Now that Fran was gone, Pelton and I once again had more than a few things in common. Like me, he had no children to go home to. No dog, no dinner, no slippers waiting by the door. He was married, but Rhonda didn’t seem the type to greet him with open arms and a peck on the cheek. Like me he had his work and his booze, but that’s where the similarities ended.
Whiskey and loneliness didn’t make us allies.
I recalled the wassail party the Commission had sponsored at the governor’s mansion on Eagle Street just five months before. It was the first time I’d gone out on my own to a social function since Fran’s death. Now I was caught in a room full of friends, coworkers, and acquaintances with Nat King Cole singing from the grave and colored lights hanging off the walls and wrapped around a gigantic Christmas tree that took up the entire center of the grand living room. Rhonda, as usual, had drunk herself blind, and somehow the booze had caused her to take a liking to me. Or maybe the recent death of my wife had made me more attractive or pitiable; I’m not sure which.
Anyway, I felt this need to get away from it all so I stepped out onto the patio to have a smoke.
Rhonda followed me.
She asked me for a light. But as soon as I lit her smoke, she grabbed onto my arm, pulling me into her with that deceptive bullterrier strength. She let the lit cigarette fall to the stone patio, puckered up, and laid one on me, just like that, in the middle of the governor’s porch. I didn’t want to kiss her. But she’d taken me by surprise. I quickly pushed her away.
But by that time we’d been spotted and the damage done.
Not only had Wash seen us, but so had the governor and his first lady. In fact, the entire party had stopped and stared at us through the open, floor-to-ceiling patio doors.
In the months that followed, Wash never once mentioned the incident to me. We dealt with each other on a professional level. He called me for names to scratch from my roster, and I, with all the fight somehow gone out of me since Fran’s death, capitulated. I didn’t think much about Rhonda after that or about the incident at the governor’s mansion. But I knew, deep down, that it must have been eating away at him. And who could blame him?
I decided to wait until morning to place a call. Anything said between us tonight could only lead to a dead end. I lit another cigarette and watched the smoke boil in the white light from the desk lamp until it disappeared in the darkness. I glanced at the framed picture of Fran that I kept on the right side of my desk-the black-and-white photo taken shortly after her graduation from Albany High, the one with her hair pulled back taut and straight, her costume diamond stud earrings shining in the bright light of the flash, her eyes wide and brown, her mouth curved up at the corners in a subtle smile.
“Okay, Fran,” I said. “Here’s the rundown. We’ve got a missing file and an officer who claims he got the holy hell beaten out of him. But he doesn’t show any signs of being beaten. We’ve got another guard who’s checked into a hospital after taking a clip to the head with the butt end of a rifle. But the guy appears to be unharmed. He’s alive and well, but then, he’s out cold like Sleeping Beauty. I checked in with A. J. Royale down in Newburgh and found out that Vasquez did, in fact, make his dentist appointment. I know he had a series of root canal procedures performed to a bad molar and that, in the end, the good dentist had no choice but to pull it. And last, I’ve got a weapon, a pile of rounds, and the key to Logan’s cuffs. I’ve got an envelope with Cassandra Wolfs address and a package of stills that Marty Schillinger confiscated. I’ve even got a woman with a heart-shaped tattoo on her neck. That, my love, is where the facts stop and the speculation begins.”
I downed my whiskey and poured another shot. I wrapped my hankie around the.38 service revolver, gripped it, and aimed it at the white spotlight as it floated across my window, left to right. I laid the pistol back down and stood each of the six copper-jacketed bullets upright on the desk. I felt the key to the handcuffs. I touched everything with the hankie as though, in the touching, I’d get answers.
Tomorrow I would contact Mike Norman at the Albany Police Department’s downtown division on South Pearl Street. I’d see what he could do about dusting the stuff for prints. In the meantime, I’d consider why Logan would have lied in his statement and why he’d be stupid enough to leave evidence lying around the gravel pit, unless, of course, he wanted it found. I knew someone must have been paid off for something, but who, how much, and why?
I needed connections.
Maybe Cassandra Wolf would provide them.
But from the look of things she was in California. And if I had to guess, Vasquez was with her.
I stamped out my cigarette. In the distance I could hear the electronic buzzers sounding off in F- and G-Blocks. I heard the slam of iron gates. Lockdown. Time for evening head count.
“Are there any good officers left in this prison?” I said out loud, my voice strange and tired.
I looked at Fran’s photo one last time and brought my fingers to her lips. I downed the rest of my drink and locked the envelope with Cassandra Wolf’s address, the.38, the live rounds, and the rest of the evidence inside my briefcase. I stood up with the now weighted-down case in hand and turned out the desk lamp.
By law I should have gone straight to the Stormville police. I should have gotten on the horn with Marty Schillinger and told him what I’d found. But I had a feeling that I’d already made a mistake giving him the stills from Vasquez’s cell. Who knew what would happen to those materials now that I’d handed them over to Marty? Who knew what would happen to the evidence from the gravel pit once it was out of my hands for good? It was my ass that was at stake for Vasquez’s escape. I remembered having signed six or seven identical releases in the past few months. I could not deny a prisoner his right to receive proper medical care. It was a case of an inmate’s civil rights-rights established in the bloody aftermath of Attica. I’d had a responsibility then, and I had a responsibility now.
I knew I had to take control of the situation-bring the material to Mike Norman in Albany, have him dust for prints off the record. It was illegal and I knew it. But I wasn’t concerned with breaking the law, so long as it meant I could get to the truth quickly, avoid a lengthy investigation, prosecute those involved, save my job, save my ass.
CHAPTER TEN
I COULDN’T DECIDE IF I wanted to hear Sinatra or Billie Holiday. I chose neither. Instead I reached up to the highest shelf beside the fireplace in my living room, behind my four-piece, blue-sparkle finish, vintage Rogers drum kit. I pulled out an old album I hadn’t spun in ten years: Zoot Sims and Bucky Pizzarelli. I slipped the record out of its sleeve, held the disc up to my face and breathed in the smell of old vinyl, puckered my lips and blew off the excess dust. Then I slipped the relic of an LP onto the turntable and engaged the stylus.
A while back I had refurbished my stereo system with an eight-disc CD player and replaced most of my collection, and it’s a big one, with high-tech, more expensive evolutionary clones. But now it felt somehow soothing to hear the scratchiness that always precedes the music on a vinyl disc.
The sound brought me back, made me think of Fran and her funny, giggly laugh. I could almost see her lying on the couch, stocking feet up on the coffee table, head tilted back just so, eyes closed, a glass of red wine in one hand, a cigarette in the other, smoke rings floating all the way to the ceiling. But then my memory shifted in directions I did not want it to go and I recalled the black sedan that had come out of nowhere, blown the traffic light, plowed into the passenger-side door of my Ford Bronco…
Almost one year ago to the day.
I sat down at the drums and took the brushes in my hands. I thought about Vasquez as the first song came on and I placed my brushes to the snare to mimic the licks of the great Max Roach. I also pictured the heart-shaped tattoo. I thought about the way Schillinger had taken those photos from me inside Vasquez’s empty cell. Maybe I was putting too much into it, but I felt that, for some reason, Vasquez had left them
for me to find. Let’s face it, he knew it was SOP to shake down a cell after an escape, and we’re talking about a very neat man here, a man who was not the type to overlook details.
I finished out the piece with a quick triplet and a cymbal crash and returned the brushes to the snare.
I didn’t have the heart for drumming tonight. The keeper of time was too concerned with the keeper of the maximum security joint.
I took a glance at my watch and thought about asking Val over for some reheated leftovers. But it was nine already and I knew it was too late to call. But then, I knew she’d be up. Like me, Val was no longer married, although she did have a twelve-year-old boy from her only marriage to keep her company. I even went to the wall phone in the kitchen and picked up the handset. But at the last second, just as I turned it over in my palm, just as I was about to punch in the numbers, I pictured her sitting on the couch beside her son-stocking feet up on the table, a bowl of popcorn between them-and I hung up.
I found the leftover spaghetti in a Tupperware bowl behind a twelve-pack of Budweiser long neck bottles in the refrigerator. I pulled down a frying pan from the rack, set it on the burner, turned the dial to medium, and tossed in a tablespoon of butter. When the butter had melted and the hissing sound was louder than the smooth licks of Bucky Pizzarelli’s jazz guitar, I added the spaghetti and fried it until it was finished. I ate while spinning the Zoot Sims album a second time. When I was through, I put the dishes into the sink and turned out all the lights. I let the record spin once more. Now that Fran was gone, music kept me company in the darkness.
I put my head on the pillow, closed my eyes.
I thought about Pelton and his phone messages.
Sooner or later, I’d have to give him an explanation for Vasquez’s escape. Sooner or later I’d have to give him two more names to scratch from the guard roster. I pictured Pelton’s puffy red face. I pictured his small, bloodshot eyes-eyes that seemed to have died during all the years that had passed since we’d been friends. I pictured his wife, Rhonda, laying one on me on the patio of the governor’s home. My mind raced. I pictured those two kids riding their bikes up and down that steep pit wall, their cherubic faces lighting up when they told me to screw. I felt the dentist’s gentle grip when we shook hands. I thought about a woman on her knees. A woman with a small, heart-shaped tattoo on her neck giving head to a man with no face. I thought about Logan and his lies, or what appeared to be lies, anyway. I saw Mastriano laid out in a hospital bed, maybe faking sleep, a smile plastered on his face. I couldn’t help but make a connection between Logan, Mastriano, and Eduard Vasquez, a connection that went beyond corrections officers and their prisoner.
I rolled over onto my side of the bed, put my face in the pillow, tried to forget about the whole thing. I tried to clear my mind and I tried not to think about a homemade shiv pressed up against Wash Pelton’s neck back in September 1971 during the Attica riots. I tried not to think about that Buick running the stop sign a year ago. Eventually, I would fall asleep to the angelic sounds of a jazz guitar and a soprano saxophone singing in my ears, like music by moonlight.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
TUESDAY MORNING I WAS up before my six-thirty alarm. I tuned in to Good Morning America on the small color set as I sat on the edge of the bed and slipped into my running shorts and shoes. While I stretched, the local news came on for their small segment.
The headline came at me like a bullet.
“Eduard Vasquez, the convicted murderer of an area police officer, escaped from Green Haven Maximum Security Penitentiary yesterday afternoon,” announced the anchorwoman, “after a vanload of shotgun-toting assailants took him away from the officers in charge of transporting him from the prison to the office of A.J. Royale, a Newburgh dentist who often works on inmates. We spoke with Robert Logan, the senior officer involved in the incident.”
Logan had his navy-blue Corrections baseball cap pulled far back on his round head. Someone had added gauze and medical tape to the small bruise above his right eye, making it look a lot worse than it had yesterday afternoon when he had given me his statement. Now he was all frowns as he balanced himself with a cane. The bastard was faking it, making it look like he had withstood one hell of a beating in the name of God, country, and duty.
“Those men came up on us with shotguns,” he said, his voice trembling, a glassy, wild look in his eyes. “They pressed the barrels against our heads, made us get down on our knees, threatened to shoot us if we didn’t do exactly what they said.”
He really poured it on.
“Then they beat us. My partner, Bernie Mastriano, got knocked out cold. We were gagged and locked up together with my own cuffs. They stuffed us into the station wagon and hauled us out to the gravel pit. They assaulted us, tortured us, did unspeakable things.” Logan looked shamefully to the floor, as though for effect. It was hard to tell whether his tears were genuine or fake. But to me, the report was like a cup of black coffee and just as bitter. I thought, here’s Logan’s and Mastriano’s chance to gain public sentiment before anyone has the true gen about the escape. Here’s their shot to get people on their side, to make themselves look like helpless victims.
The report shifted from Green Haven to Newburgh General. There, lying in his bed, just as still and silent as when I’d seen him yesterday afternoon, was Officer Bernard Mastriano. Now he had a white bandage wrapped around his head and an IV needled into his arm. A heart monitor was clearly visible in the background. If you listened closely, you could hear the steady beats of his heart over the small speaker of my old portable TV.
Many people surrounded Mastriano.
Family and friends. Standing room only. The crowd of people overflowed out into the hall; people were holding lit candles in their hands. A priest wearing a black habit with a purple cassock draped over his shoulders like a scarf stood just a few feet away from the hospital bed. Anchorwoman Chris Collins stood before the camera. Collins was a good looking woman with dark, nearly black eyes and black hair cut just to her shoulders. This morning she wore a tight, fire engine red mini-dress and matching blazer.
“We’re here in the room of Officer Bernard Mastriano,” said Collins directly into the TV camera, “one of the men in charge of Eduard Vasquez when he escaped from Green Haven Prison yesterday afternoon while on a routine trip to a dentist in Newburgh. From what we can make out so far, Mastriano was beaten severely about the head with the back end of a shotgun, until rendered unconscious. Now we’re going to speak with Dr. Arnold Fleischer, the physician attending Mastriano, to hear the diagnosis.”
For a second or two, confusion overtook the report so that Chris Collins was forced to back off and away from the camera. From out of the crowd emerged the doctor I’d spoken with on Monday. I noticed that the little guy hadn’t changed his clothes in all that time. The cameraman gave him a full body shot, then panned in. He wore that same tweed jacket, same white button-down shirt, same running shoes. His thick, curly black hair was mussed up. He wore a stethoscope around his neck. More for show, I thought, than need.
Chris Collins stuffed a microphone in his face. “Can you tell us, Dr. Fleischer, just what you know up to this point about Mr. Mastriano’s condition?”
Fleischer bowed his head toward the mike. He came close to pressing his lips against it. “Mr. Mastriano was brought to us yesterday afternoon,” he said pensively. “He bled badly from a wound in the back of the head, near the Circle of Willis.” Fleischer turned his head and pointed out the area on his own body to demonstrate for the viewers. “It then took me several hours to stem the bleeding and suture the lemon-sized wound. Mister Mastriano has never regained consciousness.”
“What, then, is his diagnosis, Doctor?” probed the reporter.
“It’s difficult for me to speculate. But if he pulls through, there’s a good chance that there will have been significant damage to the nervous system.”
“Can you speculate as to the extent, Doctor?”
“We’ll just
have to wait…and pray.” Fleischer bowed his head, eyes focused on the floor.
Meanwhile the reporter turned back to the camera as the little doctor faded back into the crowd. “A decorated officer of the law, a dedicated son, struck down while in the line of duty. Just what questions does this unfortunate incident raise about the nature of crime and punishment in our community? How safe are our prisons? Just who is responsible for this lapse of security? Should Eduard Vasquez have been allowed outside prison grounds? Is it a habit that wardens allow cop-killers to just roam the city streets when they should be locked away safely behind bars? And if the warden allows a notorious killer like Vasquez out, shouldn’t he be certain that his corrections officers are prepared to handle a disaster such as the one that occurred yesterday afternoon, with weapons and a more concentrated support unit?”
The camera faded away from the reporter and zoomed in to Mastriano’s room where a short, rather plump woman with jet-black hair and equally black clothing was seated at the bedside, Mastriano’s lifeless hand in hers. Mastriano’s mother, no doubt. In a word, she looked destroyed. You could see the tears streaming down her face. Either she was putting on an act as good as her son’s or she was as fooled as the rest of the people surrounding him.
“This is Chris Collins reporting live from Newburgh General for Newscenter 13. Now back to our live broadcast of Good Morning America.”
I don’t think five seconds had elapsed before the phone rang.
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