Saints Of New York

by R.J. Ellory

  'Sure he was. That was what the Saints were all about. If these people needed help from the NYPD they would call the Saints.'

  'So how did he manage to get all these commends and citations for his work against organized crime?'

  'The Mob gave him people. They sacrificed people every once in a while. A bust or two. A small truck firm folds and somebody gets a couple of years. The trucks get confiscated, they are sequestered in a police compound somewhere, and six months later someone loses the paperwork and they are sold to another trucking firm for peanuts. That was the way it worked.'

  'And you never thought to report this to—'

  'To who? Report it to who? The police were taking more money than anyone else, and besides, you can't break the police. No-one ever has, and no-one ever will. Aside from the police closing ranks, aside from the fact that Internal Affairs, the very people who are supposed to investigate police corruption, are part of the police department themselves, it is highly unlikely that any congressman or senator would ever sanction the prosecution of anyone higher than a sergeant. Why? Because you can't have the people losing faith in the police. You understand this, right? I don't need to tell you why. You start to point the finger at the people in charge, and society gets very nervous.'

  'And when you were younger, when your father was still alive, you knew he was doing this, taking money off organized crime people, turning a blind eye to thefts at the airport?'

  'Turning a blind eye? Taking some bribes? Hell, they were doing a hell of a lot more than that.'

  'Such as?'

  'Well, let's say this. My father spent ten years in the Organized Crime Control Bureau, and then a further ten years in the Brooklyn Organized Crime Task Force. That's twenty years in the guts of this thing. Twenty years investigating these people, talking to them, arresting them. Twenty years up against the worst kind of temptation you could find. The money, the women, the booze, the drugs, the opportunities were limitless, and he and his friends, no more than ten or twelve of them, ran the most successful unit within the NYPD for all that time. They busted more people than anyone else. They secured the greatest number of convictions, the greatest numbers of years of imprisonment, but if you look closely, if you start to look beneath the surface, you'll find that the people they took down were just the foot soldiers, never the under-bosses or the bosses. This was the way it worked. Hell, these assholes even had a roster for who was gonna get busted next. It was part of the game. Three years out working the business, six months in prison. Five years living the life, a year or two in prison. These guys, these Mafia soldiers, even paid each other off to take the fall. So-and-so's wife was pregnant, someone'll take your turn on the roster, do your twelve months for you, but when it comes to his turn you have to take his charge and do his time.'

  'And your father did some serious things?'

  'He didn't just do them, he organized them. He was instrumental in some of the scams they pulled at the airport.'

  'Such as?'

  'You like this shit, don't you? You like hearing about this stuff, right? The war stories?'

  'It's fascinating. Worrying, to say the least, but fascinating as well.'

  'Well, I have to love you and leave you now, but tomorrow we'll talk about Lufthansa, and the better part of six million dollars they took from an airline hangar. Up to then it was the largest heist ever in the history of the United States.'

  'And your father—'

  'That was a Saints job right from the get-go. And that explains why they only ever recovered a hundred thousand dollars out of the six million, and why the vast majority of the people involved in it wound up dead, and no-one - not one single person - has ever been arrested or charged with those murders.'

  'Okay, so you tell me tomorrow. And what is happening with your current cases Frank? The dead girl and her brother?'

  'We have to go to work on that today. I have to find her friends, the people she spent her time with.'

  'Here in Brooklyn?'

  'Williamsburg.'

  'She's important to you, isn't she? The girl that was strangled?'

  'I don't know. Maybe. I'm not sure what to think about it. Yesterday I saw the woman who took care of her after her parents died. A good woman. She's gonna get some shit for not coloring inside the lines, but that's always the way with these situations.

  Someone gets hurt, and they can't just leave it at that. The people on the edges have to get hurt as well.'

  'You sound like you're taking it personally.'

  'No, not really. I'm just a little bitter when it comes to such things.'

  'So she has become important to you. Finding out what happened, I mean. More than would be the case usually.'

  'Maybe it has. Hell, she's turning up in my dreams, isn't she?

  '

  THIRTEEN

  The rain came without warning, and by the time Parrish and Radick reached the outskirts of Williamsburg it was pounding down on the roof of the car.

  They sat for a while, hoping it would ease off.

  'We do the school first, right?' Radick asked.

  'Sure. I called the principal and he's expecting us.'

  'And anything more on Danny Lange's friends?'

  'Danny Lange didn't have any friends.' Parrish turned and looked at Radick. 'You did Narco, Jimmy. You know how this goes. Junkies are a breed all their own. Addiction is stronger than any loyalty. Friends, family, it all goes by the board. The only thing that will get any of his compadres or associates talking is money.'

  'You have money?'

  'Don't worry about it,' Parrish replied.

  At eleven they left the car and hurried across the street. They checked in at the front lobby, waited for someone to come collect them, and then made their way through a maze of bi-colored hallways to the principal's office.

  The principal got up as they were shown in.

  'Frank Parrish. We talked on the phone.'

  'Of course.'

  'This is my partner, Jimmy Radick.'

  Radick extended his hand.

  'David Carlisle.' Carlisle walked around his desk. 'Please,' he said, 'take a seat.'

  Parrish asked the usual questions. Carlisle wasn't defensive.

  'I have six hundred students here, Detective. I do my damnedest to keep track of all of them, but it's simply not possible twenty-four seven. Rebecca didn't show for school on Monday morning—'

  'She didn't show on Monday?'

  'Right. She was here last Friday, and then didn't appear Monday morning.'

  'And you contacted her guardian?' Radick asked.

  'I'm afraid that's where we fell down, Detective. Strictly speaking we should have called, but we did not. We had a couple of teachers away on a course, we had subs in . . .' Carlisle shook his head wearily.

  'But you called on Tuesday?' Parrish said.

  'Rebecca's father called us.'

  'Her father?'

  'Yes,' Carlisle said. 'Her father called Student Reception on Tuesday, told them that Rebecca had been ill on Monday, would be back on Wednesday. Then later that day we got a call from this woman, Helen Jarvis, and she said she was Rebecca's legal guardian. That was when Reception informed me of the situation. I didn't tell Miss Jarvis that the girl's father had called, I just called the police immediately. They told me that they had some information on it, and they were waiting for the guardian to file a Missing Persons Report. I then checked our records and we had Helen Jarvis listed as Rebecca's mother, not her guardian. It's not that uncommon to find mothers and daughters with different surnames these days.'

  'And did you tell the police about the call from the girl's father?'

  'Yes I did.'

  Radick was taking notes, and then he looked up at Carlisle. Carlisle was confronting the fact that he had a great deal more to deal with than a missing student.

  'She didn't come in on Tuesday because she was already dead,' Parrish said matter-of-factly. 'We can only assume now that her killer called in and pos
ed as her father to delay any alarm being raised about Rebecca's disappearance.'

  'Dead?' Carlisle echoed. 'Oh my God . . .'

  'She was dead on Monday,' Parrish repeated.

  'Oh my good God almighty . . .'

  'And whoever called on Tuesday saying that he was the girl's father wasn't her father at all,' Radick said. 'We need to know who you spoke to and at which precinct.'

  'Yes . . . er . . . yes, of course. Oh this is terrible. This is truly terrible. I don't know what to say.'

  'There isn't a great deal you can say, Principal Carlisle. The details of whoever you spoke to at the police precinct would be really appreciated.'

  'Yes ... I think his name was Trevitt. I'll see to it now.'

  'So she leaves home at - what? - seven o'clock Monday morning? She comes down to Brooklyn. She's dead somewhere between eight and two. That's a pretty narrow window.'

  'But nevertheless enough time to get a haircut and do her nails. More likely, to have someone do that for her, and that was done somewhere specific.'

  'And the brother?'

  Parrish shook his head. 'He has to have been involved, otherwise it's way too much of a coincidence.'

  'Very fucking strange,' Radick said.

  'Well, we have some questions to ask of Sergeant Gary Trevitt,' Parrish said, and got out of the car.

  Williamsburg 91st Precinct - the same featureless building as a thousand other precinct houses. Radick and Parrish waited in the foyer for a good twenty minutes, and then Trevitt came down the stairs. He looked suspicious before they even introduced themselves. Perhaps he took them for IAD.

  'Who?' he asked.

  'Rebecca Lange. Sixteen years old. St. Francis of Assisi High School. The principal called you on Tuesday, guy by the name of David Carlisle.'

  'Yeah, and the girl's guardian called as well,' Trevitt replied.

  'And you told her she had to wait forty-eight hours.'

  'Sure I did. That's standard.'

  'But she never called back.'

  'Couldn't tell you,' Trevitt replied. 'I was off yesterday. The girl showed up yet?'

  'Yes,' Parrish replied. 'Showed up dead.'

  'Oh fuck,' Trevitt replied. 'And you guys are from where?'

  'Brooklyn.'

  'And what the hell has this got to do with you?' 'She was killed in our neighborhood. Her brother too.' 'Well, sorry to hear it,' Trevitt said. 'You need anything from me?'

  'No,' Parrish replied. 'We're done here.'

  Radick drove them back to Brooklyn. The rain had done its worst. The streets were wet and greasy.

  'If the brother hadn't been killed I would have said a straight kidnap,' Parrish commented. 'But with the brother in the mix—'

  'Means they were involved in something. If it was the Danny Lange I know then it would have been drugs or money. Maybe he had the sister set up for something. It goes bad, she's dead, he does a runner. Whoever it is catches up with him and it's all over.' 'But it's all guesswork right now.'

  'Always the way, my friend,' Parrish replied. 'Always the way.'

  FOURTEEN

  Later, so many more hours of talking this thing back and forth,

  Parrish sent Radick home for the night. Parrish took the subway to his apartment, called Eve when he got there and was directed to voicemail. That meant she had a client.

  He finished a fifth of Bushmills by nine, and went out for another.

  He watched TV when he returned. Thought to call Caitlin but decided against it. She would know he'd been drinking and bitch at him for his own good. If it was for his own good how come it felt so bad when she did it?

  He tried to focus on Rebecca's motives, her methods, her opportunities. He tried to imagine what might have possessed her to skip school and come to Brooklyn. He knew it wasn't just her brother. He knew it was something else.

  He fell asleep on the couch just after eleven. He didn't wake until five and the TV was still on.

  FIFTEEN

  FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2008

  'So what makes you think she was into something?'

  'Her brother, and the fact that she took off from school and came here to Brooklyn. That, and the way she looked . . . her nails, her hair. Her guardian, this Helen Jarvis, said she never used nail varnish and her hair was cut long, but when she died her hair was short. I was up thinking about it last night, and the only idea I had was that maybe Danny got her hooked up with someone. Someone who had money. Maybe he was using her in some way . . .'

  'He would have done that to his own sister?'

  'You don't know junkies.'

  'Okay, but why don't you think she was kidnapped-'

  'Because kidnap victims are tied up and beaten usually, and the sex isn't consensual, it's forced. It's rape, and she wasn't raped. She'd had sex, but there were no signs of physical violence, nothing to indicate she'd been held against her will. Truth is, I don't know what to say. Maybe it was an older lover, a man with money . . . maybe there was someone who could afford to have her get a haircut and a manicure.'

  'You just don't know, right?'

  'I just don't know.'

  'So what now?'

  'Me and Radick ... we get to canvass the beauty salons and hair salons and nail manicure places in Brooklyn and Williamsburg. We take a picture around and see if anyone recognizes her.'

  'How's it going with your new partner?'

  'He's okay.'

  'Different from the last one.'

  'They're all different. That's how people are.'

  'The last one died, didn't he?'

  'Yeah, he died.'

  'Do you want to say anything about that?'

  'No, I don't want to say anything about that.'

  'Okay, Frank, I understand . . . So . . . you were going to tell me about the Lufthansa heist.'

  'I was. But first I have to tell you about the airport system and the Saints themselves. You have to get a little bit of the back story on this thing otherwise it won't make sense.'

  'Go ahead.'

  'Well, all the industry on the eastern seaboard relies on JFK to ship their goods out and bring their materials in, right? It involves the shippers themselves, the airlines of course, the freight- forwarding companies who direct business to the airlines from the customers, and then there's the unions. The unions are basically two Teamster Locals, 295 and 851. The 295 has two thousand members - truck drivers, switchers, platform men, hydraulic lift operators, mechanics, garage people and fuelers. Local 851 represents the clerical guys. Here you have the office people and the dispatchers. Make sense?'

  'Sure.'

  'So, say you have a company. For example, you make shoes. You're gonna send your shoes to wherever in the world. You have however many thousands of pairs and you call up an agent who gets you in with a freight forwarder. The freight forwarder takes on the job, and he can arrange for packing, re-packing, marking, weighing, everything. You have three hundred forwarding companies down there, the majority of which use their own trucks and drivers to go fetch the goods from wherever you make the things and bring it to the airport. The freight forwarders make their money by charging you one rate, and then they pay less than that because they're shipping bulk through the airlines, right?'

  'Like any business really. The forwarders are the middlemen.'

  'Yeah, the middlemen. So you see how important the freight forwarders are to the airlines. Freight forwarders can make or break an airline by directing traffic their way or not. The guy in the freight forwarding company who has the say-so is the lead agent. He's the big boss of the hot sauce. He's the guy the airlines want to be in with. They got to keep him happy, got to make it worth his while to send the business their way. Well, Local 851 was owned by the Luccheses, and most of the lead agents were represented by 851. Lead agents knew what goods were in which trucks. They knew when it was three hundred tons of butter or six hundred cases of caviar. They knew everything inside out and back-to-front. These were the guys who would arrange the give- ups—'r />
  'The what?'

  'The give-ups. It's another kind of hijack. The driver is paid off to leave his keys in the ignition and go get a cup of coffee in a diner somewhere just outside of the airport. A hijacking is a straight thing, no prearrangement with the driver. A crew hijacks a truck they're gonna knock the driver down, steal his keys, whatever they have to do. They go in there with guns, right? With a give-up you have the co-operation of the driver and there's no noise or violence. The Luccheses had an entire network of cargo handlers, packers, drivers and airport security staff working on this thing. Millions and millions and millions of dollars' worth of goods went walking out of that airport into the hands of the Luccheses. The most famous hijacker ever was Jimmy Burke, and he had lines into the airport that told him about potential witnesses and government informants. His success was based solely on the fact that no-one actually ever made it to court to testify against him—'

  'Why not?'

  'Because he killed them, or at least arranged to have them killed.'

  'And your father knew him, I suppose?'

  'Sure he did. All the Saints knew Jimmy Burke.'

  'So you were going to tell me about them. The Saints.'

  'There were twelve in all, and one-for-one they were part of the Organized Crime Control Bureau or the NYPD Internal Affairs Division. They had all bases covered, you see? If a question was raised about the integrity or honesty of one of the OCCB officers, then IAD would investigate and come back with a clean bill of health. They called such things their annual medicals, and they came away like Snow White. A few times they talked about it in the house, treated it like it was some kind of a joke.'

  'You met some of them?'

  'Some, sure. Hell, I don't remember them all, and I never really spoke to them. A few of them are still around even now. Retired, but alive. Probably own sea-view properties in Pompano Beach, Florida or some such. I remember Don Hunter and George Buranski, and an Italian guy . . . Mario something-or-other . . . Gamba, Mario Gamba. And there was Art Billick and Shaun Beck, and a guy called Randall Kubis. They were the good old boys, you know? They used to come round the house, watch football games, have barbecues. I was a kid, all of six or seven back in the early Seventies, and I was in my teens when my father transferred to the Brooklyn Task Force. I was twenty when I joined the police. That was August of '84, and my father and I didn't see anywhere near as much of one another after that. I made detective in '96, and by that time he'd already been dead for four years.'