Last Chance for Glory (13 page)

Blake shook his head, reminded himself that listening to Kosinski was part of the job. That clients were always right, as long as they kept paying.

“Robbing the dead is not within my field of expertise, Kosinski. Why don’t you tell me about it.”

“Okay, suppose you’re an ordinary patrolman taking jobs as they come in from Central. You get a ‘see the man’ call, nothing out of the ordinary, and it turns out to be some old geezer dead in his bed. We’re not talkin’ homicide here; we’re talkin’ about a body laying two days before anybody noticed. Now, the stink is ferocious, plus there’s clusters of maggots around the ears and the eyes, so what you’d expect is for the cops to back out and call in the sergeant. After all, that’s what the Patrol Guide says they’re
supposed
to do.

“But that ain’t what happens, Marty. No, what usually happens is that one or both of the responding officers go through the apartment. You know, look behind the cabinets, under the drawers, behind the toilet tank. For some reason, old people—especially if they live poor—don’t trust banks. I hear it’s got something to do with the Depression, but I wouldn’t know about that. What I do know is that the money mostly goes in somebody’s pocket. And remember, this money could be the difference between a real grave and potter’s field.

“Now me, I never took a dime. Twenty-something years and I never took a dime from anybody. But what I did was look the other way. That’s the blue wall; that’s what it’s all about for honest cops. I never went to the sergeant or the duty officer or the exec or the captain. I let it happen and I let a lot of other shit happen, too. I seen guys in handcuffs beat half to death because some cop
liked
to give out pain. I seen mutts walk away from their crimes because somebody got to somebody and the evidence disappeared. And I seen this kid, Sowell, put in prison for something he didn’t do.

“The way I look at it now, Marty, is that I’m not a cop anymore and I’m never gonna be a cop again. I mean last night I asked myself, ‘Bell, do you gotta take this blue wall shit to the fucking
grave
?’ I can’t see it. Especially because there’s no honor underneath; there’s no honor in protecting what’s rotten. So that’s why I decided to help get the kid out of jail. That’s what I was thinking.”

Blake didn’t even bother to nod. Let the drunk rant, he thought. By tomorrow, he’ll either produce or he’ll be history. Better yet, he’ll produce
and
he’ll be history.

Still, for all his contempt, Blake couldn’t help but compare Kosinski’s ugly tale with Max Steinberg’s introduction two days before. He found himself yearning for corporate criminals in Paul Stuart suits, Burberry trench coats, Ferragamo shoes. His father, he reasoned, must have spent his entire working life surrounded by that ugliness. Maybe he’d been overwhelmed by it. Not that that was any excuse. The realities had called for strength, not weakness.

They were off the Taconic Parkway by this time, passing up a gentle slope with fields of corn on both sides. It’d been an unusually wet summer and the nearly ripe corn, standing in sharp, straight rows, pressed to within feet of the roadway. The net effect on the two men was claustrophobic, as if the corn had been put there to conceal something else.

“Hey, Blake, you ever see that Stephen King movie,
Children of the Corn?”

“Nope, must’ve missed it.”

“Probably went to a Woody Allen movie that night.”

“Whatever.” Blake refused to take the bait.

“Well, anyway, that’s what I keep expecting to come out of this corn. Kids with fangs. Something horrible.”

In a way, Kosinski was right, because when Blake’s Taurus crested the hill and the two men were able to see out over the planted fields, the meadows, and the orchards, they were greeted by the gray walls of the Columbia Correctional Facility less than a mile away. Forty feet high, capped at each corner with gun towers, and surrounded by the fruits of summer, the walls seemed a grim mirage. As if they couldn’t possibly be there. As if it was time to recheck the compass, recalculate the journey.

“Jesus Christ,” Blake muttered. “Welcome to hell.” He glanced over to find his companion sitting straight up, a bemused half-smile just visible beneath that hawk’s nose. “This seem funny to you, Kosinski?”

“I’m reliving an experience from my old life,” Kosinski replied. He pulled out the Smirnoff, drank deeply, shoved the bottle under the seat. “It’s like going into Rikers, only there’s no walls at Rikers. But all them mutts in one place? You could feel it with your eyes closed. Doesn’t matter about the walls.”

“Feel what?”

Kosinski started to answer, then shook his head. “You’ll figure it out the minute we get inside.”

Blake cleared his throat. “There might not be any
we
to it. Steinberg set this up for one man. I’m gonna try to get you in, but …”

“Well, whatever,” Kosinski muttered. “Say, you mind if I ask you a question?”

“Does it matter?”

“C’mon, Blake. Stop tryin’ to play the tough guy. What’s the point? I wanna help.”

“Just say what you have to say, Kosinski.”

“All right, I will. The question that occurred to me as we were drivin’ up is exactly what it is you’re doing here. I mean it’s nice to visit your client and all, but we both know the kid didn’t do it. Ask yourself: is guilt or innocence an issue? No, right? You could believe me, Blake, because I got a lot of experience in these matters, it’s real important to know what you want to get out of an interview,
before
you go into it.”

Blake kept his hands on the wheel, his eyes on the road. “What I’m doing here, Kosinski, and what I expect to get out of this interview, is three hundred dollars, plus expenses. That includes the tolls, the gas, and twenty-seven cents a mile on the car.”

“So you don’t think the kid could help you out?”

“Look, if Sowell could have provided himself with an alibi, he would have done it long ago.”

“Yeah, that’s probably right. So, tell me why the lawyer sent you up here? Aside from the fact that he likes puttin’ out three hundred dollars a day, plus expenses.”

Blake didn’t bother to answer. They were a hundred yards from the guard shack outside the main entrance to the prison and he busied himself with arranging a proper face for the man inside. He needn’t have taken the trouble. When the car pulled to a stop, a guard emerged, stepped up to Blake’s window, demanded his name and business.

“My name is Blake. This is my associate, Mr. Kosinski. We’re here to interview a prisoner, William Sowell.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll need some identification, sir.” The guard’s manner was military, from his polished brogans to the forest of half-inch spikes crowning his skull.

Blake fished out his newly minted private investigator’s license, collected his companion’s NYPD card, passed it over. He watched the guard disappear into the shack, saw him lift the phone. A minute later, he came back out.

“Sir, are either of you carrying firearms?”

Blake looked over at Kosinski who shook his head. “No.”

“When I open the outer gate, please drive to the inner gate, then exit the vehicle.”

Blake watched the guard retreat, watched the steel gate slide into the stone walls. He pulled forward, as instructed, trying to ignore the rising tension. Then he noticed a cluster of uniformed prisoners doing yard work and something close to dread rose through his spine to settle in the back of his neck. The Columbia Correctional Facility, he realized, as if for the first time, was a Max—A New York State prison. There were no shoplifters here.

“What they call it,” Kosinski chortled, “is atmosphere. As in, this ain’t the shit
you
breathe.” He was grinning madly.

A second guard emerged from a cubicle inside the chain link fence surrounding the main gate. As military in his dress and bearing as the first, he went through the trunk, searched beneath the hood, found the bottle under the seat.

“This is contraband, sir. I’ll have to confiscate it.”

“Does that mean I get it back when I leave?” Kosinski’s smile disappeared.

“No, sir, I’m afraid …”

Kosinski took a quick step forward. He snatched the bottle, unscrewed the cap, drained it in two long swallows, then handed it back. “Don’t forget to recycle,” he said. “It’s good for America.”

T
HEY NEVER MADE IT
into the prison proper, the cell blocks, the work areas, the yard, the gym. After a thoroughly pissed-off correction officer opened the inner gate, they drove to a parking lot in front of the administration building and were directed to the office of Deputy Warden Paul Sheridan. To be sure, there were prisoners everywhere—behind the typewriters, bent over the filing cabinets, answering phones—but these were the tamest of the tame. These were trusties who’d demonstrated (to the satisfaction of the administration, if not the parole board) a long-term ability to control impulsive behavior. They worked in silence, each seemingly locked into his own carefully concealed thoughts. Nobody made eye contact, nobody smiled, nobody gossiped by the water cooler.

Kosinski, who understood the drill, was keenly aware of Blake’s discomfort. He took energy from it, decided that it defined the difference between cops and citizens. That there was nothing in the vast memory of the most powerful computer to prepare you for the unique combination of violence and misery that characterizes every aspect of the criminal world. It was bad enough on the street, but when you compressed that atmosphere between four walls, it became powerful enough to suffocate the uninitiated. Like Martin Blake.

Deputy Warden Sheridan didn’t bother to smile, didn’t object to Kosinski’s presence. He rechecked their identification, again asked about firearms, warned them about regulations prohibiting tape recorders and cameras. Kosinski watched Blake respond in the negative to each question. When they were alone for a moment, he leaned over and said, “A tape recorder doesn’t do you much good if you don’t know what it is you wanna record.”

“You know what I’d really appreciate?” Blake responded. He spoke out of the side of his mouth, as if he was afraid of being overheard. As if he had something to conceal. “I’d really appreciate you keeping your drunken mouth shut. You’re not running this show.”

Kosinski started to answer, thought better of it, slid his hands into his pockets. If he was drunk, he didn’t feel it. No, what he felt, when he examined himself in the following silence, was relieved. The way a game fish might feel after wriggling off a fisherman’s hook.

Remember, he said to himself, the condition is decidedly temporary. Which is okay. Like being in remission after a dose of chemotherapy.

Deputy Sheridan, after a short absence, led them (Blake first, naturally; Kosinski trailing behind) to a small room set aside for attorney-client interviews. Everything about the space seemed begrudging, from the faded paint on the walls to the grimy tiles on the floor to the rickety metal chairs and table.

Blake, whose mind drifted to Joanna Bardo’s collection of fake antiques, carefully wiped the chair seat before sitting down. Bell Kosinski, on the other hand, found the room luxurious in comparison with similar space in the precincts where he’d worked. At least nobody had pissed in the corner, which was a favorite pastime of cops who viewed lawyers as the only creatures on earth lower than the clients they served.

They waited in silence while Billy Sowell was summoned from one or another corner of the vast prison. Though neither measured the minutes, time dragged for both. Kosinski was tempted to speak, but held himself in check. What was the point?

Blake, for his part, was busy regretting his quick decision to accept Joanna Bardo’s offer. Maybe, he speculated, he should have made the rounds of other firms specializing in corporate work. Because this wasn’t right for him. He had no feel for the task at hand, no sense of how to proceed. To be sure, he understood the
mechanics
well enough, but the sixth sense that’d guided him when he’d worked undercover in corporate computer departments had now deserted him altogether.

The sudden appearance of Billy Sowell in a doorway at the far end of the room, a doorway leading into the depths of the Columbia Correctional Facility, did nothing to resolve Blake’s self-doubt. The diminutive figure, no more than five-six, no more than a hundred and forty pounds, hesitated for a moment, then stepped out of the shadows and raised his head. Someone, perhaps an image-conscious correction officer, perhaps Sowell, himself, had made a halfhearted effort to wipe the makeup off his face. They needn’t have bothered. The end result—aquamarine streaks shot with greasy black mascara extending along both cheekbones—was even more bizarre than the original.

But Marty Blake’s mind refused to make the obvious jump, refused to say homosexual or faggot or punk. Refused even to turn away in disgust. Instead, he let his eyes drop, noting the khaki shirt with its expertly shortened sleeves, the trousers tight enough to cradle Sowell’s buttocks, to lift and offer them, two perfect hemispheres pushed into a soft, plump ball.

“Hi, Billy. Can I call you, Billy? My name’s Bell. Bell Kosinski.”

Blake watched Kosinski rise and take a step forward. Saw him smile, extend his hand, lead Billy Sowell to a chair. Saw him take a chocolate bar out his jacket pocket—the same pocket that’d held his Smirnoff—and hold it up for the correction officer now standing in the doorway to inspect.

“This okay?” He waited for the officer’s grudging nod, then handed it over to Billy Sowell. “Billy, this is my friend, Marty Blake. We came here to help you get out of jail.”

“Hello.”

The soft hand Billy Sowell held out to Blake was tipped with perfectly manicured pink fingernails. Blake, fighting revulsion, took it briefly, let it drop, let his own hand fall into his lap. He wanted to be angry—with Kosinski for taking charge, with Joanna for putting him where he was, with Billy Sowell for being Billy Sowell—but he couldn’t quite get there. What he was, was stunned.

“It’s hard for you here, isn’t it, Billy?” Kosinski was leaning forward in his chair, dominating Sowell’s field of vision. “It’s hard for you in prison?”