He reached for the attaché case, opened it, and removed the portable casette recorder that neatly fit into one of the pockets of the case. He reversed the tape; the slight buzzing as the tape fed back at high speed was the only sound in the room for several minutes. When the spool had run to the end, Ross reversed it again, and set it to play. The two men listened carefully until it had completed the entire conversation with Billy Dupaul at the Tombs. Ross stopped the tape and looked across the desk at Gunnerson.
“I’ll have Sharon transcribe this for you when she has time. Probably sometime tomorrow. But you can get started before then. What you heard should give you enough to work on.”
“More than enough,” Mike said. He had been scribbling on a pad as he listened; now he looked at his notes. “Jim Marshall, eh? I had his name on the list from the trial transcript as one to be checked out, but I’ll move him up in priority. A fight, eh? And he could have put his hand on the gun any time, earlier than the fight. And a lot of people have been shot by guys who are afraid of guns.”
“Except that he couldn’t have been the one to steer Dupaul to the Mountain Top Bar,” Ross said. “In the mood Billy was in, if he ran into Jim Marshall at that Lexington Avenue bar, he wouldn’t have listened to him tout another bar; he’d have pasted him one. Especially since he had about six or eight drinks in him already at that point.”
“Still,” Mike said, scribbling, “we’ll put him between two rollers and turn the crank just to see what comes out. I have a man up in Glens Falls now who can handle it.”
“Good. See what you can find out about the big secret, too.”
“Naturally,” Mike said. “And there’s the matter of that baseball game up at Attica.”
“Right. The delay in starting time could be extremely important. If the delay was an accident, and the timing of the escape attempt made it imperative that the riot be started at once over
“Then our boy Dupaul looks better, eh?”
“At least he doesn’t look quite so bad.”
“In which case,” Gunnerson said slowly, “we have a long, serious talk with that umpire-guard who called those four balls. Right? And then maybe talk to the warden?”
“You’re getting ahead of yourself, and our main problem is Billy Dupaul, not the morality of the prison guards, though whatever we dig out will go to the authorities, of course.”
“Of course,” Gunnerson said, and resumed making corrections to his notes. “But first we check out the reason for the delay with the prison chaplain, this Father Swiaki. Right?”
“Right.”
“I’ll get right to it,” Mike said. He rose, stuffing his notes into his pocket. He started to move around the desk in the direction of the door but Ross reached out, restraining him.
“Wait a minute,” Hank said. “You didn’t make a note of the most important thing on that tape.”
Mike Gunnerson frowned a him.
“Most, important? I got the baseball game, the delay, the chaplain. And I got Marshall and the big secret of what caused the fight that night. Did I miss something, Hank?”
“Billy Dupaul’s grandfather, the one he calls Old John,” Ross said softly. “An old man with only his social security, no retirement, who manages to buy his grandson everything a growing teenager wants, and a lot of things families in far better positions are unable to get their kids.”
Gunnerson stared at him, mystified. “What about it?”
“Where did the money come from, Mike? That’s what I want to know, because I have a hunch it’s important. Where did the money come from?”
The preliminary proceedings in the murder trial of Billy Dupaul took place in Part 32 of the New York Supreme Courts building in Manhattan. Hank Ross, comfortably seated at the defense table alone, nodded pleasantly in the direction of the prosecution table. Louis Gorman, slight and looking like a fighting cock, sat there with an assistant, well known to Ross. Varick returned the nod with a slightly embarrassed smile; he was quite aware of his chief’s running feud with the opposition lawyer. Gorman, dressed in stiff black that seemed too large for his small body, turned away a bit obviously, his face a mask. Ross bit back a smile at the familiar Gormanian gesture, and turned to watch Billy Dupaul being escorted from the detention pen adjacent to the courtroom. Dupaul slipped into a chair at Ross’s side and leaned over, smiling a bit wryly, trying to appear at ease.
“Hi, Counselor. How does it look?”
“We’ll know better in a little while,” Ross said, and smiled at the boy reassuringly. “Don’t worry.”
“I’m not worried. How do you figure to handle it?”
“Well,” Ross said, “it’s been known for a long time that attack is the best form of defense. Add to that a little bit of confusion, and we’ll see what comes out.”
Billy Dupaul started to say something and then bit his words off. He was staring across the courtroom.
“Hey! Isn’t that Gorman there?”
“That’s right. That’s the prosecutor’s table.”
