by Lou Manfredo
“Hey, Joe,” he said after a while. “Your theory about this neighborhood is a little bit off base. For a place supposed to be all Italian, I notice a lot of Asians around. Not to mention the Rus sians.”
Rizzo waved a hand through his cigarette smoke. “Yeah, well, somebody’s gotta wait the tables in the Chinese restaurants and drive car ser -vice. You still can’t throw a rock without hitting a fuckin’ guinea.”
The Motorola crackled to life at McQueen’s side. It was dispatch directing them to call the precinct. McQueen pulled the cell phone from his jacket pocket as Rizzo keyed the radio and gave a curt “ten-four.”
McQueen called and the desk put him through to the squad. A detective named Borrelli came on the line. McQueen’s eyes narrowed and, taking a pen from his shirt, he scribbled on the back of a newspaper. He closed the phone and turned to Rizzo.
“We’ve got him,” he said softly.
Rizzo belched loudly. “Got who?”
McQueen leaned forward and started the engine. He switched on the headlights and pulled away. After three weeks in Bensonhurst, he no longer needed directions. He knew where he was going.
“Flain,” he said. “Peter Flain.”
Rizzo reached back, pulled on his shoulder belt and buckled up.
“Imagine that,” he said with a faint grin. “And here we were, just a minute ago, talking about assholes. Imagine that.”
MCQUEEN DROVE hard and quickly toward Eigh teenth Avenue. Traffic was light, and he carefully jumped a red signal at Bay Parkway and turned left onto Seventy-fifth Street. He accelerated to Eigh teenth Avenue and turned right.
As he drove, he reflected on the investigation that was now about to unfold.
It was Rizzo who had gotten it started when he recalled the prior crimes with the same pattern. He had asked around the precinct and someone remembered the name of the perp. Flain. Peter Flain.
The precinct computer had spit out his last-known address in the Bronx and the name of the parole officer assigned to the junkie ex-con. A call to the officer told them that Flain had been living in the Bronx for some years, serving out his parole without incident. He had been placed in a methadone program and was clean. Then, about three months ago, he disappeared. His parole officer checked around in the Bronx but Flain had simply vanished. The officer put a violation on Flain’s parole and notified the state police, the New York Supreme Court, and NYPD headquarters. That’s where it had ended as far as he was concerned.
McQueen had printed a color photo from the computer and assembled the photo array from which Amy had identified Flain. Flain had returned to the Sixty-second precinct.
Then Rizzo had really gone to work. He spent the better part of a four-to-midnight hitting every known junkie haunt in and around the precinct. He made it known he wanted Flain. He made it known he would not be happy with any bar, poolroom, candy store, or after-hours joint that would harbor Flain and fail to give him up with a phone call to the squad.
And to night, that call had been made.
McQueen swung the Chevy into the curb, killing the lights as the car rolled to a slow stop. Three storefronts down, just off the corner of Sixty-ninth Street, the faded fluorescent of the Keyboard Bar shone in the night. He twisted the key to shut off the engine. As he reached for the door handle and was about to pull it open, he felt the firm, tight grasp of Rizzo’s large hand on his right shoulder. He turned to face him.
Rizzo’s face held no sign of emotion. When he spoke, it was in a low, conversational tone. McQueen had never heard the older man enunciate more clearly.
“Kid,” Rizzo began, “I know you like this girl. And I know you took her out to dinner last week. Now, we both know you shouldn’t even be working this collar since you saw the victim socially. I’ve been working with you for four weeks now, and you’re a good cop. But this here is the first bit of real shit we have to do. So let me handle it. Don’t be stupid. We pinch him, read him his rights, and off he goes.” Rizzo paused, his dark brown eyes in McQueen’s face.
“Right?” Rizzo asked.
McQueen nodded. “Just one thing, Joe.”
Rizzo let his hand slide gently off McQueen’s shoulder.
“What?” he asked.
“I’ll pro cess it. I’ll walk him through central booking. I’ll do the paperwork. Just do me one favor.”
“What?” Rizzo repeated.
“I don’t know any Brooklyn A.D.A.s. I need you to talk to the A.D.A. writing to night. I want this to go hard. Two top counts, ‘D’ felonies. Assault two and sexual abuse one. I don’t want this prick copping to an ‘A’ misdemeanor assault or some bullshit ‘E’ felony. Okay?”
Rizzo smiled, and McQueen became aware of the tension that had been hidden in the older man’s face only as he saw it melt away. “Sure, kid,” he nodded. “I’ll go down there myself and cash in a favor. No problem.” He pushed his face in the direction of the bar and said, “Now let’s go get him.”
Rizzo entered first and walked directly to the bar. McQueen hung near the door, his back angled to the bare barroom wall. His eyes adjusted to the dimness of the large room as he scanned the half dozen drinkers scattered along its length. He noticed two empty barstools with drinks and money and cigarettes before them on the worn Formica surface. At least two people somewhere, but not visible. He glanced over at Joe Rizzo.
Rizzo stood silently, his forearms resting on the bar. The bartender, a man of about sixty, slowly walked toward him.
“Hello, Andrew,” McQueen heard Rizzo say. “How the hell you been?”
McQueen watched as the two men, out of earshot of the others, whispered briefly to one another. He noticed the start of ner vous stirrings as the drinkers came to realize that something was suddenly different here. He saw a small envelope drop to the floor at the feet of one man.
Rizzo stepped away from the bar and went back to McQueen.
He smiled. “This joint is so crooked, old Andrew over there would give up Jesus Christ Himself to keep me away from here.” With a flick of his index finger, Rizzo indicated the men’s room at the very rear in the left corner.
“Our boy’s in there. Ain’t feeling too chipper this eve ning, according to Andrew. Flain’s back on the junk, hard. He’s been sucking down Cokes all night. Andrew says he’s been in there for twenty minutes.”
McQueen looked at the distant door. “Must have nodded off.”
Rizzo twisted his lips. “Or he read Andrew like a book and climbed out the fuckin’ window. Let’s go see.”
Rizzo started toward the men’s room, unbuttoning his coat with his left hand as he walked. McQueen suddenly became aware of the weight of the nine-millimeter Glock automatic belted to his own right hip. His groin broke into a sudden sweat as he realized he couldn’t remember if he had chambered a round before leaving his apartment for work. He unbuttoned his coat and followed his partner.
The men’s room was small. A urinal hung on the wall to their left, brimming with dark urine and blackened cigarette butts. A cracked mirror hung above a blue-green stained sink. The metallic rattle of a worn, useless ventilation fan clamored. The stench of disinfectant surrendered to vomit.
A single stall stood against the wall before them. The door was closed. Feet showed from beneath it.
McQueen reached for his Glock and watched as Rizzo slipped an ancient-looking Colt revolver from under his coat.
Rizzo leaned his weight back, a shoulder brushing against McQueen’s chest, and heaved a heavy foot at the stress point of the stall door. He threw his weight behind it, and as the door flew inward, he stepped deftly aside, at the same time gently shoving McQueen the other way. The door crashed against the stall occupant and Rizzo rushed forward, holding the bouncing door back with one hand, pointing the Colt with the other.
Peter Flain sat motionless on the toilet. His pants and underwear lay crumpled around his ankles. His legs were spread wide, pale and varicose, and capped by bony knees. His head hung forward on his chest. He hadn’t m
oved. McQueen noticed his greasy, black hair. Flain’s dirty gray shirt was covered with brown, foamy, blood-streaked vomit. More blood, dark and thick, ran from his nostrils and pooled in the crook of his chin. His fists were clenched.
Rizzo leaned forward and, carefully avoiding the fluids, lay two fingers across the jugular.
He stood erect and holstered his gun. He turned to McQueen.
“Morte,” he said. “The prick died on us!”
McQueen looked away from Rizzo and back to Flain. He tried to fathom what he felt, but couldn’t.
“Well,” he said, just to hear his own voice.
Rizzo let the door swing closed on the sight of Flain. He turned to McQueen with sudden anger on his face. “You know what this means?” he said.
McQueen watched as the door swung slowly back open. He looked at Flain, but spoke to Rizzo.
“It means he’s dead. It’s over.”
Rizzo shook his head angrily. “No, no that’s not what it fuckin’ means. It means no conviction. No guilty plea. It means ‘Investigation abated by death.’ That’s what it means.”
McQueen shook his head. “So?” he asked. “So what?”
Rizzo frowned and leaned back against the tiled wall. Some of the anger left him. “So what?” he said, now more sad than angry. “I’ll tell you ‘so what.’ Without a conviction or a plea, we don’t clear this case. We don’t clear this case, we don’t get credit for it. We don’t clear this case, we did all this work for nothing. Fucker would have died to night anyway, with or without us bustin’ our asses to find him.”
They stood in silence for a moment. Then, suddenly, Rizzo brightened. He turned to McQueen with a sly grin and spoke in a softer tone.
“Unless,” he said, “unless we start to get smart.”
In six years on the job, McQueen had been present in other places, at other times, with other cops, when one of them had said ‘Unless …’ with just such a grin. He felt his facial muscles begin to tighten.
“What, Joe? Unless what?”
“Un less when we got here, came in the john, this guy was still alive. In acute respiratory distress. Pukin’ on himself. Scared, real scared, ’cause he knew this was the final overdose. And we, well, we tried to help, but we ain’t doctors, right? So he knows he’s gonna die and he says to us, ‘I’m sorry.’ And we say, ‘What, Pete, sorry about what?’ And he says, ‘I’m sorry about that girl, that last pretty girl, in the subway. I shouldn’ta done that.’ And I say to him, ‘Done what, Pete, what’d you do?’ And he says, ‘I did like I did before, with the others, with the knife.’ And then, just like that, he drops dead!”
McQueen wrinkled his forehead. “I’m not following this, Joe. How does that change anything?”
Rizzo leaned closer to McQueen. “It changes everything,” he whispered, holding his thumb to his fingers and shaking his hand, palm up, at McQueen’s face. “Don’t you get it? It’s a deathbed confession, rock-solid evidence, even admissible in court. Bang— case closed! And we’re the ones who closed it. Don’t you see? It’s fuckin’ beautiful.”
McQueen looked back at the grotesque body of the dead junkie. He felt bile rising in his throat, and he swallowed it down.
He shook his head slowly, his eyes still on the corpse.
“Jesus, Joe,” he said, the bile searing at his throat. “Jesus Christ, Joe, that’s not right. We can’t do that. That’s just fucking wrong!”
Rizzo reddened, the anger suddenly coming back to him.
“Kid,” he said, “don’t make me say you owe me. Don’t make me say it. I took this case on for you, remember?”
But it was not the way McQueen remembered it. He looked into the older man’s eyes.
“Jesus, Joe,” he said.
Rizzo shook his head. “Jesus got nothin’ to do with it.”
“It’s wrong, Joe,” McQueen said, even as his ears flushed red with the realization of what they were about to do. “It’s just wrong.”
Rizzo leaned in close, speaking more softly, directly into McQueen’s ear, the sound of people approaching the men’s room forcing an urgency into his voice. McQueen felt the warmth of Rizzo’s breath touch him.
“I tole you this, kid. I already tole you this. There is no right. There is no wrong.”
He turned and looked down at the hideous corpse.
“There just is.”
CHAPTER TWO
RIZZO AND MCQUEEN LEFT THE SMALL COFFEE SHOP on Eigh teenth Avenue and climbed into the Impala. Rizzo slipped the Motorola from his jacket pocket and glanced at his Timex: twelve-thirty p.m. He keyed the radio and spoke tersely.
“Dispatch, Six-Two one-seven,” he said. “One-seven off meal, back in service.”
He waited for the static laced “ten-four” response, then repocketed the radio.
“So,” he said from the passenger side of the Impala, “I spoke to the boss last night.”
McQueen glanced into his side-view mirror and angled the car into traffic. He drove at a leisurely pace, turning onto Eighty-sixth Street.
“Spoke to the boss about what?” he asked.
Rizzo dug out a Chesterfield and tapped it against his thumbnail. “About you,” he said. “About us being partners. I told him it was okay with me if you were good with it. He said what ever we decided was fine with him.”
McQueen shrugged. “Sure,” he said. “I’m good with it.”
Rizzo smiled and lit the cigarette. “Try to control your friggin’ joy,” he said with a chuckle.
McQueen glanced at the older cop. “No, Joe, really. It’s okay with me. I’m happy about it.”
Joe Rizzo nodded. “Well, you should be. I can show you how to do this job. And I need a new partner, so it’s a win-win situation.”
“Okay,” McQueen said.
After a moment or two, Rizzo spoke again. McQueen could hear an edge of tension in his voice, a tone that was new to him.
“But before we jump the broom here, there’s one thing you have to know. Something you should hear from me.”
McQueen kept his own tone neutral as he responded.
“Alright, Joe. Shoot,” he said.
“I’ve got an I.A. thing going on. Hangin’ over my head. It’s casting a little cloud, and you might get some shade time from it. It dates back a few months to when Morelli, that’s my last partner, Johnny Morelli, got himself jammed up near the end. That’s why he grabbed his pension and ran. Internal Affairs is still looking at him, and they can still nail him even while he’s retired. But they can never touch his pension now that he started collecting it. So his wife will be okay even if they do dump on him.”
McQueen slowed for a red traffic signal. He turned to face Joe.
“Jammed up with what? And what’s it got to do with you?”
Rizzo nodded and dragged on the Chesterfield. “Those are some good questions, Mike. I figured you for a smart guy. Guess I was right.” Rizzo sighed before speaking again. “I’ll give you the Reader’s Digest version. See, me and Johnny, we went through the Academy together. Then, after we’d been on the streets for a couple of years, we partnered up in the Eight-Three. Both of us were still in uniform. We worked together for about two years, then moved on. John got his gold shield same time I did, but he never got past detective third grade. I didn’t understand it till we met up again four years ago at the Six-Two. He transferred in from Manhattan, and once I started workin’ with him again, I realized why he was still only a third grade.”
“Why? What happened?”
Rizzo shook his head. “It was booze, mostly. Gambling, too. When I first saw him at the Six-Two, I knew something had changed. It was in his eyes. It was like he was … I don’t know … unplugged. Like his lights were out. He was walkin’ and talkin’ and breathin’, but it was like he was dead. Just totally burned. And by then he had a rep following him. All of it rumor, innuendo, what ever, but enough to spook the guys in the squad. So I took him on. He became my partner. I nursed him along for four fuckin’ years.
He was as useless as tits on a bull, but I carried him. And he fucked up plenty, and I’d look the other way. He’d get himself all jammed up with the bookies and the shys and then he’d square it off with favors. Or, anyway, that’s what the word was.” Rizzo turned to face McQueen fully before speaking further. “ ’Course, I never actually saw anything out of bounds. If I had, I’da been obligated to turn him over.”
The two cops held each other’s gaze. A tapped car horn sounded behind them, and McQueen used the opportunity to look up at the light. It was green. Relieved to be free of Rizzo’s hard brown eyes, he moved the Impala slowly forward.
“Okay, Joe,” he said softly. “So what’s the I.A. beef, and how do you figure into it?”
Rizzo took a final pull on his cigarette, then flicked it out the open window. He shifted in his seat and spoke to McQueen’s profile.
“The word is,” he said, “that about six, eight months ago Johnny was in real deep. Maybe thirty, forty grand to the books in Brooklyn. When they leaned on him, I guess he bit back. The story has it that when the local bookie couldn’t handle it, he went up the ladder to the boss. Guy from right around here, Bensonhurst. Name’s Louie Quattropa.” Rizzo paused before going on. “Ever hear of him?”
McQueen nodded. “Who hasn’t? Old time Mustache Pete type, runs the Brooklyn mob. Triggerman on the Joey Gallo hit about forty years ago, wasn’t he?”
Rizzo nodded. “That’s what they say, but he never got pinched for it. Anyway, once Quattropa gets involved, Johnny’s fucked big-time, cop or no cop.”
McQueen turned onto Bath Avenue and headed for the Sixty-second Precinct.
“So what happened?” he asked.
Rizzo sighed. “Well, that’s what everybody is still tryin’ to figure out. But what seems to have happened is this. After Quattropa steps in, it’s starting to look grim for old Johnny-boy. But a month or so later, he seems like he’s in the clear. He’s not all twisted up, borrowing money, bouncin’ checks, all fucked up. Instead, he seems miraculously debt-free. Starts hitting the booze a little harder, but other than that, he seems okay.”
