PART 35 by John Nicholas Iannuzzi Page A

Sandro.”
    Sandro’s office was near City Hall. He started across Chambers Street toward the Municipal Building, which houses part of the vast government of the City of New York. The Municipal Building is twenty-eight stories high and straddles Chambers Street, so that automobiles pass through a giant arch cut out of the building’s base.
    On the left as one approaches the Municipal Building is the venerable Hall of Records, where the last wills of the world’s elite are processed and records of deeds and real estate dating from the beginnings of the city are maintained. The Hall of Records is a magnificent edifice, containing a scaled-down version of the staircase of the Paris Opéra, mosaics, and carved marble fireplaces.
    Across the street from the Hall of Records is the Tweed courthouse, a remarkable example of brickwork, domes, and balconies, for which the Tweed cronies went to prison, because it had not cost as much to build as they said it had.
    Just behind the Municipal Building, the Brooklyn Bridge stretches its sinews toward Brooklyn Heights and Atlantic Avenue.
    Sandro turned through Foley Square, upon which the Federal Court House and the State Supreme Court front, and walked down through Centre Street to the Criminal Courts Building.
    This is a community unto itself, the legal community, and for a lawyer, a walk along the street disposes of many social and professional calls.
    Sandro entered the Criminal Courts Building and took the automatic elevator to the eleventh floor. He walked to Part Thirty, where Alvarado would be arraigned. Judge Phillips was already on the bench. A defendant was at the dock being arraigned. Sandro walked to the first row of benches. David S. Ellis, the assistant D.A. in charge of prosecuting Alvarado, was sitting within the bar, a folder on his lap.
    Sandro walked along the rail that separates the spectators from the dock and the court. Turning to the right, he went through a door in the paneled wall and entered the “bullpen.” The bullpen is the detention area to which a prisoner is brought from the Tombs on the day his case is to be called before the judge. At the end of the morning and afternoon sessions, prisoners are marched back to the twelfth floor of the Criminal Courts Building, a floor inaccessible to the public—the courthouse has a thirteenth floor, but no twelfth floor—and back to the Tombs.
    Unlike the court, the bullpen is neither solemn, nor wood-paneled, nor polished; it stinks. The bullpen reeks of unwashed bodies, of urine, musty clothes, fear, defiance, and resignation.
    In an open area between the two bullpen cells sat a guard at a wooden desk. Inside the cells, some men stood or squatted against the walls because the single bench was filled. The prisoners looked out at Sandro as he entered the bullpen.
    â€œMorning, Counselor,” said the guard. “Who you got this morning?”
    â€œAlvarado, Luis Alvarado.”
    The guard’s finger skimmed down a handwritten list in a book on the desk. “He’s still upstairs, Counselor. Go ahead up.”
    Sandro ascended a steel staircase next to one of the cells until he came to another barred gate, which was locked. This was now the twelfth floor, with its honeycomb of passages, cells, and gates, designed to maintain a constant, secure stream of prisoners from the Tombs to the courthouse.
    â€œGate,” Sandro called out.
    Sandro heard a rustle of metal keys. A guard emerged from a small room. “Hello, Counselor. Who you looking for?”
    â€œAlvarado.”
    â€œAll the way around.”
    Sandro walked through a corridor flanked on the left by cells, on the right by windows overlooking a park where Chinese kids were playing softball. The prisoners watched Sandro as he walked past the cells.
    â€œHey, man,” a prisoner called to him. “Open the window a little, hanh?” Sandro swung one of the windows across from the cell open a bit