PART 35 by John Nicholas Iannuzzi Page B

they had to bring a doctor and bring me to Bellevue.”
    Sandro was thunderstruck. “You went to Bellevue Hospital? After you were brought here to jail?”
    â€œYes, one night in my cell. I was bleeding in the mouth and the ass. And I had a lot of pain in the stomach. I lied down on my cot. The guard call the doctor, and they put a mask over my face with air in it, and I stayed there because I couldn’t breathe. I was lying on my bunk, and my chest, you know, from where they were beating me, was tremendous pains. The doctor come and send me over there to the Bellevue. You see I’m not telling a lie to you because these things happen to me when I was here. And they know. You can know they happen, too, because my medical card says that, and the doctor knows that, and my cellmate knows that it happen. I am not lie to you.”
    â€œYou were sent to Bellevue from the Tombs?”
    â€œThat’s right, in a ambulance. They mark the papers, internal bleeding.”
    If Alvarado wasn’t concocting a fairy tale, he was innocent. Hospital records were objective facts, easier to check and more reliable than witnesses’ stories.
    â€œIs there anything else I should know? You keep remembering more things each time I come. Can’t you think of them all and tell me at once to save time?”
    â€œI try, but sometimes I don’t remember. Remember I told you I was having a haircut when all this happened and then I went to the movies?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWell, before I had the haircut, I met this friend of mine, this guy named Eugene, and together we wented to a five-and-tens, and I changed a hundred-dollar bill. In the five-and-tens store on Broadway near Roebling Street.”
    Sandro was confused. “A hundred-dollar bill? You changed a hundred-dollar bill?”
    â€œYes. I changed a hundred-dollar bill with this colored girl. She was at the counter in the five-and-tens store, a big fat-face she was, like she got peaches pits in each cheek. I don’t know what her name is. And she changed the bill for me, and I remember we was kidding cause she changed a hundred-dollar bill a couple days before for me, and she says to me, ‘What are you, making these things?’ And I says, ‘Yeah,’ and then she changed the bill for me.”
    â€œWas Eugene in the store with you?”
    â€œNo. I didn’t want a big crowd, you know. Maybe they think we rob somebody.”
    â€œWhere were you getting these hundred-dollar bills?
    â€œNo stealing. Believe me. Some guy on the street give me three hundred dollars—three hundred-dollar bills—to buy some stuff for him. You know, junk, and I was suppose to buy stuff for him, but I never did. And I have this money in my pocket, and I need some money, so I spend it.”
    It would be far better to be tried for hustling narcotics or stealing three hundred dollars than for murdering a policeman, Sandro reasoned.
    â€œAnd you’re sure you changed one of these hundred-dollar bills the day the policeman was killed?”
    â€œYes. Before I went to take the haircut, and I was talking with Eugene. I walk in and change a hundred-dollar bill. And I think she can remembers me because we were talking and kidding.”
    â€œWhat time was it?”
    Alvarado studied the ceiling. “Maybe one thirty, a little later. Somesing like that.”
    â€œWhere was this five-and-ten?”
    â€œOn Broadway near Roebling Street. It’s a big store right on the side of the street there, a little bit from the corner.”
    â€œAnd it was a colored salesgirl?”
    â€œYes. She works there because I see her there before, you know. As soon as you walking back, about two of them stands where they sell things, right in the middle.”
    â€œI’ll check it out. Is there anything else?”
    Alvarado studied the ceiling for a minute and, looking back to Sandro, shook his head. “I can’t think of