Afterburn (20 page)

"After more than four years he mystically realizes he made a mistake?"

"He was involved in ongoing police work," answered Glass, "and realized that there were several lost subjects in the undercover case involving Miss Welles. By that I mean unnamed targets of surveillance, and he realized that it was one of them in the truck on the day in question, and not Miss Welles."

Christina cut her eyes at Peck. This was bullshit. Of course she'd been in the truck—that's where she'd been arrested. Peck blinked but did not change his expression.

"Miss Welles never confessed?" the judge asked, flipping over a sheet of paper.

"That is correct," said Glass.

"There was no plea bargain, in fact?"

"That is also correct."

"Has the lost subject from the original case been arrested?"

"Detective Peck informs me that an arrest is expected shortly."

"What was Miss Welles's role, then?"

Glass looked directly at the judge. "She was the girlfriend of one of the principals. That's all."

"Your summary referred to some confusion over the method of communication used by the gang."

"We thought she had something to do with it."

The judge paused, then winced at some private thought. "There was no confession, no familiarity with the line of questioning?"

"This was more than four years ago, Your Honor, but the answer is no. She never confessed to anything the whole time."

"There was no prior record?"

"No."

"No arrests at all?"

"Nothing."

"Prison record was what?"

"Exemplary."

"Is Detective Peck ready to answer a few questions?"

"Yes."

The detective was sworn in. He had spent some time with his hair and necktie that morning.

"All right, explain this to me," barked the judge. "I'm surprised the newspapers aren't here. It's a good story."

"That's because they never sent me any notice," protested Mrs. Bertoli hoarsely. "If they did, then I would have raised holy hell."

The judge ignored her. "Go ahead, Detective."

"It's simple, Your Honor. We made a mistake in the identification. There was another woman involved in the smuggling—same weight, same coloring, height a little shorter. We didn't get much of a close look at her. We never heard her name. When we arrested Miss Welles, we thought that was the same woman. Miss Welles admitted she was the girlfriend of Rick Bocca, whom we suspected of masterminding the whole operation, but that was it."

"Just the girlfriend?" the judge asked.

"Yes."

"How much did she know?"

"She may have known a few things in a passive way, Your Honor, but she was not part of the planning. These were very professional people. Experienced, tough people. Bocca was well known to us. She was a young girl at the time, not a principal."

I'm actually insulted, Christina thought, but she said nothing.

"Sort of a hanger-on-er, a girlfriend, something like that?" the judge summarized.

"Bocca had a lot of"—the detective hesitated—"bimbos, you could call them, I guess."

"One of those appellations that are demeaning by their accuracy," noted the judge. "And though your terminology is vulgar, it is useful for its clarity. I believe I understand."

I never got less than an A-minus in any of my courses at Columbia, Christina thought angrily, but then she remembered that Peck knew this, had even taunted her with it during the interrogation.
Girl like you gets perfect grades, how'd you end up with Bocca?
He was smart, this Peck, looking at the judge with a face full of contrition.

"So what was the error?" asked the judge.

"The problem was that the people actually doing the job got away—we could never make them that one time," Peck recalled. "All we had was a truck full of stolen air conditioners. After Miss Welles was arrested, they broke up or disappeared. We knew Bocca was guilty, but he moved out to Long Island and, criminally, went inactive. Just worked on a fishing boat. But I saw the lost subject on a stakeout a month ago and realized that I had ID'd the wrong woman." Peck stopped for a breath. "I had to be honest with myself. I had to really ask myself if I was sure. So I came to Mr. Glass, who was not crazy to hear it, of course."

The judge nodded to Mrs. Bertoli. "Go ahead, then."

Mrs. Bertoli stood. "Due to new information coming to the attention of the New York City District Attorney's Office, and pursuant to Section 440.10 of the New York State Criminal Code, I request an order from the court vacating the conviction of Christina Welles and her sentence."

The judge turned to Glass. "Any objection?"

"None, Your Honor."

The judge sighed. "Miss Welles, apparently the State of New York, and in particular the New York City District Attorney's Office, owes you an apology, as well as four years of your life. We can provide you the former but not the latter. Of course, the criminal justice system tries to do its best, but from time to time, very occasionally, there is a gross miscarriage of justice. This, I acknowledge, has happened to you. I am now"—he pulled out a pen—"signing this order vacating your conviction and sentence." He looked up from the paper. "Okay . . . you are free to go, Miss Welles." He nodded to the patrons, one of whom stepped forward and opened her handcuffs. Then she handed Christina the sealed envelope containing her identification and money.

Glass collected his papers and walked out, without so much as looking at Christina.

"Can I talk?" said Christina, checking that her money was still in the envelope.

"By all means," said the judge, waving his hand.

"I'm free?"

"Yes. Right here, right now."

She looked around. "That's it? That's the whole thing?"

"Yes." The judge picked up his telephone.

Christina turned to Mrs. Bertoli. "I can just walk out?"

"Apparently."

"How often does this happen?"

"Never."

"But they have the power to do it?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Bertoli.

"Nobody ever hears about that."

"The D.A.'s Office doesn't tell people a lot of things."

"Did you know this was going to happen?"

"Not a clue."

"They sent you a piece of paper?"

"I highly doubt it," she said. "It's a very embarrassing matter. They kept this quick and quiet."

Christina noticed Peck standing at the back of the room, rocking on his heels. He could be the one to worry about, she thought, but I'm not sure. "What if I think there are people following me?"

The lawyer looked around. "Who?"

"I don't know." Christina leaned close. "Well, I—" Better not to say it. "I'm just worried about people following me."

Mrs. Bertoli nodded.

"Would you walk out with me?" Christina asked.

The lawyer looked at her watch. "I have a hearing in another courtroom."

"You won't walk me out of the building?"

The lawyer's eyes were dead, unconcerned. "Miss Welles, you're free to come and go as you please. I'm not going to charge you for this morning's work."

Now the detective was gone. But someone else could be watching, any of the men and women outside the courtroom up and down the hall. She could, she supposed, tie her hair up or get a pair of sunglasses or put on a different sweater, but that was not going to work. Not really. Plus she had her ridiculous and humiliating garbage bag as an identifying characteristic. She sat down in the back of the courtroom, hunched over in self-protection. I'm going to think this out, she told herself, not move until I know what I'm doing. She assumed she would be followed right on out of the courthouse. Maybe she was crazy, but she had to believe something was going on. The detective had lied blatantly. Suppose someone working for Tony Verducci was watching, suppose he wanted to talk to her?

She stood up and walked out of the courtroom, down the hall. Keep your feet moving, don't look around, don't look back. You're not free yet. She passed sullen black boys accompanied by their mothers, overweight and exhausted by it all; young blades who smoked too much and had seen the inside of three or four methadone clinics; shuffling court officers with stomachs so prodigious as to apparently require a concealed superstructure of support; private defense attorneys whose eyes were lost in folds of flesh, although their watches were very good indeed; policemen trying to remember testimony they swore they had memorized; families of the victims, moving in clusters of righteous solidarity, their faces suspicious of anyone who might deprive them of a chance to see justice done, and the more harshly, the better. Don't look at me, don't see me, she thought, hurrying with her head down.

She entered an elevator, standing uncomfortably among three police officers and two attorneys, none of whom said anything. Another man stepped on, eyed her once. I don't like his haircut, she thought, he could be following me. The door opened at the seventh floor and she followed the attorneys out. The floor contained the District Attorney's offices. She lingered indecisively. The man with the bad haircut stepped out of the elevator and waited. Don't look at him, she told herself. She got back on the elevator and took it up to the thirteenth floor. The man had not followed her, but that didn't mean anything. The court building constituted an immense maze. She took the elevator down to the first floor. If Tony Verducci wanted something with her, he'd have to wait until she was outside the court building. She retreated to a bathroom, hoping to hide a moment.

A fleshy woman in a tight white dress and pumps stood at the mirror, fixing her hair. She gave Christina a once-over, looked back at the mirror.

Just then another woman poked her head in the bathroom. "Mona, Bobby's in the car!"

"Did Jeanette get out yet?" answered the woman at the mirror.

"Yeah, she did. That's why Bobby says hurry up." The woman disappeared.

Hookers. Bail. Pimp. Christina watched the woman touch up her makeup. "Least your guy showed up," she said, standing at the other sink.

"They're all assholes."

"Yeah, but you got a ride."

The woman turned around, frowned. "They picked you up with that bag?"

"I had a bunch of stuff with me."

"Oh, you was just getting off."

The door opened again and the woman cried, "Mona, Bobby's pissed at us."

"I'm coming in just a minute!" Mona turned to Christina. "Excuse me." She went into a stall with a small aerosol can and closed the door. "Never touch
nothing
in these places, girl, that's all I got to say. Don't touch the toilet, don't touch the handle, don't touch the sink." There was a rustle of paper. "I never touch nothing. Matter of fact, I'm just squatting right now. I don't even like using the toilet paper."

"Your guy good?" Christina called toward the stall. Mona's shoes were set a foot apart.

"He takes care of us. You need somebody? He's always looking for girls."

Christina heard the spray can inside the stall. "He's not going to want to talk to me."

"Why not?"

"I'm not dressed."

More spraying. "He can tell if you look good."

"I don't know," Christina said, a sweetish perfume reaching her nose now.

"He picks you up for some work, then you'll tip me out the first week, right?"

"Of course."

The shoes under the stall stepped forward. "I mean like two hundred bucks."

"Okay."

"Two hundred bucks
exactly
."

"Sure."

The shoes twisted left together, like a dance step. "No matter if you have a bad week."

"Yes," Christina said.

The toilet flushed, the shoes twisted right, and Mona emerged. "You come with me. We'll go talk to Bobby."

They joined the third woman and walked like cheap movie stars right down the hall, ignoring the knowing looks from the cops and court-birds. Outside the doors a large Mercedes sedan sat at the curb with a fourth woman in the back. The front passenger window slid down and a white man with a soul-patch under his lip shook his head in disgust. "Hey, fucking keeping me waiting."

"Yo, Bobby," said Mona, "we didn't
ask
to be picked up."

He nodded tiredly, a businessman chasing imaginary profits. "All you get time served?"

Mona and the other woman nodded. The driver, a fat man in sunglasses, paid no attention.

"Who are you?" Bobby asked Christina.

"She's with me," Mona said. "I like her."

"I said who are you."

"Bettina," Christina said. "What's your name?"

"Bobby B Good. You want to work?"

"First I want a ride uptown."

He groaned and looked at Mona. "Oh, man, now I'm running a taxi service."

"You going to give me a ride uptown?" Christina asked.

"You going to give me a
reason
to give you a ride?"

"Not that reason."

"Why you in there?"

She looked behind her anxiously. No one. "It's complicated."

He waved his hand dispiritedly. "It always is."

She got in, next to the other three women. The seat was tight with hips and thighs. If anyone was shadowing her on foot, they wouldn't be able to follow her now, but she knew that surveillance was done in teams. The police, Rick always said, had unmarked cars, unmarked motorcycles, taxis, vans, Con Edison trucks, livery cars, even city buses. She'd spent years trying to achieve his paranoia but had failed. He was always better at seeing the invisible, she better at hiding what was in plain sight.

The car started to move. Bobby looked over his seat. "Hey, Bettina, why you need a ride, anyway?"

"Somebody bothering her," Mona answered protectively.

Bobby nodded. "Gerry, pop a couple of lights, let this chick relax."

"You got it, bro."

The driver eased the car into a yellow light, stopped, then just after the light switched red, jammed it across the intersection as the traffic began to cross behind them. He cut west two blocks, gunned his way through oncoming traffic, lurched right on a one-way going left, made the next left a block up, cut right uptown from the wrong lane, and anyone following him would have to be in a helicopter.