Bronx Requiem(20)

Beck said, “The warden knew it well enough.”

“I guess.”

“No guessing about it. That’s why they sent me the hell out of there. Warden didn’t bother trying to arrange another max prison for me, he just sent me back to Sing Sing. It was just as bad as it was when I’d been there the first time. Too many new guards training there. Too many *s coming in from Rikers still in the middle of some war that started in that shit hole. Seemed like half the prison had a blade of some sort. Sneaking around, scheming for a way to jump somebody.”

Manny said, referring to Demarco, “That’s when you and the maricón, here, met, right? Your second bit at Sing Sing.”

Beck looked at Demarco. “You were there, what, about a year when I got back the second time?”

“About a year. Little more. I was on A block. You were on B.”

Beck nodded, remembering. “Too many f*cking grudges and fights in that place. You remember the guy who stomped that poor bastard’s head out in the yard?”

Now it was Demarco’s turn to be terse. “Yes.”

Beck said, “The tower guard shot him, but not before he crushed the guy’s skull.”

Demarco said, “Got him in the leg, which was a good shot from that distance.”

Manny said, “I’m glad they kept me at Clinton.”

Beck turned and said, “That’s cuz they didn’t want you starting a war at another prison. They kept you there and moved everybody away from you.”

Demarco accelerated the Mercury onto the FDR and said, “How long before you left for Eastern?”

“About a year. By then Phineas was going all guns on my appeal. He’d pretty much cracked it open. The timing came together on a lot of moving parts. Taschen was going to retire.…”

“The cop who finally came forward?”

“Yeah. He didn’t have to worry about being blackballed or losing his rank or anything. That broke it open. All the Brady violations came out. Prosecutor withholding exculpatory evidence. The bad jury instructions. Phineas tore down the temple, man. He got me transferred out of Sing Sing up to Eastern. Much better joint. Calmer. Max security, but a better place. And they had a bunch of programs up there. Including the Bard College thing.”

“And Packy was there by then.”

“Yep.”

Demarco continued up the FDR, maneuvered the car into the right lane, lining up to head over the Willis Avenue Bridge. Beck watched the slimy water of the East River slide by on his right, remembering his past.

“I didn’t know he was at Eastern. I was sitting out in the yard by myself. Early summer night, a couple of weeks after they transferred me there. Around this time of year. They have a big athletic field next to the main building. The walls weren’t very high on that side. You could see the sky. You could see the Shawangunk Ridge off in the distance. It almost felt like you were outside, not trapped in a prison.

“So I’m sitting on this bench near one of the ball fields, and I see this guy heading toward me from about fifty yards away. The sun was behind him, so I couldn’t really make him out. He had his hands in sight, which helped, but you know—prison. You don’t take anything for granted. So I get up on my feet. He stops, laughs. Calls out my name. Now I see it’s Packy. We do the handshake, the brother hug. How’re you doing? Blah, blah, blah. Thirty seconds later, no warning, no explanation, he asks me to help him learn to read better.”

“Just like that.”

“Yep. That’s the way it was with Packy. No preamble. No explanation. He always got right to it. So I agreed, but it’s f*cking hard to teach an adult how to read. You ever do it?”

“No.”

“I don’t recommend it. I never knew what prompted him to ask me. And he never went overboard thanking me. It was just understood. He’d do the same for me if he could, so that was it.”

Demarco said, “And with no strings attached like with most cons who only do something as part of a hustle.”

“Yeah, that endless, goddam running the con.”

Manny said, “They can’t help it.”

“You’re right. They cannot stop themselves. Packy was way beyond that shit.”

The men stopped talking and turned their attention to the neighborhood. They had skirted the edges of Hunts Point and maneuvered into the section of the Bronx where Lorena Leon lived. Everyone’s attention focused. Manny scanned everything out of both windows from the backseat. Beck’s eyes shifted constantly. None of them was very familiar with this neighborhood.

The area had evolved from bad to decent. Many of the buildings they passed were four-and five-story brick apartment buildings that looked fairly well maintained, interspersed with two-story houses. There were also dozens of newer buildings where there had once been rubble-strewn empty lots. Plus, signs of renovation were everywhere: scaffolding sheds covering sidewalks, buildings being gutted, some of them covered in netting with multiple Dumpster bins out front.

A few of the lots had been turned into little parks or, in some cases, rough community gardens. One entire block of attached two-flats looked like they could have been pulled out of Astoria, Queens. The cars parked on the streets were fairly new.

But the people on the streets were still overwhelmingly black and Hispanic. Splashes of graffiti marred the neighborhood, and most ground-floor doors and windows were protected by iron bars.