by Fred Galvin
Roje stepped onto the dock, embraced his sister, and looked into the back seat at Frankie who, still circling the airport, stared back at him uncomprehendingly. He turned to Ronnie and jerked his head toward Frankie.
“What do you want to do with him?”
“Let’s get him onto the boat and inside the cabin so he won’t give us any trouble. I’ll go park the car and we can cast off. Let’s head east and find a cove or some quiet place just offshore where we can wait until morning. Then I’ll call Dan and we can decide what to do. I just want to get a recorded confession out of him.”
Ronnie knew that DD was totally unaware of her stakeout at the Delancey Social Club and her subsequent plans for Frankie. He was working another case all day and while all that activity with Frankie was going on he was home watching the Yankees lose miserably to the Indians. He had called her and she let it go directly to voicemail.
“This is Detective Deveaux. Leave me a message.” BEEP. All business.
She listened, “Hey Ronnie, it’s me. I have a couple of developments in the Seamus MacDuff homicide case. It seems our key witness Brooks is having delusions of grandeur, something about being involved with a female Russian spy who may also be an assassin. I have her name here somewhere—” she could hear him consulting his note pad. “Ah yes, here it is. Nadia. Ring any bells? We’d better rethink him as a witness. He could be unreliable. Anyway, give me a shout when you can.”
Ronnie opened the back door of her car and it was evident Frankie was conscious and confused. He looked around, taking in his surroundings. Then he noticed Roje and saw the boat slowly rolling with the waves and tied to the dock. “Hey, I thought we were going to a hotel. Where are we? Who’s this asshole and what’s this boat doing here?” He squinted his eyes at the name on the stern of the boat.
SEA NYMPH
Montego Bay, Jamaica
“What the hell is going on? I need to get the money.”
Ronnie thought, Sure, Finacci. No mention about your wife’s whereabouts. Just the money. “Calm down, Frankie. We thought a hotel would still be too risky. We use this boat for such situations. This is Agent Ortega of WITSEC. You remember him from our phone call?”
“Yeah? I want to see some ID! Where’s your badge?”
Roje’s English had only the slightest accent. He smiled and looked at his sister. “It’s a shield, Mr. Finacci. Yes, of course. I have my credentials in the boat. Come on, I’ll show you and get us some hot coffee. Let’s go down into the cabin. I’m sure you’ll find it quite comfortable.” He winked at Ronnie, who smiled at her brother’s sense of dramatic humor.
Running his charter business had made Roje lean and very strong. He had Frankie by four inches and at least thirty pounds. Once in the cabin, Frankie would have no chance of leaving the boat, if he so desired. But as far as his wee brain knew, he was being “protected” by WITSEC on their witness protection boat, the Sea Nymph.
Ronnie returned five minutes later after hiding her car around the corner of a warehouse. She cast off the lines and changed places with Roje. He went to the bridge and started the engine. They headed south and then hugged the shoreline as they turned east. Ronnie had figured Frankie would start getting suspicious soon. Then they could have a real conversation. She was correct on both counts.
~~~
Oh, in case you were wondering, I did not get a call from her the following morning, nor was she present for the morning roll call at the precinct. I was concerned.
Chapter 22: Frankie’s dark and stormy night - Part 1
Let’s return to that dark and stormy night.
We know now how Frankie ended up on the Sea Nymph that night. But it seemed pretty clear that Ronnie’s primary motivation was not to kill him and dump him into the stormy Atlantic. She may have always had an air of mystery about her but she was not a cold-blooded murderer. Rather, she wanted to intimidate and threaten him so that she could coerce him into confessing to the murder of Louie Calzone.
As frosting on the cake, she hoped to use that confession as leverage to get Frankie to finger Lefty Lucci for the murder of the man named “Stump” at the Delancey Social Club and most likely Louie “Papa” Papalini as well. Further, she had the faint hope of even possibly coercing Frankie to flip and turn on the Mariuccis. That would most likely require witness protection, the real kind. The irony of that thought was not lost on her. It was a stretch to think Frankie would be interested but she thought she’d give it a try. She wanted it all recorded and on the record.
As a bit of a twist, let’s experience the ensuing sequence of events from Frankie’s perspective. This should prove to be very interesting.
~~~
Frankie sat on the bunk in the Sea Nymph’s cabin drinking strong Jamaican coffee. He originally was somewhat suspicious of this female detective’s motives for helping him. When he ran into her outside the club (almost literally) he was too preoccupied with what had just happened inside to give any thought to how and why she had suddenly materialized. He had less than twelve hours to come up with the money (plus vig) he had skimmed and the true Book containing the numbers that could spell his death sentence. It would take some fancy tap dancing to get out of that predicament. Add to that the fact that he didn’t own tap shoes and was a terrible dancer to boot.
But in those fleeting moments his brain told him he could do it, tap shoes or not. He had to do it to at least have any chance of surviving. Maybe if he cooperated fully with the Family and showed total remorse, just maybe—or (and this thought disgusted even him)—he could blame it all on Papa. As Frankie’s mentor in the Family, he had to follow Papa’s orders. So he could say that the skim was all Papa’s idea and Papa even shared in the proceeds. He, Frankie, was only following orders out of respect for his mentor and Family protocol. Papa was most likely dead anyway (at least the bitch cop told him he was) so the bus that Frankie would be throwing him under couldn’t hurt him. Lousy metaphor, but it could work.
Then she showed up and essentially splashed cold water in his face as he saw that the chances of his surviving this were slim to none (wait for it: and slim just left town). She had been quick to point that out. He wondered how she knew what was going on and then he had remembered she was one of the cops who had questioned him about that welcher Louie Calzone some time ago. He knew he had whacked Calzone with a baseball bat and she had made it clear that she knew it too. But he had covered himself so well that there was nothing concrete to pin on him and he had walked. That Calzone deadbeat owed over thirty thousand and had broken too many promises to pay up. A message had to be sent.
He had forgotten all about it until she snatched his ass off the street and gave him at least a glimpse of light through the dark mess he was in. Everything had happened very quickly. It was what? Just a few hours ago that he saw Stump’s head explode in a pink haze? Then he was in a diner listening to this cop talking to an agent of the state’s witness protection program arranging to get him and his wife protection from a sure whacking in exchange for what? For him implicating Lefty Lucci in Stump’s, and probably Papa’s, murders?
Frankie sat drinking his very strong coffee in the cabin of the boat rocking around in the ocean somewhere outside Brooklyn and he began to wonder. He originally had thought it was a good thing that this cop-lady had shown up when she did. But his mind was finally starting to put some pieces together …
She just happened to be there, outside the club when all that shit hit the fan. There could be only one explanation for that. She was stalking him. Why?
There was literally no chance he could round up the 250K by nine p.m. No way he could do it. Fuck you, Lucci. He grabbed his crotch and said aloud, “I got your money right here.” He laughed. Then he stopped laughing. Actually, he didn’t have the money. She had told him she would help him retrieve some of his stash but that hadn’t happened. He had even offered to make it worth her while.
And his wife? The cop said they would get her. When? How? That hadn’t happened
either.
Did she really want to protect him, save his life, and set him up somewhere away from the Mariucci Family just so he would turn on Lucci? Was Lefty Lucci that big a catch? Since when was the NYPD so interested in internal mob hits?
Or did she have another agenda? He thought back to the last time he had seen her. He was walking out of the police station, totally free after they had questioned him about Calzone’s death. What had she said? Something like “Don’t ever think this will be the last time we meet.” Yeah, Frankie was certain that was what she had said. The look in her eyes had shaken him up a little. She had meant every word.
And the WITSEC agent. He didn’t seem much like an agent to Frankie, now that he had time to think about it. He’d had enough interactions with cops, detectives, and agents of various kinds, and this guy wasn’t exactly passing the smell test. And he had never shown Frankie his badge like he said he would. Now he was up top driving this boat. That seemed a bit strange for an agent.
And the boat’s name. Sea Nymph, Montego Bay, Jamaica. What’s the New York State Witness Protection Program doing running around in a boat from Jamaica? It sure wasn’t the Jamaica in Queens. No Montego Bay there!
How about that little siesta he took after leaving the diner on the way to the dock? He had written it off to exhaustion but had she slipped something into his drink at the diner just to keep him subdued while they trekked to the dock?
While all this was swirling around in Fast Frankie’s head, the she-cop walked down the three steps, entered the cabin, poured herself a mug, and sat opposite him. She had left the cabin door open and Frankie could hear the boat’s engine and the waves splashing against the hull more loudly.
“How you doing, Frankie? Want some more coffee? Help yourself. There’s plenty. It’s strong Jamaican blend.”
He flashed back again to the boat’s name on the transom.
SEA NYMPH
Montego Bay, Jamaica
“Jamaican blend, huh? And this boat is from Jamaica, right?” He paused for effect. “I think it’s time you told me what the fuck is going on!” He emphasized each of the last six words (especially the third one) and rose to his feet. He figured that those words, combined with him now looking down at her, would let this cop-lady know that he, Fast Frankie Finacci, Made Man in the Mariucci Family, was not someone to screw around with and that he would be taking control of his destiny.
Frankie stood there expecting her to avert her eyes and start stuttering about this being all for his protection, given his cooperation in bringing down Lefty Lucci. He fully expected her and “Agent” Ortega upstairs to defer to him and treat him as their guest, and an important guest at that.
Wrong.
He stared down at her. But she didn’t avert her eyes as he had expected. If anything, somehow her eyes seemed to open wider and appeared deeper, blacker, and more intense. She glared at him like that, unblinking. If she wanted a staring contest, well then he’d give her one.
The showdown went on for thirty seconds, sixty seconds. Then Frankie knew somehow he wasn’t going to win this one. Her eyes looked to be both intensely burning and dead at the same time. He had seen dead eyes in cops before, but hers were deep black pools that seemed to come from her soul.
He blinked and swore to himself.
“Sit down, Frankie.” Her voice was calm but frigid. He hated to admit it but it felt as though the temperature in the cabin had just dropped a few degrees. All he could do in order to try to keep a dominant position (that he knew he had lost anyway) was to defiantly remain standing.
She waited silently for thirty seconds. Then she stood and Frankie thought that he had won the standoff.
Wrong again.
In a voice that sounded like it was coming from a demon deep within her, kind of like from that poor girl in that movie—what was it—yeah, The Exorcist, in that demonic voice he heard, “Sit the fuck down NOW!” She too had emphasized the third word and added a rise in volume with the last.
Frankie knew that he had reached a defining moment. If he backed down she would hold all the cards and he would be forced into whatever position she wanted for him, most likely bent over waiting for the inevitable (metaphorically, of course). But if he stood his ground (quite literally) it would show her that he intended to have some say over his fate. Deep inside he suspected that he most likely had little control (if any) but he also knew that he had to give it a shot. Bent over with your ass sticking up is no way to go.
He walked slowly around the table toward her. She turned to keep facing him. She said calmly yet firmly, as a teacher would to an unruly student, “Frankie, you need to sit down so we can decide our next steps. Don’t do something stupid, something you’ll regret. You have to come to grips with your position here.”
Did he detect a slight backing off in her tone and demeanor? He decided to poke to find out. He moved even closer to her. “Yeah? And what position is that? Do you think I believe you about this witness protection shit? What do you really want?”
She moved back another step. Yes! He felt as though the tide had turned. Then he saw her hand move down and undo the strap on the holster of her gun and he hesitated.
“Frankie, you need to back off. I do want to help you but only if you help us. Don’t push it.”
She hadn’t pulled the gun out but she could do so very easily. He knew the moment to take total control was at hand.
He said as defiantly as he could muster, “I don’t think so.”
Now!
He lunged for her hand that was on the gun butt. His lunge put her back on her heels and gave him some leverage. She managed to get the gun slightly out of the holster but Frankie had a firm hold on her wrist. He pushed her backward against the side of the boat. She was stronger than he had anticipated and pulled the gun out of the holster. It was pointing upward, Frankie still with a firm hold of her wrist. He knew he couldn’t relax his grip, even slightly.
Then the gun fired, sending a round up through the ceiling of the cabin. The sound was deafening in the small space and startled them both. Each was struggling to take control. Again Frankie was surprised by her strength and upped his efforts to subdue her. He swung her around and pushed her toward the front of the cabin, maintaining forward movement to keep her off balance and maintain a hold on her wrist. She raised the gun again but could not break free of his hold. Another shot rang out as she fell backward onto one of the bunks. Frankie fell on top of her. As he did her hand with the gun slammed against the small table next to the bunk, causing the gun to come loose and drop to the floor. It landed butt-side down and fell toward Frankie’s feet.
They both scrambled for it and Frankie grabbed it just before she could reach it. “Got it, bitch!” He pointed it at her and she fell backward onto the bunk, eyes wide, hands outward in a defensive manner. He laughed. “Now we’ll talk about next steps.”
In the interests of setting the scene a bit more vividly, let’s go back two years earlier when Frankie had taken a full swing with a baseball bat and connected with Louie Calzone’s head. The loud THWACK sound as bat cracked skull was unpleasant, even to Frankie. The sound of the smaller wooden bat Roje used to crush Frankie’s skull from behind was a bit duller, more like a thonk, but just as effective, not that Frankie could tell the difference. He was dead when he did a face plant on the floor.
Charter fishing boat captains equipped their vessels with smaller versions of baseball bats to use for clubbing large fish and sharks that clients occasionally reeled in and brought onto the boat’s deck. An Atlantic blue marlin can weigh over 200 pounds and its long pointed “sword” can be lethal as the fish flailed around on the deck. Thus, crew members would use the bats to subdue the great fish to protect the clients and themselves.
Roje did not carry a gun on board. So when he had heard the gunshot, which was simultaneous with a bullet crashing up through the floorboard just inches from his right foot, he grabbed the nearest bat and headed down to the cabin where he did not
hesitate to subdue the night’s version of a rogue marlin in the boat in the person of Fast Frankie Finacci, who was about to shoot his sister. Thonk.
Frankie went down like a giant sack of potatoes and didn’t move. Breathing heavily, Roje kicked the gun away and stood over him, bat raised in case Frankie tried to lunge toward her again. He didn’t. Ronnie pushed herself back on the bunk bed, eyes wide, gasping for air.
“Ronika, are you okay?”
“Yes, Roje. I’m fine.” She looked down at Frankie and then up at Roje, who met her stare.
They both said, “SHIT!”
Chapter 23: Frankie’s dark and stormy night - Part 2
You may recall that earlier we agreed to revisit the series of events all from Frankie’s perspective. So far we have done so as the dark and stormy night got underway. Even though Frankie was no longer among the living, we can still “see” the rest of that night and the following days, through his eyes, so to speak, to give us a different perspective. After all, those unseeing eyes were still open as he lay on the Sea Nymph cabin’s deck with Ronnie having made no effort to close them.
