“Drive up a couple blocks and pull up to the curb,” he told Holly. “I’ll pull up behind you with this and then I’ll take over.”
Holly nodded and pulled away. Louis followed her in Albano’s Buick. One red light and thirty seconds later he checked and double-checked his side and rearview mirror before he grabbed the bag and got out. He’d left the Buick locked with the engine running.
Back in his car with Holly, Louis drove one block before he turned off Merrick Boulevard and used side streets to Conduit Boulevard.
“Where’s the money?” she asked.
“That bag at your feet looks about right,” Louis said.
Holly unzipped the top and peeked inside. “Wow, Louis,” she said. “There’s a lot of money in here.”
“Good,” he said. He looked to her and saw she was smiling. “See. That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“Actually, it was pretty exciting,” she said.
“That’s my girl,” Louis said. He was already thinking they might make a good team.
Chapter 36
A restless night had convinced Brice he should confront Levin about the notebook and what was or wasn’t going on with Kelly. As he turned off Twenty-ninth Avenue onto Bell Boulevard, he spotted Levin talking with a blonde-haired man.
He pulled up alongside a fire hydrant and thought he’d be sick after he recognized the guy from an ethics course given at the police academy by detectives with Internal Affairs. Brice waited until the two men turned their backs and walked away before whipping the Mustang into a U-turn and running the light at the corner.
He drove to Massapequa and parked up the block from George Berg’s house before nine-thirty. Brice didn’t know what time Kelly would show up and was still nervous about Levin.
The hours passed slowly as it turned into another hot, humid day sitting in the Mustang. Brice couldn’t relax and spent most of his time making himself crazy wondering what the hell was going on and whether or not it would involve him.
It was close to one o’clock before Kelly finally showed. The lieutenant detective seemed in a good mood as he started a one-way conversation about the Watergate thing in Washington before switching to the Yankees’ five-game losing streak. Kelly didn’t stop talking until Brice had to leave to take a piss.
When he returned to his car, Brice saw that Kelly was sitting behind the wheel again. It annoyed him today more so than it had the day before. He would’ve beefed about it again, except Kelly moved to the passenger seat without being prompted.
A long stretch of nothing but the heat and boredom followed until Kelly went for sandwiches and Brice tried to nap. George Berg hadn’t even stepped outside his house. There was no more denying the investigation was bogus and might have been all along. They had been racking up overtime, most of it doing nothing and all of it authorized by Kelly.
By four-thirty Brice’s shirt had been soaked with sweat. He took it off and Kelly complained about the T-shirt he wore, calling it a guinea wife-beater.
“I’m not a guinea,” Brice had said. “I’m not even Italian.”
“Good for you,” Kelly said. “Those fucking people. Worse’n niggers.”
Brice waited for the rest of Kelly’s ranting and was surprised when there wasn’t any. A relatively peaceful half hour passed and then Kelly finally said, “Looks like nothing’s happening here.”
Brice nearly said what he was thinking: No shit, Sherlock.
“Drop you at your car or what?” he said instead.
“I was thinking we’d go for a beer,” Kelly said. “Maybe shoot the shit some.”
Brice shook his head. “No can do,” he said. “Got a date. Married broad hasn’t had it inna while.”
“You’re fucking married women are you?” said Kelly with a disbelieving smirk.
“She’s separated,” Brice said. “Still waiting on a divorce.”
Kelly chuckled.
“What?” Brice said.
“I was beginning to wonder about you, that’s all. Glad to hear it, you’re dipping your stick somewhere.”
Brice swallowed hard.
“Well, I guess you can drop me off then,” Kelly said.
Brice kept to himself during the drive to the local deli they’d been using as a parking landmark. Concerned Kelly was already aware of his sexuality, Brice wondered if it was common knowledge. Then, after dropping Kelly off and driving more than halfway home, he spotted something on the passenger seat, a crisp fifty-dollar bill.
“Shit,” he said through clenched teeth. “God damn shit.”
* * * *
John felt light-headed; his son was safe, but his life had spiraled out of control. The Buick was gone and with it the mob’s money and thirteen bootlegged movie reels.
After getting Nancy’s phone call about his son being abducted, John had lost all sense of reality. The adrenaline rush parents feel when one of their own is in danger had consumed him. By the time Nancy told him the truth, that it had been some kind of a bet she had made with her current husband, it was too late.
She had tried to explain it away, telling him he should be happy she’d lost the bet because it meant he wasn’t the worst father in the world.
“What?” he remembered saying to her.
She had explained it again, the next time as if winning her bet was some kind of consolation.
“Where’s my son!” he’d yelled loud enough to draw attention from some of the bazaar crowd.
“Calm down,” Nancy had said. “He’s fine.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s at his pool party. He’s fine.”
“And you made me come here for what?”
“Nathan said I shouldn’t have and I’m sorry I did now that you proved me wrong, but I was sick and tired of him always taking your side and you always being late with the child support and nobody cares a fucking thing about me anymore. Not even Little Jack.”
He couldn’t look at her then. “Jesus Christ,” he had said. “How... why? What’s wrong with you?”
Then he had started to leave when she grabbed his arm.
“I’m sorry,” she said, tears starting to form in her eyes. “I shouldn’t have done this to you, but I needed to prove I was right for once. To Nathan, John. He left me.”
“No wonder,” he said, brushing her grip off his arm and proceeding back through the tent and then out to the front where he saw his life was over, just like that, in an instant. The Buick and the money were gone.
Afterwards John was sitting on the front seat of Nancy’s car, half in, half out. The door was open and Nancy was standing there looking up and down the street, apologizing for doing this to him. All he could think of was the money. Five minutes ago he had feared for his son’s life and now he was back to worrying about money.
“Somebody must have stolen it,” said Nancy about the car. “Kids, probably. Out joyriding or something. You have to report it.”
He had been thinking he should call the bar, but knew that if he did they would send half the crew out looking for him, because nobody, especially Eddie Vento, was going to believe even for a second he had been robbed, not on the first weekend his routes had been doubled and he was carrying around all that extra cash.
“John?”
“It’s mob money.”
“What?”
“You heard me. How’m I supposed to report that? Whoever took the car has the money.”
Nancy swallowed hard. “How much?”
John was thinking it had been Nick Santorra and that there was no way he’d recover the money. After breaking his windshield, the wannabe had followed him, and when the opportunity arose, Santorra had grabbed the money.
Now he would have to take off someplace and hide because of some idiotic bet his ex-wife had made. He thought about his son and how Little Jack was probably in danger too now because the mob was going to get that money back come hell or high water. It was something else for him to worry about.
“Jesus Christ!�
� he yelled. “Jesus fucking Christ!”
“How much was it?” Nancy asked. “Couldn’t be that much, you were driving around with it.”
John shot her a hard glare.
“What?” she said. “Couldn’t your mother help? I mean, if it’s a big deal and all. Couldn’t you get it from her?”
John didn’t hear her. He was imagining Nick Santorra laughing it up. He couldn’t get beyond what Santorra had accomplished, first giving his car flats, then having him jumped, then breaking his windshield and topping it off by robbing him.
“John?”
He glared at Nancy. He wished she wasn’t there. “What?” he snapped.
“Couldn’t you ask your mother?”
“What?”
“Your mother,” said Nancy, frustrated with his lack of attention. “Couldn’t you ask her for the money?”
“No,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Because it doesn’t involve her.”
“You’re her son, right? She’d do anything for you.”
“What?”
“I’m just trying to help.”
John wasn’t hearing her.
“Maybe we should look for the car instead of sitting here,” Nancy said. “I’ll drive you if you want. You said the windshield was broken, right?”
“He followed me,” he said.
“Who? Who followed you?”
He looked up at his ex-wife and couldn’t remember her name.
“John?” she said.
“A guy,” he said. “A guy had it in for me.”
“Who? If you know, you can go there. Take my car. Just drop me off to pick up Jack, then go. We’ll take a cab home.”
He felt in a daze. “Okay,” he said.
She handed him the keys.
Chapter 37
“You put on any more weight, Jimmy, I’m not sure I’ll be able to reach it next time,” Sharon Dowell said. “I’ll need an oxygen tube to get anywhere’s close.”
She was sitting on the couch with her legs up on an ottoman. Except for a pair of underwear, she was naked underneath her robe. She had been smoking a Virginia Slims cigarette. She took a last drag before crushing it out in an ashtray already crowded with crumpled cigarette butts.
“I’m serious,” she said. “That stomach pressing down on my head. It’s not easy going down on you. My neck hurts now.”
Jimmy was standing in her bathroom doorway. He had just pulled up his XXXL boxer underwear. He looked from Sharon to his watch and said, “You talk to the kid?”
Sharon moved the ashtray from her lap to the end table. “This morning.”
“And?”
“I laid it on thick. Told him it was Jerry’s birthday a few weeks ago. It was.”
Jimmy pulled his XXL polo shirt over his head. He struggled finding one of the arm holes. “Who’s Jerry?”
“The guy directed the movie,” Sharon said.
“Oh. I’m wondering we’re better off keeping the number low or not. Guys like Louis, con artists at heart, sometimes they smell a sting.”
“Lowballing it’s one way to go, sure, but guys like Louis are always looking for the big score,” Sharon said. “Lowballing might discourage him.”
“And we don’t wanna do that.”
“You said you’d have a car. That still a go?”
“Yeah,” Jimmy said. He was pulling on his pants now. “There’s a line waiting on Louis. He owes guys all over.”
“Car’s gotta look the same as the one in the movie.”
“Guy over in Canarsie said he had one, Fleetwood Eldorado. They got a ring there, some crew working with a guy named DeMeo, they’re rippin’ off cars like kids takin’ bubblegum from a grocery store.”
Sharon yawned.
“Guy says he’ll bring it over late tonight, early tomorrow.”
“Then I’ll get Louis to come over and take a look at it,” she said. “It’ll help he didn’t see the movie, though, he don’t know exactly what it looks like. I tried baiting him with that, seeing the movie. I don’t think he’s much interested.”
“You got the kid hopped up on the director angle, it won’t make a difference he saw the movie or not. Just don’t let him get too close. The paint the guy uses might not be dry.”
“So long’s he don’t wanna meet Jerry. Last I heard, the poor guy’s hiding from all the court crap.”
Jimmy sat in an armchair facing the couch to put his shoes on. “It don’t work, my friend from Canarsie comes picks the car up the next day, brings it back.”
“You’re not paying him for it?”
“Guy owes me a favor.”
“You probably should air those out, your shoes.”
Jimmy finished tying his shoes, cleared his throat and then stood up.
Sharon said, “I have to give the guy anything, he brings the car tonight?”
“I’ll leave you something, but you could always blow him, keep it for yourself.”
“Fat and funny.”
“It wasn’t a joke.”
The two stared at each other until Jimmy finally smiled.
“Yeah, it was,” he said.
“Maybe it’s the years since,” Sharon said. “After Benny was married I wasn’t picky enough.”
Jimmy winked again.
“Well, it’s up to you now,” Sharon said.
“I got him going pretty good with this car. Told him the guy wants to buy it gets wood from the idea. Said he can’t wait to sniff the seat where the broad sat behind the wheel.”
“Louis’ll like that,” Sharon said.
Jimmy grabbed his sports jacket from the back of a dining room chair. He pulled his wallet from his pants, pulled out two twenty dollar bills and dropped them on the table.
“Get some cold cuts,” he said. “The other twenty’s for the guy brings the car.”
“And if I do blow him?” Sharon said.
“I’ll tell you what,” Jimmy said. “Guy tells me he liked it, I’ll owe you.”
* * * *
Nick had been lost more than twenty minutes before he remembered the road atlas Mike DiBella had told him he kept under the front passenger seat of the Monte Carlo. He had taken a peek at it before leaving Williamsburg to get a general idea of where Northport was in relation to the LIE, and although Nick found the town easily enough, once it was time to get out of there the escape routes he had planned all turned to shit.
The adrenaline rush he’d felt after breaking John Albano’s windshield had become genuine panic when he first realized he was lost. After driving in circles in and around Northport and then winding up on Malcolms Landing for a third straight time, Nick had started to sweat.
He parked alongside a fire hydrant, grabbed the road atlas and found the page with Northport. He glanced to his right and saw the water that was the Long Island Sound, then looked back at the map and realized he had driven in the exact opposite direction of the LIE. He kept the atlas open and drove street by street, purposely circumnavigating the hot spot on Main Street where it was still possible, he feared, to run into John Albano. A few minutes later, he’d found Bayview Avenue and eventually Route 25A.
It was a while before Nick was familiar enough with his surroundings to relax. He was headed east on the LIE and thinking he should play up the family emergency he’d told back at the bar and maybe spend some free time making it look good. There were a few theaters he knew of in Queens and on Long Island where he wouldn’t be spotted and decided on Green Acres in Valley Stream.
He was relatively calm again when he remembered yesterday’s dry run for Eddie Vento to John Albano’s Massapequa stop. It had pissed him off to be used like that. Nick didn’t appreciate being a stand-in for Albano or a shill for the police. Between running Vento’s family around like a chauffeur and having to eat the punch he’d taken from Albano, and then having to play make-believe for the cops, Nick was feeling more like a gopher than a guy on his way up. It certainly wasn’t helping his ego to know the fift
y dollars he’d fronted Stanislaus Bartosz had been wasted on a dead man.
It was close to five o’clock when he pulled into the theater parking lot on Sunrise Highway. He had a cigarette to further relax his nerves. He strolled outside the theater to look at the movie posters lining one of the walls and was curious when he spotted the kid from The Andy Griffith Show on one of the posters. Opie, he remembered the kid’s name was.
Nick went inside the theater to check the times and saw there was a 5:30 showing of American Graffiti. He bought a ticket, a bucket of popcorn laced with butter and an oversized Coke. He took a seat in the rear of the theater and began munching on the greasy popcorn. He was still wondering about Opie and whatever had happened to him after The Andy Griffith Show when he spilled some popcorn onto his chest and realized he was still wearing the whistle.
Then Nick remembered the kid that had been playing stoopball across the street from John Albano’s Buick and he was nervous all over again.
Chapter 38
Stebenow surprised Levin when he sat across from him in a booth of the mostly empty Mount Olympus Diner on Hoyt Avenue in Astoria, Queens. He waited for the waitress to leave after taking Levin’s order before he removed a cassette tape from his jacket pocket and set it on the middle of the table.
“I got tapes coming out my ass,” Levin said. “I hope you don’t think I’m listening to that one, too.”
“Just run-of-the-mill wannabe speak,” Special Agent Stebenow said. “Half a dozen rank-and-file punks trying to sound like their favorite wiseguy. Consider it another good-faith gesture.”
Levin looked from the tape to Stebenow and back. “It was you,” he said. “On a couple tapes delivered to my place. That was you. I get them the same way from Organized Crime. I just assumed ... you working with somebody else on this? Somebody from NYPD?”
Stebenow crossed his heart. “No,” he said.
Levin was staring into the special agent’s eyes. “Go ’head,” he said. “I’m listening.”
“Kelly sent somebody to kill my witness. Some punk off the boat affiliated with the Westies, the Irish crew running Hell’s Kitchen. Billy Quinn. He’s got a record in Ireland and a short sheet here. I stopped him with a warning shot. We have him, but he won’t talk. He had a shiv and was heading straight for where Bridget was sitting two seconds after Kelly left the scene. I tailed her last night. So was Kelly tailing her. If I wasn’t there she’d be dead.”
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