Outrage

17

“He’s heading this way right now.”

Marlene turned around in the direction indicated by Raymond and saw a young acne-scarred man with peroxide-blond hair approaching on the sidewalk. He noticed Marlene’s look and his street sense warned him to veer away from the woman with the monster dog. He suddenly changed course toward the interior of the park.

Stepping toward him, Marlene shouted. “Hey, I’d like to talk to you! I’m not a cop!” She might as well have said she was going to shoot him. He ran.

Marlene sighed and glanced down at Gilgamesh, who gave her a look that seemed to say, “How much of a head start shall we give him?” She nodded toward the running man. “Prendere,” she said.

Gilgamesh grinned and without a sound took off after the man, who peered back long enough to see the dog in pursuit. He shrieked and didn’t make it another twenty feet before Gilgamesh knocked him down. Crying out in fear, the man rolled over onto his back and put his hands up protectively while the dog simply held his ground, a deep growl rumbling in his massive chest.

Afraid to move anything else, the man only flicked his eyes over to see the woman walk up in no great hurry. “Don’t let him bite me,” he begged. The sweat pouring off his face was due more to fear than the hot and muggy New York afternoon.

“Then don’t do anything he might interpret as unfriendly,” Marlene replied. “I only told him to catch you, not have you for lunch. But as you have noticed, he’s really fast, and if you do something stupid, he may react before I can stop him.”

It was a lie, of course; Gilgamesh would not savage the man unless Marlene commanded him to assalire, the Italian word for “attack,” just as prendere was Italian for “catch.” But the man trembling on the ground didn’t know that and for the moment Marlene was willing to let him remain ignorant.

“I want to ask you some questions,” she said.

“I want a lawyer,” he replied, keeping his eyes on the dog.

“I’m not a cop. I am a lawyer.”

“Then I don’t have nothin’ to say.”

“Okay, I’ll leave you here to play with the doggie.” Marlene shrugged.

“Take your fucking dog with you.”

Gilgamesh growled and took a step forward at the man’s tone. “He doesn’t appreciate your language and neither do I,” Marlene said.

“Okay, I’m sorry,” the man answered. “What do you want?”

“Is your name Al?”

He looked relieved. “Is that all? Fuck no, my name is Jesus Guerrero.”

“No, that’s not all.” Marlene continued. “I want to know if you sold a small diamond engagement ring to Felix Acevedo a few weeks ago.”

Guerrero scowled. “I didn’t sell nothin’ to nobody.”

Marlene looked down at her dog. “What do you think, Gilgamesh, is he lying?” The dog growled again and took another step toward the man. “He says you’re lying.”

The man scowled. “He’s a dog. What does he know?”

“You’ve heard of bomb dogs and drug dogs, right?” Marlene asked.

“Yeah.”

“Well, Gilgamesh is a lie-detector dog.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“No, really, these dogs can smell a lie,” Marlene said. “There’s some sort of chemical odor the body gives off when a person lies. Dogs like this hate that smell. Drives them crazy. To be honest, even little lie-detector dogs can become hard to control, they hate it so much, and Gilgamesh is a big dog.”

“He’s damn big,” Guerrero said in agreement.

“Then when I ask questions, you should try to tell me the truth,” Marlene said, smiling. “Let’s start over.” She then pulled out a photograph of Felix Acevedo and showed it to Guerrero. “Do you know this man?”

Guerrero sat up and shrugged. “I might have seen him once or twice.”

Marlene looked at her dog and gave him a hand signal out of Guerrero’s sight. The dog growled. She turned back to Guerrero and frowned. “Once or twice?”

“Maybe more than that,” Guerrero responded quickly, inching farther back from the dog. “I see him around. Mostly with those other punks in the park. He’s kind of slow, but he’s a pretty good rapper. His name is Felix.” He looked at the dog and smiled slightly when there was no growl.

“That’s better,” Marlene said. “Gilgamesh believes you. Now, did you sell Felix a small diamond ring a few weeks ago?”

“Yeah, I might have.”

“Where did you get this ring?”

“I found it.”

Marlene signaled the dog, who suddenly tensed and bared his teeth. “Oh, bad one,” she said. “You didn’t just find it.” She knew she was running the risk that if Guerrero was the real killer of Olivia Yancy, forcing this confession out of him might mess up the case for the cops. But her senses told her he was no more a murderer than her client.

Guerrero scooted farther away from the dog. “Shit, okay, I snatched a purse from a lady over by the old Yankee Stadium. There wasn’t much in it. A few bucks, the ring, a credit card, and her driver’s license.”

“That right, Gil? Rilassare,” she said, adding the Italian word for “relax” to the end of her question.

Gilgamesh sat down on his haunches and for the first time took his eyes off Guerrero. Marlene smiled. “Very good. Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“I remember the last name from the driver’s license,” Guerrero said helpfully. “Lopez. The same as my mom’s before she married my dad.”

“That’s great,” Marlene said. “You remember anything in particular about this ring?”

Guerrero thought about it and then shook his head. “Not really, except it was pretty cheap,” he said. Then he brightened. “But there was some writing on the inside. A name and a word.”

“I don’t suppose you remember what it said?”

“The name was Al-that’s why you called me that,” Guerrero said, suddenly putting two and two together. “I told Felix that was my name so he wouldn’t think the ring was hot. I don’t remember what else.”

Marlene reached back into her purse and pulled out two more photographs-these had been taken of the evidence by a defense photographer-and showed him one. “Can you tell me if the ring in this photograph looks like the one you sold to Felix Acevedo?”

“Could be. It was something like that.”

“Here’s another photograph,” Marlene said. “It’s the inside of the same ring.”

Guerrero looked at the photo and shrugged again. “Looks like Felix filed the words off. I can’t be sure but I think so.”

“Did you steal the purse that same day?”

“Yeah, a couple of hours before I saw Felix. We done? I got to go.”

Marlene thought about it and then nodded. “Yeah, except I need to know how to reach you in case I need you to testify about the ring.”

“Fuck that,” Guerrero said. “I ain’t testifying or telling you where I live.”

Marlene gave the dog a barely perceptible hand signal and Gilgamesh jumped up, bristling and growling at Guerrero. “Nobody’s going to bust you for the purse snatching. Felix’s life may depend on you telling the truth. So tell me how to find you, and just so we’re clear, don’t make me and Gilgamesh come hunting for you. He has your scent now, the smell of a liar, and it would be easy for him to track you.”

“Okay, okay,” Guerrero said. “I don’t want nothin’ to happen to Felix. He’s an all right kid and everybody already picks on him. I live with my mom in her apartment building, the Hampshires, on the corner of 183rd and Southern, across from the zoo. But if she comes to the door, don’t say nothin’ to my mom about this. She thinks I’m a musician in a band.”

Marlene laughed sarcastically. “She must be very proud. Now-not that I don’t trust you, which I do about as far as you’d get from Gil if you lie to me-let me see your driver’s license, and give me your mom’s address again.”

Grumbling but conscious of the dog, Guerrero stood and produced a driver’s license. Marlene wrote the pertinent information down and handed it back. “One more thing: I need a photograph,” she said, pulling a digital camera out of her bag. “Say cheese.”

An hour later, Marlene stood on the sidewalk waiting for the couple pushing a baby stroller toward her. She left Gilgamesh in the truck so as not to frighten the couple, who she’d learned from a neighbor in their apartment building were out for a midafternoon walk.

“Excuse me,” she said, addressing the tall, pretty woman, “are you Amy Lopez?”

The big, burly man accompanying the woman stepped in front. “Who wants to know?” he asked.

“My name is Marlene Ciampi; I’m a lawyer but right now I’m doing some investigative work for Felix Acevedo,” she replied. “I just wanted to talk to Amy Lopez about a report she filed a few weeks ago about her purse being taken.”

After leaving Guerrero, Marlene had called a friend with the NYPD records division and, after a little wheedling, got him to look on the computer and see if anyone named Lopez had reported a purse being stolen in the vicinity of old Yankee Stadium several weeks earlier. It was just a hunch, but it paid off. An Amy Lopez had reported the theft of the purse, and among the items she listed as its contents was “an engagement ring with the inscription ‘Always, Al.’”

“You found my purse!” the woman exclaimed as she pushed her husband out of the way. “I’m Amy Lopez. Don’t mind Al, here, he works as a court clerk downtown inside the Criminal Courts Building in Manhattan, and he’s suspicious of everyone.”

“You playing hooky?” Marlene asked Al.

“Nah, just taking some comp time off,” he replied. “But Amy’s right. Listening to that stuff all day, every day, has made me a little jaded. Sorry, I was being overprotective.”

“Not a problem,” Marlene said. “It pays to be cautious these days. And I thought I recognized you; you’ve been working at the Criminal Courts Building for a long time.”

Al grinned. “Yeah, how ya doing, Ms. Ciampi, I thought that was you, too, but it’s been a while. Small world. Anyway, this tall drink of water is my wife, Amy, and the little guy is my son, A.J.”

“Oh, he’s a doll! What does A.J. stand for?” Marlene cooed.

“Alexander Jenner,” Amy replied.

“Jenner? That’s unusual.”

“He was named for his aunt, Jennifer,” she said sadly. “I’m afraid she passed away last December. A heart condition. She was my best friend, and we all love and miss her very much.”

“I’m sorry,” Marlene said. “I know how it feels to lose someone you love like that. Tears the heart right out of you.”

“Thank you,” Amy replied. “So you found my purse?”

Marlene shook her head. “Unfortunately, no, but did you also report that a ring was inside the purse?”

Amy nodded. “Yes, my engagement ring. I’m afraid I gained a few pounds carrying A.J. and it got a little tight. I took it off until I could lose the weight.”

“Could you describe the ring?”

“Yes, it had a small diamond-”

“It wasn’t that small,” Al interjected.

Amy leaned forward conspiratorially. “It was maybe half a carat. That small,” she said with a laugh, and put her arm around her husband. “But this two-hundred-and-eighty-pound bundle of love has more than made up for it in kisses.”

“I’ll take the kisses any day,” Marlene said. She reached into her purse and took out the photographs of the ring that she’d shown Guerrero. “Would you mind taking a look at these?” she asked, handing the first one to Amy.

“That’s my ring!” Amy replied. “See what I meant about the diamond?”

“Hey, it looked bigger in person,” Al retorted.

“I’m sure,” Marlene said with a laugh as she handed the second photograph to Amy. “Here’s another of the same ring.”

“Oh, he wrecked it,” Amy cried. “It used to say ‘Always, Al,’ but it’s all scratched out.” Tears slipped out of her eyes and ran down her cheeks as her husband patted her shoulder.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I bet a jeweler can buff that up nice and inscribe it again.”

“Sure he can, and now you’ll have a story to go along with it,” Marlene said. “Do you think you’d recognize the guy who snatched your purse?”

“In a New York minute,” Amy replied. “He sat across from me on the train all the way from Spanish Harlem. The pizza-faced jerk waited until I was on the sidewalk then came out of nowhere and grabbed my purse. Believe me, I got a good look at him.”

Marlene pulled the camera out of her purse and pushed a button before turning the screen toward Amy. “I’m going to show you six photographs of different men. Stop me if you recognize any one of them.”

Amy looked at each photograph as it appeared but stopped Marlene at the fourth. “That’s Mr. Pizza Face right there.”

Marlene looked at the face on the screen. Jesus Guerrero, she thought with satisfaction. “Good,” she said. “And if I need you to identify him for the authorities, would you be willing to do that?”

“You bet. Maybe they’ll lock him up for a few years.”

“Actually, I might need him as a cooperative witness,” Marlene said. “I may want him to testify that he sold your ring to another man. It could save that man’s life.”

“Well, that’s more important than putting Pizza Face in jail,” Amy said, “though I’d still like to punch him. But hey, do you think I’ll get my ring back?”

“You may have to wait until this case is resolved,” Marlene said, “but you should be able to after that, and I’ll help.”

“Then I’m good with it,” Amy said, and smiled. “It may be a small diamond, but it was my first. Thank you, Marlene.”