Guilty As Sin

EGAN: Apartment 805.

JAYWALKER: Which just happens to be precisely where Alonzo Barnett said he went. Correct?

PULASKI: Objection. Captain Egan wasn’t present during Barnett’s testimony.

THE COURT: Yes, but I was, and the jury was. And Mr. Barnett did indeed say he went to Apartment Number 805. Next question, Mr. Jaywalker.

JAYWALKER: You also said that your cross-index can be accessed by nickname. Correct?

EGAN: Yes, as long as the nickname is unusual enough. Something like “Lefty” or “Shorty” might pose a problem, for example.

JAYWALKER: How about something like “One-Eyed Jack?” Do you think that might pose a problem? Or would that be unusual enough?

EGAN: No, I’d have to agree that’s pretty unusual.

JAYWALKER: So did Jackson Davis have a nickname, by any chance?

EGAN: Yes.

JAYWALKER: What was his nickname?

EGAN: One-Eyed Jack.

JAYWALKER: Do you happen to know how he got that nickname?

EGAN: I have no idea.

JAYWALKER: Was Mr. Davis working off a case of his own in order to stay out of prison? Cooperating out of the goodness of his heart? Or was he being paid for his services?

PULASKI: Objection. That’s privileged information.

THE COURT: Overruled. Now if you’d said “That’s three questions in one,” Mr. Pulaski, or “It’s irrelevant,” I might have sustained your objection. But as far as privilege goes, there is none. And if there ever was, it’s been waived by Captain Egan’s taking the stand and testifying about the subject on direct examination.

PULASKI: Objection. That’s three questions in one, and it’s irrelevant.

THE COURT: Sorry, too late. Was Mr. Davis paid, Captain Egan? Yes or no?

EGAN: Yes, Your Honor, he was.

THE COURT: Next subject, Mr. Jaywalker.

And by using the word subject rather than question, Judge Levine was making it clear to Jaywalker that he was to move on, that there weren’t to be any follow-up questions like Who was paying him, how much, and on what basis? Because the judge was right. It was irrelevant. Jackson Davis hadn’t testified, so his credibility wasn’t at issue. Technically speaking, the details of his payment had no bearing upon Alonzo Barnett’s guilt or lack thereof.

Needless to say, technically speaking wasn’t exactly Jaywalker’s native tongue. Still, he had to admit that Shirley Levine had given him a couple of favorable rulings to get even with the prosecution. But there were limits to her generosity. So he’d have to try some other way of helping the jurors get acquainted with Jackson Davis.

JAYWALKER: Do you by any chance have a photo of Mr. Davis?

Egan thumbed through his papers and eventually pulled out a photograph, a three-by-five color glossy, and handed it to Jaywalker. It was a mug shot, a pair of side-by-side images of a middle-aged black man, one full face, the other in profile. On the left image, the one where the subject had been directly facing the camera, a placard held against his chest displayed in movie-marquis style the initials NYPD, the department’s blue-and-white shield, the name DAVIS, Jackson, and the date, 01-09-79. You didn’t have to look too closely to see that one of the subject’s eyes was real and focused, while the other was glass, or whatever they made fake eyes out of back then.

Jaywalker had the photo marked into evidence as Defendant’s Exhibit A and passed among the jurors. He wanted to make sure they saw the bad eye for themselves. At the same time, he wanted them to get a good look at the guy their tax dollars were subsidizing because the poor fellow couldn’t make enough of a living selling heroin under the police department’s protection.

JAYWALKER: How about Clarence Hightower? Is he in your index, too?

EGAN: No, he isn’t.

JAYWALKER: You’ve checked?

EGAN: I have.

JAYWALKER: By name, address and nickname?

EGAN: All three.

JAYWALKER: No entry for him?

EGAN: None at all.

JAYWALKER: Did you check under “Stump”?

EGAN: Yes, I did. Negative.

JAYWALKER: So I assume you have no photograph of him?

EGAN: Actually, I do. But only because I took the trouble of hunting one down. Miss Shaughnessey over there [Gestures] told me you’d probably be asking me about him.

Even as Jaywalker looked at “Miss Shaughnessey over there” and the two of them fought off grins, Egan busied himself digging out the photograph and handing it over. It, too, was in color, but it contained only a single exposure and bore no placard with lettering. Jaywalker recognized it as an old-fashioned Polaroid print, the kind you used to snap and wait a minute for it to develop before sticking it onto a piece of gummed cardboard. He’d thought those things had gone the way of hot-water bottles and seltzer dispensers. Leave it to the NYPD to still be using them. Jaywalker flipped the photo over. Early in his career, he’d once made the mistake of not checking the back of an exhibit, resulting in the jury learning that his client was nicknamed “Jimmy the Strangler.” So he’d been burned by his carelessness. But only once. This time Jaywalker saw nothing but the word “asp” inked on the back of the cardboard. Another nickname, perhaps? If so, how fitting.

Jaywalker turned the photo back over. He’d never seen Clarence Hightower in person, but he’d seen another photo of him back when he’d checked his court file, not too long after being appointed to represent Alonzo Barnett. His reaction now was pretty much the same as it had been then. Clarence Hightower was one ugly dude. Not menacing or deformed or anything like that. Just ugly. Still, the photo certainly wasn’t important enough to circulate among the jurors, as the one of Jackson Davis had been, showing as it did the bad eye and hence the nickname. But come summation time, Jaywalker might nonetheless want to hold up Hightower’s photo for the jury to see, as a way of putting a face-and an ugly one at that-on the guy who’d gotten Barnett into all this trouble. Would it have an impact on the verdict? Probably not. But then again, who was to say? Jaywalker had won cases before on things as unlikely as ugliness. So he offered the photo into evidence as Defendant’s B. And with Daniel Pulaski shrugging his shoulders and raising no objection, it was received.

Up to this point, as surprising as Thomas Egan’s testimony had been-one cop admitting that another cop had lied under oath-nothing he’d said had really helped Alonzo Barnett. Sure, it showed Barnett had been telling the truth when he said he’d gone to Apartment 805 and gotten the heroin from One-Eyed Jack. And that Lance Bucknell had made up the business about the twelfth floor. And maybe it made the task force witnesses look bad for protecting an informer at the expense of the truth. Beyond that, however, any advantage gained by the defense was minimal. Now, if Captain Egan had said Clarence Hightower had been acting as an informer instead of Jackson Davis, that would have been a different story. It would have meant something in terms of an entrapment defense. But now Egan had all but slammed the door on that possibility.

JAYWALKER: Does the nickname “Asp” by any chance mean anything to you?

EGAN: “Asp”? No.

JAYWALKER: Would you check your cross-index?

EGAN: [Complies]

EGAN: Sorry. Nothing for “Asp.”

Still, Jaywalker decided to give it one last shot. After all, wasn’t that what you were supposed to do when you were down to a single bullet? Did any gunslinger ever dream of being buried with a live round still left in his six-shooter?

JAYWALKER: Tell me, Captain Egan. Did you yourself ever work narcotics?

EGAN: Yes, I did. For about eleven years, actually.