Condemned (30 page)

“Miss Henry, Jessye, this is Sandro Luca.”

“I know. I recognize him from the television coverage,” she said, reaching three soft fingers for Sandro to shake gently.” You look much better in person.”

“You're very kind.”

“Listen, Jessye, Sandro and I were just discussing something a little confidential. You mind going outside and putting some coins in that soda machine?”

“Not at all,” she said. “Let me put this down,” she said, placing the legal sized portfolio she was carrying on the desk. She smiled and left the room.

“Nice lady,” said Hardie.

“Seems that way,” agreed Sandro.

“Listen, Sandro,” There was deep concern on Red's face now. “Li'l Bit's got real problems, doesn't she?”

“You mean Hettie Rouse?”

“Yes, that's what she's called, Li'l Bit.”

“D.A. said he's going for the death penalty. She made statements, and her boyfriend made statements. They're both kind of dead on the charges. The death penalty phase may be the only area where we may have a chance, if we can prove some mitigating factors, things from her past which show that the crime was the product of some horrible childhood, background.”

“Hmmm-mmm. Awful, just awful,” said Red, shaking his head. His thoughts drifted to something far-off for a moment. “I can tell you what I know about her background, if that'll help.”

“Let's go,” said Sandro, taking a pad from his portfolio.

“You want to start putting together the girl's defense already?”

“No time like the present. You want me to defend her, don't you?”

“Yeah, sure. She needs somebody who's not going to cave in.” Red said. “She and her family lived upstairs, top floor, rear, in the same building I lived in when I was first married, 467 West 147th Street. I mostly knew her father. Nice enough guy, hard-working—worked two jobs so he could pay for prep school.”

“Hettie Rouse went to prep school?”

“No, her brother did. The father was very partial to the brother. I don't know why. Maybe because the son was very light-skinned, wouldn't know he was black. The father was almost white himself. Hettie, obviously, is real dark.” Red shrugged. “Black people are prejudiced about color too, you know. I used to see the father around the neighborhood on weekends. We'd say hello, have a drink together sometimes. He'd talk about the boy, and the plans that he had for him. Wanted him to make it in the world, be a professional, a dentist or a doctor. Hettie, on the other hand, went to the local public school. Had a hard time of it, too. She was always a little slow, Sandro. They put her in Special Ed, you know, for slow kids. The old man never talked about her.”

Sandro made notes as Red spoke.

“The mother was nice enough too. A little light up here,” Red tapped his temple with a long index finger. “I don't think dumb, as much as flighty-like, you know. The husband wasn't home too much. Like I said, he worked a day job, I think for a moving company, grunt work. At night, he was a security guard somewhere. The mother was a little lonely, I guess, started hanging out at a joint on Lenox Avenue—the Tipple Inn or The Owl and the Pussycat—I owned the joint for a while,” he chuckled. “Had so many different names, I can't remember them all. Anyway, I guess, in her loneliness, she started to mingle with guys that hung out in the joint, if you know what I mean. After a while, she must have thought, ‘why give all this good stuff away for nothing?' I guess she figured she could put out and earn a little spending money at the same time.”

“Everybody in the family was working hard,” said Sandro.

“She wasn't a major league hooker, or anything, you know. Just, kind of semi-pro. She turned a few tricks, just for fellas she knew, not everyday.” Red shrugged. “However it happened, the old man found out about it, and had a fit, I mean a fit. Man, it didn't take him but a couple of days. He put his son in a military academy in Long Island, and the old man was out of there. Left Hettie and the mother just like that.” Red snapped his fingers. “She never saw the guy—or the son, for that matter—again.”

“The mother and Hettie stayed in the building?” said Sandro.

“Yeah, yeah. The mother had a rent controlled apartment. I think her folks had the apartment before her. Paid like forty dollars a month. When the folks went on, the daughter, Hettie's mother, stayed in the apartment. When the husband left, she stayed on with Hettie.”

Red stopped speaking, pensive. He seemed troubled by the story he was recounting. Sandro waited patiently.

“After the husband left, the mother really started hanging out at the bar. She kinda made her way from the minors to the major leagues at that point, turning tricks to keep her body—and Hettie's body—and soul together. I'd give her some money from time to time. But her sense of insecurity, I guess, kept her working anyway. I ran into the father a few years later, somewhere. We said hello, had a drink. He tells me he was sending the son to Princeton, then when he was finished, he wanted him to go to one of the Ivy League Medical Schools. I think the kid actually did become a doctor. Used another name, a different name.” Red snapped his fingers repeatedly, trying to recall something. “I'll think of it in a minute.”

“Not important,” said Sandro, “that way it'll come back to you sooner.”

Red smiled. “Anyway, at some point, the mother takes in some guy. Must have had a couple of bucks, laid money on the table every week. But he was a fall-down drunk, too. A mean, fall-down drunk, you know the kind. Actually, if you come right down to it, he was a piece of garbage. Took out his anger or frustration on the mother. Used to beat her up. That's her business, you know, the mother's. But this degenerate beat up on Hettie too. She told me about it one time. She was coming down the stairs, and I was just going out of my apartment. My wife and me lived on the second floor, they—Hettie and the mother—lived up two more floors. She says ‘Mr. Hardie, can I talk to you?' She was a respectful little child. Called me ‘Mr. Hardie'. I think, maybe, she looked up to me like a father figure because I was a friend of the father or something. She tells me she was ready to leave home, she was so unhappy. So I take her for a ride in my car, down to Conrad's or one of them places, on 125th Street, for something to eat so we can talk.”

“How old was she at this point?” said Sandro.

“I guess about seventeen, eighteen,” said Red with a pause. “While she's having something to eat—man, she had an appetite, she ate everything in sight.” Red laughed. “She was a really nice kid. Anyway, she tells me this character, the mother's boyfriend, is beating the mother, knocking her around once in a while, and he's molesting her.” Red became angry at the thought as he spoke. “The miserable dog is molesting the kid—she was too embarrassed to even tell me about it, so I don't know how far he went. But, Jesus, I saw purple when she told me. I don't know why. I just did. You know I never had any kids of my own, Sandro. And, guys that mess with kids …” Red's jaw muscles flexed hard for a few seconds. “Anyway, I get twisted out of shape while she's telling me this. But I keep my cool. You know, I didn't want to upset the kid any more than she was. I told her not to leave home, that I would talk to this sleazy character. I didn't make a big deal out of it at the time. I was real calm.”

“You ever talk to the guy?”

“Did I ever,” said Red. “I waited for him one morning when he left the house. I wanted the sucker sober. I said good morning, started to walk toward the corner with him, like I was going that way myself. About halfway up the block, there was an alley that led into a backyard. The building in the back was all bricked up. So that's where I figured I wanted to talk to this guy. He was a mechanic or something, worked on cars. I told him that I bought this here Stutz Bearcat, a real old legend of a car. Everybody knows I liked exotic cars, even then. The guy says no kidding. I say, yeah. And I'd like you to look at it, see what you think about it. He says, sure. So he comes with me into this alley, and he's all expectin' to see the Stutz. He asks me, how the hell did you get the car back here. I said we came the other way.

“When we get to the back of the building,” Red continued, “there is no car, and the guy looks at me, like what the hell. But then he sees my face, and he knows there's somethin' on my mind. And I tell him, real clear, real direct, that I happen to think that being a drunk and beating up little kids is for punks. And molesting the little girl who he, as the man of the house, is supposed to be taking care of, is the lowest of the low. He right away starts to deny anything like that ever happened. I take out my blade,” Red made a hand motion, unfolding a knife, “and I tells him, putting it right up under his chin, that he so much as talks bad to that Hettie girl, I was going to slit his throat.

“He swears, tears in his eyes, that he never did nothin', that he wouldn't do nothin' in the future to the girl.” Red held his hand high, as if he were holding a knife to the man's neck. “I give him a little slice. Man, that knife was sharp. A beautiful knife. And it just creases the guy, right here,” he pointed to the fold where the back of his jaw meets the neck. “Just a scratch. I watched the guy's eyes fluttering—you know, like Money when he starts thinking hard?” Sandro nodded. “Like that, as I drew the knife across his neck.

“I told him I'd kill him if he ever so much as said a foul word to her again. I don't think the dirtbag stayed around two more weeks after that. He lit out of there,” Red slapped his palms together, “like he was a greased pig. Mother took up with someone else not long after.” Red shrugged at the remembrance.

“How old was Hettie by this time?”

“I guess, at the time, she was about, what, nineteen? Something like that. When I seen the newspapers, with this thing that she's accused of, the papers say she is now twenty-seven. I figured back, that she must have been about seventeen at the time her real father left. This was a couple of years later.”

“Ever have anything else to do with her after that?” said Sandro.

“Yeah.” Red grimaced. “She was real happy that this piece of trash was no longer in the house, bothering her. So she was real friendly, grateful, whatever. Now I was always a restless guy. Used to be, anyway. Always on the move, doing business, making contacts, keeping things going. And when I wasn't working, I was relaxing from being overworked. My wife'd rant and rave. But, hell, man, I was crazy for clothes and women. God! Women. We didn't have no kids. And about that time, the product, you know, the product, was just clicking in with folks who weren't black. And, man, after that, the money, hell, we didn't know what to do with it all, where to stash it. I had cars, clothes, women. And, once in a while, I'd take Hettie to dinner over at the Flash Inn. Over on a Hundred Fifty-Fifth near the bridge. And, drive her home. Nothing happening. Just enjoy a bite together.”

“Yes?”

“After a long time,” Red paused, thoughtfully. “I offered her a joint one night as we was driving home. She must have been twenty-one, twenty-two, by this time.”

“Okay.”

“And she takes a toke. She liked it. It made her feel like velvet, she said. And we smoked a bit that night. Nothin' else.”

“Nothing else that night?” said Sandro. “Is that what you're saying? Nothing else that night?”

“Yeah, well, later, after a while, I don't remember how long, she and me, we went to this motel over in Jersey, just past the George Washington Bridge—Christ, Sandro, I didn't know how old she was—maybe I just didn't want to know. Man, she had a woman's body, really beautiful. Mmm, hmm, that girl was the sweetest, I mean, in the nicest way, Sandro, the sweetest little cuddle. We'd smoke, love. Christ! Went on for about six months or so. Now, I read the paper that she's a stone junkie, and I think back on it, and …” Red shook his head.

Sandro waited. “What happened after the six months?”

“Well, once in a while, not very often, I would personally take a little heavier stuff, you know?”

“Cocaine?”

“Yeah,” said Red. “Just a little dab from time to time.” Red looked around, up at the ceiling, “you can get it right in here,” he mouthed silently, looking seriously at Sandro, raising his hand as if swearing to the truth of his statement.

“Really?” said Sandro.

“God's truth.”

“What about Hettie?”

“She'd never done that before. And she seen me doing some, and she wanted to try it. See what it was like, you know? I said no, but she kept insisting, so after a while, I let her. Man!” Red exclaimed, slapping his palms together again. “You'd a thought she died 'n went to heaven. She loved the stuff, man. Loved it. She'd want to go to the motel all the time, get high, get it on. Man, she was wild then.” Red looked at Sandro, nodding, solemn now. “You know, after I read about her in the paper, being drugged up, hanging out with that Spanish trash on the Bowery, or wherever, killing her own kid, man, and then I thought about giving her that first stuff—and that all made me think of my wife, and how I lost her because I was in the business—she never approved of my being in the business no how, said she'd leave me if I didn't stop. Hell, I was too crazy to stop.” Red paused for a moment, thinking of something. He shook his head. “Well, after I read about this kid, and then thought about my wife, my life, all the things I did to myself, to others, with this stuff, because of this stuff, I thought to myself, Red, what did you do? Look at where you are now, and look where you going! And look what I did to that little girl.” Red shook his head again.

“Red, you weren't responsible for Hettie turning out the way she did,” said Sandro, gazing across the table at Red. “Inside, she was already prone to the stuff, an accident waiting to happen.”