Toughs Page 29

  At the courthouse, she made her way through a side entrance to avoid the press and found Strenburg waiting. He rushed up to her, snagged her by the arm, and pulled her away from the courtroom toward a long line of offices. "Big news," he whispered in her ear.

  "No kiddin'?" Lottie said. "They're letting Vince out for Christmas?"

  "Better." Strenburg found the room he was looking for, unlocked the door, and held it open for Lottie. "Brecht's a fraud." He switched on the light and closed the door.

  "I could have told you that. What happened?" The room was arranged with lines of chairs facing a podium. Two tall windows at the back of the room looked out on a gray, rainy day. Lottie took a seat in front of the podium and crossed her legs.

  "Brecht's parole officer from Saint Louie showed up. He saw the kid's picture in the papers and recognized him." He took a seat next to Lottie. His eyes went first to her legs, then to her breasts, and finally to her eyes. "Brecht's been in and out of jail since he was a teenager, and, get this, he's been involuntarily committed to a mental institution. Is that rich?" he asked. "Their only witness, forced confinement in a mental institution."

  "What's that all mean?"

  "What's it all mean? It means their case just took a header into the crapper! Who's going to believe a nutcase that's been lying to them on the stand under oath?"

  "Sure," Lottie said, "but we all knew he was lying anyway. Leibowitz caught him in––"

  "You're not getting it," Strenburg cut her off. "Yeah, Sammy caught Brecht in a bunch of lies, but he never shook his testimony. The guy's been solid as a rock that it was Vince and Frank doing the shooting. But now we've got the guy's arrest record and mental confinements in black and white, undeniable. Plus!" Strenburg added. He stuck a bony finger in air. "Plus, turns out, fours years ago, Brecht was the main witness against a couple of mugs from the Cuckoo Gang. You heard of them?"

  "Not me," Lottie said. "The Cuckoo Gang?"

  "You would have, believe me, if you lived in Saint Louie."

  "So?"

  "So Brecht claimed to have witnessed these two mugs commit a murder, and guess what?"

  "He was lying?"

  "They had to throw the case out when they proved he perjured himself."

  Lottie was quiet as what Strenburg was telling her began to sink in. "Are you saying . . ."

  "I'm telling you, Neary's case is in the crapper."

  "Does that mean Vince will get off? What's it mean exactly?"

  Strenburg sat back in his seat and straightened out his vest. He seemed disappointed that Lottie wasn't more excited. "I can't say exactly what it means, but this is very bad for Neary. Without a witness, he's got no case. And for all intents and purposes, Neary is now without a witness. Even worse, his witness is a nutcase, an ex-con, and a liar. Not only has his case collapsed, but now he looks like a fool at the least, and possibly corrupt if he knew Brecht was lying all along."

  "Well, okay, I get all that," Lottie said. "But you said that they threw out that other case because the witness perjured himself. Does that mean the judge will throw out this case?"

  "It could very well mean that," Strenburg said, "but it's not guaranteed. He could also declare a mistrial, or he could allow the case to proceed and let the jury decide."

  "What do you think he'll do?"

  "I don't know, but the important thing is that all of those options, at this point, are good for us."

  "But the jury could still decide to convict Vince anyway? Even knowing the witness was lying."

  Strenburg sighed as if defeated. He assumed a professional air. "That's possible," he said. "It is possible that the jury could find Vince guilty."

  "So when will we find out what the judge decides?"

  "Corrigan adjourned the case. We're meeting at four o'clock in his chambers. We'll know more after that."

  "Jesus . . ." Lottie was sweating through the armpits of her blouse, though the room was chilly. She lifted her arms and waved them, trying to evaporate the sweat. "Why am I more nervous now than I was before?" She looked at Strenburg as if seriously hoping for an answer.

  Strenburg, who had always struck Lottie as at least a little foolish, a skinny, chattering kind of second banana, suddenly sounded like someone both compassionate and intelligent. "Because now you have hope," he said, and he squeezed her arm as he pulled himself up from his seat. "Go home," he added as he started for the door. "When you come back in the morning, we'll know more about where we go from here." Before he closed the door he added, peeking back into the room, "But listen, Lottie. This is good news. This is very, very good news." He winked at her, closed the door, and disappeared down the hallway.

  Alone in the room, Lottie turned off the light and went to the tall windows at the back, where she sat on a ledge and looked down to a side street and a pair of coppers in their blue uniforms who were standing in a doorway, protected from the rain by an overhang, talking and smoking, one of them with a cigarette dangling from his lips, the other with a cigar between his fingers. She decided she'd write a poem for Vince—either a poem or maybe a love letter with racy stuff in it, something he could take back to his cell and read later, when he was alone and maybe lonely for her. When he got out, she told herself, thinking positively, she'd give him a real gift. From there, her thoughts moved on to Dutch Schultz and Bo Weinberg and the rest of them, and then to Jack Diamond with three bullets in his face. It occurred to her that she and Vince could snatch Klara and move someplace far away, someplace where they could live without someone looking to put three bullets in Vince's face every second––and then she thought of the subway car she'd be riding in a minute on her way to a crappy apartment, and of her mother's hands always red and raw from cleaning products, and of herself as a child looking up those stairs into forbidden rooms, and she told herself again that Vince was tough, that he was tougher than all of them, and she said aloud, the words emerging out of nowhere, Whatever it takes. Again, it was as if someone else was inside her, only this time the voice was furious. It unnerved her a little. She focused on where the coppers had been smoking and found that they were gone, disappeared while she was looking but apparently not seeing.

  She got up and started for the subway. She decided then that she'd write a racy love letter for Vince, and she left the room and the courthouse with that on her mind.

  7:15 p.m.

  Mrs. Tintello had a daughter who worked as a nurse at King's Park,

  and through her word got around the neighborhood that Ercole Baronti was close to death. All day women came around with various foods and fresh-baked bread, trays of lasagna and manicotti, baskets of fruit and bottles of homemade wine, till Mama ran out of room for all the dishes and started giving some to Mrs. Esposito upstairs. To get away from the visitors, Loretto, Augie, and Freddie were hiding out in the bedroom playing pinochle. They'd pushed the beds together and were sprawled across them, lying on their sides with handfuls of cards spread out in front of them like fans. Outside, the snow was coming down fast and hard, blown along the street by gusts of wind that smacked the bedroom window. Augie had rolled up a bright red bath towel and placed it on the window ledge. It didn't do much to keep the room warmer, but at least he didn't feel a brush of cold air over his back every time a gust of wind hit the building.

  Loretto and Augie played the game quickly, picking up and throwing down cards, their melds laid out sloppily in front of them, while Freddie studied his cards as if he were reading the Bible and trying to work out the meaning of a parable. Loretto and Augie smoked and talked while they waited for Freddie to move. It was hopeless to rush him. He'd only get frustrated and take even longer.

  Loretto tapped the ash off his cigarette into an ashtray resting on the bed between him and Augie. "You've been involved in some rough stuff," he said to Augie. "You ever have dreams?"

  With his free hand—the other one clutching a fan of cards—Augie stroked his Adam's apple. "What are you dreamin' about?"

  "Me?" Loretto made a f
ace like it was no big deal, just a question to pass the time. "I've been dreaming about Dom and Gaspar, finding them stuffed in the wine cellar like that."

  "Ah," Augie said as if he understood. "I wasn't involved in that much rough stuff."

  From behind his cards, Freddie said, "You done your share."

  "When I was younger," Augie said, "before I figured out it wasn't for me." To Loretto he said, "You keep distractin' Freddie, we'll be here till kingdom come."

  "Sta'zitt'," Freddie said, and made his play.

  "Hallelujah." Augie glanced at his card, put down a meld, and discarded.

  Loretto picked up and discarded and then it was Freddie's turn again. Augie lit another cigarette. Loretto stood up to stretch. Someone knocked at the front door and a moment later Mama called, "Loretto! Look who's here!" Augie rolled his eyes and Loretto stared at his shoes, steeling himself to see yet another old lady from the neighborhood who remembered him from when. Once in the kitchen, though, he was surprised to see Sister Mary Catherine. He hadn't seen her in a couple of years, and he was surprised at how much she'd aged in that time. The crow's-feet around her eyes were deep and dark, and her lips were lined with creases. Her blue eyes, though, still had the same sparkle. They lit up her face and undercut the somber black of her long habit and the heavy coat she was bundled in.

  "Loretto," she said, "will you just look at you now? You're even handsomer than the last time I saw you!" She was standing next to Mama, whom she had just hugged, one arm still around her shoulders.

  "Sister Mary Catherine . . ." Loretto embraced her and then stepped back to look at her. "You're as beautiful as ever."

  "Stop," the sister said and blushed, as she always blushed at a compliment. "I can only stay a moment," she said to Mama. "Father Piazza is waiting downstairs in the car." She glanced into the living room, where Augie had put up a small Christmas tree by the window and draped it with multicolored lights. "I wanted to stop and give you these," she said, turning back to Mama. She pulled a long, beautiful string of rosary beads from the pocket of her coat. The polished black beads glittered in the kitchen light as she handed the rosary to Mama. "Perhaps," she said, "when the time comes, you can place them in Ercole's hands."

  "Thank you, Sister. Grazie mille." Mama took the rosary. She understood that the beads were meant to be buried with Ercole and that the undertaker would be the one to place them in his hands.

  "And surely," Sister Mary Catherine said to Loretto, "you'll walk your old teacher down the steps to the front door."

  "Of course," Loretto said. He retrieved his overcoat from the closet and slipped into it while the sister embraced Mama again.

  "You can't stay for coffee?" Mama implored.

  "The snow," Sister Mary Catherine said. "I can't." She kissed Mama on the cheek as Loretto opened the door and waited.

  In the hallway, on the way down the stairs, Sister took Loretto's hand in hers and gave him a squeeze. "I'm proud of you," she said. "When I learned you were working at an honest job, clearing trails at Innwood Park . . . ah, Loretto. That made me so happy." She gave his hand another squeeze.

  Loretto had to tamp down the desire to tell her that it was a sucker's job. He wanted to ask her what there was to be so proud of now that he was working like a slave hauling rocks, cutting down trees, spending whole days in the backbreaking labor of dragging away heavy tree limbs and slabs of rock—all for fifteen dollars a week, barely enough to cover food and shelter. Instead he only smiled and said, "It's hard work."

  "Ah, I'm sure it is." At the bottom of the stairs, near the building's front door, the sister put her hands on Loretto's shoulders and squared off in front him. "I'm praying for you, Loretto," she said. "Every day my prayers go up to our precious Lord. I pray for your immortal soul." She spoke those words somberly and then added, with a smile, "And now it seems to me that all my prayers and your hard work might, at last," she added mock-dramatically, "be getting somewhere!" She pulled Loretto to her and kissed him on the cheek. On her way out the door, she said, "You always know where to find me."

  Loretto, seeing that the stoop was slippery and snow-covered, went after her, took her by the arm, and walked alongside her down the steps. At the curb, he helped her into the car, and when the tires spun in the snow as Father Piazza tried to drive off, he put his shoulder to the rear taillight, braced his foot on the curb, and pushed the car out to the street, where the wheels found traction. The father rolled down his window and waved as he drove off with the sister at his side.

  By the time he made it back to the kitchen, the boys were at the table with Mama, each with a cup of coffee and a thick slice of apple pie in front of them on a plate.

  "Sit," Mama said. "Mangia'!"

  Loretto held his stomach. "I'm not feeling so good all of a sudden."

  "What? You sick?"

  "Nah," Loretto said. "I don't know." He gestured toward the bedroom. "I'm lyin' down a minute."

  Freddie said, "Don't mess up the game. I'm winnin'."

  In the bedroom, Loretto made himself a space next to the wall. He lay on his back on a blanket, his head on a pillow, with a second blanket pulled up over his face. In that self-imposed dark, he lay quietly and listened to Mama and the boys talking about the weather. The boys wondered if the snow kept up whether or not they'd be able to get to work in the morning. He supposed he should be worrying about the same thing, but he didn't want to think about anything, not the snow and his job, not Mike and Vince or Gina and Mama, not Freddie and Augie or Sister Mary Catherine or Dutch or Luciano or Joe Mullins, not any of it. All he wanted was to lie with the blanket over him, his head as empty as he could manage.

  Thursday - December 24, 1931

  10:15 a.m.

  Lottie had awakened to a foot of snow on the ground and bundled up for the short walk from Flo's apartment to the subway. At the courthouse, the crowd of press and spectators had been thinned a bit by the bad weather, and she took a seat on the courtroom level. For more than an hour she'd been listening with amazement as Leibowitz asked Brecht question after question, forcing him to admit he'd been lying in every instance with the sole hope of getting a portion of the reward money. The amazing thing was that Brecht happily admitted to every lie and every incarceration, including the involuntary stay in a mental institution, as if it was all an amusing lark and no one should be the least surprised or upset. By the time the questioning was over, Lottie thought the same thing she guessed everyone present thought—that Brecht was at the very least a little crazy.

  "Your Honor," Leibowitz said. He stood with his hands on his hips and looked about the courtroom as if to share with everyone present his bewilderment at Brecht's complete lack of remorse. "Your Honor," he repeated, turning to Judge Corrigan, "the defense rests its case." He made of a show of shaking his head in disbelief. He gestured toward the jury box. "I don't think there's any need for a summation at this point, Your Honor." He threw up his hands. "We'll let the jury take it from here."

  A rumble of noise and chatter went up among the spectators, and Corrigan banged his gavel once. "I'm sure you'd love that," he said to Leibowitz. "But I'm not sending this to the jury on Christmas Eve." He glanced at Neary, who was seated at the prosecutor's table doing his best not to look like a dog that had just been kicked in the head. Corrigan banged the gavel again. He said, "Trial is adjourned until Monday, the 28th of December," and then practically leaped from his seat and exited the courtroom.

  In the commotion that followed as the press scrambled out into the halls, followed by spectators, Lottie made herself small and stood off in a corner until a contingent of armed courthouse guards and coppers gathered around Frank and Vince, getting ready to escort them back to the Tombs.

  Before the prosecutor could leave, Frank called across the room to him, "Hey, Neary," he yelled, "a very merry Christmas to you and your family!"

  Neary called back, "The same to you and your friend Coll," and despite the traditional good cheer of the actual words, his tone su
ggested he was telling them both to rot in hell.

  Frank and Vince laughed at Neary's response, and then Vince glanced up to the balcony. Lottie called to him and managed to take a step in his direction before the guards grabbed him roughly by the shoulders and hustled him away. He saw her, though, before they got him out a side door. He winked and she threw him a kiss, and then he was gone and she was by herself in a rapidly emptying courtroom.