The Striver

by Stephen Solomita

  The city had warmed during the day, with the temperature now in the mid-fifties, and the streets were jumping. Boots felt a familiar tension, an edge sharpened considerably by the events of the past few days. Violence was a dish always on the menu wherever dealers and whores, junkies and johns, converged. Boots took his time, driving slow enough on Navy Street to attract attention, the fifteen-story towers of the Farragut Houses to his left, the brick wall enclosing the Navy Yard on his right.

  ‘You startin’ to like this, Boots?’ Jill asked.

  ‘God help me, but I believe I am.’

  ‘Forget God. Learn to use that gun in your pocket – where it in no way belongs – and you’ll be a lot better off.’

  Boots didn’t answer. The players needed to be marked, snitches identified. He expected the hard stares, but noted the stares held a little too long, the stares a little too defiant. He would silence them first, if it came to that.

  Toward the end of his circuit, Boots happened on five working girls clustered around a short, heavy man in a brown suit, the man doing all the talking, which could only mean one thing: the topic of the conversation was money.

  A john? A gangster? The Navy Yard was car-trick heaven. No need to leave your vehicle, no need to take the risk. There were junkies here, too, crack and heroin junkies who’d rip your heart out for a fix. But the man was too old, too short and too fat to be a gangster.

  Boots pulled to the curb and looked around before stripping out of his coat. He put his weapon back in the shoulder rig and his coat in the trunk before clipping his shield to the lapel of his jacket. As he straightened, he took a final look around, eyes darting from shadow to shadow.

  ‘Five-oh,’ one of the women said as Boots and Jill approached, a waste of breath, what with the other women staring at their shields.

  Finally alerted, the man in the suit turned to face the oncoming cops. He had huge cheeks and small eyes and a fawning smile that revealed his sudden apprehension. He knew all about the big cop in the vested suit who’d kicked Steve Ungaro’s teeth down his throat. Or so Boots assumed.

  ‘Tell me your name,’ Boots said.

  ‘Thomas Ressler. I’m a licensed private investigator.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m conducting an investigation?’

  ‘You want to get smart with me? You want to shoot off your mouth, maybe impress the ladies? That it, Mr Ressler?’

  Ressler took a step back. He shook his head and put up his hands, palms out. ‘No way, Detective.’

  ‘Then answer my question. What are you doing here?’

  ‘No disrespect, right? But I work for an attorney and my investigation falls under the heading of attorney-client privilege. In fact, and I’m not makin’ this up, swear to God, I’m under specific instructions not to talk about the case to anyone but my employer.’

  ‘And he is?’

  ‘Nat Kasatamakis.’

  Boots smiled, remembering Joyce Kipner, the lawyer who’d shown up when he arrested Al Buffo. If Kipner was an apex predator when it came to mob lawyers, Kasatamakis was a pure bottom feeder. He specialized in no-show prosecution witnesses, in prosecution witnesses who reversed their testimony on the stand, in last-minute alibi witnesses.

  ‘You carrying a gun?’ Jill asked.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘I got a permit for that gun.’

  ‘That’s not what I asked you, Tom.’

  Ressler sighed. ‘In a holster behind my right hip.’

  ‘I’m going to take it now. Raise your hands.’ Jill cocked her head to one side, her eyes narrowing, but she smiled as she addressed her amused partner. ‘What could I say, Boots? Despite the shooting competitions, I’m not that big on the Second Amendment. I’d be happiest if nobody had guns.’

  ‘Except cops.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Jill removed the PI’s weapon, a Browning 9mm, and tucked it into the waistband of her slacks. To her right, a short Latina let out a shrill, ‘Ayyyyyy. You go, girl.’

  ‘I’m not your girl,’ Jill corrected without taking her eyes off Tom Ressler. ‘You carrying any other weapons?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Turn around and face away from me. I’m going to search you.’

  Jill’s frisk was thorough, again drawing the approval of an audience that had swelled to seven. Boots listened to the catcalls, the high pealing laughter. You had to be careful with hookers. You got their backs up, they wouldn’t so much as spit on you. You couldn’t bluff them, either, and it was nearly certain that most of these women (two of whom were actually men) were currently stoned.

  As she finished her search, Jill plucked a billfold from Ressler’s breast pocket. She opened it without asking permission and examined his PI license, his concealed-carry permit and his driver’s license.

  ‘You’re Thomas Ressler?’ she asked.

  ‘I already told you that.’

  ‘And you live at 11-15 127th Street in College Point?’

  Ressler’s mouth opened and he started to speak. Jill could actually see his tongue move behind his teeth. Then his mouth snapped shut and he smiled. I know where you live. The bitch had just threatened him.

  ‘Go home, Mr Ressler,’ Jill said as she returned his gun and his wallet. ‘Your workday is over.’

  ‘You can’t just …’

  Jill leaned forward to whisper into the PI’s ear. ‘Do you really want me to slap your face in front of all these women?’

  TWENTY-NINE

  Jill watched Thomas Ressler beat a thoroughly undignified retreat to his car, watched him drive away. Then she turned to Boots and said, ‘Your show, partner.’

  She didn’t need to mention the part about having his back and Boots finally turned his attention to the women. He had a decision to make and precious little time to weigh the consequences. Pianetta had put the pieces together, or enough pieces to get him to the Navy Yard, but he didn’t have a name or a photo. That would change if Boots displayed Corry’s photo and spoke her name. Ressler would return, most likely tomorrow, asking the same questions, offering the same reward. Jill had bought the good guys a little time, but no more.

  Boots examined the hookers, as they examined him. The crowd had swelled to nine, six women and three male cross-dressers. Two, a man and a woman, were the pale, lifeless white of advanced heroin addicts. The rest were black or Latino. They were all sisters, though, prostitutes trapped at the very bottom of the sex trade, and their day-to-day lives, not to mention their various chemical dependencies, had rendered them nearly feral. Honor played no part in their dealings with cops.

  ‘How’d that case go, Pumpkin?’ Boots asked one of the cross-dressers, a man he’d arrested for assault only a few months ago.

  ‘Dismissed. Man decided he didn’t wanna testify on account of he’s married and what I done to him was righteous. I acted in self-defense.’

  ‘That’s what you told me.’

  ‘But you didn’t pay me no mind.’

  Boots flashed his quick smile, here and gone. ‘Well, Pumpkin, being as the man was beaten to a pulp and you weren’t so much as scratched, you can hardly blame me.’

  Tall and bony with an Adam’s apple the size of a mango pit, Pumpkin’s mini-skirt revealed stick-thin legs that rose from a pair of huge feet jammed into blue metallic pumps. Now he grabbed his false breasts and shook with laughter.

  ‘Man fucked with the wrong woman. That’s all it was.’

  Boots nodded. In his mind, the johns were no better than the whores who serviced them. ‘How much he offer, Pumpkin? I’m talkin’ about the asshole my partner just ran off.’

  ‘Hundred dollars,’ one of women said. ‘Flashed a Benjamin to prove he wasn’t bullshittin’.’

  ‘And what did he want?’

  ‘Wanted to know about some girl got beat up, maybe ain’t been around for a few days.’

  Boots stared at the woman for a moment. Her face was well-lined beneath th
e makeup and her eyes reflected a deeply held mistrust. The past hadn’t been kind to her and she wasn’t expecting anything from the future beyond her next fix. Her pupils had shrunk to mere pinpoints.

  ‘And what’d you say?’

  The woman managed a hard, bitter laugh. ‘Folks get beat up every day round here. Go missin’, too.’

  ‘I won’t argue the point, but I’m also looking for a woman, a prostitute I know walked among you, the difference being that I’ve got a name and a picture. Now what I’m gonna do, maybe an hour from now, is park my car on Navy Street by the ball fields. Anybody wants to earn a hundred dollars can find me there. But I will say this, and only once. I’m not the trick that Pumpkin beat into the hospital. You lie to me, I’ll tear your ass up. Man or woman, I don’t give a shit.’

  An hour later, as promised, Boots pulled to the curb on Navy Street. By then, he’d approached dozens of women, offering as little information as possible. Twenty dollars being the price of a car trick, the c-note, he assumed, would be motivation enough.

  He was right. Two girls detached themselves from the shadows beneath the trees lining the ball fields before he put the Nissan in park. He invited them, one at a time, into the back seat, and questioned each briefly. When it became obvious they were on a fishing expedition, he sent them off without mentioning Corry’s name or showing her photo.

  ‘You have a plan B?’ Jill asked.

  ‘Not yet,’ Boots admitted.

  ‘And you know what’s gonna happen when that PI comes back.’ Jill adjusted the mirror on her side of the car until she had a clear view of the street and sidewalks behind them. ‘Because here’s the thing, Boots. The PI’s got money to spend, a lot more than we do, and if he throws enough hundred dollar bills around, he’ll get a hit sooner or later.’

  Boots continued to stare out through the windshield. They were facing the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, elevated at that point, and the deep shadows beneath the road shifted constantly as the headlights of cars and trucks and busses swept across its supporting pillars. Even now, this late on a weekday night, traffic moved in a steady stream, on the Expressway and on the road beneath.

  Five minutes later, two women approached, trudging up the long block, and Boots went back to work. ‘Give me a name?’ he demanded of each. One couldn’t. The other said, ‘Mary-Ann.’ Both were sent home with no treat to show for the effort.

  ‘Actually,’ Boots said, ‘I do have a backup plan. If we don’t learn anything tonight, we’ll come back tomorrow night, show Corry’s photo to every hooker on the street and hope for the best.’

  ‘What about Ressler?’

  Boots flashed his quick smile, thinking of Craig O’Malley and the Bulgarian. ‘I know two cops at the Six-Four who’d leap at the chance to buy us another night.’

  ‘They’d run him off?’

  ‘That they would.’

  ‘But we’re not in the Six-Four.’

  Boots shrugged as a woman approached the car. ‘Ressler won’t know that.’

  The hooker groaned when her butt hit the back seat. She took off her stiletto-heeled pumps and rubbed her feet. ‘Name’s Shoona,’ she said.

  ‘Detective Littlewood. And this is Detective Kelly.’

  Shoona looked into Jill’s eyes for a moment, her gaze frank, though not especially challenging. ‘How you doin’?’

  ‘Getting by,’ Jill said.

  ‘Glad to hear that.’ Shoona leaned back and took a deep breath. ‘Most times I get in a car it’s for one thing. Nice to be jus’ sittin’ here.’

  ‘Well, don’t get too comfortable, Shoona,’ Boots said. ‘This isn’t a social call.’

  ‘Corry,’ Shoona said.

  ‘Say what?’

  ‘Corry. That’s who you’re lookin for. Reason I know, I seen her drive away with that creep.’

  ‘What creep?’

  ‘Carlo Pianetta. I didn’t know his name at the time, just enough about him not to get in his damn car. Corry, she’s young and she likes to play the fool.’ Now that Shoona had the full attention of both detectives, she settled back, her eyes fluttering, and it was obvious to both detectives that she’d gotten off not long before. Her movements were languid, her words slow in coming.

  ‘You said that Corry is young,’ Boots said, ‘and that she likes to play the fool. Does that mean you know, for sure, that she’s alive?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Don’t bullshit me, Shoona.’

  Shoona scratched the side of her face. ‘Happens I got Corry’s cell number. Happens she called me on that throwaway she’s usin’. Happens she needed a little somethin’ to get her head straight. I had to carry the shit out to Elmhurst Avenue on the seven train, but I seen right away that she wouldn’t be comin’ back to Brooklyn anytime soon. Man, her face was all busted up. Girl took a serious beat down.’

  ‘Do you think she’s living in the neighborhood. That would be Jackson Heights, right?’

  ‘I think she was too ripped up to be makin’ any long trips.’ Shoona hesitated, perhaps hoping to draw a sympathetic response, but the two cops merely stared at her. ‘Corry tole me she was stayin’ with her brother. But she was like scared because he was in the habit of sleepin’ with a sawed-off shotgun. Corry said he was in the Army and the war made him crazy.’

  ‘Get to the bottom line,’ Boots said. ‘Do you know where she’s staying?’

  ‘No, but I got her number on my cell.’

  Boots nodded. Pimps often gave their women cell phones. That way they’d never have an excuse to be out of touch. ‘Call her.’

  ‘Gettin’ kinda late.’

  ‘Tell her there’s some righteous dope goin’ around and does she maybe want a few bags for herself. Tell her it won’t be around long.’

  Shoona’s laugh was gentle. ‘Yeah, that’ll do it.

  It didn’t. A computerized voice told Shoona that the number she dialed was not a working number. The voice was loud enough for Boots to hear the words from where he sat.

  ‘Looks like the girl wised up,’ Shoona observed.

  ‘Did you speak to her about what happened?’

  ‘Uh-uh.’

  ‘You didn’t ask her about who killed Carlo, maybe saved her life?’

  ‘Don’t know and don’t wanna know. Carlo and his people, they kill you soon as look at you. Don’t want no business with ’em that takes more than twenty minutes in the back seat of a Cadillac.’

  ‘Fine, but what about a pimp? Does Corry have a pimp?’

  ‘Uh-huh, goes by the name of Stat. But he ain’t on the street. He’s in jail on account of he shot his brother. Been there for a week.’

  Boots took the hundred dollar bill from his wallet and passed it over to Shoona, along with his business card. ‘Corry’s gonna call somebody when she runs out of dope, most likely you. If you phone me right away, there’s another fifty in it.’

  Shoona tucked the twenties into her bra. She was getting out of the car when Boots spoke. ‘There a man named Ressler, a private investigator. He’s asking the same questions I’m asking and he works for the same people you’re afraid of. Those people, they get their hands on you, they’re gonna squeeze until there’s no more toothpaste left in the tube.’

  Boots’s cell phone began to ring before Shoona cleared the block. He answered to find Detective Cletis Small, he of the precinct gang squad, on the line.

  ‘Got somethin’ here you might be interested in,’ Small said. ‘A pair of Ecuadorean kids, members of Los Afligidos from what I’m hearin’. Shot in the head, both of ’em, from the back seat of a car. I’m thinkin’ it might tie to the Pianetta thing. I mean, Boots, Los Afligidos is strictly wannabe, a bunch of kids. If one of them did go off, we’d be pickin’ up shell casings all night. Whoever capped these boys took their casings with them. This was an execution.’

  Boots hung up a minute later. As he put the Nissan in gear and pulled away, his thoughts already turning to his home and his bed (with Jill, of course, in it), he turned
to his partner and said, ‘It’s begun.’

  THIRTY

  Snugged down in the back seat of his three-year-old Impala, the vehicle large enough to hide all but the top of his head, Teddy Winuk was only visible if you looked past the reflections on the windshield. The two people in the ancient Nissan fifty feet ahead of him, though they glanced around after getting out, clearly didn’t notice him. If they had, they would never have indulged in an embrace so passionate it made him instantly yearn for Sanda.

  In fact, it was Sanda who’d brought him to Newell Street. Using one of the many websites dedicated to finding anybody, anywhere, anytime, she’d pulled up the address of a property owner in Greenpoint named Andrew Littlewood. A check of birth records produced a single hit for Andrew and Margaret Littlewood, a boy they’d named Irwin. A further search through the database of the Daily News had uncovered a story about the arrest of a killer whose name meant nothing to Winuk. But the name of the cop, Irwin Littlewood, and the location of the arrest, the Sixty-Fourth Precinct, pretty much sealed the deal. Teddy already knew that Boots Littlewood resided in Greenpoint, the only question being whether he lived in his father’s house. Now that question had been put to rest as well.

  Teddy might have driven away at that point. The big cop wouldn’t be leaving home anytime soon. But he decided to hang around anyway. Maybe when the lights went out, he’d take a stroll, see if he could find his way to the backyard of Andy Littlewood’s two-story home. One thing, the residents on these blocks of Newell Street didn’t appear to be concerned with security. Elsewhere in Greenpoint, the lower windows of every building, commercial or residential, were protected by steel bars. Not here.