He went on and on. He was sorry for all his crimes. He regretted them. But what else had life offered him? He said, “I never got a chance to reach my potential.”
When this last came tumbling out of his mouth, Karp asked, “What do you think your potential was?”
“Say what?”
“Your potential. If you hadn’t had to scuffle, if you’d had the money, what would you have done?”
Russell thought for a moment. Then he said, “A artist. I always liked to draw and paint and shit like that. I did a lot of that in the can, like when I was in Lex for the dope thing, I had this therapy—they let you alone. You could paint. They said, the lady there, said I had a talent for it.”
“Do you still do it? Draw?”
Russell snorted. “Yeah, on the fuckin’ floor with a mop. What you think?”
Karp shrugged. “You could take it up again. You’ll have plenty of time.”
Russell bristled at that, the confidential mood broken. “What good’s that gonna do? All y’all care about, put the nigger away. What damn good is it?”
“No damn good at all,” agreed Karp affably.
“But you do it anyway? What the fuck, man. I go in, there’s fifty little jitterbugs out there pick up the slack. You pathetic.”
“Uh-huh. But it’s my job. It’s what I do. And you’re right—it is pathetic. People shouldn’t grow up like you did. I shouldn’t have crippled my knee. Susan Weiner shouldn’t have died on the street with a knife through her heart. Life stinks. On the other hand, we’re supposed to at least try to make it better, or leave it so that our kids have a shot at making it better, God help them.”
“That’s what’s gonna make the world better? I go upstate fuckin’ forever?”
“Well, yes,” said Karp, as if making a discovery, “it will. You won’t kill any more young women. It’s not much, but that’s all we got.”
“I never killed nobody,” said Russell, almost to himself, almost as if he didn’t expect anyone to believe him.
“Uh-huh, and if the jury buys that, you walk out.” He stood up in his crutches. “Big day tomorrow. Got to go.”
Russell said, “You ain’t gonna give me no break or nothin’, are you?”
Karp paused and looked carefully at the other man, and shook his head. “Here’s the thing, Hosie. This is nothing personal. I mean, if you weren’t a criminal, I’d probably enjoy going down to the courts with you, shoot some hoops, crack jokes, and so on. I mean, I don’t think you’re a devil or anything. I understand why you turned out how you did, the story of your sad life and all.
“Okay, I understand, but what good does that do? Doesn’t do me any good. Somebody once said, ‘To understand all is to forgive all.’ Fine. I understand you, and I forgive you. Maybe her family can forgive you too someday.
“But then what? Acts have consequences. You drop a brick, it falls to the ground. You couldn’t live in a world that didn’t have some physical order in it. There’s a moral order too; it’s dim but it’s there. Or maybe we just have to pretend that it’s there so we can get out of bed every day. I don’t know. You following me here, Hosie?”
Nothing.
“And here’s another thing: understanding never helped you out. It probably hurt you, come to that. You figured it as part of a hustle, get you out of a jam. I mean, you been hustling me, in a way. We all figure that, you understand somebody, you go easier on them. But why? Maybe when we understand, we should be harder, not softer. Maybe that would fucking work.”
15
The next day, the Friday, in Part Thirty, Vinnie Boguluso was scheduled for arraignment on the grand jury indictment for the murder and lesser crimes committed on the body of Gabrielle Avanian. Part Thirty, a felony arraignment court, had the atmosphere of a bus station in an underdeveloped nation. The floor was brown linoleum, much scuffed. The yellowish window shades were tattered. The mural behind the judge’s presidium was peeling; the allegorical figure of a woman with a sword and scales had no face.
In the well of the court gathered a dozen or so A.D.A.’s, clutching capacious folders. Around them, like bees about blossoms, moved a smaller number of defense attorneys, harassed and shabby if they were with Legal Aid, sleeker and better-dressed if private. Behind them in the rows of wooden benches sat relatives or friends of defendants. On the bench, Judge Rosemary Slade, a black woman of vast experience and legendary arraignment velocity, called them up and shut them down.
The room rumbled with talk, like a marketplace. Formally, the arraignment was the place at which a secret grand jury indictment was made public, where the People let the accused know the nature of his crime against them. In practice, for nearly all cases, it was where one copped out, confessed to a lesser crime, in exchange for a reduced sentence or no sentence at all.
Part Thirty was a marketplace, in fact. The marketing was done between the A.D.A.’s and the defense attorneys, who circulated through the little mob of the People’s representatives, seeking deals for their clients. The A.D.A.’s were often little more than children a few years, or a few months, past their bar exams. While in principle they had wide discretion, in reality they were bound tightly by the tinkerings of politicians in Albany, about what deals they could actually make, and even tighter by the blizzard of policies and memos that issued from the office of the district attorney.
Ray Guma stood placidly amid the familiar bustle and awaited the arrival of his opposite number in People v. Boguluso. This was a Legal Aid named Jack Cooney, an old war horse of approximately Guma’s own vintage. They had worked opposite each other for nearly twenty years, and Guma grinned when he saw Cooney’s familiar, beat-up face appear in the courtroom doorway.
“Counselor,” said Cooney when he got next to Guma, “well, well. A fine piece of shit this morning. I’ve just come from my client, speaking of fine pieces. He wants to know what’s on offer.”
“Offer?” Guma rolled his eyes. “In his dreams, offer. Guilty to the top count is the offer. Twenty-five to life.”
“He’ll never plead to that, my friend.”
“Fuck him, then, Jackie. Trying this scumbag will be a day at the beach. I look forward to it.”
Cooney shrugged. Although he did not want Vinnie out on the street any more than Guma did, he was also a pro. “Not such a day at the beach. Your witnesses are a whore and her wacky kid, and an accomplice to the crime, this Ritter, who by the way was brutalized by the arresting officer.”
“I got the teeth marks, Jack,” replied Guma airily. “He had the vic’s stuff in his apartment. His girlfriend—” Guma stopped, his eyes widening. “Hello,” he said, “I’m in love. Will you look at that?”
She had just walked through the courtroom door, a young bottle blonde with a sharp little face, chewing a wad of gum the size of a golfball. She was an obvious paralegal of some sort, one of the many who darted like guppies in and out of courtrooms.
A new one, perhaps: she seemed lost and was outfitted inappropriately for her job. She wore stiletto-heeled sandals, a deeply vee-necked, very snug baby blue sweater, and a shiny black skirt so tight and short that she was nearly hobbled, swaying precariously as she walked. She was carrying four fat legal files, two under each arm. The burden pulled her shoulders back and thrust her high, conical breasts into sharp relief.
She paused at the little gate that led to the well of the court. Two court officers practically collided as they leaped to open the gate and let her through. She smiled at them, giggled, walked around the end of the defense table, and approached the court clerk, followed by every male eye in the house. She spoke briefly to the clerk. He shook his head and gave her directions. Poor thing! She was in the wrong courtroom.
An arraignment was just finishing, having lasted six minutes, about average for Judge Slade. The defendant looked longingly at the blond woman as he was led away to the Land of No Girls. He said something naughty to her, and she giggled. Judge Slade frowned. The clerk tore his attention away and called the nex
t case: “Calendar 2606. Boguluso.”
The young woman headed back out again, but as she passed the corner of the defense table, she seemed to wobble on her spike heels, to stumble. The four folders went flying and crashed to the linoleum, scattering a deep drift of paper around and under the defense table. She let out a little shriek and knelt down to retrieve her documents.
In this she was not alone. A half-dozen men, court officers, A.D.A.’s (with Guma in the fore), a defense counsel rushed to her aid, eager to help a fellow servant of criminal justice, to peer down her gaping neckline, and to look up her nearly exposed thighs.
Thus the task was quickly done, and the young woman soon rose, burdened again, flushed and apologetic. In a moment her small, shiny butt had wiggled its way out of the courtroom. Nobody noticed that when she left she was no longer chewing gum.
A few flights up from this scene, in the nobler precincts of Supreme Court Part 52, People v. Russell continued. Milton Freeland had begun the day by moving for a mistrial. The Post had done a story on the start of the trial in which Russell’s criminal record was featured in some detail, and Freeland was arguing that the material was prejudicial. Judge Martino growled, but he had to drag all the jurors out one by one and ask them if they had seen the offending article. They hadn’t. The morning vanished.
The delay meant that Karp’s witness, the arresting officer, Patrolman Thornby, would have his testimony broken by the lunch recess, reducing its probable impact on the jury. A cheap but often effective trick.
Thornby was a good witness. He had good presence and a clear voice, and the color of his skin didn’t hurt either. The story of the chase and of hunting through the baking, dark basement was told, and the Bloomingdale’s charge slip with the deceased’s name on it was placed in evidence.
On cross, Freeland seemed obsessed with the time the sales slip had been recovered, and the reason for the delay between the time Thornby said he had taken it off Russell and the time he had delivered it to Detective Cimella at the Sixth Precinct house. Karp knew why too.
Freeland was saying, “And when you took the sales slip off the defendant, what, if anything, did you do?”
“I wrote my initials down on it,” said Thornby.
“Did you write down the time?”
“No.”
Freeland asked, “Wouldn’t it in fact be very good police procedure to put on a piece of evidence the time that it’s recovered?”
Karp objected and was sustained. Freeland asked that the sales slip be circulated among the jury. While this was happening, he walked back to the defense table. The court clerk looked at his watch and said, “This is a long one, Judge. We don’t get out of here soon, I’m gonna miss my train to Hempstead.”
Thornby remarked, “You think you got problems? We just had our first baby, and my wife’s waiting on me to get her home from the hospital.”
There was a ripple of mild laughter, and Judge Martino spoke briefly to the cop about women and children. He himself had six kids.
At last the jury was done with feeling the sales slip, and Freeland continued questioning Thornby.
“There’s nothing that requires you to put on the time?”
“No.”
“But there’s nothing that says you can’t do it either, is there?”
Objection. Sustained.
Freeland looked ruffled. “I’d like to know the basis for the objection.”
Martino replied, “There’s nothing in law or police regulations that requires it, Mr. Freeland. The officer didn’t do it, and he’s already testified to that effect.”
“I’ll show you common sense requires it!” snapped Freeland. Martino gave him a long stare. Freeland said, “No further questions,” and walked back to the defense table.
Martino dismissed the jury for the weekend. Two guards took Russell back to the cells. The press and all the spectators left. When the room was nearly empty, Freeland approached the bench.
“Your Honor, with due respect to the court, and as much as it pains me to make this application, I have to ask that the record show that while the jury was examining the sales slip, there was a … some sort of colloquy between Your Honor and Officer Thornby, such that it might have an effect on the jury of making Officer Thornby’s testimony more credible. Therefore I must move for a mistrial at this time.”
Karp heard snatches of this and definitely caught the last line. He cursed under his breath, got to his feet, and crutched over to the bench.
Martino gave Freeland another long stare, and his cheeks darkened. He snapped at a court officer, “Get Thornby back in here!”
Thornby was brought back in and, as the stenographer tapped away, Martino went through everything that had been said in the little colloquy for the record.
Karp could see the judge’s jaw working. He had to give Freeland credit for balls, anyway. He was trying to infuriate the judge, not a usual tactic among lawyers, to say the least, but it occasionally paid off. The Chicago Seven gambit. If he could make Martino lose control, he might provoke a reversible error and get any conviction tossed out. That would establish the basis for a new trial, and perhaps months of delay.
That and the doubt about the time the sales slip had been found seemed to be all Freeland had, Karp thought. But maybe not.
Down in Part Thirty, they brought Vinnie Boguluso in, creating a momentary stir. The Tombs had sent the first team to accompany the huge defendant to court: a former professional wrestler named Walker, who was taller even than Vinnie and built with a lot less fat on him, and a weight lifter named Amico, who could, it was said, jerk and press anyone in the jail.
They took Vinnie’s cuffs off and sat him down at the defense table, and then took up their posts behind and to either side of him.
Jack Cooney came over to his client and looked him over. Vinnie had not had any clothes suitable for court, and he was a hard fit. He was wearing a black leather jacket, a new one without gang regalia, black jeans, and a brown shirt with a collar. He had shaved, at least, and his hair was cut short. He seemed curiously detached and content, not at all like a man about to be arraigned on a murder charge.
“Okay, Vinnie, here’s the deal,” Cooney said. “There’s no deal. So it’s up to you. I have to tell you, you got nothing to lose right now by going to trial.”
“Can I get bailed out?”
“Yeah, if you got about a million bucks. You own any property? Real estate?”
“Fuck, no. I look like I own any fuckin’ real estate?”
“Right. So we plead not guilty.”
“Yeah, sure, whatever.”
The judge called the two counsel to the bench, determined that there was no offer and that the defendant was pleading not guilty. She nodded. The system was working for a change.
The reading of the indictment was waived, the judge asked for a plea, and Vinnie stood and said, “Not guilty.” The judge looked at him and curled her lip and asked the court officer to spin the drum that contained the names of all the Supreme Court trial judges. The court officer picked out a cardboard square and read a part number and a judge’s name.
Walker and Amico cuffed him behind his back and walked him out of the courtroom and down the passageway back to the holding pens.
Vinnie walked carefully. Stuck in his jockey shorts was the five inch switchblade knife that Duane’s girlfriend had managed to stick into the near left corner of the defense table with her wad of bubble gum while she was pretending to pick up her papers. Vinnie had palmed it as soon as he was seated and slipped it into his fly.
Court ended at four, about average on Fridays. Judges must roll home before the traffic, though the heavens fall. By four-thirty, Karp’s office was full of people he had invited.
Karp himself sat at the head of the long oak conference table, but sideways, with his bum leg propped up on an upended waste basket. To his right sat Ray Guma and then Marlene and Harry Bello. Across the table from them were Jim Raney and V. T. Newbury. Roland Hrca
ny came in last, accompanied by Detective Frangi, and sat next to Raney.
“What’s this about?” asked Hrcany in a peremptory tone. “It’s Friday. I got a date.”
Guma made a show of looking at his watch. “Jesus, Roland, what’s your rush? School just got out. Give her time to get her milk and cookies.”
Laughter, and Roland flushed and gave Guma the finger. Karp took this opportunity to start business.
“This won’t take long. It looks like People v. Tomasian is expanding.”
Roland’s brow congealed. “What’s that mean, expanding?” he said suspiciously.
“Just that there are more players,” Karp answered. “Somebody may have launched Tomasian. Somebody may have set up the vic. Tomasian seems to be related to at least one other murder case, a double murder involving wise guys, and a big fraud operation. That’s why I thought we should all sit down and see which end is up.
“Okay, let’s start with Guma. Goom, what’s the hookup with Cavetti?”
“Yeah, okay, here’s the deal,” Guma began. “I went to see Jimmy C. out at Riker’s, like you said. I say to him, ‘Jimmy, you’re in a bad situation here, and I’d like to help you out, but I know you’re a stand-up guy and I’m not gonna get shit out of you on this Viacchenza thing. But there’s something else you can help us out on that’s got nothing to do with any of that business.’ I said it could do him some good. And totally off the record.
“So I could tell he’s sort of listening. Jimmy’s a thief. I don’t figure he’s ever seen himself up on a murder, for that kind of stretch upstate.
“I say, ‘Jimmy, what I want to know is, like, it’s been bothering me—why the fuck did the Viacchenzas do it? I mean, they had a pretty good deal going. It’s years they’ve been ripping it off down by Kennedy. What could it be worth, crossing Joey Castles. Diamonds? Gold? Bonds? What?’
Justice Denied Page 25