Night Secrets (5 page)

“Yo, man, got a light?”

Frank turned and saw a wiry little man in a sleek blue suit as he leaned forward to talk to the large black man on the bench just in front of him.

“Yeah, I got one,” the man said. He pulled out the book of matches and handed it to the other man. “You can keep it”

“Thanks,” the man said. He lit the bowl of a brown Kaywoodie pipe, then waved out the match, his eyes still on the other man, studying him carefully. “So how you doing?” he asked lightly.

“Okay, I guess,” the man replied wearily. He was wearing gray flannel work clothes and smelled faintly of motor oil.

“My name's Upjohn, brother, glad to meet you.”

The man shrugged halfheartedly.

Upjohn smiled. “You need a lawyer, by any chance?”

The other man kept his eyes fixed on a young boy who stood near the bench while two attorneys huddled before the judge. “I don't know yet,” he said.

“'Cause I know a good one, if you do.”

“Like I said, I don't know yet.”

“Well, let me ask you this, brother, what we talking about here?”

The man glanced back at him. “You mean, who's in trouble?”

“That's right.”

“My son done something to a girl. Cops say she's underage.”

The other man's eyes flitted toward the bench. “He don't look that old, himself. What'd he do, knock her up?” He grinned. “My guess is, he didn't have much choice. You know how it is. Things happen, then somebody gets knocked up. You think that's what it is?”

“I don't know.”

“'Cause if that's the situation,” Upjohn told him, “I got another guy could handle that for you.” He smiled. “It's all a matter of money.”

The man looked oddly encouraged. “It is?”

“Always,” Upjohn told him. He plucked the pipe from his mouth and pointed the black, well-chewed stem at the other man. “You don't mind my saying so, brother, I think you could use a little advice.”

The man nodded. He had an open, trusting face, an easy mark.

Upjohn smiled sweetly. “Well, lemme come up and talk to you.” He stood up immediately, brushed quickly past Frank's knees and joined the other man, huddling with him closely, his words now lost in a flurry of conspiratorial whispers.

Frank turned away from them and watched the bench. The lawyers were still standing shoulder-to-shoulder, talking earnestly with the judge, a slender red-haired woman who covered the microphone carefully with her thin white hand.

To the left of the bench, a large glass enclosure separated the men behind it from the rest of the people in the room. It was lighted a shade more brightly, and the mood behind the glass was a bit more defiant. In such places, the edge turned sharp, and the air seemed to grow hard and desolate around those particular people who had obviously offended the peace and good order of the City of New York more deeply than the minor-league felons who filled the benches behind the rail.

In Atlanta, Frank had spent long hours looking at the same sort of men who now slumped behind the glass. He had watched their lost, hunted eyes comb the walls around them, and of all the people he'd ever known, they'd seemed the least connected by the common ties of life. Even now, as he moved ceaselessly along the midnight streets, he would sometimes see a man smoking sullenly in a doorway or moving with a quick, nervous gait down a deserted back street, and he would know with certainty that within only a few hours—at most, a few days—die man would end up behind the glass, and that nothing could be done about it, absolutely nothing, either for him or for those he was doomed to harm. For everyone involved, it was already too late.

He thought of the bead again, then the woman who'd sent it to him, and he felt his body tense slightly as he began to search the room, trying to find her. He saw small knots of bleary-eyed lawyers, court stenographers and bailiffs, but the woman obviously had not been brought in for arraignment yet. He leaned back, lit a cigarette and waited, his eyes following the stream of people that shifted about the room in a way that seemed as random and directionless as the lives that had brought them there.

He was on his third cigarette when he saw her come through the large wooden door at the front of the room. Instantly, he felt a tremor move through him, a gentle quaking that he acted quickly to control. He sat up immediately and blinked the long night's tiredness from his faintly burning eyes.

She was escorted by a policewoman in full uniform, and as she moved to her place before the bench, the men behind the glass snapped to attention, laughed and muttered to each other, their eyes fastened hungrily on the sway of her body as it moved into position before the bench.

She stood very still and utterly silent while the judge took a moment to review her file. From where he sat in the smoky gallery, Frank could see only the blue prison dress they'd given her and the long black hair that fell across her shoulders. He already knew what had happened to her during the time that had passed since her arrest. They'd taken her to Manhattan North, stripped her of the black, blood-soaked dress, searched her body with a cool, methodical indignity, then tossed her the plain blue dress:
Put this on, sister, before you catch a cold
. The black dress was now the property of the district attorney's office, and unless she copped a plea, it would be pawed over a thousand times before the prosecuting attorney finally waved it dramatically before the jury's eyes, his voice rising in phony outrage:
Look at this, a woman's blood
.

The judge closed the file slowly, then stared directly at the woman's eyes. “Do you still refuse to give your name, miss?” she asked.

The woman did not move.

“You realize that your attitude will have no effect on our competence to proceed,” the judge told her.

The woman said nothing.

The judge cast a final quick glance in her direction, then went on with the arraignment. “You will be listed as a Jane Doe Defendant until your true identity can be determined. You are charged with a violation of the New York Penal Law PL 125.40. That is, murder in the first degree. How do you plead?”

The woman did not answer, but Frank could see her shoulders lift slightly, her head rise as she looked squarely at the judge.

“You choose not to plead?” the judge asked.

The woman did not reply.

“Very well, then,” the judge went on matter-of-factly. “Let a plea of ‘Not Guilty' be entered on behalf of defendant number 778224, and I assign Mr. Andrew Deegan as her attorney of record.” The judge looked out over the room. “Mr. Deegan, are you here?”

“I'm here, Your Honor.”

Frank turned and saw a short, somewhat stocky black man surge forward to the bench and take a stack of papers from the judge.

“For the record,” the judge said, writing it down as she spoke, “let's show that Defendant Number 778224 will have assigned to her as her court-appointed attorney of record Mr. Andrew Deegan of the firm of Canton, Harrison and Meyer, 260 Broadway, New York City.”

Deegan began shuffling through the papers. “Should we discuss bail, Your Honor?” he asked absently.

The judge looked at him somewhat scoldingly. “I can't discuss bail until I have an identity, Mr. Deegan,” she said. “How can I assess the likelihood of appearance if I have no idea who she is or her resources or anything else for that matter?”

Deegan nodded. “Yes, Your Honor.”

“The amount of bail remains pending,” the judge said loudly. She looked up, stared directly at the woman. “Do you have anything to say, miss?”

The woman didn't answer.

The judge turned to Deegan. “I suggest you have a long talk with your client, counselor. She has been charged with a very serious crime.”

“May I have a word with her before she's remanded, Your Honor?” Deegan asked immediately.

“Yes, all right,” the judge told him. “Use the conference room behind chambers.”

“Thank you, Your Honor.”

The judge banged the gavel. “Next case.”

For a moment, the woman remained absolutely still. Then Deegan took her arm and tugged it slightly. She followed him immediately, moving silently to the right until the two of them finally disappeared behind two double doors at the rear comer of the room.

Frank got to his feet and walked out into the outer corridor. For a long time, he stood beneath its long fluorescent lights, watching silently as the dawn parade passed by. Across the way, he could see Upjohn making his final pitch to the man who'd sat on the bench in front of him. His fangs were sunk deep now, his nose already twitching with the scent of such a large, slow-moving prey.

They'd both moved down the corridor, Upjohn's arm draped protectively over the other man's shoulder, by the time Deegan came rushing through the doors of the courtroom. He wore a shiny blue suit, papers sprouting in all directions from its various pockets, and carried a battered briefcase, which he swung in a wide arc as he hustled forward.

He was already in the crowded elevator before Frank caught up to him.

“My name's Clemons,” he said, flashing his official PI identification.

Deegan barely glanced at it as he punched the first-floor button. “Something on your mind?”

“I was wondering what you'd found out about the woman,” Frank asked.

Deegan's eyes shifted over to him immediately, twitching left and right. “Woman?”

“The one they just assigned to you.”

“I see,” Deegan said, his voice very level. He looked either vaguely shaken or simply ill at ease. Frank couldn't tell which. “That woman,” he said, then stopped, as if they were the first two words of a sentence he'd decided not to finish. He started to speak again, but the elevator doors opened and he walked out briskly, waving Frank alongside him as he headed toward the revolving doors at the other end of the building.

“I know you had a talk with her,” Frank told him, “and I was just wondering …”

Deegan slammed through the doors, out into the crisp morning air. He drew in a long, deep breath. “That fucking smoke,” he said. He glanced eastward, his eyes settling slowly on the slick pinkish flow of the East River. “That's better. Calms you down.” He drew in a second deep breath, his large belly swelling out from under his jacket.

“I think the woman may have tried to hire me,” Frank told him.

Deegan's eyes turned toward him. “To do what?”

“She didn't really say,” Frank told him. “She just sent me a note. Well, not a note exactly, but … a bead.”

“A what?”

“A bead,” Frank repeated. “A red bead.”

“How did you get this bead?”

“It came in an envelope,” Frank said. “Nothing else. No letter, nothing.”

Deegan shook his head and glanced back toward the river. A barge was moving slowly out to sea, trailed by a tumbling foamy wake. “How do you know this bead was from her?”

“I don't know for sure.”

“Why did she pop into your mind, then?”

“Because I think the bead came from that fortune-telling operation they were running on Tenth Avenue.”

“Tenth Avenue? That's where the murder occurred.”

“I know.”

Deegan looked surprised. “Really? How do you know that?”

“I came by the place just after it happened,” Frank said. “I talked to one of the cops from Manhattan North.”

“Which one?”

“Leo Tannenbaum.”

Deegan eyed him doubtfully. “And you saw this woman and these red beads?”

“That's right.”

“And you'd never heard of this woman before you met her at the fortune-teller's?”

“No.”

A thin smile crossed Deegan's lips. “You wouldn't bullshit me, would you, Mister … Mister …”

“Clemons. Frank clemons.”

Deegan's eyes returned to the barge, drifting slowly southward along with it. “You wouldn't happen to have a card, would you? Something with your address and phone number?”

Frank gave him a card.

Deegan looked at it closely, as if trying to see through the scam he was sure it represented. “And you're licensed in New York State?”

“Yes.”

Deegan pocketed the card, then looked at him very sternly. “What do you want in all this?”

Frank shrugged. “I don't know,” Frank said weakly. “Just to help her, I guess.”

Deegan laughed. “Come on, now, Mr. Clemons,” he said, “why don't we be honest with each other. What's your angle on this? There's got to be a pot at the end of the rainbow, right?”

Frank shook his head.

“Money?” Deegan suggested.

“No.”

Deegan smiled knowingly. “Maybe some kind of romantic thing? Maybe in a little payment in kind?”

Frank felt his eyes grow cold. “Nothing.”

Deegan still wasn't buying it. “Well, I'll tell you what. You stay in touch, and if I think you could help me out on this thing, I'll let you know.”

He started to turn, but Frank touched his arm.

“Did you find out anything when you talked to her?” he asked.

“No.”

“Not even her name?”

“Oh yeah, I got a name,” Deegan said.

“You did?” Frank asked, realizing suddenly that he was sorry she had given in, had finally revealed some part of herself that she had fought so desperately to hide.

“Yeah, I wrote it down,” Deegan said. “It's some weird name.” He patted himself down, searched one pocket then another, until he came up with a small slip of paper. “Puri Dai.” He laughed. “What is that, some Gypsy name?”

“I don't know,” Frank said as he wrote it down. When he'd finished, he glanced back up at Deegan. “I'd like to talk to her,” he said.

Deegan's face turned grim. “I don't think that'll do you much good. She's not much of a talker.”