Gravesend

by J. L. Abramo

  “Are you now threatening my child.”

  “Vincent, please. Be careful how you speak. Put yourself in my place. My arrangement with Tony has nothing to do with what is between you and me. Anthony knew about the requirements of the life he chose. Times have changed, but some unpleasant duties do arise. I would think your son would be honored to be given an opportunity to show his loyalty and his courage. Please, do not make the mistake of taking this as a mark against our own long friendship. Have Anthony come to see me and stop worrying. I am certain that Tony will do the right thing.”

  Territo has nothing more to say. He drinks what remains in his glass of anisette and rises to leave.

  “Thank you for your time,” he says.

  “You must bring your lovely wife to our home for dinner soon,” says Colletti. “It has been too long since you last visited.”

  “We will do that,” says Territo, taking Colletti’s hand in farewell.

  As Vincent Territo exits the restaurant, Sammy Leone returns to the table.

  “Trouble, Don Colletti?” asks Leone.

  “Tony Territo cannot be depended on for this thing. He sends his father to speak for him, like a child. Call my sons; I want to see them in the morning. We will take care of this problem ourselves, before my brother’s widow drives me insane.”

  “So, you’re letting Territo off the hook?” asks Leone, sounding a little disappointed.

  “I am not done with Tony Territo,” says Dominic Colletti. “He still needs a lesson in responsibility and respect.”

  Murphy sits on the sofa and drains the last of his fourth bottle of Samuel Adams lager. He is staring at the television screen, thinking that Steven Seagal is looking old. Too old to be running around the streets of a big city chasing the bad guys.

  Ralph is nudging Murphy’s leg, hoping for another fistful of tortilla chips. Murphy is oblivious. He is wondering if, at the tender age of thirty-four, he is also too old to be running around the streets of the big city chasing bad guys. But even in his beer-induced stupor, Murphy is conscious enough to realize that there is nothing else he knows how to do. Nothing he would rather do.

  Ralph has finally managed to get Murphy’s attention. Murphy drops some chips at his feet and makes an attempt to go after another beer. Before he can wrestle himself from of the grip of the sofa, he is dead asleep.

  Kevin Addams pulls up in front of his girlfriend’s house to drop her off for the night. It is just past one in the morning. They are both freshmen at Kingsborough Community College in Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn’s answer to Isla Vista. They have dated since high school. They have come from a popular club over on 3rd Avenue in Bay Ridge and, though it is a very cold night, they are still warm from the lights and the movement on the dance floor.

  Very early Saturday and Sunday mornings, Kevin covers his father’s delivery route. He has been doing the weekend run since graduation, earning pocket money and giving his father a few nights off. He leans over to kiss the girl goodnight.

  “I wish you didn’t have to go to work,” she says.

  “Tell me about it,” he says, “but then again, it sure helped pay the bar tab tonight.”

  After a long embrace she hops out of the car and skips up to her front door. She stops to blow him a kiss as he pulls away.

  An hour later, Kevin Addams is loading plastic crates of milk, half-and-half, yogurt, cottage cheese and sour cream from the warehouse on Ralph Avenue into the back of the delivery truck.

  The pounding of hot breath on Murphy’s face wakes him. He opens his eyes to find Ralph staring at him, nose to nose. The look in Ralph’s face frees Murphy from the sofa. Murphy struggles into his coat and grabs a plastic evidence bag from the kitchen cabinet. He takes Ralph down to the street to do his business and disposes of the evidence.

  At three in the morning, Kevin Addams is finished loading. He grabs a carton of chocolate milk on his way out to the truck to begin his route. He rolls out onto Ralph Avenue and heads for his first drop. A beat-up Oldsmobile pulls away from the curb a block behind him and follows.

  Addams’ third stop is at a convenience store at the corner of Troy Avenue and Avenue J. It is the only retail shop on the street, surrounded by residences. It is dark and deserted at this hour in the morning.

  Kevin drains the last of the chocolate milk, climbs out of the passenger door and walks to the back of the truck to remove the order. Rock music blares loudly from the stereo speakers. He leans into the truck to reach a crate of milk quarts. He doesn’t hear the man come up behind him. He never knew what hit him.

  The man places the crowbar into the back and lifts the boy up into the truck after it. He takes the syringe from his pocket and injects the boy, finding the jugular vein quickly. He closes the back door and climbs into the driver’s seat of the truck. He slowly pulls away from the curb and heads out Avenue J toward Ocean Parkway.

  Lorraine DiMarco wakes with her head throbbing. She flirts with the idea of getting out of bed to rummage through her medicine cabinet for something that will make it stop. She remembers that she has already tried everything available and nothing is going to work. She buries her head under a pillow and bears the pain.

  He drives up the alley and stops behind the house. He opens the back gate. He pulls the boy from the back of the truck and carries him across the yard to the kitchen door. He opens the door he had unlocked the night before and he drags the boy inside. He closes the door and walks back to the truck. He drives slowly out of the alley and parks the truck on the avenue. He walks back to the house, crosses the yard to the door and grabs the tool satchel from behind the hedge under the kitchen window before going back in.

  Vota wakes with a start. It is four in the morning and the upstairs tenant has decided to rearrange furniture. Vota thinks about getting up to complain, but realizes that it could be worse. The guy could be beating on his drum set. Vota covers his head with a pillow and he tries to recapture sleep.

  He sits Kevin Addams on a chair and hangs the boy’s arm into the kitchen sink. He runs cold water over the boy’s hand as he uses the garden tool to sever the boy’s finger. He pulls a wood-burning tool out of the satchel and plugs it into a wall socket above the sink. He uses the tool to stop the bleeding. He lays the body on the kitchen floor and reaches into the satchel. This time he comes out with an X-Acto knife, something he once used to cut pictures from magazines for his son. He kneels down and begins to work on the boy’s face. He carefully cuts two letters into Kevin Addams’ right cheek. He places a handkerchief over the cuts and returns the knife and the wood-burning tool to the satchel. He pulls a pint bottle of Scotch from the satchel and drinks while the cuts dry.

  He moves the boy’s body into the bedroom and places it on the bed. He finds Kevin Addams’ wallet and slips it into his own coat pocket. He takes the orange crayon out of the same pocket and writes the number on the wall above the bed. He stands over the body and examines his work. He says a short prayer for the boy and leaves the room.

  He moves back to the kitchen, finds a plastic sandwich bag in a cabinet drawer and places the finger in the bag. He puts the plastic bag and the Scotch into the satchel and leaves the house.

  He walks the alley out to the avenue and climbs into the milk truck. He drives back to where he picked up the Addams boy, flinging the boy’s wallet from the window of the truck along the way. He parks in front of the grocery store and retrieves the pry bar from the back of the milk truck. He thinks about helping himself to a quart of milk, but he decides that it would be dishonest. He walks to his car and drives home.

  Back in his own kitchen, he takes the plastic bag from the tool satchel and places it in the freezer. Alongside the other. He rinses the shears and drops the empty drug vial and the orange crayon into the garbage disposal. He takes the bottle of Scotch into his son’s room. The note he had written on the blank side of a coloring book cover lies on the small bed.

  He sits on the floor with the bottle.

  And that is
where he falls asleep.

  Surrounded by toys.

  SIX

  Sunday morning.

  Murphy wakes up at dawn. He is pleased to discover that he had found his way to his bed and had not slept the entire night on the sofa, covered in tortilla chips.

  Thirty minutes later he is running the track at Fort Hamilton High School with Ralph running to his right as always, a pace or two behind. Murphy alternates his runs between the straight path along the Shore Road Promenade and the school oval.

  Murphy completes his final lap and stops to run in place for a slow count to sixty. Ralph uses the opportunity to chase a squirrel across the field. They return to the apartment and Murphy takes a quick shower before cooking eggs for himself and his dog.

  George Addams has received two phone calls already and it is before seven in the morning. So much for getting some sleep on one of his few days off. The calls complain about missed dairy deliveries and Addams is thinking about how he is going to wring his son’s neck when he gets his hands on the kid. The third phone call has Addams out of the bed and quickly getting into his clothing.

  “What is it, George?” his wife asks.

  “That was one of our customers. He just arrived to open his shop and found the delivery truck sitting out front,” says Addams.

  “Kevin?”

  “I don’t know. This guy says that the truck was abandoned. I’m going down there.”

  Addams hurries quickly to his car and races out toward Troy Avenue.

  Vota wakes from a bad dream. The dream had something to do with fingers. Fingers not attached to hands. He becomes aware of his own hand. It has swollen over night, the skin tight across his knuckles. He tries to make a fist and finds it difficult and painful. Vota wonders how it will affect his ability to handle his firearm. Then he wonders why he would be thinking about having to use his gun.

  George Addams pulls in behind the delivery truck. He gets out of his car, goes to the truck and opens the back door. He knows that this is the third stop on the route; Kevin would have arrived here shortly after three this morning. He can tell that the first two deliveries were taken off the truck. The order for this drop is still onboard.

  The convenience store owner is out in front of his shop, his coat collar turned up against the early morning chill. He is untying bundles of Sunday newspapers and arranging them on a metal stand just outside his door. Addams is thinking about taking the store’s delivery off the back of the truck. It is a habit. Then he sees the blood on the truck bed. Addams jumps into his car and speeds up Avenue J to the 63rd Police Precinct, four blocks away on Brooklyn Avenue. The store owner watches Addams race off, wondering if he will ever see his milk and cream.

  Murphy calls down to the computer lab and checks in with the phone bank. Nothing has come of the search for drug dealers marketing anything like Pavulon. Nothing has come up running the initials J and G against known violent offenders. There are no remotely similar MOs. The phone calls to area hospitals, to inquire about recent missing pharmaceuticals, have not yet begun. Murphy asks again that the request be given a high priority.

  The report of a teen leaving his job in the middle of a shift doesn’t sound like a call-to-arms situation to the desk sergeant at the Flatlands Precinct, despite Addams’ insistence that his son would not have just walked away.

  The appearance of blood in the back of the truck does peak Sergeant Santiago’s interest slightly, at least enough to send a squad car over to look at the vehicle.

  The cell at Rikers Island is a large, rectangular room, fifty feet long by twenty feet wide. There are two commodes against the back wall, sitting out in the open. On the wall to the right of the toilets are two small porcelain sinks. Along the same wall, running up to the front of the cell, are five tables with bench-type seats, looking like discards from a picnic ground. Mounted high on the wall at the front of the cell, facing into the room and away from the front bars, is a small television. It is always on. The prisoners have no control over the channel selection. It is always tuned to ESPN or the Discovery Channel. In order to watch anything else a written request has to be made, endorsed by at least seven of the twelve cellmates.

  Along the opposite wall are the twelve individual cells, each four by seven feet. Each has a sleeping bench, bolted to the floor and wall. These cells remain open to the main room all day, between wake-up and lights-out. The bright lights remain lit during this fifteen-hour period. At ten in the evening the prisoners need to be in these cells, when the barred doors slide into place and the cells go dark.

  At seven each morning, the lights flash on and a shrill alarm rings through a speaker mounted on the wall above the TV. The prisoners have fifteen minutes to be ready to leave the cell, or miss breakfast. There are two more trips to the mess hall during the day, for lunch and dinner.

  When prisoners aren’t out of the cell on work duty or yard privileges, they sit at the wooden tables playing card games or dominos. Some sit reading law books; others write or stare blankly at the television screen.

  Bobby Hoyle remains in his small cell.

  Hoyle is afraid of the other cellmates. He is frightened by the incessant yelling and arguing, the throwing of objects and the physical altercations.

  Bobby has not used the toilet in two days except to urinate. It is partly due to the constant knot in his stomach and mostly due to his modesty. Hoyle passes his hours sitting or lying on his bed, blinded by the harsh white light.

  Hoyle has to keep reminding himself that it is Sunday morning, and that his brother Ron has promised to get him out the next day.

  As unaccustomed as Bobby is to appealing to a higher power, he prays that he can make it through another day.

  George Addams is filling out a short missing persons questionnaire in a small room at the 63rd Precinct. Kevin Peter Addams. Age 19. 170 pounds. 5’ 11”. Hair brown. Eyes brown. Three clustered scars on left leg from being spiked in a high school baseball game.

  Addams thinks about calling his wife, but he doesn’t know what he could say. He could try convincing her that everything will be alright, if he could convince himself. He has a bad feeling. He has been waiting for his cell phone to ring, waiting to hear from his wife that Kevin has come home and that she is preparing Sunday breakfast for Kevin and the girls and that he should hurry back before the waffles get cold. He decides not to call and drives back to the delivery truck.

  Lorraine DiMarco wakes with a song going through her head. It is something by the Lovin’ Spoonful called “Do You Believe in Magic.” It was a song on one of the vinyl record albums that her brother left behind when he went off to Vietnam, that her mother saved when Sal didn’t come home alive and that Lorraine had spinning on the turntable constantly throughout her adolescence. While other kids her age listened to punk rock, Lorraine listened to the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, and the Supremes.

  When the song stops playing in her head, Lorraine realizes to her happy surprise that the headache is gone.

  Murphy calls Samson at home to bring him up to speed on the progress of the investigation.

  Detective Murphy doesn’t like the idea of bothering the lieutenant on Samson’s day off, but then again it is supposed to be a day off for Murphy as well.

  And what makes it less agreeable is that there is really no progress to report at all.

  After Murphy’s phone call, Samson feels a pull to go into the Precinct. He wants to be doing more; he wants to believe that something more can be done.

  At the same time, he wants to stay home with his family, do something with the girls and have a talk with his son. He wants to know more about what his son is doing and who he is doing it with. He puts thoughts about going into Brooklyn out of his mind. Lou Vota will be there manning the fort, and Lou will call if something comes up.

  Samson shifts his attention to preparing breakfast for the kids.

  George Addams gets back to the convenience store and finds a squad car parked behind the delivery truck. Two of
ficers sit in the car, engine running to battle the cold.

  A young woman stands alone at the back of the truck, slipping on a pair of plastic gloves. She turns to watch Addams as he approaches and offers him a smile.

  “Detective Rosen. I’m as close as they could come to an evidence collector this early on a Sunday morning,” she says, avoiding the words crime scene investigator.

  “George Addams. It’s my son who is missing.”

  She turns her attention to the truck and speaks while she takes a sample of the blood from the truck bed.

  “Do many people drive this vehicle? I was wondering how many sets of prints we might find.”

  “Quite a few,” says Addams.

  “We’ll need to keep the truck here for awhile, until we can give it a thorough going over. The keys are in the ignition; maybe you could do me a favor and check if it turns over. Try not to touch anything in the cab. In fact,” she says, pulling another pair of gloves from her coat and handing him one, “use this to turn the key.”

  Addams goes to the front of the truck, pulling on the glove as he walks.