Vincent Zandri - The Innocent

“This conversation’s over!” Standing. “I’m not about to take the blame for anybody else’s screwups.” I went for the door. But Tommy Walsh, loyal as ever, blocked the entire frame.

Pelton shouted: “Superintendent Marconi!”

I turned.

“Sit down,” he said. “Please. You don’t have to take the blame for this.” He took a deep breath.

“Excuse me?”

“All you have to do is admit that Jake called you, warned you, and you simply forgot.” The moonlight was disappearing now as the orange haze of morning began to overtake the night. “I’ll fix it so that it was all a mistake. All you have to do is admit it. And then I’ll take care of your little reward.” He hesitated a bit between “little” and “reward.”

The orange morning light began to sneak its way in through the office windows, drowning everything in its rays, including Pelton’s face.

“You’re not saying anything, Marconi!” Pelton shouted. “This is your life we’re talking about here. I’m trying to save it, just like you saved mine at Attica. Don’t let pride fuck it up. A lot of money for a lot of people could be at stake.”

The morning light became almost too bright to look at.

“Do you know I could have you fired for this escape and brought up on charges for negligence? I mean, for Christ’s sake, Keeper, you executed the releases that allowed a convicted cop-killer to just walk outside the gates of Green Haven.”

The pressure in my head was suddenly replaced with a sickening, sinking feeling, like my organs were about to slide out from underneath my skin, spill all over the floor.

“Admit it, Keeper, you just haven’t been the same since Fran passed on.” Pelton was smiling now. “I mean, you haven’t really been paying attention, have you?”

I took couple of steps closer to him. “You’ll get nothing from me, Wash. Because I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You didn’t do anything right either!” Pelton shouted. He ran his hands through his thinning gray hair, took a deep breath. He looked at me. I glared back at him until our eyes locked. His eyes were stone cold and wet, his lips taut and angry. So this is what it all came down to, I thought. This is what it was all about. Somebody’s dirty money.

“Okay then,” he said. “That’s the way you wanna play the game.” He walked around to the opposite side of his desk, picked up the phone, pounded a button or two on the phone unit. He kept his eyes locked on me the entire time, as though I might just disappear into the woodwork. Warren, on the other hand, stayed seated, staring at the floor. A liar caught perpetrating his own lie in the name of might and right. I heard an electronic buzzing coming from outside the room. When it stopped, Pelton whispered something into the phone. I heard the sound of footsteps in the hall outside the door. There must have been two or three people, at least, making their way down the corridor toward Pelton’s office. Their leather soles slapped against the terrazzo floor of the state building. They were running, not walking. Their quick steps matched the rapid beating of my heart. My stomach collapsed, my chest tightened. I could feel them coming for me as Pelton slammed the phone down. The wood-and-glass door opened and two uniformed police officers came into the room along with Detective Martin Schillinger.

Pelton pointed to me, his arm outstretched across his mahogany desk. Warren leaned over, buried his face in his hands. Behind him was the photograph of Ronald Reagan. Behind him were the photographs of George Bush. All those politicians posing for the camera, glowing faces perpetually locked in those twenty-five-cent smiles.

Schillinger looked at me with emotionless eyes and a plump white face. As usual, he was wearing that Burberry trench coat. He said: “Mr. Jack ‘Keeper’ Marconi, you are under arrest for obstructing justice and tampering with police evidence.”

I turned toward Pelton. He lifted a large plastic baggie from inside his desk. It contained Logan’s pistol, the rounds of ammo, and the key to his handcuffs. I knew then that it must have been Mike Norman who’d given the thing away right after I’d left his office. He must have called Pelton, told him that I’d been there, and asked him to process the evidence for prints illegally.

I stared at Schillinger.

He stood there with a shit-eating grin planted on his face. I wasn’t about to stand around and allow him to arrest me. I wasn’t about to stand around and beg for my freedom either. I did what I should have done the minute I’d been escorted into Pelton’s office earlier. I went for the door. But one of the cops grabbed my collar from behind. I swung back with my left elbow and clipped his nose. The nose exploded like a water balloon. He went down. A second man grabbed my arm and pushed me backward. A third man knocked my legs out from under me, at the knees. I hit the floor hard. The cop I’d clipped in the nose grabbed a fistful of hair and pounded my forehead against the terrazzo while the other cops held me down. I met the floor with my face two separate times. Once would have been enough. Once would have done the trick. I saw the room go dim and wavy before I felt the pain and tight swelling of the egg-shaped lump that had already begun to form on my forehead.

They picked me up off the floor, one man under each arm.

I surveyed the room, tried to get my bearings. I stared at Pelton, Warren, and Schillinger through a haze of bright stars and wavy light.

“You may read Mr. Marconi his rights, Detective Schillinger,” Pelton said. “And don’t forget to add resisting arrest.”

Schillinger reached inside his trench coat and pulled out a leather wallet. He lifted a small plastic card from the billfold and started reading from it.

“You have the right to remain silent…“ Reading me the Miranda rights just added to the annoyance. What I mean is, I knew them by heart. As another cop drew my arms behind my back and closed the handcuffs so tight around my wrists that I could feel the skin tear, I saw my old buddy Wash standing inside that ray of pale, white sunlight.

“I’m sorry, Keeper. Really, I’m sorry. But you leave me with no other choice.” He wasn’t smiling, but then, he wasn’t crying either. Jake Warren remained buried in his hands. Hear no evil, see no evil. He never said one word the entire time. He just took a deep relieved breath as Schillinger and his men began dragging me out of the room. Like his future would be somehow certain, somehow secure, so long as I was out of the picture and behind bars.

HERE’S HOW I SEE it now after twenty-six years: In my mind, the Attica riot was something very much like a short war. During the heat of battle there is no such thing as innocent or guilty, no such thing as right or wrong, no such thing as heaven or hell.

It is all hell.

And when, in the middle of all the madness, the rebel inmates surround the prison chaplain as if they suddenly feel the need to pray, I know for certain that the devil is truly showing his face at Attica State Prison. Instead of reciting “Our Father’s and “Hail Mary’s,” the rebels order the chaplain to strip down to his skivvies, socks, and white V-neck T-shirt. They force the meek, round-shouldered, Roman Catholic priest onto his knees, hands behind his back. One inmate cuffs his wrists while another inmate bends down and plants a kiss smack-dab on his quivering lips.

The priest has a thin, almost gaunt face. His skin is white, but caked with mud and spit. His lips are blue. Horn-rimmed glasses lie crooked on the crown of his nose, his chin is pressed down against his chest. He is crying, not out of shame, but because a rebel inmate has dressed himself in the priest’s habit. The inmate is doing an Indian war dance around the half-naked priest, spitting on him, mocking him.