by J. L. Abramo
“If I was interested in seeing you violate your parole, Jack, I could have dropped a dime on you months ago.”
The not very gentle reminder that perhaps Jack might owe me one—a valuable tool of the trade.
“Is this off the record?”
“I’m an old friend who needs some help, not a reporter for The Post—and my office is too small to keep records.”
“I’m on my way in to work last night and I spot the guy in the shadows in front of the eyeglass place next door. I look up at him and he’s staring right back at me. He points a gun at my chest, puts his hand up for me to stop, and then holds a finger to his lips. I froze where I stood and didn’t make a sound. A minute later Pugno comes out of the restaurant with his family, puts them in the car, and before he can get in on the other side this guy steps out and puts one into the back of Pugno’s head. He walks right past me toward Sixty-Eighth Street and he’s gone. I considered myself extremely lucky, and when the cops started asking questions I decided I wanted to stay that way.”
“So, what didn’t you tell them?”
“The guy was white. I mean just this side of—what do you call it?”
“Albino?”
“Right. But he wasn’t, he just had a very pale complexion and hair the color of French’s mustard.”
“The other witnesses said he was wearing a hat.”
“He wasn’t wearing it when he stopped me. He pulled it out of his jacket and put it on when he heard Pugno come out of the restaurant.”
“Anything else?”
“Rimless glasses. And a small scar on the right side of his chin. That’s all I can tell you, and here comes our food,” Valenti said. “I would have taken a snapshot with my cell phone camera but thought better of it.”
Jack was telling me he had no more to say—but the way he had said it gave me an idea.
“Can you do one more favor?” I asked.
“What’s that?”
“I’d like to put you with a sketch artist, see if your description can help her put something on paper that might be the next best thing to a snapshot.”
“Sure,” he said, and dove into the ribs.
I took his phone number.
We cleaned our plates and walked out to the sidewalk.
“Can I drop you somewhere, Jack?”
“I’ll walk home. Try to relax awhile before going back there to work. I’m still stunned. I never saw anyone’s head explode that way except in movies.”
“I appreciate your help.”
“Let’s just call us even.”
“Sure.”
“And, Nick,” he said, as I turned toward my car.
“Yes?”
“Watch your back.”
Warnings were becoming all the rage that day. And it was still early.
When Maria Leone wasn’t working on her Master’s Degree at the John Jay School of Criminal Justice, she was helping her Aunt Carmella manage the pizza business. Occasionally, Maria assisted me on cases for some hands-on cops-and-robbers experience and nearly enough cash to purchase a textbook. I knew Maria was scheduled to work with Carmella that day, so when I climbed into the Monte Carlo I called her at the pizzeria.
“Hey, Nick. Calling about a pizza?”
“I’m calling about your Composite Drawing class. How is it going?”
“It already went. I pulled an A.”
“I have friend who gave me a fairly detailed description of someone I would like to find. I could use a picture.”
“I can do that.”
“Great. If I give you his number can you set it up as soon as possible?”
“Sure.”
I gave her Jack Valenti’s phone number, and asked her to let me know as soon as she had sketched a face Jack could say he recognized.
There was not much more I could do for the moment.
I would have liked to talk to Carmine Pugno’s son, but Sullivan said it would be easier to see the Pope.
I decided to head home rather than back to my office, to think it all out or take a nap or both.
And do something with the thousand in cash I had been carrying around all day.
When I reached the houseboat, I considered calling Ferdinand Pugno—just to let “The Fist” know I was still on the job. Instead, I brought the bottle of Knob’s Creek back out onto the deck along with a large glass of ice and a fresh pack of Camel non-filtered cigarettes and I settled into my twenty buck K-Mart beach chaise lounge.
I must have slept for hours. When I opened my eyes the sun was already beginning to sink into the other ocean. When I saw him sitting on the green plastic chair beside me, I hoped I was still asleep in the middle of a nightmare.
When he said: Good to see you, Nick, I feared all hope was gone.
Freddy Fingers was the last person on earth I wanted to be seen by.
The last time I had seen Freddy, I had left him on his back in his Atlantic City apartment with a broken jaw.
My initial impulse was to whack him in the head with the bourbon bottle and toss him overboard.
Sometimes my self-restraint amazes me.
“What are you doing here?”
“I came up from AC as soon as I heard about my brother.”
“I mean what the fuck are you doing here on my boat?”
“I thought you could use some help finding Carmine’s killer.”
“And what makes you think I’m looking for Carmine’s killer?”
“I put two and two together when my father sent me down here last night with an envelope full of cash.”
If Freddy Fingers could put two and two together, he never showed it at a poker table.
“I’m shocked you didn’t pocket the envelope.”
“I thought about it—but I’m trying to work myself back into my father’s good graces. I’m the only son he has left.”
“I’ll bet he has more confidence in his eight-year-old grandson. And I have no confidence in you at all. Your father insisted on discretion, what if someone followed you here?”
“Why would anyone be following me?”
“Why would anyone want to kill your brother?”
He had no smart answer.
“I don’t need or want your help, and trespassing on private property could get you shot. So stay out of my way.”
“You’re not being very friendly, Nick.”
“Beat it.”
Freddy Fingers rose from the chair, left the boat, walked off the dock and disappeared into Clemente’s parking lot. I took another drink and wished again it was only a bad dream. But I knew it was just bad news.
Not long after Freddy abandoned ship, Maria called.
“Jack Valenti came out to the pizzeria before going to his job. We worked up a composite of your man. Jack said it was a masterpiece. We’re closing up. But if you can get here in thirty minutes I can have it framed for you.”
“I’m on my way.”
I splashed water over my face, swallowed a few extra-strength Excedrin and headed out for Coney Island.
Twenty minutes later I had the drawing in my hand.
It was a masterpiece—in full color. I doubted Jack’s cell phone camera could have done much better.
I thanked Maria, promised her a textbook and dinner at a restaurant of her choice. I left her to her closing duties.
Back in the Monte Carlo I looked at the drawing again. I now had a photograph quality composite of Carmine Pugno’s assassin. The problem now was deciding who I could trust to show it to.
I chose to ignore the question until morning. Instead, I phoned Roseanna Napoli to see if she was home and free.
Roseanna told me to run right over.
I slept very well.
In the morning Roseanna chased me out at seven, needing to get ready for her first class at Kingsborough Community College where she taught American Literature.
“I’m on the air tonight, don’t forget to tune in,” Roseanna said with a peck on the check and a push toward t
he door. “I’ll play your favorite.”
Since she moonlighted at a Classical radio station I guessed she was referring to Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, not Led Zeppelin’s “Black Dog.”
My stomach was asking if my throat was cut. All I had eaten since lunch at Island Burger the day before was a slice of cold sausage pizza when I picked up the drawing from Maria. Since breakfast is said to be the most significant meal of the day, I thought I would afford it the importance it deserved.
I headed to the Benchmark Restaurant in Park Slope for steak and eggs. Twenty-five bucks worth. I was feeling flush with a thousand dollars stuffed into my sock drawer.
After satisfying my nutritional requirements, I was ready to attend to my mental needs. I was sitting on a composite drawing which could well identify the man who murdered Carmine Pugno—and had no clue where to go with it. It was like having a key and not knowing where the door was. I had several ideas about how to go forward, but I wasn’t crazy about any of them. There was only one person I could think of who might help me sort it out, while giving me enough room to dance around the specifics. I called John Sullivan. He said we could speak privately in his office at ten.
John’s partner was testifying in court, so we had their small shared office space to ourselves.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“I need advice.”
“Let me guess. Is it about how to handle information you may discover in your investigation?”
Either Sullivan was an exceptional guesser, or he could read me like a children’s book. I was thinking both.
“Exactly. Can we talk off the record?”
“We are sitting in an NYPD precinct. There is no off the record here.”
“Are you saying we need to talk somewhere else?”
“I’m saying you need to speak hypothetically, and you need to be very careful doing it.”
“Got it.”
“Good, so what’s up?”
“What if I had information that could possibly ID the man who killed Carmine Pugno, and I gave it to Reagan and Ames at the six-two?”
“I think you know the legal process well enough but since you ask, and since I love the sound of my own voice, I’ll give you the no frills answer. If there is enough evidence to arrest him, there would be an arrest. If there is enough to charge him with some degree of homicide, it would go to a grand jury. If there is enough to compel a grand jury to indict, it would go to trial. The defendant would have the right to an attorney, and the unpredictability of what we call the justice system will finally be played out in the courtroom. And, if found guilty, the convicted felon would be sentenced to punishment in accordance with the specific charges.”
“What if I didn’t give it to Reagan and Ames?”
“Then you’d be guilty of withholding evidence in a police investigation, as would your informant and as would anyone you may have confided in if they also withheld the information—including officers of the law.”
“What if I gave it to my client?”
“Then there would be no trial and no less than capital punishment.”
“I need to know this hypothetical guy’s reason for killing Carmine before giving him up to Ferdinand Pugno for a death sentence.”
“There you go. You really didn’t need any advice. Trust your own counsel, Nick,” John Sullivan said, “I couldn’t advise you any better.”
I left the precinct and I telephoned the Funeral Home from my car.
Viewing hours for Carmine Pugno’s wake would begin at two in the afternoon.
I decided I would be there to pay my respects.
Cusimano and Russo Funeral Home sat at the corner of Avenue S and West 6th Street in Gravesend. I had been there more times than I cared to remember—from the time my grandfather passed away when I was six, to the time Tom Romano was murdered less than a year before Carmine Pugno was the main attraction. When I walked in the place was packed.
I immediately spotted two men in the back of the viewing room who were definitely cops. I guessed Reagan and Ames, making an appearance to give the impression they were interested in who whacked a criminal they had probably been trying to nail for years.
I walked up to the visitor’s book to sign in. I scanned the names. The guest list could have been published as Who’s Who in Organized Crime. There were many from inside the Pugno family. And many from rival families—there to pretend they were sorry to see Carmine in an oak box.
Any one of them could have been involved in Carmine Pugno’s death.
It didn’t take corn-colored hair and a scar on the chin to be guilty of conspiracy.
Ferdinand Pugno, his wife, and Carmine’s wife sat in the first row of chairs on the left side of the center aisle. I didn’t see Carmine’s children.
Freddy Fingers sat on the opposite side of the aisle, looking like an unpopular in-law.
The photograph on the front page of the Daily News illustrated that Carmine Pugno had been a very handsome man. Obviously the mortician had met an impossible challenge. The casket in front of the room was closed.
I walked down the center aisle and knelt at the casket for a minute. I briefly expressed my regrets to Carmine’s father, mother and wife as I crossed to the aisle along the left wall. I took a seat near the back of the room, waiting to see which Ferdinand would get to me first.
As it turned out, it was Ferdinand Senior. He invited me to follow him out to the lobby and led me into a small sitting room reserved for members of the immediate family. I can’t say it made me feel special.
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Ventura.”
I almost said I wouldn’t miss it.
“I felt I should be here,” is what I said.
“Have you made any progress?”
Pugno was not one to beat around the bush.
I, on the other hand, could skip around a bush for hours.
“I didn’t notice Carmine’s children,” I said.
It took him a moment to respond to the blatant non-sequitur.
“They are with their aunt, Susan’s sister. They are both very distressed, as you might imagine. We felt it would be best not to bring them down here quite yet.”
I guessed Susan was Carmine’s widow.
“Are you aware your grandson told detectives he thought he may have seen the man who shot your son somewhere before?”
“I’ve heard that, and I am impressed you learned of it also. It indicates you are taking your investigation seriously. However, I spoke with the boy this morning and I agree with Susan. The boy is very confused and perhaps overly imaginative.”
Sounded familiar.
“Would it be at all possible for me to talk with the boy?”
“Is it important?”
“It might be.”
“I will talk to my daughter-in-law,” he said, and then, to remind me I had dodged his initial question, he added, “Have you made any progress?”
“I have a few leads I’m following. I’ll know more tomorrow.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“I think it would be better not to bother you with details until I’m more confident I’m barking up the right tree. There’s no sense in either of us jumping to conclusions that may turn out to have no bearing on the business at hand.”
A mouthful of nonsense—but Pugno let me slide for the moment.
“I look forward to hearing more tomorrow,” he said. “I need to get back to my family. Thank you again for coming.”
“Please let me know if I can talk with your grandson.”
“I will.”
With that, Pugno returned to the viewing room and I walked out onto Avenue S to smoke a cigarette.
And that is where Freddy Fingers found me.
“I asked you to stay away from me.”
“I can help you, Nick.”
I disliked him most when he said my name.
“Considering the way you helped me down in Atlantic City last summer,” I said. “No thanks. And
if you insist on torturing me, let’s walk away. I’d rather not be seen with you.”
Freddy followed me up the avenue to 5th Street, and up 5th toward Avenue T. Talking all the while.
“My father asked me to take over for my brother for the time being. At least until he’s sure it was not one of Carmine’s own men who killed him or had him killed. My father can’t step in himself and he’s not sure who he can trust.”
“Kind of like an interim coach.”
“Yes.”
“And why would he trust you, Freddy? You’re a total fuckup.”
“I’m his son. He doesn’t want the business to slip away from the family.”
“And he thinks you can hold on to it? Carmine’s death must have really rocked him, he’s not thinking straight. But then, who am I to say? I don’t know any more about running a large criminal organization than you do.”
“I don’t agree with your assessment of my abilities. In any case, it will put me in a position to learn who in Carmine’s camp thinks what about his death—and that could help both of us earn points with my father.”
“Or get both of us killed. I don’t know about you, but the next time I’m here I don’t want to be the one in the box. Don’t try to impress your father by making him have to pay for another funeral. And don’t try to help me. Please. Because I’m warning you, Freddy—if you let the word slip that I’m looking into your brother’s murder, and you put my life in jeopardy again, you are going to mysteriously disappear. Forever.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Absolutely. Don’t fuck with me.”
A few porch lights came alive on 5th Street.
They might have heard me yelling in Brooklyn Heights.
“Okay, calm down. I won’t say anything to anyone. I’ll just keep my ear to the ground and let you know if anything comes up.”
“Don’t. I don’t want to hear from you and I don’t want to see you. Stay away from me, I won’t tell you a third time.”
The look in my eyes finally convinced him. Freddy turned and started walking back toward the funeral parlor.
I walked all the way up to Avenue U and out to McDonald Avenue to blow off steam and landed in the Cave Lounge knocking down scotch after scotch.
