disappointing performance on direct. To Jaywalker, she’d ended up as an okay witness. The problem was, Jeremy didn’t need okay witnesses; he needed nothing less than
“You were terrific,” he would tell her, just as he would have had she been unable to remember her son’s name on the stand, or her own. What was he supposed to say, that because of her testimony Jeremy was more likely than ever to go to prison?
Jaywalker called Francisco Zapata to the stand. Zapata was a good-looking man in his mid-fifties, with a thick head of black hair turning gray at the temples. A full mustache failed to hide his ready smile. Jaywalker had spent far less time with him than he had with Carmen, and only a small fraction of the many hours he’d devoted to preparing Jeremy. Still, there was something about the man that inspired confidence and prompted Jaywalker to feel the jurors would not only like him but would believe what he had to say. It had been Zapata, after all, who’d stood up to the Raiders that day outside his barbershop, with nothing but his words and his wits.
JAYWALKER: Mr. Zapata, where do you live?
ZAPATA: I live in Baldaria, Puerto Rico.
JAYWALKER: What are you doing here in New York?
ZAPATA: I’m here because you asked me to come, to describe some things that happened a while ago.
JAYWALKER: Who paid for your trip?
ZAPATA: Me. I paid for it.
JAYWALKER: Do you work?
ZAPATA: Yes, I cut hair. I am a barber.
Jaywalker took him back to the end of August, nearly two years ago. Zapata had been living in Queens at the time, and working at a barbershop in Manhattan, at 112th Street, between Second and Third Avenue.
JAYWALKER: What was the name of that barbershop?
ZAPATA: Frankie and Friends.
JAYWALKER: And who was Frankie?
ZAPATA: Me. I’m Frankie.
Jaywalker walked over to the defense table, where Jeremy sat. Standing behind him, he placed his hands on his client’s shoulders.
JAYWALKER: Do you know this young man here?
ZAPATA: Yes. He was a customer of mine. I used to cut his hair, ever since he was a small boy.
JAYWALKER: What do you call him?
ZAPATA: I call him Jerry.
JAYWALKER: Do you know his last name?
ZAPATA: No, I’m afraid I don’t. Sorry.
Jaywalker directed Frankie’s attention back to the very last day of that August, and asked him if he remembered an incident that had occurred at his shop. He replied that he did. Jerry had come in around five o’clock in the afternoon, and asked if he could wait there for his girlfriend.
JAYWALKER: And what did you say?
ZAPATA: I teased him at first. I still thought of him as a boy, and here he was telling me he had a girlfriend. But then I told him sure, he could wait there.
JAYWALKER: What happened next?
ZAPATA: When the girlfriend came, Jerry opened the door for her, and she came in. He said, “Close the door!” because some guys behind her wanted to come in and get him.
JAYWALKER: Who were these guys?
ZAPATA: I don’t know their names, but I had seen them hanging around on the street all the time. I’m pretty sure they were drug dealers.
DARCY: Objection. Move to strike.
THE COURT: Yes. The last part of the answer, what the witness thought, is stricken. The jury will disregard it.
Although the admonition was meant for the jurors, it was Jaywalker whom Wexler glared at while delivering it. Both men knew full well that despite the judge’s words, disregarding the suggestion that the Raiders were drug dealers was impossible. In fact, when Frankie had mentioned it to him months ago, down in Puerto Rico, Jaywalker had explained that the judge probably wouldn’t let him ask about it. “Then again,” Jaywalker had said at the time, “if you happen to say it without my asking you…” And Frankie, as quick a study as Carmen was a slow one, had picked it up, tucked it away, and now come out with it at the perfect moment.
Once the witness was off the stand and the jury excused, Harold Wexler would castigate Jaywalker, accusing him of planting the objectionable testimony. Jaywalker would deny it, naturally, and there would be little the judge could do beyond issue a stern warning. But stern warnings scared Jaywalker about the same way that sharp cliffs scared mountain goats. The jury had heard that the Raiders were drug dealers; there was simply nothing Wexler could do to unring that bell. And in Jaywalker’s book, that was precisely as it should be. Sometimes the rules of evidence worked just fine. But occasionally you had to fine-tune them on the fly.
JAYWALKER: Did the guys come inside?
ZAPATA: No. I locked the door. But they kept shouting through the window and threatening Jerry.
JAYWALKER: What did you see?
His answer was to point his index finger to his temple, his thumb pointed upward. Jaywalker described the demonstration for the record. Then he asked the witness if he’d been able to hear any of the things the guys had shouted.
ZAPATA: They were saying they were going to get him, to kill him. They were saying bad things, using bad language, in English and in Spanish. Very bad.
JAYWALKER: Please tell us exactly what they said.
ZAPATA: They called him a son of a bitch.
JAYWALKER: Was that the worst?
Frankie smiled nervously and looked down at his feet. Just two hours earlier, he’d told Jaywalker much worse. But now he was clearly too embarrassed to repeat the words in open court.
JAYWALKER: Would your honor direct the witness to answer.
THE COURT: Yes. Use the actual language you heard.
Frankie leaned over to the court reporter and repeated the words. But the courtroom had grown stone-cold quiet, and despite his whispering, no one could have missed his answer.
ZAPATA: They called him
JAYWALKER: And?
ZAPATA: And cunt-face.
JAYWALKER: How many of them were there?
ZAPATA: Six or seven. I’m not sure.
