Hell's Kitchen Page 11

  “This is a.38 Magnum. I load it with Plus P rounds.”

  “So you can fuck around with innocent people more efficiently?” Pellam asked. “Is that the idea?

  The cop holding the gun drew it back. Pellam laughed again, shaking his head. He knew he wasn’t going to get hit. Physical evidence of a beating was the last thing these boys wanted. Tony looked at Lomax, who shrugged.

  The gun disappeared into the big man’s pocket. He and Lomax climbed out of the front seat, looked away.

  Pellam was thinking, Called their bluff, when the skinny man slammed his bony fist, wrapped around roll of quarters or nickels, into Pellam’s head just a behind the ear. An explosion of pain shot through him.

  “Man… Christ.”

  Another blow. Pellam’s face bounced off the window. Outside Lomax and Tony were examining a pile of trash in the alley, nodding.

  Before he could lift his hands the skinny man delivered another fierce blow. There was a burst of yellow light and more astonishing pain. It occurred to him that the bruise and the welt would be virtually impossible to see through his hair.

  So much for evidence.

  The man dropped the roll of coins into his pocket and sat back. Pellam wiped pain tears from his eyes and turned to the man. Before he could say anything – or haul off and break the man’s jaw – the door opened and Lomax and Tony pulled him out, dropped him in the alley.

  Pellam touched his scalp. No blood. “I’m not going to forget that, Lomax.”

  “Forget what?”

  Tony dragged Pellam up the deserted alley.

  No witnesses was all Pellam could think.

  Lomax escorted them halfway for about thirty feet. Motioned to Tony, who pinned Pellam to the wall, just like he’d done in Ettie’s hospital room the other day.

  Pellam flinched. Lomax shoved his hands into his pocket. He said in a low voice, “I’ve been a supervising fire marshal for ten years. I’ve seen lot of pyros before but I’ve never seen anybody like this guy. This is your ground-zero asshole. He’s out of control and it’s gonna get worse before we get him. Now, are you going to help us?”

  “She didn’t hire him.”

  “Okay. If that’s the way you want it.”

  Pellam balled his fists. He wasn’t going down without a fight. They’d arrest him for assault probably but they were going to arrest him anyway, it looked like. Go for Tony first, try to break his nose.

  Then Lomax nodded to Tony, who released Pellam. The big guy walked back to the car, where the skinny man with the coins was reading the Post.

  Lomax turned to Pellam, who shifted his weight, ready to start slugging it out.

  But the marshal only gestured toward an unmarked gray door. “Go through there and up to the third floor. Room three-thirteen. Got it?”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “In there.” He nodded toward the door. “Room three-thirteen. Just do it. Now, get out of my sight. You make me sick.”

  Stepping into the elevator and pressing the disk of oily plastic that said 3.

  The building was a hospital, the same one where he’d been treated and where Ettie Washington had been arrested.

  Pellam followed the corridors and found the small room that Lomax had directed him to.

  Pausing in the doorway, he didn’t pay any attention to the couple who stood inside. He didn’t notice the fancy medical equipment. He didn’t acknowledge the white-uniformed nurse, who looked at him briefly. No, all John Pellam saw was the pile of bandages that was a twelve-year-old boy. Young Juan Torres, the most serious injury in the fire at 458 W. Thirty-sixth Street.

  The son of the man who knew Jose Canseco.

  Pellam looked around the room, trying to figure out why Lomax had sent him here. He couldn’t figure it out.

  In Pellam’s heart was a balanced pity – equal parts for the child and for Ettie Washington. (But, he wondered, were these sorrows exclusive? He debated for a difficult moment. If Ettie Washington was guilty, then yes they were.)

  Forget it, he told himself. She’s innocent. I know she is.

  Wondering again why Lomax had directed him here.

  “La iglesia,” the woman said evenly. “El cura.”

  Another nurse walked brusquely into the room, jostling Pellam, and continued on without apology. She offered the mother a small white cup. Maybe the woman was sick too. At first Pellam supposed she’d been hurt in the fire. But he remembered helping her out the doorway herself, behind the fireman who carried her son. She’d been fine then though now her hands trembled and the two tiny yellow pills spilled from the wax cup and tapped on the floor. He realized that something about this room differed from the others he’d just walked past.

  What is it?

  Something odd was going on here.

  Yes, that’s it…

  The monitor above the bed was silent. The tubes had been disconnected from the boy’s arm. The chart had been removed from a hook welded to the bedframe.

  Cura. Pellam had a Southern Californian’s grasp of Spanish. He remembered that the word meant priest.

  The child had died.

  This was what Lomax wanted him to see.

  The boy’s mother ignored the dropped pills and leaned against her companion. He turned his head, covered with tight short-shorn curls and looked at Pellam.

  “My daddy, he knows Jose Canseco. No, no, no. Really. He does!”

  The nurse again walked past Pellam, this time uttering a soft “Excuse me.”

  Then the room was silent or almost so. The only sound was white noise, an indistinct hiss, like the soundtrack on the tape of Otis Balm in his death pose or the tape of Ettie’s empty armchair after she rose to answer the door in the last scenes he shot of her. Pellam remained frozen in the center of the room, unable to offers words of condolence, unable to observe or to analyze.

  It was some moments later that he finally realized the other implications of this silent event – that the charge against Ettie Washington would now be murder.

  TWELVE

  Business was brisk at New York State Supreme Court, Criminal Term.

  John Pellam sat in the back of the grubby, crowded courtroom beside Nick Flanagan, the bail bondsman Louis Bailey had hired, round, world-weary man with grime under his nails and a rapid-fire mind that could figure various percentages of bail faster than Pellam could use a calculator.

  After the boy’s death Bailey had revised his estimate of the bail upward – to a hundred thousand dollars. According to the usual bond arrangements, Ettie would have to come up with cash or securities worth ten percent of that. Flanagan agreed to post on five and a half percent. He did this grudgingly, revealing either his nature or – more likely – some vast, resented debt owed to Bailey that this was in small part repaying.

  Ettie Washington would contribute her savings to the cash deposit – nine hundred dollars. Bailey had arranged through one of his faceless Street Contacts to borrow the rest. Ettie wouldn’t let Pellam put up one penny, not that he had much to contribute.

  Pellam was impressed with the dealings Bailey had orchestrated but he wondered if the lawyer’s skills in a courtroom would be equal to his sleight of hand in bars, clerk’s offices and filing departments.

  Bailey had also received the handwriting report and the news wasn’t good. Ettie’s bouts of bursitis and arthritis made her handwriting very inconsistent. The signature on the insurance application was, according to the report, “more probably than not that of subject Washington.”

  Pellam examined the assistant district attorney, Lois Koepel, a young woman with a sharp jaw, small mouth and a tangle of very unlawyerly hair. She seemed self-assured, brittle and far too young to be handling a murder case.

  The clerk muttered, “People of the State of New York versus Etta Wilkes Washington.”

  Bailey and, at his urging, Ettie, stood. His eyes were up, hers downcast. The elderly judge reclined along the bench in boredom, his fingertips supporting his temple, which
was disfigured by a prominent vein, visible even from the back of the courtroom.

  The A.D.A. said, “We’ve amended, Your Honor.”

  The judge glanced down at the young woman. “The boy died?”

  “Correct, Your Honor.” Not a single S in the sentence and she still managed to sound extremely shrill.

  The judge scanned papers. “Ms. Washington,” he droned, “you’re charged with murder in the second degree, manslaughter in the first degree, criminally negligent homicide, arson in the first degree, arson in the second degree, assault in the first degree, criminal mischief in the first degree and criminal mischief in the second degree. Do you understand these charges?”

  Startling the first several rows of spectators, Ettie Washington called out firmly, “I didn’t kill anybody. I didn’t do it!”

  The A.D.A.’s ground-glass voice snapped, “Your Honor.”

  The judge waved her silent. “Mrs. Washington, you’ve had the charges explained to you, have you not?”

  “Yessir.”

  “How do you plead to each of these charges?”

  Without prompting, she said, “Not guilty, Your Honor.”

  “All right. What is the state seeking for bail?”

  “Your Honor, the People request Ms. Washington be held without bail in this case.”

  Bailey grumbled, “Your Honor, my client is a seventy-two-year-old woman with no resources, no passport and severe injuries. She isn’t going anywhere.”

  The A.D.A. droned, “She is charged with murder and arson-”

  “I wouldn’t kill that boy!” Ettie shouted. “Never, never!”

  “Counsel will instruct his client…” The judge roused himself from his boredom long enough to deliver this lethargic command.

  The A.D.A. continued, “We have here a woman accused of a very elaborate scheme to defraud an insurance company, involving premeditation and the hiring of a professional arsonist.”

  “Do you have that suspect in custody?”

  “We do not, Your Honor. This is the man we believe to be responsible for a series of other fires around the city, resulting in a number of deaths and serious injuries. It seems he’s on some kind of rampage. I’m sure Your Honor’s read about it in the paper.”

  “Those fires?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Your Honor,” Bailey said, sounding appalled.

  “Quiet, counselor.” The judge’s brow furrowed, the most emotion he’d displayed so far.

  “We’ve had three fires in two days. The most recent was a subway, and I just heard a report before coming to Your Honor’s courtroom that there was another one.”

  Bailey turned slowly and glanced at Pellam. Another fire?

  Koepel continued. “At a department store on Eighth Avenue.”

  “What happened?” the judge asked.

  The A.D.A. continued, “That homemade napalm again, Your Honor. In a women’s clothing department. A clerk just happened to be standing by a fire extinguisher station in the store when it started. She put it out before it did much damage. But it could’ve been a real tragedy.” The A.D.A. fell out of character. She sounded exasperated as she said, “Judge, the police just don’t know what to do. They can’t find this perp. There are no witnesses. These fires just keep appearing. And frankly it’s got everybody on the West Side scared as hell.”

  “Your Honor,” Bailey said in the voice of a melodramatic stage actor, “this is the most rampant form of speculation. Why, the month is August. It’s been hot, people’s tempers are flaring-”

  “Thank you for the weather report, Mr. Bailey. What’s your point?”

  “Copycat crimes.”

  “Counselor?” The judge raised an eyebrow at the A.D.A.

  “Unlikely. The mixture he uses in his bombs is unusual. It’s like a fingerprint of this particular arsonist. And the press has cooperated in not mentioning the exact substances. We’re sure the same perpetrator is behind them. The defendant’s been completely uncooperative in identifying him and-”

  “She’s uncooperative,” Bailey said, echoing Pellam’s thought, “because she doesn’t know who he is.”

  “This is, as I was saying, very elaborate scheme to perpetrate a vicious crime, resulting in a child’s death. And in light of her prior fraud conviction, we-”

  “What?” the lawyer asked.

  “Are you objecting, Mr. Bailey?”

  “No, Your Honor, I’m not objecting.”

  “Because if you’re objecting, it’s misplaced. There’s no jury here. There are no evidentiary issues.”

  “I’m not objecting. What prior conviction?” He glanced at a mute Ettie, whose eyes were downcast.

  Pellam was sitting forward.

  “Well, Ms. Washington’s felony conviction for fraud and extortion six years ago. Arson was threatened in that case too, Your Honor.”

  She has a record? An arson threat? Pellam’s memory fast-forwarded through his many conversations with Ettie. This had never come up on the tapes. Not even a hint. His thumb and forefinger rubbed together heatedly.

  Bailey’s head turned to Ettie but her eyes remained downcast. “This is the first I’ve heard of it, Your Honor.” He whispered something to Ettie, who shook her head and said nothing.

  “Well,” the A.D.A. said, “that’s not the state’s problem.”

  “True, Mr. Bailey,” the judge said. The vein on his flushed temple seemed to change course. He wanted to move on to the other cases on his calendar. “Your knowledge of your client’s history is hardly relevant. Can we wrap this up?”

  “On the motion,” Koepel hissed, “the people request the suspect be held without bail.”

  The judge reclined in his tall black chair. “Bail denied.” He banged the gavel with a sound like gunshot.

  “We got outflanked.”

  Louis Bailey stood beside Pellam on the sidewalk beside the Criminal Courts Building. An odd smell – sour – filled the hot August air.

  The lawyer gazed down absently at his feet. His navy blue sock sported a hole but the green one looked almost new. “I should’ve seen it coming. The A.D.A. pulled a fast one. She kept requesting a delay in the arraignment. She hinted that if I agreed she’d be more likely to go along with a bail reduction.”

  Pellam was nodding. “A technical legal strategy called lying.”

  “Ah, that’s old news. But the sick thing is that she was just delaying until the boy died. Put her in a better spot to ask for a no-bail order.”

  Our public servants, Pellam thought. God bless ’em. He asked, “You didn’t know about her conviction?”

  “No. She never mentioned it.”

  “News to me too. How bad is it?”

  “Well, they can’t use it in her trial. Unless she takes the stand and I won’t let her do that. But it’s just…”

  “Troubling,” Pellam muttered.

  Bailey sought a better word but settled for echoing, “Troubling.”

  They each looked at the black-and-gray County Court building across the street. Their gazes took in a somber discussion between a keen-faced, dark-suited lawyer and his dumpling of a gloomy client. As it happened, Pellam’s eyes were fixed on the lawyer; Bailey’s, the man he represented. Two bailiffs sat down near them and began eating cold noodles with sesame paste. The courthouse was three blocks from Chinatown. That was the smell, Pellam understood: overused vegetable oil.

  “I’m worried about her, Louis. Can you get her into protective custody?”

  “Nobody’s doing me any favors. Not until the pyro’s caught.”

  Pellam tapped his wallet.

  “I’ve got no connection with the Department of Corrections. If I can do anything, it’ll have to be the old-fashioned way. A noticed motion. Order to show cause.”

  “Can you do that?”

  “I don’t think they’ll buy it but I can try.” His eyes watched a huge cluster of pigeons in a frenzy over a scrap of hotdog bun a businessman had thrown onto the ground.

  “L
evel with me,” Bailey said.

  Pellam cocked an eyebrow.

  “The bail situation threw you, didn’t it? You were pretty upset.”

  “I don’t want her to spend any more time in jail,” Pellam said.

  “I don’t either but it’s not the end of the world.” After a moment he asked, “What exactly is this all about?”

  “What?-”

  Bailey said, “I’m asking what’re you doing here, Pellam.”

  “She’s an innocent woman in jail.”

  Bailey said, “So’re, say, twenty percent of the people in there.” He nodded toward the detention center. “That’s old news too. Why’re you playing detective, what’s your stake in this whole thing?”

  Pellam looked out over busy Centre Street. Courthouses, government buildings… Justice at work. He thought of an ant farm. Finally he said, “If she goes to jail, my film’s worthless. Three months of work down the tubes. And I’ll end up probably thirty, forty thousand in hock.”

  The lawyer nodded. Pellam supposed that this commercial motive wouldn’t sit too well with Bailey, who may have been a worldly gear-greaser but was also a friend of Ettie’s. But that was all Pellam was willing to say to the lawyer on the subject.

  Bailey said, “I’ll get started on the protective custody order. You want to come back to the office?”

  “Can’t. I’ve got to meet somebody about the case.”

  “Who?”

  “The worst man in the city of New York.”

  Seven men stared silently at him.

  T-shirts dusty with cigarette ash. Long hair, dark from dirt and sweat. Black crescents under fingernails in need of a trim. Pellam thought of a word from his adolescence, word that’d been used to describe the black-leather-jacket element at Walt Whitman High in Simmons, New York: Greasers.

  A young woman sat on one man’s lap. He had a long, bony face and gangly arms. He swatted the girl on her taut butt and she scooted off with a resentful scowl. But she snagged her purse and left quickly.

  Pellam glanced at each of the seven. They all stared back though only one – slightly built, curly-haired, resembling a monkey – returned his gaze with anything that resembled a flicker of sobriety and intelligence.