Footsteps of the Hawk (19 page)

That hour of the morning, the court was being used by stay–in–shape amateurs. The game was so weak there was no betting going on. I leaned my back against the chain–link fence, looking down Sixth Avenue, waiting for Hauser. I heard a double–honk of a horn, looked at the source and saw a window going down in an electric–blue Ford Explorer four–by. Hauser's face showed in the window. I walked over, got into the passenger seat. He hit the gas and lurched out into traffic.

"Very subtle ride you got here," I said.

"Yeah!" Hauser replied, taking it as a compliment. "And the boys really love it."

"Take the next right," I told him, then gave him directions to where Belinda would be waiting.

"Check this out," Hauser said, his face animated as he pushed the eject button on his radio. A cassette tape popped into view, still in the slot. I thought he was going to put in a new one, make me listen to some lame music, but he just left it there.

"What's it supposed to do?" I asked him.

Hauser grinned, pushed a button on the radio. No music came out. He waited a couple of seconds, then pushed another. "What's it supposed to do?" came out of the speakers. In my voice.

"The whole truck is wired," he said. "I've got other stuff too. Even a minicam in the back. I could sit back there for hours. I can see out, but nobody can see in. It's just perfect for surveillance."

"What if somebody wants to listen to the radio?" I asked him.

"As long as the tape cassette is in the slot, it works," Hauser said. "I can
play
the tapes too—all I have to do is push it in."

"This must have cost a fortune," I said.

"Not so much," he said, a slightly defensive tone in his voice.

"It's awesome," I assured him.

"It's great in bad weather too," he said, still not satisfied.

"I sure wish I had one," I said. That seemed to calm him down. Which was a good thing. I quickly discovered Hauser wasn't one of those guys who could talk and drive at the same time—he almost splattered a pedestrian because he was so busy talking. Apparently, he couldn't talk without making eye contact. I made up my mind to ride in the back seat on the way to Jersey.

B
elinda was right in front of the precinct. She was wearing jeans tucked into mid–calf black boots, her upper body covered in a white turtleneck, a jacket over one shoulder. When we pulled up, I got out, opened the passenger door for her. She climbed inside, and I slid into the back seat.

"Belinda Roberts, J. P. Hauser," I said by way of introduction.

"I'm pleased to meet you," Belinda said.

"Same here," Hauser said, turning to face her, holding out his right hand for her to shake. Belinda started to reach for his hand, then gasped as Hauser just missed crunching a taxicab at the intersection.

"Take the Tunnel," I said to Hauser. "Then we want the Turnpike south."

In the Tunnel, Hauser and Belinda got to talking about courthouse personnel: judges, clerks, court officers, ADAs. "Moltino's a major asshole," Hauser said.

"Big–time," Belinda agreed.

I put my feet up on the big back seat, leaned back, closed my eyes.

M
y eyes flickered open as Hauser was pulling off to the side of the road. I could feel the trooper somewhere behind us. "Fuck!" Hauser said. "That's just what I need—
another
goddamn ticket."

I looked back over my shoulder out of the corner of my eye. The trooper was Central Casting: tall, square–jawed, his Mountie hat canted at just the right angle. He walked around to the driver's window—Hauser already had it down.

"Sir, you were clocked at—"

"It's my fault, officer," Belinda said, leaning across Hauser, arching her back so she could look up into the trooper's eyes. Or to show him how eager her breasts were to bust out of the white turtleneck.

"I'm on the job," she said. "Going down to the state prison to interview a witness." She pulled a thick leather wallet out of her jacket, handed it over.

The trooper flipped it open, saw the badge, gave Belinda a sharp look.

"Call it in," she said, flashing a dazzling smile. "It's not my boyfriend's badge, it's mine. I don't even
have
a boyfriend," she said in that pouty little–girl tone I'd heard her use before.

"May I see your license and registration, sir?" the trooper said to Hauser.

He took it all back to his cruiser. A few minutes passed. He walked back over. "Sir, you were clocked at seventy miles per hour. Since you have no prior record, it is our policy to issue a warning at this time. Please drive more carefully in the future."

"Thank
you
,"Hauser said fervently.

The trooper leaned into the window a bit, handed Belinda's wallet back to her. Then he straightened up, threw a half–salute and went back to his cruiser.

As Hauser pulled away, Belinda snapped open her wallet. A white business card popped out. She put the card in another jacket pocket, cranked her seat way back so she was almost reclining, looking up at me.

"Nice work," I told her.

"Well, you can usually tin a Jersey cop," she said, smiling. "We'd do the same for them on a traffic thing."

"I don't think it was the badge that did it," I told her.

"What else
could
it be?" She smiled again, taking a deep breath.

W
e got off the Turnpike at Exit 8A. Belinda directed Hauser from there. I knew a faster way, but I didn't say anything.

You almost never see prisons in the middle of cities. Jails, maybe, but prisons, they always want them out in the sticks. But Trenton State Prison is so old that it was there first—they had to build the city around it. We turned off Federal Street into the visitors' parking lot. Hauser looked at the dark monster looming above us: endless stone walls aged into a single definitionless mass, a filthy gray–black slab. "It's right out of a movie," he said. "A fucking horror movie."

Belinda went up to the window first, leaned in to talk to the guard. When she motioned to us, Hauser and I went over too. We each showed ID—Hauser his press pass, me my phony bar card:

Juan Rodriguez, Abogado.

"I told them you were George's lawyer," Belinda whispered. "And that J.P. was covering the case. This way, we get a contact visit."

"What's that?" Hauser asked her.

"If you're not an attorney, or a cop, or whatever—if you're just family or friends—then the visit is over the phone. Not a telephone, just a receiver you pick up on one side of the glass. The guy you're visiting does the same. A contact visit is when you can touch—no barriers."

"Piersall. George Piersall," the speaker squawked.

"That's us," Belinda said, standing up to lead the way.

The place was chambered, like the hatches in a submarine. As we walked through each set of doors, they closed behind us before the next one opened. The guard in the first chamber ran over our bodies with a hand scanner. It beeped for keys, the metal clip on ballpoint pens…anything. Hauser took out one of those giant Swiss Army knives, the red ones with enough attachments to build a house from scratch. The guard shook his head, gave Hauser a look. Hauser stared back blankly until the guard dropped his eyes. "You get this back on your way out," he muttered.

The next chamber had a metal detector we had to walk through. Then a guard led us around to the conference room. Most of the room was taken up by a long table with a wooden divider running lengthwise: attorneys on one side, clients on the other. There were also a few smaller tables scattered around, the space between them the only privacy permitted.

"There's a better room, for lawyers," Belinda said. "They let cops use it too. But I didn't want to try and talk them into letting the three of us in."

"This'll do fine," I said, casing the room. Over in the corner, a muscular black man in a blinding–white T–shirt was huddled forward, talking to another black man in a business suit. The muscular black man looked up. His eyes passed over my face like it was a blank wall.

"Hey!" A man's deep voice, greeting someone. It was Piersall, spotting Belinda. He walked over so slowly it was just this side of a swagger, a blond man with a neat haircut. His eyes were dishwater blue, set close together, his nose almost too small for his face. He smiled at all of us—his teeth were either all capped or factory–perfect. I made him at around six feet, maybe an inch over. About a hundred eighty–five pounds, most of it in the upper body. A good–looking, confident man—I could see a woman leaving a bar with him
way
before closing time.

He sat down, pulled a pack of smokes from the breast pocket of his prison–issue short–sleeved green shirt. He put the cigarette pack on the table, then he turned to Hauser, extended his hand.

"I'm George Piersall. You must be the reporter, right?"

"J. P. Hauser," Hauser acknowledged, shaking hands.

"And you?" Piersall asked, shifting his eyes to me. 'You're with Fortunato?"

"Juan Rodriguez," I said. "At your service."

"Where do we start?" Piersall asked.

"You're not contesting the Jersey conviction?" Hauser replied, setting the table.

"No. Not actually. I mean, it wasn't at all like they said in the indictment, but the plea offer was so good I just couldn't pass it up. I don't care about this one—I'll be going out on it quick enough. The thing is, they already dropped a detainer on me. Instead of parole, they'll just load me into a van to start another bit."

"The woman in New York?" Hauser asked. "The one on University Place? You said you—"

"Doris," Piersall interrupted. "Her name was Doris."

"Okay, Doris," Hauser agreed. "You said you…knew her. Before it…happened?"

"I did. I mean, not like we were friends or anything. I met her in a bar. We got to talking. And we went back to her place. After that, I called her a couple of times, or she'd call me. If neither of us was busy, we'd get together. You know, no big deal…But I
liked
her, you know what I'm saying? She was a nice kid—no reason for anyone to get rough with her."

"You think that's what happened?" I asked him, leaning in to catch his eye. "Somebody played too rough?"

"It could be," Piersall said quietly, staying right on my face. "She liked to play a little hard. Not over–the–top stuff, you know…"

"Spell it out," I said.

"Just little games. A slap in the face, grab her by the shoulders, hold her hands down while we did it. That's all."

"Somebody spotted you leaving…the night she was killed?" Hauser asked.

"Yeah. I'm not denying that. But even the autopsy report said she could of been murdered anytime—from just before I left to almost twenty–four hours later."

"Any possibility she was married? Or had a jealous boyfriend?" I asked him.

"Who knows?" He shrugged. "A girl like that, picking up guys in bars—it was probably just a matter of time anyway.

"So you figure she asked for it?" Hauser put in, the faintest undertone to his voice.

Piersall caught the undertone. Recognized it and batted it back over the net in one smooth move. "Not…
that
," he said, "God forbid," ducking his head slightly, like a man trying for composure. "I mean, she was asking for trouble, okay?" he said. "Not to be
killed
. What I was trying to say, she was taking some risks, see?"

"So what it comes down to," I said, "is you didn't do it. That's no help. You got anything else?"

"No," Piersall said, his face open and frank. "I wish I did. What we have to do, we have to find the guy who
did
do it—that's my only hope."

"We'll find him, George," Belinda said, her voice calm and certain. "I know, baby," Piersall told her, reaching for her hand, squeezing it for a second. He leaned back in his chair, finally lit the cigarette he'd had in front of him since we started talking.

"This is too crowded," I said, standing up. "With all of us pumping questions at you, we're not gonna get anywhere."

"I can—" Belinda started to say.

"No, it's okay. You and J.P. run through it. I'll step out for a while. I got some paperwork to look over anyway.

"Good to have met you," Piersall said, standing up to shake hands.

"Likewise," I told him.

"K
amau Rhodes," the loudspeaker barked. I walked over to the side room marked VISITORS.

"Got more than one client in here, huh, counselor?" a fat guard commented.

"It's a living," I said.

I walked into a long, narrow room, sat down on a round stool bolted to the floor, and looked into the murky Plexiglas, its surface smudged beyond redemption by generations of handprints—the only way to say hello or goodbye in that room, hands touching each other's through the barrier. I picked up the phone on my side of the barrier. Across from me was the muscular black man who'd been in the Contact Visit Room. We stared at each other for a long minute.

"Dragon," I said.

"Burke," he replied.

A long minute passed.

"I got your kite," he finally said. "Was that him?"

"Yeah," I said. "What's the word?"

"He's in PC," the black man said. "Been there for almost a week."

"He selling tickets?"

"No."

"Turn rat?"

"No. It wasn't like that. He's not pussy either—it wasn't a voluntary."

"Tell me."

"Somebody tried to take him out. A hammer job, with a shank for backup. His luck was running good—four cops were just rolling down the corridor—routine surprise shakedown—they saw it happening. All your guy got was a knot on his head."

"They pop anyone for it?"

"No. They were pros—hoods and gloves, long sleeves. Half a dozen other guys got between them and the cops—they got clean away."

"So why'd they lock Piersall up? Was it a race thing?"

"No. And it wasn't about a debt or a diss—it was a stone–cold paid–for hit. Word is, the RB was on the job."

RB. The Real Brotherhood. A white warrior gang with branches in max joints all over the country. Like the black and Latino gangs, all race did was get you in the door—what kept you there was performance. Some of them would stab you for stepping onto the wrong part of the yard, but most of them were businessmen—it would take something important to get them homicidal. Something like the prison drug concession, or a piece of the sports book. They also did debt collection and contract–kill work—inside the walls, there isn't much difference.