The Innocent

by Vincent Zandri

  I let out a breath.

  “Glad I asked,” Tony said.

  I took a sip of the coffee and looked around the old diner that had been here since my father was a kid growing up less than a mile from here on Colonie Street, smack between the redbrick rectory of Sacred Heart Church and the western bank of the Hudson River. The counter was made of light oak that had been covered some years back with a white laminate top. The walls were covered with a stainless-steel paneling that hadn’t quite managed to live up to the title of stainless, displaying as it did the brown-green marks of spattered grease. The big, boxy gas-fired grill took up most of the wall space directly across from Tony, and the floor was covered with white-and-black asbestos tiles. The Miss Albany was an old diner that looked like it might have been a trailer at one time. But now the place was an Albany landmark, a steadfast survivor amongst the abandoned lumber yards and steel mills that, once upon a time, made Broadway and the banks of the Hudson River seem like a hopping, if not a somewhat seedy, destination.

  Frank Sinatra crooned over the loudspeakers while I sipped my coffee.

  “So you’ve decided to take my case,” I said.

  Tony puckered his lips and blew on the surface of his coffee. “It’ll probably cost me my job,” he said. “A union lawyer representing an indicted lawman would be a definite problem.”

  “Don’t do anything you’ll regret.”

  “I wouldn’t get up in the morning if I didn’t plan on doing anything I would regret later on.”

  “We can sit here and philosophize all day, Tony. But you got to think about number one, no matter what. So I’ll understand if you want to say no.”

  “Listen, Keeper, I’ve been thinking about going out on my own for a long time now.”

  “I thought you liked the Council.”

  “It’s not that. I’m forty-two. Maybe it’s that midlife thing and maybe it’s not. But I feel like I got to make a move. This might be as good a time as any.”

  “Glad to be of assistance.”

  “And besides,” Tony said, “I think Pelton is crooked and I think I might get as much enjoyment out of seeing him come down as you will.”

  We said nothing for a second or two while Cliff cleaned the grill by scraping away at it with an inverted spatula.

  “We used to be friends, you know, Pelton and me,” I said.

  “So were Martin and Lewis.”

  “And Lennon and McCartney.”

  “All you need is love, right?”

  “We’re a team then?”

  “Yeah we’re a team,” he said, biting into another triangle of toast. “Paisans, like O.J. and Johnnie Cochran. Only don’t get in the habit of calling me at four in the morning to bail you out.”

  I had another sip of coffee and took in the soothing voice of Old Blue Eyes. I didn’t know what it was about Sinatra that made me want to light up a cigarette and pour myself a tall whiskey.

  Night and day, day and night…you are the one…

  I tapped out the swing beat on the counter with a butter knife.

  “Always the skins, man,” Tony said.

  “They call me the keeper,” I sang.

  The afternoon sunlight poured in through the wide diner windows behind me, and I could feel the radiant heat on my back. Outside the diner, the Broadway of the 1990s was now empty. But I tried to imagine a long time ago when it must have been filled with cars, trucks and women when they still painted their faces, instead of piercing their tongues and men when they still wore fedoras and oversized overcoats with shoulder pads, and smoked filterless Camels as they walked the sidewalks.

  Angelino wiped up the egg yolk on his plate with the last of his toast.

  “Let’s move to a booth,” he said, lifting his stocky body up from the stool, “get down to business, Keeper.”

  We set our coffees back down and took seats across from each other in the empty booth behind us. Before anything else was said, Tony took out a small tape recorder not much larger than his palm. He pressed the PLAY and RECORD buttons on the little machine simultaneously.

  “I’m gonna ask you a couple of basic questions,” he said, “just to get the blood moving, get a feel for what could be going on.”

  I nodded. From here on in, Tony was running the show.

  “Have there been any wrongdoings at Green Haven that you’ve been privy to in the three years since you were appointed superintendent?”

  The question was more like an understatement. Angelino knew the answer almost as well as I did. My war against corruption on the inside had made headlines for more than two years. Up until the time Fran died, that is. After Fran lost her life, I seemed to lose my enthusiasm for fighting what was a losing battle anyway. Who was I to be fighting the drugs, booze, gambling, sex, the gifts for guards, the favors, and extortion? Or to be more accurate, who was I to be fighting it all alone?

  Tony’s point, I knew, was this: did I make any enemies while acting as warden? The answer? Of course. Just ask Eduard Vasquez or Giles Garvin or any number of mob connections I had put a lid on -the likes of Edward Farrelli, Franky Evangelista, and Joseph “The Thumb” Ricardo.

  “The problem,” I said, “is this: Along the way I set up a couple of guards with wiretaps.”

  “Illegal move, number one,” Tony said, making a mark in a small, flip-top notebook he pulled out of his shirt pocket.

  “It was the only way to snag guards and convicts who were working together to bring in contraband. I knew Vasquez had been running the show. He and, to an extent, Giles Garvin. And they knew that I knew. It’s just that I could never catch them in the act. Even with the taps.”

  “They were probably on to the taps.”

  “It wasn’t until yesterday when I talked with Garvin that I realized how much stuff was being passed through,” I said.

  “Garvin opened up to you?”

  “Guess he figured it was safe now that Vasquez was out. But I think there’s more to it than that.”

  “How?”

  “Garvin said something about Vasquez being on his shit list.”

  Tony nodded, wrote something down in the notebook.

  “What would you say if I said I thought Pelton could be taking off the top?”

  “Possible,” I said. “Could explain why he kept me purposely understaffed. Could explain why none of the dope pushers were ever indicted.”

  “Could explain a lot of things,” Tony proposed.

  “It’s a long shot,” I said. “I mean, come on, the guy’s the commissioner for God’s sakes.”

  “Sure, it’s gonna be tough to prove. But not impossible.”

  I took a breath, tightened my lips.

  “Could be just the thing to save my big fat butt.”

  “Any of those tapped men come forward, Keeper, you’re done. Prisoner or no prisoner. Proof of Pelton’s involvement or no proof. You obstructed justice, even before you were busted for obstructing justice. What you got now looks bad, but what you’ll have if those stupidos come forward is a six-figure fine and five years’ lockup minimum. Can you imagine what they’d do to a former warden inside an iron house?”

  I was silent for a minute while the tape recorder continued running and Tony sipped his coffee.

  “Listen, Tony,” I said. “What if somehow I get to Vasquez, get him to admit he escaped, that Logan and Mastriano helped him, and that I had nothing to do with it?”

  “Now you’re defying all logic.”

  “Just consider it,” I insisted. “You know, for shits and giggles.”

  Tony sat back in the booth, both hands still wrapped around the coffee mug.

  “Well, seeing we’re only talking shits and giggles, I’d say you could prove you weren’t implicated. At the very least, you’d sway a jury that way.”

  “More like, I’d blow the whole thing out of the water.”

  “At the same time, paisan, you’d open up a whole new can of worms.”

  “But it would make Pelton awfully nervous,
that is, if he really did have any part in the drug trade.”

  “And just how do you plan on getting an escaped convict to come forward?”

  “Hey, if Vasquez won’t come to me…”

  Tony sat up straight.

  “You’re not thinking of doing something really stupid?” he said. “As your counsel, I should remind you that if you leave Stormville you jeopardize the terms of your bail. You’re under what amounts to house arrest. You’re taking a chance just by being here.”

  I sipped my coffee.

  “Vasquez’s girlfriend lives in a town in southern California called Olancha, right?” I reached into my pocket and pulled out the crumpled envelope, pointing to the postmark with my index finger. “Well then, what do you make of this, Tony?”

  Tony picked up the envelope and held it out at arm’s length. He squinted, adjusting his arm like a telescope, until he could read the postmark.

  “Athens,” he said, hitting the STOP button on the tape machine and now holding the envelope only inches away from his face. “No wonder the FBI turned up nothing.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “Vasquez could be right under our noses and no one knows about it except you and me.”

  “Okay, say he is in Athens? Just what do you think you’re gonna get from Vasquez if you can find him? Just what do you think he’s gonna say? Take me, I’m yours?”

  “It’s the only chance I’ve got, Tony. My only shot at redemption. Maybe I can convince him that Pelton is more of an enemy than I am.”

  Tony leaned into the table.

  “He sees you,” he said, “he’s gonna kill you, Keeper. Take it from me. You go down to Athens, you’re a dead man. Vasquez won’t consider you a friend, believe me.”

  Cliff came over and topped off our coffees. Out of the corner of his mouth, he asked me if I wanted something to eat. I told him I didn’t. It didn’t seem to make a difference to him either way. He went back behind the counter to take care of a customer who had just walked in. The customer, who wore a long wool overcoat in the middle of a hot spring day, took a stool at the counter. A long wool overcoat and it must have been eighty-five degrees outside, and sunny.

  “There’s something else I should tell you,” Tony added.

  “What now?”

  “Just this morning, Pelton nominated Mastriano and Logan for a citation and a promotion.”

  I felt the blood fill my face.

  “At the same time,” Tony went on, “Pelton wants to compensate them for their physical and emotional troubles. A bonus, if you will.”

  “Well I’ll be damned,” I said.

  Tony got up from the counter, shaved some bills off the thick stack he kept in the pocket of his pants.

  “Give it to me straight, Tony. Just what the hell do you think is going on?”

  Tony took a deep breath, adjusted the two buttons on his double-breasted blazer. He looked directly at me.

  “In my opinion, paisan, Pelton’s gonna try and bring you down.”

  “I’m aware of that already.”

  “Yeah, but he’s gonna stop at nothing. He’s not interested in convincing the public that you let Vasquez go free out of simple negligence. He wants to convince Johnny Q. Public that you were paid to let him go. In other words, he’ll try to make it look like you were part of a much larger crime syndicate. Pelton could actually be putting you in his own shoes, making you take the rap for something gone way out of control for him. This could either be the fruition of a long-range plan or something he’s doing as a last-ditch effort. Who knows?”

  “You mean to tell me I might have been stepping on Pelton’s toes the past three years and not even realized it?”

  “If he’s involved in what I think he’s involved in, the last thing he needed was an overzealous warden stemming the flow of drugs and contraband into Green Haven.”

  I made a fist, brought it down hard on the tabletop.

  “Bastard’s turning the tables on me,” I spat. Coffee spilled over the rim and made a puddle on top of the Formica. Cliff made an about-face at his grill. So did the man seated at the counter. He was still wrapped in his overcoat, like it was cold and snowing outside instead of hot and sunny.

  “It’s okay, Cliff,” Tony said. “My paisan’s a little upset.”

  Cliff looked at me for a second or two with eyes that seemed more searing than his grill. His round face, on the other hand, was as cold and white as old bacon grease. He sported faded tattoos on both forearms-Navy tattoos-one an insignia, the other a hula-hula dancer with a grass skirt. He held a stainless-steel spatula in his right hand. After a second or two, he let out a short breath. Then he turned and flipped a couple of eggs, over easy.

  “Listen,” Tony said. “That business this morning at your house? The ransacking? In my opinion, just a scare tactic. Probably from Pelton to make you know he can get at you whenever he wants. He knows you can’t get away with accusing him of doing such a thing because, after all, he is the commissioner. An accusation would be ludicrous, especially after your arrest.”

  Tony got up, retrieved his brown Mike Hammer fedora from off a hat rack that was attached to the booth back. He placed the hat on his head carefully, so that it didn’t muss up even a single strand of his black hair. Then he pulled down the brim, shading his eyes. He took a toothpick out of the shot glass atop a small table by the door and placed a hand on the door knob. All I could see from where I sat were his head and shoulders on the other side of the booth back.

  “Still not going to be easy to sleep knowing they’re out there,” I said, resting my hand on the.45 stuffed inside my belt, hidden by my blazer and the tabletop.

  Tony took his hand off the doorknob and laid his heavy arms on top of the booth back. He set his chin on the backs of his hands and, at the same time, glanced over at the grill to see if Cliff was watching. When he saw that Cliff was distracted, he brought his right hand up and made a trigger-pulling motion with two fingers.

  “Listen up,” he said. “I got a little story for you that might put you at ease.”

  “A story,” I repeated. “Now?”

  “Just relax and listen,” he said. “Once upon a time there were three little pigs who left their mama to go out into the world and build homes of their own. Now, the first little pig built a house of straw. One day the big bad wolf came by and blew it down. The pig ran like a bat out of hell across town to his brother’s house, which by the way, was made of wood. But the big bad wolf had been tailing his ass and when he caught up with the two pigs, he blew in that house also. The two pigs screamed ‘Mamma mia’ and managed to escape to their oldest brother’s place-a house built the right way. You know, the Italian way with bricks and mortar.”

  “Heard this one before, Tone.”

  “Let me finish, paisan,” Tony said with a calming wave of his hands. “Now, the two younger pigs were in a panic, screaming that the big bad wolf was after them and that he would be there any second to destroy the brick house and make roast pork with rosemary out of them. But the oldest pig was calm and cool. He told his bothers to settle down, relax. Even if it didn’t seem like it at the time, he had everything under control. Just to prove it, he picked up the phone, dialed a number, spoke with someone for a few seconds, and then hung up. A few minutes later, sure enough, the old wolf was at the front door shouting off like a drunk on a bender about huffing and puffing and caving in the entire joint. While the two younger pigs huddled in a corner trembling in fear, the oldest pig sat back and relaxed. But just then, there was the sound of a car racing up the road. The car skidded to a stop right outside the door. A bunch of rounds were fired – shotguns, grease guns, Uzis, you name it. Then the car sped away. ‘What was that?’ the youngest pig asked the oldest pig. ‘That, my little brother,’ he said, ‘was the Guinea Pigs.’”

  Angelino laughed and pushed back his fedora just slightly, enough to expose some of his forehead.

  I sat back.

  “I’m not sure I get it,” I said.

>   “What I’m trying to tell you is not to panic. I’m prepared to help you fight Pelton no matter what it takes. Even if I have to call in a few of my underworld pals to lean on the big bad wolf a little. If you know what I mean.”

  “Guinea Pigs,” I nodded. “Friends of yours.”

  “I prefer to call them business associates,” he said, cocking his head. “And they’re available whenever or wherever I want them. Capisce?”

  “Capisce,” I said.

  Angelino laughed unlike any lawyer I had ever known. It was a tongue-in-cheek laugh that said, screw the law, what’s right is right. It felt good to know he was on my side, working for me. He gave me a wink and a smile, and pulled the brown fedora back down over his forehead. He twisted that toothpick around inside his mouth. But before he left, he took a good look at the guy in the wool overcoat who had both hands wrapped around the coffee cup like it was snowing outside. Tony turned back to me, made like a pistol with his forefinger and thumb, pointed it at his temple, and twirled it around a few times. Then he exited the Miss Albany Diner the by way of the front door.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  INSIDE THE TOYOTA, BEFORE turning over the ignition, I took one final look at the color-Xeroxed file Val had lifted from the microfilm in the prison archives. Rap sheets, medical histories, two photos of Vasquez-one a snapshot of him seated in a cheap aluminum lawn chair, a shotgun laid out flat across his lap; another a blow-up from mug shots taken during his 1988 arrest in New York for shooting that rookie cop at point-blank range. There was a third photo, too, but not of Vasquez. A blurry, color shot of a woman who had to be his girlfriend, Cassandra Wolf. Her hair was brown and her face white, her eyes black and heavy. The color Xerox was a little distorted. But even with the distortion, I could make out a small red mark on her neck, down near her shoulder. Just a small mark, about the size of a thumb print. Maybe a birthmark, maybe a tattoo. It was hard to tell because the mark was cut off by the edge of the photo. But then it came to me. I thought about the heart-shaped tattoo from the photos now in Schillinger’s possession. Could Cassandra be the mystery girl in the orgy shots? Whatever the case, it wouldn’t take an Einstein to figure out that wherever I found Eduard Vasquez, I’d find Cassandra Wolf.