Last Chance for Glory (5 page)

“I’m so tired, now.” Billy lets his head drop. “When it’s over, can I sleep?”

“Sure, Billy. You can sleep as long as you want.” Brannigan steps back, pulls a tape recorder from his jacket pocket, holds it up for Billy’s inspection. “Do you know what this is, Billy?”

“Yes. Mom had one.”

“After I turn it on, I’m gonna ask you a series of questions. Do you know what you’re going to say?”

“I think so.”

“If you lose your way, I’ll help you. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“Good, Billy. Very good. Now, here we go.”

Q: Would you please state your name.

A: William Sowell.

Q: Also called Billy Sowell?

A: Yes.

Q: Now, Billy, you know you don’t have to speak to me, right? I’ve already told you that?

A: Yes.

Q: And you know that anything you say to me can be used in court against you? I’ve already told you that, too?

A: Yes.

Q:
And you know that you can have a lawyer if you want one? And the lawyer won’t cost you anything?

A: Yes.

Q: So, you’re making this statement of your own free will.

A: Yes. I want to get it over with.

Q: Billy, can you tell me where you were in the early-morning hours on November twenty-seventh?

A: Is that the day it happened?

Q: Yes, Billy.

A: I was begging.

Q: Do you mean panhandling? Asking strangers for money?

A: Yes.

Q:
While you were panhandling, did you happen to go over to Gramercy Park?

A: Is that the one with the locked gates?

Q: That’s the one. Did you go over there?

A: Yes.

Q: All right, Billy. Now, I want you to tell me what happened when you went over to Gramercy Park. Tell it in your own words.

A: I saw a woman.

Q: And what was she doing?

A: What was she doing?

Q: Yes, when you first saw her.

A: She was parking her car.

Q:
Can you describe the car?

A: I … I don’t …

Q: If you don’t remember, just say, “I don’t remember.”

A: I don’t remember the car.

Q: You don’t have a driver’s license, do you, Billy? You’ve never driven a car?

A: No, I never learned how.

Q:
Can you describe the woman driving the car?

A: No, I don’t remember.

Q: C’mon, Billy. You described her before. Was she blond?

A: Yes, she was blond. Now, I remember. She was very pretty and I wanted to fuck her. I went up to her, but she said, “No.” Then, I pushed her back in the car …

Q: She was out of the car?

A: Huh?

Q: You said that she was parking the car when you first saw her. Did she get out of the car before you went over to her?

A: Yes, she got out of the car.

Q: Then what happened?

A: She was very pretty and I wanted to fuck her. I went up to her, but she said, “No.” Then I pushed her back in the car. I was very angry. I took out my knife and I stabbed her. Once. Twice. Three times. I stabbed her in her arm and in her neck. Then I pushed her into the backseat. I got out of the car and locked the door. There was a woman in the street with a dog. I wanted to kill her, too, but I was afraid of the dog, so I went home.

Q: Billy, is this your knife?

A: I … I’m not sure. It looks like my knife. Yes, it’s probably my knife.

Q: Is this the knife you stabbed the woman with?

A: Yes.

Q: Did the woman say anything to you before you stabbed her?

A: She said she wouldn’t fuck me.

Q: What were her exact words?

A: I don’t remember.

Q: Is that because you were so angry?

A: It must be.

Q: You were so angry that you didn’t listen to her words?

A: Yes.

Q: Did she say anything when you pulled out the knife?

A: No.

Q: Was she frightened?

A: I think so. Yes, she was frightened.

Q: When you stabbed her, did you get any blood on your coat? Think carefully.

A: I can’t, Detective Brannigan. I’m so tired I can’t think carefully.

Q: Would you like some coffee? You can have some coffee.

A: Yes.

Q: All right, Billy. I’ve turned the tape recorder back on. Are you ready to start again?

A: Yes.

Q: Do you feel a little better? Are you more awake, now?

A: Yes.

Q: Okay, let’s back up a little bit. Did you touch the woman after you pushed her back into the car?

A: I touched her breasts.

Q: And what did she say?

A: She said, “No, no, no.”

Q: And when you took out the knife, did the woman say anything to you?

A: She started crying. She said, “Please don’t hurt me.”

Q: And then what happened?

A: Then I stabbed her. Once. Twice. Three times.

Q: Did you get any of her blood on your coat?

A: Yes. After I went home, I threw the coat away. Then I went to the mission and got another coat.

Q: Which mission was that, Billy?

A: I don’t know the name. It’s on Twenty-eighth Street.

Q: And what did you do with the knife?

A: I washed it off.

Q: And did you keep it?

A: Yes.

Q: Where?

A: Huh?

Q: Where did you keep the knife?

A: I kept it in my home.

Q: And where is your home, Billy?

A: By the river.

Q: Is that the East River just below Twenty-third Street?

A: I think so.

Q: And is your home a packing crate?

A: It’s a box. Yes. I live in a box. I’m homeless.

Q: And is everything you’ve told me here true and honest to the best of your recollection?

A: Yes.

Q: And did you give this statement of your own free will?

A: Yes.

Q: Thank you, Billy. It’s all over now.

W
HEN THE FIGHT STARTED,
Marty Blake stepped from the blazing interior of his yellow cab onto the blazing pavement of West Forty-seventh Street to get a better view. He felt no impatience, no anxiety, despite the painfully obvious fact that when the wheels of a cab don’t turn, the driver doesn’t make any money. Despite knowing that by the time he paid off the 5
AM
-5
PM
lease and filled the tank, he’d be lucky to have enough for dinner and a beer.

Marty Blake was not a bloodthirsty man. He would’ve liked nothing better than to leave without a backward glance for the two lunatics about to do the urban shuffle. Unfortunately, the combatants’ cars were between his cab and the corner. The only way around was the sidewalk and even if he had the courage to face the pedestrians gathering to watch the fight (which he didn’t), his route to the curb was blocked by an illegally parked van with enough tickets stuffed beneath its wiper blades to fill the street’s gaping potholes.

“Please, Mister Cabbie, I’m not feeling well. I can’t stop here. I’m a
passenger.”

The woman’s face, caught in the intense glare of the midday sun, seemed almost featureless. The sweat-moistened powder on her forehead gleamed with pinpoints of light, as it did along the bony length of her nose. Blake could see a tiny sun in each lens of her cats-eye glasses.

“There not a lot I can do about it, ma’am.” Blake managed a shrug. “It’s in God’s hands, now.”

He was hoping the pious reference would shut her up. Fat chance.

“I can’t take the heat. It’s too much for me. You should have chosen a different route.”

Blake had picked up the old lady and her bundle of packages on Sixth Avenue near Macy’s in Herald Square. She was headed for West End Avenue and he’d dutifully plowed uptown, fighting the traffic while he looked for a way out of the Midtown mess. Forty-seventh Street had been clear to Seventh Avenue, which was as far as he could see. Now, he was a hundred yards short of Tenth Avenue and immobilized for the duration.

“You’re right,” Blake admitted. The woman’s face was contorted by running mascara, as if she’d been weeping tears of black blood. “I should have taken a different street, but I didn’t. Now we’re screwed.”

He managed a quick smile before turning back to watch the fight. The tall fat guy was still leaning over the Ford, screaming at the black man trapped inside.

“Black-assssss. You are black-assssss. We should send all black-ass back to Africa.”

The man in the car seemed more confused than afraid. Blake had had any number of conversations with the Russian cabbies who hustled the hotels. They used the term “black ass” the way others used the word “nigger.”

“Mister Driver, please.”

Blake turned back to the woman. On average, he carried sixty passengers a day. He liked to think of them as packages.

“What do you want me to do, ma’am? There’s nowhere to go.”

“Why did you take this street? I demand an answer.”

“Just lucky, I guess.”

“Ha, with your big mouth. I’m an old lady.”

“I sympathize, but it’s not my fault.”

“And I’m dying from the heat. It’s a hundred degrees in this taxi.”

“A hundred and ten, actually. I’ve got a thermometer in the front. It was a hundred and ten when I got out.”

The black man trapped in his car was making noises like he wanted to mix it up. His problem, as Blake saw it, was how to get out without being sucker-punched.

“Please. Don’t ignore me. I’m a passenger and I have rights.”

“Lady, all you have to do is walk up to Tenth Avenue and find another cab. There’s no trick to it.”

“If I have to walk, I’m not paying.”

Blake reached into the cab and shut off the meter. There was no way, short of physical violence, that he was going to collect this fare. At another time, a few months ago, he would have argued, demanded, threatened to call a cop. Not today. After 364 days of exile, he was going home. Home being, in this case, Manhattan Executive Security, Inc.

“That’s okay, ma’am. You must need the money more than I do.” He opened the door and stepped back. “Don’t forget your packages.”

The woman (seemingly refreshed by the prospect of saving a big three dollars and fifty cents) slid from the back of the cab, cradled her bundles against her bony chest, and skittered off down the block. Blake watched her for a moment, thinking that she reminded him of his Granny Emma who’d told stories of the Great Depression the way his other grandmother, Granny Agatha, recited Mother Goose. Granny Emma, his mother’s mother, had spent the final decades of her life meditating on the nickels and dimes she’d saved at the supermarket. Or the sweater she’d plucked from the clearance rack of a hospital thrift store. Her considerable estate was now supporting her daughter.

Blake turned back to the fight just in time to see the initial escalation from words to deeds. The fat Russian suddenly reached into the interior of the black man’s car only to find his knuckles between the black man’s teeth. The Russian leaped back, screaming, while his opponent took the opportunity to escape through the far door.

No weapons, Blake thought. Please no weapons here. If they really fuck each other up, the cops’ll have me giving statements for the next six hours.

His plea went unheard. The black man came around the back of his car waving a three-foot length of iron pipe. Which, Blake had to admit, wasn’t such a bad idea. Not only was he six inches shorter and a good hundred pounds lighter than his adversary, he couldn’t turn tail and run. His car was trapped behind the Russian’s.

As the two men began to circle, Blake let his eyes drift over the crowd. Mostly male, their eyes glittered with anticipation, like men at a stag party watching the whore move from lap to lap. Jaws rigid, skin glistening, fists clenched—their clothing was already soaked with sweat. Later, the executives would shower and change; the alkies and the crack junkies would itch and stink.

“Yeah, get him, get him. Smash his fuckin’ face in. Kick his fuckin’ ass.

What it is, Blake decided, is street-ecumenical. The homeless meet the CEOs. Democracy in action. The vision of Thomas Jefferson sucked out of the Bill of Rights and dumped onto the pavement.

Blake turned back to the combatants. The black man clearly didn’t want to fight. He was waving the pipe around, but making no effort to close the six feet of ground between himself and the Russian. The Russian, for his part, continued to circle, continued to chant the same curse in the same intense monotone.

“Black-assssss; black-assssss; black-assssss.”

In the end, the black man’s indecision decided the fight. When he finally struck, the blow, though it contacted the Russian’s scalp with an audible thump, was neither killing nor disabling. The Russian, laughing, now, ignored the blood streaming over his left eye; he grabbed the smaller man, forced him to the ground, slammed his face into the pavement.

“Black-assssss.”

Slowly, as if trying to assert his dignity, the Russian heaved his bulk erect. He began to kick his stunned opponent, taking his time about it, grunting with the effort. Again and again and again.

Blake waited until he was sure the Russian wasn’t going to stop. Until the small figure on the pavement lay motionless. Then he stepped forward.

“That’s it,” he said, trying to put enough command into his voice to get the Russian’s attention, a necessary first step. “You won. The fight’s over. C’mon, enough.”

The Russian turned his head slightly. “I kill you, too,” he grunted. His eyes, Blake noted, were still in lunatic heaven.

“You don’t wanna talk about killing, pal.” Blake held up his hands, palms out. “They do horrible things to you for killing people. Twenty-five years to life kind of things. In Attica.”

He’d intended his counsel to be calming, but the Russian wasn’t ready to listen. He did, however, move away from his fallen adversary, which Blake saw as a victory of sorts. Or it would have been a victory if the Russian hadn’t been coming straight for
him.

Blake wasn’t afraid. Four years on the varsity wrestling squad at City College (good enough to get invited to the Olympic trials; not good enough to win a single bout) had taught him to keep his head. Ten years of post-college workouts in a sweaty YMHA in Forest Hills had only added to his confidence. At present, he was benching three-twenty-five, a hundred and forty pounds more than his body weight. He may not have been a candidate for power lifter of the year, but he was certain he could tie a lumbering, blubbery Russian into enough knots to fill a Boy Scout manual.