Payback

by Lorenzo Carcaterra

  “Some of the active cops that like Kenwood know him only by reputation,” the chief said. “A hard-charging detective with a long string of notches on his conviction belt catches the eye of a lot of cops. Especially the ambitious ones. That doesn’t mean they’re willing to risk their job and their pension doing some dirty work for him.”

  “I’m not too worried about the ones who kneel at Kenwood’s altar,” I said. “They only know about the convictions, not how he got them. And not even reading about the overturned ones in the papers is going to sway them one way or another. The ones that have my attention are the ones off the job, who worked with Kenwood and may have helped him get those false confessions. The more Kenwood cases get overturned, the more likely their names will pop up on somebody’s radar. And that might be all the incentive they need to come after me and my crew.”

  “We’ve been keeping tabs on Kenwood for a while now,” the chief said. “He plays golf and does a little sailing when the weather’s nice. He splits his time between a house in Nassau County and a small condo down in Boca. Lives within his means. If he made under-the-table money, he’s good at keeping it off our radar.”

  “He’s not tied in to the mob in any way,” I said. “If he were, I would have caught wind of it from Carmine. But we both heard the talk about him shaking down mid-tier dealers and pimps, clearing about three, maybe four hundred a week. There was never any proof, but it wouldn’t be a stretch for it to prove out to be true.”

  “He probably did do those things, but that’s not what drove him. Kenwood’s a hot-tempered guy whose reputation is being sullied, day in and day out, in the newspapers and the DA’s office,” the chief said. “That means more to him than anything. When he left the department, no one had a higher homicide closeout rate. He sees himself as a Hall of Famer. Messing with that just might be enough to put him over the edge.”

  I turned away from the window and looked at the chief. We had known each other since I joined the force, and he was one of the most honest and honorable men I knew. He was fair but tough, demanding and dedicated both to his work and to those he considered his friends. “Well, Chief,” I said to him, “if I clear Randy Jenkins, he’ll do more than go over the edge. He’ll come gunning for me, and he’ll have his ex-cop goons by his side.”

  The chief smiled. “And it doesn’t sound to me like that bothers you all that much,” he said. “But it’s not going to look good for the department overall if that were to happen.”

  “How do you think it looks now, Chief?” I asked. “One case after another of Kenwood’s getting overturned. City forced to pay out millions in settlements to men who had their lives ruined by a detective who looked only at skin color to link them to a crime. And for what? To see his closed-case rate rank higher than the next guy in the bureau? To me that’s a stain that won’t wash out easy.”

  “Don’t read me wrong, Tank,” the chief said. “I want to nail the piece of shit much as you do. But right now, legally at least, we can’t touch him. His pension is secure, as is his health plan. He’s still claiming all his convictions are on the square. If you want to point a finger, look to the prosecutors. They’re the ones who convicted the guys. He merely got them to admit to their guilt. I don’t buy it and neither do you. But there are quite a few who do.”

  “We’ll take it one step at a time,” I said. “He’ll tumble eventually. Once those walls start closing in, he’ll put away his golf clubs and ditch the boat shoes and make his way to me. But for now I’ve got to clear Randy Jenkins.”

  The chief picked up a second folder from his desk, opened it, and scanned the rap sheet of J. J. Livingstone. “He’s nobody’s idea of a role model, I’ll give you that,” he said. “And he knew both Jenkins and the victim. He’s worth a hard look. He’s had his finger in all sorts of street business, wouldn’t be a shock if it reached all the way up to murder.”

  “There’s one other reason to line him up as one of our suspects,” I said. “Aside from the violent temper and him maybe having a sweet spot for Rachel.”

  “You pick this up from your talk with Zeke?”

  “He pointed me in the right direction,” I said. “Look for yourself. On his rap sheet. His third bust, for a breaking and entering. The collar went to a still-new-on-the-job uniform patrolman.”

  The chief flipped over several pages and ran his fingers along a page of an old 61, the report a cop types up detailing how an arrest went down. The report ends with the patrolman’s signature. The chief read the name typed just above the signature and then sat back in his chair. “Eddie Kenwood got the collar,” the chief said, looking from the page to me. “That ties him to Livingstone.”

  “Does more than that, Chief,” I said. “Kenwood got the case tossed three days after he filed the papers. Went to the higher-ups and told them Livingstone had agreed to be a confidential informant and that having him on the streets as a CI was better than letting him do a spin for a minor offense.”

  “Which means Livingstone owed Kenwood,” the chief said.

  “And that Kenwood owned Livingstone,” I said.

  26.

  CHURCH OF ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI

  LATER THAT DAY

  I NEEDED A QUIET PLACE TO clear my head and arrange my thoughts, and this peaceful and beautiful church is one of my havens. The original church, on Thirty-first Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues, was built in 1844. It was then demolished and rebuilt in 1892, with a mix of marble brought over from Italy and trucked down from Vermont. In 1928, what was then the largest mosaic in America was first shown to the public in this church; its 1,600 square feet feature Mary along with beautifully rendered scenes from the life of St. Francis and other saints from the religious order he founded.

  You don’t need to be a deeply religious man to admire St. Francis or, for that matter, throw a prayer his way. His goals were simple—help the poor and those in need. And those that followed in his footsteps executed the mission he laid out for them. During the height of the Great Depression, for example, the Friars doled out bread and alms, feeding as many as four thousand hungry and desperate New Yorkers in a single day. Toss in the fact that St. Francis is also the patron saint of animals, and that makes him my favorite saint. Not far behind him is St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes and cops—where I qualify on both accounts.

  I often make it a point, either coming into the church or before leaving, to stop in the courtyard and reach a hand to touch the bronze statue of St. Francis. His right heel, knees, and hands all shine from the millions of fingers that have rubbed them over the years.

  I sat in a pew in the back of the small church, taking in the beauty and the silence, as I contemplated the tasks before me.

  I needed to either clear Randy Jenkins or prove to myself and everyone on my team that he really did commit the crime for which he stood convicted. The fact that an innocent man was possibly spending double decades behind prison bars sickened me. Anyone I slapped the cuffs on deserved it. I sent a lot of men to prison and a few to the morgue, but all had earned that fatal ride. And the fact that the hideous shadow of Eddie Kenwood hovered over this case made it that much more crucial I get to the truth of the matter. It is no secret that cops like me, Pearl, and Chief Connors harbor a deep dislike for the criminals that prey on the powerless, taking what little they have and leaving blood and ruin in their wake. But our hatred for dirty cops runs even deeper.

  A hood does not take an oath to obey the law and protect the innocent from harm. But a cop is held to a higher standard, or should be. Once they cross the line and walk down a path that lines their pockets or inflates their reputation at the expense of those without recourse, they cross into my red zone. To my way of thinking, a dirty cop is the lowest and vilest form of criminal. He abuses the trust that’s placed in him by the public he has sworn to protect. Eddie Kenwood was now my enemy and I was his, and only one of us could c
ome out of this battle unscathed.

  The danger posed by the accounting firm that set my brother up also brought with it significant and potentially lethal challenges. Now, I wasn’t walking into that minefield blind. But these guys were pros and had been above the reach of the law for many years. The feds hadn’t been able to nail them, despite their best efforts. I had to wonder about the level of success I would have.

  It was a company of tightly held secrets. And I was a man who feared his dark secret would one day be exposed. They would go to any lengths to keep their machinations off anyone’s radar. And they would not hesitate to bring harm to me or any member of my team. All to protect their profits.

  And their secrets.

  Would I be willing to do the same? How much did I fear the revelation that could come out about me while working this case? These people had the means to dig into my past. They would look to attack us at our weakest points, exposing parts of our lives that had for good reason been hidden away. Jack and my parents were the only ones who had known my secret, and now they were dead. I told Connie the reason Jack and I didn’t speak was that he had seen me kill a man. But I didn’t go any deeper into it than that and she didn’t ask. But that didn’t mean my secret was safe and tucked away forever. A long-held secret can be exposed in a blind moment, coming out and revealing itself when you least expect it. It was a fact I had chosen to ignore for many years. But I knew that at this time, with this case, against these particular adversaries, I could no longer allow myself that luxury. I believed without a doubt, as I sat there in that silent church, that what I had kept hidden for so long would soon be divulged to all who knew and loved me. I would be powerless to prevent it. I simply needed to learn to live with that sad fact.

  I stepped out of the pew, genuflected, and walked out of the church toward the courtyard. I stopped in front of the statue of St. Francis and rested a hand on his knee. I said a silent prayer, asking for forgiveness and for courage. I stayed there for what felt like a long time, my eyes looking into the sculpted eyes of St. Francis.

  I was a man of action and violence standing in a sun-drenched courtyard seeking solace and wisdom from a man of peace and love.

  27.

  GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL

  THAT SAME DAY

  EDDIE KENWOOD STOOD UNDER THE big clock in the center of Grand Central Terminal, his back resting against a side of the information desk. He was in a T-shirt and gray shorts, his hair thinner than when he had been an active detective and his stomach surrendering to the daily routine of cold beer and whiskey chasers. He looked at the two men standing in front of him and slapped his hands together. “Let’s get to it,” he said to them.

  “You want to talk here?” the tall and leaner of the two asked. “Might be better if we go to the Oyster Bar, no? Grab us some littlenecks and a couple of cold ones.”

  “I didn’t drag my ass down here to grab a meal with you, Arthur,” Kenwood said. “Tell me what you and Pete came to tell me. And then you can go down to the Bar and eat all the raw fish you can stand.”

  “Tank and that crippled partner of his are digging into the Randy Jenkins file,” said Pete. He was older than his partner, with a shaved head and wearing a tight black muscle T and jeans torn at the knee. “Went in and asked for the case from Connors is what I heard.”

  “Why that one in particular?” Kenwood asked.

  “Not sure,” Arthur said, shrugging.

  “Have they reached out to anyone yet?” Kenwood asked.

  “They’ve only been on it a couple of days,” Pete said. “They might have connected with one of their old street informants, but that’s not going to get them far. They have to dig up a doer from seventeen years back. That’s no easy feat.”

  “I don’t give a damn how many hurdles Tank’s got to jump over,” Kenwood said. “He’s the type that doesn’t stop until he gets what he’s after. Trust me. I know that bastard better than either one of you.”

  “Maybe so,” Arthur said. “But even with the chief running cover for them, it’s a heavy lift. They have to prove the guy who confessed and got convicted for the murder didn’t do it and dig up the one who did. I don’t care how good Tank is, I don’t see how he cracks this baby open.”

  “Don’t be so quick to brush them off,” Kenwood said. “Especially when it’s my ass and not yours that’s in the ringer.”

  “The DA’s office is taking a second look at all your closed homicides,” Pete said. “Why’s this one got your ass tied in knots?”

  “Besides, what do you care if they find the guy?” Arthur said. “Just like with all the others, they release the con, pay him out seven figures, and two, three days later everybody moves on, business as usual. You still sit back, collect your pension, and live your life.”

  “That might be true on them other cases,” Kenwood said. “But not with this guy Tank. Him and Pearl catch some luck and pin the murder on someone other than Jenkins, they’re not going to be happy to see it end there. If that happens, then they’ll come looking for me, and I’m not in any mood to give those fuckers that chance.”

  “Okay, then,” Pete said. “What are you thinking of doing about it?”

  “Stop them now,” Kenwood said. “Don’t give them a chance to get anywhere near the case.”

  “You better go looking for somebody else,” Arthur said. “Passing off some information your way is one thing. Going after a couple of retired badges is another matter. And I’m not in this to piss away my pension, let alone risk some jail time of my own, just to cover your greasy tracks.”

  “You take my money, you take my orders and follow them,” Kenwood said. “And you’re both in too deep to take any back steps now.”

  “My advice?” Arthur said. “Keep a clear head. Tank and the chief go back a gang of years and they’re tight. Something happens to either him or Pearl while they’re working this case, you don’t think the chief is going to come looking at you hard?”

  “Let him look all he wants,” Kenwood said. “Something goes down, I won’t be anywhere near where it happens. And besides, where’s it written it has to be Tank that takes the hit? He’s got himself some half-ass crew helping on the cases come his way. I even hear he’s got his brother’s kid living with him, and he still spends cozy time with the looker runs that restaurant he hangs out in. There are targets everywhere you look.”

  “I would steer clear of the girlfriend if I were you,” Pete said.

  “And why is that?” Kenwood said. “Because of her old man? I gotta shit my pants because of some past-his-prime wiseguy?”

  “Past his prime or no, Carmine Tramonti was a high-end mob boss,” Pete said. “And with a guy like him, you touch his family, he’ll do all he can to make sure a bullet gets sent your way.”

  “Not if my bullet hits him first,” Kenwood said. “Hard to get off a shot when you’re laid out in a coffin.”

  “You make a move like that, it’s going to piss off lots of people,” Arthur said. “None more than Tank himself. He’ll figure you for that in less time than it would take him to pour a cup of coffee. And he’ll come straight at you.”

  Eddie Kenwood moved away from the information desk and looked at the two men and smiled. “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he said. “No matter how all this shakes out, it’s going to come down to him coming after me and me going after him.”

  “There must be some real bad blood between the two of you,” Pete said, “if you’re looking to take him down as bad as all that.”

  “I’m not planning on taking him down,” Kenwood said. “I’m planning on bringing him in, handcuffs and all.”

  “For what?” Arthur asked.

  “For murder,” Kenwood said. “I’m going to arrest Tank Rizzo for murder.”

  28.

  LITTLE WEST TWELFTH STREET

  EARLY THE NEXT MORNING
/>   I STOOD NEXT TO BRUNO, OUR backs against a power-washed brick wall, both of us drinking coffee from hot containers. I looked up and down the street and marveled at the change that had come over the area that still bore the name of the Meatpacking District. “My pop would flip if he saw what this area has turned into,” I said. “Middle of the night, this was once the most active part of the city. Meat trucks lined up and down these blocks, streets lit up as if it were the middle of the day.”

  “Some of the old iron awnings are still left,” Bruno said. “Only instead of beef, they’re fronting shops moving high-end clothes and restaurants selling grilled cheese for what a pair of pants used to cost. Things are meant to change, Tank. Whether we like it or not.”

  I looked at him and nodded. “I used to come down here with him some mornings during the summer months. It was like walking into another world. There were all these lights blaring down, and lines of rusty barrels, holes poked into their sides, were set up three deep on each street. They were packed up with the remains of wooden crates and lit to burn.”

  “What for?”

  “For breakfast,” I said. “Around sunup, the workers took a break. Tables were set, filled with fresh-baked Italian bread, sliced red onions, tomatoes. Then one of the guys would start slicing thick hunks of meat off the hanging hindquarters. They would jam them onto skewers and grill them over the fires. Once the meat was cooked, you grabbed yourself a slab of bread, put the steak on it with all the fixings, and you chowed down.”

  “Great way to start a day,” Bruno said.

  “I’ve never had a better breakfast than I did back in those days on these streets,” I said.

  The street was partly deserted, a few late-night stragglers making their way home after too many drinks and possibly drugs if they hit the right after-hours clubs. Down a side street, just off the corner, a thick door swung open; through the haze of smoke that filtered out, I saw three women emerge, led by a tall, muscular man in a black tank top and leather pants. “There’s our guy,” I said.