The Crossroads

by F. P. Lione

  The doors were open and we walked through them, almost colliding with the super of the building. He was an Italian guy, about fifty, that I’d seen before in the precinct for burglaries in the building. He was grubby looking, balding, with tufts of gray hair sticking out along the sides and back of his head. He had a stained JETS sweatshirt over his beige workpants. If I didn’t know him, I would have thought he was a skell.

  “Hey, guys, what’s going on?” he asked us, eyeing the victim.

  “Listen,” I said, “we’re trying to get up to the eleventh floor, but the elevator was keyed off. Is there a sweatshop up there?”

  “Uh,” he started to stammer. “Yeah, why do you want to know?” He was looking at the girl, not at us.

  “Do you remember her being here earlier?” I asked.

  He hesitated. “Yeah, I remember her coming in early. They have a big order going out, and I saw her go on the elevator. What’s this about?”

  “We just need to talk to the owner,” Joe said easily.

  “Can you take us up?” I asked, not as nice as Joe.

  “Uh, yeah,” he stammered again.

  We walked into the freight elevator, signaling the girl to come with us. She looked scared again, and I wondered what it must be like to be in a place where you don’t understand what anybody’s saying. The super pulled down the strap to close the gate, and I asked him if he remembered seeing the girl leave. He looked at Joe and said, “Why, did something happen?”

  Joe didn’t answer him, and I cut right in with, “Do they normally lock out the elevator once the employees are up there?”

  He hesitated and said, “Well, Mr. Kim told me to lock it up and not let anyone else up. Why, what’s wrong?”

  “Does he tell you to do that every day?” I snapped. “Or was it just today?”

  He didn’t answer the question, but he told us what a great guy Mr. Kim is. I’m sure Mr. Kim takes care of the super, slipping him cash to keep his mouth shut.

  We reached the eleventh floor, and he pulled the gate up by the leather strap, with the bottom half of the gate going down and the top half going up. There was a locked door off the elevator, and he fished for the key. I could hear the sewing machines inside the door. The super paused and turned. “He told me not to let anybody up here.”

  “Really?” Joe gave him a harmless smile. “I don’t think he meant us, do you?”

  He had nothing to say to that, so he unlocked the door. We stepped into a big loft with rack after rack of clothing. I could hear the sewing machines loudly now, and the hiss of the pressing machine as it finished a garment. Pushing the clothes out of the way as we went was like walking through a jungle without a machete.

  As we got past the clothes, the room opened up into rows of tables broken up into sections. In one section women were using sewing machines, in another were long cutting tables where men worked. The workers were Spanish and Mexican and ranged in age from very young to very old. They all wore similar work smocks as they drudged through their tasks.

  I could see all eyes on Fiore and me, and I resisted the urge to yell “Immigration!” and watch the room clear.

  It was cold in there—that’s how they run these sweatshops, no heat in the winter, no air conditioning in the summer. Most of the workers wore sweatshirts under their smocks, and some had fingerless gloves on while they worked.

  “Where’s the boss?” I yelled out.

  No takers here. Everyone did their best to look busy, but they knew something was up. I scanned the room and spotted an office in the corner to my right. I looked at Joe, and he nodded toward it.

  “Want me to go?” Joe asked.

  “Nah, I’ll go,” I said.

  “I’ll make sure no one leaves,” he said.

  As I walked toward the office, an older Korean woman who looked to be in her late fifties, short and plump with chin-length glossy black hair, looked up from some sketches she was looking at with a younger Oriental man.

  I turned to the victim and pointed to the Oriental guy with the woman, but she shook her head no.

  I continued walking toward the woman and saw her eyeing me shrewdly.

  “Where’s the boss?” I barked out to her.

  “I boss. I owner,” she said sharply.

  “Is your husband here?” I was guessing now.

  She turned toward the office and yelled in Korean. A short, wrinkly, greasy-haired Korean man walked out of the office in slippers and a cheesy plaid sports jacket over blue pants. He looked to be in his sixties. He was skinny, with a frail look about him. I looked back at the victim and saw her eyes widen.

  Mom and Pop shot back and forth in Korean, which was annoying. I looked back at the girl and pointed to the old guy. She nodded, her head bobbing up and down, while she lifted her hand and pointed at him.

  The wife stopped talking and stared at the girl with a deadly look. The old man walked back to the office and slammed the door.

  I followed him, walking toward the office, when the wife shouted, “You no go there!”

  I kept walking.

  Joe intercepted the wife, and I could hear him asking her if she remembered the victim working here.

  “No, she no work here. You leave!” she yelled.

  I went into the office, pushing the door hard enough to slam it into the wall behind it. There was an old battered desk with a computer and telephone on it. Above it was a calendar with an Oriental girl in a pink sweater holding a kitten. To the left of the door was a black leather chair, and I saw a smock on it. I picked it up. It was a pink floral print, like the ones the other workers were wearing, and it was torn on the right where the victim was cut. The collar had been split, and the buttons were ripped off. On the label, scrawled in black ink, was the name Marisol.

  “You can’t touch that,” the old man yelled. I held it up and looked in the pockets. I didn’t care what he said, she’d already ID’d him, and I was locking him up.

  “Hey, Papa San,” I said, “get over here.” I was still holding the smock, looking at it from every angle. He followed me out into the sweatshop again, and I held up the smock to the victim. She pointed to the smock with one hand and pointed at the old guy with the other.

  Mama San started yelling, “You can’t take that! What go on? Why you here?”

  I could see in her eyes she knew exactly why I was here.

  “This woman made an allegation that your husband attacked her when she came into work this morning,” Joe said.

  “Who she? She no work here. I never see her before,” she cackled. “She no legal anyway.”

  “She can still prosecute your husband,” I said angrily.

  “The super saw her come into work this morning,” Fiore said calmly, but I could see he was angry. “And your husband made him lock the elevator after she left and told him not to let anyone else up here.”

  Through all this, the super was standing behind Joe and the victim, listening intently. When Joe said that, I could see the super turning red, like he shouldn’t have told us that.

  “You get out. Get out!” she screamed again.

  “Shut up,” I said to her. I turned to Joe. “If she opens her mouth again or tries to stop me from cuffing her husband, we’ll lock her up for obstruction.” She shut up, but she was seething.

  “Oh come on, guys, he’s a good guy,” the super said to us. I gave him a “don’t even try it” look, and he backed off.

  I threw the cuffs on the old man, and he kept saying, “No, no, I good guy. I good guy.” The wife didn’t come any closer, but yelled at the victim, “You liar, liar, liar!”

  The super saw my eyes flash over to her and he told her to calm down, she doesn’t want us locking her up too.

  “Come on, let’s go,” I said to the super. “Take us back downstairs.”

  We went back to the freight elevator, and I did a fast toss of the old man to make sure he didn’t have a weapon. He had a small bottle in his front pants pocket, but I wasn’t concerned abou
t it. I noticed he wasn’t looking at the victim, who had stepped back from him and was cowering in the corner.

  “Where are you bringing him?” the super asked.

  “Back to the precinct. Why?” Joe asked him.

  “Can I come with you guys?” he asked. I guess he was concerned about losing whatever it was the old man did for him.

  “Are you kidding me?” I asked angrily. “I’m not taking you back with him.”

  “He wouldn’t do something like this, he’s a good guy,” the super argued.

  “Look at her!” I pointed at the victim. “Does she look like she’s lying?”

  I didn’t talk to the super again for the rest of the ride down. Now I had the perp and the victim together, but it was getting late and I didn’t want to call and wait for another car.

  It was now 7:50. Fiore called Central to tell them we had one under and gave the address on 37th street.

  “I’ll sit in the back,” Fiore said, getting in between them in the back of the car.

  On the drive back to the precinct, the old man was chanting over and over, “I good guy, everybody know me, just ask them.”

  I looked in the rearview mirror at Fiore and said, “Can you believe this guy? Shut up!”

  “Listen,” Fiore said, “we heard you the first time, and no one is asking you if you’re a good guy.” Fiore probably wanted to sit back there because he’s a much more mature Christian than I am, and I would have smashed the old man’s friggin’ face into the partition that separates the front seat from the back.

  When we got back to the precinct, Joe took the victim into the muster room. I took the collar over to Hanrahan, who was standing behind the desk.

  “I guess you’re not doing the bomb detail either.” He sighed and scratched his head, probably thinking of who else he could ask to fill my spot.

  “Nope,” I said.

  “Whaddaya got?” He eyed the old man curiously.

  “Sexual assault,” I said.

  “I no do nothing, I good guy.” The old man smiled at Hanrahan.

  “I wasn’t talking to you,” Hanrahan dismissed him. “Is that the victim over there, Tony?” He pointed to the female with Fiore.

  “Yeah, that’s her,” I said.

  “Do the pedigree on him and take him in the back,” Hanrahan said.

  I stood by the desk and took his pertinent information, using the wallet he had on him with his driver’s license and social security card. I was surprised to see that he was seventy-one. He looked younger; I thought he was about sixty-five.

  I made him empty his pockets so I could count up his money and give it back to him. I counted out $54.78 he had in his wallet, a stack of business cards, and the bottle of medicine. I picked up the bottle and looked at the label, figuring it was some heart pills or something like that.

  “Look what we have here,” I said contemptuously. I held the bottle up to his face.

  “They’re not mine,” he said, his English pretty clear now. “Your name is on them, the prescription’s made out to you,” I said. “Nothing to say now?”

  “What is it?” Hanrahan asked. I handed him the bottle of male performance enhancement drugs.

  “Why does he need these when he’s at work?” Hanrahan said angrily. “Friggin’ perv,” he mumbled.

  “No, he good guy,” I said. “Just ask anyone.”

  “Make sure you voucher them as evidence,” Hanrahan said.

  “I also have the smock he ripped off her,” I said.

  “Take pictures of any bruises she’s got,” he said, then added, “and call for a bus to look at her.”

  I nodded.

  “Come on,” I said as I took the old man into the back.

  I took him in the back to the cells. As I was taking his cuffs off he tried to pull away, saying, “You no lock me up, I good guy.”

  “Sure you are,” I said. And I put the cuffs back on him so he’d be uncomfortable while I put him in the cell. I left him there with Tommy Flipowitz, or Flip as we call him, the arrest processing officer. I went back out to the muster room to get a statement from the victim.

  She was sitting in a chair in the muster room with Joe. She was holding a cup of coffee; I guess Joe had gotten it for her. She was looking down at her legs, which were pressed tightly together, and she was rocking back and forth. Garcia was there interpreting for us. He was going on the bomb detail but stayed to help us talk to her.

  I found out she was twenty-two years old, married with three children. Both she and her husband worked and were trying to move out of East New York, Brooklyn. East New York is a tough neighborhood to raise three kids in, and them being illegal made it almost impossible for them to get decent jobs.

  She told us what happened again, her story the same from when the cashier in the deli interpreted it for her. We knew she wasn’t lying, between the scratches and welts on her chest, the male performance drug, and the super verifying that she worked there, we knew we had a case. Fiore had run his name, and the guy had no record. Even though we’d charge him with attempted rape, it would get banged down to sexual abuse third degree, a B misdemeanor, which is nothing.

  I wasn’t sure she’d come back and testify because the fact that she was illegal would come out. At one point she looked up at us with these puppy dog eyes and asked a question, starting to cry again.

  “What’d she say?” I asked Garcia.

  “She wants to know if she should tell her husband. She said he’ll come back and kill the guy,” Garcia said.

  I didn’t know what to tell her. We felt sorry for her. Here she was trying to get ahead and she gets attacked on her job; now she’d be afraid to work anywhere. She said she needed a job, she had just started this one two days ago and wouldn’t even get the pay for those days.

  Garcia called his wife and wound up giving the victim his wife’s phone number. His brother owned a factory in Prospect Park, and maybe they could find her something there.

  Joe finished up with the ADA (Assistant District Attorney) for the ATM robbery by 10:30 and went home. I got in touch with the ADA by 9:30. I vouchered the bottle of pills and the smock and finished processing the arrest by 12:15.

  11

  I stepped into the bright sunlight. The air was clear and cold without much wind. I walked over to where I had parked my car on 36th street and let it warm up for a couple of minutes before I drove off.

  The West Side Highway was moving straight through to the tunnel, but the tunnel had an outbound lane closed, slowing me down some. There was an accident on the Gowanus Expressway, and it was stop-and-go traffic from 48th Street through to the Verrazzano Bridge. The bridge bottlenecked on the right lower level, like it always does until the right lane clears for the E-Z pass lanes.

  The boardwalk was on my left, and the ocean shimmered in the sunlight. The seagulls sat on top of the traffic lights along Father Cappodanno Boulevard, facing east toward the sun. There was a hockey game going on in the South Beach parking lot. None of the kids’ jerseys matched, so I guess it was just a neighborhood game.

  I took Father Cappodano Boulevard to Greeley Avenue and made a left toward Miller Field, parking at the end of the block. I let myself in, going right to my answering machine to see if Michele had called. The steady red light annoyed me, and I was starting to get fed up with Michele. If the whole family thing was bothering her so much, why couldn’t she just talk to me about it?

  I took out my phone book and looked up my mother’s number. I didn’t know what she wanted to talk to me about, but since I was home earlier than I expected, I called her to change the time for dinner. I figured whatever drama she was going to bring would just give me agita, and I wanted to get it over with before I had to leave for work. I dialed the number, and she answered on the first ring.

  “Hey, Mom, it’s Tony.”

  “Is everything okay?” she asked cautiously.

  “Yeah, but I got home earlier than expected, and I thought you could come by a little earlier
, maybe seven?” I asked.

  “Uh, sure,” she hesitated. “Seven’s fine, I’ll just leave a little earlier.” She was quiet for a minute. “If I leave here by five, I’ll be okay. I’ll take the streets instead of the expressway so I don’t hit rush hour traffic.”

  “Do you want me to call Denise or Vinny to come over?” I asked. I couldn’t tell you how long it’s been since I was alone with my mother, and I didn’t want to do it now.

  “If it’s okay with you, I’d like to speak to you alone,” she said.

  I couldn’t think of what to say to that, so I just said, “No problem, I’ll see you tonight.”

  I changed into sweats, noting that if I didn’t do my laundry soon, I wouldn’t have any clothes left. One of the perks of living in a house is having a washer and dryer. I missed being able to stay home and wash my clothes. I’ve been using the laundromat on Sand Lane; they just renovated it, so it’s pretty clean. I just hate sitting there waiting for my clothes; it feels like a waste of time.

  I set my alarm for 6:16 and fell into a dead sleep. It was 6:24 before I heard the alarm, and I slapped snooze for another nine minutes and dragged myself out of bed at 6:33.

  The shower woke me up a little, and I was shaving when I heard the knock on the door.

  “Hold on a second,” I yelled, wiping my face clean with the towel. I hung the towel on my bedroom door. I threw on sweats and a T-shirt and grabbed a pair of socks off my bed, putting them on as I unlocked the door.

  The wind hit me and blew the storm door backward, jarring the chain at the top. I grabbed it and pulled it in, letting my mother walk in ahead of me.

  I didn’t recognize my mother at first. Her hair was dyed red, I guess a dark auburn, and was cut short. It was a cute style that she had tucked behind her ears. She looked uncertain as she stepped inside. I stood there for a second, taking in the changes.

  She had lost weight, a good twenty pounds. She was never fat, just kind of bloated the last time I saw her. She looked fit, like she’d been exercising. She was dressed in rust-colored dress pants, a white shirt, and a brown wool jacket. She had makeup and jewelry on. I saw silver earrings and a silver chain necklace, and she wore a snowflake pin on the lapel of her jacket. Her skin had a polished look to it, and she had eye shadow and mascara on. It wasn’t overdone, just noticeable.