You Get What You Pay For (The Tony Cassella Mysteries)

by Beinhart, Larry

  “There’s something strange going on in America. Television is reality. You ever been on TV?”

  “Not much. You know, once or twice, during the Correction Department thing.”

  “Are you going to get Gunderson, or am I just wasting time and money?” he said.

  “The Ferraro thing,” I said. I desperately did not want him to give up. “What it shows is that you’ve been right all along. Look at the way the media’s onto it. It shows that if we throw the press the right bone, they’ll gnaw on it and keep on gnawing until they get to the marrow, and if there isn’t any marrow, they’ll keep dragging at it and kicking it around anyway. As long as it’s the right bone.”

  “I want to think it’s true,” he said.

  “This is America. Dreams do come true,” I said. “Tape at eleven.”

  That was sheer bravado. We kept on keeping on. But it was make-work. We were dead in the water.

  I returned to the arson reports, again and again, because that’s where the investigation had died. I couldn’t see anything wrong with them. But they didn’t feel right. Miles said it was his job to find them, not critique them. DeVito shrugged and said, “I did twenty years on the force. Homicide for ten. You know, I never hardly seen an arson report before.”

  “Me neither,” Mazzolli said. “Arson, we turn that over to the dalmatian-and-slicker set.”

  “I got a couple o’ cousins, Farrells,” Farrell said, “in the FD. I could maybe ask them.”

  “It’s been said,” DeVito said, “that the Irish is the dumbest race in the world.”

  “Do I gotta hear this again?” Farrell said.

  “And the indisputable proof of this,” DeVito said, “is that if you read the names of the firemen, all you got is Murphy, O’Brien, Callahan, Farrell. And it is an exceedingly dumb thing to want to spend your life walking into burning buildings.”

  I needed someone to whom an arson report would mean something. Tonto. The story, as I remembered it, was that the Indian had saved the Lone Ranger. The Indian felt obligated by that. That was why he followed the masked man from movie set to movie set. It made sense when I was six, and no one has questioned it since. So I called Owen Levy, the fireman who dragged me from my inferno.

  We met for breakfast at Junior’s, in downtown Brooklyn.

  Without his slicker and boots, the big black man looked just as big and just as black. “The best breakfast special in town,” Owen said. He ordered juice, coffee, a three-egg onion omelet with home fries. He smacked his lips over the juice. “I likes my OJ fresh. I bought a squeezer for the station.”

  “I used to come here. Me and my two best friends, Kenny and Petey. When we were kids. Three of us and one banana split,” I said, wondering if they were still as big as they seemed back then.

  The waitress knew Owen. She was generous with the potatoes. The basket of rolls and miniature Danish was heaped with the fireman’s favorites. “Sometimes, when I got weekdays off—they don’t have the special on weekends—I wakes the kids early. Oh, they bitch and moan, ‘Here come Daddy and one of his breakfasts.’ And I bring ’em all here. Before school. Once they’re here, they enjoys it. Especially the Danish. Kids like sweet stuff. Me too.”

  “How many kids you got?”

  “Three,” he said. “One thing good about being a fireman. When you’re on, you know you got to live in the station. Round the clock. But when you is off, you is off. Which means I got lots of time with my children. To make sure they’re doing right. To make sure they’re doing their homework.”

  “They in public school?” I asked.

  “No. I got ’em in parochial school.”

  “You’re Catholic?” I asked him. “I figured you Baptist being black or Jewish being Levy.”

  “For the discipline. I can’t afford no private school ’cept parochial school. St. Agnes—the kids calls it Saint Anguish—costs me three-fifty a semester. A real private school, that’s three, four long a year. Not for a fireman, not with three kids. I’m sort of a lapsing Baptist. It’s a money thing, St. Agnes.”

  “There’s a case I’m working on, involves arson.” I handed him the reports. They spanned twelve years; the last was Mary Murphy’s fire in 1974.

  “I don’t know what I can tell you about this. I’m a grunt. A hose, an ax, and suck the smoke. Arson, that’s a very technical matter. The arson investigators are scientists. They can look at ash, put it under a microscope, tell you what it used to be, what temperature it ignited at, and how long it took to get from a thing to ash.”

  Nonetheless, he looked. He read ponderously, every word, from the date at the top to the signature at the end, dark eyes moving in stops and starts, heavy lips forming soundless words. It was like watching a prisoner tunnel out of the Château d’If with a spoon.

  He paid no attention when the waitress cleared away.

  We sat there for close to two hours. I had a certain admiration for a willingness to work that hard, though I couldn’t understand how anyone could read that slow. It was a condescending admiration.

  “What do you think?” I said when he was finally done. “Is there anything wrong with them?”

  “Sometimes, when you go in, you know. You smell the paraffin or kerosene or gasoline. But when all you’re looking at is cold, dead ash, that’s a different thing. That’s why arson investigators, they are experts. I can’t tell how good this guy is. You’re investigating this guy, right? On behalf of an insurance company?”

  “Something like that,” I said. “In spite of the different names, all the buildings were owned by the same guy.”

  “Oh,” he said. “I thought you were maybe after the guy did the reports.”

  “No,” I said. “The owner.”

  “That’s the only thing I noted,” he said, shaking his head, disappointed. “That all the reports, they were done by the same man.”

  “What’s that?” I said, finally hearing him.

  “All of these reports, they were done by the same man.”

  The turtle had just beat the hare.

  The dead end had turned into a new lead. Ralph S. McGarrity. Investigator in the Bronx, according to the title below his signature, promoted to inspector after his transfer to Brooklyn. The reports were a second pattern. The fires—at least the ones we knew of—had moved with him.

  When I got back to the office, Eddie Alfoumado was there. On his knees among plaster and paint dust. Digging out microphones. He’d found three. There was also a tap on the phone.

  32.

  Mortgage Payments

  ALFOUMADO WAS BACK THE next day, trying to sell me an entire counterespionage system: sonic alarms, minicams with minicorders, a safe with a computer-generated random-access code, and a secure phone system. All of this could be done for a mere $26,947.95, including an extended warranty and service contract, plus sales tax. Only 10 percent down, two years to pay. Or I could enjoy the tax advantages of leasing.

  I asked him if he could determine, from the equipment, who had put it in. He couldn’t. There was no way to know if it had been the FBI, the Friends of Santino Scorcese, or Glenda.

  He talked me into the secure telephone system. But I balked at the rest. It was time, I decided, for Mario to earn his Alpo. Whatever his failings, he was large, loud when he wanted to be, and he had lots of teeth. No one was going to spend an hour or two installing microphones in carefully concealed positions with a full-sized German shepherd prowling about.

  Then I went to lunch with Glenda.

  She looked great, especially when anger lit up her eyes. She thought I should shit or get off the pot. It was about time. August 28. Six days before Labor Day. The day Wayne would be home. Home to us together. Or to some very difficult explanations.

  “Maybe what I needed was to get away for a while,” I said. Stalling, still stalling. “So I could learn to appreciate you more.” If I did go home, I wanted us to be able to live together. Part of me liked living alone. I could breathe. But life needs a center. But
there was Wayne.

  “Lots of men think they would like to appreciate me,” she said. “You’re not the only one enjoying a little space.”

  “Have you spoken to Wayne?” I said. “I called him at camp a couple of days ago. He sounded like he’s having a good time.”

  “You’re not jealous? You’re not wondering what I do when you’re not home? I’ve been going to the beach a lot. With some friends, in the Hamptons.”

  “I have the money for next month’s apartment stuff. Mortgage and maintenance,” I said.

  “It’s great out there. A little tennis. I tried wind-surfing, but mostly lying on the beach and going to parties. It’s nice to know this body is still competitive.”

  “That it is. More than competitive. It’s enticing. It’s desirable.”

  “What are we going to do?” she asked. “Never mind. I wasn’t going to ask that. I was going to be cool. I’ve been doing a lot of self-examination. I realize that … that my background … that I’m a much more uptight person than you are. That’s the mistake I’ve made, isn’t it? Being too tense. Too clinging. Well, I’ve been changing.”

  “That’s OK. You don’t have to change. There’s nothing wrong with you.”

  “Yes there is. I’ve … I’ve gone out with a couple of other men. I want you to know that. And I think it’s making me a better person. Not that I want to keep doing that, if, when, if you come back. But I thought you should know. I want things open and honest between us.”

  “I think … Wayne’s back at the end of Labor Day weekend, and we’ll … figure this out by then. I promise. You know, one way or another. Damn, you look good today.”

  “There’s something else you should know,” she said. “I fucked one of them.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Not a relationship. Nothing serious. A very good-looking young man, though. He’s from Argentina. A student. On his school soccer team. He’s only twenty-two. I was pleased that a twenty-two-year-old boy would be excited by me. So I did what I think you would have done,” she said. Part nervous, part brave, part defiant. “I had myself a piece of ass.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Well, I thought it would help me understand who you are and your type of behavior.”

  “And did you like it?” I asked.

  “I did and I didn’t. The truth is, you’ve spoiled me for other men. But I’m glad to have done it. Just doing it, impulsively, because I wanted to, to score. That was exciting. I see where that might matter to men. So you see, I am changing.”

  “I see that,” I said, “if it’s important to you. Look, let’s plan on being together Saturday and sort this out.” I handed her the checks. Funny, paying the money seemed to be my ticket, in or out. It would lock me in or be the sop to my conscience when I didn’t go back.

  Either way, I was going to need the $100,000.

  33.

  So Simple

  “ ’ELLO” MARIE-LAURE SAID. “ ’Ow are you?”

  “Where are you?” I said, thinking: Be ’ere.

  “ ’Ere. At the airport, Kennedy Airport. Our plane has just made the arrival.”

  Does the well-lived life need a center? Does adulthood mean responsibility and manhood mean property? “Get in a cab,” I said. “Come to the office.” Was she my last dalliance before I admitted that my destiny was to be the co-owner of a condo? Or was she the first dalliance in a life of renewed dissipation.

  “I will take the train to the plane—from the plane. A taxi is too expensif.”

  I had to go meet Straightman. “I will leave the keys to the apartment at the office. Come get them. Go to the apartment. Take a shower. Take a nap. Wait for me.”

  “OK,” she said.

  “Je t’adore,” I said.

  “Ah, oui?” A question mark curled on the end. It had me seeing the loose black curls that fell across her forehead, and the liquid eyes that always seemed to add whole stories to simple sentences.

  Straightman had his attorney, Dick Gerstein, at the meeting. Gerstein and I had met before, when John had his problems with coke and then with the underage girls. As far as I was concerned, I was the one who had saved the congressional ass and Gerstein was the one who had made the money.

  I went over what we had: Mrs. Murphy’s testimony, the death certificates of the people who died in the fire, an apparent pattern of arson in Gunderson-owned buildings. And what we were now going after. They key was McGarrity, the arson investigator. He still had to be found. Once found, he had to be induced to testify.

  “It’s thin,” Gerstein said. “Even if McGarrity talks.”

  “For a conviction, yes,” I said. “But not for an indictment. An indictment is what I’ve been hired to get.”

  “Prosecutors don’t like to go for indictments on weak cases,” Gerstein said. The proper caution of a counselor at law.

  “Don’t be so negative,” Straightman said. He wanted it.

  “Publicity hounds’ll go to court with any kind of garbage,” I said. “Besides, once there’s an indictment—once they bring it to the grand jury, even—then it’s a police matter. They can call people into the grand jury, subpoena records.”

  “It’s terribly important,” Gerstein said, “that that phase be handled correctly.”

  “You better believe it,” Straightman said.

  “I’d like to handle that, possibly,” Gerstein said. “Feeding the material to the D.A., bringing it before the authorities.”

  “Fine,” I said, “as long as you don’t make me miss my deadline.”

  “That won’t be an issue,” Gerstein assured me.

  “Absolutely not,” Straightman said. “Absolutely not. Go get ’em, tiger.”

  One of the rules of my business, maybe of any business, is never trust the client. Not so much their honesty as their competence. Straightman and Gerstein said they would take care of the D. A. and not to worry about the $100,000.

  The first thing I did when I hit the streets was go to a pay phone and call Gene Petrucchio. It was time to see if I could feed this thing through the Brooklyn D.A.’s office. Gene said he’d meet me the next day.

  The case was falling into place. I wanted my partner in on it. Maybe because I like knowing that he’s there to back me up. Maybe because I wanted him to watch me succeed when he’d made so much noise about the dangers of the case.

  He’d been gone so long I was either getting worried about him or getting pissed at him for taking an eternal vacation. I called the number I had for his son in Arizona. The daughter-in-law said Joey’d been and gone. A child cried in the background. I called his ex-wife. She said he’d been and gone.

  Of course, I was delighted to have the windfall of his apartment. Particularly when there are French women in the world.

  Marie-Laure was coming out of the shower when I got home. She was wearing a towel. The towel fell when I touched it. My clothes got wet when her body pressed against me. I took them off and left them where they fell.

  Afterward I asked her, “How was Wyoming?”

  “It was very nice,” she said. “The mountains are very big. And beautiful.”

  “Are you glad to be back?”

  “New York is very nice,” she said. Deliberately neutral words, her eyes saying she knew full well all the things she might have said. They were coy, and teasing, and warm, and carefully realistic, all at once.

  “Your eyes,” I said. “Are they very special eyes, or do all French girls know how to talk with their eyes?”

  “Of course I am glad to see you again,” she said. “Did you think of me?”

  “I thought of you a lot,” I said. It felt so good with her. It was not love. I was certain of that. I was certain that I did not know what love was. Was it what my father and mother had? What I felt about Wayne? Was it owning a condo?

  “Yes,” she said. “Me too.”

  I kissed her. Her mouth opened, warm. Her breasts were heavy against me. I rolled her over on her back. She opened, warm. />
  It was so simple.

  34.

  Joseph P. D’Angelo

  I MET WITH GENE in the park behind Brooklyn’s Borough Hall. We shook hands, but he seemed very reserved. I asked about his family.

  “I was wondering when you were going to finally come to me,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you and your guys, you been all over Brooklyn. And I haven’t heard word one from you.”

  “I told you I would come to you if I found anything.”

  “I took you at your word,” he said.

  “I got a murder with arson. It’s ten years old. Maybe that’s what I got. Gunderson owned the building. If it is arson, then he had a bent fire marshal, arson investigator. The arsonist was maybe Santino Scorcese. Maybe it was just what the arson report said, an electrical fire.”

  “How far up does it go?”

  Before the meeting I’d tried to think it through from Gene’s point of view. And I’d known that was the question he would ask. “All I need is the arson investigator,” I said.

  “Nobody else part of the scam? Not the cops? Nobody?”

  “Gene, all I need is the one guy.”

  “You should stay out of it,” he said. “You’re gonna get creamed.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “No,” he said.

  “No?”

  “Absolutely not. It’s just the truth. Information.”

  I watched the two girls coming our way. They were licking great creamy ice cream bars. One girl was a dusky Italian kind of white, with breasts the shape of champagne glasses showing through a thin-ribbed cotton halter. The other girl was black, au lait, not noir. Her breasts were nipple-topped pears, dramatized by the wide leather belt around a trim waist. “Oh, the flesh of summer,” I said to Gene. “It’s God’s way of telling you life is worth living. That’s the gospel truth.”

  Gene laughed. “You’re going to go ahead?” We looked at each other. He sighed, then he nodded. “You do what you got to do. I’ll do what I got to do,” he said.