The Good Lawyer: A Novel (18 page)

Kerres was waiting when I arrived.

Tall and slim, Kerres didn’t look a day under forty-five, yet he’d been only ten years older than the eleven-year old Guevara when he rescued him from the gang rape in the orphanage lavatory. That made Kerres an ill preserved thirty-five.

According to Guevara, Kerres was a friend “to this day”. Some friend.

When Kerres first called me I had assumed he would offer his support and assistance, and would stand behind Guevara in his time of need. Instead, the priest’s manner seemed more the product of banal curiosity. Charges of sexual abuse on children can sour even the closest relative. But a priest? Kerres acted more obliged than willing to meet me.

As I approached I could see the discontent growing on his face. Maybe he just didn’t like lawyers. If so, I didn’t plan on changing his opinion.

“So Father, what can I can do for you?” I followed him as he began walking toward the stadium parking lot.

“I’m sorry?” There was a smugness in his voice.

“It was you who initially called me a couple of weeks ago. So why did you call me?”

“I heard about Peter’s arrest and thought you could shed some light on it.”

“What would you like to know?”

We were now well inside the parking lot. He picked up the pace and was straining my capacity for courtesy.

“Father Kerres?”

“I later found out all I needed to”—he corrected himself—“all I wanted to know from Mrs. Hirsch at P.S. 92.”

“When did you speak to her?” I was practically trotting to keep up with him.

“A few days after you and I first spoke on the phone.”

“Well then, I’m confused. Why didn’t you ask me what you wanted to know when we spoke?” I was almost jogging now. We were both visibly sweating. “Are you late for an appointment or something?” I asked between short, hard breaths.

No answer.

“Father. Would you slow down please?”

He stopped cold. I unbuttoned my overcoat in an attempt to cool down, and hunched over, my hands on my thighs, catching my breath.

“What’s with you, Father?” Kerres regarded me with the stone face of a scientist watching a lab experiment gone awry.

“Nick!” a voice shouted out from across the parking lot.

I turned toward the ticket office. Vinny Repolla was running toward us, his red parka billowing like a cape. His shoes scraped the asphalt as he came to stop.

“You and the Father going for an afternoon stroll?” he asked between breaths.

I introduced the two men. Kerres stared blankly at Repolla.

Vinny smiled broadly and shook the priest’s hand. Kerres complied weakly.

Vinny, aware a chill was in the air, directed the conversation my way. “My buddy on the force got a lead on the identity of that blonde. She was wearing a blouse with a tag on it from a clothing store chain called Bailey’s.”

I shrugged. “Never heard of it.” With the sun at our backs, I saw the shadow of the priest’s head turn toward Vinny then disappear as Kerres slipped away without saying a word.

“That’s because you’ve never been to Danbury, Connecticut,” Vinny answered. “It’s a family-owned business.”

“So our blonde’s from Danbury?”

“Maybe. The FBI is now involved. This case has really got my detective friend’s goat. He swears he won’t give up until he finds out who she is.”

Kerres sped by us in an old Saab with a worn muffler.

“That guy looks like death warmed over,” Vinny said. “Last rites must be his specialty.”

“He’s hiding something and I can’t figure the why or what of it.”

“Demons in his past,” Vinny said jokingly as he slapped my back.

We walked toward Gerard Avenue.

“Just so they’re not in his present—or mine.”

“I’m sorry I had to be the one to tell you about Jefferson,” Vinny said.

“I would have been damn angry if you’d known and hadn’t.” Vinny’s black Corvette was parked at the curb. His press ID was on the dashboard.

“You gonna be OK? Sounded over the phone like you went nuts last night.”

“This morning I went to the funeral of a ten-year old girl. Last night my client got murdered in jail. No, I’m not OK.” We climbed into the car.

“Hey, be nice.” Vinny responded. “After that Jefferson arraignment I might be one of very few friends you have left in this city.”

Chapter 38

T
he Carroll Avenue Hunt and Fish Club had little to do with hunting or fishing, aside from the hunting down of those who crossed the Capezzi Crime Family, and the ensuing fishing out of the bloated egg white corpses from the East River.

No trophies the National Rifle Association would recognize and no mounted heads from any taxidermist adorned the walls inside. And civilians were rarely allowed. Exceptions were made of course—like for the Brooklyn boss’ nephew and godson.

As I pressed the bell on the front door a faint ringing could be heard inside the club. I gave my name in response to a “yeah,” the “yeah” coming from Fat Julee, who opened the door and greeted me with a kiss. Once inside he bolted one door, then another behind us.

Outside, the place looked like the remains of a dingy social club, long since closed. But inside, behind two solid oak doors and steel plated walls that faced the street, was the daily meeting place of Rocco Alonzo and
La Cosa Nostra
that ran the Brooklyn rackets.

Upon entering, a mahogany bar, always fully stocked, jackknifed into a corner that housed a cappuccino machine and two espresso coffee makers. Italian oil paintings hung on dark walls against which older members played cards, drank past their limit, sipped espresso out of lime-rimmed cups, and chatted like family who had never left the old country.

Younger soldiers came and went, but rarely stayed for more than a drink or cup of coffee, and only if asked; otherwise, they were there to receive orders, and execute them.

The dining and meeting room seated approximately eighty men and contained four large mahogany tables, but no tablecloths to prevent scuffs and scratches. No Italian-American housewife would tolerate the abuse these tables took. But then they didn’t have to. No women were permitted inside.

The rear of the club contained the kitchen, and a huge dining room table. To the side of the table was a doorway leading to the basement. I lost count, long ago, how often I had eaten at this table, always with my uncle, almost always with Sallie present. I wondered if they still had the wooden booster seat Sallie had built for me when I was four years old and refused to sit in a high chair. He threw two coats of shellac on it so I wouldn’t “get splinters in my ass”.

When I entered the bar area three retired soldiers were sitting at a corner table playing Brisk and sipping espresso. They nodded as I passed. The strong smell of Italian coffee filled the air and reminded me that the last time I’d been anywhere near the club was the summer before law school. I weakly waved back as I brushed past a large man who opened the dining room door for me.

Sitting behind a large table in a polo shirt pulled tight over his ballooning middle, was Sallie. Now fifty-three years old, he looked twice as heavy as I remembered.

“Nickie! Look at you! Briefcase and all! A real live lawyer! Come give your Uncle Sallie a kiss!” I hugged him around his huge chest until he grabbed my face in two pudgy hands and kissed me twice on the cheek.

He pulled a chair close to him for me to sit in, and immediately began reminiscing about Flatbush: how he and Uncle Rocco used to pick me up from school in Rocco’s Caddy and buy me an ice cream soda at Nick and Joe’s on Midwood Street and New York Avenue. When they took me home Mom would scold them for spoiling my appetite. Sometimes they’d even play stickball in the street with my friends and me. It was hard back then not to love these guys.

Regardless, when I graduated law school, I swore I would never enter the Carroll Avenue Club again. But I realized as I sat across from Sallie and the scent of Old Spice filled the air, that I was, in some respect, home again. And like every child who returns home after a long absence, I did so, because I needed something.

When I heard the grumbling of hoarse voices and deferential salutations, I knew my uncle was near.

With a smile as warm and charismatic as Sinatra’s he burst through the door. Approaching fifty-five, my uncle had taken such good care of himself he looked more like an older brother, than a man old enough to be my father.

He reached over and hugged me so hard I nearly lost my breath. After kissing me on both cheeks, he pulled up a chair and asked how I’d been. I responded with “working hard,” but saw in his eyes that he knew there was more.

A tall clean-shaven young Italian in an out-of-season trench coat stood inside the closed dining room door, watching us. He had followed Rocco in. This was one of the overcoats who was with him at Bronx Supreme Court. Bay Ridge’s answer to the Secret Service, he stared at me with guarded eyes and a blank expression. Rocco asked him to wait outside by the bar.

Though he kept the conversation casual, I could tell Rocco was keeping mental notes. Later he’d probe deeper if he had to, not letting up until he learned the true reason for my visit.

Sallie just leaned back in his chair and listened. My uncle’s second in charge, Sallie was counselor on all matters concerning the Brooklyn
Cosa Nostra
. Rocco never gave direct orders to anyone. Every command went through Sallie, who’s loyalty, dating back almost forty years, was unquestionable. They were as close as brothers, and inseparable.

Sallie’s looks though, could be deceiving. This warm, round, bear of a man was capable, in the course of Family business, of the most horrific executions. How he was able to separate that part of himself from that which emanated genuine affection, I could never understand.

Rocco’s temperament, normally even keeled, included a well-contained anger that manifested itself in orders of brutality expeditiously enforced. He had an aura of strength, the likes of which I had never seen before or since.

Such an awareness should have made me shudder. But it didn’t. I’d never felt safer or more protected.

Our cook for the night was Fat Julee. The aroma of sauce, which had been simmering for hours on the cast iron stove in the kitchen, was arousing my appetite. Sallie had yelled to Julee to add some extra sugar. I affectionately squeezed Sallie’s arm in thanks for remembering how I liked my sauce.

Minutes later a pan of oven-hot baked ziti was placed on a serving board in the middle of the table. And as soon as it touched down all conversation ceased, and we began eating heartily, like family.

When a huge bowl of sausages and meatballs arrived, with a serving tureen of extra sauce and a pitcher of red wine, my uncle demonstrated the innate perceptiveness that both kept him alive, and thrust him to power.

“So what can I do for you, Nick?” he asked. “And don’t feel sorry that this is why you came. I don’t expect you to come here just to see Sallie and me. You’re a grown man now.” He reached across the table and grabbed my hand like it was a child’s, and I felt ashamed at how well he saw through me. “I’m just so goddamn happy to see you. But I know something is wrong.” His face soured. “So tell me. You never asked me for anything. What’d’ya need?”

I looked in my uncle’s loving eyes, and then at Sallie. In a moment’s flash I was thrust back in time, propelled by the divergence of emotions passing through me: strength, love, discipline, anger, frustration and even hate, stirring inside Rocco, like the whirlpools that churned inscrutably beneath
The Hell Gate Bridge…

I was just a baby then, merely a few weeks old, when the story of Rocco and Dorothy began. I remember none of it, of course, and have pieced it together from accounts told to me by Mom mostly, with a little help from Sallie, and even Rocco.

I had always known that Rocco, at the age of fifteen, had killed my Aunt Julia’s husband, Vito. It was an incident personal to the family, unlike the rest of Rocco’s nefarious life. But Holbrook, Paulie Rago, and the methods by which Rocco rose to power. These were mysteries to me, until Mom took me aside, and told me all she knew.

When Mom arrived home later the same evening she had started her story of Rocco, I had a pot of decaf ready on the stove. The girls usually quit playing poker about eleven. This time though, they ran a little late, which only served to heighten my anxiety and enthusiasm to hear more. Mom had barely gotten her coat off when I insisted she pick up where she left off, and tell me about Rocco and Dorothy.

By the time she sat down I had a cup of coffee waiting along with a slice of her favorite pound cake. She needed no further prompting.

With auburn hair, round green eyes and creamy white skin, Dorothy Neal, at the age of twenty-two, stood in sharp contrast to Rocco’s dark hard look. If not for her healthy breasts, her slight frame would have been completely lost in his arms as they fawned over me at my baptism party held at Brooklyn’s Parkside Lanes.

Mom watched as they considered each other with tenderness and respect, and realized then how her marriage to Tony Pacifico was beyond saving.

In the spring of 1955, after six months of dating, Rocco presented Dorothy with the biggest diamond ring anyone in the neighborhood had ever seen. They planned a September wedding.