AHMM, September 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Addison nodded, knowing it might be the last time.

  * * * *

  Luther Addison was on modified desk duty until someone leaked which phone he'd answer, so NYPD sent him home. After food shopping at Zabar's for his Giselle and their baby son, he rented a black Buick Century, waited until dark, and drove the Williamsburg Bridge to Myrtle Avenue, making his way to Howard Beach. The funeral home was on 159th Avenue.

  Fat Philly was working the front door, shaking hands like he was running for office. Red shirt open at the collar under a black suit, heavy gold chain on his wrist, red carnation in his lapel, gray patent leather loafers: His idea of appropriately somber for the photographers and TV crews.

  One of the Guardians out of the 1-13 in nearby Jamaica told him a snitch reported Fat Philly behind the scheme that landed Little Flaps in Bridges. Addison wondered if Philly was making some kind of move, knowing the TV lights would keep the real mobsters at bay.

  To dodge a tail, Addison drove the Belt Parkway and over to Rockaway Boulevard to circle Aqueduct before doubling back to 159th. Then he did it again. And again, driving past the funeral home, using the mirrors to see who was coming and going.

  Shortly after ten o'clock, he returned to find Fat Philly putting Mrs. Ciccanti and her daughter Angela in a limo; the fat man went inside, where he stayed even after the funeral home shut down. The crowd gone, Addison parked up the block and cut the engine.

  His partner Joe Dalrymple arrived shortly before midnight.

  Frowning in confusion, Addison took off his baseball cap and ran his hand across his close-cropped hair. Running no more than thirty feet behind him when a weapon was discharged, Dalrymple knew Addison hadn't taken down Little Flaps, and Addison was fairly sure Dalrymple, who'd bent left coming out of the patrol car, hadn't shot him either.

  Then why a visit to pay respects, especially after the widowed mother had gone?

  * * * *

  Sharon Knight said, “If he did it, if he's lying and playing us for fools, I'll take him down myself."

  In the cafeteria at 100 Centre Street, white faces nodded. Who didn't know Knight was angling to become the first African American Homicide Bureau chief in the D.A.'s office? Breaking a black cop in Reagan's America would look good on her resumé.

  She knew they'd think her ambition would help make it go away, that she'd allow it to land on Addison to curry favor with NYPD and the right-wing media. Maybe they figured they'd let her choose whether to bring it to the grand jury, and then they couldn't lose. If she got an indictment, fine. If she didn't, it'd be a public failure by an African American. Or worse, it'd been seen as a refusal by a black woman to bring a black cop to justice.

  She didn't care what they thought as long as they turned over the files on Little Flaps and Fat Philly, and IAD's jackets on Hill and Dalrymple.

  She told Luther Addison they would.

  She didn't expect they'd be delivered by Sarah Tolchinsky, the Homicide Bureau's deputy chief.

  Tolchinsky, a tall Hassidim with skin that seemed translucent, appeared at Knight's cubicle and waved for her to follow. They returned to her office where musty blinds prevented a view of the Woolworth Building.

  The files were on her desk. She'd requested them before she learned of Knight's interest. Twenty-nine years in the District Attorney's office allowed her to recognize an IAD cover-up the moment it began. The photo in the Post told her they saw Addison as an easy mark for a frame, a patsy.

  "What's more important to you? Your career or seeing this through?” Tolchinsky asked, as she closed her door.

  Knight suppressed an inadvertent grin.

  "Your career. You're young. Fine,” Tolchinsky waved, “but let's see if we can help you and him."

  She allowed Knight to use the files at a table in the corner.

  An hour or so later, lost in a confusing brief crafted by one of Knight's peers, Tolchinsky heard a voice.

  "Damn,” Knight repeated. She quickly double-checked the dates she'd scribbled on a yellow pad, and then stared at her boss.

  "What?” Tolchinsky stood.

  "I—We've got it,” Knight replied, wisely.

  * * * *

  Fat Philly was relegated to page seven of the Post, bounced from the front page when an oil truck flipped and burned on the George Washington Bridge.

  "This guy's a moron,” said August, tapping the paper.

  Lucy Addison had put up coffee and sliced a pound cake her son brought.

  W.E. wore a bathrobe over his pajamas. His stepson, in brown slacks and sienna turtleneck, sat in his mother's seat at the table in a sunny kitchen that could barely accommodate two.

  Steele leaned against the refrigerator. “He said...?"

  "He told me not to worry,” August replied.

  "About...?"

  August shrugged. “I shook his hand and told him it was a terrible thing. He said ‘Don't worry. It's gonna be fine.’”

  "Think he made you?” W.E. asked.

  "You forget I'm half Sicilian,” August said. “We spoke Italian."

  Luther Addison managed a smile. The three old men came up through NYPD when black men comprised about two percent of the force. They knew how to use what little they had.

  "As for you, Luther,” August said, “you run about the worse sit I've ever seen.” He reached for another slice of the pound cake. “I wouldn't be surprised if you turn up in some TV footage. Circling, circling..."

  "'It's gonna be fine,'” Hammer Steele repeated. “Meaning it falls on Luther?"

  "Oh yeah. Especially since Joey Dalrymple showed up."

  Steele looked down at Luther. “Your partner."

  "And Andy Hill's running buddy since the Academy,” August added.

  "Andy Hill.” The dark-skinned Steele grimaced his distaste.

  W.E. watched his friends. Marrying Hill and Dalrymple told him they were building to something.

  "Somebody says Hill's got history with Little Flaps,” August said.

  "Who?” W.E. asked, his voice frail.

  "Hammer."

  The Addison men turned to Henry Steele.

  "The Genoveses say,” said Steele, who tapped an old source. “Little Flaps Ciccanti ripped off Hill."

  Luther let out a little cough. He said, “August 19, 1978. Aqueduct. Fat Philly's crew, including Flaps, took down fourteen hundred dollars from a sixty-nine-year-old man who hit the trifecta for the first time in his life. Same afternoon Andy Hill claimed someone stole his wife's mink out of the trunk of his car, which she parked at ... Aqueduct."

  "No coincidence,” said August, who couldn't decide if he found Addison's thoroughness annoying or amusing.

  W.E. said, “If the UPS facility in Howard Beach gets ripped off, the Feds will think the Gambinos backed it.” He shook his head. “Fat Philly went to the Genoveses for protection?"

  Steele nodded.

  August said, “What a mook."

  Steele turned to young Addison. “Stand down,” he said. “This thing plays out. Fat Philly will flip any way he has to."

  Addison hesitated.

  "Go ahead,” his stepfather whispered.

  Leaning over his coffee cup, Luther Addison told them what else Knight delivered and how tests City College ran cleared him. “I think we can do this by the book,” he added

  "Whose book?” August asked.

  * * * *

  Rosemary Barone worked as a secretary at Christ Hospital, a sprawling brick complex across the Hudson in downtown Jersey City. Addison was told he'd find her sooner or later in sunlight, smoking two Newports at a time and cursing ex-husbands. Imagine a rusty nail come to life, Addison was advised. That's Rosemary Flanagan Hill Barone.

  "Yeah, and?” she said when Addison identified himself. He wore a gray turtleneck under a forest green corduroy jacket with gray elbow patches.

  He went gentle. Jersey City had a huge African American population and he was betting she didn't much like that: All the other smokers around her were white too. T
he black smokers were gathered at the curb maybe thirty feet away.

  "I was wondering if I might have a word..."

  "'Have a word'? One? What kind?"

  The white smokers tittered, their condescension sprinkled with uncertainty and quavering defiance.

  He said, “It's about your husband Andy."

  "Tell me he's dead,” she said, scowling under a blond bouffant some twenty years out of date.

  "No, he's not—"

  "Not? Wrong word."

  "It's about your mink coat,” Addison continued. “The one that was stolen at Aqueduct."

  She let loose an ugly rattle Addison took for her laugh. “You think I look like I ever had a mink stole?"

  "Andy said you did. He said you left in it your trunk—"

  "I left a mink stole in the trunk of my car at the racetrack? Me?” She spit. “How much did he get for it?"

  "The stole you never had?"

  "From insurance, wise guy."

  Addison replied, and then she started spewing.

  Twenty-five minutes later, her supervisor came looking for her.

  "Call me,” she told Addison, as she followed the hardy black woman back inside. “I'm just getting started on that miserable pimple."

  * * * *

  Addison shot up in bed, certain the ringing phone meant his stepfather had passed. But someone had gotten his unlisted number, which he'd given only to his family, the Guardians, a couple of college buddies, and NYPD. Racial epithets mixed with profanity told him where the caller got it.

  Wrapped in a robe, he went to his chair in the living room and listened to the traffic below on Columbus Avenue, trying to quell his anger. One o'clock and he knew he wasn't going back to sleep. He checked on the baby, looked over the notes he made after talking to Hill's ex, and then replayed the conversation he'd had with the old cops—the taciturn Steele, the jovial but vaguely dangerous August, and his stepfather, the reasoned, reliable W.E.

  The original Guardians, he thought, as he started looking at it through their eyes.

  No sense telling IAD or his CO what he'd learned about Hill.

  Two hours later, he was knocking on Joe Dalrymple's apartment door.

  "You shouldn't be here,” Dalrymple said. Rousted from bed, he was wearing boxer shorts and a Yankees T-shirt.

  Addison encouraged his partner to step onto his fourteenth floor balcony, which overlooked downtown Forest Hills.

  "Cut your losses while you can, Joe."

  Dalrymple didn't know Addison had a temper. “I don't—"

  Addison held up his hand.

  "What?” Dalrymple said. “What do you think you know?"

  "I know Andy Hill worked a deal with Fat Philly and held a grudge against Ciccanti."

  "Oh. You know?” he sneered.

  "Little Flaps jacked him in the Aqueduct lot, and he gave up eight hundred dollars."

  "Never. Andy wouldn't give up a dime, especially if he was carrying."

  Addison said, “Easier to get Fat Philly to return the eight hundred and then double dip through insurance."

  "You don't—"

  "And Hill lets Fat Philly stay in business as long as he kicks back."

  Dalrymple frowned.

  "We've seen his jacket, Joe. IAD looked at him. The insurance company called on the mink claim. He didn't tell you?"

  Dalrymple hesitated. “Take it up with Andy,” he said finally.

  "Hill is tight with the Gambinos, and Fat Philly going to the Genoveses puts him in the middle. Maybe you too."

  That was out-of-the air conjecture, but both cops knew Hill was dirty. Killing Fat Philly's Little Flaps told the Gambinos Hill was still their boy; at the same time, it kept Fat Philly's business in Hill's pocket.

  As for setting up a fellow member of NYPD...

  "Black man bothers you so much, Joe, you want to take his career?"

  "Get lost."

  "That's it, isn't it? Hate owns your soul, Joe."

  "Listen to yourself,” Dalrymple said. “Black this, black that, and I'm riding with you. You're a pain in the tail, Luther, and you don't get it. There's no room for you. None."

  "In what? No room for me in what?"

  Shivering in the late-night air, Dalrymple said, “Nobody's going to stand by and let it happen. NYPD ain't going equal opportunity, Luther. Your father knew to shut up, but you...” He stopped. “Hell, Luther, you know this."

  "So I'm a killer, Joe? I killed that kid?"

  "It is what it is—"

  "Hill knows I'm riding with you,” Addison said. “He remembers all the times you told him what I said. He figures two birds: He gets Ciccanti and you get rid of your partner—"

  Suddenly, Addison's heart crashed, his stomach jolted, and he understood it as clear as if his stepfather had told him what had happened.

  He grabbed Dalrymple and rushed him to the balcony's edge, bending him back over the rail.

  "Luther!"

  "Hill pulled the throw down to shoot me, didn't he?"

  "Luther, wait—” Dalrymple was halfway into the night, dangling a few hundred feet above the concrete, parked cars, and prickly bushes below.

  "I go down, you take out Ciccanti and the Cobra throw down winds up in his hand."

  "For God's sake, Luther—"

  "To kill off the Guardians,” Addison barked. “To keep it—Say it's so."

  "Luther, Jesus—"

  "Say it!"

  "Luther,” he screamed, “Luther, yeah, all right. But I saved your life, Luther. Andy set you up. You and Ciccanti. Two dead, but when I heard, Luther—"

  Addison spun his partner and tossed him to the balcony floor.

  "Luther, listen. I told him, we can't shoot a cop. I told—I mean, I didn't want you dead.” He scrambled to his feet. “I wanted you gone. Shut up, gone, not dead. You're ruining this good thing, you and your other nig—"

  Addison stepped hard and slapped Dalrymple across the face. Panting, he stared as his partner crashed into the sliding-glass window and tumbled back into the apartment, pulling a curtain off its rods.

  "That story about Hill and Little Flaps at the track back in ‘78 is in the morning's Times,” Addison said. “So you have a choice. You call IAD now and make good. Or you take a few steps back and get a running start on a dive off this balcony."

  Dalrymple stared up at Addison, who glowered, spittle flying with each word, chest heaving.

  As Dalrymple crawled backward toward his bed, Addison said, “Pick up the phone, Joe. Pick it up before I think better of it and toss you off the balcony myself."

  * * * *

  Steele and August couldn't decide, so they both went, and they found Fat Philly solo in a booth in a diner on Cross Bay Boulevard.

  Little Flaps Ciccanti's funeral mass at Saint Helen's was due to begin in two hours.

  "What?"

  Steele and August knew how to walk it so no badge was required. They eased in across from Fat Philly, his three eggs over easy and home fries in marinara sauce.

  Luther told them Flaps was carrying an Instamatic, so they knew the kid went in for more than he could carry in a duffel bag.

  "The Gambinos can't decide whether to pull off your head first or just stick it up your butt while it's still on your shoulders,” August said.

  "As for the Genovese family...” Steele had learned it was often better to let a worm's imagination complete his sentences.

  "Andy Hill is talking,” August said. It wasn't true—W.E.'s kid said it was Dalrymple who rolled over—but a plausible lie well told was at least as good as fact. “You want the Genoveses to back your move on the Gambinos’ turf, and they're supposed to do it for a couple hundred Gs’ worth of mink stoles?"

  "You don't know what you're talking about,” Fat Philly scoffed as he pushed a butter-laden piece of toast into a yolk. “Flaps was on his own, looking for baseball cards or something. Who don't know that?"

  "Flaps cases the plant and he can keep anything he can carry,” Steele said. �
�You and the crew go back a couple days later when everyone relaxes. At least that's what you told the Genoveses: UPS is moving stoles—sable, lynx, and upper-end mink from Russia and Finland."

  "You got nothing,” Fat Philly said unconvincingly. “Mink stoles, Russia..."

  "You believe they won't hit you in church,” Steele asked.

  "Who?” Fat Philly said.

  "That is the question, isn't it?” Steele.

  "No, I mean who is—"

  August said, “Both. They'll kill you twice."

  "Or three times,” Steele added. “Once the Ciccantis find out you tipped Hill that Little Flaps was alone."

  "Whoa. You're saying I set up Flaps—"

  August said, “You set up Flaps. Yeah."

  Fat Philly slammed his palm on the table, sending coffee over the cup's side. “I knew it. I knew it,” he said. “This is our thing, not your thing. Our th—"

  Without breaking eye contact, August drove a fork an inch into the back of Fat Philly's hand.

  * * * *

  Handcuffed and perp-walked, Andy Hill's photo was on the front page of the News. The Post had turned its attention to a meeting between Reagan and the pope.

  Addison drove out to Cambria Heights, retrieved his stepfather, and brought him all but roundtrip. He had considered taking him late to a jazz club, the Vanguard, maybe, or Sweet Basil's, but they were both tired of being the only black men in the room minus the musicians on the bandstand. He wanted their time together to be nothing but contentment. So back to Smokey's.

  Over fall-off-the-bone ribs, W.E. Addison said, “Luther, it's time for me to say good-bye to my grandson."

  Addison tapped his stepfather's hand. “I know, Pop. Next stop.” Once again, he tried to make it light. “First we've got to wipe that barbecue sauce off your face."

  The old man looked at his stepson, who he couldn't have loved more had he been his own blood. His tired old heart still swelled from the pride of knowing he could do right by him one last time.

  They sat quiet, surrounded by the chatter of students and suits on hand for an early lunch. W.E. sipped tart lemonade from tall Styrofoam.

  "Got what you need, Pop?” He hadn't told him about Hill's murderous plan. Steele might've figured it, since he told him to stand down, but there was no reason for W.E. to know there were cops who wanted his stepson dead.