The coach stopped talking and looked sideways at Zak. “Or is that what you wanted?”
The hotter-blooded of the twins, Zak knew he had to control his temper. “I didn’t mean to hit him. But he was trying to hit me.”
“He was doing what I asked him to do, unlike you,” Newell replied. “It’s good practice for the pitcher and the batter. The pitcher gains the intimidation factor, and the batter learns to get out of the way.”
“You did it because the batter was Esteban.”
Newell’s jaw set tight as he tried to stare Zak down. “I’m trying to mold a team here, Karp, to win a state championship,” he said as if trying his best to be patient. “And if I have a player on the team who is a disruption or doesn’t fit into what myself and the other coaches are trying to do here, then it’s part of my job to weed him out.”
“Esteban’s a good player,” Zak replied. “And he works hard.”
Newell shrugged. “He’s okay. But Weller’s a team leader, and he’s been around longer. Besides, those people are all about individual stats. They only see sports as a way out of the ghetto and couldn’t give a shit about the team. I think he’d be happier playing for a public school where he’d have more of his people around to habla español and play like a bunch of prima donnas. We’re fine without him; in case you haven’t noticed, we’re seeded second in the state and the playoffs start next week.”
“‘Those people’?” Zak said. “You mean Hispanics?”
“I mean poor Hispanics who come here and don’t even bother learning the language,” Newell replied. “But they expect everything to be handed to them on a silver platter. Well, it ain’t going to happen on my watch.”
Newell picked up the binder he’d been studying when Zak entered the room. “You know what this is?”
“A lineup book,” Zak replied.
“Damn right it is,” Newell said, and pushed it across his desk so that Zak could see it. “And this particular page is the lineup for game two of the playoffs. You can see that at the moment, I haven’t written anybody in as the starting pitcher. Normally, that would be your name there, but as of now you are suspended for conduct detrimental to the team.”
“What conduct?” Zak asked, fighting to keep back tears.
“Disrespect and attempting to hurt one of your teammates,” Newell replied.
“That’s not fair,” Zak exclaimed.
Newell leaned across his desk and fixed his eyes on the boy’s. “I decide what’s fair around here. Now, I don’t need to remind you that these playoff games attract a lot of attention from college and pro scouts, and it would be a shame for them not to see you. But I will not hesitate to keep you on the bench if your attitude doesn’t improve, and I mean pronto. Do I make myself clear?”
Zak dipped his head so that the coach wouldn’t see the anger in his eyes. “Yes, sir.”
“Good, now get the hell out of here,” Newell said, and then softened his tone. “Glad to have you on board, Zak; you’re going to have a hell of a career.”
Giancarlo was waiting for Zak outside the coach’s office. “Don’t say anything,” Zak said, looking at his brother. “I’m not in the mood.”
Closing his mouth, Giancarlo fell in step with Zak as they walked down the hallway toward the exit. But he couldn’t remain quiet. “I’m proud of you.”
Zak paused. “Yeah? Well you know what you being proud of me means? It means that if my ‘attitude’ doesn’t improve, he’s going to bench me for the playoffs. Right now I’m suspended for conduct detrimental to the team.”
“That’s crap! We need to tell someone,” Giancarlo sputtered.
“He’ll say I misinterpreted what he wanted me to pitch and that I was insubordinate,” Zak replied. “And that I purposefully tried to hurt Worley so that I could be the starting pitcher in game one. And this team will back him up, especially the upperclassmen; this is their chance for a state championship and they’re not going to let me, or some Hispanic guy, screw that up for them. Besides, who are we going to tell? We’re getting too old to run to Daddy every time something’s not going our way.”
The boys left the building and saw Lucy waiting for them in their mother’s high-end truck. She was parked behind a beat-up economy car with threadbare tires and rust spots on the panels. As they approached, the passenger-side door of the beat-up car opened and Esteban got out and walked toward them.
“Great, now what?” Zak growled.
“Hey, Esteban, what’s up?” Giancarlo said.
Esteban smiled at Giancarlo but held out his hand to Zak. “I wish to thank you,” he said in heavily accented English.
Zak frowned. That’s when he noticed another car in the lot containing Max Weller, Chase Fitzgerald, and Chet Anders. “I didn’t do anything,” he said without offering his hand in return, and walked on to where Lucy was waiting.
Esteban looked hurt and puzzled as he turned to Giancarlo. “I say something bad?”
Giancarlo shook his head. “Nah. He’s just upset ’cause the coach got mad at him,” he explained.
Esteban looked over to where Zak was crawling into the jump seat of the truck. He bit his lip and nodded. “I understand this,” he said, and put his hand out to Giancarlo, who shook it. “Please to tell him gracias again for me when time is right, eh?”
“I will,” Giancarlo said. “See you tomorrow.”
The two boys split up and walked to their respective rides, both conscious that their teammates in the other car were watching. Giancarlo was surprised that Zak was in the back of the truck; usually he called shotgun and couldn’t be budged.
“Well, hello to you, too,” Lucy said as Giancarlo got in the front passenger seat and buckled his seat belt without speaking. “Don’t tell me both of you are in foul moods. Grumpy the Dwarf hasn’t said a word since he got in.”
“Sorry, Luce, I’m fine,” Giancarlo said, despite being able to see the boys in the other car mouthing words he couldn’t hear but whose intent he understood. “Zak’s just upset because the coach got on his case.”
Lucy frowned. “Is everything all right?”
“I don’t want to talk about it, okay?” Zak snarled.
“Not a problem,” Lucy replied. “Maybe something tasty at Moishe’s will put you in a better mood.”
“What?” Zak asked.
“Did you forget? I’m supposed to take you to see Moishe for your report. Mom and Dad are both working late.”
Both boys groaned. But their complaints ended the moment they walked into Il Buon Pane. They chose cherry cheese coffee cake and disappeared chattering happily to the upstairs apartments with Moishe.
When they were gone, Goldie motioned for Lucy to have a seat at one of the tables. I will lock up and we’ll have something to eat and drink, she signed.
Lucy shook her head. Thank you, but I really should be going, she signed back. The twins have cab fare and—
There is something so important that you cannot spare a few minutes for an old woman? Goldie signed, and smiled, her blue eyes twinkling.
Lucy laughed. Well, since you put it that way … but it will cost you another piece of that cherry cheese coffee cake.
Good, good, a small price to pay for such lovely company, Goldie replied. She finished locking up and then scurried behind the counter, reappearing with two pieces of the coffee cake, which she set down on the table before sitting herself.
So …, the old woman signed, when is the wedding?
Lucy almost choked on her coffee cake at the unexpected, and unwelcome, question. It was a topic she’d been avoiding even with her mother. She didn’t want to talk—even in sign language—about it now. However, Goldie was looking at her as if she’d asked about the weather.
“I just don’t think the timing is good for getting married right now,” Lucy said, picking her cup of tea up and taking a sip, hoping the discussion was over.
It wasn’t. Goldie put her cup down and sat still for a moment, but then her hands began t
o fly. I want to tell you a short story, she said, about when Moishe and I met. As you know, we were both survivors of concentration camps, and I met him shortly after the war in a refugee camp. I could tell he liked me—he kept hanging around, making eyes, and trying to speak to me, though I would only sign for him to keep his distance.
Goldie sighed. I was the least likely love interest imaginable. Not after what the Nazi doctors did to me in the camp when I was a young girl. It is the reason I could not have children, though I did not know it until much later. I did know that I did not want a man to touch me again … not ever.
Taking another sip of tea, Goldie spent a moment gazing into the cup as though she could see distant memories. Then her hands continued with her story of the young man who refused to go away but stayed close and vigilant. At first she had seen him like any other man—after one thing only—but as she watched him she thought there was both an innocence and a sad, quiet strength to him that said he was different from the others. She hated to admit it to herself, but she felt safer when he was nearby.
Moishe would try to talk to me even though he knew that if I deigned to speak to him with my hands, he wouldn’t understand. I should tell you that back then my hands spoke a combination of sign languages I had picked up in the concentration camp, as well as my own additions. But he kept trying … that young man would not give up.
Goldie smiled. Finally one day he walked up and handed me a note. I dropped it to the ground and signed for him to leave me alone. He walked off and as soon as he did, I picked up the note and read it. It said, “I’ve decided that I love you and that I want to marry you. We will go to America and surround ourselves with children and grandchildren.”
I found a pencil and wrote a response and then stomped around our camp looking for him so that I could give him a piece of my mind. He saw me coming and though the men around him looked suddenly worried—I must have seemed like an enraged Valkyrie coming for the mortals—he just smiled.
The old woman laughed. I think that is the moment I may have first realized that I loved him. But I gave him my note, which said, “How can you talk of love and marriage and bringing children into a world as evil as this one? You are a stupid man, and I am not interested.” Not very eloquent but to the point. I saw the hurt on his face—and regretted my note. But all he said was, “That’s okay. I’ll ask again tomorrow.” I told him not to bother, but the next day when I saw him walking toward me, I have to admit, my heart skipped a beat. He asked me to marry him again, and I said, “No. Love has no place in this world for me anymore.”
Day after day, however, Moishe returned and asked his question, the old woman told Lucy. And day after day, I rejected him. Goldie laughed again. I believe that I must have a world record for the most proposals by one man. Finally, one day he came up to me, but instead of asking his question, he said good-bye.
The memory brought tears to Goldie’s eyes. I pretended that I was only mildly interested but asked him where he was going. He said he was going back to Sobibor and that he would lie down there and die. I asked him why and he said—and I can remember his very words to this day—“If they can stop us from falling in love and marrying and having children … if they can convince us that the world is such a terrible place that there is no more room for love, then they have won anyway. Why not give them my bones to lie near those of my mother, sister, and father, and so many friends?”
Goldie reached across the table for Lucy’s hand. I didn’t know if he was just being dramatic, but suddenly I could not stand the thought of him leaving me. I pleaded with him not to go. I said that perhaps in the future there would be a better time to consider marriage, but it wasn’t the right time.
The old woman squeezed the young woman’s hand. And he said, “There is no right time for love, there is only now.” Then, before I could stop him—or maybe I didn’t want to stop him—he kissed me.
Goldie sighed and fell silent. Lucy wiped at the tears rolling down her own cheeks. “Then what happened?”
Goldie spread her hands to indicate the bakery and all that it stood for and signed, Don’t you know? I married my prince and lived happily ever after.
20
ALTHOUGH HE KEPT HIS EXPRESSION DISPASSIONATE, INwardly Karp was seething as he waited for Gilbert Murrow, Pat Davis, and Danielle Cohn to take their seats in his office. Guma, Fulton, and Tommy Mack, the chief of the Homicide Bureau, were already present, the former in his favorite chair, Mack seated near him, and Clay leaning his big frame against a wall.
It was midmorning, the day after his visit to Columbia University and Dale Yancy, a morning that followed a sleepless night. This could have all been so easily avoided, he thought, fuming, with just the smallest bit of patience and attention to detail. But everybody got caught up in the immediacy of the now. The cop wanted the bust. Cohn wanted to take on a big case. And Davis wanted to shine while he was at the top and position himself for when Mack gets his judgeship.
Perhaps, in the initial adrenaline rush of thinking he had the killer in front of him, Graziani had the blinders on so tight that he could see only Acevedo. But his withholding evidence that would have ruled out the ring used in support of Acevedo’s indictment was not just a serious violation of legal procedures, it obstructed justice and inexorably led to false charges being filed against—in all probability—an innocent man.
Karp had looked at Graziani’s personnel file, delivered earlier by Fulton, and saw a mixed bag. Graziani had received commendations for his service and risen in the ranks, though he seemed stuck at detective second grade. Part of that may have been the sorts of small issues that might show up in any detective’s file—complaints about harassment, “police brutality,” and shakedowns. But there was also the glaring accusation that he’d taken DEA-marked money from a drug dealer, which had gotten him transferred from the Two-Six to the Four-Eight without any other repercussions. Probably thanks to the police union, Karp thought. The “thin blue line” mentality makes it tough on occasion to deal with the few bad apples.
However, bad apple or not, Karp’s own people had screwed up big-time, and that bothered him even more than Graziani. As the district attorney of New York County, he was responsible for the six hundred assistant district attorneys who worked for the busiest DAO in the country. Together they faced the daunting challenge of prosecuting those responsible for the fifty thousand violent crimes that occurred annually on the island of Manhattan, including approximately five hundred murders, fifteen hundred rapes, and a multitude of robberies, assaults, and kidnappings. And that didn’t include the caseloads for tens of thousands of other types of nonviolent felonies, such as burglary, larceny, fraud, traffic infractions, and misdemeanor cases.
It was a monumental task, but he’d never believed that was an excuse for sloppy work or ignoring protocol. Since coming into office, he’d insisted on a system of checks and balances that his mentor DA Garrahy had employed but were abandoned or haphazardly enforced by subsequent administrations. Again borrowing from the old man’s style, he’d also brought back what he thought of as the “institutionalization of virtue,” in which the office, and the people who worked for him, would occupy the moral high ground in the administration of justice. And, as he’d been discussing with Guma and Fulton before the others arrived, not just because it was the right thing, but because “our whole system depends on keeping the trust of the public; if we destroy that trust by compromising our ethics, the whole system crumbles.” Now, because of the callous disregard for the law of a rogue cop and recklessness motivated by the personal goals of two members of his staff, the system had been compromised, and he was angry about it.
Actually, Karp had been simmering since leaving Dale Yancy and then gone to full boil within minutes after Marlene arrived home that evening and greeted him with the now all-too-familiar “We need to talk.”
After listening to Marlene and taking a stroll around the block to clear his head, Karp had called Tommy Mack and given him a brie
f rundown of what had happened. The homicide chief berated himself for getting distracted by the case he was prosecuting, which had gone to the jury that day, and not “riding herd better” on Assistant Bureau Chief Pat Davis and other members of his bureau. But Karp had dismissed the self-criticism; the lack of oversight was one of the disadvantages of insisting that he and his bureau chiefs try cases to keep themselves sharp.
“This one slipped through the cracks,” Karp said. “Now the thing is to correct the problem and then make sure the cracks get filled in. I have an appointment first thing in the morning, but let’s meet at about ten and have Davis and Cohn join us at about eleven.”
He then called Murrow and gave him the same briefing. When he was finished, Karp’s administrative chief groaned loudly.
“Spit it out, Gilbert,” Karp said insistently, knowing what was coming.
Gilbert Murrow was a somewhat short and pudgy fellow who favored vests and round, wire-rimmed glasses that gave him the appearance of a research librarian. One of Murrow’s roles was to act as Karp’s liaison with the media; as such he sometimes complained that he was the only one in the office conscious of the fact that the position of district attorney was an elected one.
If there was a problem with the case, the press could be expected to make his life unpleasant. “At the risk of the slap-down I know I’m going to get,” he said, “I was just contemplating how the media is going to react. They’ve been running Columbia U Slasher newspaper exposés and television specials since Acevedo’s arrest. They’ve as much as convicted him. Now they’re going to look like fools who sensationalized this, and who do you think they’re going to take this out on?”
“Please spare me the rhetorical questions,” Karp replied, annoyed.
“Us … and more specifically, you, the New York DA who persecutes innocent young men on a whim,” Murrow said. “We’ll all be pilloried, but they’ll also use the tar and feathers on you.”
“And my reaction to what the media says is …?” He could feel Murrow slump into his seat even over the telephone.
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