PART 35
A Novel
John Nicholas Iannuzzi
A MADCAN Book
for
Nicholas P. Iannuzzi, Esq.,
my partner, my friend, my father
Contents
BOOK ONE
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XXX
CHAPTER XXXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXX
BOOK TWO
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXX
CHAPTER XXXI
CHAPTER XXXII
CHAPTER XXXIII
CHAPTER XXXIV
CHAPTER XXXV
CHAPTER XXXVI
CHAPTER XXXVII
CHAPTER XXXVIII
BOOK ONE
CHAPTER I
Patrolmen Roger Snider and Fortune Lauria stood in the rubbish-strewn rear yards of the tenements of Stanton Street, blinking skyward into spiraling rain. It was heavy, humid rain, and it had been falling all day, and now summer wasn’t hot or sunny anymore; it just stank of rubbery raincoat, of perspiration, of grease, of squalor, of rotting wood, of wet cardboard.
The wooden plankings of the fences that separated the rear yards of the buildings on Stanton Street from those on Rivington Street were a leaning, disintegrating patchwork. They enclosed refuse, abandoned, rotting junk—a bicycle fender, a worn-down broom, bags of garbage thrown from windows, rusted toys, broken bottles, a mattress, rubble, cardboard boxes used by kids for sleds in winter and forts In summer. A gangling pole, shorn, tilting at the over-cast sky, was pulled in a dozen directions by a myriad of clotheslines.
Raindrops rolled down the cheeks of the two policemen as they scanned the building tops. They had responded to a telephone report of a prowler on one of the roofs.
It was 2:27 P.M.
“What a filthy hole,” said Snider. He was the taller of the two, well-built, strong. “What the hell is there to steal in these dumps?”
“Junkies’d sell their sisters for a fix. What filth these spics live in,” replied Lauria. He was shorter, thin.
“I can’t wait for this tour to end,” said Snider, his eyes still searching. “At four o’clock I take off for the country. Fresh, clean country, where I don’t have to smell this stinking precinct for four days.”
“Nice. You get a four-day vacation, and I get an eight-to-four tour for the holiday. Who do you know?” Lauria bitched.
A back window on the first floor of 152 Rivington Street slid open. A woman motioned frantically with her arm, pointing toward one of the roofs.
“Up there. Up on the fire escape,” the woman called.
Lauria twirled. Overhead he caught sight of a Negro clambering up the steps of a top-floor fire escape toward the roof. He was carrying something.
“Up there, Roger,” Lauria called sharply, pointing. “Take the stairs, quick.”
“Okay, but you take it slow.”
It was 2:28 P.M.
Snider ran, cutting through an alley to the street. He drew his revolver as he ran. Lauria looked for a way up. The building, 153 Stanton Street, had a one-story extension with a vertical ladder on the side. Lauria climbed the ladder to the roof of the extension. From there he jumped and grabbed the bottom rung of the fire-escape ladder, pulling himself in a half-kip up to the first-floor platform. He vaulted the rail and began grinding up the metal steps. He unsheathed his service revolver as he edged sideways along one of the fire escape landings.
Anilda Rodriguez stopping mopping. Through her rear window she watched Lauria mount the last steps to the roof.
In Apartment 5A, the front apartment just below the roof, Gloria Mae Winston was frozen by fear as she listened to feet thundering overhead.
In the building’s stairwell, Snider made a running grab at the banister as he started up the last flight of steps to the roof.
A violent, shattering fusillade of gunfire assaulted the stagnant, rotting tenements.
It was 2:30 P.M.
Carmen Salerno, who had seen Patrolman Lauria running past her window on his way to the roof, edged back until she could feel the wall against her shoulder blades.
Tomas Echevaria, sitting at his cobbler’s workbench at the front of his shop, paused. Kids, he thought, with firecrackers. In the rain? he wondered, as he continued hammering.
Josefina Ramirez, walking along the sidewalk in front of her house, bringing her small daughter, Dorida, home from the day-care center, heard something. The woman who owned the bodega also heard the noise, looked out through the window and saw Josefina. They shrugged at each other, then smiled. The woman waved at Dorida.
“Open the door, somebody. This is the police,” screamed Patrolman Snider as he tore down the stairs, his face blanched.
Rafaela Santos, who lived in Apartment IB, gathered her child in her arms and ran to the superintendent’s apartment. She heard the cop screaming overhead.
Alma Soto, the tenant in Apartment 5B, the rear apartment just beneath the roof, was three blocks away, having lunch at her mother’s apartment.
“A cop’s been shot on the roof. Open up. Hurry!” Snider pounded on the door of 5A. Gloria Mae Winston didn’t move. She heard the footsteps race down. Someone on the floor below opened a door.
“You got a phone—a phone?” Snider demanded. Amy Hollander, the old woman who had lived in Apartment 4A for the last thirty-five years, pointed to a table by the couch. Snider grabbed the phone and dialed. His knuckles turned white on the receiver as he waited for an answer. “Sergeant? Snider. Lauria’s been shot! Yes, shot! Lauria. I don’t know. Nobody was there when I got there. On the roof. One fifty-three Stanton Street. He’s bleeding bad. Right! Right! Okay. Hurry!” He slammed down the phone and dashed into the hallway again. “Anybody—any men in this building?” he shouted, leaning across the banister, searching the stairwell below. “You. Yeah. Hurry up, up here! Come on.” He spun about and dashed up toward the roof again. Sweat poured from under his cap. He glared at Gloria Mae Winston, now standing at the slight opening of her chained door. His eyes were glazed as he ran past her and up the stairs.
The time was 2:37 P.M. It was Monday, July 3rd, 1967.
CHAPTER II
Alessandro Luca, lawyer, thirty-one years old, wearing a double-breasted tan suit custom-tailored by Scagliatti, and bla
ck ostrich shoes handmade in Florence, stepped from the elevator at the thirteenth floor. He had dark hair and dark eyes, weighed 165 pounds, and stood five feet, ten inches tall, although his records in the Air Force Advocate General’s Office conceded him no more than five feet nine. He was American-born, of Italian-born parents, fatherless since the age of eight. He had been graduated from the Spring Hills (Connecticut) Military Preparatory School and Princeton University, and had been fourth in the class of ’60 at Columbia University’s School of Law. He liked an occasional Jamaican cigar, cognac, and tall women. He was unmarried, although he seldom lived alone.
Sandro entered his office. His secretary was not at her desk. He walked through the passageway leading to his private office. She was just emerging from the file room at the rear.
“Good morning, Mr. Luca,” she smiled. “Your messages are on your desk.”
“Good morning, Elizabeth. What’s happening?”
“The clerk from the Supreme Court called. You’ve been assigned a murder case. A policeman was killed. Two men were arrested. Your defendant’s name is Alvarado. I have the indictment number and the name of your co-counsel on my desk. And Judge Porta called. He asked that you call back before ten if you can.”
“Get the judge on the wire for me, please.”
The intercom buzzed, and Sandro picked up the phone.
“Hello, Sandro,” the judge said in his gravelly voice. “I’m glad you got back to me before I got on the bench.”
“Good morning, Judge.”
“How’s Mama? All right?” Sandro could almost see the smile on the judge’s solid face—eyes, mouth, everything beneath the thin gray hair, smiled.
“She’s fine, Judge. I spoke to her last night. Same as ever, independent, always Mama.”
“Good, good. Don’t forget to tell her her old sweetheart was asking for her.” Eleven years on the Supreme Court bench had not dulled the effervescent politician in Mr. Justice Porta. Rough-hewn, skeptical, learned, he was a product of the city, its streets, its schools, its politics, and its courts.
“Listen, the reason I called,” the judge continued, “is that I was able to assign you a murder case sooner than I thought. You’ll probably get a call from downstairs today or tomorrow.”
“We already received a phone call this morning, Judge.”
“So soon? That kind of fast work can give bureaucracy a bad name.” The judge laughed. Sandro joined him. “I put you in with Sam Bemer. You know Sam?”
“I know him from around the courthouse. I don’t know him too well personally.”
“Well, he’s an old firehorse on homicide cases. He was an assistant D.A. in Brooklyn years back. I put you with him so he can teach you the ropes. Just remember what I told you: this is no game. This case is a cop-killing. Your man can get the chair.”
“Judge, I won’t let you down.”
“Me? Hell! Don’t let the defendant down. I’d tell you a story about my own first murder case, but I have to get on the bench. Good luck, Sandro. And don’t let Uncle Jim down either.”
Sandro started to reply, but the judge was already gone. It was only two weeks since he had visited the judge in his chambers, Sandro thought.
“I don’t want to have this sound like soap opera or anything like that, Judge,” Sandro had said then, “but I’ve been thinking that I’m about ready to contribute some time to defendants who can’t afford their own lawyer, some of the people who get a fast shuffle through our courts.”
“Legal Aid does a pretty good job representing the indigent, Sandro.”
“I know, Judge. When I first started to practice, I was impressed. But the more experience I get, the more I see cases handled as if they were on an assembly line. And a lot of times, there are cases where it seems that just a little something more could make the difference. I’m not running Legal Aid down. It’s just that they have so many cases that it’s impossible to devote enough personal attention to each. I think I might do somebody some good, sort of like a doctor doing clinic work.”
“Well, Sandro, you know Legal Aid handles everything except for murder in the first degree. That’s what it would have to be.”
Sandro nodded.
“Murder cases are a great responsibility,” the judge cautioned.
“They’re work—real, serious work.”
“I realize that, Judge.”
The judge grew distant for a moment. Sandro waited respectfully. “You know, seeing you sitting there, Sandro, I can’t help thinking of your Uncle Jim at your age. Handsome, and the way he carried himself, imposing. That was just about the time when he was getting so well known—or should I say, infamous?—that it wasn’t healthy for a young politician to be seen in his company. He knew it, too. He knew it and stayed clear of me for more than thirty years. I didn’t see him from the time I first ran for alderman from the old neighborhood until my children gave us a Mediterranean cruise for our fortieth anniversary, 1961. That must have been about a year before Uncle Jim died.”
“The spring of ’62,” Sandro supplied.
“The ship stopped at Naples, and I looked him up. He got to be an old man in those thirty years.” The judge laughed self-mockingly. “I guess I didn’t look like a spring chicken, either. But I remembered him when he was a power, a force not to be defied.”
Sandro said nothing, nodding or smiling occasionally, well aware that Judge Porta’s ramblings eventually revealed a destination.
“We talked about when we were kids together and how we used to drop five-pound paper bags filled with water from the roof of the very building you were born in on Mulberry Street.” There was mischief in the smile that warmed the judge’s face.
Sandro found it difficult to visualize Uncle Jim, the notorious Don Vincenzo Tagliagambe, better known in the tabloids as Jimmie Pearl, throwing water bombs off a roof. Sandro’s own earliest recollections of Uncle Jim barely predated his father’s death, when Don Vincenzo, childless himself, became a second father to his sister’s son.
“I think Uncle Jim felt he had to keep away from the people he loved,” said Sandro. “Perhaps he felt they’d be smeared with the tarred brush the newspapers used on him.”
The judge fell silent momentarily.
It had not been long after his father’s death, Sandro thought, before Don Vincenzo exiled him to that pristine fortress of propriety, the Spring Hills Military Prep School—and at first it was an exile for Sandro, away from his friends, his family, the old neighborhood, and the old ways: Sandro had been abandoned in a world that he never knew existed and Don Vincenzo had only heard about. Those first months were lonely. But the boy’s street instinct served him well; he was wary, close-mouthed, and never spoke to anyone about his background or about how his education was being paid for. As Don Vincenzo had instructed him very carefully, it was nobody’s business that he was Jimmie Pearl’s nephew.
The future that lay ahead of Sandro, according to Don Vincenzo, was to be great. He was going to be a gentleman, and a lawyer, the best, the toughest that ever lived.
“Your Uncle Jim did very well by you, Sandro, very well indeed, but he wasn’t really a pillar of that community you want to devote your time and mind to,” the judge now said. He was apparently getting closer to his point.
“I’ve always thought he was a basically good man,” Sandro replied, “underneath all that copy in the newspapers.”
“Sure, he was a good man. To you, to your mama, to his family, to me, to his friends. But what about the other people he didn’t love, that he terrorized?”
“I’m not able to tell you about that, Judge. You know, Uncle Jim kept me totally in the dark about what he did. There aren’t even many people who know that I’m his nephew.”
The judge shrugged over the long-distant past. “He was always trying to help people in his strange way. He thought—Buon Anitna, may his soul rest—that I didn’t know when I first ran for alderman that his people were going around to all the polling places casting ballots
for dead voters whose names were still on the rolls.” The judge was smiling. “Fortunately, I won by more than the number of dead voters, so I don’t feel so bad about it.”
“The only thing I feel bad about, Judge, is that he had to die so far away from everyone, deported. I know he was involved in a lot of things, but I’ve never believed he was mixed up with narcotics. He thought that drugs were vile.”
“Sandro,” the judge cut him short. “That’s a subject I won’t discuss. He was a man whose principles I vowed to fight with my last drop of blood. He was your uncle, my boyhood chum, but he was convicted by a jury of being a racketeer, a hoodlum. He had his appeal, he lost, and the case is closed. The community is better off without him. I’m sorry to say that.”
“Could he help the conditions in which he was born?” Sandro defended. “The poverty, the violence…”
“Hey, Sandro, don’t tell me a hard-luck story. He and I grew up together. I went through it too. I’m here. Where did he end up? An old man, alone, back where he started, with no one near him to help him spend his money. That’s all he could talk about that day in Naples.” The judge studied Sandro. “He also talked a lot about you. He knew he was finished. But you were just starting. He told me you were going to be—the phrase struck me—a beautiful lawyer. That’s what I was getting at before I got sidetracked by my own stories.”
“Sidetracked, Judge, but never derailed.”
“No,” the judge laughed. “Your coming here today is fate working itself out, Sandro. Through you, your Uncle Jim will make his reparation. You will pay back for him. You know what I mean?”
Sandro did.
He buzzed Elizabeth on the intercom. “Give me the name of the defendant again.”
“It’s Luis Alvarado.”
“Okay. Now get Sam Bemer for me, please.”
She buzzed shortly, and Sandro picked up the phone.
“Hi, Sam, how’re you?”
“Never better, m’lad. How’s yourself?” Sam Bemer’s hearty voice was an essential part of his benchside manner. It seemed fitting for a thick stocky man with thick curly hair and a thick black cigar—for such Sam Bemer was.
“Very well,” Sandro answered. “I understand that I have been assigned the distinct privilege of being cocounsel in a murder case with the legendary Sam Bemer.”
PART 35 Page 1