“Once in a while, you know, they have a Spanish guy there, an’ they ast him what he want for the last meal, you know. So they have to get a guy which can cook Spanish food for the guy. I cooked for two, three guys up there before when I was doin’ time for drugs. They don’t eat nothin’ though, you know? They always talk about a guy’s last meal goin’ to the chair. These guys can’t eat nothin’, Mr. Luca. You neither when they gonna fry you in a few minutes.”
“What do you cook for them then?”
“The guy gonna be executed asts the others guys in the death house what they like. You know, the food is chit in prisons. Excuse my language. This way the guy orders all kinds of things they don’t serve for the other guys. It’s like a big treat to the other guys, you know. He can’t eat anyway, but might as well let them have some good food.”
“Just try to remember whatever you can, Luis,” Sandro said, changing the subject. “Now what about this restaurant you were at?”
“I remembered that later, since I speak with you. I ate somesing in the restaurant after I change the hundred dollar. When I have my money in my pocket I went and eat somesing. Eugene came with me. I ask, ‘Eugene, you want somesing,’ and he didn’t, and I went inside by myself, into the restaurant. After, then I went to the barber’s. It’s a long shots, but maybe the person in the restaurant will remember and can say somesing for me.”
“Where is this restaurant?” Sandro took out his pen.
“On the street with the barber’s, Roebling Street, down from the barber shop. It’s a Spanish restaurant you know, it’s got Spanish food there. I don’t know the name.”
“Do you remember who served you.”
“No. Only a man.”
Sandro added this information to the long and ever-growing list of things to investigate before the trial. There was even Hernandez’s alibi to be substantiated.
“What about Hernandez? You said you were talking to Hernandez in church. What did he say?”
“He told me a couple of things. One was crazy, you know? He tell me about his wife.”
“What about her?”
“I think the cops, you got to excuse my saying these words to you, Mr. Luca, but the cops was doin’ wrong things to her, you know?”
“What things?”
“Remember, I telling you I seen her? In the station house?”
“Yes.”
“Well, Hernandez tol’ me the cops takes her to her apartments, and they was two cars. She was in one with two cops, and the other fulled with cops followed down the block. When they get her in that apartments, these guys were still crazy angry, and they ripped her clothes right off her. She’s standing, her beautiful ass and tits in the wind. Forgive my words, but man, she’s some womans!”
Alvarado shook his head admiringly.
“Anyways, the cops lifting her and put her on the kitchen table.”
“What happened?”
“They got her down, no clothes, one guy on one side, another on the other, holding her down, touching her, you know. Two of these rats are holding her legs. Oh, man …”
“Okay, okay. And what did they do?”
“No, Mr. Luca. Just when this guy is going to do her, another cop knocks on the door and stops them. He’s yelling and angry and cursing, and they all getting out.”
“I don’t believe it, Luis,” Sandro said flatly. “Hernandez is telling you a lot of crap. Did he say his wife told him this?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Luca. He tell me he know this thing from some guy who come in from the street. I only telling you what he tol’ me.”
“It’s idiotic. Especially that part about another cop breaking in to stop it. Somebody’s putting Hernandez on, and he’s even more stupid to be repeating the story.”
“I don’t know. I try to think of this thing myself, but I don’t know. I know if someone should teach that Hernandez a lesson by doin’ this thing to his wife, it should be me. Oh, man …”
“Luis, I’m not interested in your going loco over a woman. Do that upstairs. I don’t believe that story about the cops. Besides, whether it’s true or not doesn’t help you on this murder charge. Did he tell you anything else? Anything we can use?”
“Not about that. But he said he was in some pawnshops that day, you know. He had somesing to pawn, and he went to a pawnshops before he went home to his house. He pawned a radio.”
“Did you find out where the pawnshop was?”
“On Bowery Street near Grand Street. It’s on the corner there, you know.”
“Which corner, do you know?” Sandro slid a piece of paper toward Alvarado. “Draw a picture and show me.”
“Here, on the corner of Bowery.” Alvarado sketched a corner. “It’s a couple of doors from the corner on Bowery. He doesn’t remember no name, but it’s on the side toward Essex Street.”
“That’s the east side of the street,” Sandro suggested.
“Yes, the east side. And he use the name Antonio Cruz.”
“He used the name Antonio Cruz when he pawned the radio?” asked Sandro.
“Yes, and he make a mistake when he spell it, so he have to spell it again. He used a little ‘c,’ you know, not a capital, when he spell Cruz, and the guy make him to write again cause you have to use a big ‘C cause the first letter is a big one.”
“Did Hernandez say anything else? Did he say whether or not he was going to testify against you or what he was going to do?”
“He say we fight this thing together cause he got me into this thing. He says it was that they were beatings him and everything and that he would make sure to help me because it was him that got me here. Then you know he was telling me that they were beatings him for a long time and he had to tell somesing or they don’t stop beatings him, and I was the only one he could think of. I said okay and I listen. He got no guts, that bastard.”
“Did he say anything about testifying?” Sandro asked. “Did the district attorney offer him a plea?”
“He says only he’s going to fight it, he’s not going to cop out because he was innocent, and he wouldn’t do this thing. He says also somesing about a job he pulled that day, and he done a lot of things but he didn’t do this murder.”
“He pulled what job? On the day of the murder?” Sandro grabbed Alvarado by the shoulder.
“I don’t know. We couldn’t talk too good in the church, cause they don’t want us to talkin’ together. Maybe he did pull a job that day.”
“Find out. That’s very important. I don’t care if he did or didn’t, but I want to try and build up his alibi, too. Talk to him again. Ask him about it.”
“Okay, Mr. Luca, I try.”
“I’ll go to this pawnshop where he said he was, and I’ll talk to his wife. So that, even if he tries to be a witness against us, we’ll have his alibi to jam down his throat.”
“That’s good. You a smart guy, Mr. Luca. That’s a real smart idea.” Alvarado smiled, very pleased.
“Is there anything else now that you remember that may be helpful to us?” Sandro pressed.
“Nothing. But I’m thinking every day. I have nothing else to do. Also, I still looking up the law. See this.” He slid some pages out from under his shirt and across the table.
“What are these?” Sandro asked.
“I’m writing these things so I can learn the law. See, I’m reading this section about witnesses and about an accomplice being a witness. Hernandez is an accomplice, right?”
“Yes. If he testified, his testimony could only be accepted as a co-conspirator or accomplice. The testimony can’t be used unless corroborated with other independent evidence.”
“That’s what I reading here,” said Alvarado. “Unless they have some extra evidence, he be no good anyway to the police. They got anything else?”
“As far as I know and have been able to find out, they don’t have anything,” Sandro replied. “But since they don’t have to give us any information until we walk into court, we’ll have to wait to find o
ut when we get there. They might have information, fingerprints. They might have a lot of witnesses.”
“Don’t worry about fingerprints. My prints can’t be there. I didn’t do it, Mr. Luca,” Alvarado insisted.
“I believe that, Luis. I’m on your side.” Sandro smiled and rose. “And I’m glad you’re on my side. At least with you and all the law you’re learning I won’t get caught short.”
Alvarado smiled, pleased. “I’ll keep my eyes open, Mr. Luca. If I hear anything, I’ll have the operator get a message to you.” He rose and walked with Sandro toward the doors at the end of the room. Sandro turned left to the door that led to the outside; Alvarado right, to the one that led to the cellblock.
CHAPTER XVIII
Mike Rivera knocked on Mrs. Hernandez’s door. Sandro, standing beside him, had decided to interview Mrs. Hernandez without approval from Siakos, who seemed to be waiting for the eve of trial to prepare his case.
Feet shuffled within the apartment. “Who?” A boy’s voice.
Mike explained through the door in Spanish that it was a lawyer, a friend of Hernandez. There was silence inside.
“Who?”
Mike explained again. The door opened slightly, a boy’s eye appearing. Mike conversed with him in Spanish.
“This is Hernandez’s son. He says his mother’s not back from work yet. She goes to the prison Tuesday and Thursday after work, and she’s not home yet.”
“When is she going to be here?” Sandro asked Mike.
“He says she’ll be here about eight thirty. In about a half hour. What do you want me to tell him?”
“Tell him we’ll be back.” Sandro turned and started down the stairs.
Mike spoke to the boy again, then started after Sandro.
“Let’s go downstairs and measure the distance from that Italian woman’s building to the one where Lauria was shot,” Sandro suggested.
“For Christ’s sake,” exclaimed Mike, “not only is it dark out there, it’s cold. And besides, someone’ll send out the midnight mail, and we’ll get hit in the head with flying garbage.”
“I never heard anyone make up three excuses so fast. Come on, we’ll dodge the flying garbage and just get a quick idea of the distance the Italian woman would have had to see across the yard.”
Mrs. Hernandez was a tall, striking woman, with deep olive skin and long, black hair pulled tight. She had sparkling eyes and a full, taut figure. She was, as Alvarado said, some woman, even more striking, Sandro thought, in contrast to the wreck of a building she lived in. Her apartment was clean and neat.
Sandro and Mike sat at a porcelain-topped kitchen table as Mrs. Hernandez took down some dishes for her evening meal. She spoke almost no English, so they conversed with Mike translating, as she fried some food on the stove. She offered Mike and Sandro a cup of coffee.
“Mike, be delicate on this,” Sandro cautioned. “Ask her if she was bothered by anyone the night of her husband’s arrest. Tell her we have reason to think that perhaps she was.”
Mike asked her in Spanish. Her eyes studied Mike as he spoke. She shook her head slowly as he spoke.
“She says no. The police brought her home, but there was no difficulty. What kind of difficulty do I mean?”
“Tell her we had heard that some of the policemen might have been, I don’t know, fresh is a good enough word.”
“What the hell are we talking about?”
“Alvarado told me that Hernandez said that the cops tried to rape her when they brought her home.”
“They what?”
“That was my reaction, too. But ask her anyway.” Mike asked.
“She says that they brought her home to search the apartment and then took her back to the station house, but that there was no trouble.”
Mrs. Hernandez watched Sandro as he received the news. She said something else in Spanish.
“She says that the detective was careful that he didn’t wake up the boy.”
“Have the cops been around or bothering her since?”
Mrs. Hernandez was sitting stiffly as they spoke.
“She says they’ve left her alone, but once or twice she saw Detective Mullaly around the neighborhood.”
“Okay. Ask her if she saw her husband tonight.”
Mrs. Hernandez watched as Sandro spoke. Her eyes turned to Mike. Mike explained in Spanish.
“She says she did.”
“Has she spoken to him about where he was the day that all happened?”
“She said she did. He explained everything to her. He wrote it down for her in a letter that she is supposed to give to Siakos.”
“Did she give it to Siakos yet?”
“No. She hasn’t seen him. She says she thinks he’s not working too hard on the case, because she hasn’t seen him or spoken to him in a couple of months. She has the letter here.”
“I want to look at it.” Sandro watched Mike speak to Mrs. Hernandez. His eyes were distracted by a roach crawling slowly up the wall directly behind Mike.
In another room, next to the kitchen, the son was watching television. Beyond that was a bedroom overlooking the rear of the building.
Mrs. Hernandez rose and walked through the living room into the bedroom. Sandro could see her opening a dresser drawer and rummaging through it. On the dresser, a candle in a votive glass flicked its red glow at a picture of the Sacred Heart. She returned to the kitchen carrying a piece of paper, which she handed to Mike. Mike handed it to Sandro.
“Why are you giving this to me? I can’t read Spanish.” Sandro handed it back to Mike.
Mike studied it. “There are censor marks on it. At the top, it says page one. And it starts: ‘Esta es mi historia del dia—’”
“In English, if you don’t mind.”
“‘This is my story of the third day of July, 1967. I was in the house in the morning with my wife around eight thirty. And I drove her up to the factory where she works. After I left her, I went to do a robbery in El Barrio—’”
“Where was that?” Sandro asked quickly.
“ ’1 went to do a robbery in El Barrio.’”
“Does it say where in El Barrio?”
“No. That’s all it says.”
“Go ahead.”
“‘And after I finished the robbery, I went back to the factory to see her, my wife, and have lunch in the diner. That was from about twelve fifteen to one. Then she gave me a dollar for gasoline, and then I went and got gasoline in the car, and I went on the highway down to Seventy-third Street. I drove to Second Avenue. I drove down Second Avenue to Houston Street, where I turned to Allen Street. On Delancey near Allen Street, I went into a pawnshop.’ He says casa empeño, that’s a pawnshop.”
“Go ahead.”
“‘I went to this pawnshop,’” Mike continued, “‘and I pawned two suits for fifteen dollars. Then I went to another pawnshop on Delancey closer to Essex Street. I couldn’t pawn a radio there because they knew me by my name Hernandez, and I was pawning this radio as Antonio Cruz. I got in the car and went to another pawnshop at Grand Street and Bowery.’”
“That must be the one he told Alvarado about.”
“I guess so. He says here he pawned a radio there for twelve dollars under the name of Antonio Cruz.”
“Right. Go ahead.”
“‘I finished in the casa empeño, the pawnshop, around two fifteen, more or less. Then I went to Essex Street and I bought…’ I can’t read some of this stuff,” said Mike. “This guy writes like an infant. ‘I bought some two shots of …’ looks like ‘heroin,’ I guess ‘for nine fifty, and then I went to my house on Stanton Street. When I entered the block, there were many, many cars of the police in the middle of the street and hospital cars too, and I couldn’t pass or back up. I needed a shot of stuff very much, very much, so I left the car double-parked in the street.’”
“He says the ambulances and cops were already in the street when he got there?”
“That’s what it says,” replied Mike.
“Go ahead.”
“‘I ran up to my apartment. I passed some guy on the way up, and I asked him what was all the commotion. He said that somebody robbed an apartment and that the cop shot the robber. I went up to my apartment and injected myself. Then I made a sandwich, and I ate the sandwich and had some peach juice. The police came to my door soon. I answered the door. They asked me if my car was downstairs, and I said it was, and then they took me out of the house. They wanted me to go downstairs. I told them I had not been out all day, that someone else parked the car. I had the suitcase and stuff from the El Barrio job in the trunk, and I didn’t want trouble. When I find they’re interested in a cop-killing, I told them that I had been at a pawnshop. They called the pawnshop and the man told them that I had just been there, and then they asked me about the car what was double-parked in the middle of the street. Then they took me to the police house. They hit me and kicked me, and hurt me very much. I did not do it, but, so they would not kill me, I said I did. I didn’t kill nobody. Luis didn’t either.’”
“Anything else?” asked Sandro.
“That’s it,” replied Mike.
“Ask her if we can take it to photostat. We’ll give it back by return mail,” Sandro suggested. He took the letter from Mike’s hand and looked at the signature. This statement, in Hernandez’s own hand, would destroy Hernandez if he ever tried to testify against Alvarado.
“She said it’s okay. Just bring it back soon.”
Sandro smiled at her as he folded the letter and put it in his pocket. She smiled back, widely and brightly.
“Why do you think she told us the cops didn’t bother her?” Mike asked as they descended.
“Maybe because it didn’t happen. It sounded incredible to me anyway.”
“Then why would Hernandez have told such a story?”
“How should I know? Prisons are fantasy mills. Guys in jails make things up, pass them on. The next guy embroiders on the story. I don’t know.”
“I don’t believe it. I mean about somebody making it up. If the riverbed makes noise, there’s water running in it. That’s a Spanish proverb.”
“Have it your own way, Mike. Why believe Hernandez—Alvarado thinks he’s some kind of meathead—and not his wife? Besides, what the hell difference does it make to the case even if the cops did give her a tough time?”
PART 35 Page 13