Rizzo's War

by Lou Manfredo

  “Yeah, I caught that, too. She must figure the old man has the judge in his pocket.”

  Rizzo sipped his coffee and fingered an unlit cigarette. “She’s probably right, too. When I first picked up the warrant at Daily’s this morning I called over to the court house, spoke to my friend down there. Remember Tim? The court clerk helped us out with finding Donzi?”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, Tim told me they have a whole separate court part set up in the civil term to handle these mental hygiene matters. But guess what? Our boy Daily never went there, never got the warrant from the judge who’s supposed to issue them. No, he got it from another guy, a guy named Banyan.”

  McQueen frowned. “Is that legal?” he asked.

  Joe nodded. “Tight as a drum legal. Any judge in a county trial term court can issue a mental hygiene warrant. Daily went outside channels and I’m guessin’ this guy Banyan is a friend of his, or somebody he owns, and the guy sitting in the mental hygiene part isn’t.”

  “That may or may not mean anything,” Mike said. “He could have gone to Banyan to save time or avoid publicity or what ever.”

  “Sure,” Joe agreed, “or it could be something else, some other reason. We don’t know.”

  “Well, Joe, I’ll tell you this: I’m becoming more and more convinced this guy Daily was abusing his daughter or covering for someone who did. There’s little doubt in my mind. I could see it on Lynn’s face.”

  Joe shrugged. “Mike,” he said gently, “you saw something on her face. You don’t know what. Neither do I. It’s still too early to get set on something, something you might try to defend later, even if it starts to look like it’s going bad. You got to keep an open mind. Do I think Lynn seemed to feel guilt about something, something that maybe she knew and wasn’t telling us? Yes, I do. Do I think there’s something wrong with the old man here, something tied to Rosanne runnin’ off? Yeah, I’m leaning that way, too. But what are the reasons for her guilt, and how does Daily play into it, specifically? I have no friggin’ idea, kid, and neither do you. Don’t lock yourself in. The abuse thing looks possible. But we can’t say it, not yet. Keep your mind open, Mike, or something else, something that looks even better than the abuse angle, will fly right by you. You’ll miss it. And maybe make me miss it, too. Stay with me on this, Mike, I know what I’m talkin’ about.”

  Mike nodded. “Okay, Joe. But something is very fucked up here.”

  Rizzo laughed and popped the still unlit Chesterfield into his mouth.

  “Mike, if it ain’t fucked up, why would we be involved with it? It’s what we do: we’re the un-fucker- uppers.”

  Mike smiled and shook his head. “Point made, Partner. Point made.”

  Rizzo stood up slowly and dropped some bills onto the tabletop.

  “Good,” he said. “I won’t harp on it. Let’s get back to Brooklyn before I start picking out mauve socks to go with my teal sweater. I’ve had my fill of the Village for today. Let’s go see that runaway priest over in Red Hook, then call it a day. I figure we bill The Swede for about five hours overtime today, Mike. That sound right to you?”

  “Joe,” Mike said, standing slowly and taking a last sip of cappuccino, “a great man once told me, ‘There is no right, and there is no wrong. There just is.’”

  CHAPTER TEN

  FATHER ATTILIO JOVINO HAD COME to the priesthood later in life than most. An infantry soldier of the Vietnam War, he had first seen the face of God in the explosive discharge from a Remington Combat shotgun he wielded in a steamy jungle battle that had proved to be his last. While at the Army base hospital in Germany recovering from wounds suffered in that last fight, he had asked for and received a visit from the chaplain. From there, his course had been a long but clear one, and he had sailed it well.

  So very many years later, he found himself in this small, cluttered office at the rear of the storefront sanctuary that he ran. The Non-Combat Zone was known throughout Brooklyn and beyond as a haven for the mistreated, disenfranchised, addicted, or ailing children of a modern society. Father Tillio turned away no one, and he had successfully browbeaten, strong-armed, extorted, and begged enough money from the church and city, the state and even federal government to provide first-class social, medical, and psychiatric help for countless teenagers during his fifteen years running the shelter.

  Now, he gazed across his desk at an all too familiar sight: two policemen, fidgeting ner vous ly in front of the huge crucifix that hung on the wall above and behind him. He smiled at them as he began to speak.

  “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen either of you two gentlemen here before,” he said. “Am I correct?”

  “That’s right, Father. We’ve never been here,” Rizzo answered.

  “Well then, I must tell you my policy. First, before I even speak to you, it is requested that each of you make a donation to the shelter. If you insist, I will accept a check, although my experience with policemen’s checks has not been particularly positive. I am, however, equipped to accept MasterCard, Visa, or, if you are gentlemen of means, American Express.”

  “I don’t think you can charge to talk to us, Father,” Joe said pleasantly. “We’re cops, here on official business, not reporters looking for a fluff piece for the Sunday magazine.”

  Father Tillio smiled benignly. “Secondly,” he said, ignoring Rizzo’s remark entirely, “I do not give up any children. You can tell me the charge, you can tell me the name of the child you are looking for, and then you can leave. If the child is here, I will talk to him or her, contact Legal Aide, and then perhaps the child will surrender to the appropriate precinct. Now, before we begin, may I suggest fifteen dollars each? A very modest donation, Detectives. Sign yourselves out an hour later to night and your overtime will more than cover it.”

  Rizzo laughed. “Wouldn’t that be stealing, Father? You know, as in, ‘Thou shalt not …’ Like that?”

  “I’ll grant you a special dispensation, Detective. Let’s make it twenty dollars each and I’ll include you in my nightly prayers for, shall we say, one week?”

  McQueen reached for his wallet. “Stop talking, Joe, or I won’t be able to afford this.”

  “Do you mind if I smoke, Father?” Rizzo asked while reaching for his own wallet.

  “Not if you’ll offer me a cigarette, sir, so I may join you,” the priest replied, drawing a receipt book from his desk drawer and producing a battered ashtray at the same time.

  Twenty minutes later, they were escorted out onto the dismal stretch of Smith Street that housed the Non-Combat Zone. Father Tillio shook his head sadly.

  “I’m truly sorry I wasn’t able to help you, Joe,” he said. “But if the girl should turn up, I’ll call you. I have both your cell numbers. I will show her picture around also. Sometimes it’s like a network these kids develop. Maybe we’ll get lucky. With God’s help, of course.”

  “Of course,” Joe said. “You be careful around here, Father. That collar won’t protect you on this street. But I guess you know that already.”

  “Don’t worry about me, Joe. Our friends at the Seventy-sixth Precinct take good care of me. And I can kick the butts of half these street thugs without any help. Besides, the neighborhood is improving. Gentrification is finally reaching us. They even opened up a bookstore not very far from here.”

  Rizzo looked around at the battered, littered street. “Forgive me, Father, but a dump is a dump is a dump.”

  Jovino nodded and smiled as he spoke. “Have you ever been camping, Joe?” he asked as they reached the Impala.

  Rizzo shook his head. “No, can’t say that I have, Father. Why?”

  “Well, you know, people always tell you they’ve camped under the stars. Or they’ve been out to the country or the lake or the mountains, and they slept under the stars. Well, Joe, I sleep right here, right here on Smith Street in Red Hook, Brooklyn, New York. And you know what?”

  He looked from one to the other. Joe raised his eyebrows and shrugged, Mike shook his
head.

  “I sleep under those very same stars. Every night. They’re right up there, same as in the mountains. I just can’t see them. But they’re there, Joe. Just like God. Right here on Smith Street, billions of beautiful stars and one beautiful God.”

  The priest shook their hands. “Find this poor child, Detectives. Find her and let the doctors use God’s grace to help her. Do that, and God will smile on you. You just won’t be able to see Him doing it.

  “Not yet, that is.”

  AT SEVEN-THIRTY the next eve ning, Rizzo and McQueen found themselves standing at the worn, battered bar in the dimly lit McDougal’s Tavern on Fifth Avenue in Bay Ridge. They took seats at the corner bar on backless stools and eyed the bartender as he ner vous ly approached them.

  “This guy has visions of his liquor license flyin’ out the door,” Rizzo said with a smile before the man came within earshot.

  “What can I get you guys?” the bartender asked with a tight smile, his lifeless, watery brown eyes shifting from detective to detective.

  Rizzo allowed his own smile to broaden as he replied. “Well, buddy, I’ll have a bottle of Heineken, no glass. Mike, how ’bout you?”

  “Nothing for me,” McQueen said.

  Joe nodded. “So you get off cheap, buddy,” he said to the bartender. “One beer on the house and we appreciate your generosity.”

  When he returned with the beer, he placed it before Joe and leaned against the inner bar.

  “You guys are cops, right?” he asked.

  “You bet,” Joe said, taking a pull from the beer bottle. “Want us to flash some tin and scare off the Mouseketeers back there?”

  The man glanced over his shoulder to the rear barroom. A group of eight young people, seemingly under the legal drinking age of twenty-one, were gathered around four small booths that surrounded a pool table and jukebox, talking loudly and drinking beer.

  He turned back to face Rizzo. “You guys new to the Six-Eight? I haven’t seen you around before.”

  “What makes you think we’re from the Six-Eight?” McQueen asked.

  The man reddened. “Well … I just figured. You know. This here is the Sixty-eight Precinct you’re in. So I just figured.”

  Rizzo placed the green beer bottle down on the bar top. He leaned in closer to the man and spoke softly, their faces only inches apart.

  “Here’s what you gotta figure, buddy. You gotta figure, ‘How can I get these two nice cops out of here before they fuck up my liquor license?’ That’s what you got to figure. Not to mention jeopardizing any little deal you cut for yourself with the Six-Eight patrol unit. We won’t even mention that.”

  The bartender looked from face to face, and then sighed. “What do you need, guys? I’m not looking to bust your balls, believe me. What’d ya need?”

  Rizzo sat back on his barstool and drank some beer. He glanced over at McQueen.

  “Tell the man, Mike. Tell him what we need.”

  McQueen produced a color photo of Rosanne Daily from the inner pocket of his sport coat. He laid it on the bar before the man.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Sean,” the man answered.

  “Well, Sean, take a look. Do you know her?”

  He picked up the photo and scanned it. Then he raised his eyes to Rizzo. “I cooperate, and you leave. Is that the deal?”

  Rizzo answered softly. “You talkin’ to me, Sean? It was my partner here who asked you the question.”

  Sean turned his eyes to McQueen.

  “Answer me, Sean. Do you know her?”

  The man thought for a moment, dropping his eyes back to the photo. He sighed again before responding.

  “Yeah, I know her. Comes in here couple ’a times a week with the rest of those assholes.” He jerked his head toward the rear of the barroom. “What’d she do?”

  “When did you see her last?” Mike asked.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Now that you mention it, it’s been a while. Maybe a month or so.”

  “You have any idea where she is?”

  He laughed. “How would I know? I don’t know where any of these kids, I mean people, are when they ain’t here. All I know about this kid is she was half a nut, drunk most times I saw her. Very loud and always stepping out into the alley with half the guys here. The old-timers here, they called her Sally from the Alley. You figure out why.”

  “Is that what you thought her name was? Sally?”

  The man frowned. “No, it was Rosalie or Rosemary, something like that. Sally was just what the old-timers called her. ’Cause it rhymed with ‘alley,’ I guess.”

  “Any of the clientele in here nicknamed ‘FC’?” Mike asked.

  “Not that I know of.”

  “How about initials? Any FCs?”

  The barman shrugged. “You kiddin’? How would I know that? Maybe yes, maybe no— I don’t know.”

  McQueen took the photo and slipped it back into his pocket.

  “So what you’re telling us here, Sean, is you can’t help us. Is that what you’re saying? You can’t help us?”

  Now Rizzo spoke. “I gotta tell you, Sean, that’s what I’m hearin’, too.”

  The man spread his arms and said weakly, “Give me a break, guys. I don’t even know what you want. Help you with what? I told you I recognize the kid, but she ain’t been around for a while. I know squat about her, other than what I tol’ you already. Look, go ask them in the back. They know her pretty well, believe me. Go ask them, be my guest. I’ll get you another beer while you’re at it, guy. Be my plea sure. I’m trying to do right here.”

  The three men examined one another for a moment, then McQueen spoke.

  “Well, what do you think, Joe? Is this guy legit?”

  Rizzo dug out and lit a cigarette, then placed the pack on the bar, under the sign that read “No Smoking Allowed.” He pondered Mike’s question for a moment, then answered with a tight, cold smile.

  “No, Mike. I think he’s full of shit. Know what tipped me off? The ‘alley’ business. See how he told us the kids in the back were grabbing some head offa Rosanne and, what’d he call them?, the old-timers? They were gettin’ some, too. Everybody was getting some. Everybody but Sean. See, Sean here is a real stand-up guy. Just ask him, he’ll tell you. He’s a stand-up guy, and he’s telling us everything he knows. Right, Sean? You’ve told us everything, right?”

  Sean’s face tightened. He wiped at the bar top in front of them with a cotton dishrag. When he spoke again, it was in a lower tone. He seemed resigned to some unpleasant, inevitably bad ending to this unexpected visit from the two detectives.

  “You believe what you want, I ain’t saying no more about it. The only thing I can remember about this kid is something just came to me, just now popped into my head.”

  “And what would that be, Sean?” Mike asked.

  “One night, around ten, ten-thirty, I was leaving for the night. She had been here, suckin’ down gin for a few hours. She musta left a few minutes before me, I don’t know. When I went out to get in my car, I seen her on a bike. A motorcycle. A big, noisy, old-fashioned- looking thing, not like those Jap racing bikes. She was hanging on to the back of some guy looked like a fuckin’ caveman. I remember thinkin’, ‘This kid is going to hell in a handbasket.’ She was like that— just a wild, crazy kid. But, hey, what could I do about it? I’m just a bartender, I can’t help her.”

  He looked from one cop to the other. “That’s it. That’s all I know. You guys want to close me down, break my balls, I can’t stop you. Do what you gotta do.”

  Rizzo dragged on the cigarette and tapped his fingers on the bar top, thinking it all over. Then he dropped the butt into the beer bottle and listened to it hiss itself out.

  He sighed and turned to Mike.

  “That’s it, Mike. He’s done. I don’t think you can get anything else out of him, he’s told us what he knows.”

  “You know, Joe, that’s the second motorcycle reference we’ve had,” Mike s
aid.

  “Yeah,” Joe replied, turning back to Sean. “Her sister told us she was into bikes. Tell me about the bike, Sean. Anything at all you can remember.”

  Sean thought for a moment. “Well, I wasn’t really looking at it, you know? I mean I heard the bike, glanced at it and saw her on the back. Then I went home.”

  “You said the guy looked like a caveman,” Mike said. “What else did you notice?”

  “Well,” Sean answered, scratching at his head. “The bike looked black, real shiny, with a lot of chrome on the engine and long, straight chrome exhaust pipes, two of ’em, both on one side. I think it was a Harley-Davidson. The asshole drivin’ it almost ran me over as I was tryin’ to cross the street.”

  “Any plate number?” Mike asked.

  Now Sean laughed. “Yeah, right. Don’t you wish.”

  Rizzo spoke now. “What about the guy? Anything about him? Was he carry ing colors?”

  “Colors? You mean, like gang stuff?”

  Rizzo nodded. “Yeah, like that. Was he a Hell’s Angel, some club name on his jacket?”

  The man thought for a moment. “Well, he did have a leather jacket with all kinds of shit on it. Could have had some name on the back, but that’s where she was, sitting behind him with her arms wrapped around his stomach. Fat fuck he was, too.”

  Mike asked, “What about the stuff on his jacket? What was it?” Sean shook his head. “I don’t know, the usual shit, Nazi stuff, skulls— those guys are all the same. I did notice one thing, though. Looked weird, you know, out of place.”

  “What was that?”

  “On his shoulder I think, the shoulder of his jacket. There was a symbol thing, you know, like a logo.”

  “What, Sean? What was it?” Mike asked, impatience creeping into his tone.

  “I’m not sure. I must have seen it wrong, couldn’t a been what I thought, unless the guy is in some sissy-ass motorcycle gang, if there is such a thing.”

  Now Joe leaned in and spoke with even more impatience than his partner had.

  “Sean,” he said, “just tell us, for Christ’s sake, just spit it out.”