Investigation (35 page)

“And you got mad at everyone and said, ‘Yes, I’m sure.’ ”

“Well, what could I do at that point, Joe? Change my story? Say, ‘Wait a minute, I was wrong, it wasn’t that time after all’? Then everyone would know that I was lying!”

“But everyone
did
know you were lying.”

“I didn’t want everyone to know I’d left them alone, Joe. Can’t you understand that?”

The funny thing is, as I was getting to know more and more about Kitty, in a way I did understand.

I drove her over to Fresh Meadows and from there to Jackson Heights. She thought it was stupid not to go directly to Jackson Heights from her new apartment, but since I was driving she didn’t have much choice. All I asked of her was to stop fighting me, at least for an hour or so; to let herself go back to that April night, to remember sitting next to Benjamin the Cuban in his little green car. After about fifteen or twenty minutes of riding up and down the residential streets, which were a mix of four- and six-story apartment houses and two-story attached one-family homes, Kitty picked out the building.

I knew it was the right building because earlier in the day I had checked out the phone number Kitty used to contact Billy Weaver. It was registered to a woman who I assumed—according to her name—was related to the Puerto Rican Benjamin the Cuban. Probably his mother, who resided in the six-story tan brick building which Kitty indicated.

“Don’t look at me, look out the window. Where did the car stop that night?”

“I don’t know, Joe. I—”

“Look out the window, Kitty.”

It was a one-way street, so they had had to approach it the way we were approaching it. She just shook her head. We went around the block once more, and as we approached the tan building slowly, Kitty jerked her head up.

“Right by those garbage cans, Joe. Stop right there. I remember because I had some trouble getting out of the car.”

“All right, now face the side, look out the window. You got out of the car, right? You had to get around the garbage cans, right? Did he help you, the driver, did he come around the car and give you a hand or anything? Damn it, don’t turn and look at me, Kitty.” I pushed her shoulder toward the car door. “I wasn’t there, you were.”

“Joe, I don’t remember, I don’t remember. I got out of the car, and the garbage cans were there. I think they were there, I don’t know. It was so long ago.”

“Did he come around and offer you a hand around the garbage cans? Did you rub against them? Did you get garbage on you? Did you say anything to him about it? Did you—”

“Joe! Wait a minute, wait a minute! Don’t say anything. Just wait a minute.”

Kitty got out of the car. I slid over to her side of the front seat, watching. She walked over to the curb, edged her way along the collection of metal cans, then around them to the sidewalk. She stood there, straining, almost willing herself to remember something.

“Joe, oh my God, Joe!” Kitty jumped into the front seat and grabbed my arm. “Joe, there were some women. Two or three, I think. Dark clothes, Joe, you know, like ... like Italian women wear, all dark, black like in mourning. He ... Benjamin did come around the car, and he was ... wait a minute, he was moving toward me like he was going to help me, and then there were those women and one of them started to say something to him. I don’t know what, something angry, very angry. She was talking in Italian, I think. He just brushed her off and ... and ... he sort of grabbed my arm and rushed me toward the building, and the woman—my God, Joe, I remember, she said something to me, something like ... Joe, she said, ‘You better stay away from him, miss, that guy’s a bum. You ask my daughter, miss.’ ” Kitty’s voice was excited. “I had forgotten all about it until now. But there were those women. And they saw me, Joe, they saw me.”

Which was terrific. We now had witnesses to the fact that Kitty had come to this apartment building in Jackson Heights. All I had to do was find the women, question them, get them to remember the incident. And then get them to remember the date and time it happened. And then get them to agree to sign a sworn statement to that effect and agree to testify in court to what they’d signed.

I said to Kitty, “Well, it’s a start.” And then I drove her back to her apartment, left her at the door and went home to wait for a call from Ray Ortega.

A little after midnight, Ray called.

“Joe, you a Mets fan?”

“I’m a fair-weather Mets fan. I root for them only when they’re winning.”

“That’s a lousy attitude, Joe. You don’t deserve the terrific box seats for tomorrow’s game.”

I
ARRIVED AT THE
designated location in the Shea Stadium parking lot about fifteen minutes earlier than the time we’d set. So did Ray Ortega. He turned to the guy with him and must have told him to wait, then Ray came over to my Chevy.

“He’s pretty nifty, isn’t he, Joe?” We both studied Benjamin the Cuban. “Those threads are custom-made, three hundred and sixty bucks. And his shoes, they’re custom-made half boots, two-fifty. And that’s through a friend.” We continued to consider him for a while until he finally reacted the way he was supposed to: he fidgeted, took a couple of quick drags on a newly lit cigarette, then tossed it away; looked around, trying to be nonchalant; tried not to look at us and was obviously wondering what the hell kind of information we were exchanging about him.

Ray handed me two box-seat tickets. “I’m going to catch the game, Joe. If you don’t come in, give me a call at home tonight.”

He jerked his head and Benjamin strolled over to be introduced. What I could see of his face, underneath his probably very expensive dark glasses, wasn’t bad if you like swarthy, square-chinned, even features, full black mustache to match thick curly black hair, and a smile full of gleaming white teeth. Frankly, I’m sure it must be a pain in the ass at times to be Hollywood handsome, but that was his problem, not mine.

After Ray left, we settled in the front seat of my car, and when Benjamin took his glasses off I could see what he’d been hiding: very large, very black eyes. Without a word, I handed him a picture of Kitty Keeler. His eyes got even wider and he gave the picture back to me with the innocent protests of a priest being asked if he’d posed for an obscene picture.

“Hey, no way, man. I don’t know this chick. Never saw her in my life.” A fine sweat broke out on his otherwise cool forehead; probably over his mouth too, but you couldn’t tell because of the mustache.

“She knows you, Benjamin.” He kept shaking his head. “She says she does.” Then I slipped it to him. “She says you helped her get rid of her kids’ bodies.”

His eyes opened so wide at that, it didn’t seem possible. “Oh, hey, wow, man. Hey, wow.” He continued his eloquent protest for a while, then finally said, “Jeez, all I ever did was to drive the lady to a meet with Billy that night; and then back to her apartment. Hey, man, I don’t know nothing about her kids or anything at all like that. Hey, man, you can’t lay something that heavy on me. Hey, you wanna know about me, you ask Ray Ortega, Ray knows me since I was a little kid, ya know?”

He dragged on the cigarette he’d just lit, started to cough, then threw the cigarette out the window.

“You don’t really enjoy smoking, do you, Benjamin?”

When he finished coughing he said, “Hey, gee, I gave up butts last Thursday. Only I got nervous today and forgot.”

“You got a couple of things to be nervous about, Benjamin. Tell me about that night when you picked the lady up and drove her over to her meet with Billy Weaver.”

Billy Weaver had called him up; given him the lady’s name and address; told him to pick her up and bring her to an apartment in Jackson Heights. Then, a couple of hours later, Billy told him to bring the lady back to Fresh Meadows. He did and that was it.

“Like the next day, I pick up the newspaper and there’s this chick’s picture on the front page and the story says her little kids was kidnapped and killed. The night before. Listen, I didn’t see her kids; man, I didn’t even know she had kids. I mean, I couldn’t care less, ya know? I never even set foot in her apartment or nothin’, just ducked into the hall, hit her bell, bam-bam-bam, and waited for her. Drove her to see Billy; drove her back. That’s it.”

I glanced at a slip of paper, then dropped it back into my notebook. “Who’s Elena Garcia Gonzalez? Your mother?”

Benjamin’s curly head shook with surprise. “Hey, listen, man, that’s my grandmother, ya know? Why you askin’ me about my grandmother? Hell, she’s a little old lady, ya know?”

“And she runs a little old cutting factory in her apartment in Jackson Heights where you delivered Kitty Keeler to meet with Billy Weaver, right?”

“A factory? A factory, what factory? My grandmother and my mother and my little sisters, they all live together in the apartment and I get my messages there sometimes, like, it’s a convenient place for a meet, ya know. But factory? Man, I don’t know what you mean.”

“You know goddamn well what I mean. A ‘factory’ where a bunch of people sit around a long table and they wear white muslin masks so they don’t inhale any of the cocaine they’re busy cutting with powdered sugar or whatever the hell.”

“Jesus,” Benjamin told me, “that’s a terrible thing to say. Like my grandmother, man, she’s an old lady. Like she’s about fifty-five, fifty-six years old, ya know?”

“That old? And she’s still
alive?
That’s terrific, Benjamin. That’s something for you to aim for.” I decided to drop the factory line; it had been a lucky guess; from his reaction, it had been an accurate one. It was not a far-out guess as to the occupation of the women members of a family involved in the coke traffic. It was more or less considered a cottage industry; kept the women off the streets and under each other’s scrutiny.

Instead, I concentrated on the first obvious lie Benjamin had handed me; this way, he would think I already knew the answers to anything else I asked him.

“Take it over again, about how Billy called you. I think you skipped the first part, about who called who.”

He thought about it for a minute or so; realized I knew that Kitty obviously had his grandmother’s phone number; that she had called there asking for Billy Weaver.

“Well, yeah, sure. Like, Billy moves around a lot, ya know, and so he used my grandmother’s phone number, like an answering service. See, we kept in close touch, me and Billy, so okay, the chick calls him at my grandmother’s. And he just happens to be there that night. So I take the call, then hang up; then Billy calls the chick back, then he tells me to go out to Fresh. Meadows and pick her up. That’s it. Swear to God.” He raised his right hand, taking a solemn oath.

We went over his story for a second and then a third time; a few more details were added, but nothing of value: as far as he knew, no one had seen him in Fresh Meadows that night, alone in his car or with Kitty Keeler in his car.

“Jeez, I didn’t even want to go to Fresh Meadows in the first place. Like I tole Billy, I don’t even know the neighborhood, ya know? I get out there, and it’s like a housing project, only not skyscrapers, just a whole bunch of two- and three-story brick buildings. So they got trees and grass all around, big deal. To me, it still looked like an institution, ya know?”

“You have much trouble finding the right building?”

“Hey, listen, they don’t have the house number lit up or nothin’. And everything is like in a circle, ya know? I’m drivin’ around and around this damn place, I’m goin’ in circles. I actually passed her building twice before I asked some guy—”

He stopped speaking. We stared at each other.

“Go ahead, Benjamin, you asked some guy ...”

He showed me his beautiful white teeth. “That’s funny, ya know. I just remembered that now. There was some guy out walkin’ his dog and—”

“What kind of dog?”

“What kind of dog? Man, how the hell do I know what kind of dog? I don’t know from dogs. I don’t like dogs. Once I got bit by a dog when I was a kid and—”

“Benjamin, don’t tell me about it. I don’t want to hear about it. Tell me about the man with the dog that night in Fresh Meadows.”

“Hey, man, there’s nothin’ to tell. I ask him where the number is, ya know, the chick’s apartment house, and he tells me to go back around the way I just came, that I passed right by. So I circle around and he was right; so I hit her bell, bam-bam-bam, like I tole you, and she comes out and gets in and we drive away. And the guy with the dog says, ‘Hey you found it okay.’ ” Benjamin snapped his fingers. “Hey, that’s right, the guy with the dog seen me, that I found the building okay.”

“What did he look like, the guy with the dog? Was he tall? Short? Fat, skinny, what?”

“Ah hey, man, how should I know? Just a guy with a dog. The dog looked like a sheep dog, ya know? Wait a minute. Yeah, like a sheep dog.”

“A sheep dog? The kind that rounds up sheep? Like a collie? Like Lassie? That kind of dog?”

Benjamin shook his head. “Nah, nah. A sheep dog, man, a
sheep
dog. Like the dog, it looked like a sheep. Curly, like it was a sheep. They got that kinda make of dog?”

“If you saw it, I guess they do.”

He couldn’t remember seeing anyone else out in Fresh Meadows; we moved on to Jackson Heights and then Benjamin became evasive.

“Naw, nobody seen us; we just got out of the car and up into the building is all.”

I waited for a minute or so, then asked him, “What about the Italian lady?”

“Italian lady? What Italian lady?”

His eyes were just missing mine and he was digging another cigarette out of his pack.

“What the hell did you do to the Italian lady’s daughter?”

Benjamin broke the cigarette between his fingers, but he didn’t seem to notice. “What I’d do to her daughter? Hey, man. I mean, just look at me, huh?” He offered himself for my inspection and very rationally asked, “I mean, do I look like the kinda dude gotta
do
somethin’ to some chick don’t want it?”

I had to admit that he didn’t.

“Look, man, I don’t wanna sound like I’m, ya know, conceited or anything, but look, it’s all out there just waitin’ for me. All I gotta say is yeah, okay, to some chick.” He snapped his fingers; it was that easy. “I mean, look at me. I got it
made
out there. My problem is selection, if you read me. I don’t gotta go forcin’ myself on some girl don’t wanna make it with me.” He shook his head, really distressed. “I’ll tell ya, I learned somethin’, ya know. That it don’t pay to go around with any little Italian chick. Like they’re not really
ready
for the sexual revolution, ya know? They want it, and then they get scared. Like that their old lady or old man is gonna find out; and they let something slip, and right away they want to make a big deal outa something that don’t mean a thing, know what I mean? She was just a cute chick didn’t know how to handle the whole thing. I mean, I’m asking you right out, do I look like the kind of guy is gonna bother some unwilling chick?”