Payback

by Lorenzo Carcaterra

  We were in the middle of a pickup basketball game one late-summer afternoon when one of the guys my friends and I were up against started making cracks at Alban. “Watch your pocket money,” he said, sneering over at Alban. “First chance this bastard gets, he’ll rob you clean.”

  “Focus on the game,” I said.

  “My dad told me if you look into a gypsy’s eyes long enough, he’ll steal your soul,” another kid said.

  “My soul he can have,” the first kid said, bouncing the ball and edging closer toward Alban. He stayed quiet, standing on the other side of the fence, his dark eyes taking it all in without the slightest show of emotion. “My money is a whole other issue.”

  “He’s not bothering anybody,” I said. “He’s watching the game. Nothing more.”

  “You his bodyguard now, Rizzo?” the first kid asked. “Or you just got a thing for gypsies?”

  The kid’s name was Tony Nanna. He was in his mid-teens like the rest of us, but he fancied himself a tough guy, helped by the fact his father was doing a long stretch in prison for murder. “Your team’s down six points,” I said. “And we got money riding on how it ends. Now, you want to play it out or not? Get your mind off the gypsy. He’s not why you and your friends can’t buy a basket.”

  “He’s jinxing us, this bastard,” Tony said. “That’s why we’re not hitting our shots. We were doing fine until he showed up and started staring at us.”

  Tony tossed the ball against the fence and moved toward Alban. “Ain’t that right, gypsy?” he said. “Because of you, we’re going to owe these losers money. How about this? Since you’re the reason we’re losing the game, how about you make good on the bet? Pay them for us and we’ll be square.”

  I stepped in between Tony and Alban, my back resting against the fence. “We didn’t make a bet with him,” I said. “We made one with you.”

  “Let him come over,” Alban said, speaking for the first time. “Maybe he can fight better than he can shoot a basketball. If he beats me, I’ll pay off his bet. If he loses, he gives me all the money in his pockets.”

  I turned and looked at Alban and smiled. “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Alban,” he said.

  I looked back at Tony. “I’ll go in on it,” I said. “You beat Alban, we’ll each give you five dollars. But if you lose, you pay him and you pay us, too.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at Alban. “That work for you?” I asked him.

  “Yes,” Alban said.

  Tony stood still for several minutes, clenching and unclenching his fists. “You picking a guy like him over us?” Tony said to me. “A stranger over a friend.”

  “You’re not my friend,” I said. “I see the way you roughhouse with the younger kids in the yard during recess, pushing them around for no reason. But you know what I’ve never seen you do?”

  “What?” Tony asked.

  “Get in a fight with somebody who can stand up to you,” I said. “That I’ve never seen. It sounds like Alban here is giving you a chance to do just that.”

  “I’m not going to fight just to make you happy,” Tony said. “I got better things to do with my time.”

  “And one of those things is paying up on what you owe,” I said.

  Tony turned to face me, his eyes looking at the cracked cement around the rim of the basket. “I don’t have the money on me,” he said. “None of us do.”

  “You came here looking for a game and it was your idea to put money on it,” I said, inching closer to him. “Instead, you played me small, Tony. You played me and my friends small.”

  “I thought we would beat you,” Tony said.

  “Great plan,” I said. “Too bad it bit you in the ass.”

  “I’ll pay up next time I see you,” Tony said. “Give you enough to cover you and your friends.”

  I stared at Tony and then turned to look at Alban. “What do you think?” I said. “Think he’ll keep his word?”

  Alban nodded, giving Tony a hard look. “He better,” Alban said. “Unless he wants to meet up with me again.”

  “You hear that, Tony?” I said. “You welch on our bet and Alban here is going to come looking for you to collect and maybe even kick your ass.”

  “Why’s the gypsy care so much?” Tony asked. “What does he get for going out of his way?”

  I looked at Alban and he glanced back and smiled. “A friend,” he said.

  Tony ponied up what he owed two days later. I never played another game of basketball with Tony, but I did make a friend in Alban. The friendship continued even in the years I was a cop and he was taking on more of his father’s responsibilities. Me and Pearl never went after his action while we were on the job, and Alban always steered clear of our sector when we were in uniform and plainclothes. Besides, me and Pearl weren’t looking to bust pickpockets and fortune-tellers. We went after big game and hardcore criminals who spent their days and nights looking to do serious damage to innocent people.

  And Alban was a help to us. He had eyes and ears in every neighborhood in the city. If the information was important, Alban made sure it made its way to us. He also kept his people clear of the drug trade, realizing early on that that end of the business led to an early death or a long prison sentence, neither of which was of any interest to him.

  On our off-hours, we would get together occasionally and play chess at one of the downtown parks. Basketball is the prime playground game in New York, but in the dozens of small parks dotting the city streets, hidden amid the noise and the foul smell of bumper-to-bumper traffic, chess games were played round the clock. Men, women, teens, and preteens played for fun, cash, or bragging rights. And when it came to chess, Pearl and Alban were both A-level players.

  “It’s a game that can make you better at everything you do,” Pearl would say. “That’s a pure fact. I’ll let Alban here tell you why.”

  “You need to be three moves ahead of your opponent,” Alban would say. “Think the way he thinks and be prepared to respond to the moves he’s going to make. If you’re really good, you’ll know his moves even before he does. In your kind of work, that kind of thinking keeps you alive. We always need to know what’s coming.”

  When Chief Connors first called to offer me a chance to work on a case that had been collecting dust, he gave me permission to put together my own team, and the first member me and Pearl chose was Alexandra Morrasa, Alban’s cousin. “She’s like me,” Alban said. “She can be trusted, and she will never let you down. Not ever.”

  Now I needed his help avenging my brother’s death. At the same time, it would allow Alban the opportunity to get justice for his wife’s younger sister, Sasha.

  That’s one other thing, one very important thing, I have in common with Alban: We both have a strong thirst for revenge.

  35.

  SEVENTY-SECOND STREET IRT STATION

  MOMENTS LATER

  ALBAN LOOKED AT ME AND smiled. Alexandra reached over and gave him a long and warm embrace. Then he looked down at Chris. “And who might this young man be?” he asked me.

  “This is Chris,” I said. “He’s my nephew. And he’s the main reason I asked to meet with you.”

  Alban put out a hand and Chris shook it. Then Chris asked, “Okay if I pet your dog?”

  “Nothing would please him more,” Alban said. “His name is Zeus.”

  Chris crouched down on one knee and began rubbing the dog’s head and neck. Zeus responded by nudging himself closer to Chris.

  “How’s the blind-man routine working for you?” I asked Alban. I couldn’t help but notice how happy Chris was with Zeus. I hadn’t seen that wide a smile on his face since he first came to live with me.

  “A blind man with a dog is invisible to most people,” Alban said. “Means I can see everything I need to see without being seen. Plus, there’s always the o
ccasional kind soul who drops some money in that cup by my feet.”

  “You must have a hundred ways to turn a buck,” I said. “And I’m guessing only a handful are legal.”

  Alban nodded and smiled. “Most likely that’s true,” he said. “But you didn’t come to see me to pick up tips on how to shake a dollar from a tree. So what can I do for you, Tank?”

  “My brother, Jack, worked at an accounting firm,” I said. “Curtis, Strassman, and Randolph. He died earlier this year, and that’s how Chris here came into my life. My brother and his wife were killed in an auto accident. Or at least that’s what the firm would prefer us to believe.”

  “And you think it goes darker than that?” Alban asked.

  “All the way to murder,” I said. “Chris is a bit of a crime buff and has a triple-A computer rating. He put most of the pieces together. Enough of them, at any rate, to convince me to look into it.”

  “What have you found so far?”

  “These guys are top-to-bottom dirty,” I said. “They come off legit at first glance, but the deeper you dive into their operation, the more you find that accounting is only the tip of a corrupt iceberg. They funnel money for the cartels, hedge funds, drug dealers, pretty much anyone who wants to move cash and stay off the radar.”

  “And what have you done about it?” Alban asked.

  “I brought in the feds, Alban,” I said. “Before we go any further, I need you to know that and be comfortable with it. The U.S. Attorney, Dee Dee Jacobs, is a friend. She assigned one of her guys to my team. She’s also fronting six figures for me to get someone on the inside to get a firsthand look at their operation.”

  “Who are you sending in?”

  “Tramonti,” I said.

  “Seems like you have your bases covered,” Alban said. “Feds on one end. Carmine and some of his crew on the other. Your team standing in the middle.”

  “I’m coming to you for two reasons,” I said. “They killed my brother and his wife, so they’re not afraid to get blood on their hands to keep what they got going. They get a whiff of what I’m up to, they will not hesitate to bring my team down.”

  “What’s the second reason?”

  “Coming in with us will give you a chance to get even, too,” I said.

  Alban removed his glasses and shrugged. “Me?” he asked. “I’ve got no beef with any accounting firm. We bury our money. We never hand it over to anyone. Especially anyone we don’t know or trust.”

  “This goes deeper than cash,” I said. “This one is personal. Just like it is for me.”

  “How personal?”

  “Sasha Buttera,” I said. “Your wife’s kid sister. She’s still under medical care, am I right?”

  “Yes,” Alban said. “Not that it’s doing any good. That young woman will never be the same again. Neither will my wife.”

  “The apartment she was working in the night of the attack belongs to the accounting firm,” I said. “The guy who did damage to her, the one who skipped town, he’s a partner in the firm. They got him out of town and covered his tracks.”

  Alban put his glasses back on and looked out at the arriving subway, watching passengers exit and enter. He waited for the train to pull out of the station and then turned to face me.

  “What’s your end goal?” he asked.

  “Bring the firm down,” I said. “Let the feds take the ones they can send away to prison—that’ll justify their involvement. Leaves the rest to my crew, Carmine’s team, and you and your guys.”

  “I heard you were working on a case,” Alban said. “Trying to get a guy out of prison and bring in the real killer. Which puts your ass up against that dirty cop from a few years back. Guess I heard wrong.”

  “No, you heard right,” I said. “We’re on that case, too.”

  Alban looked at Chris and handed him the dog’s leash. “If it’s okay with your uncle and you’re up to it, would you like to take Zeus for a walk outside?” he asked. “Truth be told, he hates being down here. He likes the street action.”

  Chris took the leash and glanced at me. “Go ahead,” I said. “Alexandra will go with you. When you’re done, meet us over by the hot-dog place on the corner. We’ll catch up with you there.”

  I leaned against the wall next to Alban and watched Chris, Alexandra, and Zeus walk down the platform and out of the subway station. “Thanks,” I said. “That was nice of you. He seems to really like your dog.”

  “I never trust anyone a dog doesn’t like,” Alban said. “They can sniff out the bad faster than a hundred cops. But if you’re good and on the level, they’ll be by your side every step of the way. Sounds like that boy’s been through a lot in a short period of time.”

  “He has,” I said. “And now he’s knee-deep in a case dealing with the death of his parents. Not exactly the ideal situation for a teenager in mourning.”

  “You should think about getting him a dog,” Alban said. “It might go a long way toward healing his hurt. Would be a good thing for you, too.”

  “I got Pearl living with me now,” I said. “And Chris. Now you want me to add a dog to the mix?”

  “Just one more member of the team,” Alban said. “Might come in handy. You never know.”

  “If I promise to get Chris a dog, will that seal our deal?” I asked, smiling.

  “They treated Sasha like she wasn’t even human,” Alban said. “They beat her, raped her, then beat her again. Then left her to die in a filthy alley. That’s a debt that cannot go unpaid.”

  “I know,” I said. “We bring them down any way and in every way. You’ll get immunity from the U.S. Attorney. They’ll go ahead and work it like they work every case. They’ll hit these guys with subpoenas and all sorts of legal paperwork. That’ll keep them busy for a bit.”

  “And it shouldn’t take Carmine long to figure out where the money goes and how it’s sliced up,” Alban said.

  “Chris and the feds will help on that end,” I said. “And my crew will give you anything you need. And if your guys find cash none of us know about, that’s your business, not ours.”

  “What my guys take, they take,” Alban said. “But for me, not a nickel do I want. They owe me something more.”

  “What?”

  “The man who damaged Sasha,” Alban said. “I don’t want the feds to touch him. I don’t want Carmine and his boys to do him harm. And I don’t want you and Pearl to take him down. He belongs to me. And he will die the way I choose.”

  I looked at Alban and nodded. “He’s all yours, Alban,” I said. “And God help him.”

  “There will be no help coming his way,” Alban said. “Not from God or anyone else.”

  We both turned and walked slowly down the platform, heading out of the subway station. We walked in silence. Two old friends facing another battle.

  36.

  SECOND CEMETERY OF THE SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE SYNAGOGUE

  THAT SAME DAY

  CARMINE SIPPED FROM A LARGE French-roast coffee and gazed down at a weathered tombstone from another century. “This guy died in the 1800s,” he said to the three men standing near him. “Probably was nothing here but woods and cabins back then, I would imagine.”

  “I’m surprised this cemetery’s still here after all this time,” one of them said. “You figure some developer would have made a move to buy it and put up a condo or an office building by now.”

  “Maybe even developers know not to mess with the dead,” Carmine said.

  He turned to face the three men. Tommy Bustalino stood to his left. He was heavyset, in his mid-fifties, with thick dark hair and a trimmed three-day growth. Frank Siminaci was in the middle. He was the oldest of the group, in his seventies, trim and wearing a cotton jacket, tailored slacks, and black loafers. Carlo Ramini was on Carmine’s right. He was decked out in new workout clothes, from windbre
aker down to white Nike sneakers. Carmine had known them for decades and was partnered with them on several of their numerous legitimate businesses. They were old-school mobsters, smart enough to make loads of money and even smarter about keeping it from prying eyes. They were now senior citizens or close enough to it, allowing them the luxury to sit back and enjoy the benefits of a life devoted to criminal activities. Of the four, only Tommy had done prison time, a three-year stretch for loan-sharking when he was in his early twenties.

  “Tell me you didn’t drag me away from my bocce game to look at some old headstones,” Frank said to Carmine. “I’m going to be planted under one of these soon enough. I don’t need a reminder.”

  “You’re like that old pasta pot no one throws out, Frank,” Carmine said. “You’ll be the last one of us to go.”

  “Why are we here, Carmine?” Tommy asked.

  “I need you to reach out to a few of our friends,” Carmine said. “Specifically, the ones you may know have some of their money invested in an accounting outfit name of Curtis, Strassman, and Randolph.”

  “Why them in particular?” Carlo asked.

  “I hear they might be skimming money off the profits,” Carmine said. “Taking advantage of some of our friends.”

  “But you don’t know for sure,” Tommy said.

  Carmine shook his head. “I know they always show a profit for the ones who hand over their money. No denying that. What I don’t know is if they show just enough of a profit to keep everybody happy and then tuck the rest in their pockets.”

  “I know a few guys have their money with that firm,” Frank said. “From what I hear, they clear anywhere from six to nine percent profit each year, like clockwork.”

  “I hear the same,” Carmine said. “But what if it turns out that yearly profit is higher—say, ten to fifteen percent a year? Where do you suppose the rest of that cash goes?”