Bronx Requiem

by John Clarkson

  Both detectives stepped in, but neither moved very far into the apartment so as not to upset her. She stood with her arms crossed, waiting for whatever trouble they had brought to her.

  Palmer hung back, letting Ippolito continue.

  “Mrs. Leon, I’m afraid we have some bad news.”

  She shook her head and turned away from them, moving over to the couch, sitting down at the edge, as if she didn’t want to hear the bad news while standing. She didn’t offer the detectives a seat so Palmer and Ippolito walked toward the couch and stood opposite her.

  Palmer held his notebook and pen, ready to take down any information Ippolito might pull out of the old lady.

  Ippolito knew from his interview with Ferguson that Lorena was Paco Johnson’s mother-in-law, so he put on a sympathetic demeanor, informing her, “Your son-in-law was found dead this morning, not too far from here.”

  Lorena looked up at Ippolito confused. He translated. “Su yerno fue encontrado muerto.”

  Maybe it was his accent, but Ippolito’s translation seemed to confuse her even more.

  She responded with a voice degraded by decades of cheap menthol cigarettes. “What?”

  Palmer glared at the woman and raised his voice in case there was something wrong with her hearing. “Paco Johnson has been murdered.”

  “He’s dead?”

  “Yes. He’s dead.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  Good question, thought Ippolito.

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out. Do you have any idea why?”

  She looked down at a frayed green carpet and shook her head. Palmer couldn’t tell if she was somehow trying to deny Packy had been murdered, or deny them an answer.

  She looked up at them and frowned.

  Ippolito said, “Can you tell us anything that might explain what happened?”

  “He should never come here. Never.”

  “Why, Mrs. Leon? Why should he have never come here?”

  She shot her right hand up as if to slap away the trouble that had entered her home. She sat up straighter.

  “He don’t belong here. He knows nothing. I never see him for years. He no care about me, about my house.”

  “So why did he come here?” asked Ippolito.

  “From prison. For a place to stay. He no want to be here. You are the police. You already know these things? You know he was in prison.”

  Palmer said, “Why did you let him come here, if you didn’t want him to?”

  Now the old lady looked up at the two men. First Palmer, then Ippolito. Something in her hardened. She shook her head again, digging in, a stubborn scowl twisting her face.

  Ippolito was tired. The hot, stuffy apartment and odor of the fried beef aggravated him. The old lady’s raspy smoker’s voice annoyed him. If this was their only lead, they were going to be fucked on this case.

  He walked to the dining area and came back with a chair, part of an old red Formica dining set. The vinyl on the back of the chair had split apart years ago. He dragged the chair near where Lorena Leon sat and placed himself in front of her.

  Palmer stood where he was, watching, listening carefully.

  Ippolito poked the old woman’s knee, perhaps harder than he’d intended. She jerked away from him and looked at him, angrier now. Ippolito didn’t care.

  He dropped his attempts at Spanish, not wanting to give her any cover. “Listen to me, lady. This is serious. This isn’t drugs, or burglary, or some petty bullshit. This is homicide. Murder. Understand?”

  Ippolito made sure to get his face right in front of the older woman’s. He looked at her carefully, letting what he’d said sink in. Although her skin had creased with age and taken on a web of fine lines from years of smoking, the woman had strong features. This wasn’t some shy old lady. She still had plenty of fire in her.

  She didn’t look away. She met Ippolito’s direct gaze.

  He spoke slowly and forcefully. “We don’t forget about murders. We will find out everything. Everything. If you help us, if you tell us what you know, it will be better for you. What’s the matter, don’t you want to know who killed your son-in-law?”

  “No. I don’t want to know. I don’t care.”

  Ippolito ignored the response and forged on. “Did he come here like he was supposed to when he got released from prison yesterday?”

  “Yes. He come here like he was supposed to.”

  “What time was that?”

  “Last night. About eight.”

  “How long was he here?”

  “I give him some food. Maybe an hour he stays. Then he went out.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He didn’t tell you?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t ask?”

  Again she stopped talking, but Ippolito and Palmer had no doubt she knew more than she was telling them. Palmer took a soft approach, speaking to Lorena Leon as if the two of them trusted each other. Not like the other cop in the chair staring at her.

  “Come on, Mrs. Leon, it’s okay to tell us. Don’t worry. Where did he go? He must have said something.”

  Lorena responded with a quick shake of her head. She grabbed the iron skillet with the pungent ground meat and stood quickly, her agility surprising both men.

  Palmer took a half step back, thinking for a moment she was going to toss the greasy ground meat at him, or worse, try to hit him with the iron skillet.

  Ippolito stood, thinking the same, and how embarrassing it would be to take down an old lady trying to hit them with a damn frying pan.

  But the moment passed quickly as Lorena stepped around the coffee table, moving away from them, heading toward her kitchen.

  She didn’t turn to them as she spoke. She yelled out, “He went to find his mandria daughter.”

  Palmer whispered to Ippolito, “What’s mandria mean?”

  “Worthless.”

  Both men followed at a distance as Lorena walked into her small, cluttered kitchen. Now Ippolito hung back, letting Palmer stand in the doorway asking his questions.

  “What’s his daughter’s name?”

  “Amelia.”

  “Johnson?”

  “Yes, what other name?”

  “Why did he want to find his daughter?”

  She continued answering in a shout, never looking at Palmer. She dropped the skillet on the counter with a bang. Pulled out a bowl from a cupboard over the counter. Scooped and scraped the ground meat into the bowl. Shouting out information.

  “Why shouldn’t he go see his daughter? He didn’t see her for so many years. He wants to see her, so I told him. Go to the Bronx River Houses. She’s in there. With her pimp. Derrick. Derrick Watkins. I know what she does. Like her mother. A whore and a drug addict.”

  Palmer wrote quickly and carefully in his notebook.

  “The same, the same. Always the same. Such a beautiful girl. Like her mother. And look what she does.”

  Lorena was crying now, talking, ranting as the tears ran down her face, seemingly unconnected to any anguish. Her face remained without expression as she angrily wiped her tears with the back of her hand, as she continued to fuss with the food and the bowl and the skillet, scraping up the ground meat and wiping away the drip under her nose, as annoyed and angry at her crying as she had been at the two men who had come into her apartment. No sobbing, no hitch in her voice. Her tears seemed to be an independent part of her that she simply couldn’t control. Just like she couldn’t control what was happening around her.

  She dropped the skillet into her sink and pushed past Palmer before he could step out of her way. She headed back to her small living room, away from them. She was done with them.

  But Ippolito wouldn’t let her get away. He yelled out after her as she walked past him, putting enough into his voice to let her know this wasn’t over yet.

  “Hey, Mrs. Leon!”

  Ippolito walked after her into the living room. Palmer hung back. She
stopped and turned to him, her old wet eyes blazing, arms crossed.

  “What?” she yelled.

  Ippolito saw Lorena was reaching a point he didn’t want her to go past.

  “Just one more question, okay? Why did you let him come here?”

  She lifted her chin at him as she answered, “Go ask the parole man. The black man and his friend.”

  “What friend?”

  “Someone who knew Paco in prison.” She paused, remembering the name. “Beck. His name is Beck. They made me take him, that’s why. They make me do it. Okay?”

  Ippolito said, “You know his first name?”

  “James. He and the black man, they say he can’t get out of prison without a place.” Lorena’s mouth formed into a tight line. She looked like a defiant child refusing to eat. She suddenly yelled, “They make me take him, okay?”

  With that, she walked out of the living room, down a short hall to her bedroom, and slammed the door behind her.

  7

  As usual, Demarco Jones drove the customized, all-black Mercury Marauder. Beck in the front passenger seat. Manny content to be alone in the back.

  Nobody spoke much. Each of them dealing with their memories, sorrow, and anger.

  Beck felt the pain more intensely than the others, for he had been much closer to Packy Johnson. He struggled with the loss of a true friend. And the terrible loss of a last chance for Packy.

  Packy Johnson had lived forty-two years, thirty-two of which had been spent in juvenile institutions, foster homes, or prisons. Eighty percent of his life confined, focused mostly on simply surviving. And now, the chance for Packy Johnson to finally experience what a life freed from incarceration might have to offer him had been completely and irrevocably destroyed.

  Demarco glanced at Beck brooding. He had never seen him give in to such a dark, angry mood. A mood Demarco knew might turn Beck reckless. And that would be very dangerous.

  In the backseat, Manny Guzman showed little except for the imperceptible clenching of his jaw and occasional pursing of his lips.

  Demarco cleared his throat.

  “I left a message for Ciro.”

  Beck nodded once. “Good.”

  Demarco pushed it, wanting to get Beck talking.

  “What do we know about this old lady?”

  Beck scratched his nose with the knuckle of his forefinger. His mouth twitched. “Not much. Walter and I went to see her in order to get the housing issue cleared with the parole board. She’s a hard case.”

  “How old is she?”

  “I don’t know. I’d guess in her seventies.”

  “And what is she to Packy? An in-law?”

  “Barely. I don’t know if she’s anything to anybody.”

  “What about his daughter? He has a daughter, right?”

  Beck knew Demarco’s questions were his way of pulling him out of his silent brooding so he went along with it, barely.

  “I don’t know much about her. I think she’s sixteen or seventeen.”

  “Who’s she live with?”

  “I don’t know. It wasn’t something we asked the mother-in-law about.”

  “Was Packy close to her? The daughter?”

  Beck lapsed into one-word answers.

  “No.”

  Demarco persisted. “So you and Packy first met up at Clinton, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How long before you got sent there? I forget.”

  Beck shifted in his seat. They were entering the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. His thoughts narrowed like the car lanes entering the underpass, remembering back when he had been unjustly sentenced to a term of ten to thirty years for first-degree aggravated manslaughter.

  “After my trial was finally over, which took almost two years, they sent me to Sing Sing for about eight months, which is where a lot of guys go until they get sorted out.”

  “But that judge tried to get you exiled right away up to Clinton, right?”

  “He tried. He put a target on me with the Department of Correction as much as he could, but DoC moved at its own pace.”

  From the backseat Manny said, “You killed a cop, man. He wanted to make an example of you.”

  “I killed a drunken loudmouth in a stupid bar fight that consisted of a chest bump and one punch. The prosecutor tried to screw me by withholding evidence, the judge fucked me with the jury instructions and the way he ran the trial, and he fucked me again in the sentencing and the assignment. It all gave Phineas more grounds for appeal, but at the time, it put me in a nearly constant state of rage. Pissed off at the judge, the trial, my lawyer, myself.”

  Manny nodded at his memory of Beck in Dannemora. “And what, couple days after that they threw you in the SHU?”

  “Yeah. When I got out of the Box, I was ready to go after anybody. Inmates. Guards. I was right on the edge.” Beck shook his head at the memory. “If I hadn’t run into Packy, I wouldn’t have made it.”

  Manny spoke while staring out the car window, almost as if he were talking to himself. “Those sadist pricks like driving men to suicide.”

  Demarco asked, “How’d you connect with Packy?”

  “Day after I got out of the SHU. Ran into him in the north yard.” Beck shook his head at the memory. “He’d been in a long time by then. He took one look at me and just said what I needed to hear. He saved my life. He changed my life.”

  Demarco glanced at Beck, waiting for Beck to explain more, but he didn’t, and Demarco let it go.

  The car emerged from the tunnel. Demarco eased over to the left lane heading for the FDR.

  A sad silence descended in the car. No one spoke for a while. And then, without preamble, the grizzled, oldest, perhaps toughest of them, Manny Guzman, leaned forward and placed his hand on Beck’s left shoulder. He let his heavy hand remain there for a moment, and then patted Beck’s shoulder one time. Suddenly, everything Beck had been feeling penetrated into him. And he allowed it. Allowed the deep, terrible unremitting loss to stream into him and flow back out.

  Beck blinked, feeling the sudden sting of tears welling up. He stared straight out the windshield, silent and still. Nothing seemed to touch him now as he let the tears spill from his eyes. He wiped his face with an open palm, in the same way he would wipe away sweat.

  In the backseat Manny Guzman nodded to himself slowly.

  In the driver’s seat Demarco Jones blinked and cleared his throat.

  Beck turned in his direction and smiled ruefully, shaking his head. “Jeezus.”

  Demarco tipped his head in acknowledgment.

  Beck began talking again to fend off the emotion.

  “Packy and me met first.” Beck pointed a thumb toward the backseat. “A month or so later, me and the OG there connected.”

  “After he got ahold of himself.”

  “After I helped you with the Crips thing.”

  “That, too. D, once we got together it wasn’t long before we ran our part of that place. I mean, we ran that thing and half the dopes in there didn’t know we was running it. That was the beauty of it.”

  Beck said, “The warden knew it well enough.”

  “I guess.”

  “No guessing about it. That’s why they sent me the hell out of there. Warden didn’t bother trying to arrange another max prison for me, he just sent me back to Sing Sing. It was just as bad as it was when I’d been there the first time. Too many new guards training there. Too many assholes coming in from Rikers still in the middle of some war that started in that shit hole. Seemed like half the prison had a blade of some sort. Sneaking around, scheming for a way to jump somebody.”

  Manny said, referring to Demarco, “That’s when you and the maricón, here, met, right? Your second bit at Sing Sing.”

  Beck looked at Demarco. “You were there, what, about a year when I got back the second time?”

  “About a year. Little more. I was on A block. You were on B.”

  Beck nodded, remembering. “Too many fucking grudges and fights in t
hat place. You remember the guy who stomped that poor bastard’s head out in the yard?”

  Now it was Demarco’s turn to be terse. “Yes.”

  Beck said, “The tower guard shot him, but not before he crushed the guy’s skull.”

  Demarco said, “Got him in the leg, which was a good shot from that distance.”

  Manny said, “I’m glad they kept me at Clinton.”

  Beck turned and said, “That’s cuz they didn’t want you starting a war at another prison. They kept you there and moved everybody away from you.”

  Demarco accelerated the Mercury onto the FDR and said, “How long before you left for Eastern?”

  “About a year. By then Phineas was going all guns on my appeal. He’d pretty much cracked it open. The timing came together on a lot of moving parts. Taschen was going to retire.…”

  “The cop who finally came forward?”

  “Yeah. He didn’t have to worry about being blackballed or losing his rank or anything. That broke it open. All the Brady violations came out. Prosecutor withholding exculpatory evidence. The bad jury instructions. Phineas tore down the temple, man. He got me transferred out of Sing Sing up to Eastern. Much better joint. Calmer. Max security, but a better place. And they had a bunch of programs up there. Including the Bard College thing.”

  “And Packy was there by then.”

  “Yep.”

  Demarco continued up the FDR, maneuvered the car into the right lane, lining up to head over the Willis Avenue Bridge. Beck watched the slimy water of the East River slide by on his right, remembering his past.

  “I didn’t know he was at Eastern. I was sitting out in the yard by myself. Early summer night, a couple of weeks after they transferred me there. Around this time of year. They have a big athletic field next to the main building. The walls weren’t very high on that side. You could see the sky. You could see the Shawangunk Ridge off in the distance. It almost felt like you were outside, not trapped in a prison.

  “So I’m sitting on this bench near one of the ball fields, and I see this guy heading toward me from about fifty yards away. The sun was behind him, so I couldn’t really make him out. He had his hands in sight, which helped, but you know—prison. You don’t take anything for granted. So I get up on my feet. He stops, laughs. Calls out my name. Now I see it’s Packy. We do the handshake, the brother hug. How’re you doing? Blah, blah, blah. Thirty seconds later, no warning, no explanation, he asks me to help him learn to read better.”