The Law of Second Chances

55

Dorothy Pierce lived in a tenement on 127th Street off Lenox Avenue. The building was old, the hallway was dirty and dingy, and the neighborhood was nothing to write home about. Dorothy’s three-bedroom apartment was contrastingly neat, nicely decorated, and very clean. It reminded Jack-who had arrived there with Henry on Saturday evening-of Frankie O’Connor’s old place on Ninety-sixth and Lexington.

Dorothy’s children were all grown, but her sixteen-year-old grandson William was living with her. So Jack and Henry had to share a room.

Their bedroom was narrow; the two single beds barely fit side by side with a little space between them. There was a dresser with four drawers, which gave them two drawers apiece. Jack had to hang his suits up in the hall closet. Any room became small when Henry walked into it. This particular one felt like a closet to Jack.

“You and I are getting too close,” he said to Henry that first night as they tried to work their way around each other and get into bed.

“All I’ve got to say is, you better not snore,” Henry shot back.

When they first arrived at Dorothy’s, there was a young man who looked to be in his mid-twenties standing outside the building. He seemed to be guarding the place. He stood on the stoop mostly and walked up the stairs every fifteen minutes or so. Dorothy’s apartment was on the second floor. Another young man was inside the apartment. Henry had simply introduced him as George. He was watching television when Henry and Jack went to bed.

“You’re not going to try and convince me that those two guys are just kids living in the building looking for a little extra money, are you?” Jack asked Henry when they were in their respective beds with the light turned out.

“Why not?”

“Because I can tell they’re both packing. I didn’t see the guns but I know they’re there.”

“Jack, you’re on a need-to-know basis.”

“What does that mean?”

“That means I’m not going to tell you everything unless you need to know it.”

“It seems like you have an army up here, Henry. And I thought you lived in Florida.”

“My cousin Jermaine, Dorothy’s son, is a businessman. He loaned me a few of his employees.”

“Are some of his employees the ones who are escorting Charlie to Virginia?”

“As a matter of fact, they are.”

“That’s at least four people. You don’t know Jermaine that well. I’m sure he’s not doing this for free.”

“Maybe not. That’s my business, Jack. Remember, I’m the one who got you into this case. I want to make sure I get you and Charlie out in one piece.”

“We want to do things the right way though, Henry.”

“Is that right? Are the people on the other side-the law-and-order side, the side of justice in your eyes-are they doing things the right way? Jack, you do what you do best and leave the rest to me. Trust me. I’m going to stay on the right side of things.”

Aunt Dorothy gave Jack some more advice at breakfast the next morning. William was sitting at the table with Henry and Jack. Dorothy was at the stove making pancakes.

“You’re all right during the day. There are enough white folks up here now it’s not too unusual. You don’t wanna be white and walkin’ around here late at night alone, though.” Henry and William both laughed at Dorothy’s bluntness.

“I’m not kidding and you both know it. William, you’d better get off to school.”

“Yes ma’am.” William finished off the last of his pancakes before standing up, grabbing his backpack, kissing his grandmother, and heading out the door. “Good-bye, Uncle Henry. Good-bye, Jack.”

“See you, William. Have a good day,” Henry answered. Jack just waved. His mouth was full.

After William left, Henry handed Jack a cell phone and a piece of paper with a telephone number written on it. “Use this phone,” he told him. “If Charlie needs you she’s going to call on this phone. If you’re downtown late and I’m not with you, call and let somebody know when you’re on your way home. Don’t take the subway-take a cab right to the door. This neighborhood can be dangerous for you for a lot of reasons. And by the way, Charlie has arrived in Virginia safe and sound.”

On Sunday evening, Jack and Henry met Sam Mendelsohn at a warehouse just off Fulton Street in downtown Manhattan. The warehouse manager, a man named Hector Fuentes, was also there. They were standing by a large truck that was open in the back and stacked full of boxes. Henry was walking around checking the place out while Jack was being introduced to Hector; Henry wasn’t one for meeting people. He became very attentive, however, when Hector started describing the logistics of the transfer.

“You sign the documents over right now to Mr. Tobin,” he told Sam Mendelsohn. “And Mr. Tobin, you be here tomorrow morning at nine o’clock. Ask for me, nobody else but me. Bring the documents and a truck and your people, and I’ll arrange everything. It will go very smoothly, I assure you.”

While they were shaking hands and pretending they actually liked each other, Henry wandered over to the black security guard and struck up a conversation. Ten minutes later, Jack called him to let him know they were leaving.

“This is a setup,” Jack told him when they were on the FDR Drive and headed to Harlem.

“How do you figure that?” Henry asked.

“Come on, Henry-this isn’t a business transaction, it’s a document production. We don’t need bills of lading to transfer this stuff. And this guy Hector has to be present at every step of the way? They want to know exactly when this truck is leaving the warehouse, and Hector is the man who’s going to give them that information.”

“Who are ‘they’?” Henry asked.

“I still have no idea,” Jack replied. “We’ve got to figure out a way to get those documents to Virginia without anybody knowing about it.”

“Jack, you’re actually starting to think like a criminal.”

“I’m not so sure that’s a good thing.”

“It is when you’re dealing with crooks.”

The next morning at nine sharp they were back at the warehouse. Jack had the transfer documents Sam Mendelsohn had given him and was waiting to present them to Hector Fuentes, who had to be paged. Their own truck was not there yet. Jack looked a little concerned, but Henry informed him that it was still in Harlem waiting for his call to come to the warehouse.

Hector Fuentes made them wait for ten more minutes just to let them know how important he was. Finally he showed up, accepted the documents from Jack, and once again led the way to the truck containing the records.

“Where’s your truck?” he asked before allowing them to inspect the contents one final time.

Jack was getting very tired of Hector’s demands. “It’ll be here in a few minutes,” he said. “Just open the truck.” Hector bristled for a moment, then noticed Henry standing right next to Jack. The look Henry was giving Hector assured him that opening the truck would be beneficial for his health.

Hector unlatched the back and swung open the doors. His jaw dropped when he looked inside and saw that it was completely empty.

“What’s going on here?” Jack yelled. “Where are the documents?”

“I have no idea!” Hector replied. “They were here last night, I swear. You saw for yourself.”

“They’re not here now,” Jack shouted. “What the hell kind of game are you playing?”

“I’m not playing a game, I assure you. The records must have been stolen. I’m going to call the police myself right now. You can watch me call. You can be here when they come. I’ll get the night watchman in here as well. We’ll get to the bottom of this.” The man was clearly in a panic.

“You’d better,” Jack told him. “I need those records today. I don’t have any time to hang around here. I’ll be back in two hours, and you’d better have some answers for me.”

He and Henry got in their rental car and drove off, leaving the bewildered Hector Fuentes scratching his head.

“All right, Henry, tell me how you did it.” They were back on the FDR Drive headed uptown.

A smile broke across Henry’s face. “I simply negotiated a price with the night watchman last night while you were making small talk with the rest of them. We picked up the boxes at about one o’clock this morning. They’ll be at the lake house in another hour or so.”

Jack just looked at him. “Are you sure you were just a small-time crook?”

“I was young, Jack. I didn’t know my own potential.”

Jack smiled. As they drove, he kept running through all the details in his mind. “I don’t like the fact that he’s making a police report, though.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll call in an hour or so and say there was some sort of mix-up and we have the records. They’ll know we pulled a fast one, but it won’t go any further than that. Remember, whoever is behind this is a hell of a lot dirtier than we are. And that’s where your real problem is, Jack.”

“I’ve been a couple of steps behind you for a while now, Henry. I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”

“Look,” Henry replied, “I’ve been thinking about this over and over-who ‘they’ are. We still don’t know who engineered the plan to follow the records to their ultimate destination. We do know, however, that the attorneys for the telephone company and the estate had to be in on it. What did you tell me about that hearing-that they were in cahoots with the DA?”

“Yeah, so?”

“So the DA may be involved. Theoretically, the estate might have something to hide, and I guess they could be engineering this on their own but I don’t think so. This is too coordinated an effort.”

“Henry, do you realize what you’re saying? You’re at the very least implicating an assistant district attorney in a plot to commit murder.”

“That may or may not be true. I don’t know what the big picture is. I’m just trying to add the facts up as we go along.”

“Look, the attempt on my life was right after the hearing to get the records. They want to follow that truck to get to my expert, you said so yourself. How did you put it? They want to kill two birds with one stone. I don’t understand. Why would the DA, with such a strong criminal case against Benny, be involved in a murder plot? It doesn’t make sense. It’s preposterous.”

“Do you see it any other way, Jack? Do you see this whole thing going down without the DA knowing about it?”

Jack thought about it for a moment. “Maybe it’s not the DA. It could be Spencer Taylor acting on his own. I don’t think scruples would get in that guy’s way. I’m positive that he orchestrated the last hearing.”

“Hopefully when Charlie sorts through those records we’ll find some answers,” Henry told him. “In the meantime, what do you think the DA will do when he learns that you got the records and he doesn’t know where they are?”

“Well, if I was him, I’d try to get this case over before anyone has time to review the records. Charlie couldn’t get through all those boxes in a month. If Spencer Taylor plays his cards right, this trial could be over in a week.”