“I met Madeline Fine,” Stuart said, “and she didn’t strike me as the kind of woman who does anything she doesn’t want to do.” He heard the shuffling of feet and looked out into the squad room to see Anticrime walking inside.
Sergeant Christopher walked into his office, followed by Nagel and Siracusa. She nodded hello to Kahn and proceeded to tell Stuart about tailing Frankie Bones to the Chanin Building and seeing him talking to a man in the lobby. “I sicced Nagel on him.”
Nagel picked up the story. “I jumped back into the van and followed this guy to the garage around the corner of Forty-first. I tailed him to Lexington and Twenty-third, where some guy is waiting on the corner. This guy walked over to the van, tosses a package the size of a cake box inside, and walked off down Lexington. While we were following him, we did a record check. The car came back registered to a Carmine Marino of 15–42 Bayshore Drive in Whitestone. We checked; he had no rap sheet.”
Stuart wrote the name and address on his yellow pad.
Siracusa added, “We tailed this guy back into Brooklyn. He drives back here, into the Seven One, and pays a visit to Dreamland, the Rastafarian club on Nostrand Avenue. We didn’t wanna park because they’d probably make us white boys, so we did a couple of drive-bys and see this guy in a heavy-duty conversation with Isaac Ham, the dreadlocks’ bossman.”
At the mention of Isaac Ham, Stuart and Jones exchanged knowing smiles.
Siracusa was saying, “We parked four blocks away. Thirty-five minutes later this guy leaves the club and drives along Nostrand Avenue, making stops at travel agencies, jewelry stores, and check-cashing joints.”
“Every one of those joints is a front for money laundering,” Stuart said.
“After this guy does his Nostrand Avenue tour, he drives back to the Chanin Building and parks back in the garage,” Nagel said.
Stuart asked Christopher, “How’d you like to help us play ‘catch-up’?”
“Sounds good to me, Lou,” she replied.
By two-fifteen the lunchtime crowd at Holiday’s bar had thinned, but several burly drivers still sat at the bar, eating spaghetti and lasagna from large white plates. One of the men at the bar was gorging himself on a hero sandwich of meatballs and tomato sauce. Straw baskets filled with sliced Italian bread and cellophane-wrapped crackers and breadsticks were scattered along the bar. Unlit candles in red glass globes decorated the tables. A new barmaid worked the stick, a short, shapely woman in her late thirties with brightly painted lips, a heavy dose of mascara, and black lacquered hair. She wore a pair of jeans with the legs cut off just below her crotch and a crimson sweater that showed off her ample breasts.
A country-western song about truckin’ and cheatin’ on women blared from the old-style jukebox.
Paddy Holiday shouldered his way from the back through the swinging doors, carrying a tray of food. He went over to the table nearest the doors and set down the plates in front of three big men. Then he walked behind the bar to draw a pitcher of beer and spotted Jones standing at the end, wearing his African cap and scarf. Their eyes met briefly. Holiday turned away and brought the pitcher over to the table. He lingered there long enough to tell a dirty joke, then walked the length of the bar to where Jones was standing. “How’s the Job treating you these days, Calvin?”
“The Job never changes, Paddy, you should know that. You got your good days, and you got your bad days.”
“Plaintiff still breaking your balls?”
“Big time. She wants me to buy her a car.”
“And whaddaya tell her?”
“I tell her nothing. I hang up as soon as I hear her whining voice.”
Holiday leaned close to confide, “You know what sexual harassment is? It’s paying alimony for pussy you’re no longer fucking.”
Jones lifted his mug in a mock toast. “I’ll drink to that.”
Holiday gestured to the barmaid to bring him another beer. She drew the beer and set it down on the bar in front of him. Holiday told her, “My friend’s money is no good here.”
She smiled at the detective and walked away. “Ever see tits like that?” Holiday asked Jones.
“She is one healthy woman.” He looked at Paddy. “You sure replaced Andrea real fast.”
Holiday either ignored or didn’t pick up on Jones’s sarcasm. “Rosa used to fill in for Andrea. Speakin’ of Andrea, I sure hope you guys get the bastard who whacked her.”
“This one we’re going to clear fast. The shooter dropped something that’s going to put him inside for life.”
“No shit. What?”
“Paddy, I can’t talk about that.”
“Yeah, I understand. What brings you around here, alone?”
“I hadda drop something off at the Big Building and figured I’d stop in for a taste on my way back to the Squad.” As he raised the mug to his mouth, his eyes swept once again over the barmaid’s voluptuous body.
Holiday caught the look and said, “Would ya like me to introduce ya?”
Jones looked at him. “You pimping nowadays, Paddy?”
“Hey, I’m not into that. I just figured if you wanna get close to her, I’d put in a word for ya, one cop to the other.”
“I’m not into white chicks.”
“Whatever.”
Jones chugalugged the remainder of his beer. “I gotta get back to the Squad.” He reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a thin wad of money. He fanned the wad between his thumb and forefinger, exposing a ten, two fives, and seven singles. He stripped two singles off the wad, placed them on the bar, and tucked the remainder back into his trousers, complaining, “That biweekly check don’t go too far these days.”
“I got some friends who could use an off-duty detective to chauffeur them around the city.” Holiday added hastily, “Totally legit.”
“No thanks. I spend all my off-duty time in the pursuit of pussy.”
“Hey, my kinda guy.”
Paddy walked over to the window and watched Jones get in the unmarked car and drive off. He stood there for a few minutes, casting his suspicious eyes up and down the street. A woman with a baby carriage was standing to the right of the bar’s entrance, gabbing with another woman. A truck and two taxis were double-parked in front of the bar, and another truck was double-parked across the street from the bar.
Paddy walked out into the street. Ignoring the chitchatting women, he carefully eyeballed the trucks and taxis, then looked up and down the street. He walked to the corner, checking out the cars parked at the curbs on both sides of the street. He crossed the street and sat on the stoop next to the El Caribe bodega. He lit a cigarette and continued to observe everything going on. Satisfied that no cops were snooping him, he shifted his weight to his left buttock and withdrew the cellular phone from his right trouser pocket.
Across the street, Kahn, who had donned a brunette wig, big hoop earrings, and a black long-sleeved blouse pulled down over lavender stretch pants, reached into the carriage and slid back the blanket. She quickly opened the briefcase-shaped Cellmate and lifted up the rubberized short antenna. She snapped the toggle switch, and the LED screen glowed green. The battery-operated Cellmate targeted automatically and locked on to radio-beam transmissions generated by cellular phones that operated over the licensed eight and nine hundred frequencies. The device had an effective range of two city blocks and contained an automatic tape deck that recorded both sides of the conversation.
Christopher leaned over the carriage, pretending to play with the baby, and whispered to Kahn, “He’s still dialing.”
Kahn slowly turned the black scanning dial, attempting to lock on to Holiday’s phone. The rapid electronic pulses of Holiday’s dialing came out of the Cellmate at a very low volume. Kahn turned the volume knob to zero, looked to see that the recording indicator needle was fluttering, and, seeing that it was, slid the blanket over the Cellmate with the tip of its antenna protruding slightly over the edge of the blanket. Then she resumed her conversation with Christopher.
“Yeah, what is it?” Frankie Bones said into the mouthpiece of his phone.
“Somebody who works with that friend of ours just told me that they found something at the scene that will put your friend inside for life.”
“’At’s bullshit.”
“S’pose it ain’t?”
A thoughtful silence, then Frankie asked, “Can you check it out with one of your friends?”
“I’ll get back t’ya,” Holiday said, and punched off. He got off the stoop and crossed back across the street. The women were still talking in front of the bar. He leaned up against the lamppost and dialed another number.
“Lieutenant Kirby.”
“It’s me.”
“What’s up?”
“That thing that went down in Pigtown over the weekend. I hear our friend found something at the scene. Can you nose around?”
“I’ll look into it.”
Detectives Jordon and Whitehouser were at their battered desks in the squad room, working the busy telephones, while Kahn, Christopher, Borrelli, and Jones gathered in Stuart’s office, watching him snap open the Cellmate. Stuart pushed the play button; Holiday’s conversation with Frankie Bones flowed from the machine. The detectives listened intently to the playback. Next came the mechanical pings of the second number being dialed. Stuart placed his elbows on his desk, rested his forehead in his palms, and closed his eyes in concentration.
When Kahn heard her ex-lover’s name and voice, the color drained from her face. Her eyes fell to the Cellmate’s black faceplate, and her heart thundered inside her chest. Only her iron will prevented her from leaping to her feet, screaming, “You motherfucker!”
When that conversation ended, Stuart switched off the machine. He looked at each one of the detectives gathered around his desk, his face solemn. “I’m going to have a friend in Electronic Intelligence decipher those pings into a telephone number, and then I’m going after Kirby. Anyone got a problem with that?”
“Bury the bum, Lou,” Borrelli said.
“We intercepted those transmissions without an eavesdropping warrant,” Christopher said. “They can’t be introduced in court against this Kirby guy.”
“We’ll invent some exigent circumstances,” Jones said.
“Don’t worry about that now,” Stuart said. “The important thing is to see this guy gets exactly what’s due him.”
One by one the detectives filed out of the office and went back to their paper and telephones. Two uniform cops dragged a screaming prisoner into the squad room and threw him into the detention cage.
“I got my rights!” the prisoner shrieked, shaking the door of the cage.
“You got the right to remain silent. So shut the fuck up,” the older of the two cops shot back.
Kahn rose slowly and walked over to the window, where she hooked her fingers through the latticework of the window grate. She bowed her head and stood motionless, remembering intimate moments she had spent with Kirby. Silent tears streamed down her face, dripping from her chin.
Stuart hurriedly yanked the bottom side drawer of his desk and grabbed a roll of toilet paper. He tore off an arm’s length as he walked over to her and asked gently, “What’s the matter?” handing her the paper.
She took the “cop handkerchief” and blew her nose, then dried her face.
“Want to talk about it?”
“Kirby and I were lovers,” she blurted, and began crying again. “He’s a lieutenant in IAD, and he’s married with a bunch of kids.” She bit down on the knuckle of her forefinger. “His poor wife and children.”
“Who ended it, and when?”
“I did, a week ago. I guess I bruised his macho image of himself. I’m sure he’s behind that IAD notification.”
“You’re probably right.”
She began to sob again. He took her carefully into his arms and said, “We all make mistakes, Helen. Don’t beat yourself up over it.”
She filled her lungs with air and regained her self-control. “I’m all right, Lou. Thanks.”
“Ken Kirby,” he said almost to himself, and fell silent. He left her and went over to his desk and began rummaging through the case folders until he found what he was looking for. He yanked Holiday’s personnel folder from under the pile and, standing, leafed through the pages, skimming them until he reached the section he was looking for.
Patrolmen Patrick Holiday and Kenneth Kirby had been served with charges and specifications alleging “eating on the arm” in restaurants and hotels within their command. When Stuart had first read the entry, he had assumed Holiday had the connections to reach outside the Job and “turn” the witnesses around. He looked at Kahn, who was tearing off another length of cop handkerchief. “Did Kirby ever talk to you about himself?”
“Ken lived a charmed life in the Job. Except for a short stint on patrol as a rookie, he’s spent his entire career in IAD.” She opened her pocketbook and took out her makeup compact. She opened it and looked at herself in the small mirror embedded in the lid. “I look like shit,” she said.
“You’ll wash up, put on some fresh warpaint, and you’ll be as great as ever.”
She snapped the compact closed, dropped it back into her bag, and said, “Thanks, Lou.”
“It’s been department policy for a long time to transfer people with every promotion, yet Kirby stayed in IAD. Any idea where his ‘weight’ is?”
“His father was Chief Thomas Kirby, who ran Narcotics back in the early sixties. He seldom talked about him, but whenever he did it was apparent he hated his guts.”
“Why?”
“I got the impression the old man was an autocratic bastard who used to beat him whenever he got the urge.”
Stuart threw open his office door and motioned the detectives inside, all except Whitehouser, whom he told to stay in the squad room and man the phones. The mutt inside the cage was singing “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” As the detectives filed into his office, Stuart walked out into the squad room and over to the uniform cops. He looked down at the bloody meat cleaver on the desk. “Whaddaya got ’im for?”
The younger of the two said, “He chopped his girlfriend’s arm off at the shoulder because she wouldn’t give him money for another bottle of gin.”
Stuart looked at the man inside the cage, grimaced in disgust, and walked back inside his office. “I wanna ‘sit’ on Paddy Holiday, which means picking him up in the morning and putting him to bed at night. I can’t authorize overtime, but I’ll try to make it up to you in straight time. I want whoever is on him to take the Cellmate and record every call he makes on his cellular. Any questions?”
The detectives looked at one another. Jones made an impatient little gesture and said, “We got no questions, Lou.”
“One more thing,” Stuart said. “I don’t want Whitehouser to know what we’re doing.”
Thursday broke with the ominous threat of thunderstorms darkening the sky. As Stuart drove his category one car into Hudson Street, he glanced up at the gathering clouds and thought, Perfect weather for a visit to the snakepit.
He parked the car in the garage on Charlton Street just west of Hudson and walked to the restaurant. As he walked along Hudson Street, he suddenly realized that he had forgotten all about his piano lesson earlier in the week. He’d have to call Denise and apologize. I’ll tell her I was tied up at work, he thought, which was the truth. He’d reschedule for next Tuesday.
The Mayfair was similar to many of the city’s fast-food eateries. A vertical revolving glass display case filled with oversize and overstuffed cream pies and cakes stood just inside the entrance. Silver-colored stools with red leatherette seats fronted a long counter running down the right side of the restaurant. The display case behind the counter held trays of Jell-O, rice pudding, and fruit salad. The open-front kitchen was at the end of the aisle that separated the counter from the back-to-back booths that crammed the center of the restaurant and lined its left wall.
What distinguished the M
ayfair from other restaurants was its remarkable quiet. From the time of its opening every day at six in the morning until four in the afternoon, when the Internal Affairs Bureau ceased interviewing suspects and witnesses, the Mayfair’s clientele was exclusively cops, their lawyers, and representatives of the various police line organizations. They conferred in whispered tones and gave their orders to taciturn waitresses, who, as they approached, made polite little sounds that temporarily halted the conversation at the table. All the cops and lawyers overtipped to ensure that whatever snippets of conversation the waitresses might have overheard there stayed there.
As Stuart entered, he was immediately struck by the humongous lemon meringue pie rotating inside the display case. One slice was missing. That’s gotta be five million calories, he thought. Looking around the restaurant, he spotted Dick Danzer in a booth in the back. As he walked down the aisle toward his lawyer, he saw a grossly overweight cop ravenously shoveling the missing piece of lemon meringue into his mouth.
Sliding into the booth, Stuart said, “Morning, Dick.”
“You’re lookin’ good, Matt. You must be in love.”
“I’m always in love.” He allowed himself a little bravado.
“In that case, allow me to pass on to you the sage advice of my father that has guided me through my four failed marriages. ‘Any man who marries a woman who does not give phenomenal head needs his examined.’”
“If your wives were that great, why did you divorce them?”
“Alas, they divorced me. My problem is that I’m a romantic in search of the perfect woman.”
A slight cough turned their heads. She was typical of many of Manhattan’s waitresses—young, attractive, and obviously aspiring to an acting career.
“Have you eaten?” Danzer asked Matt.
“Only coffee.”
“It might be a long day. I suggest a big breakfast.”
They ordered pancakes, eggs, sausages, coffee, and dry toast. As soon as the waitress walked off, they folded their arms across the table and leaned their torsos forward until their faces almost met in the center of the table. Danzer whispered, “What’s this all about, Matt?”
Pigtown Page 19
