The Striver

by Stephen Solomita

  Gubetti patted his pockets. ‘Now where did I leave my cell phone? I need to get on the horn to the archdiocese right now. We’ve a heretic in our midst who needs immediate excommunication.’

  Boots’s laugh was genuine enough, but he was still in a hurry. He glanced at his watch and said, ‘I have to go.’

  Joaquin followed him to the door. ‘Listen …’

  ‘Not you, too.’

  But Joaquin wasn’t intimidated. He put his hand on his father’s shoulder and said, ‘Watch your back.’

  Back-watching was Jill Kelly’s game. Not to mention plunking bad guys. He and Jill complemented each other. He provided the muscle and she provided … Boots smiled as he walked toward his car, eyes constantly moving, acutely aware of the semi-automatic in his coat pocket. In Woodhull Hospital, when they confronted Johnny and his boys, Jill’s gun had appeared, ready to use, in an eye-blink. And not a single person in the hallway believed she’d hesitate to pull the trigger. For a few seconds, it was as if she’d stopped time.

  Like most cops, Boots had only rarely drawn his weapon. On each occasion, he was seized by a fierce ambivalence. His need to hold fire was as great as his need for protection. Jill Kelly, on the other hand, was only looking for an excuse. At least as far as he could tell.

  Boots drove into Manhattan, over the Williamsburg Bridge, then north on Allen Street to New York University Medical Center, a huge complex strung along several blocks of First Avenue, from 31st to 34th Streets. NYU Medical Center was one of the hospitals flooded out when Hurricane Sandy came ashore. It’d taken the better part of two years to restore the Center to full functioning.

  Ten minutes later, he stepped onto a unit in the Gastroenterology wing of the main building to find Jill huddled with her uncle, Chief of Detectives Michael Shaw. Shaw was flanked by two aides big enough to serve as bouncers at a Brownsville rap concert.

  Shaw didn’t see Boots until he turned away from his niece. Still, he managed a thin smile as he extended his hand. ‘Ah, Detective Littlewood. There’s a Captain in OCCB who doesn’t trust you.’

  ‘Only because he doesn’t know me as well as you do.’

  The line produced a wink. ‘Take care of my niece, Boots.’

  Boots felt Jill’s hand on his arm, the touch as familiar as the shoulder harness he put on every working day. Ahead, Shaw and his entourage turned a corner on their way to the elevators.

  ‘Why did you come here?’ Jill asked.

  The question, as Boots understood it, was not a rebuke. Jill simply didn’t know that visiting one’s lover while she stood vigil in a bleak hospital room was more or less obligatory. Like going to Mass on Easter Sunday. Which is not to say that he lacked an ulterior motive.

  Boots had to go forward now. There was no U-turn on this road. Still, he’d been imagining the journey with Jill riding shotgun. Without her? In a world of probabilities, his own probability would be cut in half. At the very least.

  ‘First of all, to see how you’re doing,’ Boots said. ‘Somehow I just assumed that you’d be alone.’

  Jill shook her head. ‘They’ve been coming all day, the aunts, the uncles, the cousins. The Irish love death, but they answered a false alarm this time. Mom’s going home tomorrow. The problem is really about managing her pain. Dr Khan doesn’t want to pile on the narcotics unless she stops drinking. He’s afraid she’ll kill herself.’

  Boots somehow managed to keep his rising expectations in check. His tone was matter-of-fact when he spoke. ‘And the bottom line? For you?’

  ‘Ready to go.’ Jill shrugged. ‘Catch me up.’

  Boots took the photo of Corry from the inside pocket of his coat and handed it to Jill. ‘Her name’s Corry. We know she first contacted Open Circle at the Navy Yard stroll and that she sought refuge at Open Circle on Saturday morning. I’m gonna show the photo to her colleagues, see what comes of it.’

  ‘You think those hookers will talk to you?’

  ‘Why not? I’m a charming guy when you get to know me.’ Boots ignored Jill’s half-hearted smile. ‘I’ve got snitches out there,’ he explained. ‘Ladies who’ve been talking to me for a long time. Favor for favor, of course.’

  Jill didn’t hesitate. She was already turning when she spoke. ‘Give me a minute to say goodbye.’

  Five minutes later, as they left the hospital to confront the traffic on First Avenue, Jill said, ‘They’re all over me. The family, I mean. They want me to be more attentive, to spend more time with my mother. I don’t know. I don’t feel all that guilty. Mom’s cirrhosis was diagnosed in its earliest stage. She would’ve been fine if she stopped drinking. But you couldn’t talk to her about rehab. Couldn’t even bring the subject up. It was her life to live as she chose.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So if it’s her life to live, why isn’t it my life to live? And where was I exactly when she decided to drink herself to death? If, being mother and daughter, we’re somehow in this thing together.’

  TWENTY-SIX

  That evening at eight o’clock, Sanda by his side, Teddy seated himself at a large table in The Waterfront, a bar on Tillary Street near the Manhattan Bridge. The bar was nicely kept, its walls dominated by a series of huge panels depicting the history of the Brooklyn waterfront. Back in the old days, when ships by the hundreds crowded the docks.

  They sat by themselves for fifteen minutes, enjoying their drinks, until the brothers Turco walked through the door, saw them and smiled. The older brother was called Turk, the younger Little Turk, though he was the taller of the two by four inches. The Waterfront was a networking bar for aspiring gangsters. One of many.

  Teddy waved the Turks over to his table, gave each a dap. ‘Whatta ya drinkin’?’

  ‘You buyin’?’ Little Turk asked.

  ‘Yeah, you hit the lottery?’ his brother added. ‘Because this is definitely a first.’

  Except for the difference in height, the Turcos looked very much alike. Dark, tightly curled hair, short straight noses and overly broad, almost succulent mouths. They were even balding alike, from back to front.

  ‘This is Sanda.’ Teddy ignored the jibes. ‘Sanda, this one is Turk and this one is Little Turk.’

  The brothers’ eyes reflected their mutual judgment. A beautiful woman on your arm was an asset they appreciated. Teddy might have flashed a new Rolex and gotten the same reaction.

  ‘Scotch, Black Label, neat,’ Turk said. ‘As long as you’re payin’.’

  Little Turk nodded once and said, ‘That’ll do.’

  ‘Two Black Labels, neat,’ Teddy said.

  Sanda hesitated for only a moment before heading off to the bar. Teddy and his friends were about to discuss some business deal she didn’t need to know about. Sanda felt no resentment. And no particular gratitude, either. They’d struck a deal of their own, she and Teddy, a better deal than the one she had. The oldest profession had never appealed to Sanda and she was more than happy to abandon ship. She had money of her own, too, a rainy day fund. Should she be deported, Sanda had no desire to hit the mean streets of Bucharest without a penny in her pocket.

  Behind her, Teddy drew the Turks closer. ‘You got a market for hash?’

  ‘Not that black shit.’

  That was another problem. Most of the hashish that found its way to New York was jet black and as hard as slate. It smelled like old shoes when you lit up and it left a chunk behind that wouldn’t burn in a blast furnace. A chunk equal to half its original weight.

  ‘I’m talkin’ gold Israeli hash you could mold in your hands. I’m talkin’ about perfect hash, perfect look, perfect smell, and strong enough to put you on your ass after a few hits. I’m talkin’ about hashish that sells itself.’

  Teddy had blundered into the connection when a friend’s friend introduced him to an Israeli couple living out in Flushing. Skeptical at first, he’d taken one look at the product and forked over virtually his entire working capital.

  ‘How much?’ Little Turk asked.

  ‘T
welve hundred an ounce. Four large if you do a quarter-pound.’ Teddy sipped at his beer. ‘One thing you might want to think about. This supply I have, it’s long term.’

  Little Turk leaned back in his chair, his eyes wandering to an exploded reproduction of an old lithograph. Slaves unloading a sailing ship. The slaves were bent so far forward under their burdens that their noses came within inches of the gangplank.

  ‘The good old days,’ he said, pointing to the panel.

  Teddy ignored the comment. Diversity was part of his game and one of his partners was African. ‘Talk to me,’ he said.

  ‘If it’s what you say it is, we could probably handle a quarter-pound a week. But that’s a big fuckin’ if, Teddy.’

  Teddy smiled for the first time. ‘Me, I’m a freak for details,’ he said as Sanda approached the table. ‘I worry about every little thing. But not this, pal. These are the golden eggs and I plucked ’em right out of the goose’s ass.’

  ‘You have a sample?’

  ‘In the car. When you’re ready to go, I’ll walk you out.’

  The Turks were committed sports gamblers and they soon fell into an analysis of the Knicks’ chances against the Washington Wizards. The Knicks were only six-point favorites and the Wizards were the worst team in the league. Then again, the Knicks point guard was out with a bum knee and Amare Stoudemire was so crippled he could barely get around the court.

  Teddy watched the pair take turns making the same basic observations, pro and con, a clown show, really, but somehow satisfying, at least to them. After five minutes, Turk went outside to call in a bet. On the Knicks? On the Wizards? Teddy couldn’t tell.

  ‘Hey,’ Little Turk said, ‘you hear about Johnny Piano and that video?’

  Teddy shook his head. Though on full alert, his expression revealed only casual curiosity.

  ‘Well, some dude ran a video on YouTube which he claims is Carlo Pianetta on his knees givin’ a blow job. In an alley, no less, with garbage cans piled against the walls. And guess what? This guy he’s suckin’ off just happens to be so black he’s purple.’

  Teddy laughed agreeably. Poor Johnny. If not for the tax, he might even feel bad for the guy. ‘Have you seen this video?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah, but get this. YouTube canned the video an hour after it went up, but not before it was downloaded. Now it’s runnin’ on a thousand websites. You wanna take a look, just do a search for “Gay Gangster”. You’ll find it.’

  ‘And it’s definitely Carlo?’

  ‘Nah. I mean, it could be Carlo, but it could be anybody. Meanwhile, what I heard, Johnny Piano’s so pissed off he can’t sit still for a minute. Face it, Teddy, a guy like that, he lives by respect.’

  Little Turk drained his glass. He looked at Sanda for moment, then at Teddy, and finally decided to get his own drink. When he turned back to their table, Sanda was gone and his brother had returned.

  ‘Man,’ he said, ‘what a beauty. You must be doin’ all right, Teddy.’

  ‘Beauty and the beast,’ his brother added.

  ‘I think we bored Sanda,’ Teddy said. ‘She went home to her needlepoint.’

  The humor passed so far over the brothers’ heads that neither realized that Teddy had cracked a joke.

  ‘There’s another story goin’ around,’ Little Turk said. ‘Swear on my mother, even the cops are talkin’ it up.’

  ‘About Johnny Piano?’

  ‘Right. You know this detective by the name of Boots Littlewood? He wears three-piece suits, a big guy. He’s been workin’ in Greenpoint for like twenty years.’

  An image popped into Teddy’s mind of a store walled off by crime scene tape. The man standing outside the tape had ‘cop’ written all over him. Even as he interviewed a witness, his eyes had jumped to every passerby, every vehicle on the road. Those eyes had radiated suspicion, but so did every cop’s. Teddy’s attention had mainly been drawn to the cop’s suit. His three-piece, pearl gray, double-breasted suit.

  ‘So, OK, Boots Littlewood. What’s that got to do with Johnny?’

  Little Turk’s story was fairly accurate. After one of his soldiers was ripped off and shot, Johnny Piano, accompanied by a bodyguard, tried to visit the man in Woodhull Hospital. This cop, Boots, not only arrested the bodyguard, who was packing heat, but forced Johnny to stand for a frisk.

  ‘Now, get this, Teddy. The cop, he grabs Johnny’s nuts, right in front of Johnny’s kid, and tells Johnny to back off. I mean, it was personal. Johnny and this cop, they both live in Greenpoint and they go way back. In fact, what I heard, they grew up together.’

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Teddy lay in bed at the very end of a most excellent day. The Waterfront Bar had turned out to be a little gold mine. He’d passed out samples to several acquaintances besides the Turco brothers and the response was dramatic. The entire two pounds of hashish in his possession were now spoken for. He’d turned a forty percent profit in a single day.

  Of course, he might have doubled his money parceling the hash out in small units, but Teddy ultimately planned to distance himself from the mean streets, especially when it came to drugs. He’d have already done so if he had the right personnel. Teddy needed someone to do his job, to meet with suppliers, ensure distribution, to place and collect loans, to command the crew. Shurie? Too jumpy. Recep? Recep was a man of few words. Too few. Pablo? His main skill was a lack of conscience so profound that even Teddy was impressed. Mutava? Mutava had the skills, but would their vendors and customers work with a black man? Not Little Turk, who’d made his prejudices apparent.

  Teddy’s thoughts immediately jumped to the video Little Turk claimed to have seen. Carlo Pianetta on his knees, as he’d been when Teddy put a bullet through his head.

  A short fantasy drifted through Teddy’s awareness. A fantasy in which he confessed to Johnny Piano a moment before firing a bullet into the gangster’s forehead.

  Like father, like son.

  Curled up beside him, Sanda didn’t stir when Teddy laughed out loud. Teddy envied Sanda’s ability to shut down, to be fast asleep the minute her head hit the pillow. Sleep, for him, was always a long time coming and tonight was no exception. He got out of bed and shrugged into a terrycloth bathrobe. Sanda’s landlord didn’t send up heat at night, another little fact of life he was forced to accept. At least until he had enough spare cash to rent something nicer, say fronting Prospect Park. Meanwhile, Sanda’s apartment fronted the weathered brick façade of what used to be Lon Wing Imports. The business had shut down after a third raid by the feds in search of Chinese knockoffs.

  Teddy glanced to his left, toward the Pulaski Bridge. Johnny Piano had been the hot topic of conversation at the Waterfront. The few who hadn’t heard about the video and Johnny’s encounter with the cop were quickly informed. These were people who had no love for the Pianetta crew and its tax. People who’d like nothing better than to pursue their interests on a level playing field.

  Suddenly tired, Teddy returned to bed. He’d sleep now, at least for a few hours. Or so he thought, until a passing notion in the very last seconds before he drifted off jerked him awake. Johnny Piano’s beef with the cop was common knowledge. Littlewood had disrespected Johnny in public and Johnny wasn’t a man to be disrespected. If something happened to the detective …

  If something happened to Detective Littlewood, the NYPD would smash the Pianetta crew. They’d have no choice. After all, the cops, too, were men of respect.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Boots kept his thoughts to himself as he and Jill drove from NYU Medical Center out to Brooklyn, but he was again reminded of his own charmed life. The child of parents who loved each other, he’d never known want. Food on the table every night, every bill paid at the end of the month, a nice warm bed to crawl into at the end of every day. Home from school, Boots could ask his mom, ‘What’s for dinner?’ without fearing there’d be no dinner.

  He’d had a friend, Larry Mott, when he was eight or nine. Larry’s father couldn’t keep a job an
d there were times when the family survived on canned goods from a local food bank, when they sat in the dark, when Larry came to school wearing pants that had been darned so many times they resembled Frankenstein’s face. Boots had witnessed their eviction. He’d watched a cut-rate mover toss the family’s possessions into the back of a truck before leaving for a storage depot where those possessions would be held until the storage fee was paid. The Mott family had also scrutinized the process, Larry’s mom and dad, his brother and his two sisters, the whole family huddled on the sidewalk. Goodbye, life.

  ‘You go mute?’ Jill said. ‘What’s eating you?’

  ‘Luck,’ Boots said. ‘Accidents of birth.’

  ‘Say that again?’

  ‘No, let’s not. Let’s keep our eyes peeled instead.’

  ‘My eyes are always peeled, Boots. I’ve been watching for a tail ever since we left the hospital.’

  Despite himself, Boots looked around. They were on the Williamsburg Bridge and the view to his right, of the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges, of the great towers of downtown Manhattan, grabbed his eye. The Freedom Tower, built to replace the World Trade Center, had been completed only a few months before. Even in a world of giants, it soared above the rest, its spire like a defiant upraised finger. The Tower would become a target, if it wasn’t already, an enduring goal for the terrorists who twice attacked the World Trade Center before they brought it down. Boots admired the defiance, but he wasn’t all that sure he’d want to work in the building, maybe take an elevator to the ninety-fifth floor every morning.

  Boots guided the Nissan through a series of right turns that brought them back toward the river, then took a left on Kent Avenue. They were only a few blocks from their destination.

  In its heyday, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, all three hundred acres, had employed ten thousand workers. But that was during WWII, seventy years ago, and the intervening decades had not been kind. The Navy was long gone, the complex converted into an industrial park that never quite took. Though dozens of businesses leased space in the Yard, most of its four million square feet sat empty. More problematic, three low-income housing projects, the Ingersoll, Whitman and Farragut Houses, provided an endless supply of drug dealers and prostitutes to work the Yard’s outer perimeter. Vice and Narcotics made hundreds of arrests every year, to no good effect. Only gentrification could save the neighborhood, as it had further north on Kent Avenue, but gentrification would be slow in coming. The Whitman Houses had more than four thousand residents, as did the Ingersoll, with the Farragut Houses only a bit smaller.