Cardozo motioned him to the side of the lobby. Hector hesitated before stepping away from the door.
“I can’t get your cat out of my mind, Hector. I hate to see an animal falsely accused.”
“What was the cat’s name?” Cardozo asked.
“Estrellita.”
Cardozo took Hector’s arm, holding him back lightly. “We know about both your jobs. You’ve been dealing dope in this building. We know who your customers are and we know who your supplier is.”
Hector’s soft red face flared into a hard red face. “Bullshit.”
“Relax, Hector. We’re not interested in the dope. On Saturday the twenty-fourth you sold Debbi Hightower’s coke to someone else. Who was the other customer?”
Hector’s blink rate began edging up. “What customer? I’m a doorman.”
“Someone came into this building that you haven’t told us about and you sold them a gram.”
Hector looked at him. A thick knotty artery pulsed in his temple. “You’re crazy.”
“I need the name, Hector.”
“I ain’t got no name.”
“You withhold evidence, Hector, and I promise you, I will get angry about the coke.”
“That Hightower, she’s a coked-up whore. She’d say anything to save her skin. I’m a family man, I’m not going to get dragged into this. You want to accuse, talk to my lawyer.”
“I’m going to keep it one on one for the time being. Let’s take a walk. I’m parked by the hydrant down at the end of the block.”
Hector took a sidelong glance at Cardozo. “Man, you gotta be kidding.”
“No kidding, Hector. I need some answers from you and I can see this isn’t the right atmosphere.”
“I’m working, man.”
“So am I, man, and you call me Lieutenant, okay?”
Cardozo motioned his guest to a straight-backed chair, keeping the swivel chair for himself. He started off nice-guy. Standard operating procedure.
“Smoke if you want to,” he offered.
Hector took a pack of Marlboros out of his shirt and lit one. Cardozo pushed the ashtray across the desk.
“Truth time, Hector. Who bought the gram?”
“You got the wrong guy.”
Cardozo picked up a handful of paper from the desk. He began leafing through the latest interdepartmental memos. Ten minutes went by. He looked up.
Hector was showing no agitation except for the way he stubbed out one cigarette before lighting the next.
“Why are you shielding them, Hector? Who’d you sell Debbi Hightower’s gram to?”
There was no ventilation in the cubicle. Hector’s brown eyes squinted against the smoke of his cigarette.
Cardozo leaned forward and bent the neck of the desk lamp up. The reflector aimed the full glare of the hundred-watt bulb straight into Hector’s face.
Hector didn’t wince or blink.
“We have photos, Hector. Pictures of your distributor making the drop. Pictures of you dealing.”
“This is bullshit. I want to talk to my lawyer.”
“All I need is a name, Hector. And then you walk out of here.”
“I don’t know any fucking name.” Hector’s voice was sliding up into a whine. “I didn’t sell any fucking gram, I don’t deal coke. Hightower’s lying.”
Cardozo went back to his reading.
In fifteen minutes Hector said, “Can you move the light? It’s in my eyes.”
Cardozo slammed a fist down onto the desktop. The lamp jumped and Hector started two inches out of his chair.
“Tell me the name!” Cardozo shouted. “Come on, you stupid Spic meathead! Stop wasting my time!”
Cardozo yanked Hector’s right arm up behind his back and marched him out into the squad room.
“Hey, man, you’re hurting me.”
Cardozo pushed Hector over to the duty desk. Sergeant Goldberg looked up. “Need some help, Vince?”
“Yeah—cuff this scum and put him in the cage.”
This was pure police theater. The law said suspects could not be caged without being arrested, and most suspects knew this. But the press published so many horror stories of police brutality that suspects could never be sure the cops would go by the law. The press—by creating uncertainty—helped cops. The scenario was this: Cardozo would go back to his cubicle and Goldberg would say to Hector, “You look like a good guy to me, I’m not going to cuff you or cage you.” And Hector would sit there staring at that empty cage, believing it was only Sergeant Goldberg’s good heart that was keeping him out of it and knowing that a good heart, like patience, could wear out.
Cardozo shut his door and spent the next hour reviewing van photos of the ins and outs at the Inferno.
Details nudged his attention. This man’s hat, that woman’s bracelet. He was surprised by the number of limos with black windows, lined up outside the warehouse like a cortege heading for a burial in Queens.
He compared Inferno and Beaux Arts photos, noting in the log that the comparison had been made and that the match was negative.
A voice cut into his concentration.
“I want to talk to my client.”
Cardozo swiveled around, flicking on the desk lamp.
Ray Kane was wearing a madras jacket and green trousers. He carried a tan raincoat over one arm.
“Which client is that, Counselor?”
“Hector Dominguez.”
“Does Hector know he’s your client?”
“I’m his attorney of record in a matter still pending before the third circuit.”
“What matter is that?”
“I don’t have to disclose that.”
Cardozo drew himself together and stood. “Dominguez has no right to counsel till he’s charged. The law gives us eight hours to detain him.”
“You’ve used up three of them.”
“And I’ll use up another five.”
“Lieutenant, you have no probable cause.”
“I have plenty of probable cause.”
“I’d like to hear what it is.”
“The fact that a man of your distinction, an associate of Ted Morgenstern, is representing a lowly doorman.”
They stared at one another, each holding the other in the icy challenge of his gaze.
“You move Mr. Dominguez to arraignment in half an hour or I’m bringing habeas corpus.” Kane turned and with a waddling stride marched from the room.
Cardozo found Assistant District Attorney Lucinda MacGill working night shift in the second-story squad room.
“I’m holding a man called Dominguez,” he said. “I don’t want to charge him, but he has information in a murder. Is he entitled to counsel?”
“Since this is a capital charge, it would be advisable.” She leaned forward to lift her coffee cup from the desk, and fluorescence from the overhead lights flashed in her hair. “If you deny him counsel but don’t charge him, you’re in a gray area.”
“Gray I can live with.” Cardozo placed both hands on the desk edge. “An eager beaver from Ted Morgenstern’s firm is representing Dominguez in a case pending. Can we find out what the charge is?”
MacGill set down her coffee and motioned Cardozo to come with her across the corridor. She went to a computer terminal and punched in data. A moment later the screen came up a field of glowing green type.
“Is that Hector or Hernando Dominguez?” she asked.
“Hector.”
She punched in more data. “Raymond L. Kane the Third is representing Hector C. Dominguez, felony conviction possession of cocaine intent to sell, three-year sentence suspended, Dominguez cooperated with the D.A.”
“Cooperated how?”
“Doesn’t say. He’s released in Kane’s recognizance.”
“So what’s my situation if I don’t let Kane talk to him?”
“Nothing you get from Dominguez can be used to charge or detain him.”
“I’m not interested in Dominguez. Can the information be used against another person?”
“That depends. Does it incriminate Dominguez?”
“Of dope dealing, yes.”
“It’ll be thrown out, violation of Dominguez’s Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself.”
“Hector sold a gram of coke to an unknown person in Beaux Arts Tower at two P.M. the day of the killing. I need the customer’s name.”
“You feel this unknown person might be what—a witness to the killing?”