Rizzo's War

by Lou Manfredo

Rizzo smiled, reached for the cigarette, and stood up. Digging the lighter from his pocket, he turned and headed for the side door and his smoking sanctuary beside the garage.

  He stopped at the doorway and winked at her.

  “Well, we’ll see, hon. The next few days could change things. When Mike gets back to New York, I’ll hear him out. Then, we’ll see.”

  TWO DAYS later, Joe Rizzo parked his Camry at the corner of Chambers and Centre Streets in lower Manhattan and tossed his NYPD plaque on the dashboard. He took the plastic shopping bag from the passenger seat and glanced at his wristwatch: nine-twenty.

  He crossed Chambers and strolled slowly passed City Hall and its parklike surroundings. When he reached the concrete security barriers and blue-and- white NYPD radio car guarding the hall’s east access, he angled across the off-ramp of the Brooklyn Bridge, climbing the steps to its lower promenade. Eyeing an empty bench, Joe sat in the bright sunlight watching as the morning crowd of workers and joggers, bicyclists and dog walkers went about their Tuesday-morning routines.

  The bench Rizzo occupied at the foot of the bridge was only a short walk from the square, craggy building known as One Police Plaza.

  After some ten or twelve minutes, a shadow fell upon him. He raised his eyes to the ruddy face of Inspector David Manning.

  “Rizzo?” the man asked.

  Joe smiled and indicated the seat next to him on the bench.

  “Yes, sir,” he said, a pleasant smile on his face.

  Manning sat. He adjusted his suit jacket and extended a hand to Joe. “Well, it’s nice to meet you at last, Joe,” he said in a cordial tone. “Although why you insisted on meeting here, and not in my office, eludes me.”

  Rizzo chuckled. “Well, Inspector, it’s like I said when I called. I’m gonna clear up a few things. That’ll be one of them.”

  “Alright,” Manning said. “What’s on your mind?”

  Rizzo bent and picked up the grocery bag from the ground near his feet. He offered it to Manning. “I’ve got somethin’ here for your pal, Councilman Daily.”

  Manning dropped his gaze to the bag, then raised his eyes to Rizzo.

  “What makes you think he’s a pal?” he asked.

  Rizzo smiled. “Associate, then. Okay? Here, take it.”

  Manning glanced around, his eyes suddenly narrowing and fearful.

  “Relax, Inspector,” Rizzo said. “If this was a setup, I woulda come to your office. We’re sittin’ outside with traffic all around us, cars coming over the bridge, the wind blowin’ and a jackhammer poundin’ half a block away— there ain’t a wire in the world could pick us up if you keep your voice down. Go ahead,” Rizzo urged. “Pat me down.”

  Manning scanned Rizzo’s face, then seemed to relax. “Why don’t you just put it down, Joe? The bag, I mean. Here, on the bench.”

  Rizzo complied, placing it between them on the bench. The strong summer breeze coming off the East River stirred the thin plastic bag.

  “There,” Joe said with a smile.

  “So what’s in it?” Manning asked.

  “It’s a shoe box I came across while I was lookin’ for Rosanne Daily. It’s got her diary in it. And the cash.”

  “Cash?” the inspector asked, his voice neutral.

  Joe smiled. “Yeah, Boss. Cash. All that was left from what she took outta Daily’s safe the night she disappeared.”

  Manning’s eyes fell to the bag. He slowly opened it and slipped the box top off. Looking inside, he spoke without lifting his gaze.

  “How much is here?” he asked.

  “Twenty thousand. Every nickel she had,” Rizzo said, his voice casual, his eyes fixed on the man’s profile.

  Manning looked up, his eyes hard. “Twenty thousand dollars, eh?” he asked.

  Rizzo nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “There was more at one time. Probably a lot more. The kid dropped twenty-two grand on a custom Harley-Davidson for some cretin she was fuckin’. God knows how much more she pissed away over the weeks.”

  Manning frowned and glanced again at the tightly packed hundred-dollar bills. “What makes you think she took the money from Daily’s safe?” he asked as he looked back to Rizzo.

  Rizzo shrugged. “That’s what the motorcycle cretin told me she said when she bought him the bike.”

  Manning sighed. “So, now you and McQueen think what? You seeing bogeymen, Joe?”

  Rizzo shook his head. “McQueen don’t think a fuckin’ thing. He don’t even know this money exists. I made sure of that.”

  “And why is that, Joe?” Manning asked. Rizzo detected a slight relaxation in the man’s tone and smiled. Rizzo knew Manning was growing more comfortable with what he now perceived as just another cop doing business. A familiar element for him.

  “Because as sharp as he is, he’s still a kid. Kids are too unpredictable. And I’m too old for surprises. I got a feelin’, Inspector, you ain’t going to surprise me.”

  Manning leaned back into the bench and sighed again. After a moment, he spoke in a soft, low tone. A city bus rumbled and thundered along Centre Street just to their right.

  “Make your pitch, Rizzo,” he said.

  Rizzo smiled. “Okay, here it is. Daily has an election comin’. It could be a little embarrassing, this missing daughter episode. Especially if the money thing gets out. Some reporter starts poking around Rosanne’s recent past, God knows what shit hits the fan.”

  “There are any number of explanations for that money, Joe …” Manning said, his voice hardening.

  “Yeah, I know. Like Watergate and Iran-Contra and Whitewater and all the other bullshit explanations. That isn’t the point. The point is, does Daily wanna get into all that? When it could all just be avoided?”

  Manning fingered the plastic bag, then ran a hand through his hair. “And how could it be avoided, Joe? In your opinion.”

  Rizzo laughed. “Okay. I can do that. Offer an opinion, sort of.”

  They sat in silence for a moment as a young mother, baby stroller before her, jogged past them onto the pedestrian walkway toward Brooklyn, a half mile away. Then Rizzo turned back to Manning.

  “My opinion is this: You take that money to Daily. You tell him, as far as I’m concerned, it’s his dough, and how it came to be in his safe with the rest of the money the kid blew is none a my business. You tell him it’s my plea sure to help him out. So he gets reelected. I’m just happy to help foster good government for our fine city.”

  Manning smiled. “Very noble, Joe. I’m sure he’ll be appreciative.”

  Rizzo laughed. “Yeah, well, I figured. Matter a fact, I even got an idea how he could show me just how very appreciative he is. You, too, as a matter of fact.”

  Manning frowned. “Me? What makes you think—”

  “Let’s just cut the shit, okay, Boss? I’ve had enough fresh air and sunshine for today. I’d like to get off this fuckin’ bridge before some raghead decides to fly a plane into it.”

  Manning casually knotted the bag’s handles closed.

  “Spit it out, then, Rizzo,” he said.

  Joe smiled. “I’m not greedy, Boss. I just want what you offered McQueen during that phone conversation. I don’t want any of it slipping your mind. I want that prick, DeMayo, off my back. I want my I.A.D. file closed and shit-canned. And I want McQueen transferred to the Plaza. Someplace he can’t hurt himself. Policy and Planning, maybe. Something like that. He’s a college boy, NYU no less, and he dresses nice. He’ll fit right in.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yeah, Inspector. Terrorist Task Force. You hook me up to it. Unofficially official. But I stay at the Six-Two lockin’ up skells as usual for six more months. During that time, on my way home every night, maybe I swing by the Brooklyn side of the Verrazano Bridge, make sure it’s all secure, no Jihadists around. You pay me overtime, pro cess it through the Homeland Security federal grant money. Nobody at the Six-Two ever knows about it. I want my final average salary jacked up about twenty-five grand. Then in six months
, I retire. With years on the job plus my military credit, I get out at over sixty percent of my salary. Sixty percent of that twenty-five overtime is fifteen thousand dollars a year on top of my regular forty-nine, fifty grand pension. For the rest of my life.”

  Rizzo smiled and reached for his cigarettes. “Chump change by Daily’s standards. He’ll be amused by the simple needs of the workin’ class.” Now Joe lit a Chesterfield.

  “Deal?” he asked, blowing smoke at Manning.

  “That’s it?” Manning asked. “Nothing more?”

  Rizzo smiled. “No,” he said. “Just be sure to tell the good councilman how I sympathize with his predicament. What some people might assume about all that loose cash, I mean. After all, I’ve been living under some false assumptions myself lately. I know how frustrating it can be.”

  Manning stood, brushing his pants and straightening his suit jacket.

  “Just suppose, Joe,” he said in conversational tones, “I— we, Daily and I— were to tell you to go fuck yourself? What then?”

  Rizzo stood slowly and stepped close to Manning. The inspector held his ground. Rizzo leaned his face to mere inches from Manning’s.

  “Well, Boss,” he said, his voice an evil hiss, “why don’t you just try it and find out?”

  Manning held Rizzo’s eyes. In a moment, he responded in a soft, cautious tone.

  “I’ll be in touch, Joe,” he said, taking the bag into his grasp. Then he turned and walked off toward Police Plaza.

  Rizzo walked slowly back to his Camry and climbed in. He took his NYPD plaque from the dash and placed it in the glove box.

  Then he reached into his pocket and removed a legal-sized white envelope thick with bills. Smiling, he recalled McQueen’s remark about the Cornell bursar.

  He tossed the twelve thousand into the glove box and drove slowly back to Brooklyn.

  RIZZO SPENT the next few days busying himself around the house on projects he had long promised Jennifer he would attend to. On Friday morning, as the first of his and McQueen’s two weeks leave drew to a close, he was preparing to paint his den. Jennifer and the girls were out and he had the house to himself.

  Just as he was about to open the paint can, the bedroom phone sounded. Sighing, he crossed the hall and went to answer it.

  “Hello?” he said.

  “Joe? Is that you?”

  Rizzo frowned. “Yeah.” He paused. “Who’s this?”

  “Ralph. Ralph DeMayo, Joe. How the hell are you?”

  Rizzo dropped onto the edge of the bed. His eyes narrowed as he spoke.

  “What do you want, DeMayo?” he asked.

  DeMayo’s chuckle came through the line. “Relax, Joe. You sound a little tense.”

  “When a lightweight like you can tense me up, DeMayo, I’ll turn in my papers. What do you want?”

  “Well, Joe, I just want to share my good news with you. You know, I been with I.A.D. for three years. Three fuckin’ years in this leper colony. I’ve had a transfer request in for two years now.”

  Rizzo laughed. “Transfer?” he said. “To where: the fuckin’ Gestapo?”

  DeMayo returned the laugh. “Naw, nothing that work-intense. No, I always figured I belonged on Mayoral Security Detail, Joe. You know, with the rising stars, hobnobbin’ with the big shots and all those Brazil waxed administrative assistant broads they got working around City Hall.”

  “You got some kinda point here, Ralph?” Rizzo asked.

  “Yeah, Joe, yeah, I do. See, funny thing. Out of the blue, I get a call from Inspector Polanski. He’s the security detail commander over at City Hall. Seems my transfer request just landed on his desk. Magiclike. Polanski was impressed, figured me for just the guy to come on board guarding our beloved mayor at all the cocktail parties. I start in two weeks.”

  Rizzo sat up straighter. He kept his voice casual.

  “Two weeks, eh, Ralph?” he said. “Doesn’t leave much time to clear off your desk.”

  “No, Joe, it sure don’t. And I would hate to leave a lotta loose ends laying around for the next guy. It’s like my work ethic, you know? So what I’m doing is, I’m weeding through a lot of pending stuff. Seeing what I can put to bed.”

  “Really?” Joe asked.

  “Yeah. Like for instance, I was just looking over your file, yesterday, and I think I’ve covered all the bases there, Joe. I really do. I even talked to The Chink about the whole thing. And you know, Joe, I don’t think there’s anywhere else to go with it.”

  “Is that right, Ralph.”

  Rizzo could almost see DeMayo’s crooked smile. “Yeah, Joe, that’s right. So, what I did was, I wrote my final report and marked your jacket ‘unfounded.’ I sent it up to the captain, and he signed off on it. I want you to know you’re all righ teous again, Joe. Sorry for any sweat I wrung out of you. Nothing personal, you understand. Just doing my job.”

  Rizzo let air out through his lips. “Good-bye, Ralph. Plant a nice big wet one on the mayor’s ass for me.”

  He hung up the phone on DeMayo’s laugh.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  August

  JENNIFER RIZZO SMILED as she opened her front door.

  “Hello, Mike,” she said, ushering McQueen into the foyer. “Welcome back. How are your parents?”

  “Fine, thanks. They’re really happy down there,” Mike answered. “Very relaxing atmosphere.”

  “Well,” Jennifer said, noting the dark circles and stress lines the young detective’s eyes swam in, “that’s wonderful. Right this way, Joe’s expecting you. He’s down in the basement, probably smoking and running that ridiculous fan he thinks he fools me with.”

  McQueen laughed perfunctorily. “Yeah, well …” he said, following Jennifer to the heavy wooden door that led to the basement.

  Jennifer swung the door inward and leaned slightly over the staircase. She shook her head as the faint odor of burning tobacco touched her nostrils.

  “Joe,” she called. “Mike is here.”

  Rizzo’s voice resounded from deep in the basement. “Okay, send him down.”

  Jennifer stepped aside as Mike moved past her. “I’m going out, Joe,” she said. “I need to get to Sears. I’ll see you later. And put out the damn cigarette.”

  “Okay, Jen,” Rizzo responded.

  She sighed and began to close the door. As Mike descended the steps, she spoke softly to his back.

  “You guys will have the house to yourselves, Mike,” she said. “There’s no one else home.”

  McQueen made his way to Joe’s small basement office. They greeted each other warmly, genuinely glad to see each other. For McQueen, the sight of the older cop, calm and confident-looking, was comforting. He sat opposite Joe at the cluttered metal desk, the soft whirling of the desk fan and slight hum of the fluorescent lights a soothing backdrop.

  Rizzo sat down behind the desk, reflecting on the dark circles beneath his young partner’s eyes. He smiled at Mike as he spoke.

  “You look beat, kid. Rough two weeks down on the Bayou?”

  McQueen returned a smile weakly and shrugged.

  “I’ve had easier weeks, Joe,” he said.

  Rizzo laughed. “Yeah, Mike, I guess you have.”

  Some moments of silence passed as Rizzo waited for Mike to speak.

  “What’d you do with the cash, Joe?” he asked at last.

  Rizzo shrugged. “What do you think? I gave it to Manning. I told him you never saw it, didn’t know shit about it. So if it ever does come up, Mike, just play dumb. You never saw it, period. Then I reminded him about that phone call he made to you. Just to sort of jar his memory a bit.”

  McQueen leaned forward. “What’d he say?”

  “Well, you know, in this business it’s usually more about what somebody does than about what they say. He didn’t say much of anything. But here’s what he did.”

  Rizzo went on to tell Mike about the call from DeMayo and the closing of Joe’s case. When he was done, he saw Mike smile. Some of the tension ran
out from the young cop’s face.

  “So he went for it,” McQueen said.

  “Yep,” Joe responded happily. “He went for it. Along with a few other things.” Here Joe explained his arrangement to pad his salary with phantom overtime hours and then, in six months, put in his retirement papers.

  “That’s great, Joe. I’m really happy for you.”

  Rizzo nodded. “Well, thanks, Mike. But the deal ain’t done until you cross over the river. To the Plaza. Just like you wanted.”

  Rizzo recapped further details of his conversation with Inspector Manning.

  “Figure a month or so. Tops. They’ll want it all in bed before the November election. Congratulations, Mike. You’re on your way.”

  This time McQueen’s smile was bittersweet. “Yeah, Joe,” he said. “On my way. But to where? I think that’s the next question.”

  Rizzo shook a cigarette loose from its pack, raised it to his lips, and struck the Zippo. “One of the questions, Mike,” he said as he lit the Chesterfield. “But not the next one. The next question is: What did you decide? About the tape, I mean. What are we going to do with this prick Daily.”

  McQueen nodded. “Yeah, Joe, well, I have made a decision,” he said.

  “Did you talk it over with anybody first?” he said.

  McQueen nodded. “A friend.”

  Rizzo frowned slightly. “Well, okay,” he said in a neutral tone. They sat in silence for a moment. Then McQueen sighed.

  “You know, Joe, it was politics that got me my detective shield in the first place.”

  Rizzo nodded. “I know,” he said in the same neutral tone.

  “A politician. The friggin’ mayor himself. That’s the way things work.” Again Rizzo nodded. “I know that, too. I’ve known it for a long time. I watched my grandfather turn just from being a good cop to being a good politician. He rose to chief of detectives in Brooklyn and retired as deputy inspector. When I came on the job, he had enough friends in the department still owed him favors and he got me my gold shield.”

  He saw the look on McQueen’s face and smiled. “Yeah, kid, what’d ya think— it was my talent and personality? It was a hook, just like everybody else.”