to hear about the case and why she thought the guy was innocent. And why it mattered if he was guilty or not. There were plenty of times I let a scumbag hang for a crime he didn’t commit if I thought the neighborhood was better off without him. Maybe I’m not supposed to play God, but that’s still how I did it.
“Anyway, I asked her to run it down for me and here’s what she says. The cop, Lekowski, and Lopez have completely different stories and there are no other witnesses. The cop, who was assigned to a buy-and-bust operation, says he observed Henry place several glassine envelopes, which the cop had reason to believe contained heroin, into the right-front pocket of his trousers; naturally, Lekowski, being a good cop tried to arrest Lopez, whereupon Lopez punched him in the face, forcing Lekowski to draw his gun in order to complete the arrest. A subsequent pat-down turns up four bags of dope and a used syringe. Case closed.
“Lopez says he was standing in front of a tenement in Bushwick, enjoying the heroin he injected about an hour before the incident. He admits having the dope on him, but he says when he copped there was just him and the dealer present, so there’s no way Lekowski could have seen him handle it. He also admits that he busted Lekowski’s nose, but he says he was provoked and Lekowski didn’t identify himself until after it was over which, if he’s telling the truth, would make it entrapment.
“All of a sudden I’m interested in spite of the fucking hangover. Don’t forget, this is a middle-aged woman I’m talking to. Usually they’re so goddamned stuffy, they make me feel like I got asthma. Especially civil servants, which is what Legal Aid really is. Anyway, she tells me Lopez swears that Officer Lekowski, who looked like an ordinary junkie, walked up to him and said something in English which Lopez didn’t understand. Lopez doesn’t speak English very well, especially when he’s stoned, and he responded to the cop by saying, ‘ No habla .’
“Then Lekowski, in perfect Spanish, told Mr. Lopez that his mother (who is dead, by the way) was a whore with a cunt as big as the entrance to the Holland Tunnel. Furthermore, Henry himself was a queer, a pato , and his asshole had been enlarged while receiving multiple infusions of the AIDS virus from his father.
“Henry used to be a fighter before he took up heroin, so he naturally belted the cop out. In fact, Lopez knocked the cop down the stairs in front of the building, but he was too stoned to even want to do anything else. Lopez says he was shocked out of his underwear when Lekowski got up with a pistol in one hand and a badge in the other.
“Then Haluka stops and, me, I’m so into the story, I don’t make a sound. Imagine a middle-aged lady lawyer saying shit like ‘a cunt as big as the Holland Tunnel’? Without laughing behind her hand or something? How many women you know would say that?”
Tilley, still intensely curious, answered the question seriously. “I know some lady cops who wouldn’t blink. I think Rose could say it.”
“To a stranger?”
“She might,” Tilley insisted.
“All right, but Rose is a lot younger and she knows about the street. I can tell from Betty’s voice that I ain’t talking to a member of the younger generation. This woman comes from a time when ladies didn’t talk like that.”
“Fine,” Tilley agreed with a wave of his hand. “Go on with the story.”
“So, for a minute, neither of us speak. Then Betty says, “ ‘I think I know what’s bothering you.’ ”
“ ‘What’s that?’ ” I ask her.
“She says, ‘You’re thinking Henry Lopez is probably a scumbag and he deserves to go to jail.’
“And you’re saying that he isn’t?
“ ‘Look, Mr. Moodrow,’ she says, ‘I know Henry’s a junkie. He’s got six arrests for misdemeanor possession of heroin with four convictions, plus one arrest and conviction for burglary. But Henry Lopez is not a violent man