call you this afternoon from the airport.”
We said good-bye, and the driver turned off the meter.
“That’ll be fifty-two fifty.”
I paid and asked him to come back in an hour for my trip to the airport. I grabbed my bag and started up the sidewalk to the visitation center, where visits to both the penitentiary and prison hospital were coordinated. The corrections officer seated on the other side of the Plexiglas divider looked up and asked, “Can I help you?”
I had to catch myself and make sure I asked to see Tony Martin, not Mandretti. The officer inspected my bag, checked my identification, and gave me a printed form to complete. My name wasn’t on the list of preapproved visitors, so there was even more paperwork. He made a phone call while I was filling it out, and he seemed a bit flummoxed after hanging up.
“Is there something wrong?” I asked.
“Have a seat, please. Someone will be out to see you in a minute.”
I went with the flow and found a chair by the vending machines. I checked my watch. Lilly had sounded completely freaked on the telephone, and I wondered how long it would take her to call again to see when I was coming back to New York. I felt guilty again for having lied to her, pretending that I didn’t know that Tony Martin was Tony Mandretti. She was so sure of her detective work on the mob connection to the Cushman money, but she was still poking at the tip of the iceberg.
I knew all about Tony Mandretti, the former New York mobster who had become Tony Martin upon entering the witness protection program. More than a decade had passed since Mandretti’s testimony against the Santucci family. It had been front-page news, though many in law enforcement had been opposed to a deal that, in their view, didn’t give Tony enough jail time. I had no firsthand knowledge, but those same critics must have seen it as poetic justice when, years later, they’d nailed him as Tony Martin for the murder of Gerry Collins. Assuming, of course, that they knew he was really Tony Mandretti. Very few in law enforcement had that information.
Outside of law enforcement, even fewer had it.
A buzzer sounded, and a man dressed in a polyester business suit entered through a secure metal door. He conveyed all the warmth of an IRS auditor. “Mr. Lloyd?”
“Yes,” I said, rising.
He introduced himself as the warden, which told me right away that something was up.
“I’ve been advised that you’re here to see inmate Tony Martin.”
“That’s right,” I said. “It was my understanding that he is hospitalized.”
The warden drew a breath. “He was.”
“Was? Is he back in his cell?”
“No. I’m sorry to have to tell you that Mr. Martin passed away last night.”
If the warden was expecting the news to upset or move me in some way, I completely let him down. Not because I was cold and indifferent to the death of a confessed killer. Not because I couldn’t believe, or wouldn’t believe, that he was dead. My reaction—or lack of it—was for a reason he couldn’t have begun to fathom.
I positively knew it was a lie. A complete, bald-faced lie.
I thanked the warden for his condolences, grabbed my bag, and headed for the parking lot—before he could ask how I had known Tony Martin, or why I had come to see him.
9
T wo minutes after my return flight from Raleigh to Newark hit the runway, I powered on my BlackBerry. The usual flood of messages crammed my in-box. One was not so usual. Opening it required the use of a decryption algorithm to unravel the cipher. Even then, the message would have meant nothing to anyone but me: “They know. Meet me at Position Three. 4:30.”
Sunset was near as I crossed Fifth Avenue at Seventy-second Street and entered Central Park, and less than a half hour of daylight remained by the time I followed the long concrete crescent of sidewalk around the west side of the Conservatory Water and up to “Position Three.”
The Alice in Wonderland sculpture is
We said good-bye, and the driver turned off the meter.
“That’ll be fifty-two fifty.”
I paid and asked him to come back in an hour for my trip to the airport. I grabbed my bag and started up the sidewalk to the visitation center, where visits to both the penitentiary and prison hospital were coordinated. The corrections officer seated on the other side of the Plexiglas divider looked up and asked, “Can I help you?”
I had to catch myself and make sure I asked to see Tony Martin, not Mandretti. The officer inspected my bag, checked my identification, and gave me a printed form to complete. My name wasn’t on the list of preapproved visitors, so there was even more paperwork. He made a phone call while I was filling it out, and he seemed a bit flummoxed after hanging up.
“Is there something wrong?” I asked.
“Have a seat, please. Someone will be out to see you in a minute.”
I went with the flow and found a chair by the vending machines. I checked my watch. Lilly had sounded completely freaked on the telephone, and I wondered how long it would take her to call again to see when I was coming back to New York. I felt guilty again for having lied to her, pretending that I didn’t know that Tony Martin was Tony Mandretti. She was so sure of her detective work on the mob connection to the Cushman money, but she was still poking at the tip of the iceberg.
I knew all about Tony Mandretti, the former New York mobster who had become Tony Martin upon entering the witness protection program. More than a decade had passed since Mandretti’s testimony against the Santucci family. It had been front-page news, though many in law enforcement had been opposed to a deal that, in their view, didn’t give Tony enough jail time. I had no firsthand knowledge, but those same critics must have seen it as poetic justice when, years later, they’d nailed him as Tony Martin for the murder of Gerry Collins. Assuming, of course, that they knew he was really Tony Mandretti. Very few in law enforcement had that information.
Outside of law enforcement, even fewer had it.
A buzzer sounded, and a man dressed in a polyester business suit entered through a secure metal door. He conveyed all the warmth of an IRS auditor. “Mr. Lloyd?”
“Yes,” I said, rising.
He introduced himself as the warden, which told me right away that something was up.
“I’ve been advised that you’re here to see inmate Tony Martin.”
“That’s right,” I said. “It was my understanding that he is hospitalized.”
The warden drew a breath. “He was.”
“Was? Is he back in his cell?”
“No. I’m sorry to have to tell you that Mr. Martin passed away last night.”
If the warden was expecting the news to upset or move me in some way, I completely let him down. Not because I was cold and indifferent to the death of a confessed killer. Not because I couldn’t believe, or wouldn’t believe, that he was dead. My reaction—or lack of it—was for a reason he couldn’t have begun to fathom.
I positively knew it was a lie. A complete, bald-faced lie.
I thanked the warden for his condolences, grabbed my bag, and headed for the parking lot—before he could ask how I had known Tony Martin, or why I had come to see him.
9
T wo minutes after my return flight from Raleigh to Newark hit the runway, I powered on my BlackBerry. The usual flood of messages crammed my in-box. One was not so usual. Opening it required the use of a decryption algorithm to unravel the cipher. Even then, the message would have meant nothing to anyone but me: “They know. Meet me at Position Three. 4:30.”
Sunset was near as I crossed Fifth Avenue at Seventy-second Street and entered Central Park, and less than a half hour of daylight remained by the time I followed the long concrete crescent of sidewalk around the west side of the Conservatory Water and up to “Position Three.”
The Alice in Wonderland sculpture is
Similar Books
