Rizzo's War

by Lou Manfredo

  They all nodded. Rizzo looked satisfied and turned to Simmond. “Okay, boss. What now?”

  Jake Simmond reached up and tugged the brim of his baseball cap style hat lower on his brow.

  “Okay,” he said, his voice less delicate than before, “we all roll to the house in our own vehicles. The van first. Joe, you next, then the blue-and-white behind. Does this house have a driveway?”

  Rizzo answered. “Yeah, the perp’s car is in it. Red Escort.

  ” Simmond nodded. “I’ll block it in with the van. You guys double-park but leave the street clear for traffic. Me and McSorley will go in and up first— let me have the front-door key— we’ll take the upstairs door and go in and cover. My other two guys will cover the rear of the house. You and Mike and the uniforms run through, take the girl out and make sure you get McSorley’s attention when you locate Donzi.”

  He glanced around. “Ready?”

  Everyone nodded and moved to their respective vehicles. They followed the black van and watched as it swerved sharply to the rear of the red Ford, blocking it tightly into the driveway. The four E.S.U. cops jumped from the van and Simmond and McSorley were at the front door of the house before Rizzo and McQueen had fully cleared their own car. The other two E.S.U. cops ran toward the house rear. As Simmond unlocked and pushed the door wide, six men rushed into the front foyer. They took the long staircase silently, two at a time. McQueen watched as Simmond and McSorley swung the short, heavy battering ram violently against the door, just above the cheaply plated doorknob. The door flew inward and they rushed after it.

  The screams Geanna let out were piercing. She stood opposite the men in the small kitchen, her back to the darkened window behind her. She threw a hand across her mouth, her other arm up and across her bare breasts. Her white pan ties glared in the overwhelming light from the huge fluorescents above them. The uniformed sector car officers rushed to her and spun her sharply around and up against the purring brown refrigerator. Shouts and threats and instructions clashed in the air from all sides as she was handcuffed and pushed to the floor. McQueen saw Rizzo, Colt drawn and held high, rush through the hallway shouting orders. He followed the older man into the semi-darkened bedroom and saw Donzi, half dressed and disheveled, trying to reach a rear window and its prized fire escape. As Rizzo ran around the bed that separated them, McQueen leaped across it and threw his body at Donzi. He crashed squarely into the man’s back and drove him solidly into the thick, heavy plaster and lathe wall. Rizzo heard a dull thud as Donzi’s head slammed the surface. McQueen landed on his feet, gained his balance, and lifted his hands toward Donzi. But the fight was over. The blow had weakened Donzi’s legs, and the man swooned and stumbled and fell to the worn, musty-smelling carpet. McSorley suddenly appeared, pushing with surprising agility past Rizzo and roughly cuffing the dazed Donzi. He rolled the man facedown onto the carpet and placed a heavy booted foot behind Donzi’s head, pressing slightly on the back of his neck to discourage any further movement or re sis tance. He looked first at Joe and then to Mike.

  “Mongo disappointed” was all he said.

  Rizzo holstered his weapon and looked at McQueen, standing beside the giant McSorley and the prostrate Donzi.

  “Jesus,” he said to McQueen with a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “You really are Robin, the Boy Wonder.”

  “YOU GUYS got some fuckin’ nerve breaking in here like this,” Geanna Fago said bitterly. She sat at her kitchen table, rear cuffed, a bathrobe draped over her and secured across her bare breasts. Rizzo sat at the same table, filling in the bottom of the search warrant and smoking a Chesterfield. He looked up at her and very deliberately flicked some ashes onto her kitchen floor.

  “Now, Geanna,” he said, “is that any way for a nice girl like you to talk to the police? Especially after we got off to such a great start and all, what with you doing your ‘Girls-Gone- Wild’ interpretation.”

  Her face darkened and she spit her words at him.

  “I’m gonna sue all you fuckers.”

  Rizzo shook his head gently. “Geanna, Geanna, let’s be reasonable, okay? I showed you the warrant. We found two antique rings that match the description of the stolen property. We found two silver pieces that match, too, not to mention that coke you had out in plain sight in the bedroom. Your lover boy is under arrest and so are you. Even the shy -ster lawyers in Brooklyn wouldn’t take this case, honey, so why don’t you just shut the fuck up? I’m starting to like you even less than your asshole boyfriend, and I pretty much hate him.”

  She frowned at him and actually seemed to snort, almost like a horse, but she remained silent. Rizzo smiled at her with satisfaction and turned back to his paperwork.

  McSorley had uncuffed Donzi and watched silently as the man dressed for his trip to central booking. He then recuffed him and sat him in a chair in the small living room.

  McQueen and Rizzo had done a semi-thorough search of the apartment and had located some of the items stolen in the Simione burglary. Rizzo had ignored Donzi until after the found items were recorded on the warrant. Then he had walked over to the man and stood over him, a cigarette burning in his hands.

  “My name is Rizzo. Sergeant Rizzo. You’re under arrest for Penal Law violation 140.25, burglary in the second degree, and aggravated cruelty to animals, a charge punishable by up to two years. You’re looking at fifteen max on the burg-two. Plus there’s an open assault in Manhattan. That, with your rap sheet, makes you a predicate felon. This time, Donzi, you’re going away forever. You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to have an attorney and to have the attorney present during all questioning. If you can’t afford an attorney, one will be provided at no cost to you. If you waive your rights, anything you say can be used against you in court. You understand? Good. Now, just shut up, ’cause I got so much evidence on you, a confession would be a waste of my time.”

  And with that, he had walked away and not so much as looked at Donzi for the remainder of the night.

  “Alright, Mike,” Rizzo said as they huddled together in the foyer just outside the apartment door. “Take Bonnie and Clyde down to 120 Schermerhorn Street and book them. I’ll give the apartment a thorough search and take what ever we have down to Gold Street and log it with the property clerk. Then I’ll call Giambrone and tell him we got Donzi. Make sure you tell the A.D.A. writing to night to put a ‘hold’ in with the Department of Corrections pending rearrest on the New York case. Tomorrow, I’ll call Simione’s daughter and let her know this is over with and how to get her stuff back from the property clerk. I called the precinct, they’re sending a female cop over to help tuck Geanna’s tits back in. Take the cop with you in her car and let her help with the paperwork down at Schermerhorn Street. When you get there, ask for Bill Cosentino. He’s the night shift supervisor, an old friend of mine. He’ll get you out quicker if you tell him it’s for me. Remember, Sergeant Cosentino.”

  “Okay, Joe. Thanks. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, kid, tomorrow.”

  Mike turned to leave. He felt a hand on his arm and turned to face Joe.

  “And kid,” Joe said, his voice tired but gentle. “You did good to night. Everybody did good.”

  They smiled at each other, then Rizzo turned away and went back into the apartment.

  IT WAS close to midnight when Rizzo swung the Impala into a parking slot at the Sixty-second Precinct. He gathered up his paperwork and climbed from the car. Twenty more minutes, he figured, and he’d be heading for home. He locked the Chevy and turned toward the precinct.

  “Hello, Joe,” a man said from the shadows to Rizzo’s left. “How’re you doing to night?” Rizzo turned to the voice. As he did so, the man stepped slowly from the shadows. Rizzo frowned at him.

  “Why, if it ain’t Detective Sergeant Ralph DeMayo,” Rizzo said with a tight smile. “Out kinda late, aren’t you? Not padding the overtime I hope.”

  The man laughed and shook a cigarette loose from its pack, o
ffering it to Joe. Joe took it and reached for his own lighter.

  “No, not at all. Just finishing up a night tour. You know— like a real cop.”

  Rizzo lit his cigarette and held the lighter out to DeMayo. They smoked silently for a moment.

  “So,” DeMayo said at last. “You wanna talk here or inside? Up to you, Joe.”

  Rizzo blew smoke at the man’s chest. “Well, actually, Ralph, I don’t want to talk at all.”

  DeMayo smiled and leaned against the Impala’s front fender.

  “Okay, Joe, here will be fine. Let’s chat.”

  Rizzo shook his head. “You I.A. guys go out of your way to be pricks. That’s the problem, you know. Nobody holds your job against you. Just the way you choose to do it.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ll bring it up at the next division meeting. But for now, let’s talk.”

  Rizzo leaned his back against the car. “Informal, sort of? Like with no D.E.A. lawyer present? Like that? A little chat between old pals?”

  DeMayo smiled around his cigarette. “Yeah, like that,” he said. “You’re not a target of the investigation, Joe. Just a possible collaborating witness. So no lawyer necessary. The target is your old goomba, Johnny Morelli. We know that, you know that, he knows that. So relax.”

  “I guess I’ve got your word of honor on that, eh, Ralph?”

  “You bet.”

  Rizzo laughed. “Well, then, let’s talk. But make it quick. I’ve been workin’ since this morning. I’m tired. Say what you came to say and then beat it.”

  DeMayo dropped his smoke to the street and ground it out under the sole of his shoe. He raised his eyes to meet Joe’s.

  “You want it quick?” he asked, his voice hinting at malice. “Okay, buddy. Quick it is. For four years you worked with that piece o’ shit, Morelli. Four years while he went from one jam to another, drunk every day, on duty, off duty— it didn’t matter to him. And when the jams got too tight, he bought his way out with favors and accommodations and muscle and influence, all at the expense of the job. All at the expense of every good cop out there breaking their humps to keep the lid on this city.”

  Rizzo shook his head angrily and hissed his answer. “This is old news, DeMayo. And you can’t prove any of it. We’ve had this conversation a half dozen times. Say something new or get lost. I’m sick of looking at you.”

  DeMayo smiled coldly. “Okay, Joe. How’s this for new? For those four years you partnered with him, he was useless to you. Wasn’t worth a damn as a cop. Yet for three of those years, you guys led Brooklyn in cleared cases. Pretty fuckin’ remarkable, don’t you think?”

  “And that tells you what?” Rizzo asked with cold eyes.

  “It tells me you’re a pretty smart guy, Joe. You cleared those cases on your own, with no help from that shit bag. It tells me you can see things, understand things, read people. Yet I’m to believe you can’t help us nail Morelli for leaking that OCCB mole to Quattropa? With that, you saw nothing, understood nothing, read nothing? Went right over your head, it did.”

  “So I’m not as smart as you think, I guess,” Joe said.

  DeMayo shook his head. “Wrong, Joe. Here’s what I— what we at I.A.D.— think. We think you can help us, Joe. We think you know something about Morelli’s IOUs and what happened to them. And understand this, Joe: none of us can quite figure out why a straight cop would turn a blind eye to Morelli time after time. Why a straight cop with se -niority would even work with him in the first place. Because you were old buddies? What are we, twelve-year- olds playing blood brother in the tree house? No, Joe. It’s starting to look like cash here, pal. Maybe we need to start poking around your finances. Talk to the wife, maybe your mother and sister, maybe we should be targeting you, Joe. Then you can have your D.E.A. union lawyer. Get your dues’ worth.”

  “Is that what to night is, Ralph? Threat night?”

  DeMayo pulled a second cigarette and lit it. “No, Joe. Let’s call it imagination night. See, it’s getting harder and harder for me to imagine you’re clean. Maybe Morelli and his mob pals were paying your bills. Maybe you even helped him get the info on the OCCB plant. Maybe you’re as guilty of accessory to murder as he is. Yeah, Joe, it’s getting hard for my tired little imagination to picture you clean.”

  They stood facing each other for a few moments, DeMayo smoking casually, Rizzo seething silently, before DeMayo spoke again.

  “Enhance my imagination, Joe,” he said softly. “Give me somethin’ solid. Something I can use against Morelli. You give me that, and I think my imagination will kick in real strong. So strong, in fact, it’ll convince me you’re clean. So strong, I’d be able to write ‘confidential cooperating witness’ on your jacket and file it away forever. Maybe even get you a Commissioner’s Commendation. That would dot the Is and cross the Ts and you’d be out of it.”

  Rizzo remained silent. DeMayo slipped car keys from his pants pocket and turned to leave.

  “Think it over, Joe. We’ll talk again. Soon.”

  He walked back into the shadows and out of Rizzo’s sight. A moment later, Joe heard a car start. He turned, paperwork in hand, and entered the Sixty-second Precinct building.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  December-January

  IN THE DAYS FOLLOWING THE DONZI ARREST, December had turned bitterly cold. The streets of Bensonhurst were swept with a cold, wet sleet that quickly hardened to sheets of treacherous ice. The sector cars patrolled slowly, their studded winter tires scarring and churning the city’s black ice as they rolled from auto accidents to slip-and- falls to aided cases.

  Crime turned inward with the cold. The purse snatchings and street corner assaults, the vandalisms and disorderly conducts morphed into acts of domestic violence, commercial burglary, and barroom brawls. Generally, the detective squad caseload diminished as the influx of new crimes dropped with the temperature, allowing the twelve detectives of the Sixty-second Precinct to rework their older cases, clearing them slowly like stout, mature trees in a dark, foreboding forestry.

  Joe Rizzo, with his fourteen years as a detective and twenty-six as a New York City cop, used se niority to secure holiday leave at Christmas-time. McQueen, the ju nior man, worked the dismal, dark hours of the Christmas eve shift, but thanks to Detectives Schoenfeld and Ginsberg, he had Christmas Day off.

  McQueen had found himself somewhat surprised to realize he was looking forward to the holiday more now than in recent years. Without being able to articulate exactly how or why, he was nonetheless aware that it was his broken relationship with Amy that was partially respon -sible. His feelings of Christmas warmth and nostalgia were strong, and he was anxious to spend the day nestled among family and familiar traditions.

  He would travel to his sister’s house in Albertson, New York, the small, upscale Long Island suburb where she lived with her husband and two children. His parents were in for Christmas, staying with him in the city, and they would all be together for the holiday.

  McQueen’s sister, ten years his se nior, was a thirty-eight- year-old civics professor at Hofstra University. Her husband, a man McQueen looked to as more a favorite uncle than brother-in- law, was a commodities trader on Manhattan’s Wall Street. Between them, they had a considerable income and lived a comfortable, privileged life.

  McQueen’s parents had retired five years earlier and moved from the canyons of Manhattan to the rural beauty of Virginia. Elizabeth McQueen had always been an intelligent, ambitious, and fiercely in de -pen dent woman. She had met her equal in McQueen’s father, Edward, when they were both young, passionate union organizers for the Eastern New York State territorial office of the AFL-CIO. Together they had risen to the union’s loftiest heights, gaining national influence and power in labor. Once retired and resettled in Virginia, it hadn’t been long before Elizabeth had taken up the cause of local labor issues in her new role as elder statesperson.

  When his parents retreated to Virginia, they left Mike to live in their mortgage-free two-bedroom Manhattan co-op, t
he sole condition being that he take responsibility for the rather steep monthly maintenance charge. He and his sister were told that upon the death of their parents, the co-op would be left to both heirs, to be shared equally.

  The irony of his current living conditions had never been lost on young McQueen. Indeed, on his police salary, he would barely be able to afford a monthly parking garage, let alone the price of a co-op in the area of Manhattan known as Gramercy Park.

  Indeed, it had been only extremely good fortune that delivered the property to the McQueen family in the first place. When his sister had, at age twenty-three, left the family home on Long Island to start out on her own, McQueen’s parents sold their house and moved to what was then a two-bedroom rental apartment. When the building converted to co-op status shortly afterward, his parents had used some of the profit from the Long Island sale and, together with an extremely generous stipend from the union, purchased the apartment at a manageable insider price. After some years, that price had grown far and away out of any of their reach, including that of his affluent sister and brother-in- law.

  And so, as the holiday arrived, McQueen found himself in a reflective mood. Despite his sadness at losing Amy, he was able to appreciate his good fortunes and face the coming new year with a reserved sense of optimism.

  Any sense of melancholy touching at him, he attributed to the breakup. What else, after all, did he have to be sad about?

  Nothing that he could see.

  TWO DAYS after Christmas, McQueen sat at a small corner table in a Tribeca bistro called Bubby’s. His black Mazda stood just off Hudson Street on North Moore in a no parking zone, the battered NYPD plaque on the dash, its multicolored hologram reflecting the last of the day’s dying light. He sipped at his drink and looked across the table into the ebony face of Priscilla Jackson, the thirty-year- old police officer he had partnered with during his last twenty-four months in uniform. She scowled into her vodka and shook her head sadly as she spoke.