Marie is still on my mind when the phone shatters the doldrums. To maintain a little dignity, I let it ring twice.
It is not Dante.
No, it’s Peter Lampke, an old friend. He’s just accepted an offer on his Cape in Hither Hills and wants to know if I can handle the closing.
“I’m up to my eyeballs, Peter, but I’ll make time for a pal. I’ll call the broker right now and get her to send over the contracts. Congratulations.”
It may not be challenging work, but it’s at least two or three hours of bona fide billable, legal employment. I immediately call the broker, Phyllis Schessel, another old friend, leave her a message, and, with the rent paid for another couple of months, call it a day.
I don’t even attempt a twelfth shot, just leave the crumpled-up paper in the basket.
I’m halfway out the door, key in hand, when the phone rings again. I step back inside and answer.
“Tom,” says a deep voice at the other end of the line, “it’s Dante.”
Chapter 26. Tom
THREE HOURS LATER I’m in New York City, and I must admit, the whole thing feels surreal.
Two bolts turn over, a chain scrapes in its track, and Dante Halleyville’s frame fills door 3A at 26 Clinton Street. Dante hasn’t stepped out of the apartment in more than a week or opened a shade or cracked a window, and what’s left of the air inside smells of sweat and fear and greasy Chinese food.
“I’m starving” are the first words out of his mouth. “Three days ago a delivery guy looked at me funny, and I’ve been afraid to order anything since. Plus I’m down to twelve dollars.”
“Good thing we stopped on the way,” I say, pulling the first of three large pizza boxes out of a bag and placing it in front of Dante.
He sits down with Clarence on a low vintage couch, a forty-year-old picture of Mick Jagger looking back at me over their shoulders. I’m not saying I approve of Dante’s decision to bolt, but an old immigrant neighborhood filled with young white bohemians, half of whose rent is paid by their parents, is not the first place the police are going to look for a black teenager on the run. The apartment belongs to the older sister of a kid Dante met this summer at the Nike camp.
Dante wolfs down a slice of pie, stopping only long enough to say, “Me and Michael were there that night. I mean, we were right there,” he says, taking another bite and a long drink from his Coke. “Ten yards away. Maybe less than that. Hard to talk about it.”
“What are you saying, Dante? You saw Feifer, Walco, and Rochie get shot? Are you telling me you’re a witness?”
Dante stops eating and stares into my eyes. I can’t tell whether he’s angry or hurt. “Didn’t see it, no. Me and Michael were hiding in the bushes, but I heard it clear as I hear you now. First a voice saying, ‘Get on your knees, bitches,’ then another, Feifer maybe, asking, ‘What’s going on?’ Sort of friendly, like maybe this is all a joke. Then, when they realize it’s serious, all of them bawling and begging right up to the last gunshot. I’ll never forget it. The sound of them begging for their lives.”
“Dante, why’d you go back there that night?” I ask. “After what happened that afternoon? Makes no sense to me.” Or to the police, I don’t bother to add.
“Feifer asked us to come. Said it was important.”
This makes even less sense.
“Feifer? Why?”
“Feifer called us that afternoon. That’s why I recognized his voice over at the beach. Said he wants to put all this drama behind us, wants things to be cool. Michael didn’t want to go. I figured we should.”
“Michael still have his gun?” asks Clarence, and if he hadn’t I would have.
“Got rid of it. Said he sold it to his cousin in Brooklyn.”
“We got to get the gun back,” says Clarence. “But first you got to turn yourself in to the police. The longer you stay out, the worse this looks. You have to do this, Dante.”
“Clarence is right,” I say, and leave it at that. I know from Clarence that Dante has always looked up to me some. Dante doesn’t say anything for a couple of minutes, long minutes. I understand completely-he’s just been fed, and he’s free.
“Let’s do it tonight then,” Dante finally says. “But Tom’s coming with us, okay? I don’t want nothing outlandish happening when I show up at that police station.”
Chapter 27. Tom
ON THE RIDE back to Bridgehampton, I make one call, and it’s not to the cops to tell them we’re on our way. It’s to Len Levitt, an AP sports photographer I’ve known for years, and almost trust.
“Yeah, I know what time it is, Len. Now you want to find out why I woke you up or not?” When he hears me out, Levitt is thanking instead of cursing me.
As soon as we’re out of the city and through the Midtown Tunnel, Clarence shows us his big Buick can still move. We get to Marie’s place just before 3:00 a.m.
When we pull up, Marie is outside waiting. Her back is as straight as a board, and her game face is on. If people thought she’d been shattered by the events of the past week, they’re wrong.
She’s wearing her Sunday clothes and beside her is a big plastic bag filled with food she’s been cooking all night and stuffing into Tupperware containers just in case Dante has to spend the night in jail. Who knows how long she’s been standing there already, but it doesn’t matter because you know she’d stay there all night if she had to.
Then again, one look at her face and you know she’d march into hell for her grandson. Grandmothers are something.
But right now, more than anything else in this world, Marie is relieved to finally be able to lay her eyes and hands on Dante, and when she wraps her arms around his waist, the love in her eyes is as naked as it is ferocious. And then another surprise-Dante starts to cry in her arms.
“Don’t worry, Grandma, I’m going to be okay,” he says through his tears.
“You most certainly will be, Dante. You’re innocent.”
Part Two. Kate Costello
Chapter 28. Tom
IT’S 4:15 A.M. In the moonlight, East Hampton ’s deserted Main Street looks almost wholesome. The only car in sight is a banged-up white Subaru parked in front of the quaint fifties-era movie theater marquee.
As Clarence plows slowly through town, the Subaru’s lights go on and it tears off down the road. We follow it to the tiny police station, and when we arrive, the Subaru is already parked out front.
Short, solid, and determined, Lenny Levitt stands beside it, one Nikon hanging around his neck, another being screwed into a tripod.
I hop out of Clarence’s car and read Levitt the brief statement I composed during the drive from New York City. “Dante Halleyville and Michael Walker,” I say slowly enough for him to take it down in his notebook, “had absolutely nothing to do with the murders of Eric Feifer, Patrick Roche, and Robert Walco. Dante Halleyville is an exceptional young man with no criminal record or reason to commit these crimes.”
“So where’s Walker?” asks Levitt.
“ Walker will turn himself in tomorrow. There will be no further comment at this point.”
“Why did they run?”
“What did I just say, Len? Now start taking pictures. This is your chance to get out of the Sports section.”
I called Lenny for PR reasons. The tabloids and cops love that shot of the black suspect in shackles paraded through a gauntlet of blue and shoved into a squad car. But that’s not what they’re getting this morning.
The image Lenny captures is much more peaceful, almost poetic: a frightened teenager and his diminutive grandmother walking arm in arm toward the door of a small-town police station. The American flag flutters in the moonlight. Not a cop is in sight.