The Right to Remain Silent

by Charles Brandt

  I ignored his hand and he put the papers on my ex-desk.

  “Laugh at the misfortune of your fellow man,” I said, “and at least thirty percent of the world laughs with you.”

  “If you want more charges, try being insubordinate,” he said. “You’re a fancy talker.”

  “Actually, Chief, I’m a fancier listener. When I find Figaro I’ll be doing some fancy listening. I bet you know where he is. Old Fig’s dumb enough to be calling you for money.”

  Covaletzki abruptly led the Gang of Four out before I had a chance to say any more. I’m not sure I would have anyway. My head was splitting and my sinuses were killing me. When you don’t drink much normally, you can’t drink much once in a while.

  I climbed up to records with heavy feet and dropped my gun and ID on the counter. The uniformed cop in records already had a receipt made out for me. He crossed off the word shield on the receipt and initialed where he had crossed it off. He gave me the receipt without asking where my badge was, which was decent of him.

  I said, “I gave it to a little kid who took it to Baltimore.” He shrugged.

  DiGiacomo peered out from behind the wire fence in back of records. He motioned me to come back and the records cop pressed the door buzzer.

  DiGiacomo whispered, “Don’t worry. I can get the whole thing handled. The Trial Board’s gonna be rigged with Covaletzki’s own people, but his fuckin’ charges depend on the state police convicting you of drunk driving at the justice of the peace, and they can’t convict you if they don’t show up. Don’t worry, I been making some calls and I can get that straightened out. I’ll get you an appointment with a good lawyer next week. But don’t worry,” he repeated. “If you beat the DUI in court they won’t fire you in a Trial Board. They could, but they never fired a guy who beat his criminal charges and they ain’t got the balls to make you the first. Believe me. Just don’t do anything stupid, you guinea bastard. Capisce? Shithead.” He messed my hair with his meaty hand. His eyes were wet. “A più tardi,” he said.

  “Arrivederci,” I said, and I went back out to the mezzanine elevators, straightening out my hair. I walked over to the hotel; bought some brown loafers, new gray slacks, a yellow sport shirt with an alligator, undershorts and socks, and a blue blazer like Carlton’s; went up to my room and showered; pushed aside a tray with a room-service tuna fish sandwich on rye, a Heineken, and fresh fruit salad; tried to reach Agent Mendez, who wasn’t in or wouldn’t take my call; put my meal outside to be picked up so I wouldn’t have to smell it; and went right to sleep.

  I slept from 2:00 P.M. until 5:30 A.M. the next morning. I called and learned that the Green Room didn’t open until 6:30.

  I showered, watched a talk show about school busing as I shaved, and dressed slowly in my new clean clothing. And at 6:30 I went down to the Green Room for breakfast. Rain began to hit the windows. I was the only one eating. I opened the newspaper and discovered that I’d made the paper again, this time on the DUI charge and the suspension. Star quality. That’s what I’ve got. Charisma.

  Still, breakfast at the Green Room in the rain wasn’t exactly life as a prisoner of the Cheyenne, and DiGiacomo seemed to have everything figured out. It’s just that my bowels were rotting and what I ate of breakfast tasted like fungus on tree bark. I thought, as I made designs with my scrambled eggs, that what I had done to that trooper was the worst kind of cop’s bravado. And it was the kind of extraneous sideshow that deflected my focus from the increasingly irresistible pursuit of Covaletzki.

  Sarah walked in. I had forgotten about our breakfast date. It was seven o’clock and I’d eaten without her.

  32

  “My father drove me here, not Arthur,” she said after ordering a poached egg on a heavily buttered English muffin, and black coffee. “He’s picking me up out front at eight.”

  “I can drive you home. I don’t have to be anywhere.”

  “I know, Lou, I read the paper. My arrangements have been made and my father doesn’t mind.”

  “I didn’t mean that he did. I just thought we’d be together longer if I drove you home.”

  “Ten minutes longer at the most. My father will pick me up.”

  “I’m sorry that I put my hand out to you when we met here Tuesday night. I wanted to hug you. I’ve wanted to all your life.”

  “That isn’t why I left the table.” She spoke very deliberately. “A handshake would have been okay. Just so you know and you don’t have to wonder about it, before Mother stood up and shouted your name out loud so everybody in the whole place could hear it, she said to me: ‘Sarah, honey, it’s your father. You’ll finally get to meet him.’ I saw the look on my father’s face when she called you my father, and that’s why I went away.”

  “I’m not pushing to be your father. I only want to be what you want me to be.”

  “I don’t care what you are.”

  “You are a very precocious and outspoken girl. Why are you here?”

  “I’m curious. I’m descended from you. Aren’t you curious about me?”

  “Yes, but I feel something else. I hoped maybe I could be available to you, like an uncle. Help you pick out your college, have you visit me in Brazil, and maybe more than that.” Against her will she softened very slightly around the eyes. “I even fantasized that you might be willing to have two fathers, or one and a half.”

  “I think that’s against the law even for Mormons. You ought to know, you’re a cop,” she said without humor.

  “You’re a tough cookie. I don’t like it, but if that’s all you’re offering me, I’ll take it. If all I can ever be to you is an ancestor, then I’ll try to be a good one. If you have any questions, fire away.”

  “What were your parents like?”

  “I never met my father. He came over from the province of Marche in the summer of 1929, just in time for the Depression. He married my mother in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in 1931 and went back to Italy to get his old job back with the railroad while she was pregnant with me. He was supposed to send for us, but he was never heard from. At least that’s what she told me. For all I know, she made him up. During the war I would save newspaper photos of captured Italians and ask my mother if he was in them. She never remarried. She supported us by giving piano lessons and making and serving Italian food for other people. Her parents were from Marche and died of influenza when she was seventeen. She died of breast cancer when I was seventeen. I don’t think anyone who knew her would say anything bad about her. Her death crushed me. I still miss her.”

  “Why did you leave Delaware in 1963?”

  “Why do you think?”

  “An act of cowardice.”

  “Maybe. The judge who sentenced me —”

  “I know all that.”

  “Your mother wouldn’t let me see you. I was denied visitation.”

  “Did you try, not that it matters to me, Lou, but I would like to know my background.”

  “I sent for a lawyer. He came to the prison and told me I had no chance to get visitation because of my record. That was the way it worked back then. This is very hard on me, Sarah.”

  “If you’d rather not…”

  “No, I’ll tell you what you want to know. Before they released you in those days, they let you out on job interviews. I couldn’t get in the door anywhere. Everybody knew about me. I was big news in this little state. ‘Rogue’ Razzi, the crooked cop. Before my arrest the newspapers used to call me ‘Rapid’ Razzi. Two of my homicide cases made True Detective.”

  “Yes, I know. I’ve read the articles. Why won’t you work for my father?”

  “Do you want me to?”

  “Of course. Why do you think I’m really and truly here? I could find out all I want to know about your mother from my mother.”

  “I hoped that you wanted to get to know me a little bit.”

  “Maybe. But my fath
er’s work is more important to me than anything.”

  I put my hand gently on hers. Her hand was ice cold, not just cold.

  “I never should have left,” I said. “I wish with all my heart and soul that I had stayed. I’ll never run away again from anything. You’re a brave person to be sitting here telling me the truth about myself.”

  “Look, Lou, don’t make a big deal out of this conversation. You can hold my hand all you want, but I have no intention of holding yours back. Do you know what my father is trying to do for this country?”

  “Fight crime.”

  “No. Wrong.”

  “Bring criminals to justice.”

  “Not hardly. He is trying to eliminate crime.”

  “Come on, Sarah. That’s like eliminating hunger.”

  “Yes, I know. And we’re the first country to do that. No one has to starve in America. Sixty Minutes would show it on TV. There isn’t any reason why we can’t be the first country to eliminate crime.”

  “That’s a tall order.”

  “Low aim, not failure, is the crime. That’s what my father says.”

  “Where would you start?”

  “Drugs. Did you know that the word assassin derives from the word hashish. Assasins were hashishin. They were a band of Muslims in twelfth-century Persia who smoked hashish and killed people when they were on the drug. My father says we should make drugs illegal again before they permanently brain-damage our nation’s youth. We should allow the cop on the beat to frisk the junkies and pushers, and that would be the end of drugs. We had no drug problem when you were fifteen, except for doctors and jazz musicians.”

  “Okay I’ll think about it.”

  “Drugs have destroyed black neighborhoods. Our automobiles are made by speed freaks on the assembly line.”

  “I will think about it. Really I will. Cross my heart and hope to die. Dela-WOC.”

  “D-WOC.”

  “D-WOC.” And then I sang to myself, D-WOC, a-woc a-bomp, a-bomp, bomp, bomp, and then I looked into her eyes and tried to figure out how I could reach her. I squeezed her hand, winked at her, and sang, “D-WOC, a-woc, a-bomp, a-bomp, bomp,” and watched her frown.

  If I could ever help her get over the rape and get out from under Carlton’s influence, it would take time. I once found an old runaway dog who had obviously been beaten regularly. I named him Luke. It took months of petting to get him to stop flinching at the sight of my hand. After a year I could touch his closed eyes without sending nervous ripples and twitches across his eyelids. I guess you could say I cured his paranoia, but there was a difference. Luke wanted to be cured. Besides, when Luke and I found each other we had no history.

  33

  After shaking hands good-bye with Sarah, her choice, and promising her again that I’d think about it, I strolled through the lobby to the front desk. On the way I looked in the jewelry store window at the ceramic Boehm birds. There was one big, infinitely detailed owl. The outgrowth of each feather was precise. Its face reminded me of DiGiacomo’s. I was in his massive capable hands and soon the DUI charge would be “handled.” What were they gonna do, kill me? Everybody dies.

  The girl in the pink sweater at the lobby desk picked up my spirits even more. There was a message from Honey. She was calling from intake, and I decided I might as well return the call in person.

  The rain was just a slight drizzle, and it felt good as I left for the Public Building on foot in my new shoes and clothing.

  The large metal statue on the concrete pedestal twenty feet off the ground glistened in its wetness, especially the horse’s rump. It was Caesar Rodney, a Delaware delegate, on his gelding and galloping to Philadelphia to vote for freedom and the birth of a nation. Caesar was suffering from cancer of the mouth when he made his historic ride. He was Italian.

  My mother had been very proud of him, and when I was a small kid I thought the statue was religious.

  At intake the bunny-rabbit receptionist cooed to me that Honey had given orders to send me right in. “Bye.” She waved as I walked past her. She was going to remain loyal to me no matter what.

  Honey sat up straight behind her desk. She was alone.

  I said, “Hi.”

  She said, “Hi, Lou.”

  She handed me a typewritten police report from a WPD detective whose name I didn’t recognize. The report was dated yesterday, and the incident had occurred at 1750 hours, while I slept. It was a witness interview of Billy Jerome, nine-year-old white male:

  Q. Can you tell me what happened by the shack in the woods by the railroad tracks, Billy, in your own words?

  A. Me and Johnny Mastropolito was coming over from the school where I showed you and it happened just like I told you. I don’t wanna tell it again.

  Q. Yes, but now you got to tell me about it again into this tape recorder, Okay.? Then the nice lady’s going to type it up for us to read, Okay.? Go on now. You and Johnny were coming through the woods.

  A. And we seen this dirty picture like on the path like I told you a million times.

  Q. Excuse me. Now when you say “we” you mean you and Johnny Mastropolito, your friend, is that right? There were no other subjects with you, is that right?

  A. No. Just my friend, and we picked up this dirty picture and this picture was this girl putting a cigarette out on this guy’s private penis, you know, and I think Johnny was the one that picked it up ’cause he was first, but we was both looking at it and all. Then we seen another one and it was grosser and a little bit down aways and it had a picture of a German shepherd dog and a colored lady without no clothes on and then we seen another one, all these gross pictures. I think Johnny picked them up ’cause he was ahead of me. He always was talkin’ about gettin’ a German shepherd when he got big. He was gonna’ name it “Prince.” It was like a trail of dirty pictures, you know. So Johnny picked them up and then he was near the open clearing where the hangout shack is and Johnny was way in front of me going down the hill and all of a sudden I heard this real loud voice coming from the clearing. It was screaming out real weird and loud like he didn’t care who heard him. He yelled, “Halt, kid, in the name of the law, you’re under arrest for possession of dirty pictures,” and I ducked behind a tree, but Johnny had the pictures and that must’ve made him froze there and so then I was scared and I heard the same guy yelling out real loud, “I got you. You’re under arrest.” Then I figured he wasn’t no cop. Then I started hearing Johnny saying “ouch,” you know, squealing like. But I had to keep still. Then I didn’t hear no more squealing. Then I started worrying about Johnny, and if it was the cops and all, so I snuck back around through the bushes and weeds which is behind the shack kind of. So I didn’t want to get too close or nothing and I seen Johnny was tied up to this tree and he looked real scared, like terrified, and this dirty picture with the cigarette burning on the man’s thing, you know, was stuck under the rope like a target around near his belly but up more, and I seen there was a rag or something stuck in Johnny’s mouth so he couldn’t squeal. All of a sudden I seen Johnny’s eyes get real scareder and this arrow come whizzing out of the shack and sticks in the tree right near Johnny’s head. Like two inches. It was really, really close, and this weird laugh is coming out of this guy in the shack after he shoots the arrow. So I figure I’ll go for help and I start moving out backward real slow, an inch at a time like an Indian, and I’m looking behind me so I don’t step on a twig or nothin’, in case this guy’s got a friend or somethin’, and then I hear this other arrow go whizzing and then it goes plunk into the tree and I look up at Johnny’s eyes but he keeps looking in the shack and Johnny’s eyes are all sticking out like and bugging wide open and then I hear this guy yell out, “What’re you looking at? Didn’t you ever watch anybody j’ing off? What’s the matter with you, boy, can’t you answer me when I ask you a question? I’m gonna make you my slave. You’re gonna live in a dung
eon and be my slave.”

  Q. Jerking off, Billy. You can say it.

  A. Jerking off. So I thought he was talking to me when he said that slave stuff. So I froze and crouched down. Then it was real quiet and I could hear this guy making these weird kind of sounds like groaning and moaning and laughing kind of funny at the same time, and saying “ooh, la, la” real spooky like. So I started moving back out and you know, backward, ’til I got near Shelton and then I took off and run home and called my mom at J. C. Penney’s and she called you guys and then you guys went lookin’ for Johnny which was too late, but there was nothing I could do. I had to go out slow or he’d a gotten me too.

  Q. You did good. I just wish you had seen the subject’s face.

  A. I never seen him. Johnny seen him. If you find Johnny and he’s dead, ain’t there some way you could take a picture of Johnny’s eyes showin’ what he last seen when his heart stopped before he died. Wouldn’t that stay on Johnny’s eyes when he died like the food in his stomach stays still when he dies, you know, like on Quincy? That would be good if they could invent something like that. But Johnny ain’t dead, right? Maybe he won’t keep him as a slave. Maybe he’ll let him go after he’s through with him. That’s what I think.

  I said, “It’s Gandry. It figures. I knew his release would go to his head.”

  “That’s what they think,” said Honey. “But there was nothing left at the scene. The arrows were gone. So was the pornography. The rope was left behind, but it won’t be of any help. It was rope that was there for years. All the kids used it to swing on.”

  “Any semen?”

  “None found. Maybe he didn’t come. Or he used a handkerchief and took it with him.”

  “Like the one I pulled out of his back pocket. Any hair or fibers?”

  “The scene’s been vacuumed, and the mattress in the shack is on its way down to the FBI lab, but even if we find fibers, so what? Gandry’s one of a hundred kids that goes in and out of that shack. We need some excuse to arrest him or search his house for Johnny or, God forbid, Johnny’s body, and we don’t have any legal excuse.”