by Thomson, Lh
“You did time with Benny Toes, right?”
Benjamin “Benny Toes” Valiparisi was a Jersey mob guy serving three life sentences for racketeering, extortion and murder. I’d covered his laundry shift a few times and he seemed like a stand-up guy. I just knew him as Benny Toes, and by the time I found out after two weeks that he was that guy, I’d already done him a couple of favors. So he spent my last year inside trying to even up the score.
Vin The Shin said, “He’s my cousin Mario’s oldest boy. As you know, things ain’t gone so good for him in the last couple of years.”
“He’s making the best of it, Mr. Terrasini.”
“He spoke real highly of you, kid,” he said, as the limo smoothly rolled towards downtown. “I’d been meaning to get one of the boys to look youse up anyhow, see if youse wanted to do some work for us.”
That kind of trouble I didn’t need. The offer was also the type of thing I could have avoided if I’d never gotten to know Benny Toes.
“Appreciated, sir. I’m working full-time now but if I ever need a gig I’ll keep it in mind,” I said, as non-committal as possible.
Vin The Shin studied me for a minute. “I hear you’re a pretty smart kid. So what are you looking for these two for, anyway?”
“The gallery they knocked over? The manager is a friend of a friend.”
“Lady friend?”
“Childhood friend.”
“That’s good,” he said. “Loyalty is a good thing. Rare these days. So listen, you hear anything about these guys, I want to hear about it just as quick.”
“Mr. Terrasini, my job, it doesn’t allow me to….”
He waved a hand to silence me and shook his head gently. “Don’t worry, kid. I’m not going to drag you into this. But I think these two guys are the same two guys who hit one of my places a couple of weeks ago.”
He saw my surprise and laughed. “Yeah, that was our reaction, too. Robbed the condo I share with my ladyfriend. Come busting in in the middle of the afternoon.”
“Someone robbed you? That’s a hell of a surprise if you don’t mind my saying, Mr. Terrasini. Do you mind if I ask what they took?”
Vin the Shin licked his lips, showing a first outward sign of annoyance since we’d started talking. “I had a painting that I had…acquired. I saw it at a showing by a local guy, but he didn’t want to sell it. An associate of mine later came into its possession through circumstances known to me, and I had been, let’s say, holding onto it for him.”
“Should I know the artist?”
He shook his head. “Probably not. Guy named Dufresne.”
Again? “It wasn’t a small oil called ‘Autumn Mist’, by any chance?”
The mobster’s face turned cold. “You better explain how you know that real quickly, Mr. Quinn, or Benny Toes ain’t going to be able to put in enough good words for you.”
So I did, up to and including the security tape of the guy fooling with the painting. “But if you had it, that means the one hanging in the gallery was a forgery – and he must have switched the forgery for the real thing … and left the real thing in the gallery.”
The old gangster took a deep breath. “That don’t make no fucking sense.”
“You’re telling me.”
“Yeah.... well I don’t like that.”
“Yes sir...”
“And it ain’t good when I don’t like stuff, you get me,”
“Yes, Mr. Terrasini.
“I don’t know what these guys are up to, Mr. Quinn, but I’m beginning to become irritated. It would not serve the interests of anyone involved for me to become any more upset. So I’m going to rely on you to keep my painting in mind. I might not get it back, but I ain’t going to sit around and be disrespected. Am I clear?”
“Crystal, Mr. Terrasini.”
He gestured towards the older man. “You need anything, you give Paulie here a call and he’ll arrange it.”
“Mr. Terrasini, one question…”
“Yeah, kid, what is it?”
“If someone arranged for a copy of the Dufresne painting to be made at some point, for whatever reason, it would help if I could get the name of the artist who painted the copy.”
“Why?”
I shrugged. “Can’t be that many people who knew there were two versions. It just seems like the percentage place to start.”
The mob boss smiled and nodded gently. “Paulie, you made a good call on this kid. Benny Toes was right.”
Paulie said, “You got it, Vin.”
“Ok, kid, we’ll get you a name. But like I said, anything good you get, we want to hear about it.”
“Message received,” I said.
“Okay.” He called up to the driver. “Tommy, pull over here.”
They opened the door to let me out. We were a couple of miles, at least, from my building, but I wasn’t complaining.
After a guy meets with Vin “The Shin” Terrasini, a long walk home beats the hell out of no walk at all.
No doubt, my mother was steamed over Sunday dinner. And she’d be even more upset if she knew I skipped church completely. So I thought I’d slide on over to the Druid for an hour or so, have a pint with my dad and survey the damage. Whenever something bothered her, he was both the surrogate whipping boy and the first to hear about it.
Halfway there, my phone rang. I let it go to voicemail, and was going to deal with it later, but after a couple of minutes I had to face that nagging feeling that I was missing something important.
I pulled off the Vine Street Expressway and checked my messages.
“Hello? Hello? I’m looking for Mr. Quinn. You left a card at the stadium. This is Jeffrey. We talked a little. You bought a couple of beers. At the stadium. Listen, I need to see you again. I... I’m kind of scared, so if you could call me back...”
He left his number and I dialed right away.
“Hello?” The voice was shaky and the background noise was considerable. I suspected he was at work.
“Jeffrey? It’s Liam Quinn. You called me.”
A murmured voice in the background, a younger man, said something, but I couldn’t make it out.
Jeffrey said, “I can’t talk right now. And I’m sorry I called, I can’t help you. It was just something stupid,” he said.
“Jeffrey, is there somebody there with you?”
The background voice was louder now, almost audible, barking a command.
“No, I ... listen, Mr. Quinn, I’m sorry. I made a mistake.”
And then the line went dead.
No doubt that the kid had been scared out of talking to me.
I had an easy time picturing David Mince standing five feet away from his contrite friend, barking threats and orders in equal measure as we talked. It wasn’t hard to figure out which one of them had masterminded the beer robbery. I just needed one of them to talk about it on the record, preferably the skinny kid himself.
If one of them folded, the other two would go down quickly. It occurred to me it might be worth getting my father to “stop in” at the booth in full uniform. If the kid was as cold a fish as I thought, it wouldn’t intimidate him. But his two frightened friends might start thinking twice.
Mince, on the other hand, was going to take something special. I hadn’t yet quite figured out how to deal with his case.
After I got off the phone with the frightened kid, my message light came on. It was Paulie, Terrasini’s right-hand man. The forger was a small-timer named Polly, a British art student who’d lived somewhere just across the river in Camden. The guy who’d hired her was dead, but they had the first name, anyway. I made a mental note to call an old contact from the bad old days and see if he knew more about her work. I had no doubt that Vin the Shin arranged for her to paint the duplicate in the first place, so the name had to be good, which meant she was up to a lot more than just selling easels and watercolor paint-by-numbers. In my experience, a bent nail is a bent nail, and there’s always more than one dodge on the go.
But before then, I got back on track for that pint with my father.
The Druid was packed, as it always was on Sunday afternoon. Plenty of folks in the neighborhood worked a six-day week, so this was their one day of rest. Younger guys were around the pool table, lining up their quarters to claim the next game, and the older guys were already engrossed in debate. Their wives mostly stayed home, thankful for a few minutes of peace and quiet, with the place to themselves.
I move carefully through the near-shoulder-to-shoulder crowd. Michael and Davy were at the bar, but my old man must’ve been out having a smoke, as his stool sat empty between them.
I made my way over to the side doors, out to the makeshift “patio”. This time, it was crowded with dad’s friends, nearly all former police officers; most of them were silver haired now, laughing, recalling past glorious and the inequities of a world that paid cops less than plumbers.
He was talking to Roman McQueen about something, but stopped when he saw me, an awkward look suggesting I’d just been the topic.
“Pa.”
“Son. I thought you were working all day today. Haven’t seen you here on a Sunday in a while, neither.”
It was true. Dealing with Davy was tense, which is why I’d been prompting the old man to talk to him.
“You know how it is, Pa. I have to make a living.”
“Your mother wasn’t real happy at Church. She says if you keep missing Sunday dinner, she’s going to start giving your portion to Michael.”
My brother Michael could eat a whole pork roast on his own. I didn’t need him anywhere near mine. Plus, her pork roast could make an invading army negotiate lasting peace.
“She’s playing hardball.”
“Hey, you bring this stuff on yourself. She saw you this morning, you know, crossing the street with Walter Beck.”
The name drew a round of murmurs from his friends, and one of them spat on the ground dramatically.
“He called me,” I said, motioning with my hands for calm. “I’m working a case he’s interested in, that’s all.”
Vic Dubinski chuckled at that. “You hear that, fellas, little Liam’s “working a case,” like a real copper. Next thing you know, he’ll be applying at the academy.”
They all had a good laugh at that. They all knew I got out a year earlier. The tips of my father’s ears burned red with embarrassment.
Dad said, “Yeah, well he closed more cases than your boy last year,” he said. “How’s he doing with traffic detail there, Vic?”
Another round of laughs, this time at Vic’s expense. They’d do this all day, drinking and trying to out-insult each other. Inevitably, one or two would get too drunk, and the insults would get too personal, and fists would fly for a couple of minutes, a weekly ritual of affirming another week alive, followed by shows of strength.
Vic said, “So what you working on kid?” They ribbed me about prison, but when it came down to it, most of the guys were okay.
“That gallery over on Chestnut… the DeGoey. The painting that was stolen is worth seven figures.”
Vic’s buddy Fred Keller whistled low. “That’s a lot of scratch for a painting. Must be huge.”
I smiled. “It’s not so much a size thing. It’s actually pretty small.”
“Yeah, your wife said,” suggested a voice near the back of the crowd.
More laughs. Regular comedians, these guys.
“So what is it? Is it famous?” Vic said.
“Not really. Just real old, and a particular painter a lot of rich people like,” I said.
“I always liked those French guys, what do you call them ....” said Fred. “The impressionists? You know, like the midget?”
“Toulouse Lautrec.”
“Yeah, that’s the guy. I always liked his shit. Like the one with barmaid with the big knockers: real classy.”
My father interjected, “So the insurance company you work for don’t want to pay out?”
“What a fuckin’ surprise,” said a voice nearby.
Thanks, dad. Real helpful. “No, it’s not that. It’s just that it’s a lot of dough. If there’s a way to recover it, they’re going to take it, you know?”
Vic worked armed robbery for years. “So what’s the M.O.?” he asked.
“Couple of guys, balaclavas, dark work boots, shotguns. The usual, like you’d see at a bank. We’re guessing a driver outside, but he didn’t peel out or nothing so there were no tracks.”
“And they just took the one painting?”
“Yeah.”
“So someone hired them?”
I could see Vic’s line of thinking; if they were freelancing, there was no way they would have stopped with one small work of art.
“Yeah, probably. I don’t really know. It’s a strange one...”
Vic was waiting with bated breath for me to elaborate, but my dad cut me off. “Now enough of that stuff. You mugs are retired. Liam, don’t go baiting the boys. They ain’t going to let Vic re-up at his age.”
The guys dispersed from our little group. But Fred had worked bunko for years and I held him back for a moment when everyone else went inside. “You might be able to help me a little,” I told him. “You only retired last fall, right?”
Fred took a sip of beer and sighed. “Yeah, finally hung it up. So what’s the deal?”
“Not sure this is just a robbery.”
“Eh?”
“It’s bizarre, Mr. Keller. But there’s some kind of tie to a forger named Polly. That ring any bells?”
He thought about it. Fred was in his early 60s, but he still had a bright memory for perps. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s familiar. She’s the Brit, right? She was Pat Delaney’s old lady, last time I heard. Has an arts store in Jersey. We had her on a check-washing job a few years back but the chain of evidence got fucked up.”
The chain is the series of evidence-gathering protocols police follow to ensure material can’t be tainted and effectively remains neutral. It means the stuff has to be bagged and tagged with rubber gloves at the time it’s found, then sealed and held in a locked evidence room, so no one can mess with it. And check washing is an old scam: the forger gets a genuine check for a small amount from the victim – either from an in-person sale that is then passed onto them or by stealing it from their trash. They then use chemicals to wash off the name and few numbers, which they replace with their preference. If it’s used, they take out the cancellation stamp as well.
“So what happened?”
He shook his head. “We were never sure. Drove your old man out of his freakin’ mind, though.”
I said, “You hear anything more recent about her?”
“I’ve been retired three months, Liam, I don’t hear that much no more,” said Fred.
“But you said she “was” Pat Delaney’s lady? She’s not now?”
“Nah, he’s inside, doing a dime for trying to knock over a Brinks truck just over a year ago.”
I’d seen the story in the papers at the time. Three guys in clown masks had used a timed charge to blow out the vehicle’s axle when it slowed down to pay the toll on the Ross Bridge to Jersey. They’d piled out of the car behind it, laid down the toll booth attendant and the drivers on the cement, blown the doors off the back with another charge. It was quick, bloodless, professional.
But the second his two accomplices finished loading the cash into the car, the driver of the getaway car had taken off and left them behind. They’d jumped from the bridge, and were thought to have been swept away in the Delaware River. The water was so cold, they shouldn’t have lasted more than five or ten minutes.
A toll camera caught Delaney, a nogoodnik from the neighborhood, from a side profile behind the wheel of the car. Cops picked him up two days later in Camden, pulling him out of bed in the middle of the night with a full SWAT team.
“Pat Delaney,” I said. “Wow. There’s a name from the past. My dad busted him a bunch of times. You know Delaney at all?”
He nodded. “Yeah, from when I worked robbery. He hung around with this stocky side of beef, guy named Teddy Allison.”
“About five-eight, brags about being Golden Gloves back before time?”
He laughed. “Yeah, that sounds like him. Might have been the only guy we liked less than Pat. Never seemed to have nothing on him. Why?”
“If he’s the guy I think, he’s not much of a fighter. But I’m guessing he can swim some.”
“So you’re thinking Delaney’s tied to your robbery somehow?”
“Something like that. Like you said, he’s still inside. But he’s a neighborhood guy; he’s got friends on the outside.”
“But why a gallery? What, he owes someone inside a favor, maybe?”
“That’s the money question, Mr. Keller. I figure that out and maybe this month I make some myself.”
“Well I hope you do, Liam,” he said. “I always thought you were a good kid, you just messed up some, that’s all.”
“Thanks, Mr. Keller.”
“You still seeing that girl? You know: the pretty redhead with the dark skin?”
“Nora? Nah, just friends. We go way back and believe me, she’s pure class – way above a pug like me.”
He studied me for a minute; he was a picture of weathered creases and balding silver hair, more years than most of us can imagine. “Don’t sell yourself so short. My wife is the most beautiful woman I ever saw, and I look like a hung-over frog.” He held up a hand to stop me from protesting. “Don’t bother, kid, I know I ain’t pretty. But she loves me right.”
And like I said: It’s a tight neighborhood.
My father had drifted back to the bar, and both Davy and Mike had taken off home. I took the stool next to him and ordered a Rolling Rock.
He took a hefty pull on his Straub before wiping his top lip with the back of his hand. “So Freddy any help?”
“He knew the person I was looking for. Turns out she was one of Pat Delaney’s old ladies.”
His eyes rolled up for a second. “Really narrows it down some.”
“Listen, Pa, I ran into an old partner of yours today, guy named Norm Esterhaus. You never mentioned him none that I recall.”
When my father’s unhappy, his poker face is pretty much non-existent. He takes on a grim look and lets it hang there, waiting for you to break the uncomfortable silence. “So what? You got a question, Liam?”
