature. I’ve seen it dozens of times in the last two months. It’s as distinctive as everything else Larren does.
“So what is it?” Lip asks. It is nearly five now and we are sitting in Wally’s, an all-night joint by the river. They used to be famous for doughnut holes, before the national chains got hold of that idea, too. “Larren’s porkin her and takin the money to keep her in style?”
Lip is still wired. On the way here, he stopped at some hole in the wall, a blind pig he knew about, and came out with a half pint of peach brandy, of all things. He drank it down like a Coke. He still had not shaken off our initial encounter at the doorway.
God, he said to me. Sometimes I hate bein a cop.
Now I shake my head at his questions. I don’t know. The only thing I have figured out for certain in the last hour is that this is what Kenneally didn’t want to tell me when I saw him last week. That Larren was taking. That’s what pissed off the coppers back then. The judge was doing it, too.
“What about Molto?” asks Lip. “You figure he was in?”
“I figure he was out. I don’t see Larren Lyttle in any triangles. Nico said Molto always looked up to Carolyn. She probably asked him to dismiss cases and he just obliged. I’m sure he had the hots for her like everyone else.” All very Catholic and suppressed, of course. That would make sense, too. That’s the fuel that’s kept Molto’s engine running at high speed. Unresolved passion.
We talk it over like this for most of an hour. Eventually it gets late enough to have breakfast and we
both order eggs. The sun is coming up now, over the river, that spectacular profusion of rose-colored light.
I suddenly think of something and laugh. I laugh too hard, with an embarrassing lack of control. A bout of juvenile hilarity. My thought is ridiculous, not really funny at all. But it has been a long and very odd day.
“What?” Lip asks.
“All these years I’ve known you, and it never really dawned on me.”
“What’s that?”
I start laughing again. It’s a moment before I can speak.
“I never realized you carry a gun.”
35
Barbara rolls over as I approach the side of the bed in my pajamas.
“Are you getting up now?” She squints toward the clock. It is 6:30. “It’s early, isn’t it?”
“I’m going to bed,” I tell her.
She starts and rolls to her elbow, but I wave that it is not worth talking about. I do not think I will sleep, but I do. I dream of my father in jail.
Barbara waits until the last minute to wake me, and we have to race. The traffic on the bridge is thick, and court is already in session when we arrive. Kemp and the two prosecutors are before the judge. Nico is talking. He looks dour and drawn, and his manner in addressing the judge can only be described as agitated.
I sit down next to Stern. Barbara had called to tell him we would be late, but she diplomatically omitted any mention of why. I spend the first moments of my whispered conference with Sandy assuring him that we are both in good health. Then he explains what is happening:
“The prosecution has entered their hour of desperation. I will tell you about it when the judge breaks. They want Molto to testify.”
I thought that was what Nico was talking about. When he is done exhorting the judge, Larren looks down and says simply, “No.”
