“I said for you to sit down.”
“Okay, pretty lady.” He swung the chair around, sat on it backwards with his legs spread, arms folded across the back of the chair.
“Don’t call me that.”
He spread out his hands, saying, “Hey, okay.”
She tossed the briefcase onto the table, glared at him with her hands on her hips. “You lied to me.”
“Did I?”
“Fuckin’ right. That won’t happen today.” Her face was impassive, eyes filled with disdain. She went to her briefcase, unzipped it. A document was handed to him. “Know what this is?”
He barely glanced at it. “I don’t have to answer your questions. Now — or ever.” He started to get up. The copy of his marriage license dropped to the floor.
“Sit down, cowboy. And answer my questions. All of them.”
“Tough guy role, huh? Play it any way you like. Only I demand my lawyer to be present.”
“Demand anything you like. You’re gonna stay locked in this room with me until I get some answers. Real answers. Not the bullshit you threw at me last time.”
He grinned smugly at her.
“Kiss my ass.”
She ignored him. “Ever been worked over, Ruben? I mean really worked over. Bad?”
“Right. You gonna beat me with a hose, maybe? Put electrodes to my balls?” He glanced to the door where outside a guard was waiting. “If one of those goons so much as messes up my hair I’ll have it smeared in the papers, and spread it all over your ass. I still have friends and contacts. And I know my rights. Believe me, I know my rights.”
She came closer, calm, cold as ice. She leaned over beside him, speaking in a low voice. “Pretty sure of that, huh? You arrogant bastard.”
She faced him evenly, taking something small out of her pocket. She opened her palm, held it directly under his nose. Three envelopes were filled with fine white powder. “This is coke, cowboy. Really fine stuff. The best. You can’t buy it like this on the street. A hot shot with your contacts knows that, though. How much this cocaine worth, you think?” She spat the words out at him, so close he could feel her breath. “Ever use coke, Ruben? Ever get off on a really fine high?”
He turned away, said nothing.
“Gets lonely in prison, I hear. Some guys would kill for good shit like this. What happens when the word gets passed around that the freedom fighting politico’s hidden a cache of this stuff? And what’s gonna happen when this really fine shit gets found in your possession?”
“What are you trying to pull? You’re full of shit. You’ve got nothing on me.”
“No? Well listen, fucker, and listen good. I have contacts, too. Even up here. And there’s a lotta people who won’t be unhappy to see you with shit all over your face. I’m gonna have this planted on you, tucked away somewhere in your cell.”
He scoffed at her. “Won’t work. You’re wasting both our time.”
“Think so, jailhouse lawyer?” She pursed her lips. “Already have a contact who’s agreed to unload it. Then inform on you. There’s gonna be a routine search tonight — and guess what? They’re gonna find it. A fix, cowboy, a setup. All neatly arranged by me. You’ve been a thorn in too many sides. They’d enjoy framing your Marxist ass. I’m doing everyone a favor.” She was goading him; could feel his discomfort as he listened, knew he was wondering if she actually meant what she threatened. She had to make certain there were no doubts left in his mind.
“I know,” continued Yvonne. “You’ll kick and scream. Protest your civil rights. Get your lawyers, and yell to the world what’s been done to you. Maybe even get a few small headlines, who knows?” It was her turn to be smug. “Only who’ll be believed? Think anybody will care if you take this rap? Your lawyers in New York won’t care. They’ll have their hands full with all the new charges thrown at you. Possession, dealing, maybe attempted bribery.” He was beginning to take her seriously, she could tell. Beginning to squirm. Exactly what she wanted.
“Before it’s all over they’ll have you down in the hole. A little time in solitary to think things over. Help you sign a confession.”
“Nothing would make me do that.”
“We’ll see. I’m assured cooping men up in the hole works wonders. And they’ll love the opportunity to bust your arrogant ass. Open up a nice little hearing on drug possession charges. A brand new inquiry. New indictments, of course. The whole loaf, Ruben. The whole loaf.”
“You’re bluffing your way. It won’t hold up in court.”
“No? Seems a lot of the cons don’t like you very much. Don’t give you much respect. Calling yourself a political prisoner, behaving like you’re better than the rest. Found myself someone only too happy to cooperate. Sing his lungs out. Promised to help knock some time off his sentence if he went along. Cooperate. He was only too glad. He’ll swear up and down you been doing a little selling on the quiet. Inside supplier — outside dealer, through your friends. You’re the big man, the linchpin of the operation. We’ll call it a way of raising money for terrorist activities. The federal prosecutors will be very interested in your particular case. And you know how the Feds are: Relentless.” She smiled coldly, tightly.
It could be done, they were both aware. The color of his complexion changed from pale to pink, to red. It pleased her to see him fret and writhe.
“Parole? Forget about it. More like twenty, thirty years added on to your sentence. How old you gonna be when they let you out, Ruben? Too old to get it up? Or maybe by then you’ll learn to like spreading for every horny inmate.”
She struck a chord. He glowered at her.
She taunted him with the envelopes. “Have a good snort now, cowboy. Enjoy it. It’ll be your last.” She paused. Then said in a quieter tone, “Or perhaps you’ll change your mind, and have a nice honest chat with me.”
He sat there silently. Thinking. His forehead was dotted with tiny beads of perspiration. He wiped the palms of his hands.
“You’re a victim of a corrupt system, fucker. Me, I’m part of the system. I’m the one who’s gonna make it work against you.”
She stood fully, looked down at him. Anger remained masked with her cool demeanor. “I feel sorry for you. Your cause is gonna be thirty years ahead of you by the time they release you. You’ll be an old man. Forgotten.”
She put the cocaine inside her jacket pocket, flicked an ash at him. “You have one minute to think it over. Then I walk out of this place, and I won’t be back. In a few hours it’ll be over for you. Take my word. Or do you still think I’m bluffing?” She dared him openly, defiantly. “Go ahead. Turn me down.”
He swallowed hard. “We can talk,” was all he said.
“Good.” Yvonne returned to the table, sat comfortably. Ruben was openly agitated. He kept folding and unfolding his arms, crossing his legs, shuffling his feet. His palms were still wet, she saw.
“I’ve got a lot more background now than when we met last,” she warned. “So, no more lies. I’ll trip you in them and make you crawl. You’ll lick dog shit before I finish.”
Composed, undaunted, she took her notepad and prepared to write. “Tell me again about Vanessa. All of it. The truth.”
There was a distinct change in his tone. The belligerence was gone. “Not everything I told you was a lie,” he said to her. “Vanessa and I had been lovers, at least in the beginning. When I first met her she’d been living together with Gloria Popolos. As I said, she liked it both ways. A few months later while she was working with us, we got involved.”
“She fell in love with you?”
His grin was openly sardonic. “In her fashion, yes. She never wanted any involvement with a man. She was frightened of them. Always mistrustful. I was the only one in her life. After a time we talked things over, we wanted to be together, get married.”
“True love,” Yvonne said disdainfully. “Sounds just like a movie. I don’t think I like these answers, Ruben.”
“It’s still the truth.”
“That was only part of it,” he admitted. He slumped lower in his chair, rubbed a finger along the side of his moustache, reflectively stared into space. For a moment he seemed troubled. Then pained.
“I didn’t lie when I told you I was political, never intended to go beyond the limits I believed to be legitimate. Vanessa, though, she was wilder. Crazy at times, and willing to do anything necessary. A real activist. Always trying to stir me up, convince me that a political end wasn’t enough. Sometimes she would rant on about inequities and injustices. How a corrupt society has to be humbled to its knees, even crippled if necessary, before a real revolution could begin. Ideals meant nothing, she liked to say. Action was what counted. You had to be heard. Loudly. The louder the better.”
“How?”
“Small things at first. Armed robberies, ways to raise money so we could become independent, then so we could recruit.”
“Recruit where?”
“In the cities. The ghettoes. Not just among Hispanics, but all oppressed peoples. She lost sight of the struggle — my struggle — and wanted to broaden its scope to … ” He searched for the proper words. “To bring it home. Show results.”
“Like planting bombs?”
“Yes — no. No. Never.”
“First you said ‘yes.’”
“She had ideas. All kinds. She saw herself as a true revolutionary. A patriot.” He looked at Yvonne plaintively. “You can’t have a revolution without violence. History proves it again and again. France, Russia, Vietnam, Nicaragua. She wanted urban warfare. Guerilla tactics in the streets.”
“But you stopped her?”
“While I could.” He clasped his hands tightly together. He was openly disturbed by talking about this, deeply distressed. “One reason we did marry was exactly what you said. Things were getting out of control. The police were looking for me. If we were caught, either alone or together, it prevented the other one from being forced to give evidence. See, it also prevented me from being forced to testify against her.”
It had the ring of truth. Vanessa had proven herself to be psychopathic. “There was another reason, you said?” His look was sincere when he answered, “I loved her.” Yvonne leaned back, satisfied. In a bizarre way she almost felt sympathy for him. “I think you still do love her.”
He nodded slowly. “Yes. I still do.”
“So you let me believe she was dead.”
He came out of his memories abruptly, stared. “It was the only way I still could protect her against herself.”
“And let her continue to kill?”
“She — Vanessa needs help.”
“We know it was Gloria Popolos who died in that car, Ruben. Know that she and Vanessa had agreed to switch identities. I want to know why.”
“Gloria was a good person. She fought for the struggle, believed in the cause with all her soul. But she wasn’t like Vanessa. She wanted to storm the system by political power. Educate the people, lead them into demonstrations or confrontations against authority. She wasn’t opposed to violence if it was necessary. But not mindless violence. She would never stand for that.”
“You didn’t answer my questions.”
“We were all getting in deeper, more involved. Some of Vanessa’s activities were becoming dangerous. She was acting on her own. We knew from the start what risks we were taking, and what might happen to any of us. Vanessa and Gloria had been lovers, remember. At first it was kind of a game, self-protection. We reasoned it would help confuse the police if our activities were discovered. Sooner or later they were bound to catch up. We also used aliases, but names weren’t important. Actions were. Gloria would go out and do something — anything — and use Vanessa’s name. Vanessa did the same. It was useful. After a while it was so routine it became a joke.”
“A bad joke. Gloria is dead. I have to know why.”
“I can only speculate. By the time she died I’d already been convicted. Sent up here.”
Yvonne’s curiosity was growing. She lighted another cigarette. “Okay, speculate.”
“Vanessa, well, at first we used to think she was just getting carried away. You know, trying to make a statement. But was more than that. She was a troubled woman. She believed there was a government conspiracy to punish the lower classes. That the FBI or CIA were purposely spreading nerve gas. Everywhere. In the cities. On the farms. We were all being poisoned. She was convinced that nuclear reactors were methodically, insidiously, purposely spewing out small doses of radioactivity. Leaks that were meaningless over days or weeks — but certain death over longer periods of time. Killing people slowly, a way for the government to eliminate its enemies. She had theories. Agent Orange was one. Three Mile Island, another. It had been a bungled job. No one was supposed to have found out the truth: that it wasn’t an accident at all. She was even convinced that the Russian nuclear disaster at Chernobyl had been masterminded somehow by the CIA. International conspiracies. Some with the knowledge and cooperation of the Soviets themselves. No one was to be trusted. No one. There were secret cabals to rid western countries of the oppressed. To keep Latin America and the Third World enslaved forever. Thing was, she spoke so convincingly, so filled with data and facts, that she could almost make anyone believe it.”
“Did you?”
He sighed, his face solemn. “No. I hate this system, would do anything to be able to create a Cuba-style revolution in my homeland. But Vanessa had gone far beyond what was plausible. Her fantasies were real to her. She thought me to be blind to the truth. Her truth.”
“Ruben, didn’t you realize how ill Vanessa was?”
“Not at first. It had become worse. Please believe that. She hadn’t always been so fanatical.”
“What changed her?”
“I don’t know. But I do know about her background. She came from a home where her stepfather would go into drunken tirades and beat her. I mean hurt her. When she was about nine years old he started to burn her with lighted cigarettes. Abuse her in front of her own mother. He once cut her up with a knife. Did you know that? Tiny cuts all over her body. Punishment, he called it. I saw the scars.”
Yvonne was appalled. “No. I didn’t know.”
“Then did you know about her mother?”
“Nadia Santiago?”
“Her husband would beat her also. Regularly. Late one night, in a rage, he threatened to kill Vanessa. He was in a blind fury because he’d learned she was a lesbian. She had shamed him, he said. Shamed them all. Vanessa was about sixteen. She cowered in terror. There was a fight — and when it was done he was dead. Nadia Santiago had killed her husband with a butcher knife. To save her daughter’s life.” He glared at Yvonne. “Was that in your file?”
Yvonne felt sickened. She remembered the tortured old woman. Her unhappiness, the way she clung to her religion as the only stability in her life. She felt sorrow, and suddenly shame. Shame to be a human being in a world where these things happened.
“Vanessa hated her stepfather, hated everyone, I suppose. Her kid brother is a junkie who steals in the streets. Mother a battered woman who never harmed a soul, but was forced into a life of misery. There were many reasons why Vanessa acted the way she did. I don’t pretend to understand them.”
“When did she begin to lose all perspective?”
“No particular point in time. Slowly, little by little. I saw her hatred grow, felt it churn inside her. Against men, society, even against herself. She was determined to make her impact. Her own mark in her own way. For a long time I — we — kept her under control. Later, toward the end, and the breakup of Los Campions, she became even more irrational. Our group was in disarray. Hunted. Vanessa wanted us all to go out in a blaze o
f glory if we were caught. Take on the police, FBI, anyone. Kill as many of them as we could before they killed us.”
“How did your group feel about that?”
“That she was insane. Totally unrealistic and out of control. Our acts had been borderline. Many of them criminal, but not terrorist. Vanessa quarreled with everyone. Finally, Sally Cooperman wanted out. She’d had enough. Gloria, well, she still cared for Vanessa. Tried to reason with her. The others just drifted. They weren’t going to die for the cause. Most went underground, leaving the state, either starting new lives or picking up on old ones. Me, I hung in there to the end. The last three of us.”
“You, Gloria, and Vanessa.”
He nodded. “After I was sentenced I got regular letters from Gloria. She was worried. Vanessa was becoming increasingly obsessed with the idea of proving how fearless she was. She’d talked about ways to make herself a force to be dealt with. Gloria knew it was over for us. We’d had our day. At best, we’d drop from view and hopefully resume the struggle after my release. Not Vanessa. She had a plan. One big, last plan.”
“What was that?”
He looked at Yvonne uneasily, reluctant to speak. “To kill the governor of New York.”
“Jesus.”
“She was sick. Paranoid. Believing Secret Service agents were following her everywhere. Cars at night watching her home. Truth was that nobody cared anymore. We weren’t even a footnote to history. No one gave a damn. Vanessa could never accept that. We were all being slowly poisoned through the water supply, she’d told Gloria. An FBI plot to be rid of her. Before she died, though, she was going to show them all. Make headlines and history.”
“What did she do?”
“Blackmail, to begin with. Jaime DeVicente. He was a kid, a jerk. I told you before, we used him. Let him feel a part of things because of his family name. After Jaime went his way, Vanessa tried to contact him. Threatened him with exposure. To tie him to things he never did, and ruin him forever. Jaime had always been close to Vanessa — and now she was using it against him.
“Gloria tried to stop it. I can’t tell you exactly how. Her last letter to me was frantic. Vanessa was out of control. Actually preparing to assassinate the governor. And I promise you, if she’d put her mind to it, she would have succeeded. She had the capability to do anything she put her mind to.”
Black Midnight Page 18
