No Lesser Plea Page 6

  Dunbar had been a New York cop for fifteen years, a detective for ten. Before that he had jumped out of some airplanes for the U.S. Army and before that he had gone to high school in Queens, about two miles from where he now lived, in St. Albans. His high-school career had been undistinguished, except on the football field, where he turned out to be very good at stopping other players from catching footballs, or if they did catch them, stopping them from running very far. He was an All-State safety on two teams, got the usual offers from faraway schools and turned them all down.

  This was remarkable, but Sonny Dunbar had always taken the long view. He hated classrooms, and knew he wasn’t good enough for a sure slot in the pros. He didn’t care to be another Big Ten black jock with a meaningless B.A. in phys ed. So he enlisted, spent three years with the airborne as an MP, figured he was tough enough for anything after that, and joined the cops.

  He had put on about ten pounds in the years since, which hardly showed on his wide-shouldered, six-two, two-hundred-pound frame. He didn’t like the way some cops let themselves get sloppy, and he had a reputation on the squad as something of a dude, not as splendid, perhaps, as the members of the special narcotics squads, but his wardrobe came out of his own pocket. It helped that his wife was an executive with a restaurant chain.

  Today he was wearing a cream-linen jacket, tan slacks, lemon-yellow shirt, and a dark-blue silk tie. He had cordovan tassel loafers (no gumshoes for him) on his feet and a cream fedora on his head. And sunglasses; Sonny Dunbar was definitely Broadway. He had left his car at a cab stand on 43rd and was cutting across Eighth to a drug store for an Alka-Seltzer. Moving fast, he was just about to enter its doorway when the thought hit him that he had a roll of film in the car that he had promised to bring in for developing two days ago. Almost without any conscious effort, he hit the pivot and began moving in the opposite direction, and a kid in sneakers carrying a large leather handbag crashed into him at full speed.

  Dunbar staggered, but the kid went sprawling and banged his head on a parking meter. Dunbar was about to apologize and help the kid to his feet, when he noticed the big handbag. Although many young men in that area of New York carried handbags, this particular young man did not look like that kind of young man. He was wearing a dirty brown jacket, jeans, and the expensive athletic footwear that street cops call “perp shoes.”

  Dunbar’s impression that the kid was a Times Square bandit was soon confirmed by a distraught woman, blonde, and well dressed in an arty way, who came dashing unsteadily up the street in heeled boots. “There he is! He took my bag,” she shouted. “Somebody get a cop! Oh, thank God!” She addressed this last remark not to heaven but to her handbag, which she clutched to her breast like a lost child. “Thank God! My entire LIFE is in this bag.” She noticed Dunbar, who was staring glumly at the fallen robber. “Say, mister, did you catch him? Listen, can you hold onto him while I go and call the cops?”

  Dunbar thought, just my luck, a solid citizen. He said, “Well, Miss, that won’t be necessary. I happen to be a police officer.” He pulled out his gold shield and showed it to her.

  The woman laughed. “Unbelievable!”

  “Yeah, ain’t it, though,” answered Dunbar, with very little enthusiasm. He wrote down the woman’s name and address and then hauled the young robber to his feet. The kid tried to shake off Dunbar’s grip.

  “Hey, man, wha chu doin’? I din do nothin’.” Dunbar pushed him against a wall, back cuffed him in one smooth motion, and then patted him down, extracting a large sheath knife from his jacket pocket.

  “Right, mutt, you din do nothin’, but I’m going to arrest you for purse snatching anyway. Let’s go.”

  Half an hour later, after the perp had been booked and caged at the Midtown South Precinct, Dunbar was rummaging through his desk for a package of Alka-Seltzer, when Petromani, the desk sergeant, came into the squad room. “Sonny, call your sister Ella. What’re you looking for?”

  “Alka-Seltzer. My head’s coming off. You got any?”

  “I got aspirin and Tylenol. I got Empirin and I think I got something for menstrual cramps. Listen, you should call your sister, she sounded really uptight.”

  “Yeah, the toilet probably won’t flush. My brother-in-law is not what you call a take-charge individual, so she still calls me when something goes wrong.” He reached for the phone.

  Petromani said, “I heard the story on that collar you made. It’s great the way you detectives track down criminals by putting together all these tiny clues …”

  Dunbar grinned. “Aww, it was just perseverance, solid old-fashioned police work, and fucking bad luck. I’m going to waste half tonight in the complaint room.” Petromani waved and left. Dunbar dialed his sister’s office. The phone rang just once and his sister’s voice said, “Barnes and Franklin, good morning.”

  “It’s Sonny. What’s up, girl?”

  “Oh, Sonny, thank God! I’m worried out of my head.”

  “What is it, the kids?”

  “No, they’re fine. It’s Donnie. I got the scariest phone call from him. He says he’s in this hotel, and he’s sick, and he told me to bring him money and clothes. Sonny, I never heard him sound like that before.”

  “Was he drunk? Did you tell him to come home?”

  “That’s the first thing I told him. But he said somebody was going to kill him if he left the hotel. I didn’t know what to do.” She started to cry.

  “OK, calm down, sugar. It’s probably nothing much. Maybe he got fired and wants to soften you up. You know how Donnie is.” Dunbar had little respect for his brother-in-law, but he was grateful to him for paying attention to the youngest and least attractive of the four Dunbar sisters, marrying her, and giving her the home and children she had always wanted. He sort of liked the little jerk in spite of himself. Donnie was a baby, but he could be funny and charming, in his way.

  Ella blew her nose and said, “No, he sounded bad, Sonny. I hate to bother you and all, but could you go over and see him?”

  “Sure, fine. Where’s he at?”

  “It’s the Olympia Hotel, Room Ten. It’s on …”

  “I know where it is. Listen, don’t worry about a thing. I’ll take care of it. And I’ll call you when I find out what’s going on. OK? Good. So long, baby.”

  Dunbar hung up and ran his hand over his face. If Donnie was holed up in a skell joint and shooting gallery like the Olympia, something might be very wrong indeed. He rose and left the precinct, first stopping off to hit up Petromani for three Tylenols.

  The lobby of the Olympia Hotel smelled exactly like those pink cakes of disinfectant they clip into urinals in gas station toilets, but stronger. It was furnished with two patched orange plastic lounges and a kidney-shaped gold Formica coffee table. Nobody was lounging over coffee though. The desk clerk was sacked out in the space behind his little barred window.

  Room 10 was on the second floor. Dunbar knocked on the door, which was immediately flung open. The detective had some difficulty in recognizing the rattled creature in the doorway as his brother-in-law; but Donald recognized the cop. He cried out “No!” and attempted to slam the door in Dunbar’s face, but the bigger man blocked it with his shoulder and easily pushed his way into the room.

  “Donnie, cut that out! What the hell is going on here? Ella’s worried sick.”

  But Dunbar knew what was going on. He had been in innumerable little stinking rooms like this. Donald was crumpled on the bed, moaning. Dunbar sat down beside him, grabbed Donald’s wrist and looked at the inside of his arm. “How long you been shooting dope, Donald?”

  “She shouldna called you. I tol her …”

  “Answer me!”

  Donald raised his head. “Not long, not long. I swear it, Sonny. I ain’t hooked, I just pop some now and again, I swear …”

  “Shit you ain’t hooked. You a smackhead, boy. You were, I mean, cause starting now you are off. Now get up and wash that snot off your face. I’m taking you home. We’ll figure out so
mething to tell Ella.” Dunbar got off the bed.

  Donald shrank away. “No! I can’t, he kill me for sure. He said he gonna kill the kids, he …”

  “What’re you talking about? Who said?”

  “Nobody! Nothin’ … I can’t tell you.”

  Dunbar reached down and grabbed Donald by the front of his T-shirt, pulling his face close to his own. Donald’s breath was fetid. “Goddamit! Don’t give me that shit! Who’s gonna kill you? What you been up to, huh? Talk!” He threw Walker back on the bed like a rag doll, hard enough to rattle his teeth.

  Slowly, in disconnected sentences, the story emerged, helped by sharp questions from Dunbar. “Alright, you drive these two guys to the supermarket. Then what?”

  “Well … I was late, and the supermarket guy was gone, so I thought, that’s it, we can go home. But then Stack, he sees this liquor store, an he makes me park, then he takes his case an… .”

  “Wait! Where was this liquor store?” Dunbar had a sickening feeling that he knew what the answer would be.

  “I dunno, Madison, I think, around Fiftieth.”

  “Madison, between Forty-seventh and Forty-eighth?”

  “Yeah, that’s the one.”

  “Oh, Donnie, you dumb asshole! Do you know your friend wasted two people in that store? Blew one guy’s head off with a shotgun and killed a seventeen-year-old kid.”

  “I din do nothin’! I swear, Jesus, I never even touched the gun. Sonny, as God is my secret judge, all I done was drive the car.”

  “Donnie, let me explain something. The law don’t care about that. The law says that if a murder is committed in the course of a crime, everybody involved in the crime can be charged with murder, just the same as whoever did the killing itself. You understand what I’m saying?”

  “Sonny, hey, that ain’t right! I tol you I din do nothin’.”

  “Yeah, baby, but that’s the way it is. Now look, Donnie, we’re in a bad situation here. You just told me about being hooked up in a crime. I’m a cop, right? That means I got to do something …”

  “You gonna arrest me!”

  “No, but I got to get you to somebody who is gonna arrest you. It’s hard to explain, but my ass’ll be in sling, if you don’t do what I say.”

  “Your ass! What about me? Shit, I thought you was gonna help me get away.”

  “Oh, shit, Donnie! Think for once! I can’t cover up two fucking murders. I’m a goddamn homicide detective. Somebody else catches you, and they will, Donnie, and this comes out, and it will, I’m out of a job. Then who’s gonna watch out for you and Ella and the kids, with you in jail? Tell me that!”

  Donald was silent at this. Then he let out a long shuddering sigh and got unsteadily to his feet. In a dull, small voice he said, “OK, Sonny, tell me what you want me to do.”

  “First, get yourself cleaned up. Then I’ll take you up to Midtown South. You walk in and tell the desk you want to talk to Detective Slocum. Tell him everything you told me, and whatever else he wants to know. He’s a good guy. I’ll take care of Ella and getting you a lawyer.”

  “Will I go to jail?”

  “Well, for a while. But we can probably swing bail.”

  “No. I don’t want to be out.” He looked straight at Dunbar with red-rimmed eyes. “I’m scared, Sonny. That man scares the livin’ shit out of me. I better stay in jail.”

  Elvis missed them by about ten minutes. He strolled into the lobby with his new Borsalino cocked over one eye and went directly to Room 10. He knocked a couple of times, and when nobody answered he slipped the lock with a piece of celluloid that had come, conveniently, with his new hat. Look like old Snowball went out for a while, he thought. This was definitely the right room, though. He recognized the bottle of Scotch that Louis had given Walker. He was not inclined to wait around in the smelly room for Walker’s return, however, and so he left the cash bag on the little shelf above the sink. He was about to close the door, when he remembered Louis’s lecture on fingerprints. OK, he had the paper bag, he hadn’t touched anything in the room, not even the inside doorknob. He shoved the door closed with his foot and carefully wiped the outside knob with his shirttail. Whistling as he walked off, he felt very clever indeed.

  Chapter 5

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” said Judge Edward Yergin. He glanced over at the defendant’s table and saw that it was empty. “Mr. McFarley, have we no defendants this morning?”

  McFarley laughed. “Your Honor, the Legal Aid lawyers are still down in the holding pens.”

  “Well, invite them in,” said Yergin.

  “Your Honor, the first cases on this morning’s calendar are represented by private counsel,” the clerk replied.

  Yergin said, “Call the first case,” and McFarley read from a sheet of paper, “People versus Hutch. Burglary and criminal possession of stolen property. Defendant Willard C. Hutch, please come forward.” As McFarley read the change, the defendant, who had been out on bail, came forward with his attorney. Karp searched through his stack of files. In theory, each case on the calendar should have been represented by a complaint in the stack. As each case progressed through the courts, each Assistant DA was supposed to keep the file current and then return it to a clerk, who was supposed to pass the file on to the assistant DA who would be handling the case next.

  But by the time each case came to trial, it could have passed through the hands of half-a-dozen assistant DAs and as many clerks. The files were often misplaced, in which case the ADA could either muddle through without it, or ask for a delay. This morning there were seventy-five cases on the calendar and Karp had fifty-three files.

  The file for the Hutch case was there, however, and Karp scanned the complaint form rapidly. This form had been prepared in the DA’s Office Complaint Room weeks before. Occasionally, Karp could pick up complaints the night before so that he could look them over before going to court. More often, the stack of cases was not prepared until he arrived at 100 Centre Street in the morning. When that happened, as it had this morning, Karp’s total preparation time for a case ran to about two minutes.

  The Hutch case included a sworn affidavit given to an assistant DA in the complaint room by the arresting officer, a detective. The detective stated that he had received information from a tenant in a housing project that Hutch—also a tenant—was burglarizing apartments. The follow-up investigation found another tenant who said he saw a man fitting Hutch’s description leave an apartment—not his own—carrying a stereo. The detective had obtained a search warrant and found stolen stereo components in Hutch’s apartment. Hutch was arrested, but the witness was unable to pick him out of a lineup.

  The file also included Hutch’s yellow sheet, which showed numerous burglary, breaking and entering, and possession convictions. OK, Mr. Hutch is a career burglar. He’s pleading innocent to the burglary charges. This is a hearing to determine whether there is probable cause to charge him with the crime. We have physical evidence to prove that Hutch was holding stolen goods, but no evidence to show that Hutch stole them.

  As Karp scanned the file and considered what to do, the judge said to the defendant’s counsel, “What’s your motion, Mister Steinberg?”

  Marty Steinberg was a typical small-time defense lawyer, who represented dozens of petty and professional criminals every week, and who was as much a fixture of the Criminal Court as Jim McFarley. Graying, sixty-odd, slightly shabby, he cruised the Streets of Calcutta like a pretzel vendor, occasionally stopping at a pay phone to dictate a motion to his secretary, whom he rarely saw.

  “We are now ready to proceed, Your Honor.”

  “Are the People ready?” the judge asked Roger Karp.

  Karp asked, “Your Honor, may I approach the bench?”

  Karp and Steinberg now stepped outside the record and into the dark and oily crankcase of the criminal justice system, where the real work was done. They spoke in low voices. “Judge, the People feel we can make a disposition on this case right now,” Karp said.
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br />   “How so?” asked Yergin.

  “We’d be willing to drop the burglary charge, if, and only if, the defendant agrees to take a guilty plea on the charge of criminal possession.”

  “Sounds OK,” said Steinberg.

  “Hold on, Marty,” said Karp. “The defendant must also agree to maximum time. We’re talking a year in the pen.”

  “What? Why maximum?” complained the defense attorney.

  “Because if it’s not max, we’ll go to trial on both burglary and possession, and we’ll win on possession at least, and get max time from the judge anyway. We could also get lucky and win on burglary, in which case you’re looking at a lot more time.”

  Yergin’s eyes met Karp’s in understanding. This was what the judge had been talking about. The threat of trial greased the system and made it possible to render justice in fact, if not in form. “Counsel, this sounds reasonable to me,” Yergin said.

  “Let me discuss it with my client,” said Steinberg, and went back to his table to confer with Hutch for a few minutes. He returned to the bench and said, “Your Honor, I’m ready to proceed.”

  Yergin now spoke out loud. “Mister Karp, do you have any motions?”

  “Your Honor, the People wish to drop the charge of burglary against the defendant.”

  “Charge dismissed.”

  Steinberg spoke now. “Your Honor, my client wishes to change his previously entered plea of not guilty to guilty of the crime of criminal possession of stolen property.”

  With that, Judge Yergin sentenced Hutch to a year in prison. The gavel came down. Bang. Next case.

  The morning wore on. The wheels creaked. Assault, one year. Assault, no defendant, bench warrant. Larceny, assault, no defendant, bench warrant. Shoplifting, sentenced to time served. Assault, no witnesses. Where are the witnesses? Not here, Your Honor. Move to dismiss. Witness has appeared five times, Your Honor. Each time, the defense has requested adjournment. Request case be put on the bottom of today’s calendar, Your Honor. Granted, next case. Mrs. Murcovitch whispers her testimony. The kid with the hat goes up for a bullet, still smirking. The cop with the broken toe speaks his testimony in the stilted copspeak they all used—“the perpetrator then proceeded …” Next case. Next case. Next case.