by Black Alley
“Why won’t they tell me anything?”
“Maybe they haven’t finished their tests yet.”
“Baloney, Mike. They gave me something in the IV and I can’t feel anything anymore.” Now his eyes had an anguished look. “You know where I got . . . shot, don’t you?”
“Pat told me,” I said.
“Don’t lie to me . . . how bad . . . is it?”
“Bad,” I told him. There was no sense holding back. He could see it in my face.
“Tell me.”
“Three hollow point slugs took you down.”
“Tore me apart, didn’t it?”
Once again, all I could do was nod.
“Why didn’t they tell me that?”
“Because they’re doctors. They have hope.”
“They’re not here . . . now.”
“You’re supposed to be resting.”
“Come off it, Mike. I’m supposed to be . . . dying. I can feel it coming on, so don’t give me any crap. I got no insides left anymore. My guts are gone, right?”
“Right,” I said.
“How much time, Mike.” It wasn’t a question. He wasn’t asking for words of hope or consolation. He had some bigger purpose in mind.
I said, “Any minute, kiddo. You’re close. They probably think it’s better if you just drifted off alone. It won’t hurt.”
His smile was brief and there was a small glow of relief on his face. “Listen to me,” he said. “What would you do . . . if you had . . . eighty-nine billion dollars?”
“Buy a new car,” I told him.
“I said . . . eighty-nine billion, Mike.”
Facetious words that started to come out stopped at my lips. His eyes were clear now and stared hard into mine. There was that strange expression on his face too. And he was dying. There was no doubt about that at all. What he said now wouldn’t be a lie.
Softly, I said, “Only a government has that kind of money, Dooley.”
He didn’t argue about it. “That’s right,” he agreed. “It’s a government, all right. It’s got people and taxes and soldiers and more money than anyone . . . can imagine. But nobody sees it and they . . . don’t want to be seen.”
When I scowled at him he knew I had gotten the message. Only his eyes smiled back until the pain started showing. It was the diluted agony of a medicated death. He didn’t want me to speak because he had more to say and no time to say it in. “They left eighty-nine billion, Mike. Billion, you know? I know where it is. They don’t.” Before I could speak I saw the spark begin to go out.
His voice was suddenly soft. It had the muted quality of great importance and I leaned forward to hear him better. He said, “You can . . . find out . . . where it is.” His eyes never closed. They just quietly got dead.
Pat was waiting for me in the lobby. I didn’t have to tell him Dooley was gone. It was written all over my face. The half-healed wounds in my side had a new ache to them, the flesh being drawn tight from the tension of watching while an old buddy died. When I thought of what he had told me a creeping river of pain seemed to flow from my body to my brain and I stopped, holding on to the back of a chair.
Pat said, “You all right?”
“No problems,” I lied. “Too much walking.”
“Baloney. Sit down.”
I took a seat beside him and forced some controlled breaths. A couple of minutes later I felt myself going back to normal.
Pat knew when it happened. “Was it bad?”
I nodded. “He was hurting. Damn, he was really hurting.” I turned my head and looked at him hard. “How’d he get it, Pat?”
“How come you never asked before?”
“I didn’t know if I could take it or not. I had just been down that road myself.”
“Now you’re okay?”
“I’m fine, Pat.”
“Okay. He was home alone. He had come in from a solo supper a little after nine o’clock, apparently read the paper and made out four monthly bills. He was on his fifth and last when he died. There were no powder burns on his body, so it wasn’t a close-up shot. The impacts knocked him right out of his chair. When he went down he took the phone with him accidentally. The receiver was off the hook, but the base was right beside his hand and he dialed 911 and managed to tell the operator he was shot. They traced the call and got him to the hospital. He was unconscious until a few hours before you got here. The doctors didn’t want him to have any visitors.”
“He recognize who shot him?”
“Apparently not. It was an easy hit, though. The door was unlocked. Someone just gave it a shove, opened it enough to see Dooley sitting there about fifteen feet away and pumped three slugs into him from a .357. The perp had plenty of time to get away clean and so far no witnesses have come forward with any information.”
“Any trace on the slugs?”
“No. Just about any gun shop carries them.”
“What did the lab technicians come up with?”
“Nothing. The shooter never set foot in the room. There was powder residue on the door jamb and the edge of the door itself, so it was pretty apparent how it was done.”
“What’s your opinion, Pat?”
His eyes drooped a moment in thought, then: “Considering the background, somebody was very lucky. He tell you who he worked for?”
“Yeah,” I said, “he told me. Lorenzo Ponti was his boss, but his work wasn’t inside the mob. He was—”
“I know,” Pat cut in. “He was a field hand, a handyman on Ponti’s estate. We checked out his social security records first thing and it was all down there. He tell you that?”
“That’s right.” I didn’t add to it. Not yet, anyway. Dooley’s last words were meant for me alone. If he had wanted us both to know he would have said so.
“But he said more, didn’t he?” Pat stated deliberately.
Again, I nodded. “He told me there was trouble in the ranks.”
“There’s always trouble there.”
“Not like this. The trouble is fraternal, as if the kids were ganging up on the parents.”
“We know about that. Something’s been brewing for the last six years. There are still guys running the organization who have their feet in the wrong century. Now the younger ones want their share of the power.”
“Think they’ll get it, Pat?”
“Eventually. If they can’t force the issue they’ll finally inherit it.”
“How many of the old dons are dead or in retirement?”
“You read the papers, Mike. Not more than a handful are around. Some of them went down in odd ways, but old age can do that to a person. Besides, who cared if they kicked off or not?”
Pat let out a grunt and stretched his legs. “What have you got on your mind, Mike?”
“There was a motive for Dooley’s death, pal.” Pat’s nod was very solemn. “He was into a bookie for fifty-five hundred bucks.”
“Who?”
“Marty Diamond.”
“Nuts, Marty isn’t like that and you know it.”
“Word had it he used some loan sharks a couple of times.”
“A lot of people do. Nobody messed up Dooley so he probably paid off his debts.”
“He was murdered, Mike,” Pat reminded me, “so there was a motive. It could have been something he heard or something he saw, but it cost him his life.”
I wanted to tell Pat it could have been something he did, but I didn’t want to dig any holes in the playing field. Not yet, anyway. “So what’s your opinion?” I asked him.
“Well, you knew him as much as I did. He was an okay guy, but he lived with some strange company. Outside of being one hell of a soldier, he had no special talents. He never had command duties, but he was great in the field on special assignments. Now where does that get you in civilian life?”
“How much did he make working for Ponti?”
Pat screwed his face up and looked at me. “That was a big surprise. He made more than I do, but I can
see why. We had a look at Ponti’s work sheets and Dooley really kept his estates in order. He could hire guys to help him if he needed to, any supplies he needed he could order directly, his time was his own, and nobody ever complained about his work.”
“I guess he was cut out for more than we thought,” I said. “What did he do in New York?”
“Not much. Work was out on Long Island or upstate on the apple farm. Ponti had a couple of places in Jersey, but sold them some years ago. Ponti is one old don who likes his Sicilian feet down deep in the earth.” He paused, leaned back and gazed at the ceiling for a couple of seconds, then said, “What are you holding back, Mike?”
“What makes you think that?”
“Because you’re the only guy I know who always wears crepe rubber soles on his shoes. Nobody ever hears you walking. The original gumshoe, always sneaking up on somebody.”
“Not on you, pal.”
“Come on, you’ve been on top of some pretty big cases and I’ve always wondered how the hell you did it. You’ve gotten ahead of the local cops, the feds and a few other agencies—”
“Not all the time,” I interrupted.
“Enough to make me think about it.”
“I try not to get side-tracked, Pat. I only take one problem at a time.”
“Yeah, I know. You chew it to pieces until you can swallow it.” He gave me that stare again. “Then you shoot somebody,” he added.
I knew he was going to say that. He was right, too. And so far so was I. The courts had picked me apart and the press had a field day with me, but that was before I had my guts churned up by .357 slugs. The same kind that killed Dooley. But that was pure coincidence at this point. Magnum-style pistols were all over the streets these days and no matter how many laws were passed they were going to stay available to anybody who had the money for them.
“I’m not doing any more shooting, Pat. I can’t even carry a piece on that side anymore.”
He was going to say something, but stopped and gave me an odd, sideways look. It wasn’t what I said, but the way I said it. Finally, he accepted it and got to his feet. But it wasn’t an acceptance that lasted very long. He let out a laugh and ran his fingers through his hair. “Man, what a con artist you are,” he told me.
I grinned at him and got up myself.
“What’re you doing tomorrow, Mike?”
“I’ll be at the office. Why?”
“Maybe I’ll stop by. We need to do some talking. Sometimes I get to be like you and have one of those feelings that give me a chill.”
“Not you, Pat,” I said sarcastically.
“Yeah, me, and this is one of them. This time a dead man doesn’t put you against the world all by yourself. I’m involved in this too. It’s an open NYPD homicide, but there are some angles to it that put a color on it that isn’t in the spectrum.”
“Like what?” I demanded softly.
“Like you, pal,” he said, “like you. If I didn’t know you were still one of the walking wounded we’d be talking downtown, but you’re getting a break. I’ll see you tomorrow in your office. Now get your tail home and try sleeping. You’re going to need it. And tell Velda to cool it.”
An odd excitement was building in me as I walked toward my office door. The entire floor had been refurbished, pastel-painted and softened with a thick carpet. Nothing had chunks taken out of it and all the glass in the area was whole. My lease still had another year to run, but it wasn’t the kind of place I’d pick for the work I was in. The excitement wasn’t about the office at all. It was because Velda would be there.
I pushed open the door and there she was behind her desk, chin propped in her hands, watching me. I said, “Am I supposed to say good afternoon or kiss you?”
“You can do whatever you like.” I got that impish grin again.
“No, I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I’d get arrested,” I told her.
She gave me an insolent moue and pointed at my private quarters. “The arresting officer is in there.”
But I went over and kissed the top of her head before I went in. Pat Chambers was comfortably folded into my nice big office chair, his feet up on a half-opened desk drawer, drinking one of my cold Miller Lite beers like he owned the place.
“I hope that wasn’t the last one, Pat.”
“Velda slipped in two fresh six-packs. Some doll you got there, pal. Congratulations.”
“She told you?”
“Are you kidding?” Pat said. “All you have to do is look at her face.” He paused and shook his head. “Trouble is, the way she’s built it’s hard to get to her face.” He took another pull from the can and nodded at the small refrigerator. “Going to join me?”
“You might have found me,” I said, “but you didn’t pull my medical records. All that good stuff is just for looking at right now.”
“Why have you got it on ice?”
“It’s for the clients,” I told him.
“Oh. You going to tell me how you did with Dooley?”
I pulled a chair away from the wall and sat down.
“He practically died in my arms, Pat. Didn’t he have anybody else?”
“You know Dooley. He always was a loner. I wondered why he didn’t call for me.”
I let a few seconds pass, then: “You really want to know?”
He set the beer down on my blotter and squinted at me. “Sure I do!” he said. “Hell, after all we went through together you’d think—”
“Pat . . . Dooley thought you were too soft.”
“For what?”
“To do what has to be done,” I said.
I sat there and studied my friend. Pat Chambers, a captain in the homicide division. Still young, but almost of retirement age. Smart, streetwise, college educated, superbly trained in the nuances of detection. Tough, but not killing tough. His conscience was still finely honed and that’s what Dooley had meant. There was no way now that I could tell him what Dooley had told me.
Pat picked up the beer can and emptied it in two swallows. There was nothing else in the wastebasket under the desk so it made a clanking sound when it hit bottom. “He wanted you to nail the guy who shot him,” he said flatly.
“Something like that,” I replied.
“There’s a lot of street talk over who wiped out Azi Ponti, Mike. A witness saw you get shot, but you jerked back from the initial impact and caved in at the second. The witness never actually saw who killed Azi Ponti, so it could be assumed a random shot got him.”
“The bullet that killed him was never recovered?”
“Azi had no top of his head left and in that area there was little chance of recovering anything. It could have gone into the river or lodged in a building somewhere. Who knows?”
“I know,” I said.
“You know what?”
“I shot the punk. I took him out with one fat cap and ball .45.”
“That’s what I figured,” Pat told me, “but if I were you, I’d keep it to myself. Now tell me this . . . why were you there at all?”
I ran through all the details I had given Dr. Morgan when I had recovered enough to discuss the situation. Pat wanted to know about the snitch who had put me onto the Gaetano-Ponti rumble, but the old guy wasn’t important at all. He just happened to be in the right place to overhear something that wasn’t supposed to be overheard. He got shook up and passed it on to me.
Pat digested all that I told him then turned and stared at me. “It doesn’t matter, Mike. Both Ugo and his old man have picked you out as the shooter.”
“They picked well,” I said.
“They’re pretty damn potent enemies, buddy.”
“Nobody better,” I said.
“The old man can pull strings and call the shots, but Ugo is the bad one. In the time you’ve been out of it that punk has gone plain crazy.”
I was thinking of what Dooley had told me. “I can understand it,” I said.
Pat didn’t quite get
my meaning on that. He said, “You know what they call him, don’t you?”
“No,” I answered quizzically, “what?”
“Bulletproof Ponti.”
“Who calls him that, for Pete’s sake? I never heard that on the streets.”
Pat let out a short laugh. “It doesn’t come off the streets. It’s our guys who call him that. Twice we had shoot-outs with a perp identified as Ugo Ponti and the officers said they had direct hits on him but he didn’t go down.”
“Were these positive IDs?” I asked him.
“No. It was night, close to twelve both times, but the visibility was good.”
“What was going on, Pat?”
“All we can figure was a drug connection. We think Ugo was there to intercept somebody who wasn’t paying off and Ugo was the enforcer. His luck was lousy. Both times he was spotted by passing prowl cars who slowed up to investigate and got fired on. The officers returned the fire from the protection of their vehicles, saw the target stagger, then back off into the shadows. When they converged on the area he was gone. No blood spots, no evidence, nothing.”
“What were they shooting with?”
“The new weaponry. Heavy stuff.”
“Regulation ammo?”
“They said so, but nobody pressed the issue. I wouldn’t blame them for using hot loads, though.”
I leaned back in the chair and stared across the desk. I was about to ask the question, but Pat saw it coming and beat me to it. “We found all the slugs that were fired in one action.”
“All?”
“Every one. Some had smashed against the brick wall, three went into the woodwork and a couple into a metal garbage can.”
I waited, then, finally, he said it. “Two didn’t have the expected contours.”
“Oh?” This time he waited until I asked, “Cloth marks?”
“Possibly.”
“You think he was wearing body armor?”
He cocked his head and shrugged. “If it was Ugo, he would have known we don’t use the old .38’s anymore. The new stuff will penetrate ordinary armor.”
“Even what the SWAT teams wear?”
“That depends on a lot of factors. Distance, caliber . . . you know what I mean?”
“But if he did have on body armor, it sure worked. Ugo Ponti is still around and not showing any wear and tear.”
