Without Fear or Favor

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  “Your reasons are why Eddie Evans didn’t throw in with us,” Gilliam pointed out. “And we could have used his help.”

  “Evans? You mean Tony’s partner?” Cippio asked. “What’s he got to do with this?”

  “We were thinking he might join our little club,” Gilliam said. “Seeing as how him and Tony were close.”

  “If they were so close, he should have been with his partner, and maybe nothing would have happened,” Johnny Delgado, the driver of the car, remarked.

  “Kind of makes you wonder if he was in on it,” Satars added.

  “I swear to God, you two, if you were any dumber, you’d be a couple of sticks,” Gilliam said. “Evans is a good officer. It was a bad situation.”

  “Just saying that sometimes race is thicker than the blood cops bleed every day to protect people who don’t give a damn,” Satars said.

  “And I’m just saying to keep your yap shut.”

  The men were quiet for a minute before Cippio spoke again. “So how’s this going to go down?”

  “Well, our friend the reverend is learning right about now that his girlfriend is not at home,” Gilliam replied. “He’ll be calling her in five, four, three . . .”

  The cell phone next to Gilliam rang.

  “You going to answer that?” Cippio asked.

  Gilliam shook his head. “No. You see, what that horny little bastard doesn’t know is that Miss Lucinda Barnes, age nineteen—”

  “And one fine-looking piece of brown ass,” Delgado interjected.

  “As I was saying, Miss Lucinda Barnes, an illegal immigrant from Jamaica, was arrested this afternoon with a kilo of cocaine in her possession. She was quite distraught . . .

  “. . . especially since Joe and Johnny planted the coke in her apartment when she was out yesterday. My two associates here work in narcotics, so procuring the necessary contraband was no problem. Nor was convincing Miss Barnes to accept our offer to leave the country and return home rather than spend the flower of her youth in the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women.”

  “What if she changes her mind and says something?” Cippio asked.

  Satars and Delgado laughed. “Jamaica is the violent crime and murder capital of the Caribbean,” Delgado said. “All sorts of bad things can happen down there to an attractive young woman. We have friends with the Kingston Police Department; Joe and I take little vacations down there all the time. They’ll look in on her for us.”

  “You got it all figured out.”

  “You okay with this?” Gilliam asked, giving him a look. “You can back out now and no one will think less of you. We’re doing this for Tony.”

  Cippio shook his head. “Nah, like I told you the other day. I hold this guy and that asshole Sefu responsible for the murder of my son. They stirred the hatred up; no different than pulling the trigger themselves. I want blood for blood. I didn’t know you guys were taking care of things, but I’m grateful that somebody is. I’ve lost two sons to fucking terrorists, and if I can stop one more father from having to go through what I’ve gone through, then I’m good with this and what you got done with Sefu.”

  “That was easy,” Satars boasted. “Tiny Adkins is one of the most dangerous and notorious white supremacists in the system, and he runs the meth trade inside the joint. He was only too happy to do us a favor so long as the guards don’t check his girlfriend too closely when she comes to visit—if you know what I mean. And I got a cousin works in the Tombs, all he had to do was leave a sharpened toothbrush in Adkins’s cell and let them both out in the yard at the same time.”

  “I thought we weren’t going to talk about it,” Gilliam growled.

  “Ah, what the fuck, Adkins won’t talk. He knows he’s not getting out and he likes being the big man on the inside,” Satars said, “and Vince here, he’s one of us.”

  “You can trust me,” Cippio agreed. “Like I said, these guys as good as pointed the gun at my boy’s head. Good riddance. But what about the bodyguard in the limo?”

  “He comes back promptly at midnight,” Gilliam said. “When the reverend doesn’t show, he’ll go check on him. After that, a friend of ours with the One-Nine Precinct will oversee the investigation.”

  “Think we’ll get away with it?”

  “Oh, I’m sure his pals will have their suspicions, and there’ll be a hullabaloo,” Gilliam said. “But the investigation’s going to say suicide. You’ll see why in a minute . . . Hold on a moment while I text the reverend.” He picked up the cell phone from the seat and began tapping on the screen, speaking as he typed. “I want one million in my account . . . or . . . photos in nightstand go to Times.”

  “What photos?” Cippio said when Gilliam looked up.

  “A couple of weeks ago, we put a camera in the bedroom,” Delgado replied. “I tell you, for an old bastard, the guy can go to town.” He laughed, as did Satars.

  “I don’t get it. We’re just going to blackmail him after all this?” Cippio said, scowling. “I thought—”

  “Don’t worry,” Gilliam said. “You’ll get your revenge. The photos are just part of the cover-up. Let’s go.”

  “You going to send that?” Cippio said, nodding at the phone.

  “In a minute,” Gilliam said, as he and the other two cops got out of the car. Cippio followed them.

  Delgado and Satars walked quickly across the dark street. They hesitated under a streetlight, looking around, then disappeared around the side of the building. Gilliam popped the trunk of the car and pulled out a bag. He motioned to Cippio, and they followed the others to the emergency exit at the back of the building.

  Using a skeleton key, Satars opened the door. “No camera,” Gilliam whispered, pointing to where a security camera would have normally been placed. He then pressed Send on Lucinda Barnes’s cell phone.

  The men made their way up the stairs to the fourth floor, where a quick scan showed that no one else was present. Satars again slipped the key in the lock, and they swiftly entered the apartment and made their way to the bedroom.

  Sitting on the bed, holding a set of photographs and looking dumbfounded, was Reverend Mufti. He looked up. “Who are you?”

  Gilliam didn’t speak, just reached into the bag and pulled out a length of rope with a noose on one end. At the same moment, he raised a Taser and shot Mufti, who flopped onto the floor and lay there twitching.

  Delgado stepped forward and yanked the reverend to his feet. Satars arrived from the kitchen with a chair while Gilliam threw the rope over an exposed beam in the ceiling.

  As he was coming to, Mufti realized what was happening. “No, wait!” he cried out. “I can pay you. Look in my suit pocket. The little notebook. It’s all my accounts at a bank in the Grand Caymans. There’s plenty to go around.”

  Instead, Satars stuffed a sock in Mufti’s mouth, and then the two younger cops lifted him onto the chair. Gilliam threw the noose around the desperately pleading man’s neck and pulled it tight, tying the other end around a leg of the bed.

  “Want to do the honors?” Gilliam asked Cippio, nodding at the chair.

  “Yeah, sure,” Cippio said, but instead of kicking the chair out from under Mufti, he pulled a gun from the holster beneath his jacket. “You’re under arrest.”

  “You fucking bastard,” Delgado said as he started for Cippio, but he backed off as the barrel swung to point at his face.

  “What is this, Vince?” Gilliam asked. “I thought you wanted to avenge Tony?”

  “Not like this,” Cippio said.

  “Fucking nigger lover,” Satars spat, but whatever else he was going to say was interrupted by a deep voice behind them.

  “You want to repeat that to my face?” Detective Clay Fulton said as he entered the room. Behind him a half dozen detectives from the DA’s Office followed with their guns drawn. “Get on your knees and keep your hands where I can see them!”

  Cippio removed the noose from around Mufti’s neck and helped him step down from the chair. The
reverend’s eyes were still wide in fear. “They tried to lynch me,” he said, pointing a shaking finger at the three rogue cops as they were being cuffed.

  “Yes, sir,” Fulton replied. “It appeared that way. I’d like you to come down to the station to give a statement.”

  “What? So you can do me like you did Imani Sefu?”

  “No, sir. You’re not under arrest. We’d just like to get your statement, then you’ll be free to go,” Fulton explained.

  Mufti was silent and then the realization came over his face. “You knew they were going to do this, and you let them almost do it.”

  “We knew they planned something,” Fulton said, “but we didn’t know what. Mr. Cippio here is a former police officer, and he was our guy on the inside. He wasn’t going to let you be harmed, and we were listening the whole time.”

  “A wire? I told you not to trust this son of a bitch,” Satars angrily reminded Gilliam.

  Gilliam’s broad face was red with anger as he turned to Cippio. “You turned on your fellow officers for a piece of trash like this, a man who advocates killing cops? What would your sons say?”

  Cippio leaned over until his face was a few inches from Gilliam’s. “My sons? Don’t talk to me about my sons. My sons wouldn’t have wiped their shoes on scumbags like you. You dishonored everything good they stood for; you don’t deserve to wear the uniform they died in. It’s too bad they won’t be able to tell you that themselves, because where you’re going after they pull you out of prison in a box is straight to hell.”

  Fulton placed a hand on Cippio’s shoulder. “It’s okay, Vince. Your sons are proud of you, and so is every cop who wears the uniform for the right reasons.” He turned to his men. “Get this trash out of here.”

  13

  THE RAGGEDY WOMAN SCURRIED ALONG the dark streets, casting frequent fearful glances over her shoulder and peering anxiously into the shadows as she passed alleys. This wasn’t her usual part of town; she preferred north of Central Park, in Harlem, even though beneath the layer of grime she was white. It just seemed that most of the people there didn’t look down on her as much as they did in the wealthier parts of Manhattan like Chelsea, the Village, or here on the edge of SoHo.

  Actually, the woman wished she didn’t have to wander at night looking for the—she stopped and looked at the note she’d scribbled on the palm of her hand—Housing Works Bookstore . . . near Crosby and Prince. But she’d seen something and her conscience was guiding her feet. Oh, she tried to ignore it, forget about what she’d seen. She told herself that nobody would believe her anyway and that it would be dangerous to talk. Not just because of what she saw, and who was involved, but because a street person talking to the authorities might get her killed just as a matter of principle. Snitches couldn’t be trusted.

  Yet not doing anything ate at her, reminded her of what she had been, not who she had become. She’d known the truth and had said nothing. In the meantime, people had rioted and people had been hurt. She blamed herself, and sleep, which she never got much of in the best of times, rarely lasted more than an hour or two before she’d wake up with it on her mind.

  Tormented, she’d finally gone to talk to her spiritual counselor, though he was a far cry from the Catholic priests she’d known as a child. The man she sought out for his guidance wasn’t ordained or even a graduate from a seminary or school of theology. He was just someone who cared about the poor and forsaken, interested in the priesthood but eventually rejecting it to pursue evil men as their judge, jury, and executioner. The King of the Mole People. David Grale.

  Although she preferred to live aboveground, at least until the bitter winds of winter chased her below the streets, she knew she could find him in the large underground cavern that was the principal “city” of the Mole People. No one knew exactly how many hundreds of people, many of them entire families, lived in what was once going to be a part of the New York City subway system, hollowed out but since abandoned. The area was close enough to where the track eventually ran for the electricians and engineers among them to tap into the electricity without draining enough to be noticed.

  David Grale ruled his kingdom from there, at least when he wasn’t out on the streets where, legend had it but few knew for sure, he hunted and killed evil demons in the shape of men. He sat in a large throne-like chair recovered from some Dumpster, on a large shelf above the main floor that originally had been intended as a station platform. He was like some mad Shakespearean king with his pale haggard face, burning cavernous eyes, and hooded robe. He held court there, hearing the complaints and requests from his subjects, passing judgment, making ultimate decisions for the group.

  Grale’s moods were as difficult to predict as the man himself. He could be kind and gentle, a father to his flock. Or he could be an insane despot, harsh and unbending, especially when dealing with others’ “sins”—whether in the outside world or among his people, where breaking the rules could get one exiled and committing the crime of rape or murder could mean death.

  However, on the day she’d finally worked up the courage to approach his dais, he smiled and greeted her like an old friend, inviting her to sit in the chair next to him. “What’s troubling you, my child?” he asked. “I can see it in your face.”

  She hesitated, afraid that if she started, there would be no turning back. “I saw something that I should report to the police,” she said. “But I’m afraid.”

  “What are you afraid of?” Grale said, furrowing his brow.

  “People. People involved in what I saw. But also just people. You know my story.”

  “We all come with stories,” Grale replied. “You’re safe here. Now what is it that you saw?”

  The woman had looked into his deep brown eyes, saw the madness that lurked around the edges but also the humanity in their centers. So she told him.

  When she finished, Grale bowed his head in thought. “We don’t tell each other how to live our lives here. As long as you live by the rules and do no harm to others, each person is left alone to wrestle with his or her own conscience. I do know your past. But these are evil men and evil times; good people need to stand up to them.”

  The woman trembled. “I’m afraid.”

  “I understand,” Grale said. “I can tell you that there is no danger from one of the men you saw, the big one. But there are a lot of forces at work here, and not just one man, so I won’t tell you there is no danger.”

  “Couldn’t you tell them?” she pleaded.

  Grale reached out and stroked her cheek with a long, bony finger. “You, better than most, know I can’t. Nor should I.”

  The woman began to cry. “I can’t do it alone.”

  Looking at her thoughtfully, Grale said, “What if I introduced you to someone, a friend, someone I would trust with my own life, to guide you through this? She would see that you are safe.”

  The woman felt doubt. “Why would she do this for me?”

  Grale smiled. “Because it would be the right thing to do. And because she is a good person, someone put here by God to fight the forces of darkness. If you like, I will get a message to her and the two of you can meet. You can decide then if you want to continue on this path.”

  So the meeting had been arranged at this bookstore known for helping people with AIDS find housing. She’d taken the 4 train to Houston Street and walked the few blocks, sure that she was being followed and that some bogeyman would jump out of the shadows at any moment. But at last she came to the bookstore, where she stood looking up at the entrance.

  She considered turning away. But the voice that had been talking to her from the past wouldn’t let her. The next thing she knew she was opening the door and walking into the bookstore. The musty scent of old books and strong coffee from the little café in the back reassured her.

  As she made her way toward the back, a petite, dark-haired woman sitting in a chair reading looked up. “Judy?” she asked and smiled. “Judy Pardo?”

  “Marlene Ciampi?
”

  “That’s me,” Ciampi said, rising. “Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

  “Yes, thank you, that would be nice.”

  Fortified with their drinks, Ciampi led the way back to a private cubicle. “So, do you want to tell me what this is about?”

  Pardo started slowly. That day. The alley. The two men and the teenage boy. The gun. The man who chased her.

  When she finished, Ciampi was quiet for a moment, studying her. “You know you need to come forward,” she said. “Probably testify.”

  Pardo hung her head and started to cry. “I don’t know that I can.”

  Ciampi leaned forward and put her hand on the woman’s arm. “People’s lives depend on it. A bad man is out there on the streets. And that boy died because of him.”

  Pardo was suddenly conscious of the ragged clothes she wore. The dirt on her hands and her unkempt hair. “I’ll be humiliated,” she cried. “I’ve been to jail for drugs . . . heroin . . . and something else I’m even more ashamed of.”

  “There are a lot of things in my life I’m not very proud of,” Marlene said.

  “Looking at you, I doubt it was something like this,” Pardo said. “I’ve also been arrested and convicted for prostitution.”

  “Are you still involved in the life?”

  Pardo started to shake her head but then shrugged. “I’m not now. But I’ve quit before, and the heroin always gets me back into it. I do good for a while. Even work jobs. But something goes wrong. I have a bad day, or my boyfriend leaves me, or I just think about the life I had and where I’m at now, and I’m right back out there doing whatever I need to do for another hit.”

  “Do you want to quit?” Marlene asked gently. “You know as well as I do that’s the first step. If you go forward with this . . . telling somebody what you saw, and I think you should . . . you’re going to need to get clean. If you want, I can help get you into a place where you’ll get help and you’ll be safe. But are you ready?”

  Pardo sat still for a moment, then nodded. “I’m ready. And I’m ready to do the right thing.”