The Good Lawyer: A Novel (12 page)

“Just do what you can,” Vinny said with a sudden complacency. “I’ll be happy just to get one inside story on this. I don’t care when it comes.”

“You may just get your story,” I answered bitterly. “A team from my complex is on arraignments tomorrow. It shouldn’t be hard for me to do a switch.”

“I knew you’d come through.”

This was a handshake deal, one I could easily get out of, and he knew it. I wondered if he’d practiced that look of betrayal he leveled me with last time, just to sucker me in.

“But I need you to help me out on something else,” I said.

I described the blonde I’d run into at the courthouse, and how she’d shown up later at my office. When I told him she was found dead, and that the police were unable to identify her and suspected a homicide, I asked him to speak to his friends on the force to see what they could find out. He swore he’d clear all information with me before anything went to press. I thanked him. My treat at Mario’s next time.

Switching into arraignments for the next day was easier than I thought. Of the three lawyers scheduled, I picked the one who looked the weariest as he left the complex meeting. As I expected, my tired associate was thrilled to give me the following full day in court in exchange for one of my day arraignments two months hence.

I passed Tom Miller in the hallway and thanked him for securing a good mix of dates for me. In return he wanted to go another round of nerf ball.

I still had to knock off an investigation request on Sandra Chavez, and with the dead blonde on my mind and thoughts of the circus that awaited me at the Spiderman arraignment the next morning, I could barely keep my eyes open. The look on my face was all the answer Miller needed. He waved back and said, “tomorrow then,” and disappeared down the hall.

Tomorrow. Sure. I sat down in my office and cupped my eyes in my hands. And in the blackness I imagined a hurricane, stirring, picking up speed slowly, dangerously, with the Bronx Criminal Courts and Executive Towers directly in its path.

I called Eleanor at the Manhattan D.A.’s office and reminded her again to lock her apartment door no matter who she was expecting. My tone was patronizing—a result of the mood I was in. I realized this afterward, when she responded that she would, with no note of appreciation for my concern. Then again, it wasn’t concern I was speaking from. Eleanor was now something else I had to worry about. I was sure I sounded cold. And she responded in kind.

She mentioned that Carolyn would be spending a weekend with her sometime next month. Great. I started to cut the conversation short.

“By the way,” she said. “I put in for a transfer—to Rackets.”

I felt my stomach drop. “Rackets?”

“Yeah Rackets, organized crime. You know.”

“Why would you want to transfer to Rackets?”

“Don’t worry. The mob doesn’t kill assistant D.A.s. It’s bad for business.” She paused, then said sternly, “Lord knows I don’t tell
you
what cases to handle.”

“I’ll make a deal with you. After this week I promise I will not take another remotely sex related case, if you stay out of Rackets.”

“What is your problem with Rackets? It’s not like I’m going to take on Carmine Capezzi himself.” She thought again. “Oh, I get it. This is some Italian thing that I could never understand. Right?”

The thought of Eleanor discovering that my own mother’s brother and Carmine Capezzi’s most senior underboss were one and the same, terrified me. I was certain my uncle’s identity, which I had been concealing from her since law school, would end it for us, no matter how much she loved me.

I backed off a little. “It’s just that it’s a dirty business, El. One I hate to see you involved in. Just think it over, ok?”

“Fine. But if I do decide on Rackets, I don’t want any more guff from you, just support like you’re supposed to give.”

“All right,” I said weakly.

It could have been worse, I thought. But not much worse. She could have been an A.D.A in Brooklyn—Rocco’s stomping ground. What a cruel twist of fate that would have been. Rocco would have had to come first, if merely out of simple family loyalty, however perverse or misguided. It
must
be in the blood. Maybe Eleanor was right. Maybe it was an “Italian thing”. Or maybe it was just a sign we never belonged together from the start.

Chapter 23

B
efore I left the office I slid an order marked RUSH under the door of Legal Aid Investigations on the third floor. On it was a request to interview Sandra Chavez, little Jose’s mother. I expected her to talk it up and good and wanted a full recitation of her version of the facts before and after Guevara’s arrest. She was the one who’d called the police and brought the Rodriguez boys into the case. I wanted her probed for a motive to lie, or better yet, a reason to press charges she knew to be false. Money, I figured, was at the top of the list.

I knew from Shula Hirsch at P.S. 92 that Sandra Chavez had wasted no time hiring a lawyer. This was to be expected from a parent whose child had been victimized by a city worker. But the ink had barely dried on the criminal complaint. So how distraught could she have been?

I also needed to know whether she’d spent any time alone with the Rodriguez boys. Had one of her sleazy boyfriends been present? Had one or both of them coerced the boys into lying?

I specified that my request go to Gene Raines. Sheila used him exclusively on all her cases, and although I would on occasion use him also as the rotation of assignments allowed, on this case I wanted and needed the best, especially if I was going to succeed in putting Sandra Chavez on trial along with Peter Guevara. Aside from the charges against Guevara, her pedigree of parental neglect and drug abuse would provide a stark contrast to Guevara’s hard working background and college education.

Gene had a keen sense of when to talk, and when to listen, when to be aggressive, when to be charming, and even when to be rude to elicit an answer from a suspecting or unsuspecting witness. Unlike most of the investigators at Legal Aid, he’d never been a street cop and had no detective experience. When he retired as a state trooper his wife, who worked in personnel at Legal Aid’s Park Row headquarters, got him the job. At fifty-five, he had been with Legal Aid for over ten years.

I expected Gene to come through for me. On the big cases he always did. He also always suggested the defendant take a lie detector test. “It helps,” he’d say, “to know whether your client is lying to you.”

Gene knew as well as anyone that almost all our clients were guilty, and almost all our clients denied guilt, especially when it came to sex crimes. Gene seemed to think you represent an innocent man one way, a guilty man another. I felt differently.

I ordered the lie detector test anyway.

Arthur Cantwell, president of the National Association of Polygraph Examiners, was considered one of the best in the business. He had an office in Midtown and I had used him five times in the previous six months. Since each examination cost the Legal Aid Society four hundred and fifty dollars, I needed Sheila’s approval first. She gave it easily. I also needed Guevara’s.

After my assurance that it was strictly a confidential procedure, Guevara voiced what I viewed to be a natural reluctance, then complied. He insisted though, regardless of the outcome, which he was optimistic about, that he was most definitely an innocent man. It was important, he said, that I believed this.

Chapter 24

M
om cooked, served dinner then quickly cleared the table, all the while humming Sinatra. An evening ahead of poker with the girls had lightened her mood. I followed her as she hurried out the door. I figured a stroll around the little league fields behind our backyard would relax me. Lord knows, I needed relaxing.

“Leave the dishes,” she said. “I’ll do them later.”

“I don’t mind Mom, really.”

She asked if everything was going ok with Eleanor. When I assured her that we were doing fine, she wanted to know why I looked so worried during dinner. I blamed work, and told her she mistook worried for tired.

She stopped at the top of the porch steps. Not tall myself, I was still a head taller than her and like a little boy in tow, I paused and stood alongside her. She suddenly seemed to want to talk some more. I suppose I did too.

“I heard you ran into Uncle Rocco the other day.” She looked at me for confirmation.

“Outside Supreme Court.”

“He said you looked like such a handsome lawyer. Said you had a big case on.”

“It was just a gun charge, but you know Uncle Rocco. Sometimes he sees just what he wants to see.”

She turned to face me and her soft manner became instantaneously stern. “He sees
you,
Nickie. Better than you think.” She poked my forehead with her index finger. “And he’s a better man than you think he is.”

Right. The gangster with the heart of gold.
I looked down at my watch.

She sighed and led me back into the house. “There is much you don’t know, and probably don’t need to know,” she said. “But you being a grown man and a lawyer now too, I suppose it’s better you hear it from me.”

We sat down on the living room sofa and faced each other.

Mom gave me a melancholy smile, then began…

Holbrook Juvenile Detention Facility was located just outside Cooperstown, New York. In December of 1941, Rocco was sentenced to remain there until his eighteen birthday for the murder of his brother-in-law, Vito.

Three days later he was fighting for his life against the worst Holbrook had to offer, and his three attackers quickly discovered how terribly they had misjudged their mark. He had broken bones in their arms, hands, and faces, and their leader, Paulie Rago, would never see clearly out of his left eye again. He vowed revenge.

For over two years the Rago gang had terrorized Holbrook—robbing inmates at will, and raping the younger, weaker boys. One stormy night Rocco jumped Paulie, dragged behind one of the outhouses, and killed him. Paulie’s body was never found.

Thereafter, Rocco would rule a safer and more disciplined inmate population, to whom the mystery of Paulie Rago’s disappearance, was no mystery at all.

Sexual attacks ceased. Baseball and basketball teams were formed. Boxing became the favorite form of recreation for the worst of Holbrook’s juvenile offenders. Rocco became heavyweight champ. Rocco also attended school, doing surprisingly well in most subjects.

He became a model detainee, and accumulated a following—forty-two boys, all Italian, all from Brooklyn, all under his direct leadership. He had created his own gang. He called it—
The Pigtown Boys
.

One month after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the end of World War II, Rocco, at age eighteen, was released from Holbrook. He hopped on a bus down to Westchester, through the Bronx, and into the city. And as Rocco’s Brooklyn-born inner circle was released from Holbrook, the
Pigtown Boys
of Flatbush and East New York grew in number, with Rocco a their leader.

Sallie Gurrieri was small for his age, even for the son of native-born Sicilians. At sixteen he’d been arrested for a string of burglaries committed with an older boy in Marine Park, Brooklyn. The older boy got away. Sallie didn’t.

Upset that Sallie’s accomplice escaped, and with the goods too, the police proceeded to beat the ever-living daylights out of him. He refused to give up his partner. Sallie was still limping when the judge sentenced him to eighteen months at Holbrook. Sallie was tailor made for Rocco’s crew.

What began as a means to keep the as yet uncivilized Pigtown Boys of Holbrook in line, soon became a profitable criminal enterprise, and it was not long before Rocco’s growing notoriety and success could no longer remain a neighborhood matter.

When Rocco met Brooklyn’s
capo
, Carmine Capezzi, it was a match of the young worthy upstart and the older self-made
Mafioso
. Both were from the streets, and each shared a similar perspective on life, their world of crime, and what it took to sustain it. The meeting took place in the basement office of the Portelli Ravioli Shop on Thirteenth Avenue and Seventieth Street, in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

Rocco knew Capezzi’s reputation, and how things worked. He could be fed, warmed with attention and kissed on both cheeks—only to be shot in the temple after dessert without so much as a clearing of Capezzi’s throat. Sallie, armed and ready, waited in a car out front.

Carmine Capezzi looked younger than Rocco imagined, and with the slow upturned hand of a pontiff, he gestured for Rocco to sit. By hour’s end they were lining small coffee cups with lime peels, sipping piping hot demitasse, and sampling pastries Rocco brought. They’d quickly struck a deal.

Rocco would work all of Brooklyn, not just Flatbush, while Capezzi provided the police protection. Half the precinct captains were on his payroll and there wasn’t a Brooklyn judge he couldn’t get to. For this he would get twenty-five percent of the gross. It would be up to Rocco to run his operation at a profit.

Other than Rocco, only Sallie, Rocco’s right arm and most trusted soldier, got a guaranteed share of the take.