by Justin Scott
The phone rang again. It was the FBI agent’s supervisor pressing his man for a prediction. Warner motioned for the agent to cover the mouthpiece. “He’s worried about holding a ton of agents over the holiday, isn’t he?”
“For one maybe tip.”
“Yeah, well, I figure the Maf probably wants to take the weekend off, too. Tell him it’s coming down any minute.”
“Are you sure?”
“We’ve busted so many suppliers they’re hurting for product. They’re not going to sit on that stuff.”
The agent promised his supervisor an imminent bust and hung up gingerly. “Jesus, I hope you’re right.”
“Hey, hey! Here we go.” A van was turning onto the sidewalk; its horn blew and the door opened. Warner stepped back to let the Feds look through the telescope. “That’s the lab I told you about.”
The Strikeforce backed a theatrical hauler’s truck into the garage’s Forty-fourth Street driveway, where it looked in place, if thoughtlessly parked, just down the street from the banners of the New Dramatists Guild and The Actors Studio.
On Forty-fifth, the agents blocked one garage door with a Con Ed truck and the second with barricades behind which they started to drill holes in the street. Forty agents in bulletproof vests crouched inside the vans, with cutting tools and battering rams. When the police had quietly saturated the Ninth and Tenth Avenue ends of both blocks, the FBI man in the metal shop started to call the shots, with Jack Warner watching over his shoulder.
Both vans reported they were set, as were the cops. “Okay, let’s—” the FBI agent started to say.
But Jack Warner seized the telephone. A blue Buick was rolling toward the garage. “Hold it! We want this guy.”
“Who’s that?”
“That’s Nino Vetere’s car, but it can’t be him. One of his geeps, in case somebody needs to be killed.” The Buick blew its horn at the barricades. The driver shouted not to block the entrance, and the agents attired in workboots and yellow Con Ed hardhats obligingly lifted their saw horses.
“Give him a minute to check the stuff out,” Warner cautioned. “Maybe the bastards’ll get some on their fingers.”
Then, in an act of bravery that gave Warner the shivers to think about, an athletic DEA agent had herself lowered silently from the roof, five stories down a shaft into the car elevator. She wrapped her ample thighs around the head of the hitter guarding the entrance, stuck a gun in his ear, and asked him to throw the switch that raised the door. Twenty agents piled into the building while the drug distributors were occupied running chemical tests in the back of their van.
For a minute it looked like a clean bust.
Then the blue Buick came screaming out of the darkness, scattering the agents in the doorway and flinging the young woman over its hood. The car skidded on howling tires onto Forty-fifth Street and raced for Tenth Avenue. Warner, who ordinarily stayed out of the action to maintain his cover, charged after it. Somebody in that car was either very stupid or very desperate, and he had to know which.
The Buick ran onto the sidewalk when it reached the Corrections Department bus blocking the intersection. A quick-thinking patrolman filled the space with his prowl car and the Buick crashed into it, bounced off a wall, and stopped.
Cops with riot guns surrounded the wreck. They pulled a bloodied figure out in handcuffs, and Warner was astonished to see that it was Nino Vetere himself. A heavy-duty Cirillo crew leader, maybe number one, Vetere reported directly to underboss Nicholas, the elder son and heir apparent of Don Richard, the chief of the clan.
Agents were staring with their mouths open in disbelief. One did not find major Mafia guys on the street. No wonder he had run. Vetere was already in deep, deep trouble, awaiting trial on federal racketeering charges. Now, with a major heroin arrest, he was looking at the rest of his life in jail, and the Strikeforce prosecutors were going to pound his balls to flip.
His testimony would be golden, Warner knew, since he knew how the Cirillos ran their family. If they convicted Nicholas on Vetere’s testimony, old Don Richard, who was trying to retire, had no one left to control the family but Crazy Mikey, his younger son, who was aptly nicknamed.
Warner approached an FBI agent he knew well. “Better get his family into protection or he won’t deal.”
“We’re miles ahead of you, Jack. The marshals are on their way.”
“Great! What about his girlfriend?”
“What?”
“His girlfriend. It’s not enough protecting his wife and kids. He won’t testify if the Cirillos can get to his mistress.”
“I didn’t know he had one.”
Warner wrote down her name and address.
But he was baffled by what in hell Vetere was doing at a heroin buy in the first place. Mobsters as high as him were supposed to stay miles above the product. They dealt in money twice removed —and even that they didn’t actually touch.
Someone had set him up; Warner had a feeling he knew who.
Blue shades of evening darkened the city. At the base of the Taggart Spire a bare bulb was already burning in the gate shack, as were Park Avenue’s street lamps and lights in the surrounding buildings, but so tall was the partially built skyscraper that the upper works still blazed red and gold in the sun.
The construction site was quiet with the workmen gone. A tall plywood fence muffled the sound of traffic and the sweet clicking of high heels on the sidewalk, and the job seemed deserted except for the night watchman and his German shepherd, which closed its eyes when it recognized a perspiring Jack Warner as he swaggered through the gate.
“You believe this weather?”
“Radio said cooler tonight.”
“Yeah? What kind of Memorial Day they gonna sell us? Gimme a hardhat.”
Warner knew that the watchman was a retired cement-truck driver. The old guy probably figured him for a Taggart Construction front-office superintendent or a union boss, or even one of the mob hoods who stopped by for their payoffs.
“We’ll keep the elevator.”
It rose noisily through the cavernous lobby shell, ten stories of empty space—Taggart’s big “fuck you,” Warner thought, to the price of square footage in midtown Manhattan and to Taggart’s nearest competitors, the smaller Trump and Olympia towers on Fifth Avenue, the IBM and AT&T buildings on Madison, and the Citicorp complex to the east. The Spire’s interior walls were taking shape on the lower office floors. Higher up, the floors were open to the glass skin. The fiftieth to seventieth floors were not yet sheathed and their decks were bare concrete, while the very top floors—destined to be apartments, and still sprouting three V-shaped derricks—stood wide open, raw lattices of steel through which the wind gusted freely.
A figure waited on the highest girder, a thousand feet above Manhattan. His narrow steel perch, cantilevered beyond the columns that supported it, thrust thirty feet into empty air. He swayed at the end, on the very edge, leaning into the wind.
Christopher Taggart turned from the sunset, half his face shining, half in darkness. “Join me.”
Warner shivered. He looked down and regretted it instantly. This side of the building dropped sheer to the sidewalk, and they were too high to distinguish people in the dusk. The taxis were specks chasing hairs of light.
“How about you meeting me halfway, Mr. Taggart?”
“Chicken?”
“If I were, at least I’d have wings.”
Taggart laughed appreciatively and headed in from the precipice. His light, rolling gait, broad shoulders, and lean waist reminded Warner of a boxer’s. Warner edged out to the pillar and by the time he had closed grateful fingers around the nearby upright, Taggart was leaning casually on the other side.
“Don’t move!”
Taggart swung around the pillar and expertly patted Warner’s chest, back, and legs; next he felt his waist for a Nagra recorder inside his belt. Warner, who took the same precautions with his contacts, submitted without complaint.
�
�How in hell do you stand it up here?”
“One time when my brother and I were feeling our oats, my father hired us out as ironworkers. We were scared shitless, but more scared he’d belt us with a two-by-four if we didn’t have the balls for it.”
“My old man beat the shit out of me, too,” Warner said. “Musta been seventeen before I was big enough to deck the bastard... I still don’t mind saying I’d like to meet elsewhere.”
“Elsewhere? How about one of the tables the Strikeforce bugs at the Brasserie?”
“You know what I mean.”
Taggart swung back to his side, peered around the column, and looked Warner in the face. “I know this is the most private place in New York, Detective Warner. Start talking.”
“I was all day with the prosecutors breaking down Nino Vetere. Nino said he wanted to score big to take care of his children before he got convicted on the RICO charge.” The reference was to the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization act; RICO, for short, cost twenty years and the Strikeforce lawyers brushed their teeth with it every morning. “Nino was looking at life or damned close, so he sings and turns in his crews. ‘No way, Barf Brain, that’s not enough. Give us more. Give us the guy running the Cirillos. Give us Nicholas Cirillo.’ And he finally says, ‘Okay, get me out of this and I’ll show you how old Don Cirillo’s still running the family through Nicholas.’”
Warner looked at Taggart to gauge his reaction; Taggart stared through him. “I know most of this from the radio. I can guess the rest.”
Guess this, Warner thought, again watching closely for reaction. “Nobody knows where the dope came from. The original Sicilian stuff went south when the Feds leaked. The street says it was sold in Florida. Which sounds like somebody brought in new stuff and gave it to the Cirillos, pretending it was the stuff they had paid for. Who the hell gives away five million bucks of heroin?”
“Who cares?” Taggart snapped impatiently. “Vetere and Nicky Cirillo are old news. What did you find on the Rizzolos?”
“The Rizzolos are being their usual weird selves.”
Taggart had some particular interest in the Rizzolos, which Warner hadn’t figured out yet. They were a small Brooklyn family who were sort of odd man out, the smallest of the New York crime groups—maybe a hundred “made” members and four hundred soldiers—and also the tightest, and very independent. They had broken from the Cirillos, and when the Cirillos had hit back, the clan had made what came to be called the Rizzolo War so bloody that the Cirillos had finally backed off and left them alone. Their response to the Strikeforce had been just as unpredictable.
“Strikeforce hits their bookie joints, but nobody’s there. They just went out of business—empty storefronts, not even a piece of paper. They even took the phone jacks. It’s the same with the numbers bank. So the Strikeforce hits that big coke operation I told you about that Eddie Rizzolo stole from the Colombians. Nada. Like their street guys are bus drivers and waiters, period. ’Course they can’t shut down forever.”
Gazing at the setting sun, Taggart asked, “Have you figured out who’s running the Rizzolos?”
Warner shrugged, uncomfortable with the idea, yet moved by the evidence. “Maybe you figured right. The sister might be the real boss. Eddie ‘the Cop’ and Frank are just plain dumb guys. Like you said, since the Strikeforce put old Don Eddie away, somebody’s been running the Rizzolos just fine.”
“She sounds like an interesting woman.”
“Listen, Mr. Taggart.” Jack was getting used to the height, as he did each time. So long as he could hold on to something solid.
Taggart turned his head, alert to a new note in Warner’s voice. “What?”
Warner took a determined breath. “Things are moving real smooth on my end.”
“Then what’s your problem?”
“The thing is, Mr. Taggart. I think I been with you from the start on this, right?”
“Early on.”
“And I think you’ll agree I’m pulling my weight and then some. What you know of the mob, you know through me. I been your expert. I been your man in the field, your contact. I—”
“You want a gold star, Jack?”
Warner took another deep breath. “I know what you’re doing.”
Taggart waited.
“The bust this morning was a setup,” Warner said.
“So?”
“What do you say we cut the shit? I know what’s going on. You been using my information to turn in the bosses.”
“Your information? You’re a cop. If your information is so good, why don’t you arrest them yourself?”
“You’re getting information from other people, too. The Crime Commission, other cops you hang out with, federal agents, and connected guys you’re tight with—yeah, I know about them—and construction guys you do business with. Maybe even your brother.”
“Not my brother!” Taggart said sharply. “Tony is one hundred percent straight. He always has been and he always will be.”
“But yes to the others?”
“What do you want?”
Warner was startled; Taggart’s question was as good as a confession. He said, “I want in.”
“In?”
“Share. I want a piece of it.”
Taggart’s reply was deceptively soft, but Warner wasn’t fooled. The builder’s whole body seemed rigid with tension; he could almost feel him stiffening though the pillar. “What if I told you I’m not doing it for the money?”
“You’re not doing it for the money?” Warner shrugged. “You’re so rich you don’t want money? Then you won’t mind sharing the profits.”
“What if there are no profits?”
“No profits? Who you kidding? Crime pays, man. It pays big—I figure half’s fair. Huh?”
Taggart stared across the Hudson for a full minute. The sun slipped into an envelope of cloud and the sky flamed behind the New Jersey hills. Warner looked around anxiously. The air was clearing as the humid heat lifted. To the east, stars were rising over Long Island. In the southeast, the lights of a single freighter plowed into the black spread of the Atlantic Ocean. The wind was accelerating, dry and cool. His perspiration-dampened shirt felt suddenly cold.
“Jack, you still carry that money clip I gave you?”
“What? Money clip? Yeah.”
“Let me see it.”
Warner pulled a gold Tiffany clip from his trousers. His initials, in diamonds, spelled how well he had done over the years selling information to Christopher Taggart. Taggart pulled his own clip from his pocket and transferred five folded C-notes to Warner’s. “Cab fare,” he said with a fathomless smile. “Let me see your wallet.”
As Warner passed Taggart his pigskin wallet, he flipped it open to flash his tin—a blunt warning not to try to buy him off cheap. Eighteen years and he still felt the surge. An NYPD shield asked a potent question: Do you want to fuck with a man who has twenty thousand partners?
Taggart put wallet and shield in his pocket.
“Why—?”
“So you don’t drop ’em.”
A long arm streaked out of the sky as Taggart whirled around the pillar and his big hand fell like a hammer. The blow enveloped Warner’s face and with two hundred pounds behind it flung him into the air.
Warner felt the column wrenched from his hand. Then he was falling. The black sky whirled into city lights, building tops, blazing windows. The street looked like a dark ribbon and nothing was between it and his falling body. He screamed.
He was brought up short, hanging upside down by one foot. Warner looked up through his flailing legs and saw Taggart’s immense hand clamped around his ankle. His blue eyes had turned dark with fury.
“Don’t you ever hit me for a payoff!“
“Please.”
“You got that?”
“Please, Mr. Taggart.”
“Say yes.”
“Yes. Yes. Yes.”
“You are doing a good job, Jack. But not good enough to shake me d
own.” He pulled him toward the girder. Warner reached and stretched and at last touched the sun-warmed steel with his fingertips. But Taggart jerked him away.
“Jack, maybe I ought to let you go.” Taggart jerked him up in the air.
“No!”
“Like this!”
To Warner’s disbelief, Taggart opened his hand. He fell, screaming. It seemed he was falling forever. But Taggart grabbed him again, swung him back and forth. Warner’s head was bursting with blood, his chest pounding with fear. Somehow, Taggart must have learned about his files. If he didn’t admit to them, Taggart would drop him.
“I got notes,” he screamed.
“Blackmail?”
“No. No. I wouldn’t use them. It’s just my information.”
“Where?”
“In my room.”
“Where in your room?”
“In the wall behind the fridge. I wasn’t going to use them. Honest.”
Viewed upside down, shaded scarlet by the sunset, the broad angles of Taggart’s face seemed to soften sympathetically. The swinging slowed, the awful arc diminished.
“I know, Jack. You only want more money. Don’t worry about it, I’ll be buying plenty of information. You’ll give me the notes?”
“God, yes.”
He felt himself swung in from space and laid prone on the steel. He wrapped both arms around the girder and moaned his relief. Taggart knelt beside him, shaking his head. “You damned fool,” he said, not unkindly, “you’ve wet your pants.”
When he could walk again, Taggart helped him off the girder and led him solicitously toward the elevator. Warner couldn’t stop shaking. His brain was roaring with blood and fear. “I thought I was dead,” he mumbled.
Taggart laughed. “Jack, how could I throw an NYPD detective off my own building?” He clapped Warner on the shoulder and handed him his shield and money clip. “Go home and get those notes. And Jack... I don’t give second chances.”
