Cop Job

by Chris Knopf

  “Alfie was the DB in the wheelchair,” Sullivan told Fenton. “Joey Wentworth was another CI that got ventilated with a twelve-gauge the week before. We’re wonderin’.”

  “No wonder to me,” said Fenton. “Somebody’s dropping dimes.”

  “That’s what it looks like,” said Sullivan, “though I’ve been living with those people a lot of years, and it just doesn’t add up.”

  “It’s the ones you least expect,” said Fenton.

  “I hear you,” said Sullivan.

  “You do have two new guys on the force,” I said.

  Fenton looked at Sullivan like he probably looked when one of his street contacts tried to hold out on him.

  “I’ve known Pete Cermanski since he was still wiping his nose on his sleeve,” said Sullivan.

  “You don’t still do that?” asked Fenton.

  “What about the other guy, Bennie Gardella?” I asked.

  “Bennie fucking Gardella?” asked Fenton. “You’re shitting me.”

  “You know him,” said Sullivan.

  “Sure. Did some serious undercover during the Giuliani glory days. Compared to him, Donnie Brasco could have been in witness protection. Very highly regarded guy, even if he did spend a few years at the Retreat and went on desk after that. Sort of a PTSD thing, is what I think.”

  “What’s the Retreat?” I asked.

  “Rehab central for cops and firemen. Does a brisk business, not a big surprise.”

  “I didn’t know any of this,” said Sullivan.

  “Your chief does. Ross ran Bennie when he first went undercover in the South Bronx. Those two went through shit I hope my brain’s too stupid to imagine. Talk about PTSD.”

  I remembered Edith Madison saying she had assets at Southampton Town Police. I assumed covert, meaning hidden from Ross, so that couldn’t mean Gardella.

  “Goddammit,” said Sullivan.

  “I probably just fucked up,” said Fenton, smelling Semple’s obvious breach of trust seeping into the air.

  Sullivan made one of those hand gestures meant to make the last statement go away.

  “No, I did,” he said. “I’m glad you leveled with me. I’ll respect what you said.” In other words, not let on to Ross that he knew Gardella’s story.

  “I appreciate that,” said Fenton.

  After that, to the relief of both cops, we switched topics to local sports teams, the greedy ways of every living and dead politician, and whether the slightly outsized rear end of the bar’s only waitress constituted a net plus or minus.

  “Personal preferences are a strange and wonderful thing,” said Fenton, to which we all nodded, basking in equanimity.

  Eventually we decided the wise choice was to retreat to our respective beds while we could still hail cabs without tripping on the curb. Out on the sidewalk, we shook hands and exchanged thanks and upbeat words of encouragement for the upcoming efforts. In the middle of this, Sullivan asked if I could look into Bennie Gardella, since he was a cop and thus off-limits. And anyway, I’d do a better job with a fellow guinea. Fenton laughed.

  “That’s what everybody thinks,” he said, “but Bennie’s no guinea. Family’s from some weird place in the toe of Italy. He’s a Griko.”

  “What the hell’s a Griko?” asked Sullivan.

  “They’re Greeks. That was Bennie’s code name when he went undercover. The Greek.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  As predicted when Allison woke up she remembered nothing about the attack. She could barely hear, so we were left to communicate with her by writing in a pocket notebook. Abby told Allison she’d obtained the notebook at a darling little shop somewhere in the south of France. I knew you could get the same thing at nearly any bodega in the city, but didn’t think it worth mentioning.

  You want people you love in these circumstances to just wake up and start blabbing away, but that’s not how it works. Allison looked to me like she knew some horrible thing had happened to her, but was just too sick, sore, and drug-addled to do much about it but stare and try to make out what we were trying to tell her.

  Abby’s instinct was to express a kind of ersatz cheerfulness that was unnatural to her normal disposition and likely unconvincing, if not disturbing, to Allison. Abby’s husband, Evan, kept his focus on Abby as if waiting to catch her as she fell, though that never seemed a possibility.

  Nathan talked to Allison as if they’d just gotten home from a busy day at work and were having a good-natured moment of decompression. She held his face with her eyes, watching his mouth form the words she couldn’t hear. As he scribbled away on the notebook, she reached over and took his hand.

  Amanda was there as well, having broken the ice with Abby in the waiting room. Like most of these things, the fearful expectation was wasted. They shook hands, Amanda expressed concern for Allison and all others involved, Abby said that Allison spoke very highly of Amanda, and so on. There was plenty of cool reserve in the air, but good intentions and civility more than made up for lack of warmth.

  “So what are we looking at here?” I asked the doctor, before he had a chance to scoot out of the room.

  “Prognosis? Not sure. Pretty major traumatic head injuries, internal trauma, though there she is, eyes opened, seemingly cognizant of her surroundings. She’ll live. The question now is restoration of function. I’d be optimistic.”

  “Because pessimism won’t make things turn out any better?” I asked.

  “Something like that.”

  I let the other people in the room do all the talking and pad writing, but Allison knew I was there, because every once in a while her eyes, poking through the bandages, would drift over to mine. I didn’t know what they might have been trying to tell me, but I tried to tell her with mine that we’d talk when she was able. Meanwhile I’d be busy doing things I was better suited to than cooing reassurances I didn’t necessarily believe.

  AMANDA CHOSE to stay for a few more days at the hotel in the city, but I needed to get back to Southampton to take care of a few things, like my work for Frank Entwhistle and the care and feeding of my once-feral mutt.

  I knew Jackie would do a good job looking after him, but Eddie liked things the way he liked them, and that included having me around to hit golf balls and feed him Big Dog biscuits.

  In honor of both these obligations, I spent a couple days in my shop in the basement of the cottage, leaving the hatch open so Eddie could come and go as he pleased. Amanda kept me informed from New York by telephone, but as predicted, there was no significant news to report.

  The same was true of Sullivan and Fenton. Another two days scouring the neighborhood turned up nothing either in suspects or productive information. We were entering the long slog phase; that was certain. But both men seemed up for it, eager even, so that was encouraging.

  On the third day, I went over to Amanda’s and got back on her computer so I could look at the ill-gotten file on confidential informants. I’d been focused entirely on our local snitches, but Jackie and Randall had swiped the entire state file, so I wanted to see what might be there on The Greek, Bennie Gardella.

  There wasn’t much. In fact, no mention at all of his undercover work, not surprising. Success in that arena, which included survival, was highly dependent on secrecy. It was likely the only people who knew what he actually did were Ross and the DA, Edith Madison’s counterpart in the city.

  I pulled out the flash drive and went on the Internet so I could look at the Southampton Town Police website. That’s where I learned that Detective Gardella had transferred to Southampton Town Police as Sergeant Gardella to oversee suspect processing and record keeping.

  I called Jackie and asked her if she could find out where Gardella lived.

  “You know the Internet has all sorts of ways to find people,” she said. “It’s not that hard.”

  “I know. I just pick up the phone and call you, and bingo.”

  To keep her company while she looked, I told her about my conversation with Dete
ctive Fenton about Bennie Gardella, and Ross and Gardella’s time undercover. Also what Mustafa told me Joey Wentworth told him. To watch out for Greeks.

  “So you think there’s a connection?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Joey’s mother hadn’t heard anything about it.”

  Then I told her about the conversation with the Wentworths in their big Upper East Side apartment.

  “I actually met them at Burton’s,” she said. “They’re okay, if you don’t mind Jack’s bitchy insinuations and the iron pole up Sally’s ass.”

  “Who would?”

  “I never heard them talk about their son Joey. I guess they were pretty embarrassed by him.”

  I realized she’d done a better job understanding the Wentworths’ underlying state of mind. Regret and disappointment, sure. But for people in their world, it was mostly embarrassment, a far stronger emotion.

  “A. Benedict Gardella, in Hampton Bays. I’m guessing that’s the guy,” said Jackie.

  “Sounds like it.”

  “I don’t know if knocking on his door would be such a good idea,” she said.

  “I could send a calling card. See if he wants to have tea.”

  “If he’s in Hampton Bays, maybe he goes to Sonny’s.”

  Sonny’s was a boxing gym up in the Pine Barrens north of Hampton Bays, not far from Southampton Town Police HQ. It was popular with cops, firemen, and ex-military living in the area, people who wanted a good workout without enduring the spandex and self-love of the gyms favored by people from the city. I’d been going to Sonny’s ever since moving back to Southampton for all the same reasons. And as one of the few guys there who actually had a professional boxing career, however brief, I was often dragged into ad hoc training sessions delivered ringside during sparring matches.

  I’d never seen Gardella there, but I usually went after work and he might have favored early morning.

  “That’s thinkin’,” I said to Jackie.

  “I do have a good thought once in a while.”

  “You’re always thinking. Maybe that’s your problem.”

  “Who said I have a problem?”

  “I don’t know. Think about it.”

  SONNY’S WAS owned and run by a retired Town cop named Ronny, one of the central mysteries of the place. Ronny had a small face in the middle of a big head with the type of fleshy neck that flowed seamlessly into his shoulders. He wore thick glasses on his florid face and had a giant potbelly. In short, the person who looked in most need of Ronny’s establishment was Ronny himself.

  I found him in his office, where he spent most of his time, doing what I don’t know. How much office work would it take to run a boxing gym in the woods that never advertised and charged a flat fee of fifty bucks a month?

  “Hey, Sam,” he said. “What do you say?”

  “Not much that’s worth saying.”

  “I heard about your daughter. Truly sucks.”

  News travels fast in cop land. Worse gossips than hairdressers.

  “Thanks, Ronny. We’re working on it.”

  “I heard Sullivan’s in the city as we speak, on personal time.”

  “Yeah. Hope that doesn’t cause a crime wave in Southampton.”

  He thought that was funny. Ronny liked to laugh. But then he got serious again.

  “Then there’s the vet in the wheelchair,” he said. “How fucked up is that?”

  “His name was Alfie Aldergreen,” I said. “If you hear anything that might be useful, you can tell me. I’m in daily touch with Sullivan.”

  “Haven’t heard shit, but will do.”

  “Meanwhile do you ever see the new guy in Southampton, Bennie Gardella?”

  “Almost every day. He’s usually waiting for me to open up the place. What about him?”

  “I just want to chat about a few things. He doesn’t have to know that.”

  Ronny understood, trusting me not to do anything that would make him feel disloyal to a fellow cop. Even one from out of town.

  “He’s a quiet one, Gardella, just so you know. Keeps to himself. Power lifter on the free weights. Works the bag like he knows what he’s doing.”

  “Sound like your typical desk jockey?” I said.

  “That’s what I’ve been wondering, though I haven’t shared the thought with anyone.”

  I thanked him and he wished me luck with everything. I took the opportunity to change into my gym clothes and spend a little time on the bag myself. If you’ve ever done any of that, you know how mesmerizing and soothing the practice can be, once you get into the zone. It was one of the few ways I could get my mind to stop nattering at me over all the things I should be thinking about and all the things I shouldn’t, which was most of it.

  SO THE next morning I was waiting at the front door of Sonny’s with a giant cup of French Vanilla in my hand and cobwebs woven inside my brain. I don’t really have a problem with mornings, it’s more about what happens the night before. And before you start making assumptions, too much sleep is usually the bigger problem. Give me six hours and a pot of coffee and I’m right as rain.

  Bennie Gardella, on the other hand, looked like it was the middle of the day when he climbed out of a new Chevy Malibu wearing jeans, black T-shirt, and a lightweight nylon jacket you often saw on cops and punks from one of the families. His face might have been handsome to women who liked gaunt, angular features. He had all his hair, combed back Bobby Darin style, though it was mostly grey. He didn’t have to open his mouth for me to know what he sounded like, or what he thought about a variety of subjects. I knew the type completely, having hung around with them when I visited my father in the Bronx. He was me and I was him. At least on the outside.

  He saw where I was standing and walked right up to me.

  “Took you long enough,” he said.

  “To do what?”

  “You were here yesterday, talkin’ to Ronny. I figured you’d be here today.”

  “You know a lot,” I said.

  “I know you’re Sam Acquillo. Ross told me you’d be nosin’ around. I expected it sooner.”

  “I got distracted. Somebody beat up my daughter in the city. She’s just coming out of it.”

  “You know who did it? Oh, wait a minute. If you did, you’d already be in Rikers on a manslaughter charge. At best.”

  He stood just outside of my reach with his hands in the pockets of his windbreaker, his feet set apart in a ready stance. I stepped back far enough to lean against the outside wall of the gym, my hands in my jeans, awkward and vulnerable. His shoulders relaxed a little, but his eyes, light blue in a dark face, kept their stare.

  “I’m too old for that stuff,” I said. “And not that stupid.”

  “Those things go together.”

  “Why were you leaning on Joey Wentworth?” I asked.

  He worked his face into something like a smirk, or maybe a snarl, or maybe something in between.

  “First off, I’m a police officer who doesn’t respond to questions from civilians. Secondly, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. And third, I am the last person on earth you want to fuck with. I read your file. I know your shit. It doesn’t impress me. I knew we were going to have a conversation. Consider this the one and only time.”

  “So you’re not really here to work on Southampton’s record keeping. Too bad. Probably could’ve used some sprucing up.”

  He shoved by me and tried the door handle. It was locked. He looked around as if expecting Ronny to leap out from some hiding place.

  “Ross brought you in because something’s going down in his operation that he doesn’t trust anyone on the inside to deal with. You’re the go-to. The star player from the glory days.”

  Gardella just looked at me, enjoying his own silence, his own cocky defiance. I kept on anyway.

  “That’s good,” I said. “Maybe you’ll be some help. Just don’t get in the way. It’s hard enough without some flatfoot cop gumming up the works.”

  He gave
his head a little shake, as if trying to clear his ears. As if he wasn’t sure he just heard what he heard.

  “Don’t push it, Acquillo.”

  “Push what? Alfie Aldergreen was probably killed for being a snitch. Like Joey Wentworth. They knew each other. Buddies, even. Did you know that?”

  “Not my jurisdiction. I’m in record keeping.”

  Ronny pulled up, in a Japanese roadster that rocked a little when he got out, keys in hand. He opened the door to the gym and I watched Gardella go in, but I didn’t bother to go in myself. I had what I wanted. For now.

  LIONEL VECKSTROM stood between the big white columns on the steps of Southampton Town Hall when he formally announced his candidacy for district attorney of Suffolk County. He made the case that only an experienced police detective really knew the dark inner workings of the DA’s office, yet only an outsider, politically, would be able to effect the drastic reforms he believed were required. He also managed to cite his law degree and five years working for the DA in Manhattan, something I hadn’t known, as further credentials in support of his candidacy.

  His wife, Lacey, stood at his side, reinforcing another credential, his ability to outspend the other candidate. She seemed ready and eager to jump millions into the fray.

  In a statement released to the media, Edith Madison responded by calling Veckstrom a distinguished police officer, an honorable servant of the people of Suffolk County, and a worthy opponent. Somewhere in the fine print she also proffered the hope that more people vote for her than her opponent so she could continue in the office she had effectively managed through a half-dozen terms.

  You wouldn’t exactly call it a barn-burner defense of her candidacy.

  I got to watch it all on TV at Burton’s house, where I met up with Jackie and her boyfriend, Harry Goodlander, for the occasion. Neither Amanda nor I had a TV, so it was a novel experience. What Burton had was more like a small movie screen in what’s known as a home theater, though his was barely distinguishable from the real thing. He’d built the room and installed all the equipment himself, so the motivation was more about projects than pretense, since Burton was the least pretentious super rich guy I knew.