The Good Lawyer: A Novel (36 page)

“Soon after…all the prints found in the apartment somehow got lost along with all the other evidence.” His voice cracked. “I should have killed him when I had the chance.”

I remained silent for a few seconds, regretting what I would say next, but knowing I must say it anyway.

“Ernest Leskey…is Dr. Terkel, dying of AIDS and living in a house on the water. Yesterday he admitted to me that he killed her.” And with cautious restraint I whispered: “And he told me to tell you he did it, too.”

Rocco bit his fist until he broke the skin. “You sure about this Nickie?”

“Confirm it for yourself, Uncle Roc. Are there are no records at all on him?”

“There’s nothing, except the gun.”

“The gun?” I asked, not at all understanding.

“I kept the gun, my gun, the one he threw at me once, before he jumped into the East River. I still have it along with two prints of his fingers on the barrel. When the records disappeared I had the gun dusted and the prints magnified and photographed. If he’s still got his fingertips I’ll be able to prove it’s him.”

Sallie poked his head in the door. Rocco called him over. Sallie gave me a sweaty kiss on the cheek and apologized for not saying hello earlier. Head down, Rocco told him to take me downstairs and get me “suited up”. Whatever I wanted. Sallie squinted his eyes warily at Rocco, whose head remained down and face out of sight.

I followed Sallie through the kitchen and down a rickety stairway to the cellar. He took me to a room in the back that was nothing more than an old walk-in icebox. Sallie opened its heavy door and turned on a light. The smell of pine and a lingering mustiness rushed out at us. We stepped inside. A fan hummed in a far corner above three bags of sand set against a wall.

“I’ll be just a minute,” Sallie said. He returned with a black .38 caliber pistol in one hand, and a silencer in the other. He pulled the door tightly shut behind him. “Use this only if you have to,” Sallie said sternly. “The butt is taped to ward off prints.”

“What about the trigger?”

He looked at me curiously. “Can’t get a decent print off a trigger.” He stiffened his arm and shot twice into the bags. The noise inside the walk-in box was deafening. “Now you try.”

“Can you put that silencer on it?” I asked matter-of-factly, while sticking my finger in my ear pretending the gunshot bothered me more than it did.

Sallie took the gun, screwed on the silencer, then handed it back to me.

I emptied the pistol into the bags in seconds.

“Keep your prints of it, OK? Hold it by the taped butt only. I don’t expect you’re gonna need this, Nickie.” Sallie reloaded the gun. “You know there might be some trouble in the next few weeks. So don’t go comin’ around. We’ll let you know when it’s safe to get together.”

“Is everything going to be all right?”

“Your uncle is going to be passed over when Capezzi dies. Capezzi says
La Cosa Nostra’s
now a business and needs a businessman not a gangster to run it. So Capezzi’s cousin, the boss from Staten Island, will be his successor. Rocco’s hurt, but won’t admit it. Capezzi’s been like a father to him, so he’ll respect the decision. Regardless, whenever there’s a change of command precautions have to be taken. And that’s all you have to know, which is too much already. Now turn around.” He knelt down, picked up my right pants leg and strapped a holstered knife to the back of my calf. “I’m probably nuts for giving you this, but it saved my life once.”

I thanked him.

He wiped the gun clean again, placed it in the inside pocket of my jacket, and told me to leave out the back.

I walked down a poorly lit back alley, a half-moon brightening my way to the street.

Chapter 72

W
hat surprised me most was how calm I was.

The air in the driver’s side window, opened just an inch, drowned out the traffic on the Major Deagan Expressway—along with the rest of the outside world.

When I exited at Fordham Road I rolled the window tightly shut.

People walked along the sidewalk. Traffic moved up the avenue. But in silence.

I was in a vacuum—locked inside my own shell. And all I could hear was the faint breath of the ocean.

I drove slowly past Devoe Park and watched two teenage boys shake hands and pass a vial of cocaine. A baby cried nearby in the arms of a pretty young Hispanic girl with streaming black hair. The young girl had just exited a liquor store and held in her free hand a pint size paper bag. The
Q
and
U
in the illuminated sign over the storefront was out, leaving only
LI OR
in a weak blood red fluorescent glow.

I continued up University Avenue. Though I had driven up this street when I last paid a visit to Vincent Tedeschi, I didn’t recall its steepness or how much I had to gas the engine to climb it. I was sleep deprived then and in a state of panic and confusion. Tonight I was rested, and unnaturally calm.

I passed the four-story red brick apartment building where the monster, Peter Guevara lived.

A weather-beaten fire escape, two windows wide, ran up the center of the building. A streetlight flickered over the front entrance.

I drove around the block and inspected the rear of the building. Another fire escape ran up the back. A rusted chain link fence about twenty feet high topped with tangled strings of barbed wire enclosed a small backyard. The fence, though aged and beaten, was intact.

I circled back around and made my second and last pass in front of the building, my black cap pulled down low, the collar of my jacket raised.

A short Latino male, about fifty years old, was walking down the block with a bag of groceries in his arms. He had a dark complexion that under the pale glow of the streetlight seemed reddish. His sculptured face had deep-set lines I had seen once before—at the rape trial in December, on the face of Dina Rios’ father.

Five months had past since that verdict, and I wondered if Angelo Bonegura had raped any other girls since.

I passed Tedeschi’s closed office on Kingsbridge Road, made a right and then another onto a block of single-family homes. I parked facing Guevara’s building, but far enough to be out of its line of sight.

Looming over the abutting two and three family houses alongside it, the building was topped with a castle rail of concrete arches emblazoned with crests of potted vines and portals that funneled through the moonlight. It housed twenty families in all.

When I shut the ignition the engine puttered off with an exhausted finality. I felt for the .38 tucked in the breast pocket of my jacket, then tapped at the silencer.

Guevara lived in #D-5, on the top floor—the fourth floor. I hoped to get in and out unseen. A visitor coming or going on a Saturday night shouldn’t attract attention, even into the wee hours. I would abort only if Guevara was not alone.

I walked with hands tucked into my jacket pockets, chin in my chest, and cap lowered. The holster strapped to my calf painfully tugged at a few leg hairs—a pinching reminder of Sallie’s cryptic generosity.

I paused at the corner of 192nd, leaned against a tree and looked across the street for any signs of life. There were none. Only half of all the front windows were lit.

I crossed the street and stepped under the flickering streetlight over the building’s entrance.

The heavy iron doors that bordered the sidewalk needed a two-handed push. Once inside the vestibule, the interior entrance door was but a few feet away. Black bell buttons lined the wall to the left in two vertical rows of ten. Each tenant’s last name was engraved in a plastic strip next to each button. D-5’s inhabitant was no secret. It read: GUEVARA.

I was tempted to ring the bell. Pretend to be casually paying a visit. Sit across from him in his living room. Calmly pull out the pistol. Blow him away quietly. Leave without touching a thing.

That I shuddered at how ill conceived this notion was provided one of few assurances that I had not gone completely mad.

I pulled out a Sears credit card to jimmy the entrance doorjamb only to discover it was stuffed with toilet paper. With the sole of my shoe I pushed open the door then plucked out the toilet paper, careful not to touch the frame and leave even the faintest trace of a print. Tossing aside the paper, I eased the door shut with my knee.

Down a long tiled hallway I came to a set of marble steps with wrought iron balusters and handrails. Under the stairwell, inlaid into the wall, were twenty shiny silver mailboxes. Guevara’s was locked. I tapped it and heard a tinny hollow sound.

I slowly walked up the steps lifting my shoes to avoid making the harsh scuffing sounds that would echo inside the stairwell. Midway between the second and third floors I heard the scratchy sound of a television searching for its signal. A man was talking in Spanish and an audience was laughing loudly in response. I reached the fourth-floor landing. Apartment D-5 was to my left. My eyes followed another short set of stairs to a landing that led up to the roof. I went over to Guevara’s apartment door and listened. It was quiet inside. I stepped to the middle of the narrow hallway and bent my head in the direction of the three other apartment doors. Again, I heard nothing. I walked up the short flight of stairs, turned and went up another short flight until I came to a large metal door. Unhooking a clasp, I pushed the door open.

Moonlight smacked me in the face and a gust of wind blew my cap back. There was no exit from the rooftop. A rear fire escape would only take me to the backyard enclosed by the barbed wire fence.

I would have to leave the building as I had come—through the front entrance doors, and hope that no one would see me.

I pulled the roof door shut.

I went back down to the landing, turned, and peered down the second short connecting flight of steps. Guevara’s apartment door was at the bottom, off to the left. Unzipping my jacket I reached for the gun. Setting my index finger on the trigger I secured my hand firmly around the butt. I then took a breath and pausing just enough to gain poise before movement, and not enough to think more than I had to, I descended the stairs.

Facing Guevara’s door I pulled out the pistol and held it down behind my right leg. I pressed the doorbell with my knuckle. A muffled buzz came from deep inside the apartment.

I listened for footsteps. None came.

I buzzed again, and waited.

Nothing.

I sucked in a long deep breath and expelled it slowly. I could feel my heart pounding. I went back up the stairs toward the roof door and sat down out of sight of the floor below. I returned the pistol to my inside jacket pocket.

I would wait. All night if need be.

The roof door was at my back, just a few short stairs away. I felt a draft through gaps in the door seal and huddled tightly against the wall. It was only a matter of time before the temperature dropped and my breath became visible. I rolled my shoulders to prevent stiffening, and opened and closed my hands to better the blood flow.

I tried not to think about what I was about to do, but just listen for a footstep, a creak in the floor, a ruffle of clothing, a breath.

I waited.

More than an hour, maybe two passed and the cold on my back was starting to affect the circulation in my lower body. I blew warm air onto my hands then stuffed them back in my pockets. No sooner had I leaned my head against the side wall and closed my eyes than I heard the front door to the building open and the sound of slow heavy footsteps…in the hallway…on the stairs…getting louder.

I stood up and pulled out the .38.

The footsteps smacked the steps with boorish insolence.

Matching their rhythm I descended the stairs to the landing, turned and aimed downward. When Guevara appeared before his front door, I would fire.

From the third floor I heard the rattle of keys. The footsteps ceased. A door creaked open, then slammed shut. I returned to my perch just below the roof door and the stiffening cold draft.

Twice more, I heard the front door open. The first preceded the quick steps of a teenage boy. The second accompanied a man and woman, walking clumsily and talking flirtatiously. In neither instance did they reach the fourth floor, the cooing couple dissolving into whispers behind a closed door.

And I thought about Eleanor. Our first dance at Cardozo Law. Our first kiss. The first time we made love. A walk along the beach. Her sweet sexy smile.

An hour passed, maybe two. I drifted off.

In the semi-consciousness before sleep I saw a little boy riding a red tricycle along the sidewalk of a tree-lined street. He was racing toward his parents’ waiting arms. It was my little boy. Eleanor’s and mine.

I opened my eyes to the light of the half moon shining through a filth-laden window high above the landing.

I’m no killer.

I tucked the .38 deep into the breast pocket of my jacket until the silencer scraped against my ribs. I stood up and walked down the stairs. When I got to the landing the moonlight struck me square in the face. It had to be well past midnight, I thought to myself.

I’m going home.