Brooklyn Justice

by J. L. Abramo

  I had to take a cab home and I somehow managed to get aboard the houseboat without taking a dive into the Bay. I stumbled to the cabin, fell into the bed and slept like a drunken sailor. I woke up feeling like an old man. I drank a pot of coffee, took four aspirin and stood under the shower until the hot water ran out. And it was still before six in the morning. I called a taxi for a lift to fetch my car.

  “Where to?”

  “Cusimano and Russo.”

  “Let’s see, that’s West Sixth and...”

  “Avenue S.”

  “A little early for a funeral,” the cabbie said.

  “I hope so.”

  When I made it back to my place it was just after seven. Someone had tossed the houseboat. Another early riser. All the signs were plainly evident. Open drawers and closet in disarray, scattered papers and books, disturbed area rugs, the classic rifled medicine chest, the repositioned bed mattress.

  My Eli Manning doll leaned against the wall standing on its bobble-head.

  I didn’t make Freddy Fingers for the break-in. I thought he trusted my warning against trespassing. And when I found the cash-filled envelope sitting in the disordered top dresser drawer, I crossed Fingers off the suspect list entirely and ruled out a random burglary.

  Ferdinand Pugno was not a patient man. If I had to bet the farm, he had sent someone over to learn if I’d made any progress I wasn’t telling him about. It gave me an anxious feeling, as if I was working with a deadline and time was running out. Or, to put it less gently, like I was under the gun.

  It was clearly time to fish or cut bait.

  I walked over to the stove and opened the oven door. Maria’s drawing was sitting there exactly as I had left it.

  In spite of my feeling of urgency, I was still not in good shape for a fishing expedition.

  I crawled back into bed and slept until the phone woke me at ten.

  The caller was Ferdinand the Elder.

  “I’m taking my grandchildren for lunch at Nathan’s in Coney Island before going to the funeral home. You said you’d like to speak with the boy.”

  “What time?”

  “Half past eleven,” Pugno said.

  “I’ll see you there.”

  I could hardly wait.

  I jumped into the shower for the second time that morning and slipped into an appropriate outfit. I removed Maria’s drawing from the oven, folded it neatly and placed it into my inside jacket pocket. As an afterthought, I snatched the Eli Manning doll from the floor and dropped it into a Clemente’s Crab House take-out bag.

  I climbed into the Monte Carlo and drove to my office.

  From the office, it would be only a ten minute walk to my meeting with Ferdinand Pugno.

  Nathan’s Famous on Surf Avenue was established in 1916 and was open for business three hundred sixty-five days a year for ninety-six years before Hurricane Sandy forced the landmark to close its doors for the first time.

  The world renowned eatery reopened seven months later on Memorial Day, just in time for another hot dog summer.

  I saw Pugno and the grandkids as I was crossing West 15th Street.

  Then I spotted the big ape who usually stood sentry at the entrance to Pugno’s restaurant in Douglaston. He was covering “The Fist” like a glove. The thug eyed me up, down and sideways—but didn’t bother asking me what I had in the paper take-out bag.

  After exchanging polite greetings, I asked Pugno if I could speak with the boy alone.

  “Is it really necessary?”

  “Perhaps I can gently help him remember something useful, and I think the boy would be less inhibited out of the presence of you and your associate. Maybe you and his mother were right—the boy is confused and imaginative and there’s nothing here. But, if there is even the slightest possibility he can tell me something that could help identify the man who murdered your son, it’s worth a try.”

  I have to say it was an impressive sales pitch.

  And the old man bought it.

  “Joey, this is my good friend, Nick,” he said to the boy. “Nick would like to speak to you. It will be okay to take a little walk with him.”

  Joey looked at me and I put on a goofy smile.

  “We can check out the seagulls,” I said.

  “Don’t stray too far,” Pugno said, as we started toward the Boardwalk.

  “Do you like football?” I asked the kid as we walked.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have a favorite team?”

  “Giants.”

  “Well then, I think you’ll like this,” I said.

  I pulled the Eli Manning bobble-head out of the paper bag and offered it to Joey. For a moment I thought he was afraid to accept it, but after a ten count he took it from my hand.

  “Wow,” he said.

  I took a quick look back toward Surf Avenue. I was not surprised to see Pugno, his man and his granddaughter following a few hundred feet behind us. I hoped they would keep their distance for a while. The boy walked with me to a bench on the Boardwalk. The doll in his grip was nodding with approval.

  When we sat side by side on the bench, John Sullivan’s Brooklyn Tony story popped into my head. I chased it away.

  I took Maria’s composite drawing from my jacket pocket and carefully unfolded it. I hoped showing it to the boy wouldn’t start him screaming.

  Joey was holding the doll in both hands, looking at it and smiling as if it was Christmas morning. It was very sad in a way. The bad guys often tried to excuse their criminal behavior in the name of their children, a means of giving their kids a better life than they had. But if Ferdinand Pugno had taught his son Carmine how to hit a baseball instead of how to use a gun, this boy’s father could be walking with him on the beach—not lying in a box.

  “Joey.”

  “Yes?”

  “Have you ever seen this man?” I asked, holding the drawing in one hand while crossing my fingers on the other.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know his name?”

  “No.”

  “Can you remember where you saw him?”

  “On TV.”

  “You saw this man on television?”

  “Yes.”

  “What was he doing on TV?”

  “Reading a book. Black Beauty. It’s about a horse.”

  I refolded the drawing and slipped it into my jacket just as Pugno and the others had come up to the Boardwalk and were approaching the bench.

  “Come, Joey,” Pugno said. “We need to go. What do you have there?”

  Joey proudly held up his prize.

  “That’s very nice,” Pugno said, but he looked at it as if he thought it was a cheap hunk of plastic.

  The little girl was a few years younger than her brother. I felt bad I had nothing for her.

  “I’ll bring something for you next time, sweetheart,” I said lamely.

  She ignored me.

  Ferdinand’s man took both children by the hand, one on each side, and walked ahead toward Surf Avenue. Pugno and I followed behind. The picture of the kids holding onto the big guy’s paws was kind of sweet. The children looked like they were trying to hold down a Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon.

  “So?” Pugno said, jogging me from my distractions.

  “You and your daughter-in-law were correct. The boy didn’t really see anything that will help.”

  “And was that the only hope you had?”

  “No. As I said last evening, I have a few leads I’m following but nothing is definite yet. I could run through the unfinished story now, if you have the time. It would take a while.”

  “I don’t have the time now. We are already running late. But I expect to know what you have, incomplete or not, by the end of the day.”

  That Pugno had no time at the moment was precisely what I wanted to hear. The declaration that he was demanding a full report later in the day was exactly what I feared.

  “You will,” I said.

  Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

&nbs
p; We parted at Surf Avenue and I headed toward the office.

  Before I made it back, Roseanna Napoli rang my cell phone.

  “I have a few hours between classes, are you free for lunch?”

  “Sure. Come to my office, I’ll pick up a pizza from downstairs.”

  “Sausage, mushrooms and black olives—hold the anchovies. I’ll bring the beer.”

  “Are you allowed to drink between classes?”

  “I’ll be discussing Hemingway this afternoon. It will be appropriate. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  Minutes after I had dropped the pizza box on my desk, Roseanna walked in with a six-pack of Stella Artois. We sat at opposite sides of the large pie on matching chairs that had once graced my grandparents’ dining room. Roseanna popped the caps off two beers with a bottle opener she kept on her key chain. I was becoming more and more enamored of her qualities every time we met.

  Roseanna usually asked me what I’d been up to and how it was going, only because she really cared. But her intuition, or my demeanor, made her skip the subject. Instead we talked about music, Classical and hard rock. And dove into the pizza. Finally she begged me to take it away before she ate it all. I picked it up and moved it to the top of an empty file cabinet. When I came back to my seat, Roseanna was looking at the composite drawing that had been sitting out of sight under the pizza box.

  “This is very good,” she said. “Who did it?”

  “Carmella’s niece, Maria.”

  “What’s it for?”

  “It’s someone I need to find and talk to.”

  “It’s an amazing likeness.”

  “Likeness?”

  “I know him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I know him. He’s a colleague.”

  “A colleague?”

  “Someone I work with. His name is James Simon, an adjunct instructor at Kingsborough. James teaches a class in Young Adult Fiction, two evenings a week. He reads books for kids on Public Television every few weeks.”

  I was astounded.

  “Which evenings is he at the college?”

  “Mondays and Thursdays.”

  “Is today Thursday?” I asked. I truly couldn’t remember.

  “It is.”

  “What time today?”

  “His class runs from five to six-thirty, but you won’t be able to catch him before. He literally races to the college from his day job teaching English at Fort Hamilton High School. I’m afraid you will have to stay after class. Nick, is this something you would like to tell me about?”

  “Not yet.”

  Roseanna understood and she dropped it.

  We shared one more Stella before she had to run back to the college.

  “Thanks for lunch.”

  “Thanks for the beer.”

  “I’ll find out where Simon’s class is being held and let you know.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Maybe I’ll run into you later,” she said.

  And she skipped out of the office.

  There it was. Once again. A case solved through pure luck.

  Only I didn’t know in this case if it was good luck or bad luck.

  Over the course of three days I had been trying to answer a question.

  Who killed Carmine Pugno?

  Was it a member of a rival “family” wanting to move in on his territory, an unfulfilled or overly ambitious member of his own organization looking to take over, a cop or prosecutor tired of waiting for the legal system to catch up with him? I had envisioned suspects of all types and affiliations who may have had what they considered excellent reasons to put a gun to Carmine Pugno’s head and blow his brains out.

  I had come up with countless possible answers to the question.

  But a high school English teacher was not one of them.

  I saw James Simon as he followed the last student out of the classroom. There was no mistaking him for anyone but the person channeled from Jack Valenti’s memory to Maria Leone’s colored pencils.

  I pulled the drawing from my pocket and unfolded it. It was beginning to show signs of wear. I stopped Simon in the hall when there was no one else nearby.

  “Mr. Simon.”

  “Yes?” he said turning to me.

  I held up the drawing.

  “I have a witness who is certain this is the man who shot Carmine Pugno Sunday evening.”

  Simon did not seem surprised. He looked as if he had been waiting for someone to finally show up.

  “It’s a very good likeness. Are you here to arrest me or to kill me?”

  “Neither. I’m here to speak to you. I can’t help you in any way unless you agree to talk with me.”

  “Why would you want to help me?”

  “That’s what I want to find out.”

  “We can’t talk here.”

  “Do you like boats?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Do you know Clemente’s on Emmons Avenue?”

  “Yes.”

  “Follow me to Clemente’s parking lot and we can go from there.”

  “Sure.”

  “And, James, please don’t stand me up. I’m sticking my neck out, and I like my head where it is.”

  “I’ll call my wife to tell her I’ll be late. I’ll be there.”

  We headed for our cars. He hadn’t asked my name. I suppose if he had decided to trust me, names didn’t matter.

  Simon arrived a few minutes after I did. I led him to the dock and onto the houseboat.

  “You live here?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “This is different.”

  “Yes, it is. Care for a drink?”

  “Bourbon?”

  “Good guess. Sit. The green plastic chairs are as uncomfortable as they look. But believe me, we don’t want to be competing for air in the cabin. I’ll be right back.”

  I carried a pair of iced glasses and a bottle to the matching green plastic table and took a seat.

  “Before I say anything else,” I began. “I need to know why you murdered Carmine Pugno.”

  “He killed my eight-year-old son in front of my eyes.”

  I was nearly speechless, but did manage two words.

  “What happened?”

  “Jimmy was coming from a neighbor’s house on the opposite side of the street. I was waiting for him on our porch. He was always very careful, looking both ways before crossing. Just as Jimmy stepped into the street, an Escalade came screeching around the corner doing at least fifty miles an hour and hit him. I rushed to my son. The driver stopped for a moment, and then he raced away. It was Carmine Pugno.”

  “You’re sure it was Pugno?”

  “Positive. I was only a few feet from where he stopped. He looked right at me. And I got his license plate number.”

  “So, you didn’t consider it an accident.”

  “It was vehicular homicide at an unlawful speed and leaving the scene. That’s a crime.”

  “And?”

  “And he went unpunished, not even a fine.”

  “How did that happen?”

  “Pugno claimed the car had been stolen and he wasn’t there. He had witnesses testify he was playing poker when it happened and had discovered the vehicle was missing afterwards. The Escalade was found abandoned in Brownsville the following day. I was the only witness at the scene, and it was the same old defense argument. It was night time, it was dark, how could you be certain? The District Attorney decided there was not enough evidence to get an indictment and it never went to trial. I pleaded with an Assistant District Attorney. He assured me Pugno would eventually get his just rewards. He told me they had been building a case against him for more than a year, hoping to take him down for more serious crimes. Carmine Pugno recklessly took our son from us and ran away like a coward. I guess that wasn’t serious enough.”

  “I’m very sorry,” I said.

  “A lot of people told me they were sorry, and a lot of people did nothing to make it right.”r />
  “So you decided an eye for an eye.”

  “If I was strictly Old Testament, I would have sacrificed his eight-year-old son. I could never do something like that. Children shouldn’t have to pay for the sins of their fathers. But Pugno needed to pay for his own, and no one else seemed willing to call in payment. And there it is, so what now?”

  I poured more bourbon into our glasses.

  “I’m in a very tough spot, Mr. Simon. I was asked by Ferdinand Pugno if I would help him find out who killed his son. He was very clear about what he expected my answer would be, and about his confidence in my ability to get results. He will be very unhappy if I come up empty, and Pugno is the last person I care to disappoint.”

  “What will you do?”

  “I’m not sure. What I won’t do is give you up to Ferdinand Pugno. There would be no reprieve, no consideration of special circumstances. Your family would be arranging for another funeral.”

  “And what about Pugno’s disappointment?”

  “I’ll have to deal with it—my penance for not saying no in the first place.”

  “That’s a lot to ask of you.”

  “You didn’t ask. I made my own bed. However, as much as I hate to sound like I’m whining, there is the question of the police. I’m withholding information relevant to a criminal investigation, which in itself is a crime.”

  “That may be too much to ask.”

  “Look, James, I’m not going to throw you to the dogs. Whether or not I agree with your choice of justice—I understand it. I may have done the same.”

  Sitting on the deck of the houseboat was a sober reminder that I had done the same when I found Tom Romano’s murderer.

  “I’ll deal with Carmine’s old man and I’ll let the cops do their own homework. So,” I said, pulling Maria’s fine artwork from my jacket for the last time, “unless you want this for a souvenir, it’s going into the shredder.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “Where it goes from here is entirely up to you. Do you have any other children?”

  “A girl, just turned six, and a four-year-old boy.”

  “Finish your drink, James, and go home to your wife and kids.”