Carom Shot

by JJ Partridge

  I put down the magazine and sat back. My career as an assistant Manhattan County DA had been brief. After law school, I followed my father’s path with an ROTC commission in the Marines, where my two years of court martial experience after two years of fleet and intelligence duty, decided me on a career as a prosecutor. I would use any talent I had to put away bad guys under the naïve impression that it was the same as protecting the good guys. I would be a star!

  Through family connections, I wrangled the DA job, only to receive the in-your-face treatment I should have expected, but didn’t. Supervised by a series of inept, civil service protected mediocrities who loved to play with my given name, I endured a year of night court arraignments of pickpockets, pimps, druggies, and prostitutes, where the absence of “mister green” meant a night in the slammer. That was followed by a tour at housing court, and then, something where I thought I could excel: felony arraignments. Murder, rape, violent assault, and big drug busts. Within six months, my illusion of the moral imperative of a prosecutor in real criminal law evaporated. I experienced remorseless defendants joining their buddies at Rikers Island, bored prosecutors and judges, hardened cops, and both slickster and regular Joe defense attorneys for whom it was all a day’s pay. I saw the corruption of spirit in an atmosphere of continuous chaos and a day-to-day moral pollution that eventually broke too many in the system. That belated realization coincided with the end of my brief, argument-filled marriage to an associate in a Wall Street law firm, so I was primed when I got the offer from Champlin & Burrill to come home and join its young and aggressive litigation team.

  I rubbed my eyes. It seems like a million years ago ....

  My name was spoken loudly. A blimp of a man, his rounded bulk barely contained within a tent-sized white shirt accented by a red tie and pleated gray flannel trousers clutched to his body by a black shiny belt, braked in front of me. Heavy-lidded, old eyes, under unkempt brows, inspected me as he grasped my hand and almost pulled me out of my seat. The impression of force was so overpowering that I hardly heard his introduction or his order to follow him. As we passed Ms. DeMartini, did she pucker her enhanced lips and give me her almost-smile?

  I heard him say something about the growing size of his firm as we passed secretarial carrels and a line of offices for Jerry Franks wannabes and stopped before a set of imposing, elaborately carved, double doors with Jerome A. Franks in gold lettering on the right-hand side. He opened both doors with a flourish and urged me inside.

  Everything clashed. A wall hanging, an orange disk sinking into a green colored stew, adorned one wall and great daubs of green, mauve, and ochre filled a canvas on the wall opposite. A deep blue rug, chairs, a sofa, and a massive mahogany desk filled the room. Directed ceiling lights illuminated photographs grouped behind the desk, a rogues gallery of Rhode Island legislators, governors, senators, and congressmen, with Mayor Sonny Russo right smack in the center. There apparently was no need for the traditional display of diplomas.

  Franks maneuvered himself into a brown leather chair and motioned me to an uncomfortable-looking, straight-backed chair in front of his desk. I sat and realized that Franks’s chair was set several inches off the floor, giving him the ability to look down at me—which he now did—for physical and psychological advantage. It was impossible to sit comfortably in my assigned chair.

  There followed a moment of mutual appraisal. Who knows what he thought as I began to measure his silver, coiffured hair, pouchy eyes, bulbous nose, puckered chins, and the glitter of gold on his fingers, his wrists, and at his cuffs. A musky cologne reached me. I realized I was on my way to a discernable aversion to Mr. Franks.

  “Well, Alger ...,” his voice was breathy and deep, “... I don’t recall that we’ve actually met...”—we hadn’t—“... but we get a number of referrals from your old firm these days, some things your Mr. Bryan doesn’t handle, DWIs, drugs, petty stuff like that. Still, it’s a living.”

  I struggled to retain a vacant expression which seemed to vex him as he made a show of putting on a pair of half-lens glasses.

  “Lavelle Williams,” he intoned, peering over the glasses to find my eyes, “we produce too many Lavelle Williamses these days, don’t you agree?”

  My face remained deadpan and I didn’t reply.

  Franks’ expression showed his disappointment as he opened a folder, displaying a pinky ring with a diamond the size of the top of a golf tee, and picked up a sheet of paper. “The possession charge was a frame-up. A plant. As I explained on our call, happens all the time,” he said dismissively. “The judge could see that and set bail on personal recognizance. They should drop the intent to sell charge even before the prelim.” He let the paper fall to the desk. “They don’t mind arresting but they hate to testify.”

  It was time to say something. I probably winced before I said, “Interesting, but what has all this to do with me?”

  The lawyer cocked his head back and leveled a cold, steady stare at me. “The murder, of course. He’s a suspect because he’s black and had an unfortunate liaison with the victim. The police don’t care that Williams has an alibi for the night she was murdered—if they can make up their minds when she was killed—especially if the alibi witnesses are minorities with prior scrapes with the law.” He sought my acknowledgement which he didn’t get. “And this Ms. Sullivan, to hear my client tell it, was an erratic, very erratic, young woman!” With that declaration, he removed his glasses, looked through the lenses, and wiped them with a tissue from a box on the desk. “Difficult to understand what she would have seen in my client. He’s young, uneducated, streetwise ..., not exactly someone with whom you would expect a Carter undergraduate to be spending her time.”

  Franks was too busy wiping to see my reaction which was becoming near physical.

  “Her father’s an old-timer on the force. I’d hate to think what could happen to Williams if he’s in the wrong hands for just a few hours. People still get hurt resisting restraint, even commit suicide while in the lockup. Blacks and Latinos seem particularly prone. You haven’t had to deal with your local police, Alger. Sometimes they’re reasonable, sometimes absolute—you’ll pardon me—absolute pricks. Mostly, pricks.”

  At that, he pushed his glasses back on his nose and searched my face for a reaction. It was now obvious that Franks had not bothered to vet me before our meeting; if he had, he would have known of my stint as a prosecutor from the Martindale-Hubbell law directory. Maybe, then, he would not have assumed that I would agree with his made-up-for-me assessment of the moronic, cruel, and homicidal Providence police. I hadn’t made the same mistake: Franks was from Philadelphia, attended Temple undergrad and its law school, somehow got to Rhode Island where he had always practiced criminal law, and had listed two columns of his successes in the directory.

  As seconds went by, he picked up a thick, red-lacquer and gold, Mont Blanc fountain pen which he twirled impatiently; his voice, the famous voice, became engaged when he continued. “Your support was critical to his safety last night, what with the emotions running down there. We were one step away from manifest injustice!”

  Ugh! was almost verbalized as he dropped the pen on to the desk for emphasis.

  “Let me be plain,” he said, trying to pierce my forced obtuseness, “Williams will be picked up again and it could be hours before I know. That’s extremely dangerous for him. And, I think, unnecessary. I’ve become aware of facts that could change the focus of the homicide investigation, assuming, for discussion purposes, it wasn’t your Stalker. For instance—”

  My Stalker? He had taken a page from Sonny Russo.

  I raised my hand. “Before you say anything,” I said, with my voice beginning to inflect the ‘ahhh’s’ I hate, “I didn’t act as Williams’s lawyer. We have no attorney-client relationship and no privilege is involved in anything you tell me.”

  Franks scowled, conveying to me, “Look, stupid. I’ve practiced criminal law for thirty years. Don’t I know what I’m doing?” Still
, his proposition stirred in my brain. While part of me was primed to leave, there was also something akin to curiosity, or whatever it was that had brought me to his office in the first place. I saw the shrewdness around eyes that never wavered and despite the urge to get behind them, maybe even to get them to flicker, I nodded.

  “Good! Fine!” he said, practically beaming at my epiphany, glad that I was on the team. “Ms. Sullivan had a savings account totaling nearly twenty thousand dollars. Think about it! A college drop-out with twenty thousand dollars in the bank. Or more! The initial deposit, ten thousand, was made in early June, even before Williams returned from New York! Then, multiple deposits, every month, he says, that she picked up at the post office, right up into October. She bragged about it. He didn’t believe her so, once, she showed her bankbook to him. According to Williams, she didn’t work, spent a pile of money on clothes, trips to New York City, concerts, and whatever turned her on. The rest went into the bank. He says the payments stopped in November but the night she was killed, she told him the money would start again. The police either don’t know about the money and the bankbook or are ignoring both. Williams thinks that she might have given the bankbook to her sister ...,” he checked the file “... Patricia for safekeeping. Apparently, the cops don’t have it.”

  I had to admit that her money and how she got it was intriguing and was about to so comment but he didn’t give me the opportunity. He moistened his lips with a rather pointed tongue and said, “There are obvious questions running through your mind ....”

  He was going to supply the questions—who gave her the dough, where did she get twenty grand plus, and why—and had all the answers.

  “The payments had to come from someone who had good reason to make them.” His eyes narrowed with cunning. “Ms. Sullivan had an abortion last summer. Thousands of dollars in payments to a young woman who had an abortion?” His face brightened as though his case had been made.

  My response came almost mechanically, spoken with what I hoped was a suitably deprecating shrug. “A blackmail scheme, I take it. She was blackmailing someone. With the inference that blackmail is a motive for murder. If the police look for the source of funds, or even where the money is now, that would take the heat off your client.” He rewarded my logic with a smile and rested his jowls on the points of two touching fingers. I continued. “But whomever impregnated her, presumably, got what he wanted. The abortion. So it has to be more than that.”

  His response showed his annoyance. “Could be anything. What she might say. There could have been letters, a diary, recordings, maybe a video or two, who knows what she had on him.”

  Despite a deep reluctance to give Franks any credence, I was buying into it. The source of the money had to be investigated. Was Franks telling me the truth about what the police knew? How would they know if the bankbook wasn’t at her apartment? How diligently would they question the family, one of their own, or search records? Or did the police know and had chosen to ignore it because of racism or Williams being so convenient? Or Chief McCarthy’s predilection for The Stalker?

  And why was he confiding in me? I asked him.

  “You’ve never practiced criminal law, Alger.” Did I grimace? “It’s a practice with unspoken rules and more gamesmanship than you are used to. I’m always up against the same people ..., police, prosecutors, judges ..., and you’ve got to be consistent.” My back stiffened as he continued to educate me. “I do not provide any information to the police or the Attorney General without some concession, which, under these circumstances, and without the physical evidence of the bankbook, I am unlikely to get. Without a charge, I can’t get the information I need by subpoena.” He paused, anticipating a question. “An anonymous tip? No reason to believe it would be investigated in the present state of affairs. No, this information, if it is to be respected and acted upon, must come from a disinterested source, an unimpeachable source, from someone whom the Commissioner might feel obligated to honor with a meticulous search of bank records. That,” he said with a dramatic flourish of his hands, “could be you.” Satisfied that he had succeeded with his gambit, his chins, which had emerged during his discourse, withdrew into his jowls. He was preening!

  Whoa! I’m not going there! Even as I realized he had almost hooked me.

  I stared at him and he reciprocated. I saw not a fabled defense lawyer but a bad Rumpole impersonator. His obvious attempt at manipulation really pissed me off! To use my relationship with Tramonti! How did he know? I looked up at the photograph of Sonny. Through Puppy Dog? McCarthy? And to do it, not because of empathy for his client, but because of Williams’s relationship to drug boss Flores. For all I knew, the money had been stashed for Williams and this was all an elaborate ruse!

  That did it! I abruptly stood and moved behind my chair to look down on Franks. “Je-rome,” I said, stretching out the two syllables of his name as he had mine, “you overestimate my interest in your client.” My voice gained insouciance and upper class intonation. “You’ve misjudged the situation completely. If you have something to discuss with Commissioner Tramonti, I suggest you do so. Quite frankly,”—I wanted to say frankly—“I see no reason to be further involved with your client.”

  There was a slight bobble to his head as his pulpy cheeks reddened, his eyes hardened, and his mouth contracted into meanness. “If Williams is picked up and something regrettable happens to him ....” His voice trailed off in dramatic disappointment and he began to study the file in front of him.

  I was supposed to feel the sting of dismissal, but I didn’t.

  I said goodbye and left his office and walked quickly down the hallway into the reception area where a group of Latino men with shiny dark hair and black leather jackets, two in their twenties and two a generation older, all with tough, suspicious faces, became silent. I put on my overcoat, feeling their stares at my back, glanced briefly at Ms. DeMartini, who flashed her eyelashes, and left.

  It was no longer raining as I walked toward a downtown blanketed by low, leaden clouds. Words like asshole and dipshit were on my lips. I needed a quick change of scenery and went south a block to Water Street to the newly constructed brick walk along the Providence River. A blustery wind blew a plastic Pepsi cup ahead of me until it slipped under the decorative iron railing into the oily, umber-colored water; I stopped, leaned forward on the railing, and watched it bob in a swirl of eddies and head toward the Point Street Bridge and the Bay. I took a deep breath of the chilled, sea-tanged air, only to remember Franks’ musky, overpowering cologne.

  Damn him!

  I forced myself to stare at the trails of leaves floating on the river. The tide was going out, exposing slimy mud banks and the barnacled pilings at the ferry dock where two inflatable dinghies rubbed noisily against ballasts. Out in the channel, a lone seagull hovered, then glided to the wind-rippled surface, ruffled its feathers, and took on a self-possessed look. As I cooled off, my cockiness dissipated. I questioned my motives in meeting with Franks. I wasn’t just out of law school where saving the innocent was an imagined adventure. Lavelle Williams was likely lawless and self-destructive, up to his eyeballs in drugs and maybe a murder, even though, for some reason, he sought safety with his mother. I’d seen too many like him. And Franks? I know the shenanigans of criminal lawyers; why wouldn’t I have expected some angular ploy like this?

  But, if Anne Sullivan had an abortion and did receive all that cash, then ....

  I had to stop. Franks’s scheme had succeeded to some extent. “Scumbag,” I said aloud and startled an elderly man passing me on the walk. Embarrassed by my outburst, I left the railing abashed and even more angry than before.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Nasty retorts to Franks were still percolating when I reached Verrazzano Park in front of the Supreme Court building and walked past the rust covered sculptures—forms that reminded me of huge alphabet letters and metallic doodles—near the fountain. Even in this weather, a few hearty souls were on benches by the herb and sea
grass plantings at the river’s embankment and grungily dressed teenagers slapped their skateboards on the granite steps circling the Peace Monument. A solitary woman, bundled up against the cold and woolen hat down around her ears, was feeding a pair of swans with what may have been the remains of her lunch. Flags snapped noisily in the wind above the granite pylons of the Korean War Veterans Memorial. Parkside, a favorite casual restaurant renowned for its grill and rotisserie menu, was across the street, but the immediacy of my postponed meeting with the President compelled me up University Street to the campus.

  At a few minutes before two, I closed the door to my office and ate a Dark Milky Way purchased in the second floor canteen. I remained agitated and fell to the mindless distraction of straightening up my office, a process best described as shifting files from one bookcase, chair, or table to another bookcase, chair, or table, until my desk phone rang.

  Danby said, “I’m going to be tied up all afternoon. I still need to get together with you. How about tomorrow, my house, at eight-thirty? Any problem?”

  My calendar is flexible for him and it wouldn’t be the first time we met at President’s House when his schedule was tight. “I can be there.”

  “… Got the Globe in a few minutes and the Times around four. Newsweek this morning. Just raising the flag. Lots of race-related questions. You can imagine how it’s going to be written up.” He paused. “McAllister says more women are packing their bags and there’s talk about a sit-in somewhere but he doesn’t think it will go off. The Faculty Senate is meeting now. I’ve given them my views and I’m hopeful they’ll be supportive when it comes to a vote.” His voice hardened. “I’ve told them I’m determined not to close down.” Before I could respond, he said, “I appreciate the courtesy” and hung up. The strain in his voice was palpable.

  I put the phone down. “Damn!” When would the man have the opportunity to implement his announced agenda—one that was already raising the hackles of the opposition—of a common undergraduate exposure to Western and Third World traditions, with community service as the skeleton for the flesh of academic curriculum, and smaller, quality-driven graduate schools. Not expressed as such, he also had told senior staff of his intention to heal the general malaise, mulishness, and downright incivility that had been aggressively rampant during his predecessor’s short but chaotic term. If the Trustees hadn’t quickly recognized their mistake and bought out her contract, I would have resigned. Danby, I knew instinctively, had the leadership qualities to get Carter back on track, that is, if the cancer of disrespect hadn’t metastasized. Plus, after months of feeling each other out, he seemed to trust my judgment, evidenced by asking for it with increasing regularity, which pleased me.