Overkill

2

It turned out his name was Estrada, Jeremy Estrada. Jaywalker found this out in the pen, sitting across from the kid and conducting what might charitably be called a short-form interview. Judge McGillicuddy hadn’t actually ordered him to do it, but up at the bench he’d made it pretty clear that in his book Jaywalker owed him as much and more, without spelling it out. As soon as Jaywalker had begun protesting (immediately) that he was much too busy (he wasn’t), McGillicuddy had silently mouthed the word “Bullshit.” The A.D.A. had smiled just the tiniest bit at that but had quickly recovered by adjusting her glasses. No doubt she chalked up the incident as a pair of alpha males squaring off. But the judge’s drift hadn’t been lost on Jaywalker. About six months ago, in the midst of a run-of-the-mill larceny case, McGillicuddy had made a questionable ruling on a piece of evidence, and Jaywalker had muttered “Bullshit” loudly enough for the jury to hear. The judge had ignored it, even pretended he hadn’t heard it, though surely he had. Instead of clearing the courtroom, holding Jaywalker in contempt and maybe even giving him an overnight to reflect upon his outburst, he’d simply filed the incident away, evidently determined to save it for a rainy day. And though it was clear and dry this particular May morning, it might as well have been pouring. The debt had been called.

That the kid turned out to have a Latino last name came as something of a surprise to Jaywalker; he’d figured from the fair complexion, blond hair and blue-gray eyes that he was dealing with a runaway from Iowa or Minnesota, or someplace like that. But when asked if he spoke English, Jeremy answered softly, “Yes, I was born here,” without any trace of an accent.

“Do you understand what just happened out there in the courtroom?” Jaywalker asked him.

“No, not really.” In a voice so soft that the words were barely audible.

“Well, for starters, your lawyer tried to plead you guilty to a life sentence. Where’d you manage to dig him up from?”

“My mother found him. She said he helped her after they shut off the electric in the apartment. And I guess there wasn’t a lot of time, you know.”

Jaywalker didn’t know, and was almost afraid to ask. He’d agreed to spend ten minutes talking with the kid before letting McGillicuddy know if he was willing to represent him at assigned-counsel rates. Jaywalker had tried to explain that he was no longer on the panel of lawyers who took assignments, having been kicked off some time ago for turning in his payment vouchers months after they were due, sometimes years. But the judge had brushed him off. “Maybe the family has some money,” he’d said. “Or you could always do it pro bono. It certainly sounds like a manslaughter plea, from what that other clown was saying. In other words, an appearance or two.”

That other clown, by which he had to be referring to the civil lawyer, seemed like something of a backhanded slap, but Jaywalker had held his tongue. More to the point, the shutting off of the electricity pretty much answered the question of whether the family had money. And as for pro bono, it was an old Latin phrase that loosely translated as “Okay, you get to do the work, but you don’t get paid.”

They spoke for twenty minutes, just long enough for Jaywalker to seriously doubt that the case was a plea to manslaughter or anything else, not with the way Jeremy was already talking about self-defense. So instead of being an appearance or two, it was just as likely to be a protracted negotiation or even a trial, which meant a year’s worth of appearances and a ton of work.

And yet.

What was the and yet part?

Jaywalker would ask himself that very question a hundred times over the weeks and months to come. And each time he asked it, the best answer he could come up with was that the kid was so damn likeable, with his soft voice and guileless expression, and the way he looked directly at you with those big pale blue eyes of his. What was Jaywalker supposed to have told the judge? Sorry, I won’t do it? Go get some other sucker?

No, McGillicuddy had known exactly what he was doing when he’d singled out Jaywalker from among the dozen lawyers sitting in the front row of his courtroom. He’d known full well that there was one among them who, no matter how easily he might mouth off to a judge in open court, simply didn’t have it in his power to say no to a kid in deep trouble.

Talk about bullshit.

“So,” the judge asked when the case was recalled. “Will you be representing Mr. Estrada?”

Jaywalker was standing at the defense table with Jeremy this time. Apparently McGillicuddy didn’t intend to offer him the luxury of an off-the-record bench conference, where he might attempt to refuse in relative privacy. But the judge needn’t have worried.

“Yes, sir.”

“Now, would you like to approach with Ms. Darcy, to discuss a possible disposition of the charges?”

“Nothing personal, but no, sir.”

“Very well. Fill out a notice of appearance. The case is assigned to Judge Wexler in Part 55. Three weeks for defense motions. Same bail conditions. Next case.”

Back in the pen adjoining the courtroom-Jaywalker never left a courtroom without first explaining to his client what had just happened and what was likely to happen between now and the next court appearance-he told Jeremy that later in the week he’d have him brought over for a real visit. The young man smiled at the thought. No doubt he and Mr. Fudderman hadn’t spent too much time together.

“Can you do me a favor?” Jeremy asked.

“I’ll try.”

“My mom’s in the courtroom. Could you tell her I’m okay?”

“Sure.”

“And…” And here Jeremy hesitated, as though embarrassed to ask.

“Yes?”

“Could you ask her to bring me some socks? It gets cold at night.”

“Yes, I can do that.”

They both stood, though they’d shortly be heading in very different directions. Jaywalker would be going back into the courtroom and then, once Johnny Cantalupo’s sentencing was done, out into the fresh air of Centre Street. Okay, relatively fresh air. Jeremy would be moved to another pen, there to wait for the one o’clock bus back to Rikers Island.

Jaywalker extended a hand, and they shook. In the age of AIDS, hepatitis C and drug-resistant TB, his fellow defense lawyers had long abandoned the practice. For Jaywalker, that was just one more reason to adhere to it.

“Thank you for taking my case, Mr. Jaywalker,” said Jeremy, reading the name with some difficulty from the business card Jaywalker had handed him earlier, the one with the home phone number on it. Another thing that distinguished Jaywalker from his colleagues.

“Call me Jay.”

Jeremy smiled. “Jay Jaywalker?”

“Just Jay.” It didn’t seem necessary to explain that once upon a time he’d been Harrison J. Walker, and that he’d dropped the Harrison part as too pretentious and rejected Harry as too Lower East Side.

“Thank you, Mr. Jay.”

Back in the courtroom, Jaywalker found Jeremy’s mother and ushered her out to the hallway. She was a short, stout woman who answered to the name Carmen. He relayed her son’s message about being okay. He didn’t mention the socks.

“How does it look for him?” she asked in a gravelly voice, thick with an accent.

“It’s too early to tell,” said Jaywalker.

“Jew gotta do your best for him, Mr. Joewalker. Jew gotta promise.” It would be her first of many attempts to get his name right. As for her mispronunciation of the word “you,” he’d get over that, too, but it would take some doing.

Jaywalker promised. He’d won cases and lost cases, but no one-no one-had ever accused him of not doing his best.

She reached into her pocket and withdrew a handful of crumpled bills. “I brought this for Mr. Fudderman,” she explained. “Am I supposed to give it to jew instead?”

“That’s up to you,” said Jaywalker. He would have loved to say no, that wasn’t necessary. But he was a month and half behind with his rent, so he allowed her to hand him the money, and thanked her. He waited until after they’d spoken and she’d walked away before bothering to line up the bills and count them.

They added up to fifty-eight dollars, a pretty modest retainer even by Jaywalker’s standards. Not even his rent was that low.

Johnny Cantalupo finally got his probation about 12:30 p.m., but Jaywalker still didn’t leave the building. Instead he took the elevator down to the seventh floor and the district attorney’s office, for a meeting with Katherine Darcy, the assistant who’d stepped up to the bench earlier that morning. It turned out it was her case, meaning she would stay with it, even try it, if it came to that.

Now, sitting across her desk, he decided she was older than he’d thought-maybe forty, he guessed-but every bit as pretty, if only she’d lighten up a bit. She could start, he almost suggested, by taking off the glasses; they made her look like a librarian, or a detention hall monitor. But he fought off the impulse to share his insights with her, pretty sure that voicing them could only get him into trouble and hurt his client at the same time.

“So,” he asked her, “what do we have here?”

“What we have here is a couple of young macho studs and their girlfriends,” she said. She said it easily, without having to look at the file. It was clear that she knew her case. “One of them says, ‘You lookin’ at me?’ and the other says, ‘Yeah, I’m lookin’ at you.’ To tell you the truth, I don’t know who started it. But it doesn’t matter. A challenge is thrown down and accepted. They walk a few blocks, square off and duke it out.”

Duke it out? Maybe she was older than she looked.

“It’s a fair fight,” she continued, “with fists. By all accounts, your guy wins it. Then, not satisfied, he pulls out a gun and shoots the victim, a twenty-year-old kid named Victor Quinones.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“Witnesses?” Jaywalker asked her.

“Witnesses. Three of them, maybe four. The first wound isn’t bad, a freaky in-and-out shot that grazes Victor’s abdomen. He runs. Your guy catches up to him and, as Victor’s lying on the pavement begging for mercy, grabs him by the hair and shoots him between the eyes at point-blank range. The next day, he takes off for Puerto Rico. Stays there six, seven months. Comes back, turns himself in. Must have gotten rid of the gun by then, and figured the witnesses would be long gone. Only they’re not. They’re all around and available. So, to answer your question as plainly and as simply as I possibly can, what we have here is an execution.”