Damaged Goods

by Stephen Solomita

  Carmine leaned back, dropped the unwrapped chocolate on his tongue, tossed the foil into the wastebasket. “I wanna hear ya sum it up,” he mumbled. “In the kitchen, nobody summed it up.”

  “Whatever you say, Carmine.” Guido held up a thick hand covered with curly gray hair and began to tick the items off on his fingers. “First, the Chink comes highly recommended. Second, we got the money together. Third, our people are ready to go. Fourth, we got enough guns to start a war.” He dropped his hand to his lap. “Carmine, how could it be better?”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Carmine swallowed hard, then took a sip of water before snatching another Perugina out of the box. “Anyways, I got somethin’ else I wanna talk about.” He watched Palanzo’s shoulders drop slightly, his neck inch forward. “I gotta make a hit on somebody and I want ya to set it up for the day after the deal. Get me a shooter with balls, Guido, somebody from the outside who knows how to keep his mouth shut.”

  “No problem, Carmine. I’ll pull somebody out of Newark. They got a lotta shooters in Newark.” Guido’s head bobbed once. “Yeah, no problem,” he repeated. “Who’s the lucky target?”

  “The target, my good buddy, is a piece of shit I been tryin’ to get outta my life for twenty goddamned years.” He spit the last part out, the emotion surprising him. “The target is Josie fucking Rizzo. I want the crazy bitch should disappear forever.”

  Guido Palanzo recoiled slightly, the jerk purely reflexive. According to official mobster mythology, family members were noncombatants. Like Mafia bosses were wise old men with cotton-stuffed cheeks. Then he actually pictured Josie Rizzo with the barrel of an assassin’s .22 pressed behind her right ear.

  “Awright, Carmine,” he said, “I’ll call Frankie Fish tonight, let him pick the shooter.” He paused momentarily, then repeated, “I hear they got good shooters in Newark.”

  “I don’t care who ya give it to, Guido. Just set it up before we do the deal. And pay for it in advance. I don’t want nothing should go wrong.” He looked at his watch. “Meanwhile, I got work to do. On your way out, tell my son I wanna see him.”

  Ten minutes and the remaining chocolates later, Tommy Stettecase walked into the room. He glanced once at the locked trunk behind Carmine’s desk and half smiled before sitting down. “You takin’ a trip, pop?” he asked.

  It took Carmine a minute to understand his son’s comment, to remember that when it came to the family business, Tommy was an outsider.

  “Yeah,” he finally said, “that’s just what I wanna talk about.” Nodding to himself, he opened a lower desk drawer, removed a can of honey-roasted almonds and peeled back the lid. “Look, Tommy, I got some news I think ya oughta know, but which I want ya to keep under your hat for the time being. Me and your mom, we’re probly gonna retire, like real, real soon. I’m too old to be doin’ what I’m doin’ to make a living.” He popped a handful of nuts into his mouth, waited patiently for his son’s comment.

  “I think that’s great, pop.” Tommy looked down at his hands for a minute. “But what’s that have to with the trunk?”

  Carmine ran his fingers across his naked scalp. “We’re leavin’ is what it is, Tommy. No way could we stay here in the middle of the action. Me and your mom are gonna sell the house, go live in Europe.” He chewed relentlessly as he spoke, letting the words drop, one after another, like the lash of a whip. “Coupla months from now, ya gotta be gone. You and Mary.”

  “And Mama-Josie,” Tommy interrupted. “Unless you plan to take her with you.”

  “What I’m gonna do,” Carmine persisted, “is set ya up with twenty large. If ya should need more, ya can write me.” He dug into the can of almonds. “Cause what it is, Tommy, is me and your mom decided that you’re a big boy now. It’s time ya were out on your own.”

  Josie Rizzo set the phone on the table next to her bed and smiled. Agent Ewing, faithful as a trained dog, had just informed her that she would no longer be able to contact her nephew. He’d expressed regret, explained that he was following orders, but his voice had been tinged with barely repressed derision. Josie had responded with the proper indignation, had roundly cursed the agent, threatened to withhold the tape she held in her hands. On the inside, however, where it really counted, she felt a rising satisfaction, a peace unknown since the time before her brother was murdered. The spirit, her jetatura, had popped out of her soul like a squeezed grape deserting its skin. It was now hovering just above Carmine’s bloated frame.

  Gildo would have to take care of himself. He knew the schedule, knew what would happen to him if he didn’t get out. Besides, Gildo had done everything he was supposed to do already. Annunziata Kalkadonis would never be free of him. Every spring, for the rest of her life, she’d think of her child, of her ex-husband, of what she’d done to bring down his wrath.

  Josie Rizzo closed her eyes, remembering Gildo’s description of Carol Pierce after Jackson-Davis was through with her. “Lemme put it like this,” he’d said. “The doc won’t need a scalpel to get to the bitch’s vital organs. All he gotta do is pick ’em off the carpet.”

  With a shake of her head, Josie reminded herself that a decision had to be made. Should she deliver the tape or destroy it? If Carmine found her with the tape, if he pulled out of the deal, she’d lose everything. On the other hand, if Holtzmann didn’t get his package, he might panic, try to contact her. She’d listened to the tape, knew there was nothing important on it, nothing the FBI didn’t already know.

  Footsteps sounded on the stairway three floors below her own and Josie quickly shoved the tape into the pocket of her dress. Despite recognizing Tommaso’s quick tread, despite having heard him descend a few moments before, her heart pounded in her chest.

  No more, she decided. No more tapes. If the FBI won’t let me speak to Gildo, it’s because they don’t need Josie Rizzo or the tapes.

  Quickly, before she could change her mind, Josie ripped the tape out of the spool, crushed it in her hands, dumped it beneath a pile of corn husks on the bottom of her kitchen garbage. Then she stepped over to the sink and quickly rinsed her hands. Downstairs, the steel door at the front of the house squeaked open, then clanged shut. That would be Carmine, heading out to meet the Chinaman.

  Snatching a towel, Josie half ran to the window in her living room and pulled the drapes aside. Carmine, as expected, was ducking into the back of his Lincoln town car. Totally unaware that, five floors above, Josie Rizzo, her chin raised high, nodded her satisfaction at the dark, voracious creature that followed him.

  “Here, pussy. Heeeeeeere, pussy-pussy. Come to daddy, you cocksucker.”

  Agent Bob Ewing, as he prepared Jilly Sappone’s breakfast, shook his head in amazement, told himself not to lose his temper, that Sappone would be gone soon, this amazingly repulsive assignment over and done with. Twenty-four hours, a single day, that was all that remained of what he’d come to consider a sentence.

  “Hey, Agent Bob, you got a daughter somewhere, little kid maybe catching the school bus even as we fucking speak? One day I’m gonna track that kid down, see if she can fly. That was Theresa’s problem, Agent Bob. I mean, how was it my fault if she couldn’t fly? Ya can’t expect a busy man like me to pay attention to every little detail.”

  Ewing snatched a bowl of ham cubes, onions, and peppers. He spread them over the omelet cooking on the stove, then gave the pan a quick shake to prevent the eggs from sticking. It was a little after eleven o’clock in the morning and he’d already had a phone call from his boss. Holtzmann had listened to his complaints, clucked sympathetically from time to time.

  “We’ll be coming for Mister Sappone tomorrow, Bob,” he’d finally interrupted. “Jilly’s going to be taken into custody, charged with kidnapping and murder. The US Attorney will push for the death penalty and he’ll get it. What jury could find redeeming value in Jilly Sappone?”

  The question had been strictly rhetorical and Holtzmann had rung off a few minutes later without answering the deeper question. When Ewing had
first been assigned directly to Holtzmann and this particular investigation, he’d been overjoyed. No question about it, Carmine Stettecase and his dope had career-making potential. Of course, he hadn’t known anything about Jilly Sappone or the deal Abner Kirkwood had cut with Josie Rizzo, but his ignorance was all to the good. The only important thing was to be standing in front of that table, the one piled high with guns and dope, when the video cameras began to roll.

  Ewing lifted the omelet pan, flipped the half-cooked omelet back on itself, laid the pan on the glowing burner.

  “Hey, pussy, I’m holding it in my hand. Right now. I’m holding my dick in my hand and I’m thinking about your wife. She’s blond, right, a perfect blond wife for a corn-fed pig on his way up. She’s blond and she’s hot and you’re out here all alone with me.”

  Ewing slid the omelet onto a plate, then poured out a glass of orange juice and a cup of coffee. He put cup, glass, and plate on a tray, added a plastic fork, took a deep breath. This was the worst of it, the look of triumph in Sappone’s eyes when Agent Bob Ewing played the servant. When he straightened up or ran the vacuum or fetched the telephone. As if Jilly Sappone really believed the Justice Department would put him in the witness protection program.

  Maybe, Ewing thought, as he picked up the tray and stepped out of the kitchen, I’ll let him skip his next meal. And the next and the next.

  “Hi, sweetie-peetie.”

  Ewing glanced up, felt distinctly relieved to find Jilly Sappone with his pants zipped. He placed the tray in the door slot, leaned briefly against the interlaced bars, finally stepped away.

  “Tell ya what, Agent Piggy.” Sappone put the edge of the plate against his lower lip and pushed a third of the omelet into his mouth. “I got an idea we could both live with. After I get outta here, whatta ya say we swap wives. Cause it looks to me like you could use a little ethnic pussy, a little guinea girl with olive oil between her legs. Somethin’ to give that whitebread face a little character. And me, I ain’t had no pink-pussied blond bitch since before I went to prison. Be a lotta fun to make her beg.”

  Ewing, propelled by the torrent of abuse, backed halfway across the room. Sappone had been going at it for the better part of two days, as if something or someone had triggered a switch in his brain. Going on and on and on, the hatred clearly visible in the twisted sneer, the flared nostrils. The cumulative effect was almost physically painful.

  “One more day,” Ewing said. His hand dropped to the waist of his trousers, to an empty holster. Then he remembered that his nine-millimeter Glock was in the kitchen where it belonged. Ewing wondered if the procedure had been designed to prevent agents from executing prisoners in custody.

  “Say what, sweetie-pie?” Jilly’s smirk remained firmly plastered to his face. “Are they sending new troops to the front? Is my honey being relieved?”

  Ewing took a step forward. “Wrong guess, scumbag.” He held up a shaking finger. “You think you’re going into the witness protection program, you and that crazy bitch? Well, here’s your fate, Jilly Sappone. You’re going to spend the next ten years in the worst prison the federal system has to offer while you appeal your death sentence. After that, it’ll be up to God.”

  Jilly Sappone’s face relaxed for the first time. The information—the timing—was interesting enough; it fit into his personal schedule nicely. But, all along, he’d simply assumed that Ewing would be the triggerman. Now Ewing was babbling about arrest and trial, which wasn’t gonna happen. No way could they let Jilly Sappone talk to a lawyer, have access to the media. Still, if Ewing really believed it, if he thought he had no reason to fear Jilly Sappone …

  Well, credit where credit was due, Jilly finally decided, Agent Bob was right about one thing. Another day was all it would take.

  NINETEEN

  STANLEY MOODROW AWOKE TO the faint odor of his lover on the sheets and pillowcase next to where he slept and the much stronger smell of brewing coffee drifting in from the kitchen. He rolled onto his back without opening his eyes, let the pure pleasure of having nothing to do run through his body. Lazy was the proper word for the way he felt, as limp and relaxed as Betty’s crumpled nightgown at the foot of the bed. For the moment, he wanted nothing more in life than to lie right where he was.

  “Stanley, you awake?”

  Moodrow reluctantly opened his eyes. “Yeah.” He stole a glance at the clock on the night table: 9:47. “It’s late,” he announced, pleased with himself. On most days, he was up before seven.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Great.” He touched the back of his head, found the remains of the wound dry, pronounced himself healed. Sitting up, he reached out to Betty and gently pulled her down next to him. “I feel like I’m getting this behind me.”

  Betty glanced at his lap. “Looks to me like you’re getting something in front of you as well.”

  “Purely reflexive, my dear, by-product of a good dream and a desperate need to urinate.”

  Twenty minutes later, shaved and showered, he sat at the kitchen table, a steaming coffee mug in his hand. The odor of toasting bagels filled the room.

  “A good morning for smells,” he announced.

  “Pardon?”

  “Nothing.” He drained half the mug, then got up to stand behind Betty who continued to chop away at a bunch of scallions. “Whatta ya say we take the ferry to Ellis Island, hang out with the tourists?”

  Ellis Island, processing center for tens of millions of immigrants, had been a museum for nearly a decade. Moodrow have been determined to pay a visit ever since reading an article in the Daily News bemoaning the fact that more Japanese toured the exhibits than native New Yorkers, that the ratio of all tourists to New Yorkers was fifty-to-one. This despite the fact that six million people in the Greater New York area had ancestors who’d come through Ellis Island.

  “I’ve never been there,” Betty said. “My grandparents—my mother’s parents—landed on the Island in 1916.” She slid the chopped scallions into a small bowl with the edge of the knife, turned and set the bowl on the table, shut off the oven. “My bubbe told me she nearly got sent back. She had an eye infection and the doctors initially told her she’d be refused admission to America. Can you imagine, Stanley? You can see the Statue of Liberty from Ellis Island. She told me she stared at it for two days. Until the doctors decided to let her in.”

  Moodrow opened the oven and began to carefully slide the toasted bagels onto a plate. “Your grandmother ever say why they changed their minds?”

  “She never asked.” Betty set glasses and a quart of orange juice on the table, then sat down. “The family came from a place where Jews didn’t question authority, at least not openly.”

  The phone rang just as Moodrow finished spreading a layer of cream cheese on a sliced onion bagel. “If that’s Gadd,” he announced, “I’m gonna be very pissed.” He sprinkled a few scallions over the cream cheese, then carried the bagel to the phone.

  “Yeah.”

  “A little abrupt this morning, aren’t we?”

  “How did I know it was you?” He sensed her hesitation, that his hostility had taken her off guard, and was instantly apologetic. The progression surprised him. “Tell me you’re calling because the cops’ve taken Jilly and you want that drink we talked about last night.”

  “No such luck.” She hesitated briefly. “Look, yesterday, when I got home, I found a message on my answering machine from Patricia Kalkadonis. She and her mom are leaving New York, leaving tonight, Moodrow. They want to see us before they go.”

  Moodrow started to say, Tell ’em I died, then checked himself. “No matter what I do,” he finally declared, “I can’t seem to shake this case.”

  “Hey, Moodrow, look at the bright side. Once Ann takes off, it really will be over.” She paused long enough to clear her throat. “Meanwhile, it’s time to pay the piper.”

  An hour later and several miles to the north, Abner Kirkwood and Karl Holtzmann strolled beside the fountain outside the
complex of white marble buildings that make up Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. They’d gravitated to the fountain because of the noise, the rush of the waters, instinctively protecting themselves against eavesdroppers. This despite the fact that neither believed himself to be under surveillance.

  Kirkwood, more aware than his companion, put their collective paranoia down to a guilty conscience. After all, they were talking about murder. “You speak to Ewing?”

  “An hour ago. He’s beside himself, Abner. Sappone’s been riding him pretty hard.” Holtzmann laughed, shook his head. “The way we set it up, Bob’s as much a prisoner as Jilly Sappone.”

  “Just make sure he doesn’t try to do something about it, Karl. Make sure he doesn’t open that door.”

  “I told him we’d be taking Sappone off his hands in twenty-four hours. He’ll last that long.” Holtzmann stopped abruptly. “What I think we ought to do is drive Sappone into New Jersey, leave his body where it’ll be found. With a little encouragement, the media are nearly certain to lay it on Carmine Stettecase’s doorstep.” He took Kirkwood by the arm and resumed walking. “In the long run, if we time our leaks properly, it’ll add to the publicity, keep the case alive between the arrest and the trial.”

  As they spoke, the sun finally cleared the high-rise condos to the east of Lincoln Center. Pouring onto the plaza from a cloudless sky, it seemed to penetrate the stone on which they walked, adding a buoyancy to their steps. Kirkwood glanced up at the enormous arched windows lining the southern face of the Metropolitan Opera. The windows were dark now, the building open only to workers, but at night, lit from inside by glowing chandeliers, they framed knots of well-dressed patrons as they strolled toward the inner hall, forming a promenade worthy of an Ivory-Merchant film.

  “I assume you want me to go with you tomorrow?” he finally said.

  Holtzmann stopped again. “There can’t be any deniability here, Abner.” He ran his fingers over the lapels of his gray, double-breasted jacket. “‘Universal participation protects universally.’ ” A smile lit his face. “Must say,” he admitted, “I like the sound of that.”