The policeman counted out the wad, stacking it on top of Beansy’s blood-spattered chest. “Twenty-one hundred dollars,” he said, stuffing the bills into the evidence envelope and sealing it.
Stuart looked down at the lifeless face: It’s strange how life has a way of working itself out. I’ve owed you for a long time, Beansy, you prick, and now I’m finally getting the chance at payback. He looked over at Jones and Borrelli. “Let’s go to Holiday’s and talk to Andrea Russo. And while we’re there, we’ll pay our respects to retired Sergeant Scumbag.”
2
Holiday’s Bar, located in a dingy one-story brick building near the corner of Lincoln Road and New York Avenue, had the word Saloon painted in peeling gold letters across its windows. The facade above was a mosaic of green and white tiles with an “R” of glazed orange tiles in the center. The “R” stood for Tony “the Ton” Russo, who built the place in 1894 and was shot to death inside on Christmas Eve 1897.
A long cherrywood bar, to the right of the entrance, stretched across the worn wooden floor, ending at a walk-in refrigerator sheathed in the same fine wood. Sitting on a specially built ledge behind the bar was a stiff felt hat with a dome-shaped crown and narrow brim. This was the derby that Tony “the Ton” was wearing the night his life ended.
Paddy Holiday had bought Russo’s in 1976 while he was still working as a sergeant in the NYPD’s Intelligence Division. He had registered the business in his sister-in-law’s maiden name in order to get around state law and police department regulations prohibiting policemen from owning or having a financial interest in bars and cabarets. When he retired from the Job in 1982, he had the place transferred to his own name.
The blades of one of the five grease-blackened fans projecting from the stamped tin ceiling were turning slowly when Stuart and the detectives walked in shortly before one o’clock.
Paddy Holiday was sitting at a table in the corner, talking in hushed tones with two Rastafarians sporting dreadlocks and brightly colored, oversize caps with full flattops mashed down over the sides of their heads.
Andrea Russo, a tall, shapely woman with long black hair, was polishing the bar with a hunk of white cheesecloth.
Seeing the detectives walk in, Holiday pulled out of the huddle and said in a warning voice, “The Squad is here,” using the term for “Detective Squad” that was routine in the department.
The Rastafarians quickly scraped back their chairs and got up, heading for the entrance. Borrelli and Jones ambled over to the bar. Stuart moved to the left of the door and, leaning up against the wall, watched the departing men.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” he said as they brushed past.
Andrea Russo came over to the detectives and asked, “Want something to drink?”
“We’re on duty,” Jones said, smiling and brushing his hands over his gleaming head.
“No shit,” she said, moving away, wiping the bar. Stuart took the chair across the round table from Holiday. Keeping his voice low so Andrea couldn’t hear, he said, “I was surprised to see some of the Posse in here.”
“Every Rastafarian you see ain’t part of them drug-dealing Posses,” Holiday snapped.
“Those two are,” Stuart said, looking directly into Holiday’s small blue eyes. “How are the mob guys treating you these days? As good as they did when you were still in the Job selling them information?”
“I’m just a retired cop trying to make a living,” Holiday protested, his face taking on a flush of anger.
“Paddy, how you scooted out of the Job with your pension is still one of the great mysteries.”
Holiday had a way of talking as if every word were being squeezed out of him. “I did my twenty and threw in my papers.” He had a crooked nose, dirty blond hair, and manicured nails that looked like shiny talons at the ends of his bony fingers. And his hooded eyes had a sharklike deadness.
Stuart looked him straight in the eyes, trying to catch some expression or emotion in their blue emptiness. “The word I hear is that you were selling information to the pinky-rings. And just as IAD was about to drop the net over you, you jumped ship.”
“Loo-ten-ent, you shouldn’t believe the rumors you hear in the Job, they’re bullshit.” He pulled a filthy handkerchief out of his pocket and blew his nose vigorously.
Stuart looked around the bar. His eyes fell on a wall niche right behind Holiday, containing a French banjo clock encased in an African mahogany cabinet. The brass plate had the date 1840. “Beansy been around today?”
“I ain’t seen ’im in a couple of days. He probably went to AC to try his luck on the tables,” Holiday said.
“He never made it to Atlantic City. Somebody clipped ’im this morning.”
Holiday’s eyes narrowed, making crow’s-feet. “You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. You gonna tell me you didn’t hear anything?” Stuart made no effort to hide his contempt.
“Not a word.” He gave Stuart an exaggerated surprised-innocence look and said, “Who’d wanna whack Beansy? He was practically retired.”
“Bullshit.” Stuart spat the word out and lowered his voice, so Holiday would listen carefully. “In the old days the mob guys gave social clubs to their big earners. Today it’s video stores. Beansy had a string of them along Nostrand and Kingston Avenues. Where did he earn most of his money?”
“I don’t know shit about those organized crime guys. With me, it’s a polite ‘Hello and how are ya?’”
Stuart pushed his chair away from the table and got up. At the bar, he smiled and said, “Hello, Andrea.”
“Hi,” she said, making a pretense at wiping a glass.
“I need to talk to you.”
Her face went still, and she glanced fearfully at Holiday. “About what? I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“We can’t talk here, Andrea. Get your pocketbook, we’ll take a drive to the Squad.” Looking at Holiday, he added, “I’m borrowing your bartender for a while.”
Holiday shrugged, indicating his indifference, but his lifeless eyes followed them as they left.
The Seven One Squad was on the second floor of the lime- and sandstone fortress that sat atop the crest of a hill at Empire Boulevard and New York Avenue. There were two massive, ornate lanterns bracketed to the wall on both sides of the entrance. Borrelli and Jones escorted Andrea upstairs to the squad room while Stuart walked behind the high desk in the first floor’s muster room. “We just brought in a woman for questioning in connection with the Rutolo homicide,” he told the ruddy-faced desk sergeant as he wrote down the information on Andrea on the department scratch pad alongside the blotter.
The desk sergeant looked up at the wall clock, noting the official time, and began making his blotter entry that said at 1320 hours Lieutenant Matt Stuart was present and stated that one F/W/29, known to the department as Andrea Russo, was brought upstairs into the squad room for questioning in connection with a homicide carried under UF61 #15707. After doing that, the sergeant ruled off his entry, looked up at Stuart, and asked, “You gonna need a policewoman?”
“No. I have a female detective doing day duty.”
The detective squad room took up half the second floor; the rest was used as a locker room and offices for community relations and the precinct’s plainclothes anticrime and narcotics units. A row of metal desks was lined up against the windowed side of the squad room, and across from them was a large holding pen; next to it were the interrogation room and the records/office supplies room. Several corkboards crowded with composite sketches of wanted mutts and department orders were scattered over the walls, along with a tattered American flag. On the wall alongside Jones’s desk hung a large Malcolm X poster.
When Stuart walked into the squad room, Detective Helen Kahn was at her desk typing reports, while her partner, Jerry Jordon, was on the telephone attempting to calm a mugging victim. Andrea Russo slumped dejectedly on a chair near the Squad’s computer. Smasher, the Squad’s hundred-pound black rottweiler mascot,
with a head like a bowling ball, was stretched out at her feet. Stuart went directly over to the command log on top of the glass library cabinet and made an entry that Andrea Russo was present in the squad room along with Detective Helen Kahn. He ruled off his entry and, going over to Andrea, said gently, “Let’s you and me have a talk.” He motioned for her to follow him into the interrogation room.
Helen Kahn waited until Stuart and the witness entered the room before she went into the supply room and slid back a panel, exposing the blackened one-way mirror that gave her a clear view of the interrogation room.
Borrelli came into the supply room and stood beside her.
Jones, who was Smasher’s handler and therefore excused from any of the Squad’s housekeeping duties, filled Smasher’s large bowl with dry dog food and went and stood with Borrelli and Kahn in the supply room.
“Why am I here?” Andrea asked as her eyes darted anxiously about the small room.
“I hear you’re going to college,” Stuart said, attempting to put her at ease.
“What the fuck is that your business?”
“I get off on seeing people better themselves. Cops are like that.”
“In a pig’s ass they are.”
“This cop is. I remember two years ago when we handed you a collar of possession with intent to sell. I’m happy you made it back to the living.”
Her eyes fell to the table, then rose defiantly to confront him. “My life ain’t your business.”
During his time on the Job, Stuart had met a lot of women whose personalities had been scarred and hardened by whoring and drugs; he had learned that the only way to break through their protective scab was to peel away the crust with tenderness, to show them that somebody really cared about them.
Watching her, he decided that hidden beneath the cheap makeup was a beautiful woman who had yellow ribbons dancing around inside her large black eyes. She was wearing jeans and a black bodysuit that betrayed the outline of nipples through the Lycra. “Your great-grandfather built the original Russo’s bar, didn’t he?”
“Yes, and my grandfather ran it until he died.”
“You’ve lived in Pigtown all your life, haven’t you?”
“All twenty-nine years. When I was a kid I used to play in the Laresca piggery on Hunterfly Road.” A sad look clouded her face. “They’re all gone now, the Larescas, the pigs, and the road.”
“Ol’ Man Time don’t have friends,” Stuart said, folding his hands on the table. “You must know Beansy Rutolo for a long time.”
“Him and my dad were friends.”
“Is that why you lent him the keys to your house?”
“I don’t lend anyone my keys.”
“Do you have a duplicate set?”
“Yeah, Mary Terrella, my neighbor across the street, keeps them for me. What the hell is all this about Beansy and my keys?”
“Did you see Beansy today?”
“No, I didn’t. What the hell is going on? Why am I here?”
He looked directly into her eyes and said, “Somebody murdered Beansy and stuffed his body into your refrigerator.”
She looked at him in stunned silence, then burst into tears, burying her face in her hands.
“Beansy had your house keys in his pocket.”
“My keys are in my bag,” she said, opening her pocketbook and pulling them out. Sniffling, she dangled them in front of him.
“How do you suppose he got the keys to your house?”
“How the hell do I know? You’re the detective, you figure it out,” she said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
Inside the supply room, Jones nudged Kahn. “Do you think she’s leveling?”
Kahn shrugged. “She looks for real to me.”
Andrea looked at Stuart. “Who’d want to kill Beansy? He was such a nice old guy.”
“Did you know he was going to your house this morning?”
“Of course not. I told you, nobody gets my house keys.”
Stuart’s eyes sent a message to the two-way mirror. “Mary Terrella your neighbor has your duplicate set.”
“Yes.”
Intercepting the whip’s look, Jones said gently to his partner, “The boss wants us to go talk to Mary Terrella.”
The detectives left the supply room, leaving Kahn behind to watch the interrogation. This was SOP whenever a male member of the force questioned a female witness. It protected the officer against vindictive accusations.
“Do you know of anyone who had it in for Beansy?”
Dabbing her eyes with a tissue she had fished out of her handbag, she shook her head. “Everyone liked Beansy. He was more interested in his family cheese business than in being a wiseguy.” She pulled a fresh tissue out of the packet.
“What about his cheese business?”
“Bolonia cheese. I think his father started up the company before Beansy was born.”
“Does the mob have a piece of it?”
“How the hell should I know that? You think those guys tell me anything?”
Looking at the tiny chunks of mascara clinging to her eyelashes, he said, “What are you studying in college?”
“I want to be a kindergarten teacher.”
“I think you’ll make a great teacher.”
A tiny smile pinched one end of her mouth. “Thanks.”
“Being a teacher means walking on the right side of the street, and that means assuming certain obligations.”
“Like what?”
“Like helping us get the people who did Beansy.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” she said, looking away from him.
He didn’t believe her. “How do you get along with Holiday?”
“I do my job and he leaves me alone.”
“Was Beansy in the bar this morning?”
“I already told you, no.”
His smile bore a trace of impatience. She shifted nervously in her chair. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
His lips shaped the word no.
Her face screwed itself up in anger as she retreated into a hostile silence.
“If you do know something, and Holiday knows that you know, he also knows that you had a drug problem, and he just might consider you a liability,” Stuart said.
“I want a lawyer,” she announced sullenly.
“You don’t need one. You’re not a suspect. You can leave any time you want.”
Turning in her chair, she looked at the dull mirror. “I suppose there is someone behind that thing looking at us.” She stuffed the pack of tissues back in her purse and gripped it firmly. “I’m out of here.” She heaved herself out of the chair.
He called after her, his voice full of real sympathy, “Let me help you.”
She paused, looked directly at him. He saw the fear in her eyes. She started to say something, changed her mind, and hurried out of the room. As she passed the closed door of the supply room, she kicked it and said, “You can come out now.”
A lone police car was parked in front of the Rutland Road crime scene as Borrelli drew the unmarked car in to the opposite curb in front of an old frame house shaded by a great chestnut tree. A rooster crowed, and the late afternoon sun was peering through clouds.
Mary Terrella, a stocky woman in her late thirties, was inside the utility shed attached to the side of her house, taking clothes out of the washing machine, when she heard car doors slam. Looking out the window, she saw the same detectives who had interviewed her earlier walking up the path. She cursed under her breath and quickly stepped outside to make sure that the dry well was hidden behind the browning hydrangea bushes. It was a constant fear of hers that the city would somehow discover her illegal drainage hole and make her fill it in with cement. She walked over to the house and was waiting as Jones stepped onto her porch. She greeted the detectives with, “I didn’t see nothin’, I didn’t hear nothin’, and I don’t know shit.”
“You’re a real community-minded citizen,” Jones said with heav
y sarcasm.
“Nothing’s changed since this morning,” she said, adjusting one of the blue hair rollers on the side of her head.
Jones leaned against the porch railing, looking at the yellowing clematis clinging to the trellis. “Actually we came back to pick up Andrea Russo’s house keys. She asked us to get them from you.”
Her face wrinkled with distrust. “What keys?”
“Andrea wanted us to do her a favor and get them for her. We had to take her set as evidence,” Borrelli said.
“Why didn’t she come herself?” she asked.
“Because she has school tonight, and the charm boat she works for won’t give her time off to come and get them herself,” Borrelli said.
She eyed the detectives. “If you’re lying …”
“We’re not,” Jones said with a weary edge.
“Wait here,” she said, and walked inside the house.
After she had gone inside, Borrelli looked at his partner and asked, “What do you think?”
“I think she saw the people who came with Beansy and left without him.”
“She ain’t gonna be an easy one to break. We’re going to have to find the right buttons to push,” Borrelli said.
Mary Terrella came back and handed Jones the keys.
They thanked her and went across the street. Walking in front of the parked patrol car, Jones waved to the two bored cops inside who’d been assigned to the “fixer” outside the crime scene. Standing on the porch of Andrea Russo’s house, Borrelli tried the keys in the two locks on the front door. They worked. As they were walking back to their car, Jones looked at his partner and asked, “How many ladies you dancing with these days?”
“Four,” Borrelli said proudly.
“Doesn’t it get complicated?”
“Yeah, it does. But the problem is, I love ’em all.”
“What you gotta do is ask yourself which woman you want to spend the rest of your life cheating on.”
Inspector Patrick Sarsfield Casey, the commanding officer of the Twelfth Detective District, which included the Seven One Squad, was the oldest member of the NYPD. Department regulations dictated mandatory retirement at age sixty-three. Casey was sixty-five and still working, because five days before his sixty-third birthday he’d filed an age discrimination suit in federal court, enjoining the department and the city from forcing him to retire. The case was currently winding its way through the overloaded court calendar.
Pigtown Page 2
