MD06 - Judgment Day

by Sheldon Siegel

  “You’re crazy.”

  “Why have you been spending so much time with a former cop who was one of the first officers at the Golden Dragon?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “We know that you and Joey D’Amato are pals.”

  “He’s a customer.”

  “I hear he’s more than a customer.”

  He shakes his head with authority. “That’s insane.”

  “Are you paying him off to keep his mouth shut about seeing you in the alley behind the Golden Dragon?”

  “Of course not. I’m helping him remodel his business.”

  It’s my turn to jab a finger in his face. “Look, Marshawn, everybody in town knows you and Aronis are dealing heroin. You’re living on borrowed time. The cops are going to put it together and you’re going to be in a world of trouble.”

  “You’re full of shit. You’re in way over your head.”

  “You’re in deeper.”

  “Get the hell out of here.”

  “We’ll see you in court.”

  My heart races. Next time, I’ll be back with Terrence the Terminator to serve a subpoena.

  # # #

  “Did you get anything from Bryant?” Rosie asks.

  “Deny, deny, deny.”

  “That’s helpful. Are you coming back to the office?”

  I press my cell phone against my right ear as I walk up First Street toward Market. My head throbs. “Not yet,” I tell her. “I’m going over to Oakland to take another run at Aronis.”

  38/ WE FOUND FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS WORTH OF HEROIN IN HIS TRUCK

  Wednesday, July 15. 2:05 p.m.

  3 days, 9 hours, and 56 minutes until execution.

  Aronis is unrepentant. “Floyd Washington was a small-time thug,” he insists. “The experience made us realize the importance of doing background checks on new hires.”

  We’re sitting in a rarely used office in a barracks-style structure adjacent to the maintenance yard of East Bay Scavenger. The walls are a faded oatmeal color. The metal desk is government issue. The dented furniture looks as if it came straight from a Salvation Army thrift store. A small black-and-white photo of the company’s founder is mounted on the wall next to a tiny window, soiled by decades of exhaust fumes. Aronis’s great-grandfather ran a multimillion-dollar operation from this dingy headquarters that resembles the back room of your average gas station. I can understand why Alex prefers to work in his hermetically sealed office tower in downtown Oakland.

  “How long did Washington work for you?” I ask.

  “About ten years. He was never any trouble until he decided to run a pharmaceutical business from his truck.”

  “He’s made some pretty significant accusations about you.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me. We turned him over to the police after we found fifty thousand dollars worth of heroin in his truck.” His right eyebrow darts up for emphasis. “We had no choice. I testified at his trial.”

  It begs the question of where Washington got his hands on the stockpile in the first place. “He claimed it was a setup,” I tell Aronis.

  He can’t conceal a phony smile. “What did you expect him to say, bud?”

  I lean forward and place my hands on the dented desk. “He also told us you were supplying the heroin.”

  He shakes his head. “That’s not true.”

  I push harder. “He told us that you were getting your inventory from Marshawn Bryant.”

  His large mouth transforms into an emphatic scowl. “That’s not true, either.”

  “And that you were planning to take over Terrell Robinson’s operations in San Francisco.”

  He sits up as tall as he can and gestures with two stubby fingers. “Washington is full of shit,” he says.

  # # #

  “Where are you?” Rosie asks.

  “Sitting in traffic at the Bay Bridge toll plaza,” I reply. The sun is high in the summer sky over Treasure Island as I drum my fingers on my steering wheel. I tell her about my conversation with Aronis. “I’d rip him to shreds if I could get him in court under oath,” I say.

  She’s less sanguine. “That isn’t going to happen unless we come up with some new evidence. The California Supremes and the Ninth Circuit have rejected our petitions. I expect the U.S. Supremes to follow suit any minute now.”

  Damn it. “Have you heard anything from Sacramento?”

  “The governor is down in L.A. shooting a public service announcement to encourage businesses to stay in California. He’ll be back tomorrow.”

  A photo op trumps a death-penalty appeal. “Did you get any hints from his people?”

  “They said not to get our hopes up.”

  Big surprise. It’s bad politics for the governor to interject himself into the middle of a death-penalty appeal. “Any other news?”

  “Nick Hanson left a message on our machine. He wants you to call him right away.”

  # # #

  “How the hell are you?” the ever-cheerful Nick Hanson chirps.

  “Just great.” I’m inching forward through the tunnel on Yerba Buena Island in the middle of the Bay Bridge. The upper deck of the two-level structure once carried three lanes of auto traffic in each direction. The lower deck was reserved for trucks and electric trains. The trains were dismantled in the fifties. Five lanes of westbound traffic are grinding at a snail’s pace. I wish the trains were still rolling.

  “You got news?” I ask.

  “Indeed I do.” The master storyteller pauses for effect. “Do you believe in ghosts, Mike?”

  I’m in no mood for banter. “What are you talking about, Nick?”

  “I talked to one of Jasmine Luk’s former coworkers at the Chinese Hospital. He said he thought he saw her in Chinatown about a month ago. She disappeared into a crowd.”

  “Was he sure it was Luk?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  Not good enough. “Absolutely sure would be better.”

  “We aren’t there yet.”

  “What was Luk doing there?”

  “Beats me.”

  “Did he have any idea where we might find her?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. Chinatown is a place where somebody like Luk could hide in plain view.”

  # # #

  My next call goes to Pete. “Where are you?” I ask.

  “My car.”

  He loves to give me that answer. “You already got your windows fixed?”

  “Yeah. I have people who take care of that kind of stuff for me.”

  I wish I had people. “And where is your car?”

  “Oakland. I’m still following Amanda Wong.”

  I tell him about my conversation with Jeff Chin. “He probably called Wong,” I say. “She must know that we’re watching her.”

  “Doesn’t matter, Mick. I’ll be discreet.”

  He will. “Is anybody behind you?”

  “Probably.” He listens intently as I describe my conversation with Nick the Dick. “Do you think Luk is still somewhere in the area?” he asks.

  “Don’t know.”

  “She disappeared ten years ago, Mick.”

  “I’m well aware of that.”

  “I’ll stay with Wong.”

  I put the cell phone into the drink holder and drive to the city in silence.

  39/ WHAT’S IT REALLY LIKE?

  Wednesday, July 15. 7:07 p.m.

  3 days, 4 hours, and 54 minutes until execution.

  Nate’s puffy red eyes are locked intently on mine. He isn’t getting any sleep. Ilene is sitting next to him as he leans forward in his wheelchair in the cold, silent visitors’ area. Rosie is standing by the door. San Quentin’s thick stone walls provide a backdrop of eerie calm. Nate’s mood is decidedly somber. The tired voice of the trial lawyer reappears for what may be his final appeal. “Did they find the IA file?” he asks.

  He’s starting to forget things. We talked about this yesterday. “No,” I say. “They refused to grant a
stay just because it’s missing.” As a practical matter, the cops have no incentive to keep looking. We’ve sent a team of investigators to search through the massive storage warehouse. Not surprisingly, they’ve come up empty.

  He grimaces. “Was Pete able to pull the bank records for Aronis and Bryant?”

  “Yes.” The news isn’t good. “We couldn’t identify any pattern of cash transfers around the time of the shootings. Pete’s trying to get his hands on some recent financial records for Little Joey D’Amato.”

  “What are you looking for?”

  I answer him honestly. “I’m not sure. Anything we might be able to use.”

  “Damn it.” The old warrior heaves a resigned sigh. “It’s over.”

  “Not until 12:01 on Sunday morning.”

  He reaches across the small table to grasp his wife’s hand. “We have to finish making arrangements,” he says to her.

  “It isn’t going to happen, Nate,” she tells him.

  “It’s going to happen sooner or later. It looks like it’s going to be sooner.”

  “We’re going to file another round of petitions in the morning,” I tell him.

  His frustration manifests itself in the form of sarcasm. “What brilliant legal theory have you concocted this time?”

  “That it’s impossible to tell whether somebody is completely unconscious after they administer the Sodium Pentothal.”

  His rubbery face vibrates as he shakes his head vigorously. “It isn’t going to work,” he says. “They’ve already turned down our argument that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment. I appreciate your efforts, but we need to start turning our attention to concluding these proceedings with a shred of dignity. It’s time to be realistic. The deck has been stacked against me from day one.”

  “We still have time for more appeals,” I say.

  “The courts aren’t going to listen.”

  “Then we’ll have to make them listen.”

  There is a mawkish silence. “What’s it really like?” he whispers.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean—when they do it.”

  I dart a glance to Rosie, whose lips form a tight line across her face. “You don’t want to go there,” I tell him.

  “Yes, I do.”

  I’ve been dreading this moment. I had to sit through the excruciating experience of watching the execution of a client named Lonnie Felton a dozen years ago. It was the only time I ever lost a death-penalty case. It’s also something that I wouldn’t want to repeat. Though I am generally opposed to capital punishment, I would be hard pressed to suggest justice was not served in that case. Lonnie was a remorseless gangbanger from Hunters Point who broke into the house of a young couple in search of drug money. He shot the husband at point-blank range, then tied up the wife and two young daughters and systematically raped and tortured them for the next eight hours. He then shot the children in full view of the mother before turning the gun on her. Lonnie was still sitting triumphantly in the bedroom of the house, surrounded by death, when the police arrived. I was the last in a series of lawyers who fended off his execution for eighteen years.

  I take a deep breath. “The guards will be very polite,” I tell him. “They’ll escort you inside the chamber. They’ll help you lie down on the table. They’ll strap you in and insert some needles.”

  “Will you be there?”

  I swallow hard. “Yes.”

  “Can the witnesses see everything?”

  “Yes.”

  He cringes. “How long does it take?”

  “Just a few minutes.” I don’t mention that it took the guards fifteen minutes to find a usable vein in Lonnie’s arm.

  “Does it hurt?”

  “They tell me it’s no worse than drawing blood.” Except you die.

  “Then what?”

  “You’ll go right to sleep as soon as they start the Sodium Pentothal. You won’t feel anything after that.” At least that’s the idea. Lonnie flailed around for a couple of minutes before he finally succumbed.

  “Will I vomit?”

  “Probably not.” Maybe.

  “Will I…soil myself?”

  “Probably not.” Lonnie did.

  “Will I twitch?”

  “That’s unlikely.” Lonnie looked like a two-hundred-pound vibrator.

  An exasperated Ilene finally stops him. “Why are you talking about this?”

  Nate pushes out a heavy sigh. “I want to know what happens.” He holds up a hand to his wife. “I don’t want you and the children to see me die.”

  “We’re allowed to be there,” she says. “I want you to see the face of someone who loves you.”

  “I want you to remember me the way I am today––not the way I’m going to look after they’ve injected me with poison.”

  She grasps his hand tightly. “We’ll talk about it again later, Nate.”

  “No, we won’t.”

  I try to find a more positive subject. “We’re still going to file the new petitions in the morning,” I say.

  “They’ll be rejected by noon,” he replies.

  “Then we’ll file another set on Friday.”

  “They’ll reject those even faster. Judges hate to work weekends.”

  “I’m not that cynical.”

  “I am.”

  I look for a hint of hope. “Nick Hanson talked to somebody in Chinatown who may have seen Jasmine Luk a few weeks ago.”

  His eyes perk up. “Were they sure it was Luk?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  “Pretty sure isn’t good enough.”

  “Pete is still watching Amanda Wong. Maybe she’ll try to contact her great-niece.”

  “It would be helpful if she did before 12:01 a.m. on Sunday,” he says.

  Yes, it would. “We’re working on an alternate version of our next habeas petition. It will say that we’ve located a key new witness.”

  The damp room fills with another cool silence. “Let me give you some advice,” Nate says. “When your client is three days from an execution, you’d better come up with something more than a phantom witness whose name will be inserted into a generic brief. Death-penalty cases are a zero-sum game. Your success or failure will be measured by whether I’m still breathing at 12:02 on Sunday morning.”

  He’s right.

  “Keep the papers short,” he says. “Judges like you to get straight to the point.”

  We have no other choice.

  # # #

  Rosie and I meet with Ilene outside the visitors’ area at eight-fifteen on Wednesday night. Ilene’s voice is filled with a grim resignation. “Mr. Daley,” she says, “I want to thank you and Ms. Fernandez for everything.” We’ve told her repeatedly that she can call us by our first names. She isn’t a first-name person. Nate is inside with Rabbi Friedman for a few moments of the sort of spiritual counseling that I was never very adept at providing when I was a priest.

  “Everything is going to be all right,” Rosie tells her.

  Ilene hands me an envelope. “This is a check for another fifty thousand,” she says. “I know you and your team have been working around the clock. I want to be sure that everybody is paid.”

  It’s the last thing on my mind. “Thank you,” I whisper.

  Her eyes are red. “I take some comfort knowing that Nate won’t be suffering much longer.”

  “This fight isn’t over,” Rosie insists.

  “I want my husband to die in peace.”

  “We don’t want him to die at all.”

  Ilene takes out a tissue and wipes her eyes. The former society matron repeats her mantra in a tone that reflects a dignified inner strength. “My husband is not a murderer,” she says simply. “Now he’s going to pay the price for keeping murderers out of jail for all those years. I don’t know how I’m going to live with it.” Then she summons the guard to take her back to her husband and her rabbi.

  # # #

  “They’re giving up,” Ro
sie says.

  I’m sitting in front of the fireplace in her living room at quarter to twelve on Wednesday night. I’m trying to focus on proofreading our latest petitions. The quiet setting is a stark contrast to my churning stomach. You can’t afford to question yourself in the final stages of a death-penalty appeal. “We can’t let them lose hope,” I tell her.

  “Easy for you to say.”

  I feel my cell phone vibrating. I hit the Talk button. Mort Goldberg apologizes for not returning my call sooner. He says he had a little kidney problem. “Why did you call?” he asks.

  “I wanted to ask you something about the trial. Did you ever raise the possibility that Aronis and Bryant somehow got together to take out Robinson and Chin?”

  I can hear him wheezing. “We looked,” he said. “We never found anything we could use.”

  “Aronis is clearly a player. Bryant took over Robinson and Chin’s operations.”

  “It wasn’t that easy, Mike. Aronis has never been convicted of anything. Bryant has never even been arrested.”

  “We think our best bet—and maybe our only hope—is showing a connection between them,” I say.

  “If you can do it, you’re a better lawyer than I am.”

  “Is there anybody else we can talk to?”

  The line goes silent. I can envision him rolling his unlit cigar between his fingers. I’m about to say goodbye when I hear his voice again. “I’m sorry, Mike.”

  40/ THIS CASE IS RUINING MY LIFE

  Thursday, July 16. 12:30 a.m.

  2 days, 23 hours, and 31 minutes until execution.

  “How much longer?” Grace asks impatiently..

  “Until 12:01 on Sunday morning,” I tell her.

  My response is not well received. I think back to the times my father came home from a long shift bone-tired. I always resented the fact that he gave more time to his job than to us. I’ve come to understand him a little better as I’ve gotten older.

  My daughter and I are sitting at opposite ends of Rosie’s sofa. Grace’s legs are crossed. She’s wearing a gold Cal sweatshirt that once belonged to me. When I was her age, I was focused on making the freshman football team at St. Ignatius. By the end of my sophomore year, it was apparent that I was going to have to get by on brains. I got straight A’s my junior and senior years and a ticket to Cal. Grace is compulsive about her grades. She wants to get into the supercompetitive UC system. I never would have gotten into Cal today. She’s a little young to be obsessing about it. That’s the way she’s drawn––just like her mom.