Felony Murder

by Joseph T. Klempner

  He prepared affirmations to give to other judges before whom he’d be expected to appear while the Spadafino trial was going on. He got out some letters and motions on other cases. He returned a few messages and paid some bills that were long overdue.

  At some point, it occurred to him to wonder why Judge Rothwax had given them the extra day before starting the trial. Everyone had been ready, after all, and the press had been champing at the bit. It wasn’t like Rothwax to put something off for no reason.

  Was he simply hoping that Joey would come around to his senses? Did he have some personal scheduling conflict? Or was there possibly some more complex motive to his action?

  Dean smiled at the notion and dismissed it. There was enough of a conspiracy going on without involving the judge in it. Harold Rothwax was the last person in the world who’d make himself a party to something like this.

  Nonetheless, before leaving for the day, he yielded to his rising level of paranoia. He picked up the envelope he’d marked ammunition. He knew he wouldn’t be needing it for several days, until after jury selection was completed, and they were into the testimony itself. He looked around his office for a place to hide it. He settled for dropping it behind the couch that sat against the far wall. It’d been years since anyone had moved the couch. The notion that it could be moved had probably never even occurred to Martha the cleaning woman, who seemed to have enough trouble emptying wastebaskets and ashtrays.

  Joey Spadafino has trouble falling asleep. The Hole’s noisy with groans from other cells and the comings and goings of the COs. Joey’s ribs ache, and he’s found he can only take little breaths without his insides hurting.

  But it’s more than that keeping him awake. In the past, every time he went to court, Joey’s case has been put over for two or three weeks at a time, sometimes for as long as a month. It got so he felt like that would go on forever, that the trial date would always be pushed further and further away.

  He once saw a TV documentary about animals they use to carry supplies through the jungle. They showed mules that would walk forward trying to get to a bag of oats, not realizing that the bag was attached to their own bodies by a long pole. Every step the mules took, the bag took a step too, so the mules never got to catch up with the oats. But they kept walking toward them anyway.

  All this time Joey’s felt like one of those mules, coming to court and getting a new date, only to have the date move away from him each time.

  Only now it seems he’s about to catch up to his oats, and the thought scares him. He tries to remind himself that he didn’t kill anybody, that he didn’t even rob anybody. He wonders if that’ll be enough to save him, decides it will be only if it turns out that there’s a God. Though Joey’s never believed in God, he now says out loud, “Please, God, make ‘em stop fuckin’ with me. Lemme go home.” He’s able to say it out loud because the other noises drown out his voice. Otherwise, he would’ve had to say it to himself

  Joey wishes his father could be in court for him. He remembers a time, years ago, when he was a boy, before there was reefer and booze and drugs and hustling and jail, when his father took him to an airport to meet his uncle, who was flying in from Chicago or Indianapolis or somewhere else in Michigan, and Joey had seen pilots walking through the airport, in groups of two or three, in these terrific uniforms, with hats and medals and gold buttons and all kinds of stuff. They were all very tall and handsome, he remembers even now. And he had told his father then that that’s what he wanted to be when he grew up: a jet pilot. And his father had laughed at him, had told him that Italians didn’t pilot jet planes, they piloted garbage trucks. Joey had laughed, too, at the time, figuring it must have been a funny joke he wasn’t old enough to get. He thinks about it now and isn’t sure he gets it still, after all these years. He figures it’s a pretty good bet he’ll never even get to pilot a garbage truck, though.

  The corrections officer who wakes Joey up Tuesday morning tells him to pack all his belongings to bring with him, because when he’s finished in court at the end of the day he’ll be going to the Tombs instead of coming back to Rikers.

  “How come?” Joey asks.

  “They’ve marked your card ‘On Trial,’” the CO tells him. “Guess this is the big show for you, Spadafino.”

  Bringing all his belongings turns out to be relatively easy for Joey, since he has none, except for a toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste, a bar of soap, a washcloth, and a safety razor he’s been issued.

  Joey washes and brushes his teeth. He tries to smooth his hair, but it’s messed up from the way he slept. He finds a plastic bag to put his toilet articles in. He’s handcuffed and led to the bus for the trip to Manhattan. But when he goes to climb up the steps onto the bus, Joey suddenly feels lightheaded from the pain in his side, and he has to hold the sides of the door for a moment while his head clears.

  “Yo, man, I don’t need anotha muthafucking malingerer,” the CO driver yells at him. Even though it’s well before six in the morning, it’s already close to 80 degrees, and dark sweat marks show at the armpits of the CO’s blue jacket, part of the regulation winter uniform he’s required to wear now since it’s after Labor Day.

  Joey doesn’t know what a malingerer is, but he knows what muthafucking means, so he doesn’t wait for an explanation. He manages to pull himself up the steps and says, “Sorry, I’m okay.”

  “Well, isn’t that wonderful,” says the CO, who removes one of a half-dozen pairs of handcuffs he wears clipped to his belt and handcuffs Joey’s wrists to the bar that’s part of the seatback in front of him. Because the CO’s pissed off, he cuffs Joey too tightly, but Joey knows better than to complain: There’s too tight, and there’s much too tight.

  The bus is only three-quarters full, but it turns out that’s ‘cause they have to make another stop. They follow the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway into Brooklyn, where they pick up three more inmates at Kings County Hospital. One of the three is a total psycho the COs call Luther, who screams and carries on the entire rest of the trip to Manhattan. As best as Joey can figure out, Luther thinks he’s still in Vietnam, being driven back to the front lines, even though both of his legs have been blown off by a grenade. From time to time Joey sneaks a sideways glance at him - you don’t want to let a guy like that catch you staring at him - but he can’t see anything wrong with Luther’s legs. As he’s getting off the bus at 100 Centre Street, Joey asks one of the COs, not the driver, what’s wrong with the guy’s legs.

  “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with his legs,” the CO laughs. “Not only that, but he ain’t never been in no Nam, neither. But the shrinks don’t care - they says he’s just fine. Certified his ass fit to stand trial. Lotta them shrinks they got at KCH, they’d certify a fuckin’ radish fit to stand trial.”

  Joey’s led up to the twelfth floor, where he’s put in a holding pen with a dozen other prisoners. Luther is taken to a separate pen for observation cases, what the COs call obsos. They keep the obsos right next to the homos.

  Dean spoke briefly with Joey in the pens, but Joey’s resolve to go to trial had, if anything, only hardened. “They can carry me out in a fuckin’ box for all I care, I ain’t coppin’ out,” he said. “I ain’t no obso, you know.” Whatever that meant.

  Back out in the courtroom, Dean told Judge Rothwax that there would be no plea. If the judge was surprised, he didn’t show it. “Be ready to call your first witness on the hearing at ten-thirty,” he told Walter Bingham.

  Joey’s finally brought into court about eleven-fifteen. At first, the judge does a lot of talking, asking the two lawyers questions about the hearing that’s about to begin. Dean’s explained what the hearing’s about, but now Joey can’t seem to remember. He listens while the judge tells the people in the audience that any noise will result in ejection from the courtroom. It reminds Joey of being at a baseball game, where they announce that going onto the playing field or interfering with the ball in play will result in ejection. After repeating the word ejection to himse
lf several times it begins to sound, funny, and, despite the pain in his side, Joey smiles.

  “Is there something that strikes you as amusing about all this, Mr. Spadafino?” Joey suddenly hears the judge talking to him.

  “No, sir,” Joey says quickly, feeling like he’s back in school and has been caught talking by the teacher. He promises himself not to smile anymore. He tries hard after that to pay attention, but the judge and the lawyers discuss things he knows nothing about, using words he often doesn’t understand.

  Finally, a uniformed police officer Joey doesn’t recognize but who will say he was the first officer on the scene is led into the courtroom from a side door. He takes the witness stand, places his hand on a black book, and swears to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So help him, God.

  The hearing has begun.

  With no front-page story of a plea bargain, the press instead found themselves forced to sit through the far less exciting business of covering the pre-trial hearing, and many of them left as soon as the word spread that no deal had been worked out. Their numbers would continue to dwindle as the morning wore on, and those who remained would fidget impatiently for the hearing to end and the trial itself to begin.

  As for Dean, he found he had to fight hard to concentrate; his thoughts constantly wandered to Janet and her predicament. Part of his frustration was that he knew he couldn’t win any part of the hearing. At issue was the legality of the police conduct in the way they’d arrested Joey and recovered the knife from him, whether they’d properly advised him of his rights before questioning him, and how they’d had any witnesses identify him after his arrest without being too suggestive.

  Since the defense had no right to a jury to determine such issues, Judge Rothwax would be the one to rule on whether or not Joey’s rights had been violated. And given the tendency of most judges - Rothwax included - to believe police officers (or at least publicly profess to), Dean knew that the outcome was a foregone conclusion.

  But the hearing was important to Dean for another reason. It served as a preview of sorts for much of the trial testimony. At the outset of the hearing, the prosecution was obliged to turn over to the defense all written reports and statements of any witnesses it intended to call at the hearing. In a major case, this amounted to a large volume of material and often provided important trial ammunition for the defense.

  Beyond that, the hearing gave Dean a firsthand look at some of the same witnesses who’d later be testifying at trial. He could size them up, test their reactions to different types of cross-examination, and risk asking them the “dangerous” questions he’d hesitate to ask at a trial with a jury present, where an adverse answer might do serious damage to the defense.

  Finally, the presence of a court reporter at the hearing ensured that everything the witnesses said was taken down word-for-word. At trial, Dean would have the testimony in transcript form, ready to impeach any witness who contradicted his or her earlier answers.

  So for Dean, it should have been a no-lose situation, an unchecked fishing expedition into Bingham’s proof, and a golden opportunity to create a record to fall back upon later. Instead, with his thoughts constantly drifting to Janet, he found he had to do his best just to maintain concentration, and the day seemed to drag on forever.

  Joey spends all day in court, listening as each witness called to the stand is questioned first by Walter Bingham and then by Dean.

  The first officer on the scene describes how he and his partner were in their patrol car when they got a radio run telling them about a robbery in progress. They drove to Bleecker Street and found a man lying on the sidewalk. He seemed to them to be dead, but they called for an ambulance anyway. Why, Joey wonders, do you call for an ambulance for a dead man? Doesn’t that mean the cop is lying? But he figures maybe it’s procedure. They talk a lot about procedure during the hearing.

  The cop who arrested Joey testifies. He makes it sound like he was some sort of hero, chasing Joey on foot like in a movie scene.

  “He’s fulla shit,” Joey whispers to Dean. “I practically ran into the guy’s fucking arms.” But Dean tells him it doesn’t matter, don’t worry about it. The cop talks about searching Joey and finding the money and the knife on him. Then he tells how one of the witnesses showed up and said that Joey was the guy he saw bending over the man on Bleecker Street.

  Next comes one of the detectives who questioned Joey. Rasmussen. Joey remembers him well. He says he read Joey his rights before questioning him.

  “He’s lying,” Joey tells Dean. “He waited till after I made the statement before he gave me my rights.” But again Dean tells him it makes no difference. Joey wonders if anything makes any difference. He begins to worry that maybe Dean is one of them. Then he catches himself and tells himself to stop getting crazy. But he can’t help it. So much has happened since that night, so much has gone wrong, Joey knows anything is possible.

  The last witness is a cop who was told by the detectives to go look through a trash can on Seventh Avenue. He did, he says, and he found the money clip, right where Joey said it would be. At first Joey feels good about that, since it shows he was telling the truth. Then he thinks maybe he’s being stupid. After all, if the cops are the ones saying it, it must be bad for him.

  Joey’s beginning to learn.

  Dean was exhausted by the time they finished with the final witness at ten of five. Judge Rothwax mercifully broke for the day, announcing that he’d render his decision Wednesday afternoon, during his calendar day, with jury selection scheduled to begin first thing Thursday.

  * * *

  From court, Joey’s taken to what is officially called the Manhattan Detention Center at 125 White Street but is commonly known as the Tombs.

  Attached to 100 Centre Street, the Tombs is the jail of choice for both the correction officers who work there and the inmates who reside there. It’s far smaller than the complex of buildings that make up Rikers Island, and it is rarely the scene of a disturbance. Because it’s literally connected to the courthouse, inmates in the Tombs with cases at 100 Centre Street don’t have to be awakened at four-thirty in the morning for a long bus trip to Manhattan, and they don’t get back to their cells late at night. Finally, because of its location, the Tombs can easily be reached by all types of transportation, making visiting far easier for family members.

  Whereas corrections officers can evidently use their seniority to get assigned to the Tombs, inmates aren’t selected on that basis. Instead, though there’s no official policy, the single thing that counts most, at least to Joey’s eye, seems to be the color of your skin. And Joey’s skin is definitely the right color.

  Although he’s done nothing but sit in court all day, Joey’s too tired and in too much pain to eat, and he asks to be excused from the chow line. He’s placed on 4 North in a cell by himself. Although it’s small, it’s clean and actually has a bed with a mattress. Joey sits down on it, then lies down just to try it out. Within minutes, he’s asleep.

  In his dream, he’s behind the wheel of a sleek silver garbage truck, his father sitting next to him, laughing. Joey feels younger, cleaner, less beat-up. They soar above the skyscrapers of Manhattan far below, heading over the clouds, out over the ocean. He turns to his father to tell him he was wrong, to show him he can fly after all, but his father’s gone. Joey’s all alone.

  Dean hung around the courthouse until after six-thirty so he could get the transcript of the hearing testimony from the court reporters. He knew he could wait instead until the morning to pick it up, but he wanted to have it overnight to study, in case he’d missed anything important during his lapses of concentration.

  So it was nearly seven when he got back to his office, exhausted, depressed, and worried more than ever about Janet. The front door was locked; evidently all of his suitemates had had the good sense to call it quits for the day. He found his keys and let himself in, noticing that whoever had been last to leave had neglected to double lock the o
uter door. He made his way to his corner office and flicked on the light switch.

  “Hello, Dean.”

  Dean jumped and turned toward the voice. Sitting on his couch was Walter Bingham.

  Dean’s heart restarted itself. He forced himself to take a breath.

  “Hello, Walter,” he said, but his politeness masked a whole rush of thoughts. What was Bingham doing in his office? How long had he been sitting here in the dark? How had he managed to get in in the first place? And what was going on now?

  “Nice setup you’ve got here,” Bingham said.

  “Glad you approve,” Dean said, taking off his jacket and draping it on a coat tree already overcrowded with several suits, a raincoat, and an assortment of ties and belts. “Something I can do for you?” He turned his back to Bingham without waiting for an answer and walked to his desk. He sat down behind it and started looking through the day’s mail.

  “Yeah,” Bingham said. “You can listen to me for about five or ten minutes, if you don’t mind. There are some things I think you should understand about all this.”

  “I’ll listen,” Dean said. “But I gotta tell you, I’m afraid I already got the speech from Bennett Childs. Or whatever his name really is.”

  “He was making his pitch out of fear. He and his friends are scared shitless. They’ve done some bad things in the name of what they originally perceived as a noble goal, and suddenly they find themselves staring into the mirror. What they see is everything coming apart, their careers and their whole lives in jeopardy. So they’re strictly looking out for themselves at this point, and they’re very desperate men. By the way, Child’s real name is Barry Childress, and he’s a deputy commissioner.”