Dressed to Kill

by Vincent Zandri

  The two goons nodded proudly.

  “Collectively?” I said. “Or individually?”

  Valente cleared his throat, crossed his legs.

  “Individually,” he said, exasperation in his tone. “Listen,” he added, glancing at his gold wristwatch. “Time is tight.”

  “I imagine it is, your greatness,” I said. “So, how can I be of service?”

  Any semblance of a smile was now gone. He looked at me like I was playing some kind of joke on him on the school playground for the entire student body to see. His concave-cheeked face was steely, taut as if it might explode blood and brain matter all over my sandwich. That would kind of suck. No, that would suck a lot.

  “Dannemora Prison,” he said, rubbing his pug nose with his fist, kind of like he wanted to pick it with his thumb. But knowing I was watching him, he couldn’t risk it. “There’s been an external breach.”

  “You don’t say?”

  “Don’t you look at the news?”

  “I have a smartphone. Does everything but make my lunch. For that, I still have to hoof it to Frank’s Deli over on Albany Shaker in the North End.”

  We both focused in on my sandwich. I think he actually wanted a bite but was too afraid to admit it. Or too proud over his pork boycott. He was clean shaven, his hair natty and curly and dyed jet black. His skin was tan, but somehow pale like coffee with way too much milk in it. And the way his dark, almost black marble eyes peered at me made him look like he could be related to the late Libyan dictator, Moammar Khadafy. Who knows, maybe Moammar was his great uncle.

  “Two dangerous murderers are on the loose in Upstate, and I need them apprehended. Yesterday, if you get my drift.” His accent didn’t originate from Albany, or anywhere from Upstate for that matter, but was instead Manhattan born. What it meant was that he pronounced his consonants with all the force of a Mike Tyson uppercut.

  “I saw you on the news with the state troopers a few days ago. You said you were gonna find them in a matter of hours. Been a matter of hours now. And days. Two full days, I think.”

  He nodded, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “The escaped are nefarious.”

  “Does that word mean, like, sly and cunning, Herr Valente?”

  Stanley took a step forward, his hands balled into fists.

  “Stanley!” Valente shouted. “I’ll handle this.” Then, raising his right hand, he made like a pistol, pointed it at my face, poked the air with his index finger. He looked one way and then the other like he was expecting The New York Times to show up at any moment. “You… you are a fucking wise-ass, you know that?”

  He lowered his hand and uncrossed his legs, sitting himself up straighter.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Semi-empty stomach and all. Just dying to get back at those pork products.”

  He cleared his throat again. “So then, back to finding the two men who’ve escaped—”

  “Moss and Sweet,” I interjected.

  “Yes, Reginald Moss and Derrick Sweet. Finding them hasn’t been easy. The state troopers are stymied, and now the Feds are threatening to join in the hunt.”

  “Plus, the Canadian Mounted Police, the US Marshalls, and the border patrol—land, sea, and air divisions.” I held up my smartphone.

  “See, I keep up with the news.”

  “I’m not concerned with the Canadians. They’ll do whatever I say. I’m concerned with my state police since they’re leading the ground search. And frankly, Mr. Marconi, it annoys the crap out of me that the lead trooper, short guy by the name of D’Amico, refuses to abide by my directives.”

  “D’Amico,” I said. “I’ve seen him on the news. Short, intense guy. Reminds me of a fireplug, minus the red paint.”

  “Everything’s under control. Relatively speaking. Even if D’Amico claims it’s not.”

  “Something in the news about you refusing to share a press conference with D’Amico,” I added. “Also, you won’t share the podium with the Clinton County Sheriff who I believe is a woman and a looker at that. Gee, that’s gotta hurt their feelings.”

  He cracked a grin. “I like to run my show my way, without First Deputy Superintendent D’Amico’s or Sheriff Hylton’s interference.”

  “But aren’t you all in bed together? Situationally speaking, of course.”

  “They do things their way,” he said like I was talking about his ex-wife who, if I remembered correctly, was a distant cousin of the Kennedys. You know, like, from the Kennedy family. “I do my thing my way, and my thing is the most important thing because I’m ultimately responsible for the safety of every single New Yorker.”

  “Capisce,” I said.

  “What?” he said.

  “You should have followed up your my way speech with Capisce. It would have sounded better. More forceful. So, what is it you want from me, Don Valente?”

  Commotion coming from the office door. “Son of a—”

  “Stanley!” the governor barked once more. His eyes were back on me. “You used to run a prison before becoming a PI. You know prisons, how they work, or in this case, don’t work. You know inmates, what makes them tick. So far, we’ve come up with nothing. No leads. Not a thing. Not even offering a reward of one hundred grand has produced so much as a fingerprint.”

  I nodded. “Why the personal approach? Don’t you have more pressing matters on your plate? Like dismantling the NRA or something?”

  He leaned towards me.

  “Listen,” he said. “There hasn’t been an escape from Dannemora ever in its one hundred sixty years of existence, and a cop killer hasn’t escaped a New York State joint in nineteen years. You should know that because that killer escaped from your prison, and you apprehended him.”

  “Dead,” I said. “When I got to him he was dead. Then the good guys wanted me to die for it too. But that’s another story.”

  “These guys get a hold of some weapons, they could go on a killing spree that would make ISIS look like the Boy Scouts. And guess who’s gonna get the brunt of the blame?”

  “Oh, yes,” I said. “That little problem with prison funding in this year’s budget. Staff layoffs. Too many prisoners, too few corrections officers to monitor the stony lonesome.”

  “Well, I’m not gonna let these killers get away. Not gonna let that happen on my watch.”

  “Plus, there’s the little bit about your putting your foot in your mouth by saying you’ll recover them in twenty-four hours.”

  “Okay, yeah, I bit off more than I could chew, which is why I’m calling you in and why no one’s gonna know about it.”

  Once more, I looked at the second half of my sandwich. I hoped it still loved me as much as I loved it.

  “That is if I take the job,” I said. “If I do, whom shall I report to, your governance?”

  He shook his head. “No respect for political authority.”

  “That’s not true,” I said. “We all lie from time to time. You guys just do a hell of a lot more of it.” Raising my head, I shouted, “Stanley!”

  “Just give me the word, Governor Valente,” the goon said, “and I will be happy to teach Mr. Marconi a lesson he won’t soon forget.”

  “Uh-oh,” I said. “I think I pooped myself.”

  “Look,” Valente interjected, “it’s possible these guys could already be in Mexico.”

  I shook my head. “Unlikely. They’re probably within twenty miles of the joint. Those woods are thick and they’re on foot from what I’m reading. Probably bunkered down somewhere until the heat is off them.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Escaped convicts usually want one thing. To get laid. After that, they just want a cold beer and a hot meal.”

  “Moss already did time in Mexico. His south-of-the-border señorita wife has shacked up with a new guy. Sweet is unattached and a bit of a wild man, or so I’m told. I’m placing my bets on them trying to get to Mexico.”

  “Who helped them on the inside?”

  “We got a woman, Joy
ce Mathews, worked in the tailor shop. She’s been balling them both in between stitches, so to speak. We think she helped smuggle in some tools. Screwdrivers, hacksaws, power tools. Stuff she lifted from the construction going on inside the place. She also promised them a ride out of town as soon as they got free. But she got cold feet, feigned an anxiety attack, and ended up going to the emergency room.”

  “Where’s she now?” I ask.

  “Clinton County Jail.”

  “Motivation? And don’t tell me it’s love,” I insist.

  “Don’t quote me on this, but I think Moss and Sweet agreed to kill her husband, Larry, if she agreed to arrange transport.”

  “Now that makes perfecto sense,” I said, pulling a yellow legal pad from the top desk drawer, writing down Joyce’s name along with her husband’s. “Anyone else?”

  “There’s a corrections officer,” Valente said. “Name of Gene Bender. Inmates call him Mean Gene because he’s big and bad ass and plays bass guitar in a hardcore band.”

  “He must also be a boxer like you,” I quipped.

  “Funny,” he said. “He’s in the process of being read his Mirandas for aiding and abetting. He’s on his way to Clinton County lockup also.”

  “What’d he do exactly?”

  “Like Joyce, he slipped some tools in along with some raw meat for the two escapees. Claims he developed a relationship with them in exchange for info on other inmates.”

  “Seems reasonable enough. I would have done the same thing. But raw meat?”

  “They’d earned time in the honor block and were allowed to cook some of their own meals.”

  I nodded. Little known fact about maximum security prisons. Honor block prisoners could cook their own meals, keep their own gardens, and even earn conjugal visits from time to time. I jotted down Mean Gene’s name. I also jotted down, tools hidden in raw meet. Dumb rookie mistake.

  “Who you want me to answer to? D’Amico?”

  He shook his head. “The aforementioned Bridgette Hylton. That’s Hylton with a Y.”

  I wrote that down too, including Hylton’s Y.

  “Dannemora Super?” I requested.

  He told me and I scribbled the name Peter Clark. In my heart of hearts, I knew that not only would Warden Clark lose his Christmas bonus, he was about to lose his job.

  Valente stood, smoothed out his pants. He was a dapper leftist governor who was, at present, single, and he took pride in both from what the tabloids reported. The New York Post anyway. That and his boxing and his bodyguards. Excuse me, Secret Service.

  “And I’m sure all of these good people are sharing their information.”

  He cocked his head.

  “Bureaucrats,” he said, his voice filled with as much irony as my provolone and pork product-filled sub.

  “Politicians,” I said. Then, “Assuming you are my client and not necessarily the State of New York, who would you like me to speak to first?”

  “I think you’ll do well to start with Sheriff Hylton. She’s more reasonable than D’Amico.”

  “Looks like all roads lead to Hylton,” I said. “Hylton with a Y, that is.”

  “Please stop that,” he said. “We heard it the first time.”

  Both Stanley and Brent snorted as if it was specifically spelled out in their contracts to snort whenever their boss made a funny.

  “You got a file for me to, ummm, peruse?” I asked.

  “You’ve got yourself a smartphone and a news app or two,” he said. “Use them.”

  Another pair of snorts from the Lurch twins. This time, it was me who made a pistol with my right hand. When I pointed it at the governor, I said, “Touché.”

  He reached into his jacket, pulled out an envelope, handed it to me.

  “Advance,” he said. “I’m sure it’s adequate.”

  “I’ll take your word for it, Governor.”

  “Of course, you will,” he said, turning. He started walking, but he stopped just short of the door and the monsters who guarded it. “Oh, and if you would be so kind, Mr. Marconi,” he added, “if and when you happen to discover one or both of our missing prisoners, make certain you contact me on my private cell phone immediately. I want them both front and center, and I want them alive. You got that? Alive. That’s the kind of compassionate governor I am. You understand?”

  I nodded. “Number?”

  “It’s in the envelope along with the check.”

  “Gee, thanks. Now I have goosebumps.”

  “You don’t really mean that.”

  “Spoken like a true politician,” I spout.

  Even he had to laugh at that one. He turned and exited the door, followed by the two goons.

  I sat back down, tossed the envelope aside, grabbed my sandwich with both hands.

  Hell knoweth no fury like a starving gumshoe.

  Chapter Three

  My sandwich was now a bittersweet memory. Sweet because it tasted great. Bitter because it was all gone. I cleaned up the mess and tossed the trash into the metal waste can under my desk. My hands were greasy, so I made my way out of the old office in the former 1920s and ’30s downtown Albany, Sherman Street garment factory, down the narrow corridor to the washroom.

  Opening both the hot and cold spigots on the old white porcelain sink, I took a good look in the mirror at the somewhat rounded face that supported a salt and pepper goatee matched closely by the head of cropped hair that didn’t seem to be receding as fast as I once thought. For ages, I’d contemplated pulling out the razor, going Bruce-Willis-bad-ass on my scalp, but then thought better of it since I’d probably end up looking like a cue ball with whiskers.

  I still had hair after all. So, why not flaunt it?

  I looked into my brown eyes. Eyes that were still bright. Still optimistic. A far cry from what they once were back when I was the warden at Green Haven and my life was turned upside down, not only by the hit-and-run that killed my wife, Fran, but also by the escape of a cop killer right out from under my nose. The then acting Commissioner of Corrections laid the blame squarely on my size forty-four shoulders, which meant one of two things. I could either face prison time myself inside my own joint — a situation which, when translated, meant a sure death sentence — or, I could go after the killer on my own, bring him back in on my own terms rather than risk him getting away for good.

  A splash of cold water on my face.

  It came back to me then. The desperate feeling of knowing a cop killer has just walked out the front door of your prison, so to speak. I knew exactly how the warden of Dannemora felt right now. How desperate he must be. He’d likely been experiencing night sweats and tremors over the past two nights. I wondered if he’d slept at all, or if he spent most of his time pacing the floors, questioning himself, wondering precisely where he went wrong. I wondered how many phone calls he’d already ignored from the commissioner. From Governor Valente. Phone calls from state police, the federal marshals, the FBI, from Sheriff Hylton. Phone calls from the news, both local and national.

  I wondered how much he was drinking. Smoking. Drugging.

  Trying to douse the pain that burned like a flame inside his belly. Most of all, I wondered how badly he wanted to run away.

  Pulling a handful of paper towels from the dispenser, I dried my face and discarded the used towels into the trash receptacle. On my way out of the bathroom, I caught my eyes staring back at me in the mirror once more. I stopped and gazed into them, but something else also drew my attention. The paper towel I’d just discarded. I could see it in the mirror, resting atop the rim of the wall-mounted dispenser. The wet, crumpled paper resembled a face. Or, not a face necessarily, but a profile. It was a strange, if not eerie, play of light and shadow miraculously distributed onto the paper towel to create a 3D face. In the mirror, I could make out the eyes, the long nose, the lips, and a chin that might have been covered with a beard. It was a white face. A white face that reminded me of Christ.

  I wanted to laugh. Because who the hell sa
w the face of Jesus in a used paper towel? The same kind of people who saw his face in a grilled cheese sandwich, I guessed. But then, it wasn’t very funny. Turning, I went to the dispenser and shoved the paper towel back down inside.

  Spinning back to the mirror, I returned to my reflection.

  “Sure you wanna take this job on?” my eyes said. “Sure you wanna open up all those old wounds? Maybe Paper Towel Jesus was trying to send you message, Keeper. Stay away from this one. It will cost you. Physically, emotionally.” I exhaled, nodded.

  “Oh Christ,” I said aloud inside the small ceramic tiled bathroom. “I’m not sure what to do.” I shook my head.

  “Yes, you do. You know exactly what to do.” I assured myself. “A couple killers are on the loose, and innocent people might need your help, Jack. The warden of Dannemora Prison needs your help. The sheriff needs it too. The escape isn’t their fault, right?” I sighed. “Well, I guess we’ll see about that.”

  “That settles it, then,” said the voice inside my brain. “What’s right is right until it’s not right anymore.”

  I turned away from the mirror, faced the paper towel receptacle. I knew that Jesus was inside of it.

  “There but for the grace of God I go,” I said. And I walked out.

  Chapter Four

  If I were going to go after the escaped killers, I would need a little more background info on the prison, the town of Dannemora, the warden, the whole Department of Corruptions ball of wax. That meant I could either spend the day researching on the internet or I could bring in the help of an expert. Someone who knew prisons as well as I did. But not from the point of view of a CO or a keeper like me, but from that of an inmate.

  Blood.

  He agreed to meet me down on North Pearl Street at a bar called McGeary’s which was run by an affable and beautiful, auburn-haired beauty named Tess. Having managed a financial stake in several old Albany Bars, Tess was a highly-regarded investor in Albany’s much coveted happy hours. She was also somewhat of a local legend, her tall, shapely body always clothed in a long velvet dress, silver jewelry jangling on both wrists, long necklaces dangling from her neck, the pendants resting on her more than ample chest. It was a shame, in a way, that she preferred the fairer sex to that of my own, but I considered it my loss and some nice girl’s gain.