Pigtown Page 10
Kahn plucked a pair of jeans off the rickety chair beside the dresser and pulled a folded envelope out of the back pocket. She lifted the flap and peered inside. Suddenly her beautiful face was frozen in shock. “Oh, my,” she said, recovering her composure and passing the envelope to the whip.
Stuart muttered, “Oh, shit!” when he slid out the mug shots of Gee and Hollyman.
“Looks as though Rodriguez had some inside help in IDing the Rasties,” Kahn said.
Stuart slipped the mug shots into his sports jacket’s inside pocket, looked at his detectives, and said, “Forget you saw those mug shots.”
The second platoon, 0800–1600, was filing out of the Seven One when Jones drove the unmarked car into the Squad commander’s parking space in front of the precinct. Matt, Jones, and Smasher got out. Smasher pulled Jones over to several of his policemen friends, who petted him and fed him leftover late-tour pizza.
Walking inside the station house, Stuart waved to the desk sergeant, then passed through the muster room and climbed the steps up to the squad room. He had left Kahn and Borrelli back at the homicide scene to ensure that things were done properly. He had stressed the importance of making sure that the crime scene technicians vacuumed the bed, the pillow, and the floor around the pillow on the chance of picking up some trace evidence.
Jones followed his boss into the squad room and went directly into the storage room to fill up Smasher’s bowl with dry dog food.
Stuart read the latest entries in the telephone message book and then went into his office to ponder what he was going to do about those mug shots. Every damn “do and don’t” in the Patrol Guide, Detective Guide, and Administrative Guide required an immediate notification to IAD whenever a member unearthed the slightest hint of corruption. Providing a shooter with official NYPD mug shots of his pigeons fitted that bill very nicely.
Stuart took out the mug shots and looked again at the color photographs of Hollyman’s and Gee’s dour faces, their NYSID numbers emblazoned across their chests. The New York State Identification Division’s number had been given the diminutive “Nisid number” within the Job. As he looked at the two mug shots, Stuart thought about what steps any cop had to take to obtain mug shots from the files.
Detectives forwarded a form called a “ninety” through department mail to the Photographic Unit. The ninety required the name, shield number, and command of the ordering officer and the NYSID number of the individual. The latest mug shots taken at the prisoner’s last arrest were developed and forwarded through department mail. Where time was important, a detective could go to the Photo Unit and wait for “wet” copies to be developed.
Stuart slid the mug shots back into his jacket pocket. He was going to have to pay a visit to the Photo Unit. A dirty cop was lurking somewhere in the Job, and experience had taught him that stealth was the best way to bring him to ground. His time in the Job had also taught him that the best way to screw up an investigation was to bring in IAD incompetents. Most of the people assigned to that unit volunteered to escape the street they were too scared to work.
He reached into the side drawer of his desk and took out a blank “Unusual” form. An “Unusual Occurrence Report” was used to notify the Palace Guard of any newsworthy incident. Homicides used to be considered newsworthy, but with more than two thousand people a year being slaughtered in New York City, homicide “Unusuals” had become nothing more than busy-work for the Palace Guard. Old habits were hard to break.
He swiveled to the IBM Selectric II on a typing table next to his desk and filled out the who, what, where, when, and how of Rodriguez’s death on the mimeographed form, omitting any mention of the mug shots. After doing that, he walked out from behind his desk into the squad room and faxed the report up the chain of command.
That done, he went back into his office and phoned Patrick Sarsfield Casey at Detective Borough, Brooklyn South. Although the inspector was the first in the chain to receive his fax, tradition demanded that he make a personal call to his boss and brief him on the case and its dangers.
Casey immediately asked Stuart, “Was there anything racially motivated about those Rastafarian hits?”
“Nothing racial, Inspector, just mutts blowing away other mutts.”
“Your four open homicides are screwing up the district’s clearances. Some people in the Big Building might get it into their heads that I’m too old to cut the mustard.”
“Not to worry, Inspector. When we make our collars your clearances will soar, and it’ll be because of your outstanding leadership.”
“Cut the shit and tell me what you got on the Rodriguez hit.”
“I think that the Rasties took Beansy out. And as we both know, in certain circles it’s considered crass for a black guy to take out a pinky-ring. So they used Rodriguez for their payback.”
“Your ‘Unusual’ states that you found twenty-seven hundred dollars in Rodriguez’s apartment. That indicates to me that they paid him for the hit. Why’d they whack ’im, then?”
Matt let his silence speak for itself. Finally he brought the phone closer to his mouth and said, “When we tossed his flat, we came up with mug shots of Gee and Hollyman.”
Casey’s tone betrayed real concern. “I didn’t see any mention of them in your ‘Unusual.’”
“I know.”
“Did you notify IAD?”
“No.”
“You think someone in the Job tipped them off you were on to Rodriguez?”
“That’s possible.”
“How many of your people know about those mug shots?”
“None of them. I found them and I slipped them into my pocket without any of them seeing.”
Casey chuckled and said, “I hope you eat pussy better than you lie. I guess you’re going to Lone Ranger it, keep your people out of the investigation, do it all yourself, so that if the Palace Guard finds out, you’re the only one who’ll be offered up as sacrifice.”
“I don’t like bad cops.”
“All right, play it your way for now, but keep me informed. And, Matt, we never had this conversation.”
Stuart hung up and sat, staring thoughtfully at the phone, when suddenly his other confidential phone began to ring. He pulled out the bottom right-hand drawer of his desk and snapped up the red receiver. “Hello.”
“Did you really mean it when you said you wanted to help me?”
Stuart parked the unmarked car on North Portland Avenue, a short street that cut between the low-income Walt Whitman Houses and Cumberland Family Care Center. Fort Greene Park was a block away.
The walls of the housing project at ground level had been turned into memorials to the murdered. Elaborate murals bearing the names and likenesses of the fallen had been spray-painted onto the walls. Memorial walls had sprung up throughout the city, honoring the victims of the urban bloodbath. They were the poor’s final benediction to their dead. Someone had turned the wall on Stuart’s right into a shrine by placing flowers in milk containers and candles in little glass cups on the ground.
“First they kill each other, and then the families and friends make these pitiful gestures. We respect the people we kill, man,” he grumbled to himself just as he spotted Andrea Russo walking out of the park toward his car. She had a white kerchief around her head, with the folds pulled forward around her cheeks. Her kerchief momentarily reminded him of a nun.
Reaching across the seat, he opened the passenger door. She jumped in, slamming the door behind her. He quickly pulled away from the curb, heading down DeKalb Avenue, across South Elliot Place, and on to Flatbush Avenue. Then, during their four-minute ride on Flatbush Avenue, they drove past eight spray-painted crosses on stoops and sidewalks that marked the spots where people had been murdered.
“Do you think you were followed?” Stuart asked her.
“No. I took a cab from Pigtown to Fort Greene Park and sat on a bench for half an hour before coming to meet you.”
They rode in silence. She kept turning and
looking out the rear window. The Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch, the huge Civil War memorial, loomed ahead of them. Driving around the arch in Grand Army Plaza, Stuart saw two more memorial crosses.
He drove the unmarked car into Prospect Park. The big trees that shaded the great lawns were barren now, their leaves rotting in rain-drenched piles. He drove around the park’s winding lake. The boathouse was locked up and stacked-up canoes were chained to the dock.
He drove into the amphitheater’s parking lot and kept the engine running. After checking that the doors were locked, he looked around the lot. One car was parked under the giant oak at the other end of the lot. A man and a woman were in the front seat.
He checked out the scene for human predators lurking behind trees and bushes. He saw none and then realized that it was only nine-twenty in the morning. Those mutts don’t haul their asses out of bed until one, he thought, turning to look at Andrea and for the first time seeing the fear in her eyes.
“What happened?” he asked her.
Her voice trembling, she told him what Paddy Holiday had done to her.
Stuart felt both angry and responsible. “How did he know I drove you home?”
“Mary Terrella, my neighbor, told him. She must have seen you drop me off that night.”
He gave her a puzzled look. He’d never met Mary Terrella. And his category-one car, like all the other category ones in the Job, was registered to a civilian front corporation. Even if this Terrella woman had taken down the license number, it would have taken someone with access to intelligence files to have made him as the driver of the car.
She sensed how worried Stuart was and asked meekly, “What’sa matter?”
“What’s Terrella’s connection to Paddy?”
“She’s Frank Marino’s girlfriend.”
“‘Frankie Bones’ Marino?”
“Yeah.” She shifted nervously in her seat. “Paddy wants me to get close to you. He’s worried that you might come up with some-thin’ that could hurt him.”
“Like what?”
“Dunno.” She looked down at her hands. “They’d kill me if they ever found out I talked to you.”
“Do you know that much about them?”
“No, not really. Beansy liked me, and I liked him. He was close to my dad and knew my mom real well. He sorta felt an obligation to look after me. When he died, my protection died, too.”
“Why don’t you pack your bags and leave?”
“I told you before, I got nobody to go to and nothing to do when I get there.”
“What made you phone me, Andrea?” he asked quietly.
“I really thought Paddy was going to kill me yesterday. I was so scared. And I … I realized that you were right. I’ll never be really free until I get them off my back. I’m trying so hard to make it in the world, I don’t need them to bring me back down.”
They sat in wary silence for a long minute before he asked, “What happened with Beansy?”
She drew a deep breath and said, “Beansy didn’t drive a car, so Paddy had Hollyman and Gee drive him to my place for a meet with Frankie Bones. Something happened after they got there, and one of the Rastafarians killed Beansy.”
“What was the meet about?”
“Dunno. Beansy’d use my place every now and then, but I never knew what went on when he did. He’d always slip me a hundred for my trouble.”
Stuart played a sudden hunch. “Was there ever anything between you and Beansy?”
“Not really. Once a few years ago I threw him a mercy fuck, but only that one time.”
“Did Beansy have his own set of keys to your place, or did he have to come and see you to get your extra set?”
Her eyes fell to the floor. “He always came and got my extra set. I’m sorry I lied to you about my keys.”
“’At’s okay. But level with me now. Did Holiday order the hits on Gee and Hollyman?”
“Paddy don’t give orders for hits. The smart money guys use him as a go-between with the Rastafarians, and because of his connections in your department. He’ll always be a ‘my friend’ guy.”
He knew she was referring to the way wiseguys made introductions. This is “my friend so and so” meant that the person being introduced was not a member of any crew, so everyone was careful what they said. This is “our friend” meant that the person was part of a crew and could be trusted.
He asked, “What kind of connections is Paddy supposed to have in the NYPD?”
“Big time, I hear.”
“What kind of business did Paddy do with the Rastafarians?”
She spent several moments thinking before she answered, “I’m not sure. Every morning Gee and Hollyman would show up at the bar with shopping bags full of money. They’d leave it with Paddy.”
“How’d you know the bags contained money?”
“Because one morning a bag toppled and money spilled onto the floor. I looked away; I didn’t want to know, so I pretended not to see.”
“Did you ever overhear any of their conversations?”
“Naw. They always kept it real quiet when they talked about business.”
Stuart decided to try another possible angle. Somehow, somewhere, this all had to fit together. “Did you ever hear of a guy named Manny Rodriguez?”
“No.”
“What was the connection between Beansy and Frankie Bones?”
“You never know with those guys. Lately they’ve been meeting a lot at the bar. Paddy never took part in their sit-downs. He’d always make himself busy in the kitchen.”
“Any idea what they discussed?”
“No.”
“What impressions did you have when you saw them?”
“I dunno.”
“You must have thought something was going down when you saw them.”
Her brow came down, causing wrinkles to form around the borders of her eyes. “They always greeted each other with that kissin’ bullshit of theirs, but I got the feeling that Frankie Bones was the head guy.”
“What made you think that?”
“Frankie Bones never came alone. He always hadda couple of gorillas along with him who’d come into the bar first to check it out.”
“Did they ever use your house for a meet?”
“A couple of times, I think. Frankie Bones loves Bolonia cheese, so whenever Beansy showed up at the bar looking for my keys and he had a bag full of Bolonia wedges, I figured he was going to a meet with Frankie Bones.”
Stuart pounced on this connection. “What do you know about the Albertoli cheese business?”
“Only that it’s owned by Beansy Rutolo’s family.”
“Do you know his niece, Angela?”
“I knew her from the neighborhood when I was a kid. She’s high rent these days, never comes around.”
“Wasn’t she always high rent?”
“Yeah, but when I was a kid she used to come around to dish with the older girls. She had the hots for Danny Lupo back then.”
“That’s a blast from the past. Whatever happened to him?”
“He married some Jewish dame from Sands Point, and Daddy set him up in his investment firm. Last I heard he’d gone legit.”
Stuart’s instincts told him that he was getting very close to where it all made sense. “What happened with him and Angela?”
“Nothing as far as I know. But when Danny L got married, Angela stopped coming around the neighborhood.”
“Beansy wasn’t a runaround, was he?”
“You never saw him with a woman, and he never talked about one.”
“I believe Beansy had a long-term squeeze stashed somewhere. And I need to talk to her.”
She looked at him. “Are you circumcised?”
“What?”
“Paddy’s gonna ask me if I’m doing you, and I’m gonna have to tell ’im I am, and he just might ask me if you are.”
“Tell him I am. Now what about Beansy’s squeeze?”
“I’ll ask around.”
Matt Stuart returned directly to the squad room after his meet with Andrea Russo. As he was signing himself present in the command log, he heard a crash that seemed to come from the interview room. He ruled off his entry and walked into the storage room to find Jones and Kahn standing in front of the darkened glass, staring into the interview room as Borrelli and Jordon picked up a prisoner off the floor and planted him in a chair. Smasher was stretched out at Jones’s feet.
Jones glanced at the whip and said, “That’s the mutt who blew away the owner of the bodega on Kingston and Prospect Place.”
“The one across the street from Brower Park?” Stuart asked, peering in at the thin boy slouching in the chair, one sneaker crossed over the other.
“That’s the one,” Kahn said. “After the owner forked over the lousy forty bucks in the register, the mutt made him kneel and put one into the back of his head. A passing scooter cop heard the shot and grabbed him exiting the store sticking a nine into his waistband. We also have three witnesses who were in the store at the time.”
“How old is he?” Stuart asked wearily.
“Fourteen,” Jones replied. “His name is Dion Foster, he’s got a long juvenile sheet.”
“He’ll be tried as an adult on this caper,” Stuart said.
In the interview room, Jordon picked up another wooden chair and turned it around with the back facing the prisoner. He sat down, folded his arms on the top of the chair’s back, and asked, “What made you decide to stick up that bodega?”
“It be on my way to school. I didn’t have no motherfuckin’ money, so I went and get me some.”
“Do you always take a gun to school with you?” Borrelli asked.
“Man, everyone be havin’ a gun,” Dion said.
Staring at the prisoner, Jordon said, “Just between you and me, Dion, after he gave you the money, why’d ya shoot ’im?”
“I felt like it,” Dion said with the casualness of someone ordering ice cream.
Stuart searched out Dion’s eyes for a spark of remorse, but all he saw was the cold indifference of a remorseless killer, a child born unwanted and thrown onto the streets to survive. Shaking his head at the senselessness of it all, Stuart left the viewing room and went into his office.