Rizzo's War

by Lou Manfredo

  “So,” Rizzo said, “the Surgeon knew it was Rosanne we were looking for as soon as he got the call from Papa Man. And now we know what the problem has been from the start. The old man is crooked.”

  McQueen nodded and drank from his beer, trying to wash the taste of The Dutchmen from his mouth. “Yeah,” he said drily. “So much for my abuse theory.”

  Joe smiled. “Hey, it looked good to me, too. And in a way, we were right. It is abuse. Maybe not quite like we thought, but abuse just the same.”

  Rizzo sighed. “That son of a bitch Surgeon may be a wacko, but he’s no dummy.”

  McQueen dropped his eyes to his beer. “You mean the Quattropa business?”

  Rizzo nodded, his right hand fingering the pack of Chesterfields in his jacket pocket. “Friggin’ no smokin’ laws,” he mumbled. Then, in a stronger voice, he said, “Yeah, the Quattropa business. That slimy little prick took the call from Papa Man, sized the situation, and got on the horn to his whore sister. God knows how many Plaza bosses she’s bangin’ gratis to pay for her protection and his inside info.”

  McQueen sipped at his beer. “What a set of parents those two must have had.”

  Rizzo laughed bitterly. “You think?” he asked.

  They sat silently and drank. After a while, McQueen spoke up. “So, Joe, how are you going to play this out? Even if you can somehow get an audience with The Chink, would it be smart to do it? If DeMayo gets wind of it, how’s it going to look to him?”

  Rizzo shrugged casually. “What’s the fuckin’ difference? It doesn’t matter what I do. I.A. figures me dirty, that hard-on Surgeon figures me dirty … fuck it. They can’t prove what never happened. As far as getting in to see The Chink, I can do that easy enough. We’ve crossed paths dozens of times over the years. Hell, Quattropa helped me put more street skells away than any cop ever did. I can handle it with Quattropa. If The Surgeon’s info pans out, I’ll deliver the message. Maybe we’ll get lucky and The Chink will just blow me off and still whack that psycho. We’ll see.”

  They sat quietly, Rizzo waving for two more beers. Then once more McQueen broke the silence.

  “What now, Joe?” Mike asked.

  “Well, we finish our beers and go home, make a couple of calls, then call it a night. Then, at some point, we go see this priest at Saint Ephrem’s and see if The Surgeon was telling us the truth.”

  “You think maybe he was lying? Why?”

  Rizzo shrugged. “Who knows? The guy is the most genuine sociopath I’ve ever met, and I’ve met a few, believe me. But if he really does think we’re crooked and he’ll be able to extort us later on, he probably was telling us straight. He wants us to succeed. That’s why he’s aiming us at this priest.”

  “So The Surgeon was telling us the truth about Chick riding her over to the church so she could give this evidence to the priest? And what do you think he did with it?”

  “I guess he put it under his bed or something. I don’t know. But he promised her he’d hold it and respect her privacy. According to The Surgeon, the only two people Rosanne trusted were Dr. Rogers and this Father Charles. She was right about Rogers: he stood up to her father and he stonewalled us. The good doctor probably figured we were working for the old man, after that money, same as The Surgeon did. Rogers never once mentioned any of this other stuff, but looking back, I can see he knew about it. He wanted us to find her, but nothing else. God only knows if Rogers or anybody else knows about this proof she claims to have.”

  “So,” Mike said, “now we know who ‘FC’ is— Father Charles. Do you think he’ll give us what ever Rosanne left with him?”

  Joe shook his head. “Who knows? It never occurred to The Surgeon that Daily didn’t know about this so-called evidence and that we were just two cops doing our jobs. To him, we were just hired guns, bought and paid for. Let’s see if we can convince this priest that we’re legit.”

  McQueen hesitated as the silence grew around them. At last, he spoke.

  “Are we, Joe? Legit?”

  Rizzo drank from his beer bottle, then turned to Mike.

  “You familiar with the Alamo, Mike?” he asked, his voice soft.

  Puzzled, McQueen frowned. “In Texas?”

  Joe nodded. “Yeah, in Texas. When I was a kid, the Alamo was a big thing where I lived in Nebraska. We used to play Alamo all the time, and every kid wanted to be David Crockett or Jim Bowie. The consolation prize was William Travis, the commanding officer during the battle. We always tried to make this Puerto Rican kid Santa Ana, but even he wanted to be Crockett.”

  “Where’s this going, Joe?”

  “Well, when we played, I always wanted to be James Butler Bonham. You ever hear of him?”

  “No,” McQueen answered.

  Joe nodded. “The other kids hadn’t either. They said, ‘Okay, Joe’s Bonham,’ then argued over being Crockett or Bowie. And that was fine by me. See, my old man was a big American history buff. He was real interested in the story of the Alamo, even took me, my mother, and sister down there one time to San Antonio to visit the place. That was about a year or two before he died. They got a street named after Bonham down there.”

  “And?” Mike asked.

  “Well, kid, lately we’ve been talking about right and wrong and what is and what isn’t, and it looks like we’ve got us a situation here. We know where Rosanne is, on Staten Island. We’ve got the exact location and name of the guy she’s with. We ride out there and pick her up and that’s the end of it. Or, we go see this priest, take a look at what he’s got, and if we see any evidence of a crime, a corrupt city councilman, we go straight to the feds with it. We can’t trust the Brooklyn D.A.’s office, they’re too po liti cal. We certainly can’t trust the police department, not with Inspector Manning pulling the strings on this whole thing. We’ve got a choice: ignore it, or act on it. Or we can just ditch it. Burn it, what ever. Daily can’t possibly know it exists. He would never have sent cops looking for her if he did. No, he figures it’s just the money, and he knows with her being bipolar, she’d have blown most of it by the time we find her.” Rizzo paused and ran a hand through his hair. When he spoke, it was in a flat, unhappy tone.

  “And then of course,” he said, “there’s always option four.”

  “Which is?”

  “Take it to Daily. Deliver Rosanne to Dr. Rogers and this evidence to Councilman Daily. That’s what Daily himself would do. That’s what Papa Man would do. That’s what The Surgeon would do.”

  They sat in silence for a moment, then Joe spoke.

  “But getting back to James Butler Bonham. See, he was a lieutenant in the Texian Army. That’s Texian, not Texan. Half of them were Mexicans. Anyway, Col o nel Travis sent Bonham out of the Alamo a few times during the actual siege. He would ride through Mexican lines to deliver messages and try to bring back help. Then he’d ride back through the lines and reenter the Alamo. A few days before the place was overrun and everybody got killed, Bonham was sent to this small town called Goliad to bring back help. But when he gets there, guess what? There is no help, there is no volunteer army. So he changes horses, mounts up, and heads back to San Antonio.

  “When he gets back from Goliad, Bonham’s on high ground, looking down at the mission yard. He sees that the enemy has closed in, the noose around the Alamo even tighter. By then, the Texians couldn’t surrender because General Santa Ana already told them he was going to massacre the entire garrison. No quarter would be offered, and eventually he made good on that promise.

  “So, what should Bonham do? He’s a young guy, maybe twenty-eight, he’s got a lot of years ahead of him. See, Mike, it’s one of those things: what’s right, what’s wrong— who knows?”

  McQueen scratched at his chin. “So, what did he do?”

  Rizzo smiled sadly and drank more beer, then answered.

  “He spurred his horse and rode through the lines one last time, back into the Alamo. Then he gave Travis the bad news: they were on their own, no help was coming. Later, he
died along with the rest of them.” After a moment, Joe spoke again.

  “See, Mike, that’s what I mean. Some people would say what Bonham did was the right thing, some would say it was the wrong thing. Me, I’d probably say it just was, Mike. It just was.”

  “What are you really trying to tell me here, Joe?” Mike asked.

  “Well, Mike, we’ve got a little clearer choice to make here. We have ‘legal’ and ‘illegal,’ like I explained before. Me, I’ve got twenty-six years in. If I piss off Manning or Daily or the mayor or the freakin’ Pope, I just say, ‘So long, fellas,’ and I put in my papers. My house is paid off, my kids can just borrow a few more bucks for their tuition. It’s time for me to go, anyway. But you, it’s different for you. You’ve got what? Twelve, thirteen more years minimum to a pension? On this one, Mike, you’ve got to make the call.”

  McQueen sat back on his bar stool, his eyes wide.

  “Are you kidding me, Joe? You’re putting this on me?”

  Rizzo nodded. “It’s got to be your call, Mike. The stakes are too high. You get enough bosses trying to hurt you on this job, they can usually figure out a way to get you indicted, eventually. Especially if the politicians and the D.A.’s office share the same hard-on with them. You ignore Rosanne’s evidence, you’re out of danger. You give it to Daily, you probably go over to the Plaza and help Manning plan the Saint Patrick’s Day parade, then have lunch with the mayor. You go to the feds with it, you may have to face Santa Ana’s army.”

  McQueen shook his head. “This is fucked up, Joe,” he said. “What happens to your idea of touching Daily to get I.A. off you? How does all this play into that?”

  Rizzo shrugged. “I don’t know. You can’t have your cake and eat it, too, what ever the hell that means. But it’s about time I get out. This I.A. thing soured me pretty good. The other day my youn gest, Carol, tells me she wants to be a cop. I’ll break one of her kneecaps before I see her tied up in all this shit.”

  Now McQueen sighed sadly. “This sucks,” he said softly.

  Rizzo drew a long, deep swallow from his beer bottle. He placed it back on the bar top, empty, and waved at the bartender for another round. Then he turned to face McQueen.

  “Take some time, Mike. Think it over. I believe you know how I feel about it, but you let me know and I’ll go along with what ever you decide.” Now he smiled, a rare softness in his eyes suddenly apparent to McQueen.

  “You let me know, Mike,” he said softly. “Do we stay in Goliad, safe and warm? Or do we return to the Alamo?

  “You tell me.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Rizzo sped the Chevrolet toward the Bedford-Stuyvesant home of Priscilla Jackson, the rising sun behind them glaring harshly in the rearview mirror. McQueen sat silently beside him, leafing through the lengthy, detailed notes he had compiled throughout the investigation.

  Rizzo lit a cigarette and opened the driver’s side window. He spoke above the sound of the rushing wind pouring into the car’s interior.

  “I spoke to Dr. Rogers last night after I got home,” he said. “He’ll be at the hospital twenty minutes after we call him. He admitted knowing about Father Charles. In fact, they’d been conferring with one another, trying to straighten her out. Rosanne used to see the guy at the rectory two or three times a week. She saw him more than she did Rogers. The doc didn’t tell us about Father Charles because he knew the priest hadn’t seen her recently and had no idea where she could be. He saw no reason to violate his professional ethics for something he figured wouldn’t help us. Typical civilian, doctor or no doctor. He’s gonna decide what’s important to us.” Joe shook his head. “They just don’t get it.”

  McQueen looked up from his notes. “Did he indicate that he knew Father Charles had something of Rosanne’s? Does he know about that angle?”

  Joe shrugged. “I’m not sure. I can’t say. Rogers probably knows the old man’s a crook and he probably knows that her father has no clue that Rosanne’s on to him. Whether or not he’s aware of this evidence, I have no idea. He’s still playing his doctor-patient card pretty close to the vest. But the important thing is he’ll be there to admit Rosanne when we get her to Gracie Square. What arrangements did you make with the One-Two- Three?”

  Rizzo was referring to the One Hundred Twenty-third Precinct on Staten Island.

  McQueen closed his note pad and slipped it into his jacket pocket. He turned to Joe and nodded.

  “I spoke to the gang liaison officer last night,” he said. “He’s off today but he told me to see this guy Downing at the squad this morning. He’ll get a sector car and ride out with us, but he said there shouldn’t be any trouble. Apparently, this gang, The Others, they’re pretty lightweight. The guy who founded it is some ex–Madison Avenue advertising whiz kid who made a few million bucks, then had a midlife crisis. He bought some broken-down old house in the middle of nowhere and started this motorcycle gang. Most of the riders in the gang are just recycled citizens like him. According to the One-Two- Three, the precinct gets a couple of calls a month about The Others, mostly noise complaints or racing stuff, an occasional dis-con in a bar somewhere. But they’re mostly harmless.”

  Joe nodded contently. “Good. I’ve had enough psycho bikers for a while. We’ll stop at the precinct, pick up Downing, and head for The Others. If we’re lucky, they’ll all still be asleep and we can catch her in bed.”

  The shrill ringing of a cell phone sounded.

  “That’s mine,” Rizzo said, dropping his right hand from the steering wheel and reaching into his jacket pocket.

  “Hello?” he said.

  “Joe? It’s me.”

  Rizzo frowned. “Jen? Everything all right?” he asked.

  “Well, yes. No. I don’t know.”

  “Where are you? What’s going on?”

  Jennifer Rizzo sighed heavily. “I’m at work. In my classroom. I just had a visitor.”

  “Who?”

  There was a pause. “Ralph DeMayo,” she said softly.

  “Tell me,” Joe said.

  “He knew my schedule, Joe. He knew that on Friday in my summer school programs I have a morning prep period. How did he know that?” she asked.

  “A phone call, Jen, a simple phone call,” he said impatiently. “He’s not a goddamned mystic. Relax and tell me what he wanted.”

  “Well, it was financial, mostly. He asked me about the girls’ tuition. Marie’s at Cornell, mostly.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I told him the truth. About the loans we have, the loans the girls have, I even told him about the money my mother gave us, when she sold her house.”

  Rizzo thought for a moment, glancing over at Mike. “Good,” he said. “Like I told you, we have nothin’ to hide. Let him knock himself out. Did he ask you to sign anything? A statement, a financial disclosure release, anything like that?”

  “No,” she said. Rizzo heard the tension in her tone. He softened his own when he spoke again. “Okay, honey,” he said. “Remember, if they ever do ask you to sign anything, you tell them you’ll only do it with me present. Okay?”

  “Yes, Joe. I remember,” she said flatly.

  “How was he?” Rizzo asked. “Did he behave himself?”

  “He was a perfect gentleman. Very kind.”

  Rizzo chuckled bitterly. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s Ralph. But if you shook his hand, you might wanna count your fingers.”

  “This is not a joke, Joe,” she answered, anger touching her voice. “Having police come to the school, checking in at the administration office. It’s frightening and it’s embarrassing. The school secretary thought you’d been shot. Haven’t we had enough, Joe? Isn’t it time? You said—”

  “Yes, Jen,” he interrupted. “I know what I said. Soon. I promise.” He glanced again at McQueen, by now staring at him, a question in his eyes.

  “Maybe even sooner than I figured,” he said.

  When Rizzo closed the phone, he turned again t
o his young partner. He summarized the phone call. They drove in silence.

  *

  WITH PRISCILLA in the backseat, Rizzo pointed the Chevrolet west toward the Verrazano Bridge, which would carry them into Staten Island. He spoke without turning his head as he drove, occasionally making eye contact with her in the rearview mirror.

  “Thanks again for coming along, Priscilla,” he said. “We can use a female cop to pat her down, make sure she’s not armed and maybe keep her calm. You know, soothe her a little.”

  Priscilla shrugged. “Hey, no problem, Joe, I like this detective stuff. No uniform and lots of free time.”

  Rizzo chuckled. “Yeah, it’s a real racket. But you know, Cil, I gotta tell you: you’re too sharp a cop to be ticketing French poodles for pooper-scooper violations up on Fifth Avenue.”

  She spoke with a twisted face. “How’d you know about that? Mike tell you that story?”

  Rizzo put a serious tone into his voice. “Cil, when this is over, I owe you. You set us up with the Angels and got us in to see that scumbag Surgeon. Without that, we’re nowhere.”

  Priscilla shrugged. “Glad to help, Joe. No biggie.”

  Rizzo shook his head. “Wrong. Biggie. I’m gonna talk to The Swede, my boss at the Six-Two. I want you to transfer over.”

  Now she laughed, genuinely amused. “Yeah, Joe, that’s what I wanna do. Leave Manhattan for friggin’ Bensonhurst.”

  “I can help you in Brooklyn, Cil.”

  Again she laughed. “And I’d surely need the help, Joe. Good Lord, think about it. Mike tells me you’re a big baseball fan, right? Well, picture this: the big game, bases loaded, Priscilla Jackson is up to bat, Bensonhurst is pitching. Female: Strike one! Black: Strike two! Lesbian: Strike fuckin’ three, and I’m out on my pretty little butt. No thanks, brother, I think I’ll stay in the silk stocking district with the sophista-cats. They bust their rich humps to show me how cool they are with the PC bullshit. Why, they just loves their black mammies!”