Sleepers

by Lorenzo Carcaterra

  “The one facing the rear of the pub,” she said.

  “The side facing down the row of booths?”

  “Yes.”

  “The side facing Mr. Nokes’s booth,” Michael said.

  “I believe so,” Mrs. Salinas said. “Yes.”

  “But you couldn’t see him from where you were sitting?”

  “I wasn’t looking to see him,” she said. “I knew there was someone sitting in the rear booth. I just didn’t notice.”

  “Did you notice the two men who walked in shortly after you sat down for dinner?”

  “I heard them come in,” she said. “You couldn’t help but hear them.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “They were loud,” she said. “They caused a commotion. I’m sure everyone noticed.”

  “Did you see their faces when they came in?”

  “No,” she said. “Not when they came in.”

  “Why not?”

  “I was talking to David,” she said. “When I finally looked up, they had moved past me.”

  “Did you notice their faces when they went to the bar?”

  “From the side,” she said. “I could see them in profile.”

  “Both of them?”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Salinas said, the confidence in her voice never wavering. “Both of them.”

  “Did you see them approach the booth where Mr. Nokes was sitting?” Michael asked.

  “I noticed it,” she said. “Yes.”

  “Did you hear what was said between them?”

  “No,” she said. “I didn’t.”

  “Did you see them pull out their guns?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Did you hear the shots?”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Salinas said. “I heard the shots.”

  “What did they do after the shooting?” Michael asked.

  “They walked out of the pub,” she said. “As if nothing had happened.”

  “Did you see their faces then?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I looked up as they walked by.”

  “Are you positive of that, Mrs. Salinas?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Very positive.”

  “And are the two men you saw in the Shamrock Pub in this room today?”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Salinas said. “They are.”

  “Can you point them out to me, please?”

  “They’re sitting right over there,” Mrs. Salinas said, aiming a finger at John and Tommy.

  “Your honor, will the record reflect that Mrs. Salinas identified defendants John Reilly and Thomas Marcano as the two men in question.”

  “Noted,” Judge Weisman said.

  “I have no further questions,” Michael said.

  “Counselor?” Judge Weisman said, lifting an eyebrow in Danny O’Connor’s direction. “Are you ready to proceed?”

  “Yes, your honor,” Danny O’Connor said. “The defense is ready.”

  “It better be,” Carol whispered.

  DANNY O’CONNOR WAS wearing a charcoal-gray suit that needed cleaning and a white shirt tight around his neck. His shoes were scuffed and his blue tie stopped at an Oliver Hardy length.

  “He’s got that Columbo look down,” I muttered. “All he’s missing is the cigar.”

  “It’s probably in his pocket,” Carol said. “Still lit.”

  “Good morning,” Danny O’Connor said to Mrs. Salinas.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  “I just have a few questions,” he said. “I won’t take up too much more of your time.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “You said you had only wine to drink with dinner,” O’Connor said, looking away from Mrs. Salinas and making eye contact with the jury. “Is that correct?”

  “Yes,” she said. “That’s correct.”

  “Are you sure about that?” O’Connor asked. “Are you sure that was all you ordered, one bottle of wine?”

  “Yes,” she said. “A bottle of red wine.”

  “Had you had anything to drink prior to that?”

  “What do you mean, prior?” Mrs. Salinas asked.

  “At lunch, maybe,” O’Connor said. “Did you have anything to drink at lunch?”

  “Yes, I did,” she said. “But that was hours earlier.”

  “What did you have, Mrs. Salinas?”

  “I went shopping and stopped for lunch at a place on Madison Avenue,” she said.

  “I didn’t ask where you went,” O’Connor said. “I asked what you had to drink at lunch.”

  “A martini,” she said.

  “And what else?”

  “And some wine,” she said.

  “How much wine?”

  “One glass,” she said. “Maybe two.”

  “Closer to two?” O’Connor asked.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Salinas said, her cheeks turning a light shade of red. “Probably two.”

  “What time did you have lunch, Mrs. Salinas?”

  “Objection, your honor,” Michael said without standing. “What Mrs. Salinas did on the day of the murder has nothing to do with what she saw the night of the murder.”

  “How much she had to drink does, your honor,” O’Connor said.

  “Overruled,” Judge Weisman said.

  “What time, Mrs. Salinas,” O’Connor said, “did you have lunch?”

  “About one-thirty,” she said.

  “And what did you have for lunch?”

  “A salad,” she said.

  “A martini, two glasses of wine, and a salad,” O’Connor said. “Is that correct?”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Salinas said, her eyes looking to Michael for help. “Yes, that’s correct.”

  He gave her none.

  “And then you had wine at dinner,” O’Connor said. “About six hours later. Is that right?”

  “Yes, that’s right,” she said.

  “How much wine did you have to drink by the time my clients allegedly walked into the Shamrock Pub?”

  “Two glasses,” she said, anger now undercutting the confident tone.

  “Do you drink this much every day, Mrs. Salinas?”

  “No,” she said. “I do not.”

  “So would you say four glasses of wine and a martini in a six-hour period is a lot for you to drink?” O’Connor asked.

  “Yes, it is,” Mrs. Salinas said.

  “Are you married, Mrs. Salinas?” O’Connor asked.

  “Yes, I am,” she said.

  “Happily?”

  “As happy as anyone married for fifteen years can expect to be.”

  “I’ve been divorced twice, Mrs. Salinas,” O’Connor said, smiling at the jury. “Fifteen years sounds like a lifetime to me. How happy would that be?”

  “I’m still in love with my husband,” Mrs. Salinas said.

  “Objection,” Michael said. “This line of questioning is out of order.”

  “I’ll allow it,” Judge Weisman said, looking at O’Connor. “But get to your point.”

  “Yes, your honor,” O’Connor said. “Thank you.”

  The defense attorney now walked alongside the jury, one hand inside the pocket of his wrinkled pants, his thin brown hair combed straight back.

  “What is your relationship with Mr. Carson?”

  “I’ve already said.”

  “Tell me again,” O’Connor said. “Please.”

  “We’re friends,” she said. “Very old and dear friends.”

  “Is Mr. Carson a friend of your husband’s as well?” O’Connor asked.

  Mrs. Salinas paused and pursed her lips before she answered.

  “No,” she said. “He isn’t.”

  “Mrs. Salinas, what were you talking about at dinner?”

  “The usual,” she said. “Catching up on things.”

  “What things?”

  “His family,” she said. “Mine. Things like that.”

  “And did you and Mr. Carson have any plans beyond dinner?” O’Connor asked.

  “What do you mean?” Mr
s. Salinas asked.

  “I mean, was your evening going to end with just a dinner?” O’Connor asked.

  “No,” she said, her eyes cast down. “It wasn’t.”

  “Sounds romantic,” O’Connor said.

  “Objection,” Michael said. “The twice-divorced counsel seems to have an overactive imagination.”

  “Sustained,” Judge Weisman said. “Let’s get on with it, Mr. O’Connor.”

  “Had you ever heard a gun fired, Mrs. Salinas?” O’Connor asked, shifting his questioning and walking closer to the witness stand. “Prior to the night in question, that is.”

  “No, I hadn’t,” she said.

  “How would you describe the sound?”

  “Loud,” she said. “Like firecrackers.”

  “Did the sound frighten you?”

  “Yes, very much,” she said.

  “Did you close your eyes?”

  “At first,” she said. “Until the shooting stopped.”

  “Did you think the men who did the shooting were going to kill everyone in the pub?”

  “I didn’t know what to think,” she said. “All I knew was that a man had been shot.”

  “Did you think you might be shot?” O’Connor asked. “Shot dead by two cold-blooded killers?”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Salinas said, nodding her head firmly. “Yes, I did.”

  “Yet, despite that fear,” O’Connor said, “despite the risk to your life, you looked at their faces as they left the pub. Is that right?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Is it?” O’Connor said, his voice rising. “Did you really look at their faces?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you, Mrs. Salinas, really look at their faces?” O’Connor asked, now standing inches from her.

  “I glanced at them as they walked by,” she said. “But I did see them.”

  “You glanced,” O’Connor said, his voice hitting a higher pitch. “You didn’t look?”

  “I saw them,” Mrs. Salinas said.

  “You glanced at them, Mrs. Salinas,” O’Connor said. “You glanced at them through the eyes of a frightened woman who may have had too much to drink.”

  “Objection, your honor,” Michael said, his hands spread out in front of him, still sitting in his chair.

  “No need, your honor,” O’Connor said, clearly relishing his first dance in the spotlight. “I have no further questions.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Salinas,” Judge Weisman said to the now-shaken woman. “You may step down.”

  “Looks like Columbo did his homework,” Carol said.

  “Today anyway,” I said, my eyes on John and Tommy, watching them wink their approval at O’Connor.

  “Have you got time for lunch?” Carol asked.

  “I’ll make the time,” I said.

  “Where would you like to go?”

  “How about the Shamrock Pub,” I said. “I hear it’s colorful.”

  12

  THE DETECTIVE IN the front seat kept the engine running, his hands on the steering wheel, a container of coffee by his side, the lid still on. I sat in the back, opposite the driver’s side, a heavy manila envelope on my lap. Another detective sat to my left, looking out the window, watching the wind whip shreds of garbage down Little West 12th Street. The defogger was on and all four windows of the late-model sedan were open a crack, letting in thin streams of January air.

  It was six-fifteen on a Sunday morning and the downtown streets were empty.

  “So, you gonna show me?” the detective to my left asked, pointing down at the envelope. “Or you just gonna ride the suspense?”

  His name was Nick Davenport. He was twenty-eight years old and a sergeant in the Internal Affairs Division of the New York City Police Department. It is the unit responsible for dealing with corrupt cops.

  “You’ve got to agree to a couple of things first,” I said. “Then we deal.”

  “Frankie, what is this shit?”

  “Hear the kid out, Nick,” the detective in the front seat said. “It’ll be worth your time. Believe me.”

  The detective in the front seat, Frank Magcicco, worked out of a homicide unit housed in a Brooklyn precinct. He grew up in Hell’s Kitchen and remained friendly with many of the people who lived there. He was a first grade detective with an honest name and a solid reputation. He was thirty-three years old, owned a two-family house in Queens, had two preschool children, and was married to a woman who worked part-time as a legal secretary.

  He was also King Benny’s nephew.

  “Okay,” Nick Davenport said. “What’s it gonna cost?”

  He had a blue-eyed, boyish face hidden by a three-day stubble and an older man’s voice. He’d been on the force seven years, two as a patrolman in Harlem and two working plainclothes in Brooklyn, before making the move to I.A.D. He was cold to the fact that most cops hated anyone associated with Internal Affairs and ambitious enough to want to make captain before he hit forty. He knew the fastest way up that track was to reel in the maximum number of dirty cops in a minimum amount of time.

  “I don’t want any deals cut,” I said.

  “How so?” Davenport asked, shifting his body.

  “You don’t offer him anything,” I said. “You don’t use him to finger other cops. You bring him in and you bring him down.”

  “That ain’t up to me,” Nick said. “Once a case starts, a lot of other people get involved. I can’t shut ’em all out.”

  “I heard you can,” I said toward Frank in the front seat. “But maybe I heard wrong. Maybe I should take this to somebody else.”

  “Where’d you find this fuck?” Nick asked Frank, chuckling as he pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket.

  “I were you, I’d do what the kid says,” Frank said, staring out through the windshield, sipping his coffee. “You make this one, you’re gonna be havin’ breakfast once a month with the commissioner.”

  “Okay, Eliot Ness,” Nick said to me. “You got it. He won’t be offered any deals. No matter how much he talks, no matter who he fingers. No deals. Anything else?”

  “Two more things,” I said.

  “Let me hear ’em,” Nick said.

  “He gets convicted, he gets state time,” I said. “I don’t want him sent to one of those cop country clubs. He’s gotta do prison time.”

  “You got a real hard-on for this guy,” Nick said. “What’s your beef with him?”

  “There’s one more thing,” I said. “You wanna hear it or not?”

  “I can’t wait,” Nick said.

  “It’s simple,” I said. “Nobody knows who fed you the information. How you got it. How you found it. And I mean nobody.”

  “How did you get it?”

  “It fell into my lap,” I said. “Just like it’s falling into yours.”

  “That it?” Davenport asked, tossing his cigarette out through the crack in the window. “That’s all you want?”

  “That’s all I want,” I said.

  Davenport stared at me for a few moments and then turned to look back outside. One hand rubbed the stubble on his face, one foot shook nervously back and forth.

  “You okay with this, Frank?” he asked the detective in the front seat.

  “I’m here, ain’t I?” Frank said, watching him in the rearview mirror.

  “Okay, Mr. Ness,” Davenport said, putting out his hand. “You and me got ourselves a deal.”

  I handed him the thick envelope. Inside was the file that Michael had given me on former Wilkinson guard Adam Styler, plus additional information dug up in the past three months by King Benny and Fat Mancho.

  “Christ almighty!” Davenport said, sorting through the material. “You got everything in here but a confession.”

  “I thought I’d leave that to you,” I said. “And my preference is that you beat it out of him.”

  “Dates, times, phone numbers,” Davenport said, his eyes wide, a smile spread across his face. “Get a load of this, F
rankie, there’s even surveillance photos. This piece of shit’s pulling in about five grand a month. Rippin’ off pushers. Has been for about three years.”

  “More like four,” I said.

  “He ain’t gonna see five,” Davenport said. “I’ll tell you that right now.”

  “Do you have enough to get a conviction?” I asked.

  “That ain’t up to me, kid,” Davenport said. “That’s up to a jury.”

  “Then show the jury this,” I said.

  I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out a plastic bag. In it was a snubnose .44 revolver and three spent shells.

  “Whatta ya got there, Ness?” Davenport asked, taking the bag.

  “Three weeks ago the body of a drug dealer named Indian Red Lopez was found in an alley in Jackson Heights,” I said. “There were three bullets in his head and nothing in his pockets.”

  “I’m with you so far,” Davenport said.

  “That’s the gun that killed him,” I said. “Those are the shells.”

  “And what’s behind door number three?” Davenport asked.

  “The prints on the gun belong to Adam Styler,” I said.

  “Do me a favor, would ya, Ness?” Davenport said, putting the gun in his pocket.

  “What?”

  “I ever make it onto your shit list, give me a call,” he said. “Give me a chance to apologize.”

  “You’ll find a woman’s name and phone number in the folder,” I said. “Pay her a visit. Her English isn’t too good. But it’s good enough to tell you she saw Adam Styler put the gun to Lopez’s head and pull the trigger.”

  Davenport lit a fresh cigarette, folding the spent match in his hand. He put Styler’s folder back together and slid it into the envelope.

  “I’ll take it from here, Ness,” Davenport said, putting out his hand. “You did your part.”

  “You need anything else, Frank knows how to reach me,” I said, shaking hands.

  “Want us to drop you off anywhere?” Frank asked, turning to face me.

  “No, it’s okay,” I said. “I’ll get out here.”

  “Say hello for me,” Frank said.

  “I will,” I said, opening the car door. “And thanks, Frank. Thanks for all your help.”

  “Take care of yourself, kid,” Frank said, winking at me as I got out of the car. “Water gets choppy out your way.”

  “I’ll do what I can,” I said, leaving the car and closing the door behind me.