The Good Lawyer: A Novel (8 page)

As the rest of the neighborhood deteriorated, rebuilt itself, gentrified, re-gentrified, then deteriorated again, Mario’s and this one rock-solid Italian block held on. Whether the forces which acted upon it were legitimate or not, would be left to pundits like Repolla when the occasion was right for an off-beat human interest story, or a real estate bit on cultural diversity, or maybe some local political news, or even a piece on organized crime.

Murder, money, mystery and making love was in the air in this old world restaurant. It was in the food, the aroma of the tomato sauce, the gold-rimmed dishes, the red and white tablecloth, the house wine, beside the mirrored bar, and settling inside you with the attending passion of Enrico Caruso, Mario Lanza, the faint strings of a mandolin—a piano solo of
Speak Softly Love
.

I was sitting opposite Vinny Repolla tearing apart garlic bread and curious as hell about his sudden lunch invitation: “An offer”, he mimicked in a bad Sicilian accent, “that I could not refuse.”

“So what did I do to deserve this generosity?”

“You didn’t do anything yet,” answered Repolla. “I’ve been thinking about what you said the other day about the Spiderman.”

“I’m starting to think you’re a little nuts. My job is to put the criminals back on the street, remember.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. It’s not like I’m asking you to assist in his capture. It’s just that my friend on the force thinks there may be something to tracking this guy through the comic book.”

“Except the comic book hero didn’t rape women,” I answered.

“But the comic book hero,” Vinny remarked with a proud gleam in his eyes, “when he wasn’t donning his Spiderman suit, was a freelance photographer. I got the inside word that the detectives working the case are checking out every camera jockey that’s ever done work for a city paper. They’ve started in the Bronx of course.”

“Any results?”

“Well,” Vinny whispered, and then bent so far forward the end of his tie was buttering his garlic bread. “I’m not supposed to say, but they’re watching a guy who works for
The News
very closely.”

“It still doesn’t explain how the Spiderman knows what apartment to hit, how he targets women who live alone. This guy’s no amateur. He’s calm, collected. This is a very strong grown man, who can climb up and down tall buildings like an Olympian.”

Vinny took on the look of someone thinking hard, and getting a headache in the process. “Well, we’ve got a good idea what he looks like.”

“The uncontrollable urge to rape repeatedly doesn’t just surface in someone’s psyche in their mid-twenties. This guy’s got a history. Have the police checked out all the sex offenders recently released from prison?”

“Came up empty. This guy though…He knows the Bronx. He talked to one of the women he raped as if he’d lived here his whole life.”

“Maybe he’s changed his appearance. Maybe he wasn’t bald and muscle-bound in prison.”

“Doubtful.” Vinny seemed annoyed at himself for being a step behind me. He flipped open the menu, welcoming the change of subject.

Chapter 13

A
ngling my Malibu into a parking spot in front of the building, I gauged the wisdom of leaving it out in the street merely to avoid the short walk from the Executive Towers garage. I double pumped the door handle to make sure it was locked.

Jose Torres, one of Legal Aid’s day clerks, was walking toward me, coming from the direction of the courthouses.

“Mannino!” he shouted. “Krenwinkle signed your subpoenas. They’re in your mail box.” Before I could thank him he was upon me, and added in a half whisper: “By the way, a gorgeous blonde was here asking for you. I told her you were probably out to lunch. She must have been waiting for over an hour because she was still here when I got back from court. She looked kind of nervous or something.” He got wide-eyed as if acknowledging some shared secret.

The waiting area was empty. I asked Frances, the receptionist, for the blonde’s name, but when asked, she had refused to leave it.

Torres caught up to me as I entered the elevator. “I forgot to tell you,” he said, panting and out of breath, “while the blonde was here asking for you, your D.A. girlfriend stopped by.” He winked and gave me a conspiratorial grin.

Reception rang a call directly into my office. Brenda had left work early. Her little girl was sick again, something to do with her cell-count.

“So who’s the blonde you’re screwing when you’re not screwing me?”

I should have known better. Between men and women, there is no due process. And since decorum had been tossed out the window, I answered Eleanor in kind.

“She’s a hooker, and a damn good one at that. Got arrested in a high-class sting operation in the Country Club Estates section. Was so pleased with my courtroom savvy, she offered me a freebie, at a discount too.”

Eleanor ignored my remark. I told her it was probably the same blonde that I ran into outside AP-3, and that, I too, was curious as hell as to why she needed to speak to me again.

“Did you give her your name?”

“No. That’s the funny part.” I thought of the cop who helped pick up my papers. “Maybe she wanted to talk in private, found out who I was, and went to the office.”

“But why didn’t she leave her name?”

I huffed. “You’ll have to ask her. Is this why you called?”

“Carolyn was in a fender bender, nothing serious.”

I knew it wasn’t serious. I knew Carolyn.

I did not think it was possible for two people to look so much alike, and one be so beautiful and the other so plain and hard looking. After graduating with a B.A. from Harvard, and a masters in English literature from Columbia, by the age of twenty-five Carolyn had authored a collection of short stories, all with women as central characters, all fighting for respect and recognition in, of course, a male dominated world.

Eleanor referred to Carolyn as her “absolutely best friend”, but it was only in the past month that I came to know the whole truth about Carolyn.

Her not so secret, secret was that she was a lesbian. So all things considered, she scared the shit out of me.

Before Eleanor and I hung up we agreed to get together Saturday night. She insisted on meeting at my house.

Mom would be disappointed at missing Eleanor. Friday night was poker night—a nickel ante with a ten-cent raise cap. Saturday was Bingo with the girls. Mom was as religious about her Bingo and her poker as she was about her daily mass and Tuesday novenas.

Midnight approached and as Friday turned into Saturday and Johnny Carson introduced his first guest,
Baretta’s
Robert Blake, the phone rang.

“Nick? I hope I didn’t wake you? It’s Ernie Krenwinkle.”

“Why, hi Judge.” I tried to mask the surprise in my voice.

“Sorry to call so late. Well, not really. That blonde that came in my courtroom the other day looking for you…The police found her on the front lawn of the Riverdale Towers. Dead. Seems she jumped. Thirty stories.”

“My God…who is she?”

“That’s the funny part. No purse, no ID at all. Police are asking anyone who knows anything to come forward. Maybe you should call, Nick.”

I thought for a few seconds. “Judge, I’d only add to the confusion. I haven’t a clue who she is.” I then imagined what her body must have looked like after falling thirty stories. “You sure it’s the same woman?”

Krenwinkle sighed. “There’s a picture of her in the evening
Post
, face up in the grass, crucifix around her neck, beige jacket and mini skirt. I’m positive it’s her. Dead and all, she’s still beautiful.”

Chapter 14

A
t four A.M. an irrepressible exhaustion finally took over, and I fell sleep.

And the nightmares began.

I was inside a small battered wood shed. My eyes scanned about like flashlights. I tossed aside rusted rakes and sickles and hardened bags of fertilizer and mulch, as pins of light pierced through wallboard cracks and nail holes. There was something hidden in the darkness.

A patch of white, no bigger than a postage stamp appeared inches above a dirt floor. I reached for it. My fingers wormed their way inside two hard cylinders, smooth as ivory. I drew the object closer. I was holding a child’s skull.

Attached to it was the torso of a fully dressed baby doll in cleats and Yankee pinstripes. I could feel my heart pounding and my body convulse in a silent scream.

I awoke. It was dawn.

I pulled myself free of tangled sheets and blankets. Struggling at first to keep my balance, I walked to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door. The cascading light startled me.

I poured myself a glass of ice-cold milk and looked out the rear window over the sink. The sun was giving new life to the day. Behind my backyard and beyond a neighbor’s fence were two adjoining baseball fields that belonged to the Birch Elementary School. The grass there would soon be green with spring, but for now it strained to glisten a tarnished gold in mid-March’s early morning sun.

I wished Krenwinkle hadn’t called. I could have used a good night’s sleep.

Refusing to ponder my dreams for some meaning or interpretation, I went back to bed, and if I dreamed again, I did not remember it.

Chapter 15

I
wanted the night to be perfect, considering the week I’d had. I hadn’t seen Eleanor since the weekend, and it scared me how much I missed her.

A brand new BMW pulled into the driveway and came to an abrupt stop. The driver’s side door swung open and Eleanor stepped out. She was wearing a black mini dress that clung to her every curve. She wore heels, and white pearls, and her hair was twirled up in a bun with two thin locks hanging down alongside diamond-studded earrings. She never looked more beautiful, and walked toward me with a sexiness that riveted me to her every move.

We kissed in front of the porch light, casting giant shadows across the lawn.

I tugged her gently into the house and locked the door behind us.

We made love in my eight-by-twelve bedroom for hours then laughed and struggled to catch our breath. My eyes moved to the alarm clock on my night table. It was 8 P.M. I grabbed the phone.

“Who are you calling?” she asked.

“Dario’s. We’re going to be late, and there’s only twelve tables in the whole restaurant.”

Eleanor looked scared, like a child about to admit something awful. “Nick…”

In a pause that brought my world crashing down, I imagined her a black widow. We had made love; now she was going to kill me. Not with a knife or a gun, but slowly…by leaving me. She was going back to Atlanta to marry some rich guy or…maybe just to get away from the likes of me. We were getting too serious. Her father hadn’t raised this perfect young woman to marry some greaseball from Long Island. If she were my daughter I’d have pulled the plug on this romance too, never mind Uncle Rocco.

“I understand Eleanor. Maybe we are going too fast.” The inflection in my voice revealed my own uncertainty.

She looked confused and even more frightened. “Too fast? Do
you
think we’re going too fast?”

I caved easily. “Is this something we have control over?”

“I guess not.” She smiled weakly as I cradled her in my arms. She then said softly: “I love you, Nick.”

With heartfelt meaning every word, I said what I had never said before to anyone, ever: “I love you, too.”

Life would never feel as good, nor have more wonder, and magic, and exhilaration. I was frightened before she spoke, and more frightened after, for I knew then I could never survive losing her.

We kissed, Dario’s all but forgotten, until we fell asleep. I awoke with a jolt half an hour later.

The thought of Mom coming home and finding Eleanor post coitus sent me vaulting out of bed.

She searched the covers for her bra and panties. “Nick, what if you got your own place?”

“It’s been me and Mom my whole life. We respect each other.”

She pulled me close and laughed like a schoolgirl into my chest and neck “Such a good son.”

Later that night I drove us to Jones Beach in Eleanor’s BMW. We arrived at exactly midnight. The temperature had dropped below forty so we grabbed a quilt, wrapped ourselves in it, and walked along the boardwalk of field six. It was desolate—I knew it would be.

Eleanor questioned the wisdom of such a brazen confrontation with the cold and the wind colder still, rushing at us from the ocean’s blackness.

“The quilt will keep us warm if we stay close,” I said.

She smiled and cuddled under it as we walked along the rail.

A city block of darkened beach lay between us and the shoreline, where the sound of cresting waves rushed at us and dissolved away. We paused by a boardwalk lamp and gazed into endless blackness.

What could be more horrifying, I thought, than to be dropped in the middle of that darkness and left to die, or drown in a panic, or float as prey for whatever horrible creatures roamed the ocean’s depth where the darkest secrets lie.