Afterburn: A Novel

by Colin Harrison

  I can’t. I’m sorry.

  And then, sitting there in his floral shirt, Tony Verducci had sipped his iced tea and looked at her with confusion. He wasn’t used to such disrespect. She’d wished he would just forget about her. And maybe he had, maybe not. He’d certainly never contacted her after she’d been arrested, or while she was in prison.

  A wooden nightstick rattled between the cell bars.

  “Welles!”

  “Yes?” she called into the gloom, breathing fearfully.

  She heard the guard’s keys, and when she lifted her head, two immense prison system matrons stood over her, one black, one white. Big women, with bull necks and thick legs.

  “Get up,” the black matron announced. “Taking a trip.”

  “Where?” Christina asked. “What did I do?”

  “You supposed to know that.”

  “Where am I going?”

  “Just get dressed.” The matron watched the blanket fall away from Christina’s leg.

  “People keep moving me around, not telling me where I’m going.”

  “You’re making a trip this morning, missy. Get up.” The matron sunk a meaty hand beneath Christina’s armpit.

  “Get your clothes,” ordered the other matron. The guard held the plastic bag Christina had packed in Bedford.

  “Green?” Christina pointed at her uniform.

  “No,” said the matron. “Free world.”

  “Can I just—”

  “No! We in a hurry.”

  She got up and peed in the toilet; they watched dispassionately, familiar with the sight of women relieving themselves. She dressed in front of them, pulling on a T-shirt and a pair of jeans. Her nipples were hard in the cool air, and it bothered her that the matrons saw this. They shackled her hands behind her, then pushed her out of the cell. Some of the other women stood clutching their bars, curious about any activity along the hallway. Yo, they taking you to the electric chair, white bitch? Maybe the Dep was moving her to another prison, but that would not explain why she’d been told to dress in free-world clothes. It was hours before any courthouse would be open; perhaps she was being transferred upstate to another prison.

  “Where am I going?” she asked again.

  “You’ll know soon.”

  They took her directly to a blue-and-white Department of Corrections van parked outside; before she got in, her feet were cuffed, and then she was helped up on the bench seat, where they ran a loose chain through her leg cuffs. She was the only prisoner being transported, which was strange, given that the prison system, so overcrowded and pressed for funding, usually crammed prisoners together.

  “Where am I going?” she screamed at the window. No answer came back. The van pulled through the heavily fenced entrance, where a guard closed a gate behind the vehicle before opening the gate in front of it. Through the tiny caged window she could see the looming rise of Manhattan, a bright veil of glass and steel and stone. How forbidden and marvelous it looked! Maybe the D.A.’s Office really was releasing her. Either they had been fooled or possessed some reason to reverse her verdict—discovered some advantage in it. But she didn’t like either scenario. It put her inside other people’s plans, it was an if—then formula, and all branches of supposition arrived at people whom she didn’t like having some reason to see her out of prison, especially Tony Verducci.

  THIRTY MINUTES LATER the van bounced up in front of the massive Criminal Courts Building at 100 Centre Street, and the matrons took her into the north tower, the Tombs. On the twelfth floor prisoners were segregated into a series of holding pens; most had been arrested recently and were awaiting their arraignments. The bridge connecting the twelfth floor to the rest of the court building was known as the Bridge of Sighs, and she was taken across it with a couple of prostitutes, who clattered awkwardly in their high heels and handcuffs, to a small holding cell next to a courtroom on the thirteenth floor. Two new matrons flanked her, one of them clutching her plastic bag. A wall phone rang and the matron picked it up.

  “Let’s go,” she told Christina.

  It was the same courtroom in which she’d been convicted four years earlier—same high ceilings and deep bank of benches, same green walls. And the same assistant district attorney who had prosecuted her sat at a table. The judge, a middle-aged man with half-glasses, appeared through an open door, dropped into his chair, and picked up a telephone. He noticed Christina.

  “You may sit.”

  A few minutes passed. Another man came in and whispered to the assistant district attorney. The detective, she thought, the guy who testified at my trial.

  “Your Honor,” said the young prosecutor, “Detective Peck has been told that Miss Welles’s lawyer is somewhere else in the building.”

  The judge did not look up from his paperwork. “Fifteen minutes, or I’m adjourning.”

  Detective Peck disappeared from the room.

  “Miss Welles,” said the judge, “we’re trying to find your attorney.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Why?”

  “This is a formal proceeding, and you need representation.”

  “Okay.”

  “Your attorney is not an 18-B lawyer?”

  “What’s that?”

  “The state pays their fees.”

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  “It’s Mrs. Bertoli?”

  “It was.”

  “Did Mrs. Bertoli contact you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, perhaps the district attorney’s notice was mislaid amongst Mrs. Bertoli’s voluminous paperwork,” the judge concluded wearily. “Perhaps that is plausible. Then again”—he raised his eyebrows, his hairline lifting upward—“she may have seen said notice and not perceived its import.” The judge looked at Christina. “Its importance to you, I mean.”

  “Yes,” agreed Christina uncertainly.

  “Mrs. Bertoli is well known to this court,” the judge continued. “Her professional demeanor is well known and her habits are well known. That she has not contacted you is inexcusable. Yet she has been and no doubt will continue to be excused. She is a pack mule of excuses working in a pit mine of societal disinterest. We release unaccountability and irresponsibility from its natural ore, and we carry it to the surface and smelt it into the coin of chaos.” The judge sighed. “I will stop there. The court officers have all heard my speeches. I will let that be my day’s protestation. The court should not characterize the quality of defense counsel, it is true, but—”

  “But we’re among friends,” piped in the assistant district attorney.

  The door opened and Mrs. Bertoli entered, followed by the detective. She flicked a cell phone shut and dropped it into her briefcase and walked officiously up to the front of the courtroom. “Is this really a 440.10?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Bertoli,” answered the judge. “Let’s go now.” He picked up his phone and muttered a word or two, and a court reporter entered and sat down at her steno machine. “All right, then, Mr. Glass, I’ve read your statement. Your detective, Mr. Peck, is sure that he made a mistake with the identification?”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” said the prosecutor.

  “After more than four years he mystically realizes he made a mistake?”

  “He was involved in ongoing police work,” answered Glass, “and realized that there were several lost subjects in the undercover case involving Miss Welles. By that I mean unnamed targets of surveillance, and he realized that it was one of them in the truck on the day in question, and not Miss Welles.”

  Christina cut her eyes at Peck. This was bullshit. Of course she’d been in the truck—that’s where she’d been arrested. Peck blinked but did not change his expression.

  “Miss Welles never confessed?” the judge asked, flipping over a sheet of paper.

  “That is correct,” said Glass.

  “There was no plea bargain, in fact?”

  “That is also correct.”

  “Has the lost subject from the original case been a
rrested?”

  “Detective Peck informs me that an arrest is expected shortly.”

  “What was Miss Welles’s role, then?”

  Glass looked directly at the judge. “She was the girlfriend of one of the principals. That’s all.”

  “Your summary referred to some confusion over the method of communication used by the gang.”

  “We thought she had something to do with it.”

  The judge paused, then winced at some private thought. “There was no confession, no familiarity with the line of questioning?”

  “This was more than four years ago, Your Honor, but the answer is no. She never confessed to anything the whole time.”

  “There was no prior record?”

  “No.”

  “No arrests at all?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Prison record was what?”

  “Exemplary.”

  “Is Detective Peck ready to answer a few questions?”

  “Yes.”

  The detective was sworn in. He had spent some time with his hair and necktie that morning.

  “All right, explain this to me,” barked the judge. “I’m surprised the newspapers aren’t here. It’s a good story.”

  “That’s because they never sent me any notice,” protested Mrs. Bertoli hoarsely. “If they did, then I would have raised holy hell.”

  The judge ignored her. “Go ahead, Detective.”

  “It’s simple, Your Honor. We made a mistake in the identification. There was another woman involved in the smuggling—same weight, same coloring, height a little shorter. We didn’t get much of a close look at her. We never heard her name. When we arrested Miss Welles, we thought that was the same woman. Miss Welles admitted she was the girlfriend of Rick Bocca, whom we suspected of masterminding the whole operation, but that was it.”

  “Just the girlfriend?” the judge asked.

  “Yes.”

  “How much did she know?”

  “She may have known a few things in a passive way, Your Honor, but she was not part of the planning. These were very professional people. Experienced, tough people. Bocca was well known to us. She was a young girl at the time, not a principal.”

  I’m actually insulted, Christina thought, but she said nothing.

  “Sort of a hanger-on-er, a girlfriend, something like that?” the judge summarized.

  “Bocca had a lot of”—the detective hesitated—“bimbos, you could call them, I guess.”

  “One of those appellations that are demeaning by their accuracy,” noted the judge. “And though your terminology is vulgar, it is useful for its clarity. I believe I understand.”

  I never got less than an A-minus in any of my courses at Columbia, Christina thought angrily, but then she remembered that Peck knew this, had even taunted her with it during the interrogation. Girl like you gets perfect grades, how’d you end up with Bocca? He was smart, this Peck, looking at the judge with a face full of contrition.

  “So what was the error?” asked the judge.

  “The problem was that the people actually doing the job got away—we could never make them that one time,” Peck recalled. “All we had was a truck full of stolen air conditioners. After Miss Welles was arrested, they broke up or disappeared. We knew Bocca was guilty, but he moved out to Long Island and, criminally, went inactive. Just worked on a fishing boat. But I saw the lost subject on a stakeout a month ago and realized that I had ID’d the wrong woman.” Peck stopped for a breath. “I had to be honest with myself. I had to really ask myself if I was sure. So I came to Mr. Glass, who was not crazy to hear it, of course.”

  The judge nodded to Mrs. Bertoli. “Go ahead, then.”

  Mrs. Bertoli stood. “Due to new information coming to the attention of the New York City District Attorney’s Office, and pursuant to Section 440.10 of the New York State Criminal Code, I request an order from the court vacating the conviction of Christina Welles and her sentence.”

  The judge turned to Glass. “Any objection?”

  “None, Your Honor.”

  The judge sighed. “Miss Welles, apparently the State of New York, and in particular the New York City District Attorney’s Office, owes you an apology, as well as four years of your life. We can provide you the former but not the latter. Of course, the criminal justice system tries to do its best, but from time to time, very occasionally, there is a gross miscarriage of justice. This, I acknowledge, has happened to you. I am now”—he pulled out a pen—“signing this order vacating your conviction and sentence.” He looked up from the paper. “Okay … you are free to go, Miss Welles.” He nodded to the matrons, one of whom stepped forward and opened her handcuffs. Then she handed Christina the sealed envelope containing her identification and money.

  Glass collected his papers and walked out, without so much as looking at Christina.

  “Can I talk?” said Christina, checking that her money was still in the envelope.

  “By all means,” said the judge, waving his hand.

  “I’m free?”

  “Yes. Right here, right now.”

  She looked around. “That’s it? That’s the whole thing?”

  “Yes.” The judge picked up his telephone.

  Christina turned to Mrs. Bertoli. “I can just walk out?”

  “Apparently.”

  “How often does this happen?”

  “Never.”

  “But they have the power to do it?”

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Bertoli.

  “Nobody ever hears about that.”

  “The D.A.’s Office doesn’t tell people a lot of things.”

  “Did you know this was going to happen?”

  “Not a clue.”

  “They sent you a piece of paper?”

  “I highly doubt it,” she said. “It’s a very embarrassing matter. They kept this quick and quiet.”

  Christina noticed Peck standing at the back of the room, rocking on his heels. He could be the one to worry about, she thought, but I’m not sure. “What if I think there are people following me?”

  The lawyer looked around. “Who?”

  “I don’t know.” Christina leaned close. “Well, I—” Better not to say it. “I’m just worried about people following me.”

  Mrs. Bertoli nodded.

  “Would you walk out with me?” Christina asked.

  The lawyer looked at her watch. “I have a hearing in another courtroom.”

  “You won’t walk me out of the building?”

  The lawyer’s eyes were dead, unconcerned. “Miss Welles, you’re free to come and go as you please. I’m not going to charge you for this morning’s work.”

  Now the detective was gone. But someone else could be watching, any of the men and women outside the courtroom up and down the hall. She could, she supposed, tie her hair up or get a pair of sunglasses or put on a different sweater, but that was not going to work. Not really. Plus she had her ridiculous and humiliating garbage bag as an identifying characteristic. She sat down in the back of the courtroom, hunched over in self-protection. I’m going to think this out, she told herself, not move until I know what I’m doing. She assumed she would be followed right on out of the courthouse. Maybe she was crazy, but she had to believe something was going on. The detective had lied blatantly. Suppose someone working for Tony Verducci was watching, suppose he wanted to talk to her?

  She stood up and walked out of the courtroom, down the hall. Keep your feet moving, don’t look around, don’t look back. You’re not free yet. She passed sullen black boys accompanied by their mothers, overweight and exhausted by it all; young blades who smoked too much and had seen the inside of three or four methadone clinics; shuffling court officers with stomachs so prodigious as to apparently require a concealed superstructure of support; private defense attorneys whose eyes were lost in folds of flesh, although their watches were very good indeed; policemen trying to remember testimony they swore they had memorized; families of the victims, moving in clusters of
righteous solidarity, their faces suspicious of anyone who might deprive them of a chance to see justice done, and the more harshly, the better. Don’t look at me, don’t see me, she thought, hurrying with her head down.

  She entered an elevator, standing uncomfortably among three police officers and two attorneys, none of whom said anything. Another man stepped on, eyed her once. I don’t like his haircut, she thought, he could be following me. The door opened at the seventh floor and she followed the attorneys out. The floor contained the District Attorney’s offices. She lingered indecisively. The man with the bad haircut stepped out of the elevator and waited. Don’t look at him, she told herself. She got back on the elevator and took it up to the thirteenth floor. The man had not followed her, but that didn’t mean anything. The court building constituted an immense maze. She took the elevator down to the first floor. If Tony Verducci wanted something with her, he’d have to wait until she was outside the court building. She retreated to a bathroom, hoping to hide a moment.

  A fleshy woman in a tight white dress and pumps stood at the mirror, fixing her hair. She gave Christina a onceover, looked back at the mirror.