A Murder Too Close

by Penny Mickelbury

  She woke me the next morning before the alarm sounded with a punch to the arm. “Ow,” I mumbled. “What?”

  She was sitting upright in the bed looking like something was seriously wrong. “I can’t wear the same clothes to work today that I wore yesterday.”

  I didn’t see the problem but was wise enough not to say so. In fact, I didn’t say anything. I still had an hour of sleep left and I really wanted to claim it. Connie reached across me, grabbed the phone off the stand and started punching numbers. That got my attention and got me half awake. “Who in the world are you calling this time of morning?” It was barely six o’clock.

  “Yo, Sis,” she said. “Sorry for the early call but . . .” Yolanda must have spoken because Connie stopped suddenly, then started to giggle like I’d never heard her do. I’ve said it once, I’ll say it to anybody who’ll listen: It is the height of arrogance and stupidity for men to think they’re superior to women. They know things in ways that we’ll never know or understand. Until I started seriously dating Connie a couple of months ago, she and Yolanda had never met. Now they were calling each other Sis and giggling on the phone at six in the morning? She punched off the phone, kissed me good, then scrambled out of bed.

  “No fair!” I yelled. And it definitely wasn’t.

  “Gotta go, babe. Yo’s lending me clothes to wear to work so I’ve got to get to her place, get dressed, and get to work. Besides, you’ve got breakfast with Carmine this morning.” She blew me a kiss this time and in seconds, I heard the shower running. Yep, women definitely were the superior species.

  Carmine Aiello agreed wholeheartedly with my assessment and added his own bit of wisdom: He said he knew better than to ever let a woman know that’s what he thought. “And if you’re as smart as I think you are, Rodriquez, you’ll keep that thought to yourself, too. Bad enough broads got all the power, but the only way we keep control is if they think that we think we got the power, too.” He sat back with great self-satisfaction and sipped his espresso.

  I’d met Carmine a few months back when he hired me to find out who was hurting Dr. Jill Mason, but I’d known about him for most of my adult life. Carmine had always boasted of mob connections but nobody believed him because he ran his mouth too much and everybody figured that anybody who was really connected wouldn’t have to brag about it. He also claimed familial connections to the Sopranos actor, but nobody believed that, either. But then Carmine got me a sit-down with Carlo Portello, the ninety-year-old head of the Little Italy mob and made a believer out of me. But the real reason nobody liked Carmine was that he was the kind of asshole who went around calling people Spics and niggers. So when he said he wanted to hire me, I refused. After all, I was a Spic and Jill Mason was a nigger and why would he want to put money in my pocket to help her? Then I found out why: Carmine’s young daughter was one of the victims of the serial rapist and Jill Mason was the shrink treating many of these young girls and helping them heal. Carmine Aiello, whom I’d previously only thought of as a fat, mean racist, took his beloved daughter for her sessions with the shrink at night and sat and waited for her and took it personally when somebody wanted to hurt the woman who was helping his daughter. I then saw Carmine Aiello as a husband and a father and part of the group of parents who figured out that the cops weren’t doing much to find out who was raping and murdering little girls. As luck would have it, I did find out who the bastard was and I did make sure he paid. But it didn’t happen overnight, and during that time, Carmine and I learned how to talk to and listen to each other. And we became friends. We have breakfast every Friday morning at little restaurant in his part of the old Little Italy neighborhood that has the some of the best coffee, and truly the best Napoleons, in New York City.

  We settled on Friday mornings because, no matter how hectic and unpredictable my week gets, I always manage to get to the gym on the weekends; and after the number of Napoleons I eat on Friday mornings, the gym on Saturdays and Sundays is a must. Carmine, on the other hand, had stopped worrying about his weight about seventy pounds ago and as he snagged another cannoli—his third—from the plate of pastries in the center of the table, he asked about Yolanda. He’s one of the many men who, at the sight of her, lose all contact with their store of common sense. He paid us double our usual retainer when he hired us because he was showing off for Yo. Being the pragmatist that she is, Yo had smiled and taken the man’s money.

  “She’s fine and that reminds me,” I said, opening my carryall and removing a gift-wrapped package which I extended to him across the table.

  “What the hell’s this?” he groused, reaching for it.

  “A birthday present for Terry. And Yolanda says give a hug from her.”

  The fat man’s face went all mushy. “How’s Miss Aguierre know about Terry’s birthday? I’d forget myself if it wasn’t for Theresa.”

  “Women know everything, Carmine. That’s what I’m trying to get you to accept. They know everything, they do everything right, and we’re at their mercy.”

  Carmine studied the pretty package, then looked up at me. His eyes narrowed. “You better hurry up and marry that broad, Rodriquez, so you get the proper perspective on this thing before it’s too late.” He chewed some cannoli, still staring slit-eyed at me. “Though given that goofy, shit-eating grin your face is wearing, I’d say it’s probably already too late for you.”

  On more than one occasion with Carmine, I’d been attacked by a case of the teenage boy giggles. I felt an attack coming on. The look on his face and the movie-mobster tone of voice he adopted rendered me all but helpless. “What perspective would that be, Carmine?” I asked, knowing I’d regret it.

  He lowered his voice further and leaned across the table toward me to make sure that the waitress, who I discovered was a cousin of his, couldn’t overhear. “It’s only when you’re in love with ’em that you’re blind to the truth. Once you go to bed with ’em and wake up with ’em year after year, the truth comes clear, and the truth is, Rodriquez, that they’re dangerous. All of ’em. Grown women, little girls, all of ’em. You know what I hadda get that kid for her birthday? What she and her mother insisted and demanded that I get her?” He now had a wild-eyed, deer-in-the-headlights look.

  The giggles had control of me. I covered my face with the napkin, grateful that it was cloth and larger than a tissue, but my heaving shoulders must have given me away because the waitress sidled over to our table, hands on ample hips. “What shit is Carmine spouting now?” But she laughed with us, asked about Yolanda, Carmine showed her the present, and she went to get us more coffee.

  I took advantage of the moment to tell Carmine I needed his help, and when I gave him a brief outline of what I wanted, he grew immediately serious. “Yeah, I know Joey Mottola. I know his old man better than him, but I know him. And I gotta tell ya, Rodriquez, he ain’t gonna sit face-to-face with you.” Carmine shook and sighed deeply, as if he couldn’t understand such behavior, when less than six months ago, he wouldn’t have been caught dead having coffee and pastries with me at his favorite coffee bar.

  “Then will you ask him for me if he knows where Sam Epstein is?”

  “When was the last time somebody saw this Epstein?”

  “Tuesday night, when he closed the cleaners.”

  “I know that place, that Epstein Cleaners. They got the only plant in the Village now and they’re making a fucking killing. Every dry cleaners around sends their stuff out to Epstein. They got people working almost around the clock.”

  I didn’t want to know how Carmine knew what he knew, so I just said, “Add to that the fact that it’s been his family’s business for fifty years, and I know that’s why he didn’t just walk away from it,” I said, and sat back to give Carmine time to think about things. I knew he didn’t respond well to being rushed or pushed, and that he liked, whenever possible, to be the instigator of thoughts and ideas and plans. A bit of a control freak was Carmine.

  “Casey and McQueen ain’t gonna go face-to-face
with you, either. They don’t like Spi . . .” Carmine caught himself, cleared his throat, and continued. “They don’t like nobody but their own. Tell you the truth, I’m surprised they’re even hooked up with Joey.” He thought about it some more. “And I’m surprised Joey’s hooked up with them.” He played with his spoon, his brain figuring all the angles, and I could tell he was as confused by the picture he was getting as I was. “Lemme do some askin’ around over the weekend, Rodriquez, and I’ll get back to you. And the only reason I’m not real worried about Epstein is that Casey and McQueen are involved. If it was just Joey . . .” Instead of completing the sentence, Carmine slapped his hands together in an up and down motion, meaning that Sam Epstein would have been finished on Tuesday night. Done with. Over. And on that cheery thought, I paid the bill and left.

  On the walk to my office, I gave in to the worry that Carmine’s confusion caused. This was a man who was weaned on crooked deals and scams and I wasn’t in the least consoled by the fact that his dislike of the picture I painted confirmed my own suspicions. Then, mid-thought and mid-stride, I changed directions and headed back to the café, creating disruption on the narrow, snaky sidewalk on the narrow, snaky Bowery side street. However, I was just thankful that I’d remembered to go back for the breakfast receipt before I’d gotten too many blocks away so I wouldn’t have to endure both Yolanda’s scorn and a trip all the way back over here later to get it. I wouldn’t have time later, anyway. I had a full day ahead of me.

  This time, because of the time wasted on the return trip, I took a taxi when I left the café, and I remembered to get the receipt. I wanted to be in the office at nine straight up so that I could put in a call to a claims adjuster I knew at Big Apple Business Insurers. His name was Bill Calloway and I’d worked with him before. I didn’t know if he had the Patel fire but I guessed that he did, and I hoped that he’d agree to see me. I was betting, based on discussions with Ravi Patel and Sasha Heller the previous night, that I knew things—important things—that he didn’t know. And if that proved to be the case, then I was counting on the fact that he’d feel some sense of obligation to me for telling him, and to demonstrate his gratitude, he’d stop screwing around with Ravi Patel’s insurance claim check. Of course there was always the possibility that Calloway knew everything I knew and was either ignoring the information or discounting it, or not giving a damn, in which case I’d have to figure out a way to show him the error of his ways. But based on what I knew about Bill Calloway, I didn’t think I had to worry.

  I expected Yolanda to give me a good ribbing about the early morning phone call she received but she surprised me. Instead, I got a big smile and a warm greeting and big dose of the warm fuzzies about the evening with the Patels. She and Sandra, she said, hadn’t enjoyed themselves so much since Thanksgiving. “But it was a really weird feeling, too, Phil, considering that everybody there was a client. With the exception of Jill Mason, we’ve never socialized with clients, have we?”

  “I don’t think so. And you’re right; it does feel kinda strange to enjoy spending time with people who’re paying us. And by the way!” I apologized for the abrupt change of subject, then asked her if she’d known that before last night, I’d thought that I didn’t like Indian food. “I know it sounds silly. It feels silly. But I was just wondering . . . I guess what I’m asking . . . well, dammit, people change, right? I mean, we grow into and out of likes and dislikes, and I was just wondering if it’s possible that I woke up yesterday morning and didn’t like Indian food, but then I ate it, just to be polite really, and it was wonderful! Is that how change happens, you think? Why it happens? Out of necessity?”

  Yolanda came over to my desk, kissed the top of my head, and asked whether I’d brought her a Napoleon and remembered to give Carmine the birthday present for Terry. I gave her the pastry box with two Napoleons inside and she grinned like a little kid, then left me sitting at my desk while she went to get a cup of coffee to accompany her pastry.

  I got my contact list out of the desk drawer, looked up Bill Calloway’s number, and called him. He answered on the first ring. He was surprised and pleased to hear from me, and readily agreed to meet me for lunch without asking why. But I knew why he agreed so readily when he said he’d be in my “neck of the woods anyway around lunch time.” I guessed that was because he’d be meeting his investigator to discuss the Patel fire and to plan the investigation into the family’s background. Part of me was annoyed that I hadn’t gotten the job, but I quickly admitted to myself that I’d much rather be working for the Patels than against them. Of course if Calloway had called me before Ravi showed up in my office, I’d never have gotten the chance to formulate a preference. What’s that Yolanda said: Life’s an interesting journey.

  I spent the rest of the morning writing out my notes. I had three days’ worth. I didn’t like to get that far behind but there had been little private, quiet time in the last three days when I could just sit at my desk and commit to writing everything that I could recall about what I’d said and done, whom I’d seen, and where I’d gone. I realized that I found it difficult to write about the encounter with the Homeland Security agent and I wasn’t certain why. I was fairly certain, though, that I hadn’t seen the last of him. Perhaps that was the source of my difficulty: Since I knew I’d be seeing him again, and since to see him again almost certainly meant an adversarial situation, I’d either have to suck up to him and kiss his ass, or get busted. No wonder I couldn’t write about it. So, I decided to do something pleasant instead. I called Connie. We’d sort of drifted into the habit of spending Friday nights together at my place, and since we’d spent Thursday night together, I wanted to make sure that tonight was still a go. And I had something to say as well.

  “I was just thinking about you,” she said. “And before you ask, don’t ask what I was thinking because I can’t tell you.” The warm humor in her voice gave me the warm humors all over and I realized—like being struck by the proverbial bolt of lightening—why Yolanda didn’t rib me about this morning: She knew before I did what I was feeling.

  “So, how about I tell you what I’m thinking?” I asked.

  “Fine, as long as it doesn’t make me blush.”

  I knew that meant that her office door was open and that there were people wandering in and out, which was a regular Friday occurrence as she organized the week’s files and reports and did what she called general housekeeping. Her office was private but part of a system of counselors and social workers at Beth Israel Hospital that dealt with victims of rape and sexual assault. Her door was closed only when she was with a client. The rest of the time it was open. Like now. “Okay. Two thoughts. Questions, really. If you’d consider leaving some things at my place so that what happened this morning won’t happen again. And if you’d consider staying there on the nights you work late so you won’t have to go all the way uptown so late at night.” I finished talking and thought I knew what that writer meant about waiting to exhale. I waited for a good, long few seconds that felt like a couple of hours.

  Finally she said, “I like it when you have brilliant ideas, Phil, even if you think they’re questions. And I don’t think I’m blushing but I am grinning like a Halloween pumpkin, and I’ll have to call you back later. Bye.”

  I probably looked a lot like a pumpkin, too, as I hung up the phone and continued with my notes, the conversation with Connie having had the desired effect of lightening the heavy feeling I was having about Homeland Security agents. The process also helped me decide on an approach to take with Bill Calloway and clarified some of the confusion I had about the players in this odd game. I certainly was still confused but I think I was beginning to understand clearly why. I didn’t understand at all, though, Mike Kallen’s odd behavior, and as I shifted gears and began to work on the Avenue B apartment building security analysis and recommendation, I realized that I didn’t like Kallen. More than that, I actively disliked him, and I didn’t think it had anything to do with his vacillating abou
t signing the contract and everything to do with the man as a person. Then I told myself it didn’t matter whether I liked him or not; I wasn’t getting paid to have personal feelings for the guy. So I put the feelings on the back burner and busied myself doing what I was getting paid to do. No way, though, I would turn my back on that stove until I knew what was simmering in the pot on that back burner.

  Chapter Five

  Bill Calloway and I hooked up at twelve-thirty sharp at a trendy vegetarian restaurant on First Avenue. He was dressed in jeans, Timberland boots, and wore a hooded sweatshirt under a parka, which confirmed my suspicion that he was on an investigation. I’d met Calloway a couple of years ago while doing some undercover work for a gay nightclub on the West Side. The place was huge—a warehouse with six bars, three game rooms, two video rooms, and three dance floors on three levels, and the owners were raking in so much money that it had taken them months to realize that at least two of their employees were engaged in a sophisticated skimming scam that was costing them three or four thousand dollars a week. I thought that it must be nice to be making so much money that you didn’t miss four grand, and was happy to legally separate the owners from a few of those thousands in exchange for shutting down the illegal payday. I was alternating undercover kitchen work with Mike Smith and Eddie Ortiz. It was my night and I’d gone outside on the loading dock to catch some fresh air. I heard a scuffle in the alley behind the club, heard somebody curse, heard somebody yell, and went to check it out. Three dudes were kicking the shit out of a guy on the ground who’d curled himself into a ball. The three doing kicking were calling the guy on the ground some ugly names, most of them beginning or ending with faggot. The guy on the ground didn’t utter a sound. I picked up a wooden board and started swinging it around and yelling about calling the cops. The three macho types scattered and disappeared into the darkness like the cockroaches they were. The guy on the ground was Bill Calloway.