Clockers (76 page)

“Uh-huh.” The kid clasped his hands across his chest.

“Good.” Hoping against hope, Rocco swung for the bleachers. “OK. Right from the gitty-up—did you kill Darryl Adams?”

Strike made a face, shook his head. “No way.”

“Good.” Something broke inside Rocco’s chest but he pressed on, knowing it never comes that easy. “That’s fine. So now I don’t have to advise you of your rights. Anything you tell me now, about people, about drugs,
cannot
be held against you in a court of law. So far so good, right?”

Strike waited.

“So when was the last time you spoke to your brother?” Strike sighed. “Saturday.”

“OK.” Rocco nodded as if he knew it all along. But the answer threw him for a loop: he’d thought Friday was the last time, at the bar before the killing. “OK, where?”

“In the projects.”

“What you talk about?”

“Nothin’.”

“Nothing?”

“That’s about aw-all we usually talk about. We’re not that close.”

“OK, when was the time before?”

“That night in the bar.”

“What night was that?”

“Like, Friday—you know, that night that thing happened.”

“Well, why didn’t you tell me that when I asked you on the street?”

“Because I didn’t want nothing to
do
with that. I figured if I told you that, then you’d be bringing me down for a statement. Next thing I know I’m helping to
ha-hang
him, you know?”

Rocco found it hard to tell if the kid was lying: he was avoiding eye contact on everything, but his demeanor was distant, preoccupied, as if his troubles were all over the place. “Yeah, but Ronnie, he already confessed, remember?”

“I don’t care.”

“Ronnie, if you told me the truth the first time, I would’ve handled the interview so fast you’d’ve been back on the bench in an hour. I mean, I wouldn’t’ve had to shut you down three times, your ulcer wouldn’t’ve acted up, I wouldn’t have had to waste all those goddamn man-hours. The shortest distance between two points is the truth. For everybody.”

The kid still wouldn’t come out of his moody distance, and Rocco drifted off for a moment, thinking of the best way to Mirandize him if he should be so lucky as to hit pay dirt here, already beginning to imagine himself in court, flatly recounting the circumstances that led to the unexpected confession.

Strike began to fidget and Rocco continued.

“Why’d you meet him at Rudy’s?”

“It was just a bump-in, like a accident.”

“OK. Who got there first?”

“Him I guess. He was there when I got there, like sitting down.”

“Was he glad to see you?”

Strike shrugged. “Not unglad, I don’t know.”

“What you talk about?”

“You know, my mother, ha-how she doin’, his kids, I don’t know, nothing. It wasn’t but ten minutes. I didn’t even sit down.”

Rocco smelled a lie in that but didn’t push. “Who bought?”

“Nobody.”

“Who left the bar first?”

“Me.”

“Before you left, did your brother say where he was going afterwards?”

“Nope.”

“Did you
ask
him where he was going?”

“Nope.”

“How did he seem to you?”

“Dopey.” Strike gave Rocco a little smile. “He was drinking, so, you know, dopey.”

Rocco let the interview hang for a minute, wondering how and when Strike got Victor the gun. Saturday: he said it himself. In the projects. And that’s why Victor didn’t confess until Sunday.

“Ronnie, let me ask you something. The bartender says that was the first time you were ever in that bar. Is that true?”

“I guess. I ain’t a bar person.”

“Well, why
that
night? I mean…”

“I dunno. My stomach was hurting and I just wuh-went in to get something sweet and heavy for it.”

Strike was looking a little more alert, working harder now, and Rocco wanted to turn it up, but carefully, not wanting him to think that he was a suspect.

“Yeah, but if you just wanted something sweet and heavy like, what was it, Coco Lopez? Why didn’t you just go into a candy store or a mini-mart?”

“‘Cause I didn’t see none open right there.”

“Gee, I could swear there’s a candy store and a bodega on either side of Rudy’s that’s open till like midnight.”

“Well, I must not’ve
noticed
them.”

Easy, easy: but Rocco wanted to give him one more nudge. “And like just for my own edification, why
that
bar? You never go into a bar, but you pick this one out of a million bars in town, and hey, there’s your brother. That’s like one in a million, and next thing, bing bang boom, there’s a shooting right across the street, your brother’s the do-er, holy shit. So why that bar, Ronnie? That’s like hitting the bad-luck lottery.”

“‘Cause that’s the bar I found myself in front of wuh-when my goddamn perforated ulcer started
hurtin
‘ me.” The kid was spraying a little, getting too hot now. “You want to check with the hospital? I got like a perforated ulcer!”

“Hey, hey, relax, relax. I believe you, Ronnie. I believe you.” Rocco decided to retreat, calm the kid down. “Let me ask you. What did
you
think when you heard Darryl Adams got killed?”

“I didn’t think nothin’. People get killed like all the time out there. Hey,
you
should know, you a Ha-Homicide.”

Rocco laughed. “Yeah but Ronnie, you worked with the guy, right? I mean, you knew him pretty good, right?”

“Hey, I know like four, no five people that got killed so far since high school. He just number six.”

“OK, I buy that.” Rocco paused. “But did it ever cross your mind that your brother did it?”

Strike looked straight at him. “No way, unh-uh.”

“Well, who did
you
think did it?”

Strike’s mouth started working itself into tortured shapes, his eyes suddenly seeming to burn with secrets. Rocco felt as if he was watching some kind of internal wrestling match, but then the kid dropped his eyes and swallowed whatever had been trying to break through.

“I really don’t know. I know like lots of bad people out there, buh-but … I really don’t know.”

Rocco was momentarily confused, thinking he’d heard sincerity in the kid’s voice. He shook it off and went on. “What’s the talk on the street?”

Strike shrugged. “I didn’t…”

“Didn’t what?”

“I was sorry to hear about it … It’s my buh-brother, you know?”

“OK.” Rocco nodded, ready to shift gears again. “OK, let’s go back to Saturday. The last time you saw Victor, what happened, you saw him, said hello, how’s tricks…”

“Yeah, uh-huh.”

“OK. Were you coming from a store or something when you saw him?”

“Naw, I was like, coming from the benches.”

“And where was he?”

“He was coming from out his house to his car on Dumont.”

“So what happened? You saw him come out of his building and…”

“I walked over, like, across the projects and talked to him by his car.”

“You walked from Weehawken to Dumont, then, right?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Did you have a package? Any kind of package on you?”

“I don’t think so, no.”

“OK. Did Victor have a package?”

“I don’t remember. 1 don’t think so.”

“OK, now think carefully about this. Did you shake hands with him, hug him, pat him on the back?”

“Nope.” Strike made a face.

“You sure, right?”

“Naw, we just yo, yo, and out, you know.”

“You remember what I told you about lying to me? That whole fucking riot act I read you before?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Well, then explain to me this. You say you guys didn’t touch, no one had a package. Yet we got a lady, a witness in the projects who told us she looked out her window,
saw
you guys come together, talk for a few minutes, then, she’s not sure who was who, but she knows the both of you from around the houses, and she told us
one
of you had a package, and before you split, the package changed hands.”

Rocco held his breath, waiting to see if his bluff was going to pay off, but Strike looked steadily at him, calm as grass. “I don’t know what the fuck you talking about.”

Rocco felt frustration begin to pull on him and he gave himself a moment to calm down. “You remember the weather that day, Ronnie?”

Strike tilted forward, blinking. “Rain.”

“Yeah, rain. You get drenched?”

“I don’t know.”

“You must’ve, right? I mean, you walked all the way across the projects, stood there talking, then walked all the way back, no?”

“Yeah.” Strike’s shoulders tightened.

“So let me ask you. What did you talk about that was so urgent you had to get soaked like that? You don’t carry an umbrella, do you?”

“No.”

“So what was so important?”

“I was walking that way anyhow.”

“Then why’d you walk back?”

“I faw-forgot something.”

“Huh, OK, OK,” Rocco said, hearing a lie. “So you didn’t talk to him about the shooting?”

“I don’t think so,” Strike said, a ripple running through him. “It wasn’t no big deal. It was across the street, you know? It wasn’t like, in the bar or anything. La-lots of shit happens across the street from things.”

The kid was too tense, too alert, and Rocco could feel that time was running out. “Look, I’m supposed to go back to speak to your brother again,” Rocco said, as if he was wrapping it up. “His lawyer is doing me a favor, getting me in there to see him. Anything you want me to tell him?”

Strike didn’t answer, his eyes wary.

“I got some friends in there. I told them your brother’s good people, you know, to take care of him, because shit, I don’t want to go in there next week, he’s wearing a
dress
already, you know?”

Strike looked instantly alarmed. “Victor ain’t no
punk.
Anybody fuh-fuck with him got to deal with me.” He blinked furiously, as if amazed by his own outburst.

“Look, there’s a lot of guys in there, they don’t give a rat’s ass about you, Rodney, Erroll Barnes, Champ,
any
of you. All they know is there’s this young guy, like a helpless virgin.” Rocco winced apologetically. “And even if they
were
scared of you, which I doubt, what’s the old saying? When the dick stands up, the brains get buried in the ground? You ever hear that?”

Strike appeared fascinated, horrified, Rocco thinking, Bombs away, then continuing. “All of which is why I’d like to go in there, talk to people, at least get his
bail
reduced, you know? Get him back out on the street with his family where he belongs, give him at least a year to take care of them before the trial, let him bust his ass out here, make them some money. Because when it’s trial time, he is
gone—
thirty years, maybe twenty if he pleas out. But that’s it, and it
kills
me because to tell you the truth I’ve come completely around to
your
way of thinking on this, you know that?”

“What’s my way of thinking?”

“Hey, this is the third time we talked like this, right? And now we’re here, in this room with no outside bullshit, just me and you, and I’m looking right into your eyes and down into your soul and I
know
that all this talk about your brother is tearing your heart out, because I know that
you
know that somebody else killed Darryl Adams and that your brother is taking the fall for it. And I swear to God, I’m with you all the way on that. I
know
your brother is an innocent man, just like you do. And if he was my brother? And I knew what you know? Every day of my life would be a living hell.”

Strike said nothing, his mouth hanging open. Rocco felt as if he was talking to a man made of baked clay.

“And your brother is such a fucking decent sonofabitch that he’d rather get degraded, beaten and raped every day of his life for the next three decades than tell anybody the truth of what happened.”

Rocco let it float, the kid looking riveted, as if desperately wanting Rocco to say a name.

“Do you think there’s anything we could
do
about that, Ronnie?”

“What…”

Jesus Christ: the kid seemed to be truly asking, his face filled with a crazy hopefulness. “Hey … me, you, your brother—we all know who shot Darryl Adams.”

“Who…”

“Who? Who do you
think,
Ronnie?”

The kid’s mouth started working again, the wrestling with angels or demons lighting up his eyes like the windows of a burning house. But then the fire went out and his face fell as if in shame. “I don’t know.”

Rocco sat back, his hands trembling, wondering if he had anything left inside him to start a new round of cat-and-mouse, then thinking, Fuck this, no more verbal chess, no more head games. His words came out edgy and dry: “Who do you
think,
Ronnie?”

Strike looked up again, his lips pursed like a keyhole. ”
Who…
”

The sincerity in the kid’s eyes made Rocco lose it completely. ”
You.
You did it, you little fuck,” Rocco shouted, his voice shaking. “You. / know it,
you
know it, and your
brother
knows it. What was the theory behind this, he’d get off on self-defense because he’s got no record, while if you got popped on this you’d go away for good? Well,
he’s
going away, motherfucker—not ever having
done
it before is no excuse on a homicide charge. His life is
over,
and I know it’s rough out there, but you’re the fucking king snake, you’re a cold-blooded evil junkyard nigger like I never seen in twenty years in this town.”

Strike was half standing in horror but Rocco couldn’t stop, his own despair driving him on. “What was the deal? You’d take care of his family while he was away? You’re gonna take care of those kids for ten, twenty years? Who the fuck are
you
kidding? You’re not the Mafia. You’re not even Rodney Little. You’re a skinny-ass snake motherfucker nobody-to-nothing piece of street shit.”

Strike almost lunged across the table.“You don’t know nothin’! You don’t know nothin’
about
it! You just a puh-pig-faced motherfucker po-lice who don’t know nothin’ about what’s out there, nothin’ about
me,
an’ nothin’ about what ha-happened.”