Pigtown

by William J. Caunitz

  Standing on the dock next to the USS Growler, a decommissioned submarine, Stuart asked, “How did you know where to find me?” He was suddenly aware of the immense sadness in Suzanne’s eyes.

  “I knew you wouldn’t park in the street, and that was the nearest garage. I figured you would be inside talking with lawyers and IAD for a couple of hours, so I just drove up and waited. I threw in a twenty-eight and banged out the rest of the tour,” Suzanne said.

  He smiled at her use of cop lingo to tell him she took the rest of the day off. “And how did you know I’d been summoned to the snakepit? I don’t recall telling you.”

  “A squad commander being given a GO Fifteen really turns on the Big Building’s gossip mill.”

  He looked out over the guardrail at the Growler’s conning tower and the guided missile resting on the launch pad rising up out of the submarine’s deck. “Why all the secrecy, Suzanne?”

  She handed him two large manila envelopes. “I brought you a farewell present.”

  His mouth set hard. “Farewell?”

  Avoiding his eyes, she said, “Yes. I’ve decided I can’t go on like this, Matthew.”

  “Suzanne …”

  She rushed a silencing finger across his mouth. “Please, no lies, not between us.” She placed her hand on the envelopes. “One contains Paddy Holiday’s IAD case folder; the other has a list of all the people who attended Knight’s Roundtable, and their replacements up until December of ninety-three. I couldn’t get my hands on the building’s security tapes, but I know that they’re stored in room six on the C level.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I couldn’t stand by and allow them to hurt you, I just couldn’t.” She scrutinized his face as though committing him to a special place in her memory. “It’s going to take me a long, long time to get over you, Matthew Stuart.”

  “Suzanne, please, give us some more time.”

  “I can’t, my darling. I’m not willing to give up on my career dreams for a man who’s just not able to feel about me as deeply as I feel about him. The word, I’m afraid, is love.”

  That was the first time either one of us has used the word, Matt realized. “Love?” he echoed.

  “What did you think I was talking about Saturday morning in your house and later that day in City Island?”

  “I guess I never put it together. Sometimes I’m a little thick in the head.” He was suddenly and fully aware of how much she meant to him. “Stay with me, please.”

  “I can’t, not like this, Matthew. Sooner or later somebody from the Job will see us together and turn us into the Big Building’s wet dream. I’ve built my entire career on an anonymous private life. I’m only willing to come out of the closet for a man who loves me and can commit.”

  “I’m still numb from the loss of my son, my family. I need time.” She puckered her lips and blew him a kiss, then turned and walked away quickly, disappearing into the crowd of tourists.

  He had the irrevocable sense that the only real connection, the only real warmth in his life, was walking away from him. Am I meant to be alone? he wondered. Do I love her? How can I open up enough to any woman to ever really know?”

  He pushed the questions aside and looked at the envelopes she had given him. Like most cops caught up in the Job’s intrigue, he had been swept along by events over which he had little control. He had been confused and uncertain. It scared him when he thought that what had happened to his father so many years ago was now happening to him. He had felt helpless at first, but now, as his grip tightened around the envelopes, he felt the strength of resolve surging through his body. Now he was armed; Suzanne had given him the weapon.

  Anger had begun to seethe in him. He wanted to deal out some old-time retribution, to cause pain, to make them suffer. He wondered how many good cops had been hurt over the years by the descendants of the Roundtable.

  After Kahn left Stuart, she telephoned IAD and asked for Lieutenant Kirby. When he answered, she hung up. She then phoned Borrelli at the Squad and told him what the whip wanted them to do.

  Kahn was sitting by herself in a booth when Borrelli walked into the Mayfair restaurant forty minutes later. He slid in beside her. “I brought what we need,” he whispered. “Is Kirby working today?”

  “Yeah. I called and hung up when he answered.”

  “I IDed his car through DMV.”

  “Then let’s do it,” she said.

  She paid her bill, and they left the restaurant. He crossed the street, while she headed for the telephone on the far corner. She redialed IAD and asked for Kirby. This time when he got on the line, she said, “How are you doing, Ken?” and gestured to Borrelli that she had him on the line.

  Borrelli walked down Charlton Street and entered a parking garage. IAD had rented the garage around the corner from 315 Hudson Street for its investigators. Borrelli walked along the first level, to the left of a pole barrier, moving deeper into the garage, looking for Kirby’s car. Not finding it, he walked up the ramp leading to the second level. The screech of straining wheels echoed throughout the garage. Borrelli kept searching for the car, at the same time keeping a lookout for any attendants who might ask him what he was doing there.

  He finally located Kirby’s cream-colored Ford parked on the second level. Borrelli looked around but saw nobody. He opened the shopping bag he had brought with him and took out a “slim Jim,” a two-foot-long pliable metal strip about an inch wide and a quarter of an inch thick, with prongs extending at a right angle at one end. He worked the device over the top of the closed window and pushed the rod down along the inside. When the prongs reached the door-lock button, he slid it under the button’s top and lifted it up, unlocking the car’s door. He slipped inside.

  He reached back into the bag, brought out a jar of white fingerprint powder and a brush, and spread the powder over the steering wheel. Soon latent fingerprint impressions began to develop on the wheel. Closing the jar, he pulled out white lifting tape from the bag, rolled it over the latent impressions, and then lifted up the prints by peeling off the tape. After gingerly placing each lifted impression inside a white envelope, Borrelli reached back into the shopping bag, took out a hand towel, and cleaned away all traces of the white powder. Gathering up his tools, he locked the car, and left.

  Kahn was still talking on the phone with Kirby when she saw Borrelli turn the corner. Kirby had pretended he knew nothing of her visit to the snakepit. He even told her he wanted to see her again. His sheer nerve made her hate him more. “This is too painful, Ken. I shouldn’t have called you.” She hung up.

  Stuart walked slowly through the corridor of sublevel C of police headquarters. He had passed through the lobby’s security cordon six minutes ago. It was lunchtime, and the Palace Guard was hunkering into its favorite watering holes for its two-hour power lunches. The cluttered corridors were deserted.

  He passed stacks of old desks and swivel chairs and came to room C-6. No combination pad was attached to the door, nor were any alarm wires visible. He looked up and saw only a jumble of white sheathed pipes, no security cameras. He walked past the room casually, as if he were going to another area.

  The corridor ran in a square around the building and housed many of the building’s housekeeping units. Some auxiliary units, such as the Order Section, Printing Unit, and the Distributing Room, which handled the department mail, were also quartered there. Three detectives lounged outside the Photographic Section, waiting for their “wet” mug shots to be developed. He was relieved when he did not recognize any of them, because if ever he had to say what he was doing in the Big Building at this time, he was going to say he’d come by to purchase extra magazines for his gun in the Equipment Bureau.

  As he approached Room C-6 for the second time, he slid a credit card out of his wallet and stepped up to the door. He pressed his shoulder against it as he slid the card between the door and jamb. As he worked the card down, he smiled at the thought of how many times he’d seen cops in the movies do this and wondered if Holly
wood would be surprised if they knew just how many times a day real cops gained access to places by using cards and thin metal strips. When the card reached a point above the lock, he pushed it down, disengaging the lock from the faceplate. Mildly disgusted by the cheap, slipshod security, he slipped into the room.

  The fluorescent ceiling light shone down on a green metal desk that stood against the cinder-block wall to the right of the entrance. On the wall above it was a department clock with both civilian and military time marked on its face. To the right of the desk was a door. He opened it and peered inside at a small storage room that contained logs of the Big Building’s security tapes. The dates the tapes were recorded were posted on their spines. Blank tapes were also stored in the closet. Closing the door, he looked around the room. Black veneer shelves spaced about eight inches apart lined the rest of the walls of the room. These held the building’s security tapes. They were inside plastic protective sleeves, and the spines of each one had a paste-on label that listed the dates and times contained on the tape.

  He quickly ran his finger across a row of them, searching for September 20 and 21. They were recorded on three tapes. He took down the sleeves, pulled out the big black cassettes, and put them inside the envelopes Suzanne had given him. He was about to return the sleeves when he realized their emptiness would stand out and might cause an investigation. He stepped over to the closet and opened it. Stepping inside, he took out three blanks and inserted them in the empty sleeves.

  As he turned to leave, he heard a key being inserted into the door. The last thing he needed was to be discovered by building security. He darted into the storage room and pulled the door almost shut, leaving a crack that afforded him a view of the outer room.

  A man and a woman dressed in civilian clothes entered. She quickly and quietly pulled up her skirt, slid on top of the desk, and whispered, “Push my panties aside.”

  Stuart rolled his eyes. He’d found himself in the middle of a lunchtime “quickie.” He heard a fly being unzipped and for the next few minutes endured the muffled moans and groans of lovemaking.

  When their romantic interlude was over, they left the room, gently pulling the door closed behind them.

  Stuart emerged from his hiding place. The smell of fresh sex clung to the stuffy air. He wondered if anyone at John Jay had ever done a survey to discover how many cops got laid on city time.

  When he slipped out into the corridor, he spied the lovers standing to the left of the door, trying to make their conversation look and sound like business. They weren’t very convincing. They blanched and their mouths fell open when they saw him walk out. He went over to the shocked couple and confided, “I hope it was as good for you as it was for me.”

  Stuart opened the Squad’s command log and signed himself present from IAD at 1440 hours. As he was making the entry he thought how some things in the Job never changed. The Internal Affairs Division had been upgraded to a bureau three years ago, yet it was still referred to as IAD. Just as well, he told himself as he ruled off his entry; in a few more years the Palace Guard will probably downgrade it back to a division.

  He went into his office, locked Suzanne’s envelopes in the bottom drawer of his desk, and went back outside. Jones was sweet-talking one of his girlfriends on the telephone. Stuart got his attention and mouthed, “Let’s go for a ride.”

  “I’ll catch you later, honey,” Jones said and hung up.

  As he was walking out of the squad room, Stuart noticed Barrelli leaning over the desk talking with Kahn. They reminded him of the couple outside of Room C-6.

  Rapidly blinking green lights chased one another on and off as they seemed to race around Dreamland’s plate glass window. “Want me to go inside with you, Lou?” Jones asked with a trace of concern.

  “I want to speak to our ol’ friend alone.”

  “Watch yourself in there. Rastafarians get kinda skittish around white cops.”

  Conversation came to a screeching halt when Stuart walked inside the bar. A wall of palpable hostility rose up to greet him, along with the pungent sweetness of ganja, while from the tape deck behind the bar Sparrow sang “Sa Sa Ay.”

  Almost to a man the Rastafarians sitting at the bar and the tables at the back defiantly dragged on their PCP-laced marijuana cigarettes and blew the smoke at Stuart. A faint trace of the crime scene unit’s chalk outline of Hollyman’s and Gee’s bodies was still visible.

  Stuart walked up to the bar. Glittering beads were woven into the bartender’s dreadlocks; a bone was stuck through his right earlobe. “What you want inside dis place, white man?” the bartender growled.

  “I’m here to see Isaac Ham. We’re old friends.”

  “Don’t know der man, no how.”

  “Go tell Isaac that Lieutenant Matthew is here to see him. But before you go, give me a bottle of Miller Lite.” He tossed a five onto the bar.

  The bartender put the bottle and a glass in front of him, looked down at the money, and said, “It be five more dollars.”

  Stuart took back the five and slapped down a ten.

  A stocky man wearing unlaced high-top sneakers with their tongues protruding, baggy clothes, and a brown felt hat with a narrow brim and a tall cylindrical crown inched his way over to Stuart and said, “What you doin’ here, motherfucker?”

  Ignoring the angry man, Stuart drank his beer and poured more, listening to Sparrow singing “Who She Go Cry For.”

  “I said, motherfucker, what you doin’ here?”

  Stuart withered him with a look. “Since you’re too dumb to figure it out, sonny, I’ll tell you. I’m having a beer.”

  “I’m a black man! Don’t you wash your white motherfuckin’ mouth over me.”

  “You’re not a black man. Black men are out busting their humps to provide for their families. You’re a black criminal. And you got a pretty good bark, sonny, but do you bite?”

  The stare-down lasted several long moments before the man in the top hat spat on the floor and turned to leave. Stuart tensed for what he knew was coming. The man had half turned to walk away when he whirled back around, gripping a nine-millimeter automatic pistol.

  Stuart rammed his cocked elbow into the man’s face, at the same time clamping down on his wrist with his free hand and yanking it clockwise, spinning him around toward the bar. He hurled his body against him, pinioning him to the bar. He grabbed a handful of dreadlocks and slammed the man’s face down on the bar, dislodging two front teeth. The man attempted to press the nine against Stuart’s body, and again Stuart smashed the man’s face on the bar.

  “Help me!” the man cried.

  Four Rastafarians leaped up from their chairs. The crack of an exploding round froze everyone in place. Stuart tensed for the bullet’s impact, the pain. The man he was fighting looked with surprise at the gun in his hand. Only Sparrow’s voice cut through the stench of cordite. Then, slowly, all eyes swiveled toward the entrance.

  Jones filled the doorway, the black, green, and yellow colors of his African cap and scarf backlighted by the late afternoon sun rushing into the darkened bar. His nine hung from his right hand. “Calm down, my brothers,” he said, sweeping his eyes over the crowd.

  Stuart smashed the heel of his shoe into the man’s foot. Bones cracked like kindling, and the man crumpled to the floor. Stuart grabbed the gun out of his hand, whipped out his handcuffs, and ratcheted the man’s wrists to the bar’s footrail. As he did that, he was reminded of an old-time black entertainer who had described the emblem of the NYPD as “crossed rubber hoses on a field of green shamrocks.”

  Jones walked through the bar and over to the whip.

  Stuart examined his assailant’s gun and said to Jones, “Made by China North Industrial Corporation. Mail-order direct from Beijing.”

  “It’s good for the balance of trade,” Jones said, casting a wary eye on the Rastafarians.

  “Isaac, where are you?” Stuart called out.

  The door to a small office to the left of the bar flew
open; a tall, thin man in his sixties entered the room. Tiny blood vessels spiderwebbed his dark brown eyes. Isaac Ham’s skin was so black that it resembled the purple in coal. His hair was white and woven into a complicated appliqué of cornrows. Brightly colored beads tipped his dreadlocks. As he walked toward the policemen, he motioned the Rastafarians to chill out.

  “Lieutenant Matthew and his faithful gunbearer, Calvin Jones,” Ham said.

  “The last time you called me a white man’s gunbearer I caused you some pain,” Jones said. “You in the mood for some more pain, brother?”

  Ham raised his hand with two fingers molded into a V and said, “Peace, brother.” He led them over to an empty table in the corner. After they had sat down, Ham asked, “Have you come to tell me you arrested the men who murdered Hollyman and Gee?”

  “The trigger man is dead, but the people who ordered the hit are alive and well and still doing business with you,” Stuart said. “Not nice, Isaac.”

  “Business is business, Lieutenant Matthew. Unfortunately the followers of the great Haile Selassie do not have the same access to the banks and brokerage houses that the Eye-talians do, so we are forced to go to them with our laundry problems.”

  The bartender came over, set down a bottle of black rum and three glasses, and left. Ham poured the rum.

  “How is Joshua?” Stuart asked as he picked up the glass.

  Ham’s eyes hooded and his face set. “My son is practicing law in California.” He looked hard at Stuart and asked, “Why you ask ’bout my son?”

  “Just curious,” Stuart said, sipping rum.

  “It’s not cool you come here, Lieutenant Matthew. Tell me what you want and leave.”

  “I’ve come to collect a debt, Isaac,” Stuart said.

  Their silence deepened as each man’s mind raced back to that August day ten years ago. The record heat wave that had been torturing the city gave no signs of abating. Stuart had been promoted to sergeant that July and was assigned to the Seventeenth Homicide District, which covered the One Oh Eight, One Ten, One Twelve, and One Fourteen Precincts. That evening he was the whip covering the district. The call came in shortly after five: a homicide in the Queensbridge housing project in the One Fourteen.