Victims (18 page)

Lamont pulled away from the shelf and placed his hands on his hips. He leaned forward slightly; his stance was aggressive and angry.

“What you been asking everybody? What you been ringing doorbells for all up and down Barclay Street? ‘Why didn’t you call 911? Why didn’t you call 911?’ You really got a bone in your throat, Mr. Stein. Concentrate on the bum who did this girl. Don’t try to switch things around. You’ve been coming on to people, my neighbors and friends, like
they
committed some kind of crime. Yeah, a terrible crime was committed. In fact, we’ve had four murders of women in Queens so far this year, right, Detective Torres? You’ve been talking to these people like they’re responsible for what happened. Why don’t you get on the cops’ asses? Why don’t you write a couple of articles on where the hell are the police, how come they let a thing like this happen?”

“But you haven’t answered the question, have you, Mr. Lamont? Why
didn’t
you call 911 and get this girl the help that would have saved her life?”

“I didn’t. Okay? That’s it. No deep dark terrible reason; no criminal act involved. I just didn’t. I’m not saying that I should have. I’m not saying I shouldn’t have. I’m just saying I
didn’t
call 911.” He paused, let a beat go by, lowered his voice and said,
“And neither did anyone else.”

“Does that make it okay, Mr. Lamont?”

“Look, Stein. I read your column and I agree with you about a hundred percent when you write about all the punks and bastards loose all over the city. And how the politicians don’t want to know nothing about nothing, except in an election year. And the way you ride shotgun on the judges and write them up when they pull some of these unbelievable plea bargain deals. The way you name the names and put it right out there. I wish more news people had your guts. But I get a feeling you’re going in another direction with this thing. I get a real bad feeling in my stomach that you’re off on some kind of a side trip, that you’re bouncing some things on the people who live on Barclay Street. And I’ll tell you, I lived for twenty-four years on Barclay Street and you couldn’t find a better, harder-working, more decent bunch of people, so why don’t you think it over a little, Mr. Stein, before you go off the track and start finger-pointing at innocent people.”

“Are you aware of the fact that the victim, Anna Grace, bled to death? That she was slashed and bleeding and sitting against the lamppost bleeding to death? The EMS unit could have gotten to her within three to five minutes; that would have given her time to spare. But because no one called 911, she sat right there in front of all of you and bled to death and all of you people watched. And you have no answer? No reason, no excuse? No justification?”

Lamont dropped his hands and lowered his head, a bull getting ready to charge. He rotated his meaty shoulders and leaned toward Mike.

“Hey, listen, I don’t have to justify myself, to you, to her, to anybody. I’m a respected merchant in Forest Hills, I pay my taxes, I employ minority people as salesclerks, I live a decent life. And so do all my neighbors. You go somewhere else and dig up trouble. Jeez, I would think there are enough punks and bums for you to write about for the next thousand years. What the hell are you thinking about, trying to hurt decent people with this crap?”

“No guilt, Mr. Lamont? No regret? No second thoughts?”

“Get outa my store, Stein. I got nothin’ to say to you.” To Miranda, “You got my official statement. You got anything else you want to say to me?”

“Nothing at all, Mr. Lamont,” Miranda said.

“Good. Get lost. Both of you.” As they reached the door, which was locked, he activated the buzzer. He called after them, “Listen, Stein. And you remember this. Nobody who lives on Barclay Street got one single thing to feel guilty about. And don’t you forget it.”

E
LLIOT WASSERMAN’S SHAKY VOICE
was the second call on Mike Stein’s answering machine. He played it back twice:

“I have to be assured, Mr. Stein, that this will be a confidential meeting, between just you and me and off the record.”

The kid was a student at N.Y.U., and he claimed to have something of great value not only to Mike Stein but to other people in the media. He was going to Mike Stein first for reasons he would be willing to discuss at their meeting.

Mike picked the time and location: 10
P.M.,
his office. Official enough to appear slightly awesome to someone who was a little nervous to begin with, and private enough, once he closed his office door, so that he could control whatever followed. This sounded like a very nervous guy.

He was not, physically, what Mike had expected. He had pictured a runty little nerd of a kid with all kinds of tics and mannerisms. A good-looking, well-developed, muscled body-builder presented himself. The kind of guy who would casually admit, Yeah, I work out a little, when what he meant was he spent x number of hours every day, including weekends and holidays, doing a preset number of routines on machines and devices that to Mike resembled medieval torture equipment.

There was something missing between the physical specimen and the actuality of this kid: his handshake was as damp and loose as when he was probably a ninety-pound neighborhood punching bag.

“I’m very appreciative of your time, Mr. Stein. I know how busy you are and all.”

His name was Elliot Wasserman and he was a twenty-three-year-old graduate student at N.Y.U. He was majoring in photojournalism.

“Okay, Elliot. What’s this all about?”

“You said you had a VHS? When we talked on the phone? Oh, yeah, I see it. Good. Okay. So first I guess we talk, right?”

“So talk.”

Mike was deliberately playing cop. In the presence of a nervous witness, nothing more than an occasional prod is necessary.

“Well, okay, let me set up the background first, right? Okay. So I’m a grad student. And I have a room down in the Village. But for the last week or so I’ve been on field trips, throughout the city, you know. Shooting this and that and the other thing.”

As he spoke, Elliot kept flexing his shoulder and arm muscles. He didn’t seem to be aware that he was doing it. If he kept it up much longer, his massive shoulders would begin to sink his somewhat short-legged body into his ankles. Elliot was all out of proportion.

Elliot Wasserman’s family lived on Barclay Street in Forest Hills. A nice front apartment; two bedrooms faced the courtyard toward the street. His parents were on a trip and Elliot was staying home to feed his mother’s two cats. And water the plants. The plants the two cats hadn’t already eaten, that is.

“All right, Elliot. Is this it? You got shots of cats eating plants you want to show me? What?”

Elliot had a baby face, a smooth, frightened, damp blank face set on his thick neck. He had baby-blue eyes, and his mouth hung open between sentences, but he pulled himself together finally.

“Okay. What I have is a complete, beginning to end, or almost—
almost
beginning. Not the very, because, well, I didn’t realize... Anyway, can I put it on the machine and you’ll see for yourself, okay?”

“Okay.”

“You want me to set it up?”

“You mean like they do on the Johnny Carson show? All right, Elliot, set it up.”

As he put his cassette into the machine and clicked the buttons, as the dim picture flashed without definition for the first few seconds, Elliot narrated.

“Okay. So this is the angle from the second-floor window, facing the courtyard, but angled to the street, actually, a clear-cut view. Here we go. The sound isn’t too bad, it gets better. But the picture is good, here. Here. Watch, now watch. I really got it, Mr. Stein.”

He had it, indeed. It was a fairly good tape. Elliot Wasserman had caught most of it.

His first shot was of a struggle: in the middle of the street, the young woman was pushing and pulling away. Her long dark hair whirled around as she spun free, and a low soft voice was saying, “No no no.”

The man was somewhat taller; he was dressed, as had been described, in a light-colored suit. The flashing of a blade could be seen as his right hand slashed through the air. He grabbed the woman with his left hand, and they pulled and lurched almost in a dance, but he was calling out to her in a loud voice, the words, in Spanish. The woman was pleading, “No! No! Please! God! Help! Help me!”

“He’s saying to her, ‘Cheat! Whore! I’ll show you! I’ll show you! Thieves!’ Like that.” Elliot’s voice was thin and shaking as he translated.

Mike never took his eyes off the TV screen. The scenario was played out exactly as he had heard it described. It seemed familiar; a scene from a rather bad play, done by amateurs, not very convincing.

Mike watched in fascination as the young woman, abandoned now by her assailant, staggered down the middle of the street, her voice rising, then falling, a sound of despair, desperation, and, finally, a puzzled, sad cry. Unanswered. Then she seemed to take hold: she let her arms fall to her sides and she headed in the direction of the building where, they knew now, her mother lived. She made it as far as the sidewalk. She stopped, both of her hands went up to her forehead, she seemed to press her hands hard against her head, and then her knees buckled and she slid down to a sitting position, leaning against the lamppost. Her head tilted forward and the woman was motionless and silent. She just sat there. A large white car, probably a Cadillac, came from around the corner, came alongside the girl, nearly stopped, then accelerated. Quick shot of bus; spinning shot. The tape ended.

“I didn’t know how much further to go. I wanted to see what I had gotten, if I had gotten anything. Jeez, I thought it was a blank, you know, God, that would just be my luck, but I nearly died when I saw what I had.

“Well, Mr. Stein? So? What do you think?” His voice was stretched thin and high-pitched, it was ludicrous, coming from such a sturdy, well-muscled man.

“Tell me what
you
think, Elliot. What do you think you’ve got here?”

“Well. Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? I’ve got the actual event. Right here. There it is. As it happened. The crucial part: the heart of the encounter. The actual assault. This runs about six minutes. There was yelling, screaming, a few minutes before I filmed. That’s what attracted me to the window. And then she just sat there for a while. I didn’t watch anymore.”

“Why did you bring it to me? Why didn’t you bring it to the police? They’d be very happy to have it.”

Elliot Wasserman held his cassette in his large hand. He didn’t even realize that he was kneading it, exercising his hand, as he spoke.

He tried for a lower-pitched sound; a shrewder sound. “Mr. Stein. I think what I have here is a very valuable property.”

“Really? In what way, valuable?”

“Well, I would imagine any of the networks would be very happy to get their hands on it. I would imagine they would be willing to bid for it?”

Mike Stein stood up, shrugged his suit jacket on and nodded toward the door. “Fine. Good night, Mr. Wasserman.”

Elliot leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath. He was determined not to get up, not to run, which was exactly what he felt like doing. Having put on forty pounds of muscle changed nothing inside him. He was the same old scared little Elliot.

“Well, then. How do
you
see this, Mr. Stein?”

Mike turned, closed the door with a hard slam and leaned over Elliot.

“Okay, cameraman. After you checked out your shot, after you made certain you got what you hoped to get, after all that, Mr. Wasserman, what did you do then?”

“Do?”

“Did you go down to the street and see what you could do to help this girl?” Mike waved his hand toward the TV set. “Our last view of her, she looked like a girl in a lot of trouble. You didn’t go downstairs? Okay, Mr. Wasserman. What
did
you do? Call the police?
Did you dial 911?”

Elliot poked his lower lip out; it quivered. He looked crumpled; his face collapsed.

“Hey, look, Mr. Stein, I don’t need this, really.
I’m
doing
you
a favor by coming to you.”

“Is that a fact? Tell me about that, since I don’t seem to follow your line of thinking.”

“Look, Mr. Stein. I
know
what you’ve been doing. I’ve talked around the neighborhood. They all know me, the people on Barclay Street. You got them pretty uptight, Mr. Stein. They’re beginning to close up: the witnesses. They’re talking to each other and they’re getting a little scared about what they’ve said to you, to the cops. They tell me things.”

“Okay. So?”

“Well, I thought with my videotape of what happened, and your know-how and all, we—you—could probably put the finger on the guy. Get an exclusive, and
then
we—I—could sell my tape to the highest bidder. I mean, I get this feeling you’re going to make a big megillah out of all this. It’s been real low-key, no press, nothing. So you’re planning a big exclusive on the neighborhood, right? On the ‘good people’ of Barclay Street. So, okay, I got it on video, what they all stood and watched—the actual killing of the girl. Gives your story a lotta impact, no?”

“The impact of my story, Mr. Wasserman, comes from two things: the content, and the way
I tell
the story. That’s what I’m paid for—
my way of telling a story.
They pay for my name because my name leads to certain expectations. I don’t need a videotape to clarify what I’m telling my audience. My words create the pictures, Mr. Wasserman. So, if I were you, I’d leave that cassette on my desk and walk out and try to forget about it.”

“That’s very strange advice and—”

“Because you’ve gotten off to a rotten start. Granted, you followed a cameraman’s instinct: you got the shot; you got the moment, the sound and the action. Pretty good too. Okay. What did you do afterwards? That becomes a vital question, Mr. Wasserman.
You did nothing.
Nothing was at risk as far as you were concerned. But you didn’t do a goddamn thing to help this dying woman. You watched her die.”

Mike stopped speaking. There was a slow rush of blood coloring Elliot’s cheeks; at the same time, there was a circle of grayish white around his mouth. He began to blink very quickly and swipe at his damp brow with the back of his large, well-muscled forearm.