Before I could dial Larry’s number, the store phone rang. Klaus picked up.
“It’s Ronald McDonald on the phone,” Klaus snickered over the intercom. “Don’t forget to order me two Big Macs and a large fries. Ask him if Hamburglar is dating anyone. I love masked men.”
“Get off the phone, Klaus.”
“Okay, boss.”
“Larry, what’s going-”
“Get your ass over to the Queens DA’s office.”
“Why? What’s-”
“Shut up and get here.”
It took less than forty-five minutes to get to the DA’s office, but I wouldn’t have been able to tell you anything about the ride. Although the sky was cloudless, I’d driven in a fog, unable to string memories from one minute to the next. I remembered getting into my car, and then, suddenly, I was there. Larry was waiting for me out front.
“What’s going on?” I asked as I had earlier on the phone.
“Come on, the judge recessed today’s court session for this. Alfonseca, his lawyer, and the DA are waiting for us upstairs.”
“Waiting for us?”
“For you, really,” Larry, said leading me to the elevators by the elbow. “Ivan won’t talk unless you’re there.”
“He doesn’t even know who the fuck I am.”
A court officer was holding an elevator especially for us. We climbed in, the doors closing silently at our backs.
“Just like you figured,” Larry continued, “Ivan went totally berserk this morning when word leaked back to him about the stories in the paper. He refused to leave his cell and demanded his lawyer come to Rikers to speak to him. Good thing Parson’s son was on duty to smooth the way or this could’ve gotten nasty.”
The elevator jerked to a stop. The court officer pointed out the way. Inside a conference room adjoining his office was Robert Hiram Fishbein, the district attorney for Queens County; Marissa Reyes of the public defender’s office; and her client, Ivan Alfonseca. Fishbein, who bore an unfortunate resemblance to Groucho Marx, greeted our entrance with smiles. Reyes, a petite Hispanic woman of thirty, played it close to the vest, barely acknowledging our arrival. Alfonseca, however, looking small and ridiculous in a too-big polyester suit, fairly bristled with excitement at the sight of me. If he hadn’t been cuffed to the table, I don’t know what he would’ve done.
To his lawyer’s shock and horror, he blurted something out in Spanish. Reyes tried not to show her dismay, but her eyes betrayed her. It didn’t help her composure any when, at the conclusion of her client’s brief tirade, he spat at me. He missed, catching Fishbein’s pants leg instead. I recognized several of the words that had come out of Ivan’s mouth: curses, mostly.
“Word for word, please,” I said to his lawyer.
“Yes, Counselor,” Fishbein barked angrily, wiping the saliva off his pants, “word for word.”
She did not hesitate. “My client wanted to know if this was the lying faggot who had the bullshit printed in the papers about him.”
I looked Alfonseca right in his dead black eyes, pointed at my chest, and said: “Si.”
“Why?” he asked in English, looking almost wounded, before slipping back into his native tongue.
Reyes didn’t wait to be asked. “He wants to know why you did that. He says it wasn’t necessary. He says-”
Before she could continue, Alfonseca repeated: “No fue necesario! No fue necesario!”
She waited for him to finish. “My client wonders why you didn’t come to him like a man and ask him if he did this thing?”
I bowed at him slightly. “Lo siento. I’m sorry. You’re right, I should have come to you like a man.”
“Okay,” he said, smiling that cruel, superior smile.
“Now I’m asking, man to man, did you abduct Moira Heaton?”
Normally, this approach would have ruffled a lot of feathers, but this was way far away from normally. Fishbein understood he would never get this hard guy to talk to him. He had nothing to lose and an easy, high-profile conviction to gain. Visions of a press conference with himself standing between the mayor and the newly redeemed Steven Brightman danced in his head. Marissa Reyes, however, was not so quick to abandon procedure.
She put her finger to her lips. “Say nothing!” she admonished her client.
“Puta!“ Ivan cursed at her. He hadn’t enjoyed being ordered around by a woman in a room full of other men.
Reyes ignored him. “Before my client answers another question, we have to know what’s on the table.”
The DA wagged his finger at her. “Counselor, Counselor, what am I going to do with you? Come, let us talk in my office.”
Reyes agreed.
Fishbein turned to Larry. “Captain McDonald, could you ask the court officer to please step in here and keep an eye on the prisoner? And why don’t you gentlemen go grab a cup of coffee. This should take about fifteen minutes.”
We took the hint. As soon as the court officer stepped inside the conference room, we retreated to the elevators. While we waited, Larry put out his right hand. Reflexively, I grabbed it with my right.
“You did it, Moe,” he said. “You fucking did it. Maybe they should’ve given you that gold shield when you found that little girl. What was her name again?”
“Marina Conseco.”
“Right. I gotta admit, it killed me to give you those damned files, but you pulled it off. Congratulations.”
“Let’s give it fifteen minutes and see, but thanks.”
Before we could get on the elevator, Fishbein stuck his head out his office door. “Gentlemen, if you please, the conference room.”
It had been a quick negotiation. Reyes had done the best she could for her client, something about a sentencing recommendation that would allow, if the judge agreed, a few of Alfonseca’s sentences to run concurrently as opposed to consecutively. As hollow victories went, this ranked in the top five. Instead of getting out a week or two before the sun went dark, Alfonseca might get out of Attica in time to enjoy a scenic vacation on a star cruiser to Alpha Centauri. Basically, he was going to die in prison.
“Mr. Prager” — Fishbein addressed me directly for the first time, waving several folded sheets of paper at me-“Ms. Reyes has informed me that this is a full confession as dictated by her client, Mr. Alfonseca, this morning at Rikers. It is alleged to detail the abduction, assault, and homicide of one Moira Heaton by Mr. Alfonseca. He will not sign it, however, unless he can describe to you the contents of these pages. I cannot by law compel you to-”
“Let’s get it over with.”
For the next half hour I had to sit and listen to Marissa Reyes recite in English the intimate details of Moira Heaton’s last hours on earth. As I did so, Ivan Alfonseca never removed his gaze from my eyes, nor did his cold expression much change. Only when he described actions which refuted the fabrications in the planted news stories did he smile that smile. He was a man who thrived on the distress and discomfort of others.
“Get this piece of shit out of here,” Fishbein ordered after Alfonseca had signed the confession, initialing each page and any minor changes.
Reyes looked sick, but no more so than the rest of us felt. As they began to lead Ivan away, he pushed toward me. “Man to man,” he said. “Man to man. No tricks.”
I ignored him because I was distracted. Something was wrong. A detail was missing, a very important detail that everyone in the room seemed to have forgotten.