“I don’t think he has a record. But I have his address.”
“And you think if someone were to go and speak with him …?”
“Not a chance. Solly, he’s the smartest guy I ever met. But I got something better.”
He didn’t say anything, but I could see he was drooling. And not for that steak he’d ordered.
“I got his book.”
He made a “What’s that supposed to mean?” move with his face and hands.
“His crime book. Solly’s name isn’t in it. No names are, just little … codes, like. But it’s in his handwriting.”
“I still don’t see—”
“Solly wouldn’t put his own name in the book. Who makes evidence against himself? And he wouldn’t put in the names of the guys he hired for different jobs, either. He’s no rat, Solly. Not even in secret. But you know what he does put in there?”
“Whoever hired him?”
“Bingo. Plus the dates, the take, the split, everything.”
“And you have this book?”
“That’s what I said.”
“You didn’t just happen to find this book lying around.”
“No. And that’s why I need what I’m going to ask you for. See, I thought Solly was … like an uncle to me. Solly always was a guy who took care of things. I guess I thought I was one of those things. Like Grace.”
“Grace?”
“You wouldn’t understand. She’s … special.”
He tapped the side of his head.
“Not like you think. I mean, you can tell she’s got this Down-syndrome thing just by looking at her. And the way she talks. But she’s smart as hell.”
The food came. We ate like two guys sitting across a mess hall table. Two guys who didn’t like each other. Kept our eyes down—to watch the other guy’s hands.
“How does this Grace fit into what you’re telling me?”
“She’s got a key to Solly’s place. I do, too. I thought we were the only ones. Now I’m not so sure.”
“What difference would that make?”
“Right after I got out, I went over there. Solly introduced me to the doorman. The parking lot guy, too. Said I was his nephew. Jerome. Anyway, while I’m sitting there, going over the job—you know the one I’m talking about—this Grace walks in.
“She calls him ‘Uncle Solly.’ Turns out she’s the daughter of … one of us. He’s dead. Been gone a long time. Solly tells the building people that she’s his maid. Comes in once a week to clean. And he pays her for it, too. Five hundred a week.”
“Money he was holding from—”
“Nah. He’s just doing the right thing. See, that’s what we—all of us, I mean—that’s what we’d expect him to do. Solly’s not the boss, he’s more like the … like I said, the man who takes care of things. Even people, he takes care of.”
“All right,” he said, making a little move with his fork, like he was pulling me over to him.
“Okay, here’s what happened,” I told him. “I’m there with Solly. Grace walks in. She sees he’s busy, so she goes into one of the bedrooms.
“Solly, he’s telling me there’s going to be a little wait for me to get my money. From the jewelry-store job. He sees I don’t like hearing that—he’s had five years to get my money in a good safe place. But he tells me he’s got me all set up: bank account, a car, even a place to stay. So it sounds pretty good.
“Now, Solly’s an old man. Grace is a very sweet girl. She worries about him. So the fridge is always full of stuff that’s good for him. Juices and that. Solly, he has to use the bathroom a lot. Especially when he’s drinking a lot of juice, and he always does that when Grace comes over, he says.
“So Solly’s in the bathroom, and I get up. Just to move around, not get cramped. I walk past Grace. She’s got her nose in a book. Then I remember Solly telling me that she’s not really a maid; he just tells the building managers she is, so they don’t expect him to use their own people.
“Remember, I’m a thief. A good one. I can tell when a place has people living in it or not. That place, Solly probably only used it for a front—it wasn’t just clean, it was like nobody ever sat on the furniture.
“His book was taped to the back of the night stand in one of the bedrooms. It looked like one of those old-fashioned address books. Kind of thick, with rings all along the binder.
“I took the book. I don’t know why, but something told me to grab it, and I did. Just slipped it into my coat. Solly never suspected a thing.
“But by now, he knows. And he knows I know, too.”
“And you believe yourself to be in danger because the book ties him to …?”
“I’m not sure what it ties him to. But I know what it means when there’s a black ‘X’ over someone’s name.”
“Something that the statute of limitations would never run out on.”
“Yeah. But that part wouldn’t have made me worried, unless I was in Solly’s ledger—if he even has one—and I was already X’ed out.”
“Why would Solly want you … eliminated?”
“ ’Cause he’s fucking insane. You’ll see. That’s what Solly’s been doing all these years. Putting out hits on people he worked with. Like he’s cleaning up behind himself.
“Maybe he’s gone paranoid, I don’t know. But by now, he’s got to know I’ve got his book. With the money he’s got, he could hire the best. So I’m a dead man unless I can get out of here. Disappear. Start over.”
“We can certainly take care of that.”
“Putting Solly in jail won’t make me safe.”
“I understand.”
“And I’m not going in any Witness Protection bullshit.”
“Fair enough. Now, when do I get this book?”
“When you make a promise.”
“I already said we’d be able to—”
“Not that. Before you visited me in prison, you spoke to the cops, right? Detective Tom Woods?”
“That’s right. Among others.”
“And they told you, flat out, that they knew I never raped that girl?”
“Of course. Why else would I have—?”
“Yeah. Okay, here’s the promise I want. You go and see the girl, and you tell her the truth.”
“The girl who was—?”
“Yeah. Her. Get Woods to go with you, if you can. But all that really counts is that she knows it wasn’t me.”
He closed his eyes for a few seconds, so I couldn’t see the battle going on in there.
Then he let out a little breath, like he’d made a decision.
“I can’t do that,” he said. Flat, not bargaining.
“What? Why the hell not? It’s the truth.”
“It is. And where would that leave her?”
“Huh?”
The gray fog around him went from pale to almost black, bright streaks flashing, like lightning at night. “I’ll tell you where I’m going, Caine.” Even his voice was different. Not … neutral anymore. “This is all about you, isn’t it? Your ‘rep.’ You ever know a woman who’s been raped?”
“I … I guess I don’t know. Nobody ever said that to me, anyway.”
“I have. And you want me to tell this woman, ‘The man who raped you never went to prison at all. The man you’ve got a Permanent Order of Protection against, he’s not the man who raped you.’ ”
“You mean, she wouldn’t want to think she sent an innocent man to prison?”
“You don’t feel anything outside yourself, do you, Caine?”
“Me?”
“If you can’t understand why it would terrify her if I told her that story, you’re either a miserable reptile or as dumb as a rock.”
His words were like a blast of wind, blowing me back against a wall. I couldn’t move.
“So let me spell it out for you,” he said, like a bucket of ice cubes tumbling out. “It’s easy enough to explain to her that you weren’t any kind of innocent man—you should have been in prison, onl
y for a different crime. But if she hears that story you want me to tell, she’ll think the man who raped her is still out there.”
“Christ!” I said, thinking, You fucking moron. Lynda even told you that!
“Oh, it gets worse, believe me. She thought it was over. And now you want me to go and tell her the man who did that to her, not only is he on the loose, but the man she put in prison is out now. And that man has a long history of violence. You think she’d ever be able to sleep through the night again? Nah, you don’t give a fuck. You know what, Caine? You can just keep your little book.”
He pushed his plate away from him, like he was getting up to leave.
“Wait,” I said.
He looked at me.
“Please.”
He just kept looking at me.
“I’m not what you think. It’s not that I don’t give a damn. And it’s not that I’m stupid, either. And I can prove it to you. Right now.”
He just sat there.
I could hear that cop, Woods. In my head, like a message. “Or maybe he’s already doing time on one of the others.” So I told the dark cloud: “What if you told her the man who really raped her is still in prison? Never coming out. All you need is a rape-o who was on the street when it … happened. One of those pieces of shit who rape for fun. And now he’s behind bars forever, ’cause he got dropped for a bunch of other ones.”
He was quiet for a minute. Then he said, “I suppose that could work. But there’s still …”
I could hear Lynda in my head: You think any broad with plastic tits, she’s got to be stupid, is that it? I knew what to say then.
“You think any guy looks like me, he’s got to be stupid, right? Muscles and brains, they, like, cancel each other out. You fucking ‘suppose’ it could work, is that right? Maybe you’re too busy looking down your nose at me to see I might know some things.
“Well, here’s one of those things: You go to any joint in the country, most of the cons will tell you they’re innocent. They were framed, the cops flaked them, their lawyer sold them out—you know. And a lot more than you think would be telling the truth.”
“What does this have to do with—?”
“How about if you just let me finish, okay? Convicts, they got a different way of looking at things. In their minds, crime, that’s a game with rules. You go out and hold up a bank. If they catch you, you lose. If you get away, you win. Get it?”
“It’s not complicated.”
“Yeah? You sure? See, you’re missing what I’m telling you. The joints are loaded with guys doing time for a crime they never committed, all right. But those guys, they actually did enough crimes to box them for life if they had been caught, see?”
“So you think this … scenario would have the ring of truth?”
“For all you know, it might be the truth, that’s what I’m telling you. The guy you want doesn’t even have to be in a New York pen. Could be federal, another state, doesn’t matter. All he needs to qualify is be a big white guy doing a long stretch for rapes, a guy who was out when … it happened to her. Now, tell me you can’t find one guy who fits that frame.”
He looked straight at me for a couple of seconds. Then he said, “You’re right. That would work. She wasn’t raped in her own place, so—”
“Don’t tell me anything about it. I still have that polygraph card. Maybe it don’t mean nothing to you, but it’s precious to me. You never fucking got that, did you?”
“I do now,” he said, as he sat back down.
I felt a weight come off me. “You can tell her something else,” I said to him. “Tell her you spoke with the man who went to prison for raping her. The innocent man who really isn’t so innocent. A bad, dangerous man. That’s me, right? You tell her not only did I do that guy’s time, he hung a sex-fiend jacket on me, too. Tell her, if that scumbag ever crosses my path, he’s dead.”
“That I do believe, Mr. Caine. If she hadn’t been raped, none of this—”
“I don’t care what you believe, Mr. Johnson. All I care about is, she believes it. Can you get that done?”
“I can.”
“Okay. That’s one piece. Remember what you promised?”
“We’ve been all over—”
“No. No, we haven’t. You said you could get me immunity, remember?”
He just nodded.
“I know it’s too late for that. But when you offered it, that was the same as telling me you know some connected people. High-up connected.”
He just stared at me.
“Seeing how long you managed to drag this insurance thing out, I figure you must still know people like that. Permanent people, like. So what I want now, it’s something I know you can do.”
“Which is?” he said. His eyes were half closed, like when you squint to see something better.
“I don’t want to be a sex offender.”
“But that’s all—”
“Fuck if it is. I’ll take your deal, but I’m not letting anyone keep me on a leash.”
“What are you talking about? You’re not on parole. Nobody’s got any ‘leash’ on you.”
“Just make the conviction into something else. Anything else, I don’t care. With that sex-offender tag on me, I have to tell them every time I change my address. I can go back to prison just for moving without doing that. I can’t have that hanging over me.”
“Did you get the notice? The one that tells you—?”
“Yeah. They gave it to me as a going-away present.”
“All right. Have you registered yet?”
“No.”
He nodded, like he was agreeing with himself. Then he said, “Will you settle for the conviction standing? On paper, I mean. But your name never goes in the registry?”
“I can’t.”
“But that’s all you—”
I heard the voice of that writ-writer, cluing me in. It echoed in my head: It’s pure bullshit. “Sealed,” all that means is they can’t put it in the newspapers.
So I told him, “Whoever you can … talk to, they’ll tell you how it really works. There’s all kinds of paper floating around. Paper that says I did a rape. I’ll never really be out from under with that over my head.”
“Even if we could … arrange to go back and erase every trace, it could take years. And finding every single trace might be impossible.”
“You don’t need that,” I told him. “I don’t care about the arrest. Even the charge. Or the indictment. This isn’t some trick for me to slide out from under two priors. In fact, it’d be fine with me if you made it another manslaughter.”
“Another?”
“I’m on paper for one, but I pleaded it out to misdemeanor assault. But any felony assault, that’d be a violent crime. You pick it; I’ll take it, so long as I don’t have to keep checking in, like I was on parole for life or something. I won’t wear that jacket.”
“Just sit here for a few minutes, all right?”
“Sure,” I said.
He got up and walked away. I didn’t even turn my head. If he was going to pull something, I didn’t want to see it coming.
“I’ve got something for you,” he said when he came back. “That misdemeanor you told me about?”
“Yeah?”
He waved his hand like a fly was after his food. “How many times do you think you can slide on serious crimes? You’d think a guy with your record would know better than to go down on a possession charge.”
“Possession? Possession of what?”
“A firearm, of course.”
“For real?”
“It’s already done. Ask your lawyer. One Hector Santiago-Ramirez, I believe? He must have done a hell of a job getting the DA to let you plead down to a possession charge instead of what you deserved, an ex-con carrying around a loaded handgun, like you were.”
He leaned in closer to me. “Understand, you’ve still got two felony convictions. Robbery, age seventeen; criminal possession of a weapon, age thirty-t
hree.”
I took off my glasses. I wanted him to see what I was doing. He didn’t flinch. And he had to know he was swearing on his life.
“Then I’ve got something else for you,” I told him.
“What?”
“I did the jewelry job. You already know that, and you already know I’m not rolling on anyone else who was in on it. Only, now I’ll give you the planner. Solly. Him I’ll give up in a heartbeat. I’ll tell the truth: Solly and the jeweler, they put the plan together. Solly told me that.
“I couldn’t understand why he’d tell a guy at my end that kind of stuff. But now I get it. He was pulling me closer, so it’d be easier to have me hit. And that was his plan all along.”
“You’ll make that statement?”
“Yeah. Right now, if you want. And if I ever get hooked up to that polygraph—”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t. Listen for once: If I ever get questioned, the truth will be that I didn’t get a dime from rolling on Solly and that jeweler. Not from you, not from anyone. All I asked was for some protection, and for you to tell that girl I didn’t rape her. All true. What’s that worth to you, pal?”
“Everything you asked for,” he said. “And now it’s my turn.”
“I thought you said it was already—”
“I apologize,” he said, holding out his hand.
His grip felt just right.
Lynda took the Greyhound to Chicago. Took her only a couple of days to find a place. For her and her husband. He was coming after he cleared up all the paperwork at his office. Their plan was to buy a home, so they were really only looking for something for maybe six, seven months. So she could just pay the whole thing now, if the landlord wanted.
She’d have to pay cash, because she didn’t have a Chicago bank account yet. She hoped that was okay with the landlord. He turned out to be a real agreeable guy.
While Lynda was setting up, I got put on videotape. And everything I said was the truth.
I asked the cameraman to come in real close. In case they wanted to show the girl who’d gotten raped what my face looked like when I said the part about doing time for another man’s crime. And my promise to kill him if I ever found him.
The guy who sold me the used Ford Crown Vic in Youngstown didn’t mind cash, either. I told him I’d bring back the plates as soon as I got it registered. The way he shrugged, I could see the plates were already NFG—probably his insurance had run out or something like that.
The Weight Page 27
