Stakeout (2013)

by Hall, Parnell

  “What do you think of my theory?”

  Richard rolled his eyes. “Words can’t describe what I think of your theory.”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “What do you think is more likely: husband got involved with mobster and got killed; or husband’s wife got involved with mobster, who killed him so he could have her?”

  “That doesn’t have to be the motive.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. Usually, when you get some idea in your head, nothing can shake it. Are you telling me there’s wiggle room?”

  “The widow’s involved. I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but she is.”

  “What makes you think so? Go ahead, make your case.”

  “Well, for one thing, why does she hire me?”

  “This does not necessarily make her guilty. After all, I hired you.”

  “Not to tail a spouse who isn’t cheating on you and subsequently winds up dead.”

  “Something the widow couldn’t have foreseen.”

  “She could if she planned it.”

  “I see. It’s a conspiracy theory, which is why you like it. You figure everyone’s out to get you. Anything that supports that position must be true.”

  “I’m not having fun, Richard.”

  “Well, how much fun do you think I’m having? Here you are, getting into one scrape after another, and I’m the one who has to get you out of them.”

  “For which I’m grateful. But to get back to the premise. Woman hires me to catch her husband with another woman. He isn’t with another woman, but he winds up dead.”

  “Kind of ironic, isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If he was having an affair, he’d be alive.”

  “Right. And his wife would be suing him for divorce, and I’d have gotten paid, and everyone would be happy.”

  “Who’d she think he was having an affair with?”

  “She didn’t know.”

  “You say that with such inflection. As if you find it suspicious.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Not suspicious enough to support your premise.”

  “Okay. You’re the demon cross-examiner. Tell me why my premise is wrong.”

  “Oh, dear. How much time have we got?” Richard considered. “It would be easier to tell you what’s right.”

  “Okay. What’s right?”

  “The way I see it, only one thing supports your story.”

  “What’s that?”

  “She went to the police.”

  I blinked. “That’s the thing that undermines my story.”

  Richard smiled, in that maddeningly self-satisfied way he has when he thinks he’s being clever. “She was one of the prime witnesses against you. As far as the cops are concerned, she’s a rock star. You think she wouldn’t have their card?”

  “So?”

  “So why does she go there? She’s got their number. If she wants to report you, all she has to do is call.”

  “Maybe so, but the fact is she went.”

  “Yes, she did. And you have no idea why. So we move on. Where’d she go when she left the police station?”

  My face fell.

  “You don’t know?”

  “I didn’t wait.”

  “Of course not. She went to the police station, confirming your own conspiracy theory. Why would anything else matter?”

  “I just didn’t think of it.”

  “You didn’t think at all.”

  “Oh, yeah? How much grief would you have given me if I’d staked out a police station, particularly that one?”

  “Oh. It’s not that you didn’t think of it, you thought I’d disapprove.”

  “I’m not saying I thought you’d disapprove, I’m just saying you would have.”

  “The point is you didn’t think. Just as it didn’t occur to you she could have called the police station. It wasn’t a moot point. If you consider that she could have called the police station, the question is why didn’t she? Why did she go there instead? The most logical answer is, she stopped in on her way somewhere else.”

  “I get the point.”

  “And yet you continue to offer justifications. Why can’t you simply admit you fucked up and move on?”

  “I’m trying to move on. You’re the one who keeps harping on it.”

  “Fine,” Richard said. “I will not bring up your idiotic behavior again. The point is, for whatever reason, tailing the widow didn’t work.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So what you gonna do now?”

  54

  MACAULLIF SEEMED GENUINELY CONFUSED. “WHAT do you think you’re doing?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Never mind that you’re not getting anywhere. I can’t even figure out where you’re trying to get.”

  “I’m trying to find the connection.”

  “What connection?”

  “Exactly. I’m trying to find any connection. There’s two women in the case, Jersey Girl and the widow. I figure one of them’s involved with Tony Gallo. I figure if I put a little pressure on her, she’ll go there. I pressure Jersey Girl. The cops pick me up. So I figure it’s the widow. I pressure the widow. She goes straight to the cops. Now I don’t know what to think. If they’re both clean, I’m nowhere.”

  “You think only good guys go to the cops?”

  “I think killers are unlikely to appeal to cops for help.”

  “What does Richard think of your theory?”

  “Richard’s got a theory of his own.”

  “Oh? What’s that?”

  I gave him Richard’s the-police-station-must-be-on-her-way-to-somewhere-else-or-she-would-have-phoned theory.

  MacAullif nodded approvingly. “For a negligence lawyer, the guy’s got a clear mind.”

  “You have a low opinion of negligence lawyers.”

  “Doesn’t everybody?” MacAullif considered the situation. “So, if I understand you correctly, you’re trying to find out who’s having an affair with Tony Gallo. You follow Jersey Girl to see if she goes there, but she doesn’t, she turns you in to the cops. You follow the widow to see if she goes there, but she doesn’t, she goes to the cops. Do you by any chance see the error of your ways?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you want to see who’s having an affair with Tony Gallo, don’t follow every girl in the world and see if she goes there. Follow Tony Gallo.”

  55

  I STAKED OUT TONY GALLO’S house at six thirty in the morning, which was a major pain in the ass, him living on the South Shore and all. I had to get up at five in the morning myself. I staggered around getting dressed, trying not to wake Alice or the dog. I might have succeeded if I hadn’t stepped on her tail. The dog’s. She barked and woke Alice. Then I had to explain what I was doing. I’d explained it the night before, but at five in the morning some details are not that easy to recall. My name, for instance. Alice called me a lot of things, none of them Stanley.

  The dog was never going to let Alice go back to sleep, so I had to walk her before I left. The dog. I took her out to pee, which she did gratifyingly in the street, without making me go all the way to Riverside Drive. I took her back, threw her in the apartment, holding the elevator door open with my foot, went back down, got in my car, and drove to New Jersey to stake out a hood.

  At six thirty the house was dark. The mobster was either there, or he, like I, had left without waking his wife. Much.

  It was already light out, and I hated that, because it meant I could be seen. Sitting in the street in my car. For no discernable purpose. With New York plates.

  I was very unhappy to be there, and I had to wonder if my initial decision to follow the women I suspected of being involved with Tony Gallo instead of Tony Gallo himself, stemmed from an extreme reluctance to follow Tony Gallo due to the fact that people who followed Tony Gallo might well wind up dead. I hadn’t consciously had that thought before. At least I wasn’t conscious of having
consciously had that thought before. Which I guess amounts to the same thing. Anyway, I had that thought now. I kept expecting Clemenza to pop up in the backseat of my car, a la The Godfather, and slip a wire around my neck.

  It occurred to me, that would solve my problems.

  Time crawled. I sat there in my car, envisioning the worst. Which was easy to do. Things had to be pretty bad for MacAullif to advise me to follow Tony Gallo. MacAullif’s initial advice had been to stay a football field the fuck away from Tony Gallo. And here he was suggesting it, as if it were my last chance, a hail-Mary pass, an onside kick, a no-hope challenge flag thrown in desperation, oh how the hell did I get into football idiom, I really was losing it.

  I tried to calm myself, focus my mind on something other than my imminent demise. I started recalling jokes from my schoolboy days. The elephant jokes, for instance. Remember them? The elephant jokes were of a similar theme, usually involving the gratification of the elephant, and ranging from the inane:

  How do you get an elephant off the wall? You jerk him off.

  To the poetic:

  Jack and Jill

  Went up the hill

  Riding on an elephant

  Jill got down to help

  Jack off the elephant.

  Or the Tom Swifties, in which everything Tom said came with a modifier:

  “I’m really into homosexual necrophilia,” said Tom, in dead Earnest.

  Despite such diversions, time crawled.

  By seven o’clock, the neighborhood started waking up. Lights were going on in some of the houses, including the one I was parked in front of. No, not Tony Gallo’s. I wasn’t parked in front of his house. I was across the street and a couple of houses down. I didn’t expect that to fool a mob hit man; still I was taking every precaution.

  Tony Gallo’s house was still dark. That figured. It was summer, his teenaged son wouldn’t have to get up for school. His wife looked like the late-rising type. And Tony, being his own boss, wouldn’t worry about being late to work.

  He was out the door at seven thirty.

  Wouldn’t you know it, I was peeing into my Gatorade bottle. Stupid, I know, but I wanted to get it out of the way, and there hadn’t been a light in the house. Anyway, Tony Gallo comes out the front door and there I am with my dick in my hand. If you’re a private eye, that’s not the way you like to write it up in your report.

  Tony cut across the front lawn and climbed into the back seat of his car.

  The back seat?

  Oh. My. God.

  Did that mean what I thought it did?

  What else could it mean?

  Seconds later, the car roared to life and pulled out of the driveway.

  Sure enough, a young, greasy-looking thug was driving.

  The guy was sitting in the driveway the whole time. He must have gotten there just ahead of me. I wondered if that was the daily routine. Have the car there by six thirty in case Tony wants to go. Or if the guy was assigned at six today, and Tony got held up.

  I also wondered if this had been one of Vinnie Carbone’s jobs.

  I also wondered if I’d been spotted. I mean, the guy was sitting there parked in the driveway with the car facing out. How could he not see me? The guy would have to be blind. Or asleep. If you’re waiting for a mob boss, do you dare fall asleep? Or would Tony just poke you in the shoulder when he got in the car and everything would be cool?

  They came roaring by. I kept my head down. Not a fun prospect, with my dick out and a jar full of piss. Still, better than letting Tony get a look at me. The guy knew me. As what, I wasn’t sure, but getting caught parked in his neighborhood couldn’t be good.

  I managed to zip my pants and get the top on the Gatorade bottle. I started the car, swung an inconspicuous-as-all-hell U-turn, and set off after the mob.

  Tony Gallo’s driver took enough loops to make me wonder if we were headed toward some deserted lot. Instead, he got on the New Jersey Turnpike heading north. That worked for me. It was the way I came. If nothing else, I was heading home.

  Traffic was getting heavy, but we made good time and I had no trouble keeping up.

  After about a half hour we reached the exit for the Lincoln Tunnel. It’s an exit, but it’s more like a fork in the road. The highway divides with huge signs stretched across the top offering a choice between the George Washington Bridge and the Lincoln Tunnel. We opted for the tunnel. I found that disappointing. The bridge is in Ft. Lee, along with the motel and the cops and the crime scene. Was it asking too much to expect Tony Gallo to return to the scene of the crime?

  Only we didn’t go in the tunnel either. We got off the turnpike and went in the opposite direction, away from New York. So. Tony had business somewhere else in New Jersey. That wasn’t surprising. The man was connected, he could have interests all over. Whatever they were, they didn’t concern me, unless they were women, and it was too early for him to be calling on a woman. At least I hoped it was. I mean, if these guys got laid first thing in the morning, life really wasn’t fair. On the other hand, I wanted him to lead me to a woman, it just wasn’t likely until the end of the day. In all probability I would follow him around all day in the course of his business, and if it were to include an amorous interlude it would be much later on. Which was a major pain in the ass. If the guy just had a normal business address like everybody else, I could have picked him up there at the end of work. But, no, he has to be a will-o’-the-wisp with a bogus address that you can’t pin down and the cops can’t pin down, so nobody can pin anything on him, and probably never would, even though he is most likely the perpetrator of any number of crimes, including those the police had reason to believe were mine.

  I wondered what presumably illegal but probably incredibly boring business venture I would be treated to. More than likely I would wind up staked out in front of some storefront, trying to avoid the notice of Tony’s driver, assuming he didn’t get to go inside.

  After a couple of miles we got off the highway and drove past a couple of refineries from which I could not discern a particular product, but could discern a particular smell. We followed smaller roads through what must have been incredibly undesirable real estate, boasting no factories, businesses, or private homes of any kind. I kept way back, and was a couple of hundred yards behind, when Tony’s car turned off onto a side road.

  I drove up on the turn carefully, fully prepared to go right on by in case the road was a dead end or in case Tony had pulled off and parked. But Tony’s car was nowhere in sight. A dirt road led off into what appeared to be a desolate wasteland and disappeared around a bend behind an outcropping of rock.

  What the hell?

  I did not want to follow Tony Gallo down that road. But I sure wanted to know where he was going. Was this where he conducted business? Did he have some underground bunker?

  I turned onto the dirt road, drove up to the bend, and stopped dead.

  Tony Gallo’s car was parked in what appeared to be an abandoned rock quarry.

  Not good. If I could see him, he could see me.

  I threw the car into reverse, backed up as quickly as I could out of sight around the bend.

  Should I turn around? I couldn’t. I had to know what he was doing.

  Which was probably nothing. He probably just stopped to take a piss. It wouldn’t have been my first choice for a pit stop, but then a guy with a Gatorade bottle shouldn’t cast stones.

  So what are you going to do? The guy probably saw you, and any second he’s going to come roaring out with guns a-blazing. There you’ll be, stopped like a schmuck. Back up, turn around, get the hell out of there.

  I got out of my car, scrambled up a mound of dirt to the outcropping of rock. Crawled to the edge, peered out.

  They hadn’t seen me. They had gotten out of the car, and were walking away toward the far end of the quarry. They were walking single file, with the driver ahead, and Tony walking slowly, purposely behind.

  Good Lord. Was Tony going to whack his driver?
That seemed a little harsh. Maybe he wasn’t as good as Vinnie Carbone, but the guy had only been on the job a few days. Surely he deserved a second chance.

  While I watched, they went around a bend I couldn’t even tell was there, and disappeared from sight.

  Moments later they were out again, heading for the car.

  So what were they doing? What the hell was back there? Why the hell—

  Heading for the car!

  I crab-crawled back from the edge, pounded down the hill, leaped into my car, gunned the motor. Backed up, turned around, and drove off as quickly as I could without sounding like a pack of Hell’s Angels.

  At the paved road I turned right, figuring Tony would go back the way he came. I rocketed down the road, hung a U-turn, pulled off to the side out of sight.

  Moments later Tony’s car appeared. Sure enough, it took a left turn back the way he came. I gave him a head start, tailed along behind.

  We went right back the way we’d come all the way to the Jersey Pike. We didn’t get on it though, we went right on by. We appeared to be heading for the Lincoln Tunnel.

  We were.

  We went through the tunnel—no problem for me, I got E-ZPass. Richard gripes that he doesn’t get individual receipts anymore, just a summary at the end of the month, but he doesn’t sit in the long lines at the toll booths. Neither do I. I whiz through with E-ZPass, a convenience when calling on a client, a must when tailing a car.

  We came out of the tunnel in midtown Manhattan, wove our way through the garment district, loading docks and delivery trucks on the side streets, office buildings on the avenues.

  Tony’s driver stopped in front of an office building on Seventh Avenue. Tony got out of the car and went in. I did not follow. Tony had a driver to wait in the car. I did not. Street signs were screaming, NO PARKING, NO STOPPING, NO STANDING. Tony’s driver was stopping and standing. I guess he figured that didn’t apply to him.

  He figured right. When a cop banged on his window, the driver rolled it down, flashed some ID at him, and the cop went away, looking miffed at not being able to hassle someone.

  He made up for it by hassling me. He tapped on my window, made me move. I had no magic ID to flash. I drove around the block, hoped like hell the car would be there when I got back.