by Jackson, Gil
Outside he went across to a telephone booth on the street corner inserted a dime and waited for an answer. Giuseppi was going to have to give him cash to get him away. They hadn’t done any murder. What was all of this? they’d been there, that’s all. The police wouldn’t want to know. As far as he was concerned this was not a question of keeping low, no more of clearing off a long way away, and for a long time. Back to Sicily would do nicely. And money was going to have to be provided. They’re partnership? Such as it was would be no more. He would tell him that.
* * *
‘Look! I’ve a dead woman, a dead mobster who’s heads been torn from its body, a missing four-year-old girl, and her Russian father who’s looking to take the law into his own hands and you’re telling me to drop it!’
Chief Harry Rivers looked straight at him making no comment.
‘So who’s this guy that’s telling you how I should be doing my job?’
‘It’s a reliable tip-off, Frank, believe me. Book him, he’ll be indicted. There’s probably enough circumstantial evidence anyhow, what’s your problem, you’ve got a result.’ Harry smiled at him and carried on his paperwork,
‘But, Harry, Tony Di Sotto, come on? For Heaven’s sake that man couldn’t drink a cup of coffee without spilling it. And what of the missing girl? - that down to “that’s the way it goes”, again. Another missing child. That’ll be, what? Seven in two years, Harry. None of them found. Think on that Harry!’
Police Commissioner Harry Rivers made a good job of covering his annoyance at this insubordination: Frank had touched a nerve. He spoke quietly. ‘The missing girl is not seven, she’s one. You and I both know that proper investigations were carried out on the missing six children. We found none; that probably meant they ran away; we decided that it happens all the time. Most of the families have gone away; they could all be back with them now, who knows?’
Frank looked fit to burst. ‘Not good enough, Harry. There’s something going on and it’s looking more and more like a cover up and what’s more the name of Marco Giuseppi keeps coming up and worrying me that he’s the one behind all of this.’
‘Well, the Governor thinks otherwise, he’s had an internal investigation into Marco Giuseppi and as far as he’s concerned the man’s as clean as a whistle.’
‘Apart from being a Union racketeer and a pimp, he probably is!’
‘Well, yes. Apart from that — but nobody’s
perfect ...’ He put his hand up to silence Frank once more, ‘You’ve got Tony banged up and I’m sure after you’ve interviewed him —. Look if it’ll make you feel any less uneasy do him for the murder of Fariq’s wife, I’m happy with that; put the other on file, I’m sure you’ll not find anyone else for it, he’s your man.’
‘That man, as you so delicately put it, did not tear his partners head off his body reminiscent of a bungled hanging from a British gallows.’
Police Commissioner Harry Rivers shrugged. ‘What else can I do?’
‘You can back me up, no evidence for murder, just menaces with intent. I need him back on the street, if for no other reason than bait for Fariq.’
‘If Fariq thinks Tony’s murdered his daughter, that’s good enough for me, you do him for it. People on the street want a result, don’t make me take you off the case, Frank, go against me on this and I will, I’ll personally see to it, I promise.’
Frank came out of Rivers’s office and hurried down the corridor of the Precinct block. He shouted to his sergeant who he couldn’t see but wouldn’t be too far away, ‘O’HARE!’
His sergeant shouted back as if he hadn’t been in earshot of their conversation.
‘YOU WANT ME, Lieutenant?’
Frank caught him by the arm coming round the corridor, pulled him to one side and spoke quietly in his ear. ‘Go find Fariq before he goes out of his depth and bumps into Tony Di Sotto. Bring him in.’
‘What charge?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Execution of the Nicholas’s, anything, use your head, keep him out of trouble.’
‘And what about Tony? Sounds like Rivers has decided it’s an open and shut case?’
‘You’ve big ears for a Turk, Sergeant.’
‘Yes, sir. I’ll go find Fariq then?’
‘Yes please, Sergeant.’
* * *
State Governor Fray Brent was in his office on his phone. ‘We don’t want any police officers assassinated thank you Marco, we had a deal, I don’t interfere with your business, and you don’t interfere with my police department.’
‘To my mind, you’re not taking all the care you should be ... you’ve a couple of loose cannons on your team that could cause us all trouble in the future.’
Governor Brent snapped back at him. ‘Harry Rivers will deal with any problems on our side it’s not for you to involve yourself.’
Marco hissed at him down the telephone, ‘This is a big operation, Brent, a lot of people are involved — yourself included — big people, who look to me for protection; and I shall provide it if you can’t, and when I say my operation is under scrutiny by officers under your jurisdiction I expect something done and if that includes hitting them well, we all have to take certain risks. What you want is not part of the equation.’
‘Marco, I can assure you that Rivers has got his men under control. As far as the officers on the case are concerned it’s over and done with. If anybody’s on to you it’s from your end not ours. By the way, Marco, there’s another matter?’
‘Yes.’
‘Your man Tony?’
‘What about him ...?’
‘You do realise that he’s likely to cause you trouble. He’s a scared man and the investigating officer is no fool. You’d better be sure that there’s enough against him for the death of Fariq’s woman and your man.’
‘I’ll do no such thing. Tony and me, we go back a long way. And I’ll take care of him, no body touches Tony, you understand?’
‘But—’
‘There’s no, “But”, Brent. If you know what’s good for you you’ll do as your told ...’
‘OK, Marco! OK, whatever you say, but I’ve still to go through procedures, otherwise suspicions will be raised.’
‘OK. But remember, Tony Di Sotto didn’t kill Sledge Driver, that’s all you need to remember. Whoever it was it’s going to have to remain a big a mystery to your investigative team as it is to me. And make sure Rivers removes the body, I don’t want headless corpses appearing in the morning papers, especially if they’ve worked for me, its bad for recruitment.’
‘It wouldn’t do our business any good either. Torn heads from bodies is not something I’d leave around for anyone to see.’
‘Good. So that leaves your investigating officers as witnesses?’
‘Yes. But Rivers has got an agreement that they would keep it under wraps for the time being, unless ...’
‘Unless what?’
‘Unless you make a habit of pulling heads off.’
‘If I could do that, I would be possessed.’
‘What’d you mean by that?’ But Governor Fray Brent was hanging on a dead line.
* * *
Frank flicked the electric desk lamp into Tony Di Sotto’s face and waited for his eyes to stop dilating.
Tony shuffled nervously under its light and felt curiously at ease and not without some relief at his arrest. He knew what he was in for. He also knew that Lieutenant Weinberg was the best cop to prove that he didn’t do it. And in any case Marco would be behind him if it came to the worse.
Frank was looking out the window when he spoke. ‘How did you say you murdered your partner, Tony?’
What kind of a fool question is that? ‘My partner? You got that wrong, Mr. Weinberg, I didn’t murder my partner. He’s not dead, he ...’
‘Your partner is dead, he was the other murdered person in Fariq’s rooms along with the man’s wife, and you, Tony, you’re in the frame for the both of them — not to mention the missing four-year-old. We can
prove you were there — you’re on your own on this one.’ Frank shrugged at Tony’s resignation. He went up to him and grabbed him around his jacket lapels and hauled him to his feet. ‘There’s also the little matter of what became of their daughter, something that I’m extremely interested in knowing the answer to?’ He held him tightly and Tony started to choke, shook his head, the sweat was pouring out of him.
‘You’ve gotta believe me, Lieutenant Weinberg, I’m all confused, Marco sent me and Sledge round to Fariq’s place to frighten his wife and she attacked me with a knife ...’
‘Well, there’s a thing. There’s she trying to defend herself and her child, and she attacked you with a knife. How inconsiderate of her,’ he stared him straight between the eyes, ‘what the fuck did you expect her to do, bake you a fucking cake?’
‘But I didn’t kill her, I didn’t. It was like I said, after she attack— cut me with a knife, I was in so much pain and bleedin’ and that, I wanted out of there so I
ran ...’
‘Leaving her and their daughter in the hands of your partner. The kind of arse shrinks have in mind when the words psychopathic disorder personality are exampled?’
‘Yes, no, I don’t know what happened to him.’
‘And the child ...?’
Tony went white. ‘The little girl? I don’t know where she was. She must have been in the back room, I DIDN’T KILL NO ONE! You gotta believe me, Lieutenant Weinberg, honest, I didn’t. Marco must have her—’
‘Yes, Tony. “Marco must have her”. That name Marco again. My life. He keeps cropping up where children are concerned. How’s he involved in all of this?’
‘Nothing.’
‘If you know something about Marco and children and this girl in particular, you’d better speak up now.’
‘No, Mr. Weinberg, I know nothing, honest.’
Frank released him and sat him down. He rubbed his forehead. The man was telling the truth he was sure — except for that slip of Marco having her. Tony Di Sotto was no more than a career gangster that hadn’t made the grade; being led along like a lot of others for someone else’s interests. But other’s meant for him to go to the electric chair and it looked for all the world as if that would happen.
‘Tell me about Marco Giuseppi, Tony. He wanted you to abduct that little girl didn’t he? What does he like? Tell me now, Tony, when did you last see him with a woman?’ Frank spoke quietly to him and watched tears roll down his cheeks.
* * *
Charlie O’Hare opened Frank’s office door in a hurry. ‘Fariq’s disappeared off the face of the earth, so he has. Get anything out of Sotto?’
‘Your keenness for the job stopped you from knocking, Sergeant?
Charlie looked sheepish but said nothing.
‘Sit down. Sometimes, Sergeant, it pays to follow your instincts and throw down wild cards.’
‘That forthcoming was he?’
‘Yes he was. He may have admitted that Giuseppi may be a child abductor.’
Charlie looked puzzled. ‘His boss, the same man that Rivers told you to lay off when you mentioned missing children?’
‘Couldn’t say much else, could he? The implications would require substantial evidence as opposed to flippant suspicion, but yeh, he didn’t like it.’
‘Sounds like a man we can have confidence in: trust our boss, I mean, whatever else is going on round here, Frank?’
Lieutenant Frank Weinberg sat quiet before saying. ‘Forget Rivers for the moment. You say you’ve had no luck finding Fariq?’
‘Hasn’t been seen anywhere.’
‘I must admit when he got away, I didn’t expect him to disappear for quite so long, with what’s on his mind, I thought he’d hand himself in by now.’
‘They’re not the same as us though are they, Frank? Russians. Used to fending for themselves.’
‘How’d you know that?
‘The guy in the yard, his foreman, Nathaniel Claypole, the man I questioned ...’
‘Yeh, yeh. Get on with it.’
‘... Well, apparently Fariq come across from Russia. Did a bit of prospecting up at Noone before coming East through Dawson with his wife — looking for work.’
‘His — was she Russian? His wife.’
‘Don’t think so. He’d met her somewhere Alaska way. Indian or Eskimo. At least that’s what Claypole thought. Apart from that that’s all they knew of him ... except, when it came to fighting his corner.’
‘How so?’
‘Bit on the stubborn side. Claypole said he took Giuseppi and the Union on. You saw his hand. I reckon they had to make an example of him. Take on his family.’
‘Sounds like that.’ Frank replied adding, ‘Get some coffees in.’
He needed five minutes and that was his way of getting it. He watched his Sergeant disappear into a corner of the precinct office and shut the door. Police officers’ coming and going round desks, shouting, bantering. Suspects. Drunks, trying to be restrained from wanting to fight everyone: all human life was here. Well New York life, at least. He needed to think and it was not conducive to his kind of policing. He’d been in charge of homicide four years, Sergeant Charlie O’Hare with him for two of them. He hadn’t liked it when Chief Dore had retired and he’d been passed over for promotion in favour of Governor Brent’s choice: Harry River’s. Not that Frank was less capable than Harry. Frank was kosher – literally, too kosher for them and his own good. The Governor wouldn’t have been able to twist him like Rivers. Wouldn’t have been able to set his stills up; get his girls working for him. And his example hadn’t been lost on Rivers, he had his own set-up, but in his case, it was the good Mrs. Rivers doing the business for the both of them. Madam Rivers to a brothel; and he with his own bootlegging transport operation and his position within the police department — it was hard to touch them.
Charlie, used to his boss’s thinking bouts, waited the interval that he would need before interrupting him with a knock on his door. He didn’t wait for an invitation. ‘Coffee, Lieutenant.’ Putting the cup on his desk he sat down.
‘Did I say, come in? Oh never mind.’
‘Thought it out yet?’
Frank was in a reflective mood and Charlie settled for some home-spun philosophy. ‘Life’s tough for ordinary souls, don’t you think, Charlie?’ Frank went on. ‘We can’t carry on like this. The Chief is causing us no end of problems. If it’s not enough for him to run his own rackets, he’s interfering with our jobs.’
‘I was wondering how long you’d be putting up with it, so I was.’
‘It’s not a question of putting up with anything, Charlie. More waiting for the right opportunity to bring it all down around them. We know that if he’s as crooked as Brent, and it’s appearing that way with the rumours. They’re probably working together. Now, the top man in the frame for those missing children — as far as I’m concerned — and according to his top lieutenant, is Marco Giuseppi. And with Fariq and his wife’s child added to the list — with us involved — I’m picturing some nasty incidents coming our way without us trying....’
Frank nodded in thought and Charlie could see that he was — and for the first time in the years he had known him — a worried man. They had only ever had to deal with proper hands on crime before, but corruption from above was something else, the dealing of which, was not in his and Charlie O’Hare’s book of rules; and way out of their league.
Frank turned to Charlie. ‘There’s no need for you to get involved in this, Charlie. Not if you don’t want to. It could after all be a long shot. There’s no need for the both of us to go down if I’m wrong.’
Charlie knew that when Frank had said “go down” he sensed he was thinking of something more permanent than losing a job. ‘When have you ever been wrong, Frank? Accepting that time you thought you were and it turned out you were right all along, so you were.’
Frank smiled at Charlie’s Irish logic.
‘If I think what you’re thinking, forget it. My family did
n’t come to America to turn our backs at the first sign of trouble coming our way. We’re used to trouble where we come from.’ Charlie moved to Frank’s side and put his arm across his shoulder. ‘Us Murphy’s, we’ve to stick together, so we have.’
‘So you don’t mind working with a Jewish boy?’
Charlie looked at him and quietly mouthed. ‘Put up with the Protestants, so I can with you, moisher.’
* * *
The reflected images of the three black-suited men could be made out in the dark glass that was set in across the large room. In the darkness they silently waited as if for a movie to begin: for that is what it was a small picture palace. The pitched floor ensured a perfect view of what was to take place, and with it the smell of intense perverted anticipation pervaded. It was Marco Giuseppi’s aim to make sure that everyone was happy with the proceedings.
Faced in masks: one of a bloodhound, one a clown; the other, a goat: a buyer, a seller, and a bringer together. For this was a sensitive business where anonymity was paramount and death for informers the only assurance of its continuance. The reflection of this circus was both ridiculous and dramatic. A Satanic rite? For what else could it be? For they had all the appearance of loathsome charges of children brought together for the pleasure of the antichrist himself; and the only quarter of mercy they could expect salvation from.
* * *
The released Tony Di Sotto had left the 7th Precinct and had tried to contact Marco Giuseppi at his office in the dockyard — it was deserted with no sign that he had ever been there. He would have liked to have asked around inside the yard but guessed that he would not altogether be welcome. Instead took a cab to his digs. The front door was slightly ajar. Thinking no more than that some other tenant had forgotten to close it he stepped in and closed it himself, walked up the stairs to his room. Got his key out, opened the door and reached for the light switch. Several things happened at once but the cold water being thrown over him was the first. Ever so slightly and before his hand made the connection with the exposed light switch.
