“No, wait, I need your help.” Connolly scrambled to her feet like a shadow left behind. “You’re my last chance. I didn’t kill Anthony, I swear. The cops killed him. They’re covering for each other, they set me up. There’s a group of them.”
“You already have a lawyer, let him handle it.” Bennie snatched the wall phone off its hook. It would ring automatically at the security desk.
“But my lawyer can’t do shit. He’s court-appointed. He’s seen me maybe twice all year. The most he’s done is keep me here. He’s part of the conspiracy, too.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t help you.” Bennie hung up the phone and edged to the window in the door. Where was the guard? The cinderblock corridor was empty. There were three locked doors between her and the outside. A panic Bennie couldn’t explain flickered in her chest.
“I was hoping you’d believe me, but I guess not. Read this before you decide. Our mother hasn’t told you everything. It’ll prove what I’m saying is true.” Connolly pushed a manila envelope across the counter, but Bennie left it there.
“I don’t have time to read it. I have to go, I’m running late. Guard!”
“Take it.” Connolly thrust the envelope over the counter. “If you don’t, I’ll mail it to you.”
“No, thanks. I have to get back to work.” Bennie jiggled the doorknob and pressed against the window in the door. A heavyset guard hustled down the hall, her pant legs flapping, her expression more annoyed than alarmed.
“Take the envelope,” Connolly called, but Bennie ignored her and twisted the doorknob futilely. Come on. The guard finally reached the cell, jammed a key into the lock, and swung the door open so wide Bennie almost stumbled into the hall.
“Guard!” Connolly shouted. “My lawyer forgot her file.” She stretched over the counter with the envelope in her hand, but in a swift movement, the prison guard drew a black baton from her belt and brandished it.
“That’s far enough, you!” she shouted. “Sit down! You want a write-up?”
“Okay, okay, relax!” Connolly said, folding instantly into the chair and raising her arms protectively. “She forgot her file. I’m trying to help. It’s her file!”
Bennie backed against the door, her feelings in tumult. She didn’t want to take Connolly’s file, but she didn’t want to see her clubbed. The inmate who looked so much like her cowered in the chair, and Bennie felt frightened for her and of her at the same time. “She wasn’t going to hurt me,” she heard herself saying.
The guard turned under the raised club. “That your file or not, lawyer?”
“Uh, yes.” She didn’t want Connolly beaten, for God’s sake.
“Then take it!” the guard ordered.
Bennie lunged for the file and stuck it under her arm. Her mouth felt surprisingly dry, her chest tight. She had to get out of the prison. She hurried out the door and for the exit, clutching the unwanted envelope to her breast.
3
Four patrolmen crammed into a booth at Little Pete’s, taking the table farthest from the door by habit. Blue cotton epaulets buckled as they squeezed onto vinyl benches and radios rested silently at their thick leather belts. In the middle of the table, black nightsticks rolled together like an urban logjam. Corded blue caps, each with a heavy chrome badge affixed above a bill of black patent, sat in a row on a nearby ledge. It was early for lunch, as the night tour called every meal they ate, but James “Surf” Lenihan had another bug up his ass.
Surf got his nickname because he looked the part: sun-bleached white-blond hair and a tan, muscular build from summers spent lifeguarding in South Jersey. Surf had the antsy metabolism of a natural athlete and was always worked up about something — the new contract, the reassignments, the court time. He leaned over the table to talk, even though Little Pete’s was practically empty. “It’s for real,” Surf whispered, but Sean McShea laughed so hard he almost choked on his cheesesteak, and Art Reston called Surf a horse’s ass.
“Why you swallow shit like that?” Reston asked, shaking his head. He was tall and strong, with a well-groomed dark mustache that hid a too-thin upper lip and brown eyes that glinted with occupational skepticism. Reston’s fifteen years on the force had taught him never to believe anything unless ballistics, forensics, or the union president swore to it.
“It’s true, okay?” Surf raked a hand through a thatch of bangs. “Rosato is Connolly’s twin. I heard it from Katie’s girlfriend, the one who works at the house. She told Katie that Rosato visited today.”
“The girlfriend’s puttin’ you on.” Reston dropped his pepper ham hoagie into a red plastic basket shaped unaccountably like a boat. Next to him, Sean McShea, still laughing, wrested a napkin from the steel dispenser. A chubby, cheerful man with a bulbous nose and ruddy cheeks, McShea was a natural for the Santa Claus gig at Children’s Hospital. His large face reddened with mirth as he wiped his mouth, leaving a blot of ketchup on the pebbled napkin.
“She’s not puttin’ me on,” Surf said. “Why would she?”
“Fuck if I know. Maybe she’s got the hots. Wants you to throw her a bone — yours.” Reston laughed, but Surf’s face remained a mask of alarm.
“You don’t believe me, we can check the logs. I’m tellin’ you. Rosato was there. Katie said they look alike, too.”
“Bullshit.” McShea finally stopped laughing and wiped his eyes with the other end of the stained napkin. “If they looked that much alike, somebody woulda noticed it.”
“No.” Surf shook his head. “Connolly’s hair is dyed red. Rosato’s a blonde. Also, Rosato’s heavier, remember?”
“No, I never even saw Rosato. I could give a flying fuck.” Reston snorted. “It’s a con, kid. A hustle. Connolly is the master of shit like that. Look how she scammed us.”
“So what if it’s a scam? It doesn’t matter. If Connolly gets Rosato on her case, we’re fucked.”
Next to Surf, Joe Citrone listened in his typical stony silence. Joe was near retirement age, tall, with a bony nose that was bracketed by elongated wrinkles around a small mouth and a sharp chin. Joe didn’t talk much and always looked sad to Surf because he had those dark circles under his eyes that Italians get. Still, Joe was the smartest cop Surf knew.
“Joe,” Surf said, turning to him. “What do you think? Katie’s girlfriend says they’re look-alikes. Why would she shit us?”
“Don’t know.”
“Do you know Katie’s girlfriend? You know everybody.”
“Scotty’s daughter.”
“That’s her. So, would she bullshit Katie about something like this?”
“Don’t know.”
“You think they’re twins?”
“Don’t know.”
McShea started laughing again. “Joe on the witness stand: ‘No.’ ‘No.’ ‘No.’ ‘No.’ ‘Don’t know.’ ”
“The Joe Game! The Joe Game! The Joe Game!” they shouted, banging on the table, except for Surf. It was the Joe Game and they played it all the time to get a rise out of Citrone. “Here’s Joe at home,” Reston said, starting. “The wife says, ‘Honey, you want spaghetti?’ ‘Don’t know.’ ‘Honey, you havin’ fun at Disney World?’ ‘Don’t know.’ ‘Honey, you love me?’ ‘No.’ ”
McShea slapped the table with a heavy hand. “I got one! Joe in bed.” His animated features fell into deadpan. “‘No.’ ‘No.’ ‘No.’ ‘Oh.’ ”
Citrone ignored their laughter and finished his cheesesteak, which only made McShea and Reston laugh harder. Surf couldn’t stand it. What was the matter with these assholes? Maybe Joe wasn’t smart at all. Maybe he just never said enough to sound stupid. “I shoulda never got involved,” Surf said. “I knew it. Goddammit, I knew it.”
“Shut up with that, you’re embarrassing yourself.” Reston made a face. “Ooh, I’m ascared of Rosato.”
Surf kept shaking his head. “She’s smarter than that turd who’s on the case now. And she ain’t ours.”
“Big deal,” Reston said. “She got an all-girl law firm. He
y, you think they get their periods at the same time?” He nudged McShea. “What a fuckin’ nightmare. Lawyers on their periods.”
McShea stopped laughing when he caught the concern on Surf’s face, then reached over and chucked the junior cop on the chin. “Don’t worry, girlfriend. If Rosato takes the case, which I tell you she won’t, she won’t have time to get ready. What is it, a week away, and half that time she’ll be givin’ interviews. Newspapers, TV, cable. You know how she is. When she’s not at the bank, she’s in front of the camera.”
“Cha-ching!” Reston said, but Surf only glowered.
“I’ll do something about this, if you won’t.”
Citrone rubbed his fingertips together, brushing off invisible crumbs. “Don’t, kid,” he said quietly.
“Don’t what? Deal with it?”
Citrone’s expression didn’t change. “Just, don’t.”
“I can deal with it. I know what to do. I can’t sit around with my thumb up my ass.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Citrone said, and everybody accepted it as the last word.
Everybody, that is, except Surf.
4
Alice Connolly lay on the thin bed in her cell. No inmate stayed in her cell during unrestricted time unless she was doing something she didn’t want the guards to see or was doing something with the guards she didn’t want anyone else to see, but Alice spent all her time alone in her cell. She had laid down the law with her white-trash cellie, Diane. Stay the fuck out. Diane had gone along. She was only twenty-three, but looked fifty because of the crack. Pipers looked like they were born at fifty.
Alice squirmed to get comfortable in the bed. The cell, of gray cinderblock, contained a stainless steel sink and over it a plastic mirror the size of a tabloid. A skinny Formica ledge built into the wall was supposed to be a desk, with a beat-up stool bolted to the floor next to the stainless toilet bowl. The bowl had no lid and the cell stank all the time. Alice didn’t turn away from the toilet; it wouldn’t do any good. She lay in the uncomfortable bed and stared at the blank wall opposite her.
Alice kept no personal articles in her cell, unlike most inmates. No pictures of boyfriends with beer cans in their hands or school photos of kids in front of a fake blue sky. The latest fad in the house was magazine pages folded into an accordion fan. The women set them in pencil holders like goddamn flowers, trying to make the shithole a home. Christ. Alice didn’t see the point. Ever since the day they handed her her blues and showed her the cell, she had spent every minute of every day thinking of a way out. She’d be convicted for sure. She wasn’t about to go to trial and let Pennsylvania plug her full of joy juice.
So from day one, Alice became the model inmate. Scrubbed the kitchen floor, scraped scum off the shower stalls, taught computer. Tried to find anywhere she could slip out, any way. Connected with the gang leaders, the do-rags and the spics, trying to learn what she could. Even tapped her little wetback mule, Valencia, for information. But in a year Alice had gotten nowhere. Her trial was around the corner.
And then it had fallen into her lap. The only bit of luck in her life. It happened the day the guard knocked on her cell door and told her somebody named William Winslow had come for a visit.
I don’t know any Winslow, Alice had said, but she was curious. She’d changed into the ugly orange jumpsuit after the pat-down, gotten the plastic bracelet with the bar code on it, and gone down to the visiting room. It was a large room, with steel chairs facing each other in groups of four, and the seats were full. Families yapped and boyfriends copped feels under the NO KISSING sign. Sitting by himself was an old man who looked like a scarecrow. He was tall and thin and his head dipped forward like his neck was stuffed with hay. He wore a tweed sportjacket with a flannel shirt and a brown felt hat that he tugged off when he spotted Alice.
This old coot was her visitor? Alice had almost laughed out loud. She went over and sat down opposite him. The man kept clearing his throat, but he couldn’t seem to get a word out. Up close his face was thick with tan and wrinkles. Alice asked him who he was and why was he here. Then he’d told her she was his little girl. He said he’d given her up for adoption.
What the fuck are you talking about? she’d said. She wasn’t adopted, not that she knew, but her parents were too dead to ask. Not that they’d been the greatest parents anyway, even when they were alive.
This is you, as a baby, the scarecrow had said. Holding a black-and-white photo in a shaking hand.
Fine. Whatever. He was a geezer, maybe he was senile. She took the photo, of a fat baby with round eyes. It looked like every baby in the world. Alice handed him back his picture and told him to get fucked. He’d been in the cornfield way too long. But from then on, Bill kept coming back to visit, once a month for about six months. The guards kidded her that she had a groupie, it happened all the time. Crazy johns who liked bad girls, bringing them shit. Some of the shit they made, like the young Jamaican who brought Diane little boxes with pictures pasted on them. Others brought money.
Winslow never offered Alice money, but she took his visit most months, figuring he could be used down the line. Everybody could be used somehow, even a wacko. He always asked about her defense, frowning every time Alice said her lawyer sucked. She noticed his reaction and worked it, playing him to get her a new lawyer. Then, the other day, the old man dropped the bombshell: You’re a twin, Alice. Your twin sister is the best lawyer in the city. She knows all about the police. It’s time for you to call her. Show her this.
Fuckin’ Bill. He’d held out an envelope. Alice took one look at the stuff inside and felt like she won the lottery. She didn’t care if it was true or if the coot was just plain crazy. Alice could spin this straw into gold. It was her ticket out. Only one thing she didn’t understand: Why the fuck didn’t you tell me before? I been rotting in the shithole for a year. I coulda called Rosato a long time ago!
The scarecrow was startled at her sudden anger, clenching and unclenching the brim of the hat hanging in his hands. I thought you’d be okay, Alice. I thought you had a good lawyer. Now I know you need Bennie.
Alice shifted her weight in the sagging bed. What a joke. Bennie Rosato, famed hotshit lawyer, was her twin? So what? She didn’t know if Rosato was her twin and she didn’t give a fuck, just so she got off. But Alice had to convince Rosato they were twins, so she got busy. Read the newspapers and memorized the articles about Rosato and her cases. Cruised the Internet to see if Rosato’s firm had a website, and when she found it, saw how the lawyer looked and dressed. Started eating to pack on the pounds and decided to grow her hair in like Rosato’s. Even watched the TV news and COURT-TV, so she could imitate Rosato’s voice.
Alice became a twin expert, too. Crammed like her life depended on it, since it did. Logged onto the Net, researching books and webpages about twins, so she could pick up a few details to sell Rosato the story. Studied the medical angle and picked up the memories from the womb, for fuck’s sake. Alice hadn’t had much time and learned what she could in a few days. She almost became convinced of it herself. Maybe she was adopted. Maybe she really was a twin. It would explain some things, like how she didn’t like being alone. And how she never thought she looked like her parents. They were so different from her. Boring. Stupid. Losers.
Alice got herself psyched to meet Rosato. She knew she was ready the night the lawyer came on the news. Just one quick shot of Rosato and a do-rag watching TV had called out, She look like you, Alice.
She sure do, Alice had thought to herself. She’d called Rosato the next morning and the lawyer had come running. Their meeting hadn’t gone that well, but Rosato would come back. The lawyer was confused, but she’d get past that. She’d be curious about Alice. About herself.
Alice’s thoughts were interrupted by a chubby figure in blues scuffling down the hall. Valencia Mendoza arrived at the door and stuck her head inside the cell. Long, thick curls framed features smoothed by excess fat and thick makeup. Alice sat up in bed with a loud sigh.
“What do you want?” she asked, as Valencia’s cheap perfume filled the cell. It overpowered the stench of the toilet, but Alice wasn’t sure she preferred it.
“I don’t want nothin’,” Valencia answered, in her baby voice.
“Then why are you here?”
“I worryin’.”
“I don’t have time for your worrying.” What a pain in the ass this spic was. They made good workers, used to taking orders, but they could be such a goddamn pain. “You have nothing to worry about.”
“I no hear my Santo for a week,” Valencia said, anxious. “My mother, she call every week says how he is. She put him on the phone. She no call this week. Somethin’s wrong.”
“Santo is fine. Your mother got her money yesterday.” Alice paused, double-checking in her mind. It was hard to keep track of the payments without the laptop, but nobody was giving out Powerbooks to prison inmates. It was cruel and unusual. “Santo is fine.”
“She got de money yesterday? Why she didn’t call?”
“I don’t know, Valencia. I don’t know your mother. Maybe she met somebody.”
Valencia’s black-lined eyelids fluttered briefly. “Santo, he had ’nother ear ’fection, las’ time I talk to her. Doctor say he get one more ear ’fection, he need tubes. Tha’s ’spensive.”
“You shakin’ me down, Valencia?” Alice’s eyes narrowed, and Valencia’s crimson nails flew to the blue plastic rosary she wore around her neck.
“No, no, Alice. No. Not me.”
“It’s not like you. I thought you were a good girl,” Alice said, eyeing her employee. Valencia was the girlfriend of one of the bantamweights, and Alice had recruited her right away. Valencia was smarter than most of them, timely on the pickups, and always did what she was told. Then she got pregnant and it ruined her. She’d stuck powder in Santo’s diaper and got busted. Oldest trick in the book.
“I am good,” Valencia said. “I no shake you down. Never. Not me.”