The Deuce

by F. P. Lione

  Fiore called in and confirmed it, saying there were burglars and that they were going up to the second floor. All units in the command were on their way.

  I was trying to work the glass door open when the Holmes security guard pulled up. Holmes sent a young guy this time. He looked to be about twenty years old, Hispanic, with a military haircut. He was medium build, very polite and professional.

  The security guard unlocked the gate and let us into the premises. The store was hot—the air conditioner had been off for a while. Fiore and I went through the hole in the wall and came out the other side into a stairwell. Part of the wall was on the floor of the jewelry store, but most of it was in the stairwell. Dust and pieces of concrete stuck to me as I climbed through and ran up the stairs. Fiore was behind me as I reached the second floor. I had my flashlight out, trying to find my way in the dark stairwell. The second floor door was locked, and I continued up to the third floor, only to find that locked as well. By the time I reached the fourth floor I was sweating and winded.

  I stepped in and heard outside noise, traffic, wind, and voices from below. The entire fourth floor was under construction. The room was open, and stacks of Sheetrock and plywood on palettes were spread throughout the room. Four big pillars, huge boxes, and lots of debris gave the burglars a lot of places to hide. We walked as quietly as possible, with our guns out and ears tuned. We walked towards the back, checking the room as we went. In the back where the alley was, we found a piece of rope hanging out of the building.

  I figured they must have climbed down the rope, gone through the parking lot in back of the building, and exited on 38th Street. We could see that the gate was bent where they ran through. I was sure they had bent the gate before they started, and practiced getting through it. They were probably long gone in a car somewhere.

  We had a sector canvass the area. We told them the burglars probably went out into the parking lot and cut through. The sector went around to check the alleyway on the other side of the parking lot towards 5th Avenue. They circled the blocks to see if there were any cars with people sitting in them, but came up negative.

  When we got back downstairs, Lieutenant Farrell was on the scene. He was chomping on his pipe, smiling. He loved this stuff. He looked like the old war dog that he is, comfortable in his element and seeing things that most people don’t. I was coughing up dust and smoking a cigarette when he came over to me.

  “I haven’t seen these guys for a while,” he said congenially.

  “Who?” He was talking over my head here.

  “The hole in the wall gang,” he said as if I should know. “They hit a few months ago up in the North precinct. That time they got out with a bunch of Rolexes worth about half a mil.”

  “Any idea who they are?” I asked.

  “I have my theories. It’s the same MO, smash and grab.” He put the pipe tip between the space in his front teeth.

  “So this is the second time they’ve hit?” I asked.

  “This year. Last year they hit twice in the North, once in the South.” His eyes were constantly moving, scanning the damage as he spoke to me. “Let’s go take a look,” he said. I followed him to the back of the store.

  The hole in the wall gang, as they were now called, got away with between sixty and eighty thousand dollars in jewelry, mostly in watches, bracelets, chains, and other gold jewelry. The diamonds and other precious gems were locked away in the safe. We had found the elevator on the fourth floor in the hallway and took it back down to the jewelers. I jammed my nightstick into the door of the vestibule leading to the elevator. We would have to go back up and get the rope for evidence, and we didn’t want to climb through the hole in the wall again.

  The owner was called to assess the extent of the damage. The gang smashed and grabbed the display cases, leaving the store in ruin. They took a shot at the safe but ran out of time. There was definitely more than one guy, and the place was scoped out before they hit. These burglars were pretty quick—once they broke through that wall, the alarms were tripped, and they were in and out in a few minutes. If we didn’t show up that fast, they would have sawed through the safe. A handheld circular grinder with a carbide tip was found with the rope.

  They had strategically turned all the cameras so none of this was caught on tape. There was one other camera, connected to the owner’s office, that they had missed. It was funny—the camera took pictures at ten-second intervals but caught none of the robbery. When we watched the tape, in one frame the display case was intact, and in the next frame the cases were smashed and empty.

  “I hear you’re on the wagon,” Lieutenant Farrell asked when we were alone.

  I guess he’d been talking to Vince Puletti.

  When I didn’t answer he said, “I’ve been there a time or two myself.” He was still looking around as he said it.

  “I plan on staying there,” I said with feeling.

  He smiled indulgently. “So did I.” He started to whistle as he walked away.

  I didn’t care what he said. I was staying on the wagon.

  We took the report while the evidence collection unit dusted for prints and gathered their evidence. We used the bathroom to wash up, brushing as much dust off as we could. It was now almost 3:30 and we were hot and tired. We had a 5:00 meal, and I wanted to sleep.

  Fiore and I parked on the east side of 8th Avenue. We had an hour and a half to kill, so we went to Fiore’s place on 43rd Street for coffee. Rooney pulled up next to us in a scooter.

  “Hey, guys.” He smirked. “What are you doing up here?”

  “What are you doing on a scooter?” I countered.

  “Ah, I was an hour and a half late, and the boss put Romano with Sean.” He looked mad.

  “I saw Romano driving with Connelly. I figured you banged the day,” I said.

  “The boss gave Romano my seat and gave me his foot post,” he explained.

  “So what’s with the scooter?” Fiore asked.

  “I saw the scooter behind the precinct and figured I’d get myself a ride.”

  “Are you even scooter qualified?” I asked.

  He laughed. “I’m not qualified, but I ain’t walking.”

  As we talked, a white male ran around the corner from 42nd Street northbound on 8th Avenue with O’Brien and McGovern in hot pursuit. They had the turret lights going and were right on the guy’s heels.

  “What’s up with this?” I said.

  Right then the white male began weaving in and out of parked cars on the east side of 8th Avenue, avoiding apprehension by McGovern and O’Brien. They stopped the car in the street but didn’t get out.

  “I’ll be right back,” Rooney said and took off with the scooter.

  He went in front of our car and did a U-turn up onto the sidewalk. As he drove toward the fleeing man, the guy started doing a “catch me” shuffle, darting between the cars and running across the street onto the sidewalk where Midtown’s largest and most famous triple-X emporium is.

  As the perp sped across the street Rooney drove in between two parked cars, scraping the front end of the scooter as it came off the curb. He scraped the back end of the scooter as the back tires came off the curb. Ouch, that was gonna leave a mark. As he crossed 8th Avenue he turned on his lights and sirens and went up on the curb. He bounced the front tire up a couple feet and dragged the back end of the scooter on the street. The back tires hit the curb, scraping the front end onto the sidewalk.

  The man was now walking under the overhang of the peep show joint, looking back at Rooney. He looked confused until he heard Rooney hit the gas. He bolted a couple of car lengths and went in between two more parked cars, stopping to see what Rooney was doing.

  Rooney’s Irish temper made him misjudge the height of the overhang of the triple-X marquee. He gunned it full force, lights and siren going, and smashed the turret light into the marquee, sending the front end of the scooter up in the air. As the front end of the scooter came crashing down to the sidewalk, the turret
lights were still flashing, hanging down by their wires off the back of the scooter. The siren sounded like a 45 record playing at 33 speed until it coughed and died.

  The only sound aside from the waaaa of the dying sirens was the hysterical laughter coming from me and McGovern and O’Brien. Rooney took off after the perp on foot but then changed his mind and ran back to the scooter. McGovern and I followed with the cars to where the scooter was under the marquee.

  “What were you chasing him for?” Rooney yelled in between gasps for breath.

  “We were just playing with him,” O’Brien said, still laughing. “You were what?” Rooney yelled.

  “Hey, we didn’t tell you to chase him,” McGovern called out. “Where’d you learn how to drive?”

  “He didn’t,” I yelled out. “He never got qualified.”

  This brought on a new wave of laughter, and even Fiore couldn’t hold it in. He had panicked for a minute when he thought Rooney was hurt, but then he busted out laughing with the rest of us.

  We followed Rooney back to the precinct and watched him park the scooter where he’d found it and place the turret lights back on top. I wish I could have been there to see the next guy take it out.

  We dropped Rooney back off at 42nd and 8th and drove to the Sunrise Deli. Our coffee had gotten cold, and we needed another jolt to stay awake. We were still laughing about Rooney, but for once I wasn’t scheming up ways to throw this in his face. I’d noticed that about Fiore—he never brought up anyone’s past screwups.

  We took our coffee back to 37th Street and sat drinking it in silence. I stepped out of the car to smoke a cigarette, feeling the change in the air. The temperature had dropped pretty suddenly; a cold front was moving in, and we were expecting rain for the next few days. The air now felt cool and thick compared to the heat and humidity of earlier. Fiore closed his window while I smoked, and I saw him give a cynical laugh while he flipped through the paper. I knocked on the window.

  “Whatcha reading?” I asked.

  “I don’t believe this,” he said, shaking his head.

  “What?” I peered in to see what he was reading.

  “Listen to this.” He opened the window. “U.S. Is Found Blameless for Waco Deaths.” He started quoting the article, stating that a special investigation council cleared Attorney General Janet Reno and the government of any wrongdoing in the deaths of David Koresh and the Branch Davidians when they burned their compound to the ground with everyone in it.

  He was incredulous. “It took them seven years to figure this out?”

  “Did they say whose fault it was?” I asked. You never knew what the government was gonna come up with.

  “Yeah, it took a special council and probably a billion tax dollars to figure out it was the cult leader’s fault. Is it me, Tony, or could they have just gone to the videotape?”

  Now this is the kind of thing that really aggravates cops. The Waco thing happened right after terrorists drove a truckload of explosives into the parking garage of the World Trade Center in an attempt to blow up the building. We were still dazed by the trade center bombing when this psycho decides he’s Christ and it’s the end of the world.

  “And listen to this,” Fiore continued. “It says that they hope the report begins the process of restoring the faith of the people in their government.”

  “If all it took was seven years to figure that out, then hey, my faith is restored!”

  “Unbelievable,” Fiore said.

  He put the paper on the seat, and I picked it up to read the article. Getting annoyed with it, I browsed through the rest of the paper. I moved on to the sports pages. The Yanks beat the Orioles four to three. I noticed Fiore had pulled out his Bible and was reading one of the Psalms. I alternated between scanning the paper and stepping outside to smoke. The night wound down without any more jobs.

  14

  Two days after we had dinner I called Michele to ask her out again on Saturday. I wrestled with how soon I should be calling. If I called her the day after we had dinner, it would look like I was desperate; on the other hand, if I waited too long it would seem like I wasn’t interested. I called her at 9:30 on Wednesday morning when I got back from the boardwalk. I guzzled a bottle of water and smoked a cigarette to cool down from my jog and dialed as I took the phone out on the deck. The cooler weather was a nice change, but August was on the way and it would heat up again. It was one of those clear, fresh days that cook up as the day wears on.

  I wanted to take Michele somewhere private so we could get to know each other better. It surprised me how much I’d thought about her over the past two days. I really wanted to see her again. I was going over in my mind what to say to her when Stevie picked up the phone.

  “Hello?” he said in a cute voice.

  “Hey, Steve, it’s Tony,” I said. I didn’t expect him to answer. “Tony! Where are you? Are you coming over?” He sounded excited.

  “Not today, buddy. Is your mom there?”

  “Yeah, but when are you coming over? We could play again like at Josh’s house.”

  I could hear Michele in the background saying, “Who is it, Steven?”

  His voice faded as he moved the phone away. “It’s Tony, but I want to talk to him first.”

  He came back on the line, telling me about Clifford the dog and his bike with training wheels and the blue helmet that he wears with it. He wanted me to take him to the aquarium and the water park and play ball and wrestle like we did at Fiore’s house.

  All of a sudden the phone call didn’t seem like such a good idea. This woman had a kid, and kids like fathers, and this kid didn’t have one. As a rule I stayed away from the ready-made family situations because they were messy. I liked Stevie. If things didn’t work out with his mother and me, he’d get hurt, and I didn’t want to hurt him. Why hadn’t I thought of that sooner? I felt claustrophobic as Michele got on the line.

  “Hi, Tony,” she said warmly.

  “Hey, Michele,” I said quietly.

  She paused. “Is everything okay? You sound funny.”

  I hate perceptive women. “Just tired. I worked last night.”

  “Did anything happen?”

  “What do you mean?” I’m sure I sounded annoyed. Was she asking if I drank?

  “At work. Did something bad happen there?” The concern in her voice sounded sincere, but I’m distrustful of females as a rule.

  “Nothing out of the ordinary,” I said.

  “Define ordinary.” She laughed.

  I really did like her, which clouded my judgment. The next thing I knew we had plans for dinner on Saturday.

  “If the weather is good we could ride out to see the lighthouse in Montauk. There’s a great seafood place out there.” She spoke quietly to Stevie in the background, saying, “I’ll be off in a minute and then I’ll get it for you.”

  “Wherever you want to go is fine with me. What time should I come out?” I asked.

  “Are you working Friday night?”

  “Yeah, Friday night into Saturday morning.”

  “It’s up to you, Tony. Get some sleep and call me later in the day when you get up.” She sounded so pleasant and agreeable, but it’s been my experience, women are always that way at the beginning. Six months down the road they’re complaining they don’t have a life because of my friggin’ job.

  I said good-bye and sat on the deck, feeling like I got sucked into going out with her on Saturday. It was stupid of me to feel like that, since I’m the one who called her, but I hadn’t been thinking about the kid when I was dialing. It seemed like a lot all at once. A couple of weeks ago I answered to no one. Now I was answering to God, and I knew instinctively he wouldn’t want me to get involved with Stevie if I wasn’t planning on staying. But how could I find out if there was anything between Michele and me without involving him?

  I went back inside and rummaged through the fridge for something to eat. I ate some cold ziti with broccoli in garlic and oil, washed it down with a Coke, and
went upstairs to bed. I lay awake for a while thinking about Michele and Stevie. The last time I looked at the clock it was 11:10.

  I forgot to set my alarm but woke up at 7:30. I could hear a radio on downstairs and the whir of the blender. The irritation I felt before I went to sleep stayed with me as I crossed to the bathroom. There were still no Q-tips, and I had to wash with a piece of soap the size of my fingernail. The shampoo bottle was empty, so I added water to get some suds. I had to go shopping. We were out of just about everything, and of course Vinny wouldn’t do a thing. Now that he was getting married, he let Christie do everything for him. He ate his meals over there, and half the time he didn’t come home to sleep.

  I dressed for work in old Gap jeans and a Yankees T-shirt and went downstairs to get something to eat.

  Denise was decked out in a blue FDNY T-shirt and faded jeans and was tossing a salad. I saw bags of groceries on the table: the soap, Q-tips, shampoo, and conditioner I could have used about twenty minutes ago. There was a case of soda next to the fridge and big packs of paper towels and toilet paper.

  Sal came in from the deck wearing sweatpants and a Haz-Mat T-shirt, and I saw smoke coming out of the barbecue. He came over to shake my hand, a goofy smile plastered on his face.

  “I’m grilling some steak. You hungry?”

  I shook back. “Sure,” I said.

  “You and Vinny owe me forty bucks each. I went to the Price Club and stocked up,” Denise said as she fussed around the kitchen. I pulled out two twenties and handed them to her.

  “You could have put the stuff in the bathroom. I had nothing to take a shower with,” I said grumpily.