“Your name is Alex.”
“Go play with air conditioner,” the old man said as he stepped outside.
John stopped at the super’s apartment and learned a burned fuse in the basement had damaged some of the wiring and wouldn’t be replaced until the next day.
“And how’m I supposed to sleep tonight?” he asked.
“I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do,” the super said. “You’re welcome to use the basement if you want. It’s a little cooler down there.”
“The cellar?” John said. “No thanks. Can you check on the old man before you go to sleep? Elias. Make sure he’s okay.”
“Zorba?” the super said. “Of course, except I saw him with a woman from around the corner again today. Maybe he goes there again if he can’t sleep.”
“Right,” John said. “Perfect. He’s getting laid and I’m worried about him.”
“Excuse me?” the super said.
“Nothing.”
He headed up the three flights to his apartment. It was pitch-black when he got inside. He cursed when he banged his knee against the corner of the kitchen table as he searched for the junk drawer where he kept a flashlight. He went to pour himself an ice water and realized the refrigerator wasn’t working either.
“Christ,” he said, then let the sink water run until it was as cold as it would get.
He downed the glass of water, poured another and brought it with him to the bedroom. He stripped out of his clothes, lay on his back and closed his eyes. John was still sweating, but exhaustion eventually took over and he fell asleep.
The telephone woke him at eleven. He was disoriented when he answered and heard somebody cursing.
“Who is this?”
“Nick.”
John was still half asleep. “Nick who?”
“You being funny?”
“What?”
“This Johnny Porno?”
John realized it was Nick Santorra. He huffed, then yawned extra long on purpose.
“You think you’re cute, right?” Santorra said. “Am I keeping you awake?”
“Yeah, actually,” John said. “I was sleeping. You woke me, Punchy.”
“Punchy? You’ll be punchy you keep jerking me off.”
John yawned again.
“Do that again and I’ll kick your teeth down your throat,” Santorra said. “How’s that?”
“I can’t help I was sleeping,” said John, still smiling.
“Yeah, well, now you’re not. You need to come down to the bar tomorrow and pick something up.”
“I can’t tomorrow. I work.”
“You work for us.”
“Weekends. Monday to Thursday I drive a car.”
“Take a break then.”
John didn’t respond.
“You there?” Santorra asked.
“I can’t get off during the day. Has to be night.”
“Yeah, well, make fucking sure you show. It’s important.”
“What is it?”
“Just be there,” Santorra said.
John shook his head when Santorra hung up. The guy was an asshole.
He unplugged the phone so he wouldn’t be disturbed again. He tried closing his eyes but the guy had got under his skin one more time. Sleep wouldn’t come easy.
* * * *
Detective Levin met up with Captain Kaprowski at the corner of Flatlands Avenue and East 93rd street. Fire department trucks had just left after putting out a suspicious fire at a local real estate office. Onlookers had yet to disperse.
Kaprowski motioned toward his car, a green Catalina, parked at the curb in front of an Italian bakery further up the avenue.
“What was that about?” Levin asked.
“Blacks trying to move into a white neighborhood,” Kaprowski said. “It’s not the first time that place was hit. Probably won’t be the last. They listed homes and apparently a few black families went to see them. Local yahoos aren’t appreciative.”
“You’d think this shit only went on in the South.”
“Then you’d think wrong,” Kaprowski said.
They had reached his car. He pointed at a group of men standing in front of a small bar across the avenue.
“Those clowns probably have something to do with it, the fire,” he said. “The bar there, the Peanut, that’s been mobbed-up since it opened.”
“And here I thought they were concerned citizens,” said Levin before they both sat inside the car.
“What do you have on Kelly?” Kaprowski asked.
“He visited Eddie Vento’s place a little while ago dressed like a homeless hippie,” Levin said. “It’s tough to disguise yourself you’re over six feet with red hair and freckles. I could give him an A for effort, but that’d be cheating.”
“Vento there?”
“I don’t know. Kelly didn’t go in the bar. He went in the doorway alongside the bar entrance. There are four apartments in the building above it, two on each floor. Vento’s wife’s on the title for the building. Vento keeps the barmaid he’s banging in a one-bedroom on the second floor facing the street. Probably where Kelly went. He went home from there, but I don’t know if Vento was there or not. He might still be.”
“What good’s Kelly without Vento?” Kaprowski asked.
“No good, but IA is stretched thin because of what’s going on here in Canarsie, all the stolen cars. Word is there are cops running interference for the boys further up this avenue, the junkyards on Flatlands over towards Pennsylvania Avenue.”
“Chop shops.”
“What I’m hearing. Not to mention the Fulton Fish Market and what’s going on there.”
“It’s a federal task force handling that, the fish market,” Kaprowski said. “There’s gotta be more to the cars if Internal Affairs is stretched thin here in Canarsie.”
“Has to do with a few MIAs is what I heard,” Levin said. “Mob associates that’ve vanished around stolen cars.”
“Okay, that’s the Gemini Lounge,” Kaprowski said. “Further up Flatlands across Ralph Avenue. The guy owns the Gemini’s allegedly the same guy whacked a porn dealer fell out of favor with local goodfellas. Jewish name, the porn dealer, I forget it offhand.”
“Who’d’ve ever known porn was so lethal,” Levin said.
“Don’t kid yourself. The animals running things on the streets now, they’d kill for an extra ten cents on the dollar. Between all the films they’re making and the controversy with the courts, the porn business is booming.”
“Something tells me you’d prefer it if Internal Affairs wasn’t so focused on the cars.”
“I’m not worried about IA, Levin. What they don’t know won’t hurt us. If you could’ve placed Kelly with Vento, had something concrete, it’d be one less day wasted is all. Dirty cops are dirty cops. Hopefully we’ll bring them all in together, the ones in bed with the mob over stolen cars and guys like Kelly running interference for their porn business.”
“And then they’ll cut their own deals.”
“Probably,” Kaprowski said. “But those deals’ll bring down a wiseguy or two, which’ll bring down another couple and a couple more after that. And probably one or two dirty cops’ll kill themselves from being disgraced and I know I won’t lose any sleep over the likes of them.”
“Okay, then,” Levin said.
“Let me know when Kelly starts this investigation for real,” Kaprowski said. “I want names, addresses, license plate numbers and blood types, you can get them.”
“Blood types?”
Kaprowski was looking at the men in front of the bar.
“Can you drop me back at my car?” Levin asked.
“Where’d you park?”
“Rockaway Parkway. Across the street from Johnny Porno, where he lives.”
“I’m impressed,” Kaprowski said.
Levin held up a finger. “That’s one address,” he said. “In case you’re counting.”
* * * *
“You sober, Billy?
” Detective Sean Kelly asked Billy Hastings. “Because if you’re not, I’m not gonna waste my time.”
Kelly had found Hastings sitting on a bench on Emmons Avenue in Sheepshead Bay. Restaurant traffic across the avenue was heavy as Kelly watched four fairly attractive middle-aged women dressed for action get out of a Buick Electra parked at the divider. Three had dark hair, one was a redhead. The redhead wore a tiger-print short dress with matching heels.
“Big red,” Kelly said.
“Huh?” Hastings said.
Kelly watched as the women crossed the avenue and went inside Randazzo’s clam bar.
“Guineas on parade,” he said. “Except maybe red. She could be one of God’s children.”
Hastings turned to see what Kelly was talking about, but was too late.
“You sober or not?” Kelly asked him.
“You wanna smell my breath, go ’head,” Hastings said. He opened his mouth wide.
Kelly slapped his face.
Hastings jumped up off the bench. “You wanna try that again?” he said. He was showing teeth inches from Kelly’s chin.
Kelly took a half step back. “Down, boyo,” he said. “It was a play slap, for Jesus sake. No need to lose your lunch.”
Hastings had relaxed his mouth but continued staring.
Kelly avoided the eye contact. He looked to his right and saw the redhead was back out of the restaurant. She stopped at the curb to let the one-way traffic pass before crossing to the divider. As she passed under the street light, Kelly could see she had fair skin and freckles.
“Nice,” Hastings said. “Very nice.”
The Electra was parked on the water side of the divider. The redhead made eye contact with Kelly before opening the door. The two exchanged smiles before she got what she had left behind, closed the door and headed back across the avenue. Kelly thought he detected an extra swivel to her hips.
“Fuck face,” Hastings said. “Over here.”
Kelly turned to Hastings again. “I smacked you, lightly, because you’re jerking my chain, Billy. I ask you you’re sober, you know what I mean. Pills, the white stuff, whatever it is you shove down your throat or put up your nose. I wanna know you’re hearing what I have to say, understanding it. This is important, that you understand, because I’m hearing things from different people about your actions of late and it’s making a lot of guys you don’t wanna make nervous very nervous. Guys didn’t want me to secure your pension inna first place. Old friends of yours. Guys thought maybe you’d crack from the pressure and give one or two of them up. Guys thought, still do, maybe you’re better off onna day trip on one of the fishing boats behind us. In case they need some extra chum.”
Until he was forced into retirement a week ago, Hastings had been an eleven-year veteran detective with the New York Police Department. A dirty cop with a drug habit and a deviant sexual appetite, Hastings had a short temper and an inability to control it. When he was caught on camera starting a fight in a connected bar, a fight he eventually lost, Lieutenant Detective Kelly assumed the role of peacemaker and brokered a deal with higher-ups for Hastings to leave the department without losing any of his pension or benefits. Tonight, after hearing a rumor about Hastings buying throwaway handguns, Kelly came to warn him against acting foolish.
Hastings remained silent.
Kelly offered him a cigarette.
“Sure,” Hastings said.
Kelly handed him his pack. “The point being,” he said, “your temper and tough-guy reputation aside, you’re looking for throwaways suggests you haven’t calmed the fuck down yet. A genuine fear you’re not yet willing to let sleeping dogs lie has stirred up some tension amongst former friendlies. I did what I could for you, Billy. So did some other people. You were more than lucky to walk away with your pension, the benefits. You could’ve done worse. A lot worse.”
“And I appreciated it,” Hastings said. “Told you so then, don’t feel it’s necessary to repeat myself now.”
Kelly took a long drag on his cigarette. He turned and blew the smoke over his left shoulder toward the pier. “That’s it?” he said. “You appreciated it? We can all relax now or it’s none of our business what comes next in Billy world?”
Hastings grinned.
“I miss something?” Kelly said. “Because the guy some people were afraid you might be looking to take out now you’re not on the job anymore, the guy knocked you unconscious, fair and square the way it was told to us, that guy now works for Eddie Vento, is part of his crew, so to speak. Put it in popular street vernacular, the way the guineas say it, he’s with somebody. You take him out, they retaliate with a certain film of you in that bar that night, we’ve all gotta answer for it.”
Hastings rubbed his nose.
Kelly said, “You itchy, Billy? You do some coke, maybe?”
“Actually, I’m just wondering what’d happen I was to knee you in the balls for the way you slapped me,” Hastings said. “Like Pearl Harbor that was, that smack. Then with the threats and all, you’re gonna make me chum and so on. I’m thinking before any of that happens, I could knee you in the nuts, gut you like a fish with the knife in my back pocket, leave your intestines for the chum, they need bait, the fishing boats. I’m thinking your concerned friends should’ve sent somebody can do more than just talk. You wanna make threats it helps you send somebody with the stones to get it done.”
Kelly took a full step back. “Let’s not get carried away,” he said. “I play-slapped you, Billy. Gutting a man for something like that’d be a gross overreaction.”
“Don’t piss yourself,” Hastings said. “The wife wants to move.”
Kelly swallowed hard. “Excuse?”
“Kathleen. She wants to move.”
Kelly took a moment and felt somewhat relieved Hastings seemed calm again. “How is Kathy?” he asked.
“Kathleen. Her name’s Kathleen.”
“She’s a pretty girl.”
“She’s a prized piece of ass all of my concerned friends pro’bly jerked off to a half-dozen times each. She’s doing fine, though, my wife. Kathleen’s fine.”
Kelly put both arms out. “I meant no offense.”
“Except for that slap before.”
“Would it make you feel better, you slapped me back?” said Kelly through a nervous chuckle. “In the face, though. My nuts aren’t what they used to be.”
Hastings ignored the offer. “She wants to move away from New York. That’s why I collected a few throwaways. She wants to move and I’m thinking it’s better I bring something from here to there, rather than buy new from people I don’t know wherever the fuck she decides we’re gonna live. She wants us to start over someplace new.”
“I didn’t realize you two were having problems.”
“We’re not having problems. It’s the lost income is all.”
Kelly reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a small envelope. “That was the other reason I wanted to see you,” he said. “Some of your friends thought maybe this’d help. It isn’t much, but it’s the sentiment that counts.”
Hastings ignored the envelope. “Looking to buy me off, Sean?”
“You need to be more trusting of your own,” Kelly said. “Go on, take it.”
Hastings didn’t move.
“Or I can mail you a money order instead,” Kelly said.
Hastings mumbled something, turned around and walked away.
“What’s that?” Kelly said.
Hastings kept walking.
“Billy!” Kelly yelled. “Hey, come on, man! Billy!”
“Fidelis ad Mortem,” Hastings yelled.
“What?” Kelly said. “What was that, Billy? What you say?”
Hastings continued walking. Kelly watched until the ex-cop crossed Emmons Avenue and was heading up Twenty-ninth Street. Then Kelly put the envelope back inside his pants pocket, tossed his cigarette in the street and looked back at the restaurant.
“Fuckin’ nut,” he said.
Chap
ter 7
Nathan Ackerman was up early to take his stepson to summer camp. He prepared two bowls of Cheerios with skim milk before making a cup of Sanka and perusing the sports pages of the Daily News. He saw where the Yankees had lost their second straight game to Kansas City while the Mets had beaten the Dodgers at Shea. A few weeks ago Nathan had picked up a pair of box tickets for a Friday-night Yankees game against the Orioles. It would be Little Jack’s third Yankee game of the season, the first two having been a doubleheader back in May when the Bronx Bombers beat the Twins twice.
Yesterday, though, Nathan had learned the Philharmonic would be performing a three-day benefit Mahler program upstate the same weekend. Mahler was Nathan’s favorite composer. He hoped Jack’s father would take the boy in his place.
He checked the time and saw it was close to eight o’clock. He was about to go looking for his stepson when the boy entered the kitchen carrying his baseball glove.
“Morning,” Nathan said.
“Good morning,” Jack said.
The boy spotted his cereal, sat in his chair, grabbed his spoon and started to eat.
“Maestro,” Nathan said.
Jack looked up from his cereal. “Me?”
“I have a surprise for you. Two surprises, actually.”
“What?”
Nathan pulled the Yankees tickets from his pocket. “August thirty-first, Yanks-Orioles,” he said. “A back-to-school gift.”
The boy’s eyes opened wide. “Really?”
“Yes, sir,” Nathan said. “The only thing is I can’t make it so I want you to ask your dad if he can go.”
“Sure,” Jack said. “He can take me.”
“Good, then.”
“Can I see?”
Nathan handed over the tickets. “Third-base field boxes,” he said. “You can razz the Oriole players up close. Give a yell when Brooks Robinson gets a hot one and maybe it goes through his legs.”
“That guy never makes an error,” the boy said. He examined the tickets wide-eyed. “This is so neat. Thank you, Nathan.”
“It’s my pleasure, sir.”
“Why can’t you go?”
“Gustav Mahler. Any other composer and I’d cancel, but I love Mahler.”
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