The Bonfire Of The Vanities Part 16

"No, it wasn't a cast. It was more like a splint, only it looked like a big canvas glove."

"Well, anyway, he came home from the hospital with this wrist injury. When was that?"

"That was...three nights ago."

"What did he say had happened?"

"He didn't say much. He was in a lot of pain, and he wanted to go to bed. He said something about a car, but I thought he was riding in a car and they had an accident. Like I say, he didn't want to talk. I think they gave him something at the hospital, for the pain. He just wanted to go to bed. So I told him to go to bed."

"Did he say who he was with when it happened?"

"No. He wasn't with anybody. He was by himself."

"Then he wasn't in a car."

"No, he was walking."

"All right, go ahead. What happened next?"

"The next morning he felt real bad. He tried to lift his head, and he nearly pa.s.sed out. He felt so bad I didn't go to work. I called in-I stayed home. That was when he told me a car hit him."

"How did he say it happened?"

"He was walking across Bruckner Boulevard, and this car hit him, and he fell on his wrist, and he must have hit his head, too, because he has a terrible concussion." At this point her composure broke. She closed her eyes, and they were full of tears when she opened them.

Kramer waited a moment. "Where on Bruckner Boulevard was this?"

"I don't know. When he tried to talk, it was too painful for him. He'd open his eyes and shut his eyes. He couldn't even sit up."

"But he was by himself, you said. What was he doing on Bruckner Boulevard?"

"I don't know. There's a takeout place up there, at 161st Street, the Texas Fried Chicken, and Henry, he likes these things they have there, the chicken nuggets, and so maybe he was going there, but I don't know."

"Where did the car hit him? Where on his body?"

"I don't know that, either. The hospital, maybe they can tell you that."

Reverend Bacon broke in: "The hospital, they fell down on the job. They didn't X-ray that young man's head. They didn't give him the CAT scan or the nuclear magnetic resonance or any of those other things. That young man comes in with a very serious injury to his head, and they treat his wrist wrist and send him home." and send him home."

"Well," said Kramer, "apparently they didn't know he'd been hit by a car." He turned to Martin. " 'S'at right?"

"The emergency-room report don't mention an automobile," said Martin.

"The boy had a serious injury to his head!" said Reverend Bacon. "He probably didn't know half of what he was saying. They're supposed to figure out those things."

"Well, let's don't get sidetracked on that," said Kramer.

"He got part of the license plate," said Mrs. Lamb.

"What'd he tell you?"

"He said it started with R. That was the first letter. The second letter was E or F or P or B or some letter like that. That was what it looked like."

"What state? New York?"

"What state? I don't know. I guess New York. He didn't say it was something else. And he told me the make."

"What was it?"

"A Mercedes."

"I see. What color?"

"I don't know. He didn't say."

"Four-door? Two-door?"

"I don't know."

"Did he say what the driver looked like?"

"He said there was a man and a woman in the car."

"A man was driving?"

"I guess so. I don't know."

"Any description of the man or the woman?"

"They were white."

"He said they were white? Anything else?"

"No, he just said they were white."

"That's all? He didn't say anything else about them or about the car?"

"No. He could hardly talk."

"How did he get to the hospital?"

"I don't know. He didn't tell me."

Kramer asked Martin, "Did they say at the hospital?"

"He was a walk-in."

"He couldn'ta walked from Bruckner Boulevard to Lincoln Hospital with a broken wrist."

"Walk-in don't mean he walked all the way there. It just means he walked in the emergency room. He wasn't carried in. The EMS didn't bring him. He didn't come in an ambulance."

Kramer's mind was already jumping ahead to trial preparation. All he could see were dead ends. He paused and then shook his head and said, to no one in particular: "That don't give us very much."

"Whaddaya mean?" said Bacon. For the first time there was a sharp tone in his voice. "You got the first letter on the license plate, and you got a line on the second letter, and you got the make of the car-how many Mercedeses with a license plate beginning with RE, RF, RB, or RP you think you gonna find?"

"There's no telling," said Kramer. "Detective Martin and Detective Goldberg will run that down. But what we need is a witness. Without a witness there's no case here yet."

"No case?" said Reverend Bacon. "You got a case and a half seems to me. You got a young man, an outstanding young man, at death's door. You got a car and a license plate. How much case you need?"

"Look," said Kramer, hoping that an ultra-patient, slightly condescending tone would take care of the implied rebuke. "Let me explain something to you. Let's a.s.sume we identify the car tomorrow. Okay? Let's a.s.sume the car is registered in the state of New York, and there's only one Mercedes with a license number that begins with R. Now we've got a car. But we got no driver."

"Yeah, but you can-"

"Just because somebody owns a car doesn't mean"-as soon as it slipped out, Kramer hoped the doesn't doesn't would blow by undetected-"he was driving it at a particular time." would blow by undetected-"he was driving it at a particular time."

"But you can question that man."

"That's true, and we would. But unless he says, 'Sure, I was involved in such-and-such a hit-and-run accident,' we're back where we started."

Reverend Bacon shook his head. "I don't see that."

"The problem is, we don't have a witness. We not only don't have anybody to tell us where this thing happened, we don't even have anybody who can tell us he was. .h.i.t by any car at all."

"You got Henry Lamb himself!"

Kramer raised his hands from his lap and shrugged gently, so as not to overemphasize the fact that Mrs. Lamb's son would probably never be able to bear witness to anything again.

"You got what he told his mother. He told her himself."

"It gives us a lead, but it's hearsay."

"It's what he told his mother mother."

"You may accept it as the truth, and I may accept it as the truth, but it's not admissible in a court of law."

"That don't make sense to me."

"Well, that's the law. But in all candor I ought to bring out something else. Apparently when he came into the emergency room three nights ago, he didn't say anything about being hit by a car. That don't help matters any." Don't Don't. He got it right that time.

"He had a concussion...and a broken wrist...Probably a lot of things he didn't say."

"Well, was he thinking any more clearly the next morning? You could make that argument, too."

"Who's making that argument?" said Reverend Bacon. " making that argument?" said Reverend Bacon. "You're making that argument?"

"I'm not making any argument. I'm just trying to show you that without a witness there's a lot of problems."

"Well, you can find the car, can't you? You can interrogate the owner. You can check that car for evidence, can't you?"

"Sure," said Kramer. "As I told you, they're gonna run that down." He nodded toward Martin and Goldberg. "They'll try to find witnesses, too. But I don't think a car would yield much evidence. If a car hit him, it must've grazed him. He has some bruises, but he don't have the kind of bodily injuries you'd have from being really hit hit by a car." by a car."

"Say if if a car hit him?" a car hit him?"

"This case is fulla ifs, Reverend Bacon. If we find a car and an owner, and if the owner says, 'Yeah, I hit this young man the other night, and I didn't stop, and I didn't report it,' then we got a case. Otherwise, we got a lot of problems."

"Unh-hunh," said Reverend Bacon. "So it might be you can't spend a whole lot a time on this case, being as it has so many problems?"

"That's not true. This case will get as much attention as any other case."

"You say be candid. Well, I'm going to be candid. Henry Lamb is not a prominent citizen, and he's not the son of a prominent citizen, but he's a fine young man all the same...see...He's about to graduate from high school. He didn't drop out. He was-he's thinking about going to college. Never been in trouble. But he's from the Edgar Allan Poe projects. The Edgar Allan Poe projects. He's a young black man from the projects. Now, let's turn this thing around for a minute. Suppose Henry Lamb was a young white man and he lived on Park Avenue, and he was about to go to Yale, and he was struck down on Park Avenue by a black man and a black woman in a...a...Pontiac Firebird instead of a Mercedes...see...And that boy told his mother what Henry Lamb told his mother. You mean to tell me you wouldn't have a case have a case? Instead of talking about problems, you'd be turning that information inside out and counting the st.i.tches."

Martin came rumbling to life. "We'd do the same thing we're doing right now. We been trying to find Mrs. Lamb here for two days. When did we find out about a license number? You heard it. I've worked Park Avenue and I've worked Bruckner Boulevard. It don't make any difference."

Martin's voice was so calm and definite, and his stare was so implacable, so mule-like, so stone Irish, it seemed to jolt Reverend Bacon for a moment. He tried to outstare the little Irishman, without success. Then he smiled slightly and said, "You can tell me that, because I'm a minister, and I want to believe that justice is blind...see...I want to believe it. But you best not be going out on the streets of Harlem and the Bronx trying to tell people that. You best not be informing them about these blessings, because they already know the truth. They discover it the hard way."

"I'm on the streets of the Bronx every day," said Martin, "and I'll tell anybody who wants to know."

"Unh-hunh," said Reverend Bacon. "We have an organization, All People's Solidarity. We survey the communities, and the people come to us, and I can tell you that the people are not getting your message. They are getting another message."

"I been in one a your surveys," said Martin.

"You been in what?"

"One a your surveys. Up on Gun Hill Road."

"Yeah, well, I don't know what you're talking about."

"It was on the streets of the Bronx," said Martin.

"Anyway," said Kramer, looking at Mrs. Lamb, "thank you for your information. And I hope you'll have some good news about your son. We'll check out that license number. In the meantime, if you hear about anyone who was with your son the other night, or saw anything, you let us know, okay?"

"Unh-hunh," she said, striking the same dubious note as she had at the outset. "Thank you."

Martin was still staring at Reverend Bacon with his Doberman pinscher eyes. So Kramer turned to Goldberg and said, "You have a card you can give Mrs. Lamb, with a telephone number?"

Goldberg fished around in an inside pocket and handed her a card. She took it without looking at it.

Reverend Bacon stood up. "You don't have to give me your card," he said to Goldberg. "I know you...see...I'm going to call call you. I'm going to be you. I'm going to be on on your case. I want to see something done. All People's Solidarity wants to see something done. And something your case. I want to see something done. All People's Solidarity wants to see something done. And something will will be done...see...So one thing you can count on: you will hear from be done...see...So one thing you can count on: you will hear from me me."

"Anytime," said Martin. "Anytime you like."

His lips were parted ever so slightly, with the suggestion of a smile at the corners. It reminded Kramer of the expression, the Smirking Fang, that boys wore at the beginning of a playground brawl.

Kramer started walking out, saying his goodbyes over his shoulder as he went, hoping that would coax Battling Martin and the Jewish Shamrock out of the room.