The Pontiac dropped the tail when I turned onto 16th Avenue. They’d use a different car next time, unless they decided to drop the subtle approach and come at me head-on. For what reason? What was my part in all this, anyway?
My goombahs had saved me a little lasagna and some garlic bread, but nobody was foolish enough to offer me a beer. They were all consumed by a low-stakes poker game anyway. Gino offered to deal me in the next hand, but I begged off. The way my Italian luck was running?
I went downstairs and called Watusi from the office phone. I explained about the hideout and asked if he was interested in a little late-night snooping. He wasn’t until I told him about the tail I’d picked up. Cracking the hard, empty skulls of Neanderthals was one of Watusi’s simple pleasures.
We picked a rendezvous point up on Flatbush Avenue, and a time: just after midnight. We’d use his car. After years of taking the subway down from Harlem, Watusi finally had his own wheels. But he was smart enough to pick the relatively neutral turf of downtown for our meeting place; smart enough not to drive into Bensonhurst at any hour. Big, head-cracking, ebony giant that he was, he knew better.
I went back upstairs and collapsed into my easy chair, immune to the lure of the poker game, still trying to chase the galloping demons from my head. I shut my eyes just for a moment, heard Angelo laugh and shout, “Full house,” and then I slept, too lightly for dreams.
It was after eleven when I woke up. The goombahs had all gone home, and 16th Avenue was chilly and quiet under a waning moon. I hurried out, stopping just long enough downstairs to get my shoulder holster and my .38.
Watusi was standing outside his car on Flatbush Avenue, reading a book under the street light.
“Langston Hughes again?” I asked.
“Marcus Aurelius.”
“Wasn’t he Italian?”
“Roman, actually.”
“Dark Roman, I’ll bet.” We got into his car.
“You were followed?”
“Green Plymouth sedan. Two guys.”
He looked into the rear view mirror and nodded. “Excellent. And our destination?”
“Sands Street.”
“We need to do this quickly. I can’t be out all night. Desiree is coming down with a cold. Sniffles, a cough, and congestion.”
“Got any Vicks?”
“Of course.”
“Give her Vicks, with the vaporizer.”
Watusi turned the car at the next corner and we headed west toward Sands Street and the bridge. I considered updating him about Arnold and my nightmare, but I kept to myself. Watusi did the same, watching the road and exercising a father’s natural right to worry.
Sands Street was in a rough-and-tumble area just west of the bridge. It offered a string of rowdy bars, flophouses, and brothels that catered to sailors on leave, drifters without much sense, and the workers at the nearby Brooklyn Navy Yard. It had once been a fine residential neighborhood, but the building of the bridge back in the 1880s had guaranteed its steady decline.
The building Arnold had identified as his gang’s hideout was boarded up in front, but there was a padlocked cellar door in back and a key to it under a cracked flowerpot. Or so he’d said.
The green sedan pulled up a block away. Watusi gave our pursuers ample opportunity to watch us turn into the alley beside the house, and then he looked for the best place to set an ambush.
My eyes were locked on the bridge as soon as I saw it. It loomed like a bitter old enemy, its cold stone tower rising above me like a battlement. The catwalk on which Superman and Calamari Breath had tortured me in every installment of my nightmare was still suspended below the roadbed. That cruel image froze me within a core of silence until Watusi’s shallow voice broke my contact with the bridge.
“Eddie…”
He stepped carefully into the cellar and I followed.
“We should greet them here,” he said quietly. It was a wise choice. We took up positions on either side of the stone steps and waited. Watusi had found an old crate and put it at the base of the steps. If the crate tripped up the first goon, the second might easily tumble over him and we’d have them both. I pulled my .38 in case that didn’t happen, or if they came in with guns at the ready. Watusi, as usual, was unarmed.
The wait was longer than we’d expected, long enough to feel that the men in the Plymouth suspected a trap. In the disquieting silence, I agonized about the bridge again, and the dream, and Superman and Calamari Breath. Were they coming for me even now, indestructible phantoms bent on carrying out in reality what they hadn’t accomplished in my unconscious? Very well, let them come. Better to face them here than in the utter helplessness of a dream. Always better to deal with the real than the imagined. Here, you could fight back. Here, if you hit a phantom with your fist, he’d feel it.
We kept waiting. “Jesus,” I said softly. “Who’s ambushing who?”
“It’s ‘whom.’”
“What?”
“Who’s ambushing whom. You are a high school graduate, aren’t you?”
“Yeah…”
“Then why don’t you know how to use the language?”
I scowled and changed the subject, or rather, tried to get back to it. “You think they’re still out front?”
“How long has it been?”
“Ten minutes, my guess. Plenty of time to figure we’d gone inside.”
“Or to circle behind us.”
I glanced at the ramshackle fence that separated this place from its equally derelict backyard neighbor. It was made of crude planks, and the ones that weren’t rotted were missing.
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“Perhaps our guests expect a light to come on inside.”
“Their heads or ours?”
“Inside the building. Assuming there is electricity.”
“Or a flashlight, maybe.”
“I’ll inquire,” said Watusi, and slipped away. I heard him briefly on the stairs, and then there wasn’t a sound. I waited and listened for our pursuers, but they didn’t appear.
I spent the time thinking up Italian cold remedies for Desiree, the ones my mother had used on me. I stopped when I heard the sound of a window rattling open upstairs, accompanied by Watusi’s bellowing voice. He returned in less than a minute and announced, “I think they’ll come presently.”
“What’d you do, besides open the window and shout?”
“I pretended to tell you that I’d found it.”
“Found what?”
“Whatever it is we’re looking for.”
He was right. Hard footfalls on the concrete just beyond the cellar door signaled their arrival, and we backed farther into the dark. They were assuming that we were upstairs, so they’d come ahead carelessly, moving to the top of the steps without pausing. I held my gun flat in my palm, prepared to use it as a sap, listening to them descend, single-file, into our basement ambush.
When the first goon reached the broken crate, he just pushed it aside. I waited until he took the next step before I hit him hard behind the head. In the same instant, Watusi reached for the leg of the second one and pulled him sharply to the right, off the stairs and onto the hard floor. The struggle was brief, ending with the slap of Watusi’s flat hand against the man’s neck. We rolled them over and Watusi dragged them into the faint light of the cellar doorway.
“Recognize either of them?” he asked.
They were the same two who’d come into Shork’s office. Superman and Calamari Breath. I tried to fake a casual interest, but my fear shone through like a lighthouse beacon.
“I’ve seen them before, but I don’t know who they belong to. Maybe Big Dom Scarpetti.”
“Actually, his brother Alberto.”
“Oh?”
“Perhaps you haven’t heard, Eddie, but Alberto Scarpetti’s been in some trouble lately. Murder and racketeering charges. There was a picture of him in yesterday’s paper. These two were standing at his side.”
“Out-of-tow
n help?”
“I don’t think so. More like personal bodyguards.”
“Important guys.”
“Alberto has important problems.”
I hadn’t seen the newspaper, but I’d heard about Alberto’s problems. Carlson’s office had acquired a windfall of incriminating evidence against the Scarpetti mob, the kind that D.A.’s with gubernatorial ambitions drool over. Damning. Irrefutable. Indictments were on the way, the beginning of a long, arduous process that would eventually send Alberto and all his top lieutenants to prison, and possibly to the electric chair.
“So why would Alberto send these guys to tail me, instead of a couple of regular goons?”
“A fascinating question, Eddie, but perhaps better put aside, pending our present business.”
“True enough.”
“You complete your search, and I’ll baby-sit our sleeping friends. Hurry, if you will. Desiree’s sitter is inexperienced in medical matters.”
I shouldered my .38 and climbed the cellar stairs to the first floor landing. It was brighter there, even with all the windows boarded up. Before it’d been condemned, the house had been a transients’ hotel. A small lobby area, complete with front desk and a warren of mailboxes, occupied a corner just beyond the front door. The place was thick with cobwebs and dust.
The rooms, all numbered, were unlocked. My search was easy enough; there wasn’t a stick of furniture in the place. There wasn’t anything in the place. Not until the third floor.
An expensive-looking leather briefcase was waiting for me just inside the door to apartment 9. My expectations soared, then nose-dived when I opened it.
Empty.
When I reappeared in the cellar, Watusi observed my disappointment without comment. “Time to go?” he asked.
“Looks that way.” We left our unconscious pursuers, shut the cellar door, and made our way back to the car.
“Not full of doubloons, I take it,” Watusi surmised as I pulled the car door closed and set the briefcase between my feet.
“Full of air,” I answered, still frowning. Watusi started the car and pulled out of the alley.
“I take it that this briefcase once contained something.”
“Sure did.”
“Something important.”
“Uh huh.”
“Does the one who owns it know it’s empty?”
“Probably not.”
“Then you should be smiling,” he said, with his own smile.
CHAPTER
19
I called Carlson’s office at nine the next morning. His pretty secretary explained that he hadn’t come in yet. “That’s okay,” I said. “Just tell him if he wants to find what he lost, he should come to Fulton Joe’s at noon.” And I hung up.
It was a beautiful Monday morning in Bensonhurst, and the world was turning in the right direction again. I’d slept free of nightmares, and for the first time in a week of confusion and retreat I felt like I was in control. I actually looked forward to getting Arnold out of his mess. I felt good about Gino and his meddling, too, about Mr. Pulaski, about the whole world. Good enough even to give my idiot in-law Dino a big, loving bear hug. I had a whole new power right at my fingertips, the kind that can make crooked roads straight and bumpy roads smooth. Fast Eddie Lombardi was back, and he was going on a roll.
I had three hours to kill before popping my little surprise on Carlson. I decided to spend part of that time at the Brooklyn Eagle, just up the street from Borough Hall and the Municipal Building. The reporters name was Wiseman. He covered the crime scene, and, most recently, the pending Scarpetti indictments. I caught him at his desk eating a sweet roll and drinking coffee from a ceramic cup that had his nickname on it.
“Morning, Scoop,” I said, taking the empty chair from the desk next to him and handing him my card. “Tell me about Alberto Scarpetti.”
He read the card with a snicker of contempt, which I took to be his usual manner. “Lombardi, huh?”
“That’s me.”
“Your name’s familiar.”
“It’s on everyone’s lips.”
“So is spit.”
“So, you haven’t heard?”
“Heard you’re a pain in the ass.”
“Uh uh. Just a solid citizen trying to do his civic duty.”
“They’re the worst kind of pains in the ass. What’s your interest?”
“Got a client. Gotta make him believe I’m working. Takes all my energy.”
“And you want to know about Alberto.”
“And his troubles. All there is to know.”
He leaned forward, a storyteller’s glint in his green eyes. “Okay, Lombardi, just for you. Alberto’s problems—alleged problems—began when the D.A.’s office managed to sneak an undercover cop into the very lair of Alberto and his highest-echelon hoods.”
“Was this under Carlson, or before?”
“Long before that jerk. It took the cop five years to work himself up high enough to do some damage.”
“What happened to the cop?”
“Nobody knows. A grave in the marshes somewhere. Bottom of the bay, maybe. He disappeared, stopped reporting, anyway, about a year ago. Important thing is, he got the goods on Alberto before Alberto got him, and he turned it all over to the D.A.”
“The current D.A., Carlson.”
Wiseman frowned as he nodded.
“What kind of dirt we talking about?”
“The usual. Murder, racketeering, conspiracy, extortion, grand theft.”
“And now?”
“And now we all wait for the grand jury to examine the evidence and bind over Alberto and his lethal buddies for trial. Next week, supposedly, unless the Evidence Fairy makes it disappear or Carlson mails it to the Dead Letter Office.”
“I take it you don’t care much for Carlson.”
“Got no use for a pretty face in a suit. No real instincts for the job, but he knows how to get votes. Likes to play ‘Show and Tell’ with us boys in the press, pumps himself up at press conferences with his little victories over crime so he can run all the sooner for governor, or president, or God.”
“And?”
“He keeps lettin’ the cat out of the bag, givin’ away his best points so the other side has a real good chance to get ready.”
“Even Scarpetti?”
“Especially Scarpetti. Think of the publicity Carlson’s office has been gettin’ on this case. Crimebuster Extraordinary. And while he’s been showin’ off for his adorin’ future electorate and shootin’ off his mouth like a little cap pistol, Scarpetti’s shysters been takin’ detailed notes. There’s a rumor they’ve got big ears planted, even inside the D.A.’s office. If Scarpetti and his lieutenants walk, we’ll owe it all to our illustrious D.A. and his loose lips.”
“How strong’s the case?”
“As strong as five years of tough undercover work can make it. I won’t say it’s airtight, but if nobody fucks up in the D.A.’s office and Carlson doesn’t sell the evidence on Montague Street like nickel apples, Alberto and his associates are all gonna fry up in Ossining.”
“What do you know about Carlson himself?”
“In terms of what?”
“Background, family, education. Stuff like that.”
He leaned back, reached into the open file drawer behind him and pulled out a fat folder. “His file’s right here. Been workin’ on a piece for next week.” He flipped through the pages until he settled on one. “Harvard man, like his father. The father owns a couple of banks here in Brooklyn, another in Manhattan. Real robust type, the father. Boxes, works out with weights. Hunts elephants. Likes to hobnob with the kingmakers up in Albany. The mother does a lot of charity work in Manhattan, runs a soup kitchen when she isn’t communing spiritually with the ghosts of the D.A.R. Ma and Pa Carlson are right up to their Nordic, steely-blue eyeballs in noblesse oblige.”
“Brothers? Sisters?”
“Only one brother, killed in the war. Secret mission. His plane
blew up with him in it. Carlson himself made captain, but he was strictly a paper pusher stateside.”
“Girlfriends?”
“Well, he likes to be seen with the ladies, anyway. Me, I think it’s all political. The guy’s too much in love with himself. Gets a boner every time he sees his picture in the paper. Probably doesn’t need broads except for show.”
“Boyfriends?”
“Now there’s a headline beggin’ for a story. You know somethin’ I don’t?”
“Just asking.”
“If he has, he’s real discreet. That affliction’s a career killer.”
“How about a guy named Jorgenson? Tall, splotchy skin, unkempt red hair?”
“Naah. Who’s he?”
“I don’t know yet.” I stood up. He tossed the folder casually on his desk and gave me a reporter’s look.
“What’s your angle on this?” he asked.
“I don’t know if I have one.”
“And if one develops?”
I smiled. “I’ll come and see you, Scoop.”
CHAPTER
20
Fulton Joe’s was hyperactive at noon. There wasn’t an empty table in the place, and the waiters were sweating like it was the middle of July. Busy was the way I wanted it. Safety in a crowd, for Carlson as much as for me. I wanted to rile him, but not to spook him, and the distinction is very fine.
I had a table away from the window, but with a clear view of Fulton Street. Even if he used the Pierrepont Street entrance, I’d still see him before he could see me. Not that an escape route was all that important. If I had this figured right, he’d be coming without the boys in blue, without anybody. His briefcase was on the floor next to me, my winter coat draped over it.
I ordered the hamburger roast with mushroom sauce, string beans, mashed potatoes, a slice of blueberry pie, and a cup of black coffee. I waited. He surprised me by not arriving promptly at twelve, but when he did arrive, he was in a worried rush. As soon as he saw me, he scowled and slowed his pace. I pretended to play with my mashed potatoes as he loomed over me.
“I should have guessed it would be someone like you.”
Hot-Wired in Brooklyn Page 8
