The Payback Game

by Nathan Gottlieb

  After the food arrived, Bellucci jumped on a tostada, took a bite, and then nodded his approval. “This is pretty good,” he said. He pointed at Hannah’s plate. “Can I try a piece of your patties?”

  She broke off a wedge with her fork and put it on Bellucci’s plate. He ate it right away. “This is really good,” he said. “I’m definitely going to order the patties the next time I come here.”

  Hannah looked across the table. “So, Danny, how’s your salad?”

  Cullen shrugged. “Tastes like salad. I’m not going to eat the red onions and this funky-looking white stuff, though. What is it?”

  “That’s the tofu,” Hannah replied. “It’s got lots of protein.”

  “Then you can eat it.”

  With a shrug, she picked the tofu out of his salad with her fork and put it on her plate.

  “Hannah,” Bellucci said, “I’ve been wondering about something. How come, with your two fancy college degrees, you’re working at a little paper like the Brooklyn Eagle?”

  The redhead put her fork down. “I could’ve hooked on with one of the big city dailies, but they would’ve just had me doing research for veteran reporters most of the time. Occasionally they might let me write boring stories about things like farmers’ markets and community board meetings. The Eagle, on the other hand, was so thrilled to get someone out of the Columbia School of Journalism that they gave me what I wanted. The crime and court beat. What I’m hoping to do is break a string of splashy stories for the Eagle. Then I’m sure I can land a job with some substance to it at the News or maybe even the Times.”

  Her cell phone rang. She put it on speaker so she could use both hands to eat, and set it down near her plate.

  “Hi, Uncle Mike. What’s the latest and greatest?”

  I’m looking for Boff. I’ve been calling his cell, but he doesn’t answer. Is he with you?

  “No.”

  Cullen leaned closer to the phone. “Mike, Boff’s in court,” he said. “He’s working on the defense team for a surgeon in a malpractice case. What’s up?”

  I got to thinking about Maloney’s father retiring on disability to Jacksonville and not having a listed phone number. So I asked my friend in the union for the address they send his retirement and disability checks to. Then I called a New York cop I knew who’d moved to Jacksonville after he retired. I gave him the father’s address and asked him to pay Maloney a visit. Long story short, the ex-cop got me Maloney’s cell number.

  “When you called the father,” Hannah said, “did he have anything useful to say?”

  He pretty much confirmed what my union contact told Boff. That before he moved to Florida, his son seemed troubled by something. I asked him what it was, and he told me Patrick had come over for dinner one night and his face looked pretty banged up. All his son would tell him is that he had a run-in with a Hells Angel. The son said the Hells Angel looked worse. Then the kid dropped the subject.

  “What’s that tell us?” Hannah said.

  It might be an indication that Maloney was mixed up with the Angels. Although it’s also possible he just had a brawl with one of them at a bar. But considering that Galvani was Maloney’s partner, I’m inclined to think there’s a connection.

  “Did you tell the father you believe his son was murdered?”

  No, I didn’t think there was anything to gain by doing that. Why upset the guy? Meanwhile, where are you? It sounds like you’re eating.

  “The V Spot.”

  What kinda joint is that?

  “Vegan.”

  Come again?

  “A strictly vegetarian restaurant.”

  And Cullen’s eating that crap, too?

  “Yup,” she said. “I’m having pumpkin seed-crusted lentil patties. I could bring an order back to you if you want.”

  Sure. I could feed it to Bailey’s dog. That mutt eats any kind of garbage. Danny, do me a favor. Call Boff when he gets out of court and tell him what Maloney’s father said to me about the kid’s fight with a Hells Angel.

  After lunch they walked back to the gym. Bellucci went inside to get ready for his afternoon workout. Hannah and Cullen waited outside on the steps for Boff, Wallachi, and the crack op.

  “When your shoulder’s normal,” Hannah said, “do you work out twice a day like Bellucci?”

  “Yup.”

  “When do you have time for fun?”

  Cullen shrugged. “Training is fun.”

  “Okay. But what do you do for kicks after you’ve finished your second session?”

  “Not much, really. I’m usually too tired to go anywhere. So I make dinner or order takeout and watch a movie.”

  “Sounds boring.”

  He shrugged. “To you it does. Not to me. I love boxing. It’s all I really want to do.”

  “No girlfriends, lover boy?”

  He shrugged again. “I’ve had a few. Not too often, though. I just don’t have the time. The last one I had, a few months ago, turned out to be living a double life. Law school student at Columbia and high class hooker.”

  Hannah looked surprised. “Really? Did you pay her?”

  “No, I didn’t pay her.” He looked insulted. “I didn’t even know she worked for an escort service until after she was dead.”

  “How’d she die?”

  He looked away. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  ***

  Wallachi tailed Galvani from the precinct straight to Sunny’s bar, where he parked and went inside. A few minutes later, Monetti and Laterza showed up on foot and also walked into the bar. A few minutes after that, the longshoremen came back out with Galvani and got into his Mustang and drove to a U-Haul rental and storage facility on Flatbush Avenue. When Galvani drove into the lot, Wallachi pulled over down the street.

  “Frank, what do you make of this?”

  Boff gave it some thought. “Well…my best guess? If they have raid jackets, bullet-proof vests, handcuffs, and police-style radios—not to mention safe guns—I can’t see them leaving that kind of stuff in an insecure garage with the SUV. Nor would they keep it at their apartments. They wouldn’t want evidence on their own premises. A secure storage facility would be the perfect place. Presumably rented with false ID. Unless you have a better idea?”

  “No, that makes sense. It also means we may be going on a raid.”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  Fifteen minutes passed before the red Mustang came back out. Wallachi tailed it all the way to a remote warehouse and factory district in Red Hook. Galvani finally turned onto a street where there weren’t any pedestrians and most of the buildings were boarded up.

  Not wanting to risk being seen, Wallachi didn’t make the turn. Instead, he pulled over on the corner. From there, they watched as the detective drove down the block and stopped in front of a squat, two-story, red brick building. All of its windows were boarded up. There was a wide, boarded-up portal on the right side of the building.

  After Galvani parked his Mustang, he and the longshoreman got out of the car. Wallachi turned to Boff. “This looks like it, Frank.”

  “It’s not exactly a garage,” Hannah chipped in.

  “Maybe it is,” Boff said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Manny,” Boff said, “use your zoom lens to focus on that portal.”

  Taking out his camera, Manny attached his big lens and zoomed in.

  “Now hand it to me,” Boff said. When he had the camera, he zoomed in even closer and studied the portal. “There appear to be three hinges on one side that are relatively new-looking. There’s also a doorknob with two padlocks. The doorknob and those locks also look new.”

  “Maybe,” Wallachi said, “they converted the portal into a makeshift garage door.”

  Galvani walked over to the portal and took something out of his pocket. Boff trained his camera lens on him. “It looks like he has a key in his hand….Yup. He just unlocked the two padlocks.”

  He handed the camera back to Manny. “Sta
rt shooting.”

  As Boff and his crew watched, Galvani swung the portal door open. Then the cop and the longshoremen walked to his Mustang, and each of them pulled a large black trash bag out of the trunk. They carried the bags through the portal and closed the door behind them.

  “I’m betting,” Boff said, “that they picked up those bags at the U-Haul facility and they contain raid paraphernalia.” He turned back to the crack op. “Manny, did you get all that?”

  “Sure did.”

  “When they come back out—hopefully in the SUV—make sure you get a clear shot of the car leaving the garage.”

  Fifteen minutes later, the garage door swung open again. Out came a white SUV. There was something printed on the side of it.

  “Manny, what’s that lettering say?” Boff asked.

  “NYPD on the front side door. The backseat door has Courtesy, Professionalism, and Respect on it.”

  “Bingo!” Wallachi said.

  After the SUV came to a stop on the street, Galvani stepped out of the driver’s side. Now he was wearing a raid jacket. He walked over to his Mustang, got in, and drove it into the garage, then walked back out and locked the door behind him. He went back to the SUV and got behind the wheel.

  Boff tapped Wallachi’s arm. “Pete, if he comes this way, drive straight ahead.”

  But the SUV took off in the opposite direction. As Wallachi started to turn onto the street to follow, Boff reached over and grabbed the wheel.

  “Let’s wait. Give them get a good head start. We can’t take a chance in this low traffic area of him spotting us. We can use the GPS to keep tabs on where they’re going.”

  With a nod, Wallachi kept his car well behind the SUV. Once it reached Brownsville, Boff felt there was enough traffic to risk getting closer.

  “Close the gap to about a block,” he said.

  The SUV eventually turned onto a street lined with tenements and pulled over and double parked in front of a three-story, row house. Wallachi stopped a half block away on the opposite side of the street.

  “Get pictures of this, Manny,” Boff said.

  When the cop and the longshoremen stepped out of the SUV, they were holding their handguns. The dock workers were also wearing raid jackets like Galvani’s. Manny snapped pictures as they jogged to the front door of the building.

  “Describe what you’re seeing as you take the shots.”

  “Galvani just used the handle of his gun to break the glass on the door…. Now he’s reaching inside the broken window to unlock it…. They just disappeared inside the building.”

  “I’m assuming,” Boff said, “that we’re close enough for you to get good, clear shots.”

  “Yup.”

  “When they come back out of the building, here’s what I want you to do. Zoom in just enough so you can frame the three of them and the NYPD vehicle together. Take a few shots like that. Then zoom in closer and get faces. Say, from the chest up. When they leave the building, they’ll be carrying either a suitcase or a duffle bag containing stolen drugs and probably cash. Most likely, they’ll stow the bag in the back of the SUV. I want you to shoot that whole sequence. After they close the car’s rear door and move away from it, zoom in on the license plate and shoot it.”

  “How soon will they be coming out?” Manny asked.

  “Depends on whether they encounter resistance,” Boff replied. “Even if they do, they’ll want to get out of there as fast as possible in case a patrol car spots them and causes problems.”

  The so-called raid must have gone without a hitch. Less than ten minutes after they went inside the building, they hustled back out. Galvani was carrying a large green duffle bag, which he dumped in the back of the SUV. Then the three men got in the vehicle.

  As Wallachi followed them back to the garage in Red Hook, Boff told Manny to make sure he shot everything that happened.

  They watched as Monetti stepped out of the SUV, walked over and unlocked the garage door, then swung it open and disappeared inside. Moments later, he backed the Mustang out of the garage and parked it on the street, after which Galvani drove the SUV into the garage. The longshoremen went in, and they closed the door behind them.

  Wallachi turned to Boff. “Frank, what are you going to do with these pictures, anyway? Give ’em to your old high school buddy in the Brooklyn D.A.’s office?”

  “No, not yet. Right now we have a couple of big pieces missing. One, where do the Hells Angels fit in? Two, what do they do with the drugs they just hijacked?”

  About fifteen minutes later, the garage door swung open again and the three men walked out. The longshoremen were toting the garbage bags with the raid paraphernalia. Galvani was carrying two medium-size, brown duffle bags. After he closed and locked the garage door, he headed for his Mustang. Manny kept snapping shots.

  Hannah tapped Boff on his shoulder. “What happened to the big green duffle bag he took from the place they raided?”

  “It appears,” Boff said, “that for some reason Galvani put the drugs into the two smaller bags. I’m not sure why, but I believe if we keep tailing him, we’ll find out. Pete, there’s a good chance he’s going to come back this way, so drive a couple blocks ahead and park where he won’t notice you.”

  Galvani put the two bags in his trunk, then drove back toward where Wallachi had been parked and made a right turn. Wallachi waited until the Mustang was a few blocks away before he did a U-turn and followed. Galvani drove back to Sunny’s Bar, let the longshoremen out, and took off. Then they tailed him into Bushwick, where he parked outside the same bar he had gone to three days earlier to meet with the Hells Angels. As the cop walked into of the bar, Boff noticed that biker Ted Green’s big Harley was parked at the curb again.

  “Frank,” Wallachi said, “should we send Danny into the bar to see what’s happening?”

  “No. Let’s sit tight. The bags are still in his trunk. In this kind of neighborhood, I don’t think he’ll leave them in there for more than a few minutes.”

  “Why do you think he stopped here?”

  “My gut feeling is we’re going to see a transfer of some sort,” Boff replied. “Stay on it, Manny.”

  Five minutes later, the biker came out alone, walked over to his Harley, and unlocked two large hard, side bags that were as big as medium suitcases. Then he walked to Galvani’s trunk, used a key to open it, and took the two duffle bags out. He carried the bags over to his Harley, put one duffle in each side bag, closed and locked the lids, and walked back into the bar.

  “Transfer complete,” Boff said. “Now we know for sure that not only do the drugs from the raids go to the Hells Angels, but this guy makes the delivery.”

  “But,” Hannah said, “we’re still stuck with the ‘why’ of all this.”

  “Be patient, my girl. Manny, you kept your BlackBerry on like I asked you to, right?”

  “Oh, shit! I forgot. I’ll do it now.”

  “Dammit, Manny,” Wallachi said. “You were supposed to keep an eye out for an alert about the church vehicle. And you wonder why I don’t treat you like an equal.”

  Manny typed on his BlackBerry. “Okay, now I’m online. I’m checking my email….Chill, Pete. There’s no email from MobileGuardian. The church SUV must still be in the parking garage.”

  “Good,” Boff said. “Let’s take off.”

  “Frank, are you sure you don’t want to keep following Galvani?”

  “What for? We saw what we needed to. Now the only questions are what role—if any—does the Church SUV play, and what exactly are the Hells Angels up to?”

  Chapter 32

  At Cassidy’s request, Boff made a trip up to Bailey’s at noon the next day. The old reporter was waiting alone for him in a booth.

  “Hannah told me about the phony raid,” he said as Boff sat down. “What’re you going to do now? Show the pictures to the D.A.?”

  “No.”

  “Then what? We’ve got Galvani dead to rights.”

  “Nailing him on
these raids doesn’t help us finger him for killing Nicky. There has to be something bigger at work here. I say we play this out to the end. Wherever it may lead us. Along the way, we can hopefully flip somebody to testify that Galvani and/or the bikers ordered the hits on Nicky and Maloney. Meanwhile, I’m working on a backup plan.”

  “Which is?”

  “You know my recent history in tracking killers. That should tell you something.”

  Cassidy smiled. “You’ll take things into your own hands.”

  Boff said nothing.

  Then Cassidy asked him, “What do you think the church SUV is for?”

  “That has me a little stumped. I don’t even know if it’s connected to Galvani and his crew. Although the trip he made to the body shop for no apparent reason makes me believe it is.”

  “Well, one thing jumps out at me,” the old reporter said. “A church vehicle is good cover.”

  “Yes, but cover for what?”

  “A different caper?”

  Boff thought about this a minute. “There is one possible clue,” he said. “Why is the van registered in Massena? There must be a reason.”

  Cassidy shrugged. “They might’ve chosen the town at random.”

  Boff shook his head. “When it comes to motives, I don’t believe in random. I looked Massena up. Its population is roughly thirteen thousand. It has an Alcoa plant and an engine-casting plant. Adjacent to Massena, the Port of Authority operates a hydroelectric power generating dam on the St. Lawrence River. The only other thing of note is the city has an airport that only flies to Albany and back.”

  “Sounds like a real shithole.”

  “Yes, it does. That’s why I’m going to have to give it more thought. Meanwhile, I’ve gotta get going. We’re tailing Galvani again today.”

  As Boff got up to go, Cassidy said, “Frank, I’m rooting for your backup plan.”

  On the remote chance that Galvani had noticed the Crown Vic during the raid surveillance, Wallachi asked Manny to bring his car, a new Hyundai hatchback. The team was now waiting for Manny outside the gym. When the crack op pulled up, Wallachi shooed him into the backseat and took the wheel.