Both newspapers reported that Lauria had been shot several times in the back with his own gun. If anything could have made a cop-killing worse, thought Sandro, that was it.
In The News for July 5th, 1967, the lead story’s headline was CAPTURE! On page 3, Alvarado was pictured with Ramon Hernandez, the first arrested suspect, whom the newspaper had originally referred to as the driver of the double-parked car. The suspects were shown closely guarded by policemen.
The News stated firmly, “Both men confessed to the police and the district attorney.”
This case is impossible, Sandro thought to himself. This is open-and-shut murder in the first degree. He hoped that Sam was right about the leniency of Judge Phillips.
The New York Post dated July 5th, 1967, was the clincher. Its lead story said: “Lauria’s partner, Patrolman Roger Snider, was on the stairs, headed toward the roof. He heard a fusillade of shots as he neared the second floor. Lauria lay dying in a pool of his own blood when Snider reached the roof. The killers were gone. Hernandez confessed to the police that Alvarado had jumped the cop from behind, took the cop’s gun, and began to shoot, once, twice, three times, more.”
Hernandez’s words placed Alvarado at the scene and even put the gun in Alvarado’s hands. The intercom interrupted Sandro’s thoughts.
“Yes?” asked Sandro.
“Mr. Bemer on the wire for you.”
“Hi, Sam, how are you?”
“Fine, Sandro. You’re going to handle that arraignment today, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I’m leaving in a couple of minutes. I was just rereading the newspaper accounts.”
“Yes, and …?”
“We’ve got quite a mess here.”
“Now tell me something I don’t know. We’ve got a rotten bastard on our hands who shot a cop. I really think we should get out of this fast. I’m sure the D.A. won’t take a plea to a lesser charge at any time. He wants to fry Alvarado. If we wait five or six months just to plead to the full indictment, we won’t have Judge Phillips, and this guy won’t get any breaks.”
“Have you been talking to the D.A.?” Sandro asked.
“Yeah, yesterday. I was speaking to Ellis. He’s going to handle the case. He said there was no lesser plea available. He gave one good reason, and I’d do the same in his spot. They have an outright confession. We’ll have to cop to the full indictment to plead to this one.”
“You know, I was just reading about those confessions,” said Sandro. “Alvarado tells us he’s innocent and that he wasn’t involved, and here he confesses to the police and the D.A. Unless this is just a newspaper story to sell copies.”
“Well, the cops and the D.A. aren’t interested in newspaper circulation, and they both say they got one. Of course, Alvarado was telling us they beat him. He wants us to knock the confession out by denying that it was a voluntary confession. I’ve heard that a thousand times before. It doesn’t mean beans.”
“I haven’t read anything about witnesses to the crime,” Sandro added. “Just Hernandez, who was kind enough to implicate Alvarado, and then put the gun in his hands.”
“They could have a lot of witnesses they’re not revealing now. But I didn’t give you the biggest piece of news.” Sam paused. “If we don’t cop out on this, Hernandez is probably going to be a state’s witness against us. Ellis told me he’ll probably move for a severance in the indictment, try us separately, and use Hernandez as the chief witness against us. Then they’ll give Hernandez a plea to a lesser charge.”
“Only thing to make it worse now would be fingerprints. Are there any?” asked Sandro.
“Hey, Sandro, this guy doesn’t have to shoot the cop again right in the courtroom to convince a jury. If they get Hernandez to cop out and testify, we can warm up the hot seat. The confession, at least we have a talking point, it was beaten out of him. But Hernandez! And fingerprints too …”
Sandro’s intercom buzzer sounded again. “Hold it, Sam.” Elizabeth reminded Sandro that it was time to leave for court.
“Sam, I’ve got to get going over to court now. What shall I do?”
“I say, see if he’ll plead out.”
“You really think so?” asked Sandro again.
“You got a better idea?”
“Well, maybe …”
“Maybe what? The evidence’ll go away?”
“No.”
“No is right. If we can get him a life term, he’s lucky. See if you can get him to plead today, Sandro.”
Sandro’s office was near City Hall. He started across Chambers Street toward the Municipal Building, which houses part of the vast government of the City of New York. The Municipal Building is twenty-eight stories high and straddles Chambers Street, so that automobiles pass through a giant arch cut out of the building’s base.
On the left as one approaches the Municipal Building is the venerable Hall of Records, where the last wills of the world’s elite are processed and records of deeds and real estate dating from the beginnings of the city are maintained. The Hall of Records is a magnificent edifice, containing a scaled-down version of the staircase of the Paris Opéra, mosaics, and carved marble fireplaces.
Across the street from the Hall of Records is the Tweed courthouse, a remarkable example of brickwork, domes, and balconies, for which the Tweed cronies went to prison, because it had not cost as much to build as they said it had.
Just behind the Municipal Building, the Brooklyn Bridge stretches its sinews toward Brooklyn Heights and Atlantic Avenue.
Sandro turned through Foley Square, upon which the Federal Court House and the State Supreme Court front, and walked down through Centre Street to the Criminal Courts Building.
This is a community unto itself, the legal community, and for a lawyer, a walk along the street disposes of many social and professional calls.
Sandro entered the Criminal Courts Building and took the automatic elevator to the eleventh floor. He walked to Part Thirty, where Alvarado would be arraigned. Judge Phillips was already on the bench. A defendant was at the dock being arraigned. Sandro walked to the first row of benches. David S. Ellis, the assistant D.A. in charge of prosecuting Alvarado, was sitting within the bar, a folder on his lap.
Sandro walked along the rail that separates the spectators from the dock and the court. Turning to the right, he went through a door in the paneled wall and entered the “bullpen.” The bullpen is the detention area to which a prisoner is brought from the Tombs on the day his case is to be called before the judge. At the end of the morning and afternoon sessions, prisoners are marched back to the twelfth floor of the Criminal Courts Building, a floor inaccessible to the public—the courthouse has a thirteenth floor, but no twelfth floor—and back to the Tombs.
Unlike the court, the bullpen is neither solemn, nor wood-paneled, nor polished; it stinks. The bullpen reeks of unwashed bodies, of urine, musty clothes, fear, defiance, and resignation.
In an open area between the two bullpen cells sat a guard at a wooden desk. Inside the cells, some men stood or squatted against the walls because the single bench was filled. The prisoners looked out at Sandro as he entered the bullpen.
“Morning, Counselor,” said the guard. “Who you got this morning?”
“Alvarado, Luis Alvarado.”
The guard’s finger skimmed down a handwritten list in a book on the desk. “He’s still upstairs, Counselor. Go ahead up.”
Sandro ascended a steel staircase next to one of the cells until he came to another barred gate, which was locked. This was now the twelfth floor, with its honeycomb of passages, cells, and gates, designed to maintain a constant, secure stream of prisoners from the Tombs to the courthouse.
“Gate,” Sandro called out.
Sandro heard a rustle of metal keys. A guard emerged from a small room. “Hello, Counselor. Who you looking for?”
“Alvarado.”
“All the way around.”
Sandro walked through a corridor flanked on the left by cells, on the
right by windows overlooking a park where Chinese kids were playing softball. The prisoners watched Sandro as he walked past the cells.
“Hey, man,” a prisoner called to him. “Open the window a little, hanh?” Sandro swung one of the windows across from the cell open a bit farther.
“That’s a tough suit you got, Counselor,” the prisoner remarked, smiling.
“Thanks.” Sandro continued until he saw Alvarado in a large cell. One of the other prisoners was standing, using the open urinal. He, too, was watching Sandro. Alvarado saw Sandro and walked to the bars.
“Good morning, Counselor,” he said. He smiled.
“Morning,” Sandro whispered, to keep the guards or the other prisoners from overhearing. “I’ve been reading about this case in the newspapers.”
“I read the newspaper, too,” Alvarado whispered.
“Well, then you know what I’m worried about. They say many times that you confessed. Did you confess to this crime?”
“Maybe they say Chaco confess. I confess to nobody. They full of chit. I don’t confess. I wasn’t there.”
“What about Hernandez? According to the papers he said you were there.”
“Ah,” he waved his hand in dismissal. “The cops hit that son of a bitch, and he’d tolds them his whole life. He said to me, over here, ‘I no tell them, Luis, I no tell,’ but I know he did that. Those cops were at my house so soon as they pick up that punk. He says, “You know, Luis, they beat me for hours. I had to tell them some-sing. I couldn’t think of another colored guy. Forgive me.’ He’s fulla chit. They hit him once to start him talking, then twenty times more to make him shut up.”
Sandro laughed. A tall, thin prisoner walked over. From the newspaper photographs Sandro recognized him as Ramon Hernandez, Chaco.
“Hey, hi, what you think, hanh?” Hernandez asked.
Sandro looked to Alvarado.
“This guy is Hernandez,” said Alvarado.
“I want to talk to my client right now,” said Sandro.
Hernandez didn’t understand. Alvarado spoke to him in Spanish. Hernandez seemed hurt. He walked back into the crowd in the cell.
“Don’t mind him, Counselor. He’s just a dummy,” said Alvarado.
“Is he going to be a witness against us?” asked Sandro.
“I don’t know. I got a book here, you know.” He handed the book to Sandro. It was a copy of the penal laws of the State of New York. “I been readin’. Can you get me a pad of paper? I don’t got money to buy any paper here.”
“What’s this for?”
“I want to be able to check on the law, you know. Can he be witness on my case?”
“He could be. Look, Luis, I went to the house where the cop was killed. It doesn’t look good at all.”
“Mr. Luca, you got to believe me. You the only one I got in this whole country who can help me. I didn’t do this thing. Please believe me.”
Sandro felt himself wavering.
“Another thing that bothers us is the possibility of fingerprints, Luis. If they have your fingerprints, that’s the end. You know that?”
“I know, but you don’t have to worry about that. They can’t have my prints, I know that. Unless they can put them there themself. I couldn’t put my prints in a place, I wasn’t there.”
“Still, Luis, I have to tell you it looks pretty bad for you. Mr. Bemer and I have been discussing the possibility of your pleading guilty to save you from the electric chair.”
“Cop out? I coppin’ out to nothin’. Why you want me to cop to somethin’ I didn’t do?”
“No one said to plead to something you didn’t do. But if we’re facing a sure conviction—and it looks like it from here—a plea might be best.”
“If they give me spitting on the streets, I ain’t pleading. I didn’t do it, Mr. Luca. If I do this thing, then I say, maybe, get me a good plea, maybe good time, somesing. I didn’t do this thing. No plea.” He was studying Sandro intently.
“I must have the truth, Luis. You’ll pay, not us, if we build your defense on sand and it crumbles beneath us. Don’t let me make a bad decision now only for you to regret it later.”
“I won’t bullchitting you. I tell you the truth. I wasn’t there.”
An inmate from the prison maintenance crew wheeled a steel cart around the corner toward the cell. He stuffed waxed-paper-wrapped jelly sandwiches through the bars, counting two sandwiches for each man as he went. He also passed a paper container of tea for each into the cells.
The guard entered the cellblock. “Alvarado, Hernandez,” he called out. “You want to go outside, Counselor, while I bring the prisoners down?”
Sandro descended and walked out to the courtroom.
“Hello, David,” he said to the assistant district attorney, walking back toward a bench.
“Hello, Sandro, how are you?” Ellis rose as Sandro motioned with his hand. They walked toward the back of the courtroom and out to the corridor.
“Well, you’ve got a tough one here. I know you have a good man, Sam Bemer, with you, but I think this case is beyond help.”
Ellis was shorter than Sandro. He was about fifty, his black hair thinning on top. His eyes were a faded blue.
“David, I know you don’t have to come through on this point—but it might help us in disposing of the matter, and it’s been done in other cases. Can you sec your way clear here to fill me in on whether there are actually confessions in this case?”
“Oh, there are confessions, all right. This guy of yours confessed to the whole thing, in detail.”
“No doubt about it?”
“None at all.”
“Would you let me read the confession. I think it might be to our mutual advantage if defense counsel knew the score. It might eliminate the necessity for a trial.”
“I can’t show you the confession.”
“You can’t, or you won’t?”
“Have it your way; I won’t. I’ve got a case to prepare, and I’m not going around giving out the evidence.”
“I’m not asking you to give out the evidence, David. We’re basically on the same side, the side of law and order, I mean, I’m court-assigned counsel, not a defendant. If these men are guilty, and you can show me where they said so to you, what’s the point of a trial?” Sandro didn’t believe that. He would fight the confession, if he thought for a minute that it had been beaten out of Alvarado. But he wanted to flush Ellis out.
“I’m sorry, Sandro. I can’t.”
They walked back into the courtroom.
“Luis Alvarado,” called the clerk. Alvarado, escorted by a guard, stepped forward. “Are you Luis Alvarado?”
“Yes.”
“And are Alessandro Luca and Samuel J. Bemer, represented here by Alessandro Luca, your lawyers?”
“Yes.”
“You are charged with murder in the first degree and in that, on the third of July, 1967, you did willfully, feloniously, and of malice aforethought shoot and kill one Fortune Lauria with a pistol. How do you plead to that charge?”
Alvarado looked to Sandro. “You my only man, Mr. Luca.” Sandro shrugged. “Not guilty,” he whispered.
“Not guilty,” Alvarado repeated aloud.
“You are further charged with the crime of burglary in the third degree in that on or about the third of July, 1967, with intent to commit therein the crime of larceny, you broke and entered the dwelling house of one Robert Soto at One fifty-three Stanton Street, County of New York. How do you plead?”
“Not guilty.”
CHAPTER VI
Sandro walked through the narrow streets of Little Italy, only a few blocks west of where Lauria was killed. Mott Street, Mulberry Street, where for a century Italian has been as much the native tongue as English, perhaps more. It was hedged on the south by an area where, for the same length of time, Chinese has been more the native tongue than English. Traces of Spanish spiced Little Italy now, as Puerto Ricans reflected the insertion of a new bottom rung on the New York
social ladder.
As he walked, Sandro saw the provisions stores with cheeses and prosciutti hanging in the window, the pasticcerias with their trays of cannoli and pasticciotti and the strong aroma of espresso and anise wafting out. After he finished his business, he thought, he might go see Mama, whom dynamite could not dislodge from the old neighborhood, and have some beautiful food.
Sandro walked down two steps and opened the front door of the Two Steps Down Inn. As he entered, several men, sitting at a table near the front door, studied him. They were rough-looking men, and they looked at Sandro roughly. Their eyes slowly returned to their conversation, conscious of Sandro but not looking at him. In the rear, at a side table, half-hidden by a divider screen, he saw Sal Angeletti sitting, facing the front door. At Sal’s back was the rear wall. This was the seat Don Vincenzo always occupied when he was alive. It was now Sal’s as heir to Don Vincenzo’s power.
Sal looked up as Sandro entered, squinted, looked doubtful a moment, finally smiled and waved to him. Sandro waved back, making his way toward the rear. The eyes of one of the men at the front, a huge, hulking man, slid from Sandro to Sal. He was satisfied that the intruder was no threat, and the conversation at his table relaxed again.
“Sandro, hello,” said Sal as Sandro approached. There were two other men sitting at the table with him. One looked like a businessman, definitely not someone who was part of Sal’s power structure. The other was one of Sal’s “boys,” perhaps the “good fellow” to whom the businessman went for help in some unorthodox difficulty. “I’ll be finished here in a minute, okay, Sandro? Joey, get a drink for the counselor,” Sal called to the waiter, who moved gingerly toward Sandro to show him to a table.
In another age, an age more pioneering, demanding, rawer, when nothing was fed into a computer, and when bugs were only insects and had not invaded the electronic world, when Little Italy was bursting with the energy of men bold enough to come to a strange land where they would be considered “wops,” something akin to monkeys, who spoke the “divil’s” tongue and who never took charity, the Two Steps Down Inn was the hangout for the toughs, the hotheads, the ones later to be known by romantic, melodramatic titles.
PART 35 Page 5