Clockers (43 page)

“Four two one, three three oh nine.”

Rocco jumped right in.

“Tell me what happened.”

Victor raised his ankle to his opposite knee, hunched over and started pulling lint balls off his sock, frowning down at the task as if it was delicate and demanding work. Watching him, Rocco knew the kid would lie even before he opened his mouth.

“I had a few drinks, you know, at the bar,” he said softly to his ankle, “and I was like walking home, shortcutting through the Ahab’s lot, and the guy like—” Victor shut his eyes, pulled his upper lip into his mouth and took a deep breath. “He like
jumped
at me and I got scared and I shot him. He just, jumped
out,
like—”

The kid cut himself off, crossed his arms tightly around his chest and stared at a wall.

Rocco blew air through his front teeth: Shit. He had hoped this one would be a walk-through.

“Look, Victor, let me explain something.”

Still looking away, Victor sighed deeply as if he knew all along that Rocco wasn’t going to buy it.

“You got to understand, we’ve done a lot of work on this. We have eyewitnesses”—Rocco thought of Carmela Wilson, stoned to her eyebrows on gin—“and I know you think that just because you’re telling me you
did
it, that’s all there is to it—you go to court and it’s over.”

Victor scowled open-mouthed at the ceiling tiles.

“Look,” Rocco said, “you tell me something I know couldn’t have happened, that means I got a blatant falsehood. I just can’t sit here and accept that. It’s not gonna do you any good to put down a falsehood.”

Well, anyway, it won’t do
me
any good, Rocco thought. If the kid told one story now and another one at the trial, the county prosecutor might wind up getting screwed, wind up standing flat-footed in the courtroom, having to run down and refute a year-old situation that his office had no previous awareness of. Rocco’s boss went to trial only with cases he felt were absolute locks, and the best way Rocco could protect himself here was by getting at the bare-bones truth now.

“Do you understand what I’m saying to you, Victor?”

Victor shook his head, smiling, as if Rocco was the one who just didn’t get it.

“What’s so funny?” Rocco leaned back and raised his chin, hoping the kid’s blatant pantomime was meant as an invitation.

Victor said something to his own chest that Rocco couldn’t pick up.

“Excuse me?” Rocco slid forward in his chair.

“I said, Nothing’s funny.” Victor glanced up at Rocco. Wanting to hold those eyes, Rocco hunched forward even farther, but Victor went away again.

“All I want, Victor, all I want you to do, is to
explain
to me, what can make a man who routinely works eighty hours a week to support his wife and children, what can make a man like that
shoot
another person?” Rocco paused, head cocked, the silence broken by the distant ringing of a telephone and by the TV down the hall.

Victor appeared to be deep in thought, his lips pursed, his thick eyebrows almost touching, but all the gestures were internally oriented, nothing inviting further questions.

Rocco had no choice but to continue hammering away. “What could a person have done that was
so
evil that it would make a guy like you shoot him? Because I
know
a guy like you has been in tough situations before—on the streets, on the job—and I
know
you never resorted to killing anybody, and I just can’t believe that you were walking through a parking lot after knocking back a few beers and some guy comes jumping out at you so you take out a nine-millimeter pistol and
shoot
him?” Rocco gave that a second to sink in. “I just don’t buy it, Victor. It doesn’t make any sense to me.” The minister’s exact words, Rocco thought. Definitely what the guy had meant. “Does it make sense to you?”

Victor looked up, about to answer but then catching himself and clamming up.

“Does it?” Rocco, getting frustrated, insisted on a reply.

“Don’t make any sense to me either,” Victor muttered, sounding like a cornered child.

In the hallway Mazilli cleared his throat. Rocco relaxed, settling in for a long go-around, realizing the only way he’d get anywhere with this kid was to pull it out of him piece by piece.

“Awright, so … Where’d you have the drinks?”

“At Rudy’s.”

“Where’s that?”

“On De Groot, like across the street.”

“How long were you there?”

“An hour.”

“From when to when?”

“Eight-thirty to ten.”

“That’s an hour and a half.”

Victor shrugged. “Could be longer than that. I don’t remember exactly.”

Rocco noted that straightforward questions seemed to loosen him up. “Longer than ten?” he asked, knowing the shooting happened at about ten-fifteen.

“Nah, I was gone by ten. Longer than eight-thirty, earlier maybe. Because see, I’m supposed to—my shift don’t end till ten usually, but I wasn’t feeling good so I left early that night.”

“You weren’t feeling good, so you went to a bar?”

“Well, it wasn’t like a going-home type of not feeling good.”

“What kind was it? What happened?”

Victor became distant again. “I just didn’t feel like working, I guess. That kind.”

“OK.” Rocco nodded amiably. “Rudy’s, are you a regular there?”

“Sometimes like after work.”

“You talk to anybody that night?”

Victor was silent a moment. “I was to myself.”

“Why’d you hesitate?”

“I was thinking.”

“How about the bartender?”

“What?”

“You talk to him?”

“To order.”

“What’s his name? You know his name?”

“No. He’s just bald, that’s all I know.”

“Does he have a mustache?”

“I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember? When was the last time you saw a bald black man without a mustache?”

Victor shrugged, Rocco’s levity falling flat.

“So you didn’t talk to anybody except the bartender, to order.”

Again he paused. “Unh-uh.”

“You hesitated again.”

“I was thinking again.”

“You sure, now?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What did you drink?”

“Scotch.”

“How much?”

“Three, maybe four, maybe two.”

“Were you drunk?”

“I was high but not like, you know…”

“So you had a few shnorts.”

“What’s that?”

“Drinks.”

“Yeah, uh-huh.”

“What then?”

“I got up, left, cut across the lot.”

“Did you talk to anybody outside the bar?”

“Unh-unh, just walked.”

“Walked to…”

“Across the street to the lot.”

“Then what?”

“The guy, like as I was coming up on the building? The guy came out at me.”

“From where?”

“From the shadows.”

“Shadows where?”

“By the dumpster. The lights was out and there was shadows all over but it was from the dumpster.”

“Did he say anything to you?”

“Unh-unh.”

“Did he have anything? Was he holding anything?”

“In his hand?”

“In his hand, in his teeth, anywhere.”

“He was in shadows, so I don’t … He just
came
at me and I got scared. I wasn’t even thinking. Just, you know,
bam.
Then I got scared and ran.”

“You mean
bam bam bam bam.
”

“Huh?”

“There were four bullets recovered.”

Victor didn’t react to that, and Rocco didn’t know how to read it.

“When the guy jumped at you, before you shot him—you say you were scared. Did you try to run?”

“Before? Unh-unh, I was like … startled.”

“Startled. But you stood your ground. It wasn’t like you ran and he was chasing you.”

“Well, if I did run, I guess he maybe would have.”

“But you didn’t run.”

“Unh-unh, not till after.”

“And when you shot him, where were you?”

“There.”

“I mean, were you facing the building or the parking lot?”

Victor squinted as if he was trying to remember, but the gesture seemed heavy-handed, and again Rocco was certain of the huge lie behind all of this. “I was facing the building.”

“So your back was to the lot.”

“I guess.”

“So like you
could
have turned and run if you wanted to, without banging into any walls.”

“I guess.”

“So it wasn’t like you were trapped in any way.”

“Like what?”

“You know,” Rocco said. “Boxed in, your back against a wall or something so that you just
had
to stand your ground.”

He didn’t answer. Rocco saw him withdraw, not liking where this was going.

“OK, OK … You OK?” Rocco broke the pace. It was time to cool him down. “Let’s go backwards for a minute. Where were you before you were at the bar?”

“At work.”

“At Hambone’s, right?”

“Yeah, uh-huh. I said that.”

“And you left, what time?”

“I don’t know, exact.”

“Take a guess.”

“Eight.”

“Because you weren’t feeling good, right? What was it, a headache, an argument?”

Victor seemed to retreat further. “Just, you know, tired,” he said quietly.

“You talk to anybody there?”

“Yeah, I talked to everybody. I’m the manager.”

“I mean, did you get into any conversations other than ‘Do this, do that’?”

“Same ol’, same ol’…” Victor shrugged.

“Are you close to anybody there?”

“Close?”

“Anybody you talk to more than the others?”

“Hector.”

“Hector?”

“Yeah, he’s the other manager, Hector Morales.”

Rocco made a note of the name.

“So it was the usual day—ballbreaker?”

Victor shrugged again, fending off Rocco’s sympathy.

“And where were you before work?”

“At the other one.”

“Other one?”

“Job.”

“What’s the other job?”

“I’d rather not say.”

“Why not?”

Victor gave him a fast look of discomfort.

“Is it illegal?” Rocco asked, thinking drugs, working in somebody’s crew. “You can tell me.”

Victor was silent.

“Look, I’m gonna find out anyhow.”

He put his hand over his mouth and mumbled, “Security.”

“For who?”

“This store in New York.”

“What store?”

“To Bind an Egg. It’s a Japanese store.”

“What’s the address?”

“Four Seventy-three Columbus Avenue. It’s got like kimonos, tea pots…”

“So what’s the big secret? It sounds like a good job.”

Victor murmured something into his shoulder.

“What?”

“It’s off the books.”

Rocco resisted rolling his eyes. “Who’s your boss?”

“This lady Kiki.”

“Kiki…” Rocco waited, pen poised.

“Kiki…“Victor squinted, trying to remember a last name, then gave up, embarrassed. “Kiki, that’s all.”

“You wear a gun there?”

“Unh-unh. I got like a nightstick.”

“So where’d you get the gun?”

“Found it.”

Rocco felt a headache coming on. He stifled a yawn. “Where?”

“Under a chair at the restaurant when we was cleaning up one time.”

“When was that?”

“Month ago? Five weeks?”

“Was it loaded?”

“I guess so,” he said, fighting down a twisted grin.

“Before you shot that guy, how many other times you fire the gun?”

“I didn’t even know it was loaded.”

“So you just picked it up, pointed it, pulled the trigger.”

“I guess so.”

“Did you always carry it?”

“Yeah, uh-huh. It made me feel safe.”

“Where’d you carry it?”

“In my bag, like a gym bag.”

“So the guy jumped at you, you stepped back, fished around in your gym bag … What else was in your gym bag?”

“My uniform.”

“Fished around in your gym bag, found the gun, aimed it and shot him four times. Is that right?”

Victor didn’t answer and Rocco felt a surge of impatience.

“What you do after that?”

“Went home,
ran.
”

“Which way you run?”

“To the boulevard.”

“Jersey City direction or Newark direction?”

“Jersey City direction. I just ran home, got sick in the toilet.”

“Ran home to…” Rocco checked the first page of his notes. “Forty-one Dumont Place, apartment Eleven G?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Who was home?”

“My wife, my kids, my mother … everybody.”

“What did you tell your wife?”

“Nothing. I just got sick, washed up my face and went to sleep.”

“So who
did
you tell?”

“Nobody. Just the reverend.”

Rocco took a breath, ready for a new tack. “When was the last time you were up in Ahab’s?”

Victor gave a dry snort.

Rocco smiled as if they shared the joke. “Before that time.”

“Like … never.” Victor frowned and shook his head at his cuff.

“Not once? You live so close, you never walked by on a hot day with your kids and just stopped in there for a soda or something?”

Victor looked up, his eyes igniting now, burning right into Roc-co’s. “With my kids? I never
see
my damn kids. I’m always
working.
Then I get home, I’m so damn tired I’m always
sleeping.
”

Rocco was silent for a moment, wondering how to open the door here even wider, but Victor plowed on without any prompting. “My
kids.
Hell, I’m gonna take my kids to a restaurant for a soda, I’ll take ‘em to my
own
damn restaurant. I say to my wife, ‘Bring the kids to the restaurant,’ she says to me, ‘How’m I gonna do that?
You
got the car, your mother got the other car.’ I say, ‘Take a damn cab,’ she says, ‘What’s the big deal about eatin’ for free if you got to pay for a cab gettin’ there, pay for a cab goin’ back.’ I say, ‘That’s not the damn point,’ she says, ‘You can see your kids at home for free anytime you want, that’s why they
yours.
‘ I say, ‘I come home, I’m like exhausted to death.’” Victor was talking right at Rocco now, his words coming so fast he had to wipe his lips. “You know that feeling you get sometimes? You come home, you so tired it’s like the sound of your own kids is like some
hor
ror sound?”