Condemned Read online

  CONDEMNED

  A Novel

  John Nicholas Iannuzzi

  A MADCAN BOOK

  Those who fail to remember the past

  Are condemned to repeat it

  Santayana

  Contents

  Havana Harbor : May 31, 1929 : 9:47 A.M.

  Foley Square : June 18, 1996 : 9:45 A.M.

  Leningrad : January 9, 1983 : 4:10 A.M.

  Watkins Glen Race Track : June 18, 1996 : 10:20 A.M.

  Harlem : June 18, 1996 : 4:05 P.M.

  Route 80, in PA. : June 18, 1996 : 4:25 P.M.

  Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn : July 1, 1929 : 11:30 P.M.

  Flash Inn : June 18, 1996 : 6:15 P.M.

  Cali : June 18, 1996 : 6:45 P.M.

  Sunnyside, Queens : June 18, 1996: 9:35 P.M.

  The Bronx : June 18, 1996 : 9:50 P.M.

  Penn Station, New York : June 18, 1996 : 10:15 P.M.

  Semanon’s : July 14, 1929 : 5:10 P.M.

  Alphabet City : June 18, 1996 : 10:25 P.M.

  Greenwich Village : June 18, 1996 : 10:35 P.M.

  Alphabet City : June 19, 1996 : 1:58 A.M.

  Woolworth Tower : June 19, 1996 : 8:25 A.M.

  Brighton Beach, Brooklyn: June 20, 1996 :10:30 A.M.

  Semanon’s : July 22, 1929 : 2:30 P.M.

  Newsroom, New York Post: June 20, 1996 : 10:50 A.M.

  Criminal Courts Building : June 20, 1996 : 10:55 A.M.

  D.E.A. Headquarters, N.Y.: June 20, 1996 : 11: 20 A.M.

  M.C.C., New York : June 20, 1996 : 12:55 P.M.

  125th Street, Harlem : June 28, 1996 : 4:15 P.M.

  Bucharest: July 6, 1996 : 3:30 P.M.

  The Bank Café, Manhattan : July 28, 1929 : 3:45 P.M.

  In and Around Foley Square : July 22, 1996 : 10:30 A.M.

  Courtroom 11 D : Federal Courthouse : July 22, 1996 : Noon

  Riker’s Island : July 26, 1996 : 2:50 P.M.

  Flash Inn : July 27, 1996 : 2:45 P.M.

  Sandro’s Office : July 29, 1996 : 11:30 A.M.

  Brighton Beach : July 29, 1996 : 10:45 P.M.

  Park Avenue : August 4, 1929 : 7:15 P.M.

  Bay Ridge, Brooklyn : July 31, 1996 : 10:30 P.M.

  Carlisle Barracks, PA : August 4, 1996 : 6:30 P.M.

  Bay Ridge : August 6, 1996 : 11:50 P.M.

  Alphabet City : August 8, 1996 : 11:45 A.M.

  Washington Heights : August 10, 1996 : 10:45 A.M.

  East River Waterfront: August 8, 1929 : 9:15 A.M.

  Ocean Parkway : August 9, 1996 : 2.15 P.M.

  Carlisle Barracks, PA : August 11, 1996 : Noon

  Belt Parkway, Brooklyn : August 12, 1996, 1:15 P.M.

  Scotrun, PA : August 11, 1996 : 7:45 P.M.

  Harlem : August 15, 1996 : 11:15 A.M.

  Sea Girt, New Jersey : August 28, 1932 : 2:30 P.M.

  Park Avenue : August 18, 1996 : 4 P.M.

  Sandro’s Office : August 21, 1996 : 2:45 P.M.

  District Attorney’s Office : August 24, 1996 : 3:30 P.M.

  Chatham Square : August 25, 1996 : 10:25 A.M.

  21 Club : August 27, 1996 : 5:15 P.M.

  Bensonhurst: August 28, 1996 : 7:30 P.M.

  ‘Vasily’s’ : August 29, 1996 : 10:45 P.M.

  Sandro’s Office : August 30, 1996 : 10:15 A.M.

  Brighton Beach Avenue : September 1, 1996 : 8:30 P.M.

  Lower Manhattan : September 3, 1996 : 4:15 P.M.

  Astoria : September 11, 1996 : 8:30 P.M.

  Havana Harbor : May 31, 1929 : 9:47 A.M.

  Capitano Santiago Lopez glanced up from the charts in the wheelhouse as the cargo netting with the last cases of rum were hoisted high above the side of his ship, the ‘Tiger Marine’. The Captain was heavy set, with a flourishing, black moustache.

  “Vamonos,” he muttered to the First Mate who stood at the side of the bridge directing the loading. The Captain wanted to catch the full surge of the tide. His eyes swept back to the charts, confirming what he already knew. He needed every minute he had available to arrive off Sandy Hook, New Jersey, by midnight, Thursday next, in order to meet the small boat and to collect the $2,000 bonus El Señor Joe had promised him for being exactly on time.

  The gringos and their Prohibition were crazy, the Captain thought—the law said no drinking, so everyone drank more.

  But it paid well. He smiled. That bonus was more than enough to pay for the most glorious party for his little Carmencita who was to become a little angel when she received her First Communion on Saturday in 3 weeks, with enough left over, his smile widened, to fix the roof over the kitchen for his wife.

  “Rapido,” the Captain grumbled again.

  Foley Square : June 18, 1996 : 9:45 A.M.

  “Let me see if I understand this,” Judge Merian Ellis said in a barely audible voice as she sat behind the high judge’s bench in the huge courtroom. “The reason that all of us are sitting here, waiting, is that Mr. Hardie’s Counsel had a nose bleed this morning?”

  Reporters, courtroom artists, and spectators filled every bench in Courtroom 11-D of the new Federal Courthouse for the Southern District of New York. To date, the new Courthouse, which stood just behind the old Courthouse on Foley Square in Manhattan, was the world’s largest and most expensive. Its cost, with courtrooms paneled in polished wood from floor to ceiling, different color coordinated rugs and drapery in each, counsel tables bearing the carved eagle seal of the United States, kitchenettes in every judge’s chambers, had caused a momentary flash of media attention. But that was yesterday. The trial of the Brotherhood, described by the Government as the largest drug cartel in the eastern United States, was the wire on which the media blackbirds had now lighted.

  In the well of the courtroom, there were three rows of counsel tables, one behind the other directly in front of the Judge’s bench. The prosecution team, an Assistant United States Attorney and an Agent from a D.E.A. Task Force sat at the front table. To the far side of the table was a wheeled cart, like a double-decker shopping cart, filled with documents and evidence.

  Interspersed with six white and two black defense lawyers at the second and third tables were nine black defendants: two executive level, three middle managers, and four street level dealers of the Harlem drug cartel known as the Brotherhood.

  In the jury box, sixteen jurors, ten women, six men, more than half of them black or Hispanic, had been brought into the courtroom and seated by the Judge, to wait silently, to embarrass, and to justify the stiff fine she had announced she would impose on any lawyer or defendant foolish enough to delay the proceedings.

  Everyone in the courtroom had to strain to hear the Judge.

  “That’s my understanding, Your Honor,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney J.J. Dineen, rising from the prosecution table. A.U.S.A. Dineen, in charge of the prosecution of the Brotherhood, was tall and well built. He wore a dark gray, single breasted suit and silver, wire rimmed glasses. Seated next to Dineen was Special Agent Marty Geraghty, a D.E.A. member of the El Dorado Task Force, who had been designated Case Agent, liaison between the Task Force and the prosecutor’s office. The Task Force, under the direction of D.E.A. Supervisor Michael Becker, had conducted a two-year investigation which led to the Brotherhood trial. Despite its state of the art amplification systems, with microphones on the judge’s benches, the witness stand, and each counsel table, with loudspeakers strategically hidden in the ceilings and walls throughout the courtroom, Dineen and Geraghty at the first table had to bend forward, concentrating on every move of the Judge’s lips, to make out her words.

  “And now, rather than being here, Mr. Leppard is at Lenox Hill Hospital?” Judge Ellis asked indistinctly. She was a thin, medium complected black woman with pageboy length hair and glasses. She wore no makeup or jewelry ex
cept small gold ball earrings. Although she could affect a deceiving siren smile when she wished, Judge Ellis was an inflexible tyrant, indifferent to requests of both prosecution and defense, responsive to some atonal rhythm that she alone heard.

  “That’s what I was informed, Your Honor,” replied Dineen, rising. “Someone from the hospital tried to call the court earlier, apparently couldn’t get through, and called the U.S. Attorney’s office.”

  “Is that right, Claire?” the Judge looked toward her Courtroom Deputy Clerk, Claire Trainor, seated at a floor level desk situated immediately in front of the Judge’s bench, facing out toward the lawyers and defendants. She was a young white woman with short blonde hair, and slightly tinted aviator styled glasses.

  “Yes, Your Honor,” Trainor answered as she swivelled in her chair. “A message from the Lenox Hill emergency room was left on our answering machine at 8:59 A.M. The message said that Mr. Leppard was in the emergency room with a nose bleed.”

  “A nose bleed?” the Judge repeated. “Get Lenox Hill on the phone,” she whispered toward Trainor, a tight, thin smile on her lips. It was the same slit of a smile she displayed when meting out her standard sentence to all defendants convicted in her courtroom, sentences that had earned the Judge the sobriquet, ‘Maximum Ellis’.

  Claire Trainor picked up her phone receiver and touched a number into the keypad.

  “Mr. Hardie,” the Judge hissed softly toward a defendant at the second table, “your lawyer apparently thinks he can play fast and loose with this court.”

  Trainor, her hand cupped around the mouthpiece, began speaking soundlessly into the phone.

  “I, however, am not to be trifled with, Mr. Hardie.” The Judge spoke slowly, savoring each word. “Mr. Leppard can rest assured that even if some injury were to have caused his soul to depart this earth, I will have his still warm body here in twenty minutes.” The Judge continued to smile. “Meanwhile, Mr. Hardie, we—” the Judge moved an outstretched finger to slowly encircle the well of the courtroom and the jury box—“shall all wait in our places, so that everyone will know just how long you and your lawyer have caused this court and jury to wait—”

  “I have the hospital on the line, Your Honor,” Trainor said softly.

  The Judge picked up a receiver from her desktop, and held it in mid-air. “And you and your lawyer are going to be fined two hundred dollars for every minute we wait, Mr. Hardie.” The Judge’s thin smile widened. “Two hundred dollars per minute,” she repeated, her eyebrows arching as she placed the phone to her ear. She took the phone away again. “I realize that amount doesn’t mean a great deal to a man who has posted five hundred thousand dollars bail, but still—” The Judge placed the phone to her ear again. Then removed it. “Perhaps we should discuss my remanding you, Mr. Hardie. Or increasing your bail to one million dollars. You don’t seem deterred by half a million dollars bail.” The Judge put the phone receiver to her ear again.

  Ozro Thadeus ‘Red’ Hardie was 60 years old. His neatly cropped hair, once red in color, was now salt and pepper, mostly salt, as was his thin moustache. He was lean, athletic looking—he played basketball and worked out at a gym for an hour each day. In a world of space age sneakers and satin running suits, Red was classic elegance. He was wearing a double-breasted dark blue suit, white pinstriped. His shirt front was azure blue with white stripes, the collar and cuffs, a brilliant white. His silk tie was navy blue with white polka dots. A handkerchief in his breast pocket matched the tie.

  Red’s dark eyes gazed back at the Judge calmly. The lawyer’s chair to his immediate left was empty.

  “This is Judge Ellis, who is this?” the Judge sliced into the phone, her eyes shifting from Red to the ceiling. She removed the phone from her ear again.”Do you think, Mr. Hardie, we should have your lawyer examined by a government doctor to determine if he’s malingering for your benefit?”

  So far, there had been no evidence introduced at the trial that Red Hardie ever possessed, was seen near, was overheard talking about, or was, knowingly or unknowingly, within several arms lengths of any drugs whatsoever. To prove its conspiracy case against him, however, the Government needed only to prove that there was, in fact, a drug conspiracy—the jury had already heard substantial evidence that the street level defendants made many hand to hand drug sales to Undercover Agents—and, however distant or insulated, prove that Red was somehow connected to those defendants enmeshed in that conspiracy.

  The indirect proof that was slowly dragging Red ever closer to conspiratorial waters was, in part, recorded conversations of street level dealers who liberally seasoned their conversations with mentions of Red when they spoke to the Undercovers. Another part of the Government’s evidence was subpoenaed records from Red’s accountant showing that Red reported annual income from real estate and dry cleaning stores of approximately $125,000.00 after taxes. Add to that, Red’s reluctant tailor was subpoenaed to testify that Red bought approximately 20 suits a year, each one costing two thousand dollars. The jury was shown a photograph of the building on Central Park West in which Red owned a condominium. The subpoenaed building manager testified that an apartment comparable to the one Red lived in, recently sold for one million two hundred thousand dollars. The monthly maintenance on the apartment was $3,000. Owners of two restaurants were subpoenaed to testify to the frequency of Red’s presence in their establishments, the number of people who accompanied him, and the average cost of meals. Accumulated, the tabs were over twenty one thousand dollars—always paid in cash.

  The Government produced evidence that Red didn’t own a car, yet, he had regular access to six automobiles registered or tided in other people’s names. His favorite was a sparkling navy blue Bentley convertible, worth $150,000, used only on mild sunny days. Then there was a Ferrari, also a fair weather car, and four other vehicles which were rolled out according to the weather and the season. The Government also proved that Red often made trips to Atlantic City and Florida using one of three private jet planes maintained by a private transport company at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey. And plying the waters of the British Virgin Islands was a hundred and twenty foot yacht which Red—owner or not—used as his own for two months of every winter.

  Piece by piece, evidence was unfurled before the jury that made credible the accusation that Red Hardie spent far more money than he declared to the I.R.S., money which, unless there was a legitimate source thereof, the Government was asking the jury to deduce was Red’s share of the Brotherhood spoils.

  Originally, nineteen people had been caught in the net of the Brotherhood conspiracy. To make the trial more manageable, and to be sure that their evidence against Red Hardie would hold water, the Government had split the defendants into two groups, testing their Brotherhood witnesses and evidence at a first trial against six street-level and three mid-manager Brotherhood Defendants two months ago. Before that trial even began, however, one of those defendants, a middle manager against whom the wire tap evidence was overwhelming—a man too softened by years of the good life to face jail—made a deal with the Government, pleaded guilty, a promise of a lower sentence dangled before him in exchange for his testimony against all the remaining defendants.

  The Government was pleased with the test run first trial. All the defendants in that trial were convicted. The looming specter of the cooperating witness, added to the other evidence against Red and the defendants in the second trial, was daunting.

  Money Dozier, the dark, thin man to Red’s right, was reputed to be second in the Brotherhood command. Money’s name was not a hyponym. It was a mother’s attempt to give her son a distinctive name, a variation of Monty, his father’s name. Money’s mother had named a second son Monrey, and his sister, Monay. Money was ten years younger than Red, mirthless and taciturn. His face was rough, hair bumped, requiring him to remove his facial hair with liquid Magic Shave—which smelled like rotten eggs—instead of razors.

  Money usually wore a dark three-button suit, the buttons alw
ays buttoned, a white shirt, a thin tie with a small, tight knot, and, outdoors, a dark, snap brim fedora.

  “Well, Mr. Hardie?” said the Judge, narrowing her eyes to slits concentrated on Red.

  “Does Your Honor want me to answer?” Hardie had a deep, sonorous, preacher’svoice.

  “I was just wondering if you want me—at your expense, of course—to appoint a Government doctor to examine Mr. Leppard to determine if his nosebleed is a real ailment, in which case, a fine would not be appropriate. On the other hand, if Mr. Leppard actually absented himself this morning in the vain hope that delay shall gain some unidentified benefit for—” the Judge’s voice trailed off.

  Everyone in the courtroom struggled to hear the Judge.

  “Hello, who is this?” the Judge said into the phone. “This is Judge Ellis in the Federal District Court. Do you have a patient by the name of Thomas Leppard, who presented himself in your E.R. this morning with a nose bleed?” The Judge looked up again at Hardie. “Perhaps it’s better you not say anything, Mr. Hardie. I do not, in any way, want either of us to do or say anything that would fuel another point for appeal—if there be need for an appeal, of course—

  “Who is this?” the Judge said into the phone again. “Dr. Acquista? This is Judge Ellis. I am sitting in the Federal Court, courtroom Eleven D, ‘D’ as in Dangerous”—her eyes veered toward the audience for an instant—“at Five Hundred Pearl Street. I want Mr. Leppard here in twenty minutes.” The Judge paused to listen. “I didn’t ask for a medical dissertation, Doctor! We—the jury, the prosecutors, the defense lawyers, some forty people—are all sitting here, in the midst of a most important trial. And I want Mr. Leppard here. Now!”

  The Judge listened. “If you continue, Doctor, I will dispatch the United States Marshals to your hospital, and they will escort both Mr. Leppard and yourself here to respond to two issues: one, why this trial is being delayed, and, second, why you personally should not be held in contempt of court. I do hope you have a good lawyer, Doctor.”