The Striver

by Stephen Solomita

  ‘No more warnings,’ he said. ‘Turn around and put your hands on the wall.’

  His expression still unchanged, the man cautiously complied. He’d been here before and he wasn’t about to give the woman an excuse to pull that trigger. He spread his hands and feet without being asked and he didn’t resist when Boots plucked a forty-caliber Colt from a holster tucked behind his belt, exactly where Boots said it would be. Only after Boots handcuffed him and he was allowed to stand straight did he speak.

  ‘I want a lawyer,’ he said, the words directed as much to his boss as to Boots Littlewood.

  Jill lowered her weapon to her side. Boots had promised a little fun and that’s exactly what she’d had. Not all that much, because the gangsters hadn’t posed a serious threat, but a lot more than she’d been expecting when she got home that evening.

  And Boots wasn’t through, not even close. He walked to within a yard of John Pianetta and said, ‘You next. Put your hands on the wall.’

  Credit where credit is due, Jill thought. Tony Pianetta stepped up, prepared to put himself between his father and Boots, a tight squeeze that would certainly trigger the use of force Boots had mentioned earlier. Tony was fifteen years younger than Boots. He was also two inches shorter and fifty pounds lighter. The confrontation would be short-lived unless Tony’s father jumped in. If that happened, Jill would pull the little sap from the front pocket of her coat and beat him about the head and shoulders until he ceased and desisted.

  Much to her regret, it was not to be. John Pianetta put a hand on his son’s chest and shook his head.

  ‘Step back, Tony, learn a lesson.’ The gangster’s tone was cool and controlled, but his reddened face told another story. ‘The cops are the good guys, right?’

  Boots stripped away Pianetta’s coat and jacket, methodically searching through the outside and inside pockets of both. Then he put his hands on the gangster’s shoulders.

  ‘I don’t know what it is about people like you,’ he said as his hands began to move across Pianetta’s body. ‘You somehow think you can interfere in a police investigation without suffering any consequences. That’s arrogance, Johnny. That’s vanity, which is one of the seven deadly sins. And yet there you are, at church every Sunday, offerin’ prayers to the Lord.’

  Boots ran his fingers up and down Pianetta’s left leg, taking his time. But instead of repeating the procedure on the right leg, he wrapped his fingers around the man’s family jewels and squeezed just hard enough to reveal how much damage he could do if he decided to make a fist.

  ‘Here’s what pisses me off the most. You go to church? OK, that’s part of the game. I understand. But when you march up to the altar rail and take the body and blood of the Savior in your hands, when you bring the Host to your mouth, when you swallow it down … You got no right, Johnny. You got no right at all. Now you take your kid and get the fuck out of here.’

  As they watched the Pianettas step into the elevator, Jill poked Boots in the ribs. ‘How come,’ she asked, ‘you failed to mention that anger is also one of the seven deadly sins?’

  To Jill’s surprise, Boots took the question seriously, pausing for a moment to organize his thoughts. ‘I admit,’ he finally said, ‘to being a half-assed Catholic. When it comes to religion, I’m pretty much like everyone else. Yeah, I’m tryin’, only not too hard. But Johnny Pianetta’s a cold-blooded murderer. He’s killed in the past, many times, and if I’m not mistaken, he plans to kill in the immediate future. There’s no salvation for men like that. If the prick ever had a soul, it died long ago.’

  ‘Now you’re talking blasphemy.’

  ‘Which is another failing I don’t plan to mention when I write up my Daily Activity Report.’

  SEVENTEEN

  Boots and Jill spent another forty-five minutes taking a statement from Silvy Mussa. According to Mussa, he’d stopped at the location where the shooting took place to buy a newspaper from a little grocery store. For reasons unknown, a man stepped up to his car, broke the window and fired three shots into his body. This man, who never made a sound, wore a ski mask that covered his face and neck. In fact, as even his hands were covered, Mussa was unable to identify his race. He might have been white or black, a Latino or an Asian. He might have been from Mars.

  ‘Sorry, Detective, but that’s the best I can do.’

  Boots watched Mussa press the little button that controlled his morphine drip, watched the man’s eyes flutter and his breathing slow.

  ‘How about height and weight?’ he asked.

  ‘Average. Maybe.’

  With Mussa’s signature at the bottom of a written statement, Boots herded his two prisoners onto the elevator. He relieved Officer Gilden at the same time, ordering him back to patrol. Johnny Piano would soon be privy to facts unknown to the police. This was certain to happen because Boots intended to release Maria Coloroso once they got to the precinct. The basic charge, interfering with a police investigation, was unsustainable. Filing it would only piss off the prosecutors and his boss, a matter of wasting taxpayer dollars on a personal vendetta.

  ‘You could do me a favor,’ Boots told Officer Gilden before dismissing him.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You know who John Pianetta is, right?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well, what happened between me and Pianetta …’

  ‘You want me to keep it to myself?’

  ‘Just the opposite. I want you to spread the story, and ask your brother and sister officers to spread it, too. I want the scumbag’s humiliation on the street. I want everyone in Greenpoint to know about it.’

  Gilden stared at Boots for a moment, a slow smile gradually lighting his features. ‘Consider it done.’

  It was nearing two thirty by the time Boots finished the paperwork and dropped off Alberto Buffo (whose expression had yet to change) at the precinct’s basement jail. Jill had headed home to relieve her mother’s home health aide more than two hours before. Initially disappointed, Boots was now looking forward to his bed. He wouldn’t get much sleep under the best of circumstances. Find the victim. That was the name of the game both he and John Pianetta would now play. Could she identify Carlo’s killer? To answer that question, she’d have to be found.

  Work harder. Work longer. Boots had always subscribed to these maxims, but he wasn’t fooling himself. Johnny had resources of his own, along with methods of persuasion unavailable to Boots, and more bodies to do the persuading.

  As for Boots, he had Crazy Jill Kelly. Jill was a definite asset, given that Boots had humiliated a man who’d staked his entire reputation on not allowing himself to be disrespected. Violent retaliation could not be taken off the table just because Boots wore a badge.

  Boots weighed these factors as he left the Six-Four, as much a home to him as his apartment on Newell Street just a mile away. The rain had finally stopped, replaced by a cold wind out of the northwest. Boots started to button his overcoat, but then hesitated long enough to transfer his weapon from the shoulder rig to his coat pocket. A delay in getting past his coat to his gun had almost cost him his life. Above him, tattered clouds sailed before a waxing moon, now concealing, now revealing, a celestial fan dance. Or so Boots thought as he got into his Nissan and drove along the familiar streets, past McCarren Park, then along Nassau Avenue with shops to either side, the bakeries and the laundromats, the hardware stores and the medical offices, Polski Pyza and Devito’s Paints.

  There was one thing that Johnny Pianetta didn’t know, Boots decided as he slowed for the light at McGuinness Boulevard. If anything happened to Boots, Crazy Jill Kelly would almost certainly kill him. Jill Kelly had killed before, the same Jill Kelly who routinely won inter-department shooting competitions, squaring off against all comers, male or female. She would take the mobster out from a rooftop or a window hundreds of yards away, using a sniper’s rifle she kept in a locked gun safe.

  Boots found a parking space two blocks past his father’s house and hustled back th
rough the cold, turning up his collar against the stiffening wind. He paused to look around before taking out his keys with his left hand, then unlocked the door and walked into the living room where he discovered Joaquin watching television. Boots glanced at his watch. It was nearing three o’clock.

  ‘Can’t sleep?’

  ‘A little birdie woke me,’ Joaquin muttered, his sullen tone precluding further conversation.

  Joaquin’s long-time girlfriend, Polly Boll, had thrown him out of their apartment a week before. She did this every few months, a matter, apparently, of marking the seasons. This was the autumn fight. Boots didn’t resent Joaquin’s unannounced appearances. He enjoyed his son’s company for the most part and Joaquin didn’t indulge in the blame game. In fact, Joaquin seemed mystified by his relationship woes.

  ‘See you in the morning.’

  Boots continued along a narrow corridor to the large bedroom in the back. As he entered the bedroom, he flicked on the light, only then understanding what his son had meant by ‘little birdie’.

  Jill Kelly’s slender form stirred beneath the covers, her legs scissoring as they straightened. Then she sat up, rubbing her eyes, and the covers fell to below her navel. Jill had never been self-conscious about her body and she wasn’t now. Her nipples stared out at Boots, seeming to scrutinize him. OK, pal, let’s see what you’ve got.

  ‘I thought you were going home,’ Boots said as he bent to slip out of his ankle boots and peel off his socks.

  ‘I was, Boots. I was on my way home when I started thinking.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About you and Johnny Pianetta. I mean, you really got into his face, and not just once, but twice. Did you see him in the hospital? He was red as a beet. I thought he was gonna have a stroke.’

  Jill paused as Boots slipped out of his trousers and his briefs. Boots wasn’t all that demure, either.

  ‘You can trust me on this,’ she continued, ‘because I’ve been trapped in OCCB for the past six months. Mobster bosses like Pianetta? They’re not big on being humiliated in public. Especially not by some cop they see in church every week. So, the way I figure, Johnny’s gotta do something. He can’t just let it slide.’

  ‘Does that mean you’re here to protect me?’

  ‘Actually, I got to thinking that this could be your last night on Earth and I figured you probably wouldn’t want to spend it alone.’

  ‘In that, Jill, you were absolutely right.’

  Jill sighed as Boots climbed onto the bed and cupped her breasts in his hands. ‘Dead Man Fucking,’ she muttered. ‘Maybe we could turn it into a musical.’

  ‘Great idea.’ Boots slid his hands beneath Jill’s thighs and spilled her onto her back. ‘You get the first solo.’

  EIGHTEEN

  Teddy Winuk had one failing he couldn’t shake. He was simply unable to handle free time. Leisure didn’t work for Teddy. He had no talent for hanging out, for relaxing in the company of friends, for killing time. Not even at five o’clock in the morning. Television didn’t interest him, neither the infomercials, nor the early news programs that seemed little more than a succession of weather and traffic reports.

  Money interested Teddy Winuk. Money and more money. Nothing grabbed Teddy’s attention like the potential for gain, especially now, when his expanding operation required him to reinvest every penny he made.

  Teddy had two, medium-range goals: to find a legitimate front and to insulate himself from the Jackson Heights drug scene. Tuscano Foods, he’d come to believe, might do for the first of these goals. Ben Loriano was a deadbeat, a weasel, and sure to come up light. He’d have his excuses prepared and he’d make promises and he wouldn’t keep them. Then he’d have more excuses.

  This was a set of events familiar to Winuk and his boys. What you did with deadbeats was inflict enough pain to keep them on track for at least a few weeks, all the time knowing that the loan, if unpaid, would go on forever. Well-managed deadbeats were a loan shark’s best friend.

  Teddy slid beneath the covers and laid the back of his head on the pillow. Next to him, Sanda snored softly. Her scent, of salt and musk and perfume, filled his nostrils. He closed his eyes and let his imagination wander. Teddy’s best ideas often came to him in moments of imagining, as if the ideas had been patiently waiting in the wings for their cue.

  As if his ideas were veteran actors confronting a nervous playwright: ‘Relax, friend, it’s gonna be all right.’

  Teddy’s fantasy begins in a car, a Lincoln with darkened windows. Teddy’s riding shotgun next to Recep, who’s driving. Behind them, Pablo and Shurie play bookends to a terrified Ben Loriano. Loriano’s perched on the little hump in the middle of the seat.

  Teddy ignores Loriano’s pleas as they glide onto the Grand Central Parkway, headed east toward the far reaches of Long Island. That’s because they all amount to the same thing, give me another chance, a song Teddy’s heard before. A song, in fact, he’s committed to memory.

  Little Ben’s already had his chances, and many of them. He’s had lessons as well, harsh lessons. At one point, after Recep pounded on his kidneys, the grocer had pissed blood for a week. Or so he claimed.

  Teddy finally breaks his silence as they cross the Queens-Nassau border, as they leave New York City behind.

  ‘Some people never get the message,’ he says. ‘Sometimes you have to settle for making a point. But that’s OK. Points are good, too.’

  More pleas, more sniveling. What about his wife, his two children? What will they do without him? How will they survive? Teddy Winuk doesn’t know and doesn’t care.

  The winter sun’s been down for many hours and the darkness outside wraps the Lincoln in a perfect anonymity, each passing vehicle its own world, its own universe. The headlight beams and glowing red taillights, as they sweep across the Lincoln’s windows, only serve to underscore their isolation, Teddy’s and Ben’s.

  Miles pass. The traffic, already thin, grows thinner still as they make their way along a series of highways to Ocean Parkway, a dead-flat ribbon of a road connecting the Meadowbrook Parkway to Captree State Park. To their right, the dunes, the beach and the Atlantic Ocean. To their left, a forest of reeds and the great bay separating the narrow island from the mainland. The few summer communities they pass are almost deserted this time of the year. The occasional lit windows seem as far away as the stars in the sky.

  ‘You remember what I told you about gambling?’ Teddy says. ‘You remember I told you to stop gambling with my money? You remember I told you what would happen if you didn’t?’

  ‘Yeah, I—’

  ‘But just last week you laid five grand on Notre Dame with a bookmaker named Sal Zeno. I know this because Sal is a friend of mine. Sal told me you put up the five thousand in advance because he wouldn’t give you any more credit. He told me you lost, like you always lose, like you’re the biggest fuckin’ loser the world’s ever seen. You lost the money you needed to pay your debts. I can’t have that, Ben. It sets a bad example for the rest of the children.’

  The Lincoln glides to a stop in the middle of nowhere. A high dune blocks the beach and the crashing surf on their side of the road. Across the way, slender reeds tipped by silvery tassels rise to more than seven feet, a wall of reeds, impenetrable but for a narrow trail lost in the shadows.

  Pablo and Shurie pull Loriano from the car. The little grocer’s face is covered with snot and his bladder lets go before he takes his third step.

  ‘Uh, uh, uh …’

  Teddy draws a .22 caliber semi-automatic pistol from beneath his belt and presses the six-inch barrel into Loriano’s back.

  ‘Move it, Ben.’

  The grocer’s pleas are now so broken by sobs that Teddy can’t make out a word. But Loriano hasn’t collapsed. He’s staggering forward and he keeps on staggering until they reach a small clearing, an island of sand surrounded by swaying reeds. Then, when his legs give out and he drops to his knees, it’s like a gift. He’s assumed the position without bein
g asked.

  Driven by a sudden gust of wind, the reeds clack together, a sound, in Teddy’s ears, very much like applause. He cocks the pistol and places it ever so gently against what remains of Ben Loriano’s hair.

  ‘I’m not ready,’ Ben moans. ‘I’m not ready.’

  ‘Nobody’s ready, Ben. That’s the whole point. To go through your life pretending it’s not gonna happen.’

  The slap of the hammer against the empty chamber seems, in its own way, louder than the crack of a bullet. Though uninjured, at least physically, Ben falls forward, still blubbering. His body begins to spasm and he grinds his face into the sand.

  ‘Seven hours from now,’ Teddy explains, ‘you and me are gonna walk into the office of a lawyer I know, another deadbeat, just like you. He will point to a space on a page and you will sign 51% of Tuscano Foods over to me. You will do this in return for the sum of $44,600, which is the amount of money you owe me. If you have a problem with any of that, tell me now so I can kill you without havin’ to chase you down again.’

  And what’s the little grocer gonna say? Yeah, I got a problem?

  Loriano stinks up the car on the way back and they have to ride with the windows partially open. Still, Teddy remembers to be reassuring.

  ‘Don’t worry, Ben. You’re gonna manage the business, just like you’ve been managing it all along. And I can pretty much guarantee that Tuscano Foods will show a profit, so you’ll get a piece of that, too. In fact, I’m already thinkin’ big. Ask yourself, what’s preventing you from duplicating your success in a second location? What preventing you except capital? Which you never manage to accumulate because you’re a degenerate gambler. But capital is the least of my problems, the absolute least. I got more capital than I know what to do with.’

  This wasn’t strictly true, but what the hell. It was his fantasy and … But, no, it wasn’t a fantasy, not at all. It was a plan, one he fully intended to implement.