Down the River unto the Sea

11

Roger Ferris joined me and my grandmother for breakfast. He was a year or two younger than she, and six feet even at that great age. He was lanky and crowned with a mane of silver hair, a reminder, no doubt, of his nearly limitless wealth.

Grandma Brenda seemed to enjoy his company. I guess the breakfast table was exempt from date status.

Roger was a gun enthusiast and a pacifist too.

“Any person who learns a deadly art,” he told me over chicken sausage and egg-white herbal omelets, “whether it be competitive boxing or sharpshooting, must be held to a higher standard. I mean, a man with a semiautomatic can kill a dozen people faster than he can utter their names. That’s a crime against God.”

“That’s why it’s so hard being a cop,” I said with a nod and a sip of decaffeinated coffee.

“How do you mean?” the man worth eight hundred seventy-nine billion dollars asked.

“There you are,” I said, “out on the street with your piece and people who might be armed. They’re afraid of you, mad at you, wantin’ revenge for something one of your other brothers in blue might have done. But still you got to keep your pistola holstered because you have the power and the responsibility.”

Roger smiled at me and nodded. I could see that guns for him were a symbol for the power of his wealth, and for that brief moment he saw us, even if not exactly as equals, somehow as the same.

“Your grandmother is a wonderful woman,” Roger said to me at the elevator door. He had wanted to walk me there, and my grandmother seemed to approve.

“Has been for a very long time.”

“She says that you had to quit being a cop because you got into some kind of trouble.”

“Trouble ambushed me with my pants down and my nose open.” I didn’t know why I was so candid with Ferris at that time. Now I understand that he radiated a kind of confidence and the feeling that he could be trusted.

“Brenda said as much,” he said, nodding. “She’s amazing. Very intuitive and completely free of guile or greed.”

“She says that you want to take her to a concert.”

“She told me, not unless I can get a better tan.”

“She wants to go, Mr. Ferris. You keep up the pressure and she will, sooner or later.”

Ferris smiled and gave me a clear view of his pale blue eyes. They were sad eyes. I imagined that soon he and my grandmother would be sitting side by side at some fancy concert.

“When you went to the can, your grandmother told me that you might have some trouble coming up.”

“You know grandmothers,” I said. “Sometimes they get overprotective.”

“Well,” the billionaire replied, placing a hand on my shoulder. “If she’s right, you just give me a call. You’ll find that there’s not much in this world that scares me”

He handed me a business card and gave me a nod.

Late November still had its warm days that year. I stood out on the street composing five e-mails on my smartphone. I’m a little obsessive about electronic communication. I reread each communiqué at least three times and then put each one through a spell-check. After finishing I went to the C train, riding it downtown back to Brooklyn Heights.

I dabbled around on the Internet for a while looking for keywords that included Adamo Cortez, arrest, police officer, and testimony.

It was 10:07 when I finally dialed the number.

“Hello,” a man said.

“Mr. Summers?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“This is Joe Oliver. I believe that you know about me.”

“Hold on.”

The phone’s receiver clattered and then came the sounds of children expressing happiness and complaints. I heard her voice before she got to the phone. It sounded nothing like the woman I remembered begging me to pull her hair.

“Hello?”

“Mrs. Summers? It’s Joe Oliver.”

“Yes. I was expecting your call.”

Somewhere on the other end of the line a door slammed and the noises of midwestern early-morning domesticity ceased.

“To begin with,” I said, “I want you to know that I appreciate your letter and what it means. I know you didn’t have to reach out.”

“Thank you, but you’re wrong there, Mr. Oliver. Since I came back to the church I have thought about all the bad things I’ve done. Some of them there’s no coming back from, but... but in your case speaking the truth is the least I can do. When would you like me to come to New York?”

“Let’s talk about that a little later,” I said. “First I want to ask you some questions.”

“Okay,” she said on a sigh.

“You said in the letter that you had been arrested and then coerced into pressing charges against me by a man named Adamo Cortez.”

“Yes.”

“This man said that he was a policeman?”

“He was a policeman,” she corrected, “a detective.”

“And he was the one who arrested you?”

“No. I was picked up with my, with my, um, boyfriend at that time, Chester Murray. They brought me to the station house on One Thirty-Fifth.”

“The thirty-second precinct?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “But it was on One Thirty-Fifth. I remember that it smelled like disinfectant.”

“They all do at some time or other.”

“I guess they must,” she said, trying to let my poor attempt at levity in. “I don’t remember the names of the officers that arrested me. Chester was driving, but I had leased the car. There was twenty pounds of cocaine in the trunk. They took me to this room and wouldn’t let me talk to Chester or call a lawyer or anything. They didn’t even let me go to the toilet...”

Beatrice went silent there for a minute or more. I knew what she was thinking. If a cop wants to turn an arrest into an agent, he puts a scare into him, or in this case, her. Hunger, humiliation, and hurt are the tools. Not all worked on every perp. You had to create a specific cocktail for the personality. For Beatrice it was fear of isolation, maybe a little withdrawal, and a bladder so full that she had to relieve herself without benefit of the facilities.

“I was there for at least a full day before Detective Cortez came to see me.” She was once again defeated by the illegal methods. This reminded me of Rikers and the burn on my face when I was slashed by the jagged edge of a number ten tomato can lid.

After another long pause she continued. “He said that they could hold me for two days more without pressing charges and by then Chester would have turned on me.”

“You think he would have?” I asked. I don’t know why.

“Yeah. Chester once gave evidence on his cousin just so they wouldn’t put another mark on his record. He wouldn’t have even gone to jail, but he turned Jerry in anyway.”

“What did Adamo look like?”

“Short for a man. Black hair with a pretty thick mustache. His skin was brown like a brown egg if it was shellacked.”

“Did he have an accent?”

“I... I don’t remember.”

“What did he say?”

“That I’d get a year in prison for every pound in the trunk.” A sob escaped her reserve. “That I’d never have children or even a chance at a decent life.”

“And,” I deduced, “I was the price to get you out of it.”

“Yes.”

“Did he tell you exactly what he wanted you to do?”

“Yes.”

“What to do in the living room, what you should tell me to do, everything?”

“Yes.” That time the word hurt.

“And did you really go so far as to press charges?” I asked, wondering why I wasn’t angry.

“He had me transferred to another station. There he gave me some papers to sign.”

“What then?”

“He took me to a house in Queens and kept me there for a week. I was in restraints most of the time. He — he raped me.”

“And then he let you go?”

I could almost hear her nodding. “Yes.”

Beatrice and I shared the next spate of silence. I could hear her breathing — over a thousand miles away.

“Do you remember anything else?”

“No.”

“Are you planning to press charges against Detective Cortez?”

“I hadn’t even thought about that. Isn’t it — isn’t it too late?”

“Yeah. But you could fuck up his retirement pretty good.”

“I know you’re upset, Mr. Oliver, but could you not use that kind of language, please?”

“Sorry.”

“Why do you want to know if I want to press charges?”

“The guy you were arrested with was named Chester Murray?” I asked instead of answering.

“Yes.”

“Did you see him again?”

“Never.”

“Was he your pimp?”

“That was another time, Mr. Oliver. When do you want me to come to New York?”

“What makes you think I want you to come out here?”

“To testify. To prove that you didn’t do what they said you did.”

“I don’t think I need you for that, Mrs. Summers. You gave me a name and a trail. That’s enough.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“So that’s it?”

“Unless you remember something else.”

“The thing you asked about Detective Cortez.”

“What thing?”

“He had an accent. It was a very New York kind of talking. You know what I mean?”

“I certainly do. Thank your husband for me, Beatrice,” I said, and then I hung up.