Hot-Wired in Brooklyn

by Douglas Dinunzio

“You,” she hissed, before I could sit down.

  “My name’s Eddie,” I said. “Yours is Phyllis.”

  “I would prefer to eat my lunch in peace,” she said, looking away. I sat across from her. Beneath her unbuttoned coat was a tweed suit. Her blond hair was styled just the way she’d worn it that day in Carlson’s office.

  “Don’t you want to find out who killed your boss? Don’t you want him put away? Whatever Carlson might’ve told you about me, I want to find out, too.”

  “That’s hard to believe.”

  “Okay. Put aside the way you feel about me. There’s a kid at Raymond Street who needs your help, and another in hiding somewhere in Brooklyn afraid for his life. If you help me, you help them.”

  “And how am I expected to do that?”

  “You knew Carlson.”

  “Of course.”

  “I mean, beside the fact that he was your boss, you knew him.” I tried to let the carnal implications of that settle in as innocuously as possible, but she jumped right at them. Her scowl darkened, taking some of her good looks away.

  “Knew?”

  “Yes.”

  “In the Biblical sense.”

  “Yes.”

  “As in ‘having his way with me after office hours.’”

  “Yes.”

  “You are a worm, aren’t you!”

  “It’s true, isn’t it?”

  “It’s utterly false! How dare you even to think it!”

  “He was an unmarried, attractive man, and you’re a woman,” I said firmly, but I felt the floor slipping out from under me.

  As her anger pushed her voice louder, some of the other patrons turned to listen. “Your cynicism matches your vulgarity, Mr. Lombardi. I won’t even ask for an apology.”

  “Look, I’m only…”

  “You’re only trying to defame the man and shame me in the process. All right. I’ll tell you all about myself and Mr. Carlson. And when I’m through, you can just slink out of here like the weasel you are.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “I got my job in the district attorney’s office six years ago. I’d only recently married, and my husband and I were both out of work. And, yes, Mr. Carlson already knew me when I applied. From Juvenile Hall. He’d prosecuted me for shoplifting—quite a bit of it—two years earlier, when he was an assistant on the D.A.’s staff. He could have had me sent to women’s prison, but he asked the judge to suspend my sentence on the provision that I return to school. I did, graduated two years later, and when the job came up in his office, I applied. I was prepared to remind him of my past and who I was, but he’d remembered. He hired me anyway. When he was elected district attorney, I went with him.

  “He helped me again after my husband and I had our first child, a daughter. She became very ill and we couldn’t pay the hospital bills. Mr. Carlson did. He refused to let us repay him, never asked me or my husband for anything. Not anything. Do you understand?”

  She waited for a response, but I didn’t have one.

  “Mr. Carlson was one of the kindest men I’ve ever met,” she added in a breaking voice, as if to compound my shame.

  “I’m sorry I upset you,” I said, as the waitress arrived, “and I apologize. But there are still two kids in danger. Do you mind if I tell you a story now?”

  I started with Carlson at the wrecking yard and ended with lunch at Fulton Joe’s. “I don’t know about any of that,” she said stiffly and without emotion. “I can’t help you.”

  “All right. Tell me something else, then. Mr. Jorgenson. Who is he?”

  “A friend of Mr. Carlson’s.”

  “How close a friend?”

  “Are we getting Biblical again, Mr. Lombardi?”

  “Okay, you don’t like my questions, but two lives are on the line here.”

  “And reputations aren’t?”

  “Redeeming Carlson’s reputation is a poor substitute for keeping those two boys breathing. Come on, Phyllis. Tell me about Jorgenson… please.”

  She sighed and her gaze softened. “All right.”

  “So, how often did Jorgenson visit?”

  “Several days a week.”

  “Short visits or long?”

  “About a half hour, usually, and sometimes twice in the same day. Mr. Carlson routinely postponed all appointments and staff meetings the moment Mr. Jorgenson arrived, and he answered no calls while Mr. Jorgenson was in his office.”

  “Did you find that unusual?”

  “Not particularly. Mr. Carlson enjoyed visitors… most of them, anyway,” she added with a quick scowl.

  “Did you ever see a phone number or address for him?”

  “I don’t believe so.”

  “Did Carlson ever ask you to call him, mail him a letter?”

  “No.”

  “Did they maybe do business together? Real estate? The stock market? Anything like that?”

  “Mr. Lombardi…”

  “Didn’t you ever just ask, out of simple curiosity, who he was?”

  “No.”

  “A man visits your boss several times every week. Everything comes to a screeching halt when he does, and you don’t have any idea who he is or what he’s doing there? Your evasions—your lies—are gonna kill two boys. You want that?”

  “Of course not. But I’m not lying.”

  “Then remember’, Phyllis. Remember something.”

  “There’s not much to remember. Mr. Jorgenson’s visits were usually quiet. The door to Mr. Carlson’s office is padded, so I couldn’t hear talking at normal levels. Not from my desk, anyway. But a couple of times, I heard them talking excitedly about something.”

  “Something?”

  “I don’t know what the topic was. I picked out words, that’s all.”

  “Such as?”

  “’Sissy.’ I heard that several times.”

  “Mean anything to you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Any others?”

  “Stork.”

  “Stork?”

  “Or something like it.”

  “The arguing…”

  “Not arguing. More like animated conversation, raising their voices, but not in anger.”

  “How often did these animated conversations happen?”

  “Quite rarely, and never more so than that week before he died, before his car was stolen.”

  I got up to leave. “Thanks. I’m sorry I interrupted your lunch. If this turns out all right, maybe you’ll understand why I had to ask…”

  “Demeaning questions?”

  “Yes.”

  “And if things don’t turn out?”

  “Then you’ll have another good reason to hate me.”

  CHAPTER

  33

  It was still early afternoon when I returned to Bensonhurst. The sky looked like gray undercoat, and that meant more snow. I had another six hours before I set up my stakeout across from St. Margaret’s, so I stopped at Bernard’s Billiards on New Utrecht Avenue for some nine-ball and beer.

  “Fast Eddie,” somebody called out from the corner table, near the bar. He was melon-headed, pudgy, early forties. A perfect tenor at high mass. Victor Iademarco, Proprietor, and Esquire. His two favorite words, by the way, which I’d taught him during one of my vocabulary binges.

  “Want a table?”

  “One I can crawl under.”

  “Still have a pre-duh-lick-shun for table six?”

  “Eccellente, Victor! Sure. And a Schaefer.”

  “Set ’em up?”

  “Not just yet,” I said, lining up my break shot. “I’ve got to work later.”

  “First one’s on the house,” he said. “On account of you’re gettin’ married.”

  I almost miscued. “How’s that?”

  “Tony and Frankie were in this morning, told me all about it.”

  Swell. So now Frankie believed it, too. Eddie and Charlotte, the perfect couple, if Russian roulette was a family sport. I took out my frustration on t
he racked balls, scattering them with an extra twist and plenty of follow. Victor set the first bottle of Schaefer on the rail, and I lined up the number one ball.

  I tried to concentrate on my game, but when my usually smooth stroke failed me, I considered the two words Phyllis had overheard. “Sissy” and “Stork.” “Stork” was probably “Shork,” but what did the first word mean?

  I gave up halfway through the second rack and drove home. I opened up Shork’s blue metal box and covered most of my living room floor with the fruits of his vile hobby. One of these sad women figured in the exchange at the wrecking yard, but which one? And how would I find out? Go to all the addresses Shork had written on the backs of the pictures and confront these poor women with their shame? Blackmail them into telling the truth? I’d done enough harm accusing Phyllis falsely, and Carlson, too, for that matter. I didn’t really have the stomach for more, not even to help Arnold. A gallery of sad, accusing faces stared up at me and forced me to turn my eyes away.

  I collected the pictures, returned them to Shork’s metal box, and put it in my office safe downstairs. Then, I left early to do some penance.

  I was going to track a prowler. And bring him back alive.

  . . .

  The snow held off until I arrived at St. Margaret’s, then fell steadily for the next two hours. If my run of Italian bad luck continued, I’d spend a sleepless night freezing in my car, and the prowler wouldn’t show.

  I kept the motor running at first, got out a couple of times to sweep the snow off, but finally I just let it accumulate and went from watching to listening. Snow muffles sound, but the silence it creates also amplifies an unexpected or aberrant sound from the normal background. A kind of shamus hearing test. Buttoning my overcoat against the cold, I turned off the engine and listened for breaking glass as my yellow Chevy disappeared under a mantle of white.

  I was almost sorry I’d brought my gun. All the prowler’d done was break the smallest window in the church four times and take shelter inside. He was just looking for a safe place, like Chick. If and when I found him, I’d encourage him to move south, even stake him five bucks and take him to Port Authority bus station in Manhattan if it would get him on his way. No more threatened novenas, no more window repair. All he had to do now was show.

  But he didn’t. I tried to keep my mind occupied by computing batting averages and reciting Liam’s bawdy limericks, but it didn’t work. Sitting alone inside a snow-covered car is a guaranteed sleep-inducer, and I went under like a bear in a cave.

  It was two in the morning when I woke up. The snow had stopped. I rolled down the window, pushed away the newest accumulation and stared in disbelief at the side door of the church. Broken glass. Window number five.

  I stopped short of cussing myself when I saw the pair of shallow footprints leading to the side door. They weren’t fresh, but they probably weren’t more than a half-hour old. With any luck, the prowler was still inside.

  I stepped out into the snow, closing the car door as softly as if I were leaving Desiree’s bedroom when she was sleeping. The street, too, was silent. The only tracks were my own, until I reached the sidewalk.

  He’d come from the west end of the street, taking long strides that became longer as he’d approached his favorite entrance to the church. His footprints were bigger than mine, and they set deeper. Suddenly, having my gun didn’t seem so wrong. It’s one thing to tell a prowler to hit the road, and another to actually send him on his way.

  I listened at the door before slowly pushing it open. St. Margaret’s was as dark as it was silent. I found the wall, knelt down, and felt the floor with my hand. A trail of wet footprints led back toward the center aisle, and I followed them as my eyes adjusted to the dark.

  When I reached the center aisle, I stopped and listened again. No sound, so I peered from behind the pew. A single, hunched figure knelt at the communion rail. I still couldn’t hear him, but he looked like he was praying. I backtracked to the side aisle and crawled slowly and silently toward the front of the church. A statue of the Virgin Mary was at the far end, her benevolent plaster arms extended over several rows of dim votive candles.

  When I got close enough to see her painted smile, I stood up. The figure at the communion rail hadn’t moved, and I couldn’t see his face.

  “Can’t your sins wait?” I asked suddenly.

  He recoiled as if I’d fired a shot, backpedaled into the front pew and froze against it.

  “Listen, pal,” I said in my best threatening voice, “you’ve gotta be movin’ on. You’re gettin’ too damned expensive for this parish.”

  He retreated awkwardly along the pew, visible only as an outline. He was shorter than I was, but stockier and stronger-looking, even with his stumbling feet. I followed slowly, shunting him toward the statue of St. Francis and the rows of votive candles at the end of the other side aisle, where I might see his face.

  “You got any idea how much it costs to replace window glass these days?” I kept on. “It’s astronomical. Maybe you think the Holy Ghost comes along every morning and puts in a new pane for free. Not a chance. You can forget about the loaves and fishes here, pal, and that hokum about the lilies of the field, too. God doesn’t fix windows at St. Margaret’s.”

  He kept moving away, looking for exits. I added more menace to my tone.

  “The priest here, Father Giacomo, he’s a very nice man. He just wants you to stop breakin’ the windows. Me, I’m not so nice. I want you to get lost and not come back. Disappear completely. Get the idea?”

  I could almost see his features in the candlelight. As my eyes strained to separate him from the deeper shadows, I heard something I hadn’t expected. Whimpering.

  His arm rose to cover his mouth, but he couldn’t suppress the sound completely. I stopped. He backed finally into the light of the candles, and immediately I knew who he was.

  CHAPTER

  34

  Chick,” I said softly, but he didn’t answer. “Hey… you’re Chick Gunderson, right?” Still no answer, only a gaping mouth and bulging, fearful eyes.

  “It’s okay, Chick. I’m here to help you.”

  He slunk into the corner and out of the light again.

  “My name’s Eddie Lombardi. I’m a private detective, and I’m a friend of Arnold’s. I know about the fix you’re in, and I can get you out of it.”

  “Who sent you?”

  “Arnold. Arnold sent me, Chick.”

  He bolted suddenly down the side aisle. I backtracked and paralleled his course down the center, trying to keep him between me and the side door. He slammed into the wall of confessionals at the end of the aisle, bounced off and lurched for the center, but I was already there. He froze again.

  “Arnold sent me, Chick. And Caroline Hutchinson. Jimmy’s sister.”

  “He’s dead,” he sobbed. “Teddy, too. I’m next.”

  “Not if you come with me, not if you tell me where those papers are that were in the D.A.’s briefcase.”

  He braced himself against the wall, strong, sweating hands flat against cold stone. I backed off.

  “You’re no friend of Stinky’s,” he said in a husky voice, bravado rising to combat his fear.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re lyin’. You’re not a private detective, either.”

  I reached for the wallet inside my coat, which was all he needed to push him into panic. He charged head down, hard as a locomotive, glancing off my left hip, spinning me out of the way and breaking for the side entrance. I was up fast. When he slipped on his own wet tracks, I had another chance at him. I took him at the knees, wrapping both arms tight, but he kicked me away and broke again for the door.

  I slipped going outside, landed on my back and struggled to get up. Chick was halfway across the snow-covered street, running directionless and hard when I shouted his name again. He never heard it. The sound of a pistol shattered the snowy silence and Chick’s body recoiled in my direction like he’d been yan
ked with a rope. He landed face up in the snow. My own gun came out in the same instant, but I hadn’t seen a muzzle flash so I didn’t know where to return fire. I didn’t want to take any wild shots. There were houses across the street, and I knew the people who lived in them.

  A bullet twanged just over my head, then another, and I leaped from the top of the steps, over a handrail and behind some solid cover. The muzzle flashes had come from the alleyway between Mr. and Mrs. DiPaulo’s place and the house the Amalfitanos shared with Mrs. Amalfitano’s mother.

  Two muzzle flashes from the same spot. One shooter. I tried to draw his fire by rushing for a large elm in the middle of the stone courtyard that separated the church from St. Margaret’s School, but no shots chased me. I waited, scooted back to the church, but still no gunfire. Then I heard Mrs. DiPaulo scream. She was on her porch, staring at the body in the street.

  “Get back inside, Mrs. DiPaulo, and call Bath Avenue!” I shouted.

  “Eddie Lombardi?”

  “Get off the porch, Mrs. DiPaulo!”

  She disappeared inside as I moved out from my cover, keeping my .38 trained on the alley. There was nobody there. I knelt over Chick’s body and felt for a pulse, but I knew he was dead. His blood was pooling under him, turning the snow dark red. The street quickly filled with neighbors, including Father Giacomo, who’d bolted from the rectory in pajamas and bathrobe. He offered me a mournful look, then knelt beside Chick, saying the last rites for the boy’s soul and hoping it hadn’t already left his body.

  After he made the final sign of the cross, Father Giacomo started to fold Chick’s hands over his chest and entwine a string of rosary beads into his dead fingers. I stopped him.

  “The cops’ll want to see him just the way he fell, Father.”

  “He’s-a the prowler?” he asked, eyes wet and pained.

  “Yes, Father.”

  “You-a no shoot him.”

  “No, Father. Someone else.”

  “You-a try to help him.”

  “Yes, Father. I tried. But I failed.”

  He looked into the boy’s dead eyes. “He was a-very young.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  His eyes sought out mine. “You did all-a you could for him.”