Ed McBain_87th Precinct 22

by Fuzz

  “Well uh he’s got a cousin who’s gonna get married soon, so he wanted to know about our group.”

  “What’d you tell him?”

  “I told him we were available.”

  “When’s this wedding coming off?”

  “The uh sometime in June.”

  “When in June?”

  “I forget the exact date.”

  “Then how do you know you’ll be available?”

  “Well, we ain’t got no jobs for June, so I know we’ll be available.”

  “Are you the group’s business manager?”

  “No.”

  “Then why’d La Bresca come to you?”

  “Because we’re friends, and he heard about the group.”

  “So that’s what you talked about. His cousin’s wedding.”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “How much did you tell him it would cost?”

  “I said uh it uh seventy dollars.”

  “How many musicians are there in the group?”

  “Five.”

  “How much is that a man?” Meyer asked.

  “It’s uh seventy uh divided by five.”

  “Which is how much?”

  “That’s uh well five into seven is one and carry the two, five into twenty is uh four, so that comes to fourteen dollars a man.”

  “But you didn’t know that when you asked for the seventy, did you?”

  “Yes, sure I knew it.”

  “Then why’d you have to do the division just now?”

  “Just to check it, that’s all.”

  “So you told La Bresca you’d be available, and you told him it would cost seventy dollars, and then what?”

  “He said he’d ask his cousin, and he got out of the car.”

  “That was the extent of your conversation with him?”

  “That was the extent of it, yes.”

  “Couldn’t you have discussed this on the telephone?”

  “Sure, I guess so.”

  “Then why didn’t you?”

  “Well, I like to see Tony every now and then, he’s a good friend of mine.”

  “So you drove all the way downtown to see him.”

  “That’s right.”

  “How much did you lose on that championship fight?”

  “Oh, not much.”

  “How much?”

  “Ten bucks or so. How do you know about that?”

  “Wasn’t it more like fifty?”

  “Well, maybe, I don’t remember. How do you know this?” He turned to Baum. “How do they know this?” he asked the lawyer.

  “How do you know this?” Baum asked.

  “Well, counselor, if it’s all right with you,” Meyer said, “we’ll ask the questions, unless you find something objectionable.”

  “No, I think everything’s been proper so far, but I would like to know where you’re going.”

  “I think that’ll become clear,” Meyer said.

  “Well, Detective Meyer, I think I’d like to know right now what this is all about, or I shall feel compelled to advise my client to remain silent.”

  Meyer took a deep breath. Willis shrugged in resignation.

  “We feel your client possesses knowledge of an impending crime,” Meyer said.

  “What crime?”

  “Well, if you’ll permit us to question him …”

  “No, not until you answer me,” Baum said.

  “Mr. Baum,” Willis said, “we can book him for Compounding, Section 570 of the Penal Law, or we can book him for …”

  “Just a moment, young man,” Baum said. “Would you mind explaining that?”

  “Yes, sir, we have reason to believe that your client has been promised money or other property to conceal a crime. Now that’s either a felony or a misdemeanor, sir, depending on what the crime is he’s agreed to conceal. I think you know that, sir.”

  “And what’s this crime he’s agreed to conceal?”

  “We might also be able to book him for Conspiracy, Section 580, if he’s actually involved in this planned crime.”

  “Do you have definite knowledge that a crime is to take place?” Baum asked. “We have reasonable knowledge, sir, yes, sir.”

  “You realize, do you not, that no agreement amounts to a conspiracy unless some act beside such agreement is done to effect the object thereof?”

  “Look, Mr. Baum,” Meyer said, “this isn’t a court of law, so let’s not argue the case right here and now, okay? We’re not going to book your client for anything provided he co-operates a little and answers …”

  “I hope I didn’t detect a threat in that statement,” Baum said.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Meyer said, “we know that a man named Anthony La Bresca and another man named Peter Calucci are planning to commit a crime, misdemeanor or felony we don’t know which, on March fifteenth. We also have very good reason to believe that your client here knows exactly what they’re up to and has demanded money from them to keep such knowledge or information from reaching the police. Now, Mr. Baum, we don’t want to pull in La Bresca and Calucci for conspiracy because (a) it wouldn’t stick without that ‘act’ you were talking about, and (b) we might end up with only a misdemeanor, depending on what they’ve cooked up. As I’m sure you know, if they’ve planned the crime of murder, kidnaping, robbery One, selling narcotics, arson or extortion, and if they’ve committed some act other than their agreement to pull the job, each of them is guilty of a felony. And as I’m sure you also know, some very big officials in this city were recently murdered, and the possibility exists that La Bresca and Calucci are somehow involved and that this crime they’ve planned may have to do with extortion or murder, or both, which would automatically make the conspiracy a felony. As you can see, therefore, we’re not after your client per se, we’re merely trying to prevent a crime. So can we cut all the legal bullshit and get a little co-operation from you, and especially from him?”

  “It seems to me he’s been co-operating splendidly,” Baum said.

  “It seems to me he’s been lying splendidly,” Meyer said.

  “Considering what’s involved here …” Baum started.

  “Mr. Baum, could we please …?”

  “… I think you had better charge Mr. Di Fillippi with whatever it is you have in mind. We’ll let the courts settle the matter of his guilt or innocence.”

  “While two hoods pull off their job, right?”

  “I’m not interested in the entrapment of two hoodlums,” Baum said. “I’m advising my client to say nothing further, in accordance with the rights granted to him under …”

  “Thanks a lot, Mr. Baum.”

  “Are you going to book him, or not?”

  “We’re going to book him,” Meyer said.

  “For what?”

  “Compounding a crime, Section 570 of the Penal Law.”

  “Very well, I suggest you do that with reasonable dispatch,” Baum said. “It seems to me he’s been held in custody an extremely long time as it is. I know you’re aware …”

  “Mr. Baum, we’re aware of it inside out and backwards. Take him down, Hal. Charge him as specified.”

  “Hey, wait a minute,” Di Fillippi said.

  “I suggest that you go with them,” Baum said. “Don’t worry about a thing. Before you’re even arraigned, I’ll have contacted a bail bondsman. You’ll be back on the street …”

  “Hey, wait one goddamn minute,” Di Fillippi said. “What if those two guys go ahead with …?”

  “Dominick, I advise you to remain silent.”

  “Yeah? What can I get for this ‘compounding,’ whatever the hell it is?”

  “Depends on what they do,” Meyer said.

  “Dominick …”

  “If they commit a crime punishable by death or by life imprisonment you can get five years. If they commit …”

  “What about a holdup?” Di Fillippi asked.

  “Dominick, as your attorney, I must again strongly advise yo
u …”

  “What about a holdup?” Di Fillippi said again.

  “Is that what they’ve planned?” Meyer said.

  “You didn’t answer me.”

  “If they commit a robbery, and you take money from them to conceal the crime, you can get three years in prison.”

  “Mmm,” Di Fillippi said.

  “Will you answer some questions for us?”

  “Will you let me go if I do?”

  “Dominick, you don’t have to …”

  “Do you want to go to prison for three years?” Di Fillippi asked.

  “They have no case, they’re …”

  “No? Then how do they know the job’s coming off on March fifteenth? Where’d they get that? Some little birdie whisper it in their ear?”

  “We’ve leveled with you, Dominick,” Willis said, “and believe me, we wouldn’t have brought any of this out in the open if we didn’t have plenty to go on. Now you can either help us or we can book you and take you down for arraignment and you’ll have an arrest record following you for the rest of your life. What do you want to do?”

  “That’s coercion!” Baum shouted.

  “It may be coercion, but it’s also fact,” Willis said.

  “I’ll tell you everything I know,” Di Fillippi said.

  He knew a lot, and he told it all.

  He told them that the holdup was set for eight o’clock on Friday night, and that the victim was to be the owner of a tailor shop on Culver Avenue. The reason the hit had been scheduled for that particular night and time was that the tailor, a man namd John Mario Vicenzo, usually packed up his week’s earnings then and took them home with him in a small metal box, which box his wife Laura carried to the Fiduciary Trust early Saturday morning. The Fiduciary Trust, as it happened, was the only bank in the neighborhood that was open till noon on Saturday, bank employees being among those who did not like to work on weekends.

  John Mario Vicenzo (or John the Tailor as he was known to the people along Culver Avenue) was a man in his early seventies, an easy mark. The take would be enormous, Di Fillippi explained, with more than enough for everyone concerned even if split three ways. The plan was to go into the shop at ten minutes to eight, just before John the Tailor drew the blinds on the plate glass window fronting the street. La Bresca was to perform that task instead, and then he was to lock the front door while Calucci forced John the Tailor at gun point into the back room, where he would tie him and leave him bound and helpless on the floor near the pressing machine. They would then empty the cash register of the money that had been piling up there all week long, and take off. John the Tailor would be left dead or alive depending on how co-operative he was.

  Di Fillippi explained that he’d overheard all this one night in the pizzeria on South Third, La Bresca and Calucci sitting in a booth behind him and not realizing they were whispering a little too loud. At first he’d been annoyed by the idea of two Italians knocking over a place owned by another Italian, but then he figured What the hell, it was none of his business; the one thing he’d never done in his life was rat on anybody. But that was before the fight, and the bet that had left him broke. Desperate for a little cash, he remembered what he’d heard them discussing and figured he’d try to cut himself in. He didn’t think there’d be too much static from them because the take, after all, was a huge one, and he figured they’d be willing to share it.

  “Just how much money is involved here?” Willis asked.

  “Oh, man,” Di Fillippi said, rolling his eyes, “there’s at least four hundred bucks involved here, maybe even more.”

  11

  A lot of things happened on Wednesday.

  It was discovered on Wednesday, for example, that somebody had stolen the following items from the squad room:

  A typewriter.

  Six ballpoint pens.

  An electric fan.

  A thermos jug.

  A can of pipe tobacco, and

  Four bars of soap.

  Nobody could figure out who had done it.

  Not even Steve Carella, who had been released from the hospital and who was very delicately walking around with his ribs taped, could figure out who had done it. Some of the squadroom wits suggested that Carella, being an invalid and all, should be assigned to the Great Squadroom Mystery, but Lieutenant Byrnes decided it would be better to assign him to the tailor shop stakeout instead, together with Hal Willis. At twelve noon that Wednesday, the pair headed crosstown to John the Tailor’s shop.

  But before then a lot of other things happened, it was certainly a busy Wednesday.

  At 8:00 A.M., for example, a patrolman walking his beat called in to report that he had found a stiff in a doorway and that it looked to him as if the guy had been burned to death. Which meant that the two fire bugs had struck again sometime during the night, and that something was going to have to be done about them pretty soon before they doused every bum in the city with gasoline. Kling, who took the call, advised the patrolman to stay with the body until he could get a meat wagon over, and the patrolman complained that the doorway and the entire street stank to high heaven and Kling told him that was tough, he should take the complaint to Captain Frick.

  At 9:15 A.M., Sadie the Nut came up to tell Willis about the rapist who had tried to steal her virginity the night before. Sadie the Nut was seventy-eight years old, a wrinkled toothless crone who had been protecting her virginity for close to fourscore years now, and who unfailingly reported to the squadroom every Wednesday morning, either in person or by phone, that a man had broken into her tenement flat the night before and tried to tear off her nightgown and rape her. The first time she’d reported this attempted crime some four years back, the police had believed her, figuring they had another Boston Strangler on their hands, only this time right in their own back yard. They immediately initiated an investigation, going so far as to plant Detective Andy Parker in the old lady’s apartment. But the following Wednesday morning, Sadie came to the squadroom again to report a second rape attempt—even though Parker had spent an uneventful Tuesday night alert and awake in her kitchen. The squadroom comedians speculated that perhaps Parker himself was the rape artist, a premise Parker found somewhat less than amusing. They all realized by then, of course, that Sadie was a nut, and that they could expect frequent visits or calls from her. They did not realize that the visits or calls would come like clockwork every Wednesday morning, nor that Sadie’s fantasy was as fixed and as unvaried as the squadroom itself. Her rapist was always a tall swarthy man who somewhat resembled Rudolph Valentino. He was always wearing a black cape over a tuxedo, white dress shirt, black bow tie, black satin dancing slippers. His pants had buttons on the fly. Five buttons. He always unbuttoned his fly slowly and teasingly, warning Sadie not to scream, he was not going to hurt her, he was (in Sadie’s own words) “only going to apage her.” Sadie invariably waited until he had unbuttoned each of the five buttons and taken out his “thing” before she screamed. The rapist would then flee from the apartment, leaping onto the fire escape like Douglas Fairbanks, and swinging down into the back yard.

  Her story this Wednesday was the same story she had been telling every Wednesday for the past four years. Willis took down the information and promised they would do everything in their power to bring this insane womanizer to justice. Sadie the Nut left the squadroom pleased and excited, doubtless anticipating next week’s nocturnal visit.

  At a quarter to ten that morning, a woman came in to report that her husband was missing. The woman was perhaps thirty-five years old, an attractive brunette wearing a green overcoat that matched her Irish eyes. Her face was spanking pink from the cold outside, and she exuded health and vitality even though she seemed quite upset by her husband’s disappearance. Upon questioning her, though, Meyer learned that the missing man wasn’t her husband at all, he was really the husband of her very best friend who lived in the apartment next door to her on Ainsley Avenue. And upon further questioning, the green eyed lady explained
to Meyer that she and her very best friend’s husband had been having “a relationship” (as she put it) for three years and four months, with never a harsh word between them, they were that fond of each other. But last night, when the green-eyed lady’s best friend went to play Bingo at the church, the green-eyed lady and the husband had had a violent argument because he had wanted to “do it” (as she again put it) right there in his own apartment on the living-room couch with his four children asleep in the other room, and she had refused, feeling it would not be decent, and he had put on his hat and coat and gone out into the cold. He had not yet returned, and whereas the green-eyed lady’s best friend figured he was out having himself a toot, the husband apparently being something of a drinking man, the green-eyed lady missed him sorely and truly believed he had vanished just to spite her, had she known he would do something like that she certainly would have let him have his way, you know how men are.

  Yes, Meyer said.

  So whereas the wife felt it would not be necessary to report him missing and thereby drag policemen into the situation, the green-eyed lady feared he might do something desperate, having been denied her favors, and was therefore asking the law’s assistance in locating him and returning him to the bosom of his family and loved ones, you know how men are.

  Yes, Meyer said again.

  So he took down the information, wondering when it was that he’d last attempted to lay Sarah on the living-room couch with his own children asleep in their respective rooms, and realized that he had never tried to lay Sarah on the living-room couch. He decided that he would try to do it tonight when he got home, and then he assured the green-eyed lady that they would do everything in their power to locate her best friend’s husband, but that probably there was nothing to worry about, he had probably gone to spend the night with a friend.

  Yes, that’s just what I’m worried about, the green-eyed lady said.

  Oh, Meyer said.

  When the green-eyed lady left, Meyer filed the information away for future use, not wanting to bug the Bureau of Missing Persons prematurely. He was beginning to type up a report on a burglary when Detective Andy Parker came into the squadroom with Lewis the Pickpocket. Parker was laughing uncontrollably, but Lewis did not seem too terribly amused. He was a tall slender man with a bluish cast to his jowls, small sharp penetrating blue eyes, thinning sandy-colored hair. He was wearing a beige trench coat and brown leather gloves, and he carried an umbrella in the crook of his arm and scowled at everyone in the squadroom as Parker continued laughing uproariously.