Sleepers

'Is what true?' I said.

'Can we win the case without a witness?'

'You already won,' Fat Mancho said. 'You got the taste. Now, you're just lookin' to get away with it.'

'They've got to walk, Fat Man,' I said. 'We only win when John and Tommy walk.'

'Then you gotta get 'em outta the shootin' hole,' Fat Mancho said. 'Put 'em someplace else. Only your witness does that. And he's doin' a Claude Rains so far. Nobody's seen the fucker.'

'What if he doesn't show?' Carol said. 'What if we go in the way we are?'

'You got street justice,' Fat Mancho said. 'That's the real. You come up with empty hands on court justice, that's the bullshit.'

'They both take your life away, Fat Man,' I said. 'The street just does it faster.'

'Street's only one matters,' Fat Mancho said. 'Court's for uptown, people with suits, money, lawyers with three names. You got cash, you can buy court justice. On the street, justice got no price. She's blind where the judge sits. But she ain't blind out here. Out here, the bitch got eyes.'

'We need both,' I said.

'Then you need a witness,' Fat Mancho said, standing up, taking the black rubber ball out of his pants pocket. 'And I need to finish beatin' your ass. Let's go, loser. You down to me by four.'

'Can we finish this later?' I asked, too numb from the cold to stand.

'When later?' Fat Mancho asked, looking down at me.

'The middle of July,' I said.

SIXTEEN

Danny O'Connor pieced together a credible defense for the jury to ponder during the course of his first three days on the attack. He called to the stand a limited range of John and Tommy's friends and family, most of them middle-aged to elderly men and women with sweet eyes and trusting faces. All of them testifying that while both boys were sometimes wild, they were not killers.

None of them had ever seen John Reilly or Tommy Marcano hold a gun.

The two waitresses on duty the night of the shooting testified that they knew both defendants and found them to be pleasant whenever they entered the pub. Neither remembered seeing John Reilly or Tommy Marcano the night Sean Nokes was killed. The women said they were in the kitchen at the time of the shooting and did not come out until the police arrived.

'Were the two shooters in the pub when the police got there?' O'Connor asked one of the waitresses.

'No,' she said. 'I guess they already left.'

'Why do you guess that?'

'Killers don't wait for cops,' she said. 'In the neighborhood, nobody waits for cops.'

'You're from the neighborhood,' O'Connor said. 'And you waited.'

'I was getting paid to wait,' she said.

Jerry the bartender testified he served the defendants two drinks and two beers on the afternoon of Nokes' death. They sat quietly and were gone in less than an hour. They paid tab and tip with a twenty left on the bar. He was in the back picking up his dinner when the shooting occurred and therefore did not see anyone pump shots into Sean Nokes. Jerry also phoned the police as soon as the gunfire died down.

Through it all, Michael kept his cross-examinations simple, never venturing beyond where the witnesses wanted to go, never calling into dispute any parts of their accounts. He was always polite, cordial and relaxed, easily buying into the professed innocence of those called to the stand.

O'Connor's intent was to continue to mine the doubts planted in the jury's mind, doubts that had first taken root with the testimony of the prosecutor's key eyewitness, Helen Salinas.

To that end, Dr. George Paltrone, a Bronx general practitioner who also ran a detox clinic, was called to the stand as an expert witness. In Dr. Paltrone's opinion, if Mrs. Salinas drank as much alcohol as she claimed in the amount of time that she stated, her testimony had to be deemed less than credible.

'Are you saying Mrs. Salinas was drunk?' O'Connor asked Dr. Paltrone.

'Not quite drunk,' Dr. Paltrone said. 'But she had more than enough drink in her to impair judgment.'

'Wouldn't witnessing a shooting sober her up?'

'Not necessarily,' Dr. Paltrone said. 'The fear she felt may have made a rational judgment even more difficult.'

'In other words, doctor, drink and fear don't always lead to truth?'

'That's right,' Dr. Paltrone said. 'More often than not they don't.'

I sat through the three days of O'Connor's defense, in my usual third row seat, barely listening, unable to focus on the action before me. My mind was on Father Bobby and what he had decided to do. I knew without him that our best chance was a hung jury, which meant nothing more than another trial and an almost certain conviction.

I had not seen Father Bobby since the night I asked him to take the stand. I thought it too risky to approach O'Connor and find out what he knew, and Michael was beyond my reach. Everyone in the neighborhood seemed aware that we had a witness stashed.

But no one, not even King Benny, had the word on who the witness was and when he would show.

'If he's not here tomorrow, then forget it,' I said to Carol as the third day ground to an end. 'It's over.'

'We could try to find somebody else,' Carol said. 'We still have some time.'

'Who?' I said. 'The Pope's in Rome and I don't know any rabbis.'

'We can go and talk to him again,' Carol said. 'Or maybe have somebody else talk to him.'

'He's not afraid of King Benny,' I said, walking with Carol down the courthouse corridors. 'And Fat Mancho won't even go near a priest.'

'Then we can force him to do it,' Carol said with a shrug and a half-smile. 'Put a gun on him.'

'You want your witness to have one hand raised in court,' I said. 'Not two.'

We stopped by the elevator bank and waited, Carol pushed closer to me by the surrounding cluster of court officers, reporters, lawyers, defendants and their families. The down arrow rang and lit and the double doors to the elevator creaked open. We squeezed in with the pack, pushed to the back of the car. We both managed to turn and face forward, my eyes looking at the scarred neck of a husky Hispanic wearing an imitation leather jacket with a fake fur hood. He was breathing through his open mouth and his dank breath further fouled the musty air. As we rode down the nine floors, the elevator stopping at each one, I looked over to my far left and saw Danny O'Connor standing there. He had his back against the elevator buttons, a tudor hat on top of his head and his eyes on me. He was chewing a thick piece of gum and had an unlit cigarette in his mouth.

If he knew anything, his face wasn't showing it.

The doors finally opened onto the main floor and the passengers stormed out of the car. I grabbed Carol by the arm and made my way closer to O'Connor, who was content to let the rush of people pass him by before he stepped off. The three of us came out of the elevator at the same time, my elbow brushing against O'Connor's side.

'I'm sorry,' I said.

'Not a problem,' he said, looking at me and Carol. 'Riding these elevators is like riding the IRT. Only not as safe.'

'Lucky it's cold,' I said. 'I'd hate to see what it's like in there during a heat wave.'

'It was nice bumping into you,' O'Connor said with a smile, moving toward the revolving exit doors.

'Why the rush?' I asked, watching him leave.

'Gotta go,' he said over his shoulder. 'I'm late.'

'Late for what?'

'Mass,' O'Connor said.

SEVENTEEN

'Call your next witness,' Judge Weisman said to Danny O'Connor.

'Your Honor, the defense calls to the stand Father Robert Carillo.'

Father Bobby walked through the courtroom with the confidence of a fighter heading into a main event. His thick hair was brushed back, his eyes were clear and his care-worn face shone under the glare of the overhead lights.

'Raise your right hand,' the bailiff said. 'And place your left hand on the Bible.'