Rizzo's War

by Lou Manfredo

  “And I.A. attributes this to what?” McQueen asks.

  Rizzo shook his head sadly. When he spoke, McQueen heard an unsuccessfully concealed anguish in his tone.

  “You ever hear of OCCB? Or ga nized Crime Control Bureau? Works out of Manhattan?”

  McQueen nodded. “Sure,” he said.

  “Well, it seems they had a mole in the Quattropa family. They had the guy by the balls on a heroin rap and squeezed him to wire up. They were maybe six, seven months from dropping a net on Louie.”

  McQueen felt his stomach knot. “And?” he asked.

  Rizzo undid his shoulder belt as McQueen pulled the Impala into a slot at the front entrance of the precinct. He opened the door and placed one foot onto the asphalt. Turning, he spoke softly to his new partner.

  “So one night the cops in the Seven-Six find the mole in an alley offa President Street. Four bullets in the head and a dead rat stuffed in his mouth.” Rizzo paused. “Mustache Pete stuff,” he said.

  “And I.A. figures it was Morelli who fingered the guy to Quattropa?” McQueen asked.

  Rizzo nodded and climbed out of the car. He closed the door and leaned in through the still-open window.

  “Yeah, that’s the theory. And I.A. thinks I can give ’em some lead, somethin’ concrete, to work on John. So that’s why they’re breaking my balls.”

  McQueen exhaled deeply, then spoke.

  “I gotta ask you, Joe. You understand that, right?”

  Rizzo nodded. “Sure, kid. I’d do the same. But let me save you the trouble. The answer is ‘no.’ I don’t know if Johnny set the guy up or not. Speakin’ as a cop, I gotta say, it sure as hell looks that way. But I don’t really know. And if he did arrange the setup, I had nothin’ to do with it. I swear on my eyesight.”

  McQueen sat passively, then spoke in a low, somber tone.

  “Would you tell me if you had, Joe?” he asked.

  Rizzo let five long seconds pass before answering.

  “No, kid, I guess I wouldn’t,” he said. Then he stood back from the car and walked slowly into the precinct.

  SERGEANT WENDALL Tyler strode purposefully across the detective squad room and stopped at the cluttered desk of Joe Rizzo. Rizzo looked up into Tyler’s deep ebony face and smiled.

  “What’s that in your hand, Wendall?” he asked. “Looks like you got a job for somebody.”

  The uniformed sergeant smiled and glanced around the squad room.

  “Don’t look like much choice, Joe. You and the kid are the only bulls here.”

  Rizzo reached out for the notepaper Tyler held out to him.

  “What do we have here?” he asked, glancing at the address on the paper.

  “Residential burglary, Joe,” Tyler said.

  Rizzo frowned. “Residential burglary? On Seventy-third Street?”

  He glanced up at the clock on the squad room wall: Thirteen-zero-five. “At five after one in the afternoon, in broad daylight?”

  Tyler shrugged. “Sector car caught it about twelve-thirty. I got a couple a units there now. So, you’ll roll on this?”

  Rizzo stood slowly. “Sure. Like you said, just me and Mike here.”

  Tyler grunted his thanks and walked away. McQueen, having seen the exchange, approached Rizzo.

  “What’s up, Joe?” he asked, glancing at the note in Rizzo’s hand.

  “Residential burglary, middle of the day on one of the quietest blocks in the precinct. I think I smell a junkie nephew that knew Aunt Concettina kept some cash stashed inside the family Bible. Let’s go check it out.”

  Once again in the secure confines of the Impala, McQueen turned to his partner.

  “One thing, Joe,” he said.

  “Yeah?” Rizzo asked.

  “With Morelli. I can understand he was an old pal, old partner, Academy mate, all that. I’ve got a few guys like that myself. I’d help them out if they needed it. But with this Morelli, it just doesn’t compute.”

  “What doesn’t, kid?”

  “You carry ing this guy for four years, looking the other way, God knows how many times. You must have seen it coming, Joe. You had to see the bubble bursting someday. Yet you rode it out. Right to the end, crash and burn. I think you’re smarter than that, Joe.”

  Rizzo laughed as Mike started the Impala and backed it out onto Bath Avenue. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m a fuckin’ genius, alright.”

  “So why, Joe? Why’d you hang in so long?”

  Joe answered softly, his eyes growing dark. “You mean, why’d I hang so long unless I was a foul ball, too.”

  McQueen shook his head. “I didn’t say that.”

  Rizzo nodded. “Yeah, sure you did. Just not out loud.”

  After a moment of silence, Rizzo continued. “Okay, kid, one time and one time only. I hung in there because Morelli saved my ass once. Not on the job, not a cop thing. Something personal. Twenty years ago Johnny was a different guy. Straight-as-an-arrow stand-up guy. If it wasn’t for him, I would have fucked up my life beyond belief. He saved it for me.”

  Rizzo turned full face to McQueen, who glanced briefly from the street to meet Rizzo’s eyes.

  “That’s all I gotta say,” Rizzo said. “Take it or leave it. I owed John Morelli. I still owe John Morelli.”

  Rizzo turned away and reached for his Chesterfields.

  “That’s all I gotta say about it,” he said.

  MCQUEEN TURNED the Impala slowly onto Seventy-third Street, squinting into the midday sun. He immediately sighted his destination: halfway down the street, on the right, two blue-and-white radio cars sat double-parked, their dome lights swirling and whirling red and white beacons. A tight group of neighbors stood before the house, their faces knotted and clenched in anger. One young woman, clutching an infant to her breast, stood slightly apart from the group, weeping gently. McQueen turned the car into the driveway, allowing it to straddle the street and sidewalk, carefully avoiding the eyes of the crying woman. He shut off the motor and reached for his notebook just as Rizzo spoke from the passenger seat.

  “The outraged posse of neighbors,” Joe said. “Always a pain in the ass.”

  McQueen glanced at his watch and noted the time as he climbed from the car: One-twenty p.m.

  He and Rizzo strode past the small crowd and climbed the five front steps of the neat, two-family, detached brick home.

  “The detectives,” he heard a house wife say. The front storm door swung open before them, held from the inside by a uniformed officer. She looked at McQueen and Rizzo and rolled her eyes at them.

  “This one really sucks, guys,” was all she said.

  McQueen entered the foyer and saw the two inner doors, one left, one right. The left door was open and led to a long hall.

  The detectives followed the officer down the hallway. It was open on the left to a living room–dining room combination, and then continued on to the kitchen. The first two rooms appeared to have been ransacked.

  Three more uniforms stood around the small kitchen table. They looked uncomfortable. When they saw the detectives enter, the three glanced in unison to the opposite side of the room.

  McQueen followed their eyes to a dark blue blanket spread on the floor before the white refrigerator. The refrigerator purred gently, imposing an eerie sense of normalcy on the scene.

  Something made a slight bulge at the center of the blanket.

  Rizzo glanced at it and turned to the officers.

  “Tell me,” he said to a tall, red-faced cop of about forty named Bill Carlucci. Carlucci cleared his throat.

  “Joe,” he said, “we caught this burglary call about an hour ago. The guy that lives here is the landlord. He’s eighty-five, lives alone. His daughter came by early this morning to pick him up. She lives out on Long Island. She takes him into the city for a doctor’s appointment. Old guy had skin cancer. The tenants upstairs are a young married couple, they been at work all day, usually leave about seven-thirty, get home about six. The daughter and old guy came back home
about noon, quarter after, like that. They find the place a mess. And that.” He jutted his chin toward the blanket.

  McQueen looked at the man. “What is it?”

  The cop sighed and shifted his weight. “The old guy’s dog. Scumbag who hit the place killed the dog. Butchered it up with a kitchen knife. It’s a little mixed-breed mutt, weighs about fifteen pounds. Couldn’ta hurt a fly. Must’ve annoyed the guy, barking at him. The daughter told me it was a ballsy little thing. The old man is like totally destroyed. Got the dog about six years ago, right after his wife died. According to the daughter, it snapped him out of a pretty bad depression, gave him back his will to live after he lost his wife. He’s in the bedroom layin’ down. His daughter is with him and we got a call out to the family doctor. Guy said he’d come over since the old man refused an ambulance.”

  The cop shifted on his feet again. He looked embarrassed as he spoke.

  “Joe,” he said, “Joe, I know it sounds like bullshit, but this here is a real fuckin’ tragedy.”

  Rizzo looked into the man’s eyes and nodded slightly. He glanced at McQueen before crossing the room. He squatted down and gently lifted the blanket. The small, brown and white dog lay beneath it, its eyes open, a small bit of pink tongue pushed out between clenched teeth. Multiple stab wounds bloodied and mangled its flesh. A shiny sliver of intestine protruded from one wound.

  McQueen crossed the room and stood beside the squatting Rizzo. He looked down, and then away from the sad little body.

  Rizzo tossed the blanket back over the dog and stood up slowly.

  He faced his partner.

  McQueen looked with concealed surprise into the glistening eyes of Joe Rizzo. Rizzo blinked hard, twice, and the glisten vanished. When he spoke, it was in a voice McQueen had not heard before.

  “This guy,” he said in his strange new voice, “this guy done this, he made a serious fuckin’ mistake when he killed that animal.”

  Rizzo crossed the room to the red-faced officer.

  “Bill,” he said, his voice now once again familiar but tense to McQueen’s ear. “How long you been a cop? Fifteen years, maybe? Yet you roll up on a burglary and you figure it’s okay to let two civilians go into the bedroom? The bedroom, the first place a burglar heads for, the first place we could maybe grab some good prints? You let them in there to contaminate the scene? The daughter probably straightened out the whole fuckin’ room already.”

  Bill frowned and squinted at Rizzo. “Prints? You think the print guys are gonna roll on an isolated residential burglary some junkie asshole pulled off?”

  Rizzo turned from the man and spoke with his back to him.

  “Oh, I’ll get the prints alright. On this one, I’ll get the prints. Where’s the knife? Did he leave it?”

  This time the female cop answered. “Yeah, it’s in the sink. Right there.”

  McQueen stepped to the worn white porcelain sink. The knife was the only object it held: eight inches of bloody steel with a black handle, a smudged fingerprint of drying blood visible on the black plastic.

  “Guy didn’t wear gloves, Joe,” he said. “You want prints, they can find some.”

  Rizzo grunted in satisfaction. “I’m gonna call the print guys and cash in a favor. You wait for the doctor to get here, then go talk to the daughter. She’ll know more about what’s been stolen than the old man. Especially her mother’s old jewelry. Get a detailed list. Find out if they got a junkie nephew or asshole cousin or brother-in-law runnin’ around the family coulda done this. If not, maybe a neighbor or a friend or anybody knew the house was empty this morning. I’ll make my call.”

  Later that afternoon, McQueen listened while Joe spoke to the first grade detective from the Crime Scene Unit who had arrived to dust for fingerprints. The three men stood alone in the now empty kitchen. Teenaged neighbors had carried the dog out for burial in the small backyard. The old man slept, sedated by the family doctor, the daughter sat quietly by her father’s side, her eyes still producing tears. The uniformed officers had helped with questioning some neighbors, and then left.

  “Joe, you must be crazy pulling me offa two hom i cides to dust for this shit. If the boss knew about this I’d be up in Harlem dustin’ chicken bones by Saturday night.”

  Rizzo lit a Chesterfield and blew some smoke at the man. “Yeah, Ronnie, you already told me how important you are. Just don’t forget how you got your gold shield in the first place. You should kiss my fuckin’ ring when I ask you for something, you ingrate.”

  The man flushed slightly. “Joe, whata ya want from me? I catch the big stuff, not this kinda crap. Who has time for this?”

  Rizzo laughed. “Did I forget to tell you? This here is big stuff. We figure this for Jack-the-fuckin’-Ripper. Didn’t you hear? He ain’t carving up hookers in London no more: his new M.O. is knocking over houses in Bensonhurst. He gave himself away with the hatchet job on the dog.”

  McQueen glanced at his watch. “Joe,” he said, “it’s getting late. I’m going to talk to the woman again.”

  Joe smiled and spoke to Ronnie. “My partner, he’s got a hot date to -night with Miss New Haven, so all of a sudden, he’s in a hurry to do some work.” McQueen left the room and walked down the hallway to the bedroom.

  Pausing at the doorway, he could see the reflection of the scene through the mirror on the far wall. The old man, frail and slight, sleeping restlessly on his back, his daughter seated beside him, leaning inward from a harsh-looking, straight-backed chair.

  He tapped gently on the door frame.

  She turned at the sound and smiled weakly when she saw him.

  “Oh,” she said, wiping her eyes with a crumpled tissue. “Oh.”

  Mary DiPaola was fifty-one years old, the youn gest of his three children. Her two brothers lived out of state, one a Navy admiral and the other a computer engineer in California. She lived with her husband and one of her children on the exclusive north shore of Long Island. Some of this McQueen had gotten from cooperative neighbors when he had canvassed them. Other than pedigree and circumstantial information, he hadn’t learned much. No one had seen or heard anything with regard to the breakin.

  “I need to speak to you,” he said.

  She glanced at her father. “I’d rather not leave him,” she said.

  McQueen nodded. “I understand. He’s heavily sedated. He can’t hear us, we can talk right here.”

  She thought about it a moment. “Alright. If you think it’ll be okay and won’t disturb him. He’s had a terrible shock.”

  McQueen entered the room and accepted the invitation to sit opposite her in a chair the twin of her own. It felt as severe as it had looked, and he shifted his weight seeking the least uncomfortable position.

  He glanced through his two pages of notes.

  “Okay,” he said. “When we spoke before you gave me most of what I need. I just want to double check it and ask a few more questions. Okay?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  McQueen cleared his throat. “So, you get here about eight this morning, pick up your dad, drive into the city. That was St. Vincent’s Medical Center, right? On Seventh Avenue?”

  “Yes.”

  “You see the doctor, then come back to Brooklyn. Stop at the Acme, pick up a few things for your dad, then come home. You see the front door broken open, find the two rooms ransacked, call nine-one-one from your cell, and then your dad insists on looking for the dog.”

  She nodded. “The other police officers, especially the woman, told me how we should never have gone in, the burglar may still have been inside, but my dad didn’t see Spike. Spike was the dog’s name. He was such a cute, harmless little bundle of fur that my dad named him Spike. He said it was so the other dogs wouldn’t beat him up, he’d have a tough name.” She began to cry again, then smiled sadly at McQueen. “Can you imagine?”

  McQueen returned the smile. “Yes, ma’am. I can imagine.”

  She dabbed at her eyes. “My father was a longshoreman for forty
-two years. He raised three children in this house and educated each of us. He took my mother to Italy twice, just because he knew she wanted to go. He had no interest, just liked to travel in the States. He won a silver star and purple heart in the war and never told us how he got them. My mom had to tell us. He saved eight soldiers’ lives and shot the hell out of an enemy gun position. Had his left pinky shot off and didn’t even realize it till later on. He’s a tough, good, kind man. But the death of that dog is going to kill him. You watch, it’ll be just like when my mom died all over again. He loved that dog with all the love he couldn’t give my mother anymore. Does that make any sense to you? Do you understand what I mean?”

  McQueen shifted in his seat. “Yes,” he said softly. “I know exactly what you mean. And it makes perfect sense, really, it does. I’m very sorry about all this. All I can do is try and find this guy. Put him away for the burglary. You can get your dad another dog. Maybe it’ll help.”

  She frowned and wrinkled her brow. “Or maybe it won’t.”

  McQueen looked into her deep, dark eyes. Their intensity forced honesty into him.

  “Or maybe it won’t,” he repeated softly.

  They sat in sad silence for a moment. McQueen cleared his throat.

  “Okay,” he said, too gruffly even for his own ears. “Let’s see. Is there anyone you can think of, a friend’s son, a neighbor, family member, anyone who knew the house would be empty this morning and who might be capable of doing this? Anyone with, say, a drug problem or gambling debts or anything like that?”

  She sat back in her chair and stared at him. “You think someone we know, someone who knows us, could have done this? Do you really think that? That is really terrifying.”

  McQueen shrugged. “I don’t think anything. I don’t not think anything. I’m open, that’s how you work these things. Anything is possible. Maybe not probable, but possible. Think about it. Wasn’t your father usually home most of the time? When he did go out, where’d he go? To the corner store? To walk the dog? How long would he be gone? Now today he’s out for three or four hours, and what happens? Someone breaks in and burglarizes the place. We ran a computer check on the stats: there hasn’t been a residential burglary in this sector for two years. It just looks like it could be a targeted situation. We need to check that aspect out. That’s all I’m saying, Mrs. DiPaola.”