He runs the permutations in his head and says, “I still don’t like it. It’s lying.”
“It’s bluffing.”
“Call it what you want, the murderer isn’t going to walk up to Alicia Morales’s room and turn himself in.”
“But he may be paranoid enough to try to find out if she’s really there.”
He gives me the knowing look of a man who sees the end of the line getting very close. “It’s a Hail Mary Pass,” he says.
“It’s the fourth quarter and we’re down by twenty points. It’s our only chance to stay in the game.”
“What if nobody shows up?”
“We’ll let you tell your story on Mornings on Two. Then we’ll put you on the stand to say that you didn’t kill Grayson. Then we’ll rest our case and hope for the best. We’ll tell everyone that our sources made a mistake about Alicia Morales. It isn’t the first time we’ve tried a little misdirection.” We’ll also get crucified by Jerry Edwards.
He pulls his wheelchair to the edge of the table. He gives me a thoughtful look and says, “There’s one other thing I wanted to tell you before all hell breaks loose. I wanted to thank you. You gave it your best shot.”
He sounds like a man who has already lost. “Don’t give up hope, Leon.” I realize as I say it that the advice works on several levels.
“I won’t.” He nods to Rosie and says, “I know you didn’t want to take this case in the first place. I wanted you to know that I appreciate it.”
Rosie and I exchange a glance before she says to him, “You’re welcome, Leon.”
He excuses himself and a deputy takes him down the hall to the bathroom. Rosie and I regroup. I tell her that Pete and Roosevelt and I are going to spend the night at the Gold Rush to see if anybody shows up looking for Alicia Morales.
“What are the odds?” she asks.
“Not great. You want to join the party?”
“No thanks,” she says. “I’ll let you play cops and robbers tonight. I’m going to go back to the office for a little while, then I’m going home to see Grace.” She gives me a concerned look and says, “You might want a bodyguard from the neighborhood.”
“Who do you have in mind?”
“This might be a good time for Terrence the Terminator to work off some more of his overdue legal bills.”
“That’s not a bad idea.”
As I’m finishing the sentence, the deputy who had just escorted Leon down the hall knocks on the door and lets himself in. The troubled look on his face indicates that something is wrong. “Your client passed out in the bathroom,” he says. “We’ve called the paramedics.”
We leap to our feet and race down the corridor behind the burly cop. Two of his colleagues have sealed off the entrance to the bathroom, where we find Leon convulsing on the floor next to his wheelchair.
I turn to Rosie and whisper, “He isn’t going to make it.”
She looks at me and says, “Don’t give up hope, Mike.”
*****
Chapter 57
“The Morning is Still Young”
“Leon Walker is listed in critical condition at San Francisco General Hospital.”
— KGO-Radio. Thursday, June 9. 8:00 P.M.
“How is he?” I ask Rosie. I’m talking to her on my cell phone at nine o’clock on Thursday night. She’s with Leon at San Francisco General. I’m in Alicia Morales’s room at the Gold Rush with Pete, Roosevelt and Terrence the Terminator.
“It isn’t good, Mike.”
The foul odor of burnt eggs wafts down the hallway. Two uniforms are posted at the hotel entrances and a couple of plain-clothes detectives are in the vicinity. “How bad?” I ask.
“Leon’s in a coma. It’ll take a miracle.”
Dammit. “Is anybody with you?”
“Carolyn and Vanessa.”
“Do you want more company?”
“No,” she says. “All we can do is wait.
“You’ll call me when you know something?”
“Of course.” There’s a slight crack in her voice when she adds, “Be careful, Mike.”
I hit the End button on my cell and turn to Roosevelt. “It doesn’t sound good,” I say. “This may turn out to be a purely academic exercise.”
“Let’s play it out,” he says.
The Terminator looks at me and says, “What are the chances that anybody will show up?”
“Not great.”
He gets a faraway look and asks a surprisingly philosophical question for a man who steals other people’s belongings for a living. “Why are you doing this, Mike?”
I respond with a philosophical answer. “For the same reason that I represent you when you get in arrested, Terrence. If I see somebody who’s in trouble, I try to do what I can.”
He looks around at the dilapidated surroundings and watches a rat scurry across the floor. “You’re a good man.”
I sigh. Yeah, a prince.
Roosevelt gives the Terminator a heartfelt smile and says, “Your assistance tonight will not go unnoticed the next time you get arrested.”
“That’s why I have Mike,” he says, “although his record isn’t perfect.”
“How’s that?” I ask.
“You got me out a little too soon on a burglary rap a couple of years ago. I wasn’t quite finished with some dental work when you got me paroled. I never got that crown replaced.”
“You really wanted to stay inside?”
“A man has to eat, Mike.”
“I’ll remember that next time you get your ass arrested.”
He winks and says, “I’m just yanking your chain.”
I’m too tired to realize it.
The minutes turn into hours and Thursday turns into Friday. Midnight passes without word from Rosie. One o’clock goes by without any activity in the vicinity of Alicia Morales’s room. It’s eerily calm on Sixth Street at two A.M. and the traffic on the freeway is quiet at three when I turn to Roosevelt and say, “I don’t think anybody is coming.”
“Be patient, Mike. The night is still young.”
His stamina is legendary. “It’s morning.”
“The morning is still young.”
My brother hasn’t said two words since we arrived, but his wheels are turning. He looks at me and says, “I should have flown down to Mexico.”
He’s still a cop at heart. “You can go tomorrow, Pete.”
He glances at his watch and says, “It’s probably too late.”
Maybe. I’m drifting to sleep when Roosevelt’s cell phone rings at three-thirty. He answers immediately and speaks in a hushed tone. “Yeah,” he says. “We’ll be right down.”
He snaps his phone shut and starts heading toward the door. “What is it?” I ask.
“Somebody in the alley was asking about Alicia Morales.”
*****
Chapter 58
“He Knew it All Along”
“A spokesman at San Francisco General said Leon Walker is on life support.”
— KGO-Radio. Friday, June 10. 3:30 A.M.
Roosevelt leads us through the corridors of the Gold Rush and pushes open the heavy metal door at the end of the hall on the first floor. The foggy alley is illuminated by the neon lights of the adjacent gas station. The damp air is chilly and the roar of the trucks on the freeway drowns out the voices of the officers who are surrounding an agitated African-American man.
The uniforms part as Roosevelt strides into the center of the action. The man’s voice is familiar, but I can’t see his face. He’s proclaiming his innocence to everybody within earshot. “You can’t arrest somebody for walking down an alley,” he insists.
Roosevelt’s baritone cuts through the fog and the noise. “What’s your name?”
“I want to talk to my lawyer.”
“You have to tell us your name.”
The man turns around to face Roosevelt and I recognize the Mayor of Sixth Street. I say to Roosevelt, “His name is Willie Kidd.”
Willie
doesn’t recognize me. He points a finger at me and says, “Who the hell are you?”
“Michael Daley.”
“Who the hell is Michael Daley?”
The Terminator steps forward and puts his hands on Willie’s shoulders. “You need to calm down,” he tells him. “Mike’s a lawyer. He’ll help you.”
Kidd looks up into the Terrence’s huge eyes and says, “They’re going to arrest me.”
The Terminator’s voice is stern when he says, “No, they aren’t.”
Kidd looks around at the uniforms and decides that Terrence and I have the most sympathetic faces. “Will you represent me?” he asks.
“Yes.”
Legally, this goes beyond blowing smoke. His interests may run adverse to Leon’s. The niceties of the California Rules of Professional Conduct sometimes go out the window when you’re in an alley on Sixth Street.
Willie asks me, “Am I under arrest?”
I turn to Roosevelt and say, “Is he?”
“Only if he refuses to answer our questions.”
I say to my new client, “As your lawyer, I would advise you to cooperate. If there’s a question that I don’t think you should answer, I’ll let you know.”
The Mayor nods.
Roosevelt asks, “Why were you looking for Alicia Morales?”
“We’re friends.”
Not good enough. Roosevelt gives him one more chance. “Who sent you here, Willie?”
He thinks about it for a moment and finally says, “A man.”
“What’s his name?”
“I don’t know.”
Roosevelt’s patience shows its first sign of strain. “If you don’t tell us where to find him,” he says, “we’ll haul you in for loitering, trespassing, public intoxication, possession of a controlled substance and for good measure, obstruction of justice.”
“Obstruction of justice?”
“You’re withholding material information relating to an ongoing murder investigation. Either you tell us what you know or you tell it to a judge.”
The Mayor of Sixth Street gives me a hopeless glance.
Roosevelt puts a hand on Willie’s shoulder and tries a more subdued tone. “We don’t want you, Willie. We need to know who sent you to look for Alicia Morales.” He lays it on a little thick when he adds, “The minimum sentence for obstruction is three years.”
Kidd’s bloodshot eyes lock onto mine. “You’re my lawyer,” he says. “What do I do?”
I turn to Roosevelt and say, “Are you prepared to offer full immunity if he cooperates?”
“As long as he agrees to testify.”
“Deal.” I say to Willie, “Tell Inspector Johnson what you know.”
He looks to Terrence Love for moral support and gets a knowing nod, then he keeps it short and sweet. “A white man in a BMW told me that he’d give me two hundred bucks if I could find out if Alicia Morales is really in this building.”
“Has he paid you yet?”
“He gave me fifty. Do I have to give it to you?”
Roosevelt shakes his head and says, “Keep it, Willie. What were you supposed to do when you found out the answer?”
He points toward the freeway and says, “Meet him at the Sixth Street overpass at four.”
I glance at my watch and see that it’s ten to four. I ask, “What did this guy look like?
“Young, white, buff, short hair, wire-framed glasses.”
Brad Lucas.
Roosevelt pulls out his cell phone and punches in a series of numbers, then he barks orders. He assigns two officers to stay with Willie and he calls Marcus Banks to give him an update. Finally, he says to me, “Care to join us?”
“You bet.” I turn to Terrence and say, “I don’t go anywhere without my bodyguard.”
# # #
My father used to say that the smartest cops were the ones who weren’t afraid or embarrassed to ask for help. They also tended to live longer. Roosevelt Johnson is a smart cop who has lived for a very long time. He’s on the phone immediately to summon reinforcements. You never send in a few scouts when an entire battalion is available.
It happens quickly. By the time we start walking down Sixth Street toward the freeway, four squad cars with lights flashing are surrounding Brad Lucas’s Beemer. In a display of overwhelming force, eight cops leap out of their cars with guns drawn. The unarmed Lucas surrenders without incident, and we arrive just in time to watch Officer Jeff Roth cuff him and read him his rights. He demands to see a lawyer and he hurls epithets toward me. It’s still far from an open-and-shut case. Alicia Morales is the only other person who saw him kill Tower Grayson. The rest of the evidence is circumstantial and possibly inconclusive. Roosevelt and the evidence techs will have their hands full trying to put the pieces together.
We listen to invective before the cops walk him toward a squad car. He breaks free for an instant and lunges toward me. It’s a miscalculation. It’s difficult to do damage when your hands are cuffed behind your back. Before he can head butt me, the Terminator steps in front of me and lands a clean right uppercut on Lucas’s square chin that lifts him completely off the ground. He’ll never remember what hit him. He crumples to the pavement like a load of bricks.
The cops stand in disbelief for a brief moment before they burst into laughter. I turn to Terrence and say, “Thanks for looking out for me tonight.”
“Thanks for looking out for me for so many years.” He holds his right wrist with his left hand and opens and closes his fist a couple of times.
“Is your hand broken?” I ask.
“I don’t think so.”
“Good.” I look at the unconscious Lucas and say, “Looks like your hands weren’t soft after all.”
# # #
The inevitable call from Rosie comes in to my cell phone as I’m driving to San Francisco General at five-fifteen. “Are you okay?” she asks.
“Yeah. I tried to reach you on your cell, but you didn’t answer.”
“They don’t let you use cell phones in the ICU, Mike.”
I’d forgotten. I take a deep breath and ask, “How is he?”
“Leon died about twenty-five minutes ago, Mike. He never regained consciousness.”
Hell. I exhale heavily and say, “How is Vanessa holding up?”
“She’s taking it pretty hard.”
“And you?”
“I’ll be all right.”
Rock solid. We talk for a few minutes and I tell her that I’ll meet her at the hospital. Then Rosie asks me what happened at the Gold Rush.
“Brad Lucas was arrested.” I fill her in on the details, then I think back on the short and tortured life of Leon Walker, who will be remembered as a man of great and unrealized potential. It makes me profoundly sad. I say, “Leon didn’t get his chance to testify.”
“It turns out he didn’t need to.”
“I guess not. He never knew he was found innocent.”
Rosie sighs and says, “He knew it all along.”
*****
Chapter 59
The Final Verdict
“Private services for Leon Walker will be held at St. Peter’s Catholic Church on Tuesday, June 14. Donations may be made to the Hunters Point Children’s Center.”
— San Francisco Chronicle. Tuesday, June 14.
Leon’s funeral is held the following Tuesday at St. Peter’s in the Mission District, just around the corner from where I lived when I was a kid. I was able to persuade my seminary classmate, Father Ramon Aguirre, to let us use his church. We hit up Leon’s old teammates for donations to cover the cost of the casket and a plot next to the railroad tracks in the old cemetery in Colma. It’s a subdued ending to a once promising, but ultimately fractured life.
Rosie and I are sitting in front row with Vanessa and Julia Sanders. There are only a handful of mourners, curiosity seekers and reporters behind us. Jerry Edwards is by himself in the back. Ramon delivers a brief eulogy and I’m asked to say a few words. I speak directly to Vanessa
and Julia and ask them to be forgiving. I know that I provide little comfort, but I hope their sorrow is tempered somewhat by relief and the knowledge that Leon is no longer in pain. Their gratitude is genuine when they thank us after the service.
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