The Mayor of Lexington Avenue (9 page)

For her part, Elena was not impressed at all. The nose job was too obvious and the tits too big, although the sight of them made her remember the lump she’d found in her own breast a few weeks earlier. It seemed like so long ago, but she couldn’t do anything about that now. Her focus now was this plastic personality prancing around the room. Elena wasn’t trusting Rudy’s life to this woman!

Tracey knew it wasn’t working, that her rhythm was off. She changed tactics, something she
never
did, sitting down and for a moment just shutting up. She picked up Rudy’s file, which had been placed on the desk by her secretary. She’d already read it. Suddenly, from the recesses of her brain, a small picture of a dark-haired woman popped up. It was the only picture of her mother she’d ever seen; it had sat on top of her father’s dresser. From that picture, as a little girl, she had created her mother in her dreams: beautiful, with long flowing black hair and the brightest smile. Elena had a striking resemblance to that woman. For the first time, she saw one of her clients in a different light. This was a mother trying to save her son from a lifetime of prison, possibly death.

“I have no idea what kind of a case they have, Elena. Can you tell me a little about it?”

It was hard but Elena took her through everything she knew: from the first day when the front page screamed that a young woman’s throat had been cut to her conversation with Rudy when he told her of being there and drinking and falling down and cutting himself. Tracey listened carefully, asking questions from time to time. She could now see where the state was coming from. She could also see that it was going to be a difficult case to win. Her first inclination was to bail out. Difficult cases ruined her unblemished record of success. Hers was not a reputation built on brilliant courtroom tactics. But she could
see
Elena—so strong, so focused—a beautiful, powerful mother. Tracey just couldn’t walk away from her. Not yet.

“Somebody had to be in that house after Rudy left, Elena. If we can find that person, Rudy will walk. My investigative team is the best. My chief investigator, Dick Radek, was a detective for twenty years at the Miami police department, ten of those in homicide. We will leave no stone unturned. Before we’re through, we’ll know everybody in that neighborhood by their first name.”

She was so sincere when she said it, Elena started to believe her and with good reason: It was the truth. Tracey had the best investigative team north of Miami and south of Jacksonville. Almost all of her cases were won at the investigative level, by turning over stones the police just tripped on. But Elena still wasn’t convinced.

“The police have already done an investigation —”

“I’m sure they have,” Tracey cut her off. “But the police in these small towns are notoriously lazy. Once they found your son’s blood in the trailer, their investigation stopped. They only need one suspect to look good.”

That made sense to Elena. She was sure it was true. Those words and something else, something that had changed in Tracey since she initially sauntered into the room, convinced her that Tracey was the right person for the job. Elena
felt
her sincerity. She also felt something else, something that Tracey was so successful at hiding from the world—vulnerability. Not necessarily what she was looking for from the lawyer representing her son, but maybe from the person.

Now that she was sold, it was Elena’s turn to press her case.

“I don’t have much money.” It was a line Tracey had heard a thousand times before and usually, based upon their appearance, the car they were driving, what they did for a living, it was Tracey’s cue to walk them to the door, apologetically telling them that she couldn’t help them. She couldn’t do that to Elena.

“Listen,” Tracey cut in again. “I usually require a twenty-five thousand dollar retainer for capital cases like your son’s. I’ve never reduced that retainer before,” another absolute truth, “but I believe in your son’s innocence. I believe we can find the evidence to exonerate him. I’ll agree to reduce my retainer to fifteen thousand dollars, but when that money is gone you
must
replenish it. I can’t make any exceptions to that rule.”

“I have five with me,” Elena answered.

“I can’t accept that. Go home. Talk to your relatives, your friends. See if you can raise the money. But do it quickly. Time is your enemy.”

Sentiment only went so far with Tracey James.

Ten

Rudy had spent the whole weekend on the river—fishing, lying around, thinking. There was an old two-story houseboat down one of his narrow trails that had sunk but was still lingering half out of the water like an old ship before it turns keel up for the final dive. Rudy loved to anchor his boat there and make up stories about how it had got that way. One time it was a brothel. Two men fighting over the same woman pulled out their guns and started shooting. One of the bullets put a hole in the side of the boat that nobody noticed until the next morning when it was too late. Another time it was a hideout for members of the Dillinger gang who shot it out with the FBI. Some of the dead bodies might still be inside. That’s why the gator was always hanging around. It was trying to figure out a way to get at those bodies without getting trapped inside.

This Saturday morning, however, Rudy’s thoughts weren’t on the houseboat. He was thinking about Lucy. Why would anybody want to kill Lucy? It didn’t make sense. He just couldn’t get his brain around it. And now Momma and Austin were saying he would probably be arrested for the murder. What were the police going to say?
She kicked him out of the house so he got mad and killed her?
Were people going to actually believe that? Just then he saw an osprey gliding over the water. It veered sharply and crashed into the murky waters, emerging seconds later with a fish clutched in its talons. It was a marvelous sight, one Rudy had seen many times before. It was murder of a sort but it was murder with a reason. The dumb animals of the world didn’t kill without a reason. Maybe people could do that, kill for no good reason. But Rudy wasn’t like that. He was more like the osprey, or the gator. And he just didn’t have a reason to kill Lucy—couldn’t they see that?

For a brief moment, Rudy toyed with the idea of ending it all in this place that he loved so much. He wouldn’t last in prison, he knew that. They would see that he was
different
and he would have to be on guard at all times. Thank God he had stayed with the karate. He was sure there weren’t too many black belts in prison. In the end, his mother was the reason he didn’t go swimming with the gators. She was fighting so hard for him—he just couldn’t do that to her.

They came for him on Monday morning about eleven, after the blood test results came in. Two uniforms were with the two detectives, and somehow a reporter had received a tip to be there with a photographer. Rudy was usually on the river at that hour but he didn’t go out that morning. Elena had suggested he stay in. They both knew why but neither spoke of it—they had already talked it to death. Elena didn’t want him out on the river when they came. Those idiots would make a circus out of it with police boats and helicopters. Rudy would go quietly
for now.
The battle would be in the courtroom.

They handcuffed him right at the front door of the hotel so the photographer could get a good shot for the morning paper. Read him his rights while they were doing so, a useless exercise at that point since the Grunt had already taken his statement and had him sign a written waiver at the time. Then they put him in the back seat of the squad car. They had a search warrant too but they didn’t search the whole apartment. They went right to the tackle box under the bed, opened it to make sure the contents were as advertised, and took it with them. They were gone in a matter of minutes, just long enough for a small crowd to gather. The reporter, Pam Brady, started to approach Elena to get her thoughts and feelings about what had just happened, but she thought better of it after she caught a glimpse of the fire in Elena’s eyes. Those eyes told her all she needed to know. Elena wanted to spit on all of them: the police, the press, the gawkers—her neighbors. Couldn’t they see this was a family tragedy? Didn’t they know what she and Rudy were going through?

The next day, when she returned from her meeting with Tracey James, Elena called her sister in New York. She had to start raising the money and her sister was the only person she could turn to.

“Marguerite, I need ten thousand dollars,” she told her after a brief exchange of pleasantries.

“For what?” Marguerite asked as she started searching for the right words to turn her sister down. Elena told her the whole story.

“My God, Elena, what are we going to do?”

“I’ve got a lawyer, a good one, but she wants a fifteen thousand dollar retainer.”

“That’s just the start with those thieves. They’ll run that dry and they’ll want more.”

“Maybe, but I think I can work with this woman.”

“Woman? You got a woman to handle a case like this? Baby, you need a man.”

It was starting all over. Big sister telling her what to do, criticizing the choices she had already made.
Baby
wasn’t just a word she used in conversation. It had a definite meaning in their relationship. This was one of the reasons she had left New York. Elena bit her tongue.

“She’s the top criminal lawyer in this area. Besides, that’s not part of this discussion. I’ve already hired her. Can you help me or not? I’ve got nobody else to turn to.” She tried to be matter-of-fact about it, not wanting to beg, but Marguerite was her older sister, and she sensed her sibling’s desperation no matter how hard Elena tried to hide it.

Marguerite had a good job. She had worked for UPS for fifteen years, was one of their first delivery women. Unfortunately, she lived the high life.

“Elena, I could probably scrape up five thousand dollars but that’s it.” There was a pause on the line. Marguerite could hear the tears. “Let’s think about this for a minute. There’s got to be somebody. What about a bank?”

“Marguerite, I need this money tomorrow.”

“What about Mike?”

“What about him?”

“He’s doing well now. He’s been off the sauce for years, has a fairly decent job.”

“Marguerite, he hasn’t seen or heard from me or Rudy in sixteen years.”

“So? He’s still the boy’s father. Mike knows why you left. He knows it was his fault, he’s told me as much.”

“Listen, can we not talk about my ex-husband right now? I need help.”

“Why don’t you take a day to think about it, Elena, and I will too. If we can’t come up with anybody else, I’ll call Mike. There won’t be any strings attached. I’ll just tell him the boy got into a little trouble and you called asking for five thousand dollars and I didn’t have it. He can make the decision from there.” Elena thought about it for a moment. She was so desperate anything sounded good, even contacting the man she had avoided for the last sixteen years.

“All right,” she told her sister. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Marguerite took Elena’s “All right” as a tacit consent to call Mike, which she did as soon as she hung up. She and Mike still lived in the same neighborhood. She had been an observer through the rough years as he drank his way to oblivion. She had also watched him pick himself out of the gutter and slowly crawl back, inch by inch. He’d been in AA nine years now and had a good job with the telephone company. They met sometimes in the morning for coffee.

Marguerite considered Mike a friend, but her loyalty was to Elena. Elena didn’t want Mike to know where she and Rudy were, and Marguerite honored her wishes. That didn’t mean from time to time during their morning conversations she couldn’t let Mike know that his son was doing well.

Mike answered the phone on the second ring.

“Mike, this is Marguerite.” He recognized her voice even though she rarely called him on the telephone.

“What’s up, Marguerite?”

“Nothing much.” She was trying to play the whole thing down. She knew that if Mike knew the real truth, he would stop at nothing to find out where his son was. But that decision was Elena’s, not hers. “I just talked to Elena. She told me that Rudy was in a little trouble and she asked to borrow five thousand dollars. Mike, I don’t have that kind of money.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“I don’t know and I didn’t ask. She said it was minor.” She was pretty sure she was pulling off the nonchalant act. Lying over the telephone was a lot easier than lying in person.

Mike could tell that she knew more, but Marguerite was his only connection to his son—he couldn’t alienate her. This was an opportunity and he had to play according to her rules.

When Elena had first left, he was furious. Angry enough to have done something he would have regretted for the rest of his life.
How could she do this to me?
But he didn’t try to find her or his son. He didn’t have time. Another paramour had entered his life, one he had known for years, a lover who dominated his every breath.

It wasn’t until he sobered up years later that he had put the pieces of the puzzle in their proper place. Elena hadn’t done anything to him.
He
had done it to her and his son: staying away from home for days on a bender; coming home drunk, yelling and screaming; lying passed out on the front stoop for all the neighbors to see; spending the grocery money on booze. It was a wonder she’d stayed as long as she did, pleading and begging him to stop. Telling him she loved him, that she’d help him. He had tossed her aside like a toy he had outgrown. He didn’t need her: He didn’t need anybody—until the chickens came home to roost. . . .

Oh, it was difficult down there in that cesspool, seeing his reflection for the first time in a long time in its fetid waters—more difficult than the slow climb back up. But he knew if he didn’t take the time to see himself in all his grotesqueness, he would never make it all the way back. He also knew that if Elena hadn’t left him, if she had continued to provide the crutch for him to cling to, he would never have looked in that mirror.

Now he lived in the hope of somehow making it up to them. This was the first time he had ever been contacted. This was the first time they needed him. He had to respond without reservations or conditions.