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“Sometimes people like that work with people like those cops,” I suggested.
I was trying to get Lamont angry, out of his game. But he just grinned.
“You think he decided to make a clubhouse for the triple B and invite kids to play snooker and do their homework because he wanna turn ’em out? That’s a white man’s game, man. When seven brothers and sisters get together to help po’ kids that’s just what they doin’. An’ you was a cop so you know it’s true.”
I had my doubts, but what stumped me was Lamont seemed to be telling the truth.
“If you people were so poor and so innocent, then how do you pay for this rest home?” I put to him. “This shit cost maybe a thousand dollars a week.”
“Thirteen hundred sixty-fi’e dollars,” he corrected.
“You win that at bingo?”
“I’m a gambler but I’m no fool, Mr. Oliver. I had me lifetime-care health insurance since my brother Andrew died in my house from lung cancer. Took him seventeen months to pass on. Me and him and his wife, Yvette, lived in my one room. Make this place look like Disneyland.”
“If you and the other Blood Brothers weren’t competing with the cops, then why they come down on you like that?”
“Why any American go to war?” he said. “We was fuckin’ with they business. We talked to the girls and boys they prostituted and organized marches in front of stores they protected. Manny hired a lawyer to sue the city. He thought that that would keep us safe from reprisals.” Lamont grunted a laugh. “Mr. Man was a optimist…no, no, he was a idealist. He believed in what he was doin’ and he got you to believe it too.”
“Who was the lawyer?” I asked.
“Rose Hooper.”
“Manhattan practice?”
“Used to be. Bein’ a lawyer I suppose that she now sits court in hell.”
“Murdered?”
“Mugging, they say.” He looked up at me. “What do you say?”
Being a cop, I didn’t want to believe Lamont. He was the kind of guy I rousted and arrested, questioned, and, if the need arose, threatened. But I had lots of experience with seasoned liars. He didn’t seem to be one of them.
“Mr. Charles?” a woman said.
She was in her thirties but carried herself in a younger pose. She wore a green dress and a frilly white sweater. Her black shoes had respectable heels and her makeup had been applied with care. There were little gold flashes at the corners of her eyes.
New York white, she had no discomfort standing alone on a deck with two black men.
“Miss Gorman,” Lamont said. “Meet Mr. Joe Oliver. He used to be a cop.”
Also being New York white, she wasn’t necessarily fond of people in my profession.
“What do you want with Mr. Charles?”
“I…”
“He came here to aks if me and Manny weren’t fingered, Loretta.”
“Are you investigating Lamont’s case?” she asked me.
“Not directly,” I admitted. “I’m trying to see if Mr. Man’s conviction might be an injustice.”
I was used to the disbelief in her gaze.
“Me and Miss Gorman are goin’ out for hot dogs, Mr. Oliver. We do that at least once a week.”
“You guys friends?”
