Pigtown

by William J. Caunitz

Garibaldi said to Stuart, “I need to look around inside the plant.”

  “Is that really necessary?” she said.

  “Yeah, it’s really necessary,” Garibaldi said.

  Openly showing her annoyance, she stalked over to the plant’s entrance, unlocked the door, went inside, deactivated the alarm, and switched on all the lights.

  “The lady is pissed,” Garibaldi said, walking toward the door.

  “It would appear so,” Stuart said.

  Once he was inside the plant, Garibaldi became a bloodhound. He was everywhere, looking in desks and behind crates, his eyes searching for evidence of crime. He walked out onto the loading platform. He looked behind the piles of fake cheese wheels containing the China cat. He moved slowly, looking everywhere, missing nothing. He left the platform and walked back inside, with Stuart and Angela trailing behind him.

  Garibaldi walked over to the refrigeration unit, pushed aside the slats, and stepped inside. He saw the tool Angela had used to break into the mold containing the heroin. It was lying on top of a crate next to the real cheese wheels that Stuart and Angela had substituted for the fake ones. He picked it up, idly tapping the cylindrical blade in his palm as his eyes crept over the inside of the refrigeration unit. He glanced down at the tool and saw some white residue in his palm. He sniffed and then tasted the powder. Then he saw the crystals sprinkled over the floor. His eyes bored in on Stuart’s. “If it looks like heroin, smells like heroin, tastes like heroin, it most definitely ain’t chopped liver.” He grabbed Stuart by the arm. “Outside, both of you.”

  They pushed through the vertical plastic slats. Garibaldi looked at Stuart and Angela. “You two had better talk to me, and I mean right now, before I go and get a search warrant and tear this place apart.”

  Stuart noticed the small military decoration stuck into the lapel of Garibaldi’s suit. A light blue field covered in white stars: the Congressional Medal of Honor. He suddenly recalled the saga of one Sergeant Salvatore Garibaldi, First Marine Division, who won the Medal of Honor on Guadalcanal and surrendered his life on another beachhead a year and a half later. Stuart had heard the story in a bar in Hoboken two years ago when he’d been part of an NYPD delegation that attended a funeral for a Jersey City detective killed in the line of duty. He ran his finger over the breast bar and said solemnly, “Your dad?”

  “Yeah. Technically, I’m not entitled to wear it, but I do anyway. It’s my way of honoring my dad. I never knew him, and this bar makes me feel … close.”

  “I’m sorry for jerking you around. But …”

  “But you weren’t sure you could trust an Italian cop from New Jersey?”

  “I’m a suspicious guy, Captain.”

  “We all are. Now, what’s happening?”

  Stuart told him everything. When he finished, Garibaldi whistled softly and said, “You latched on to one helluva caper.”

  “It do appear that way, Captain.”

  “Why didn’t you notify your bosses about this shootout?”

  Stuart hesitated for a moment and then confided, “Maybe you heard the rumors about when the NYPD stopped taking ‘good money.’ They got rid of one evil and created seventeen devils. Captain, the God’s honest truth is I don’t know who I can trust in my job anymore.”

  Garibaldi nodded in understanding. “That can be a problem.”

  “How’s the guy I shot?”

  “He’ll never tango again.”

  “And the others?”

  “We’re holding them for weapons possession and attempted murder of a police officer. But there’s no way we can make a drug charge stick.”

  Stuart walked off by himself, his mind deep in thought. Garibaldi knew when to give a fellow cop some space.

  Angela went over to the police captain and said, “I was so scared.”

  “You’re a very brave woman.”

  She lowered her eyes.

  Stuart came over and joined them. “I wish there was some way of convincing Lupo we don’t know about the drugs. Then he might still come and pick them up.”

  “When did they pick up the last shipment?” Garibaldi asked Angela.

  “Yesterday,” she said.

  “There’s a good chance those loads he moved out are in a warehouse, probably in Chicago but maybe somewhere else, waiting for the final shipment. That crap is almost pure, but they still step on it once with lactose or powdered coffee creamer, and that takes time, and it takes more time to bag it for shipment,” Stuart said.

  “Once they hear what went down here, that stuff’ll disappear,” Garibaldi said glumly.

  “Maybe not,” Stuart said. “My guess is the goons sitting on this place don’t have a clue where the other shipments are stashed. They might not even know what the hell they were guarding. What we gotta do is convince Lupo that we don’t know about the phony cheese wheels.”

  “Which means,” Garibaldi said, “that you gotta come up with some reason for you two being here, a reason that he’s gonna believe. One of his guys probably called Lupo and his lawyers.”

  Angela gave Garibaldi a big smile and said, “I know how to convince Lupo we don’t know about the drugs.”

  Both men listened, at first skeptically and then with mounting concentration. “It might work,” Stuart said. “But she’s putting her head in the jaws of the tiger.”

  Angela looked at both of them sternly. “It’s my head to risk. And us Sicilians are big at payback!”

  “It’s certainly worth a shot,” Garibaldi agreed, just as Jimmy Driscoll walked out onto the platform.

  Driscoll had the look of a guy always late for an appointment. A heavyset man in his middle forties, his chin had no definition and appeared to have grown out of his neck. He was a chain smoker with a hair-trigger temper. Before he joined DEA, he’d been at the Police Academy with Stuart in 1974.

  Stuart quickly filled Driscoll in on what had happened. The three policemen thoroughly examined Angela’s plan. Stuart watched as Driscoll lit another cigarette. He said, “Jimmy, I’d like your agency to take the collars on this.”

  Driscoll dragged on his cigarette. “Why?”

  “Because you have the resources, and because federal sentencing guidelines will guarantee that these humps spend the rest of their lives in a federal dungeon.”

  “You make it sound personal, Matt,” Driscoll said, flicking his cigarette.

  “It is,” Stuart admitted. “I’ve lived through two major corruption scandals in the Job. And in every one, the guys at the bottom of the ladder take the fall while the guys on the top claim amnesia and walk off into the sunset with their pensions. Corruption can’t happen without the tacit approval of the bosses. The bad cops in this case are all bosses in the Job. I want those bastards to go down hard, real hard.”

  Driscoll ticked off the problems, one by one, on his fingers. “One, you’re talking about a major operation mounted on a few hours’ notice. Two, you’re talking about setting up communications and surveillance nets from here to Chicago, maybe beyond. Three, you’re talking about getting the Chicago field boss up out of bed, not to mention my boss in D.C. Four, I sure don’t look forward to telling them that we’re setting up a green six operation to follow wheels of cheese to Chicago—maybe.”

  “You can tell your boss that chances are Danny Lupo is the top China cat importer here in the Rotten Apple. He’s the prize, along with about five hundred keys of the shit he’s already shipped.” Stuart could sense Driscoll’s hunger for the case. “Besides, those stacks of wheels sitting on the platform are crammed with China cat. That should get your boss’s attention real quick.”

  Driscoll took a final drag and dropped the cigarette to the floor, where he crushed it under his heel. “Okay. We’ll do it.” He looked at Stuart and asked, “How do you see it going down?”

  Stuart roughly outlined his plan. Driscoll suggested a few modifications, and they agreed. When they finished, Stuart said to Angela, “I’ll drive you home.”

  “Salvatore h
as offered to take me,” she said, and sliding her arm through the captain’s, led him inside the plant, asking, “By the way, are you married?”

  Stuart kept his eyes closed as he reached out and pulled the phone to his ear. “Yeah?”

  “What the hell were you doing in New Jersey?” Patrick Sarsfield Casey blared over the line.

  Stuart opened his eyes and sat up in bed, aware of the late-tour cotton in his mouth. “I went there with a lady friend. She showed me around her plant, and as we were walking back to the car these assholes started shooting at us.”

  “You’d better haul ass to the Big Building. The chief of detectives wants to see you, forthwith.”

  “I’ll jump in the shower and be there in forty minutes.” He hung up and swung his legs off the bed, glancing at the message light of his answering machine, hoping that Suzanne had called while he was asleep. But the light wasn’t on. He looked at the clock: 9:10. “The chief of detectives,” he groaned. “That guy couldn’t find a prayer in a church.” He pushed up off the bed and walked into the bathroom, saying, “It’s show time.”

  Daniel Lupo stormed into his office and shouted at Frankie Bones, “Did they get our stuff?”

  “As far as we can tell, it’s still there,” he replied nervously.

  Lupo kicked his desk in rage. “That fucking Stuart is gonna steal my drugs.”

  “Stuart’s not on the take.”

  “Bullshit! Everyone’s on the take if the take is big enough. This is a score of a lifetime for a cop.”

  “A Jersey City police captain named Garibaldi questioned Joe Bite in the hospital. He also spoke to our other people in jail. He wanted to know what they were doing there. He couldn’t understand why they started shooting.”

  “He didn’t mention anything about drugs or the wheels?”

  “Nothing. And they arrested our guys for attempted burglary, possession of firearms, and attempted murder of a police officer.”

  “But no drugs?”

  “No.”

  Lupo walked out onto the terrace, took a halfhearted look through the telescope, came back inside, and asked, “Whaddaya think?”

  Frankie Bones chose his words carefully. “Dunno. Maybe our guys overreacted.”

  “We gotta know for sure. We got a fortune stashed in that goddamn cheese factory, and we don’t know if we can move it or not. What the hell were they doing there?”

  “We’ll know the answer to that in a little while. The brass have summoned Stuart to headquarters. As soon as they know, we’ll know. If they did take our drugs, we’ll steal it back from them.”

  Lupo snarled, “That shouldn’t be a problem. Most of those bastards have been on our payroll for years.”

  They heard a commotion outside Lupo’s office. The door flew open. Lupo’s secretary attempted to block Angela, who shoved the woman aside and lunged at Lupo. “You rotten no-good son of a bitch! You almost had me killed last night!” She ran up to him, flailing at him with her hands and pocketbook, kicking him. Her bag struck him above his right eye, opening a small gash, sending a trickle of blood down his face.

  Frankie Bones grabbed her in a bear hug, pulling her away from Lupo.

  “What were you doing there with that cop?” Lupo demanded, dabbing at the blood on his face with a handkerchief.

  “That’s none of your goddamn business, you greasy slimebag.”

  “I’m bleeding, you fuckin’ cunt!” Lupo shouted.

  “Who are you calling a cunt, you limp-dick, motherless guinea bastard!”

  Lupo rushed over and punched her in the face, knocking her to the floor.

  Frankie Bones grabbed him, whispering, “Take it easy. Let’s find out what happened.”

  She jackknifed herself off the floor, grabbed an Oriental blue-and-white vase, and hurled it at Lupo. He ducked as the vase barely missed him and shattered against the wall.

  “That was an antique,” Lupo shouted, outraged.

  “It was a phony piece of shit just like you are,” she said. She tried to go at him again.

  Frankie Bones blocked and held her. Lupo came up to her and grabbed her by the chin. “What were you and the cop doing there?” he asked in a deceptively calm tone.

  “That’s none of your business,” she said defiantly, her eyes glowing with hatred into Lupo’s face. She suddenly stopped struggling and drew in a deep, calming breath. “Okay. Okay. I entered into a simple business arrangement with you that nearly cost me my life. I want fifty thousand dollars for the mental anguish your people caused me, and I want it in cash, today. If I don’t get it, I’m going to grate your cheese and sell it. Then I’m going to sue you for the difference, but not before I personally report your cash milk deal to the IRS.”

  Frankie Bones was stunned by her audacity and let go of her.

  “Let’s try and work this thing out,” Lupo said, blocking her exit and plastering an insincere, ghastly smile on his face.

  “It’s worked out,” she said, brushing him aside. “And if you ever come near me again, Daniel Lupo, I’ll get my grandfather’s old shotgun and kill you.”

  She left the office without closing the door.

  “Well?” Frankie Bones said.

  Looking at his bloody handkerchief, Lupo said, “Maybe, just maybe, it’s okay. But I wanna hear what Stuart tells his bosses before I do anything.”

  Police memorabilia covered the walls of the thirteenth-floor office of the chief of detectives at One Police Plaza. A collection of police hats from around the world covered the glass tops of four Parsons tables pushed together against one wall.

  C of D Kevin Hartman stood at the window, staring morosely down at the morning traffic on Worth Street. Patrick Sarsfield Casey was squeezed onto the small sofa alongside Big Jim Gebheart, the detective divisions XO. Deputy Chief Aaron Flieger, the CO of IAD, a man in his early sixties with hair dyed raven-black—who had spent the last twenty of his twenty-eight years in the Job posing as a crusader against police corruption and who maintained his twenty-nine-year-old girlfriend in an East Side town house and his wife in Pelham—sat on a green Chesterfield armchair, nervously drumming his bony fingers on the arms.

  All the men in the room looked distinctly unhappy.

  Hartman turned from the window and asked, “Where’s that ‘Unusual’?”

  “Here, Chief,” Gebheart said, struggling up from the couch, picking up the Unusual Occurrence Report from the desk and handing it to him.

  Hartman read the report aloud. “At time and place of occurrence, Lieutenant Matthew Stuart, CO Seventy-first Detective Squad, did discharge automatic service pistol under the following circumstances …” After finishing the report, he tossed it back onto the desk, saying, “This ‘Unusual’ doesn’t tell us a goddamn thing.” He asked Patrick Sarsfield Casey what he knew.

  “I talked to a Captain Garibaldi from the Jersey City police. He said Stuart and Angela appeared to have walked in on a burglary.”

  “But what the hell were they doing there?” Hartman demanded.

  Gebheart said, “What he was doing there isn’t important. What’s important is who he was with. Beansy’s niece.”

  Hartman said, “Will you excuse us a moment, Inspector?”

  After Casey had left the office, Hartman glared at Gebheart and said, “Are you losing it, talking like that in front of him?”

  Gebheart tried to mollify him. “Patrick Sarsfield is okay.”

  “Oh, yeah? Are you willing to bet your life on that, Jimmy?” Hartman said, and got up and walked around the room, punching his palm with his fist. “All of us worked hard to guarantee our futures. I hope nothing’s gonna screw us up.”

  Gebheart protested, “A cop was almost killed last night. Remember! A cop. That’s what we used to be before we became realists.”

  “I resent that,” Flieger said, jabbing a manicured index finger at Gebheart. “I’m still a cop.”

  “You’re a hypocrite, Flieger. We all stopped being cops when we finessed the Job out of ‘g
ood money.’ What would we have done if Stuart had been killed last night?” Gebheart asked.

  Only silence answered his question. Then Flieger piped up, “We all knew what we were getting into, so let’s not have any phony recriminations at this late stage. Yeah, sometimes we have to step on some hotshot cop to protect our friends, but we don’t hurt them—at least, not real bad.”

  The intercom buzzed. “Stuart’s here,” Hartman said.

  Patrick Sarsfield Casey walked into the chief of detectives’ office with Stuart.

  “You had a busy night, Lieutenant,” Hartman said.

  “Sure did, boss,” Stuart agreed, sitting down on the chair in front of the desk without waiting for an invitation.

  “I read the ‘Unusual,’ and I still can’t figure out what you were doing there.” Hartman stood over him, glaring.

  “Hey, I was off duty. I didn’t go there on police business,” Stuart said.

  “Just what kind of business took you there, Lieutenant?” Flieger asked nastily.

  “Personal business, Chief,” Stuart blandly told the boss of IAD.

  A mirthless grin spread over Flieger’s face. “I’m afraid ‘personal’ don’t quite cut it, Lieutenant. You went armed into another state, not on official police business, with the niece of the subject of a homicide your squad is carrying. And while there you shoot some guy in the leg. You’re in the deep stuff, Lou, the kinda shit that’ll put you in jail or out of the Job.”

  “Why were you there, Matt?” Patrick Sarsfield Casey asked gently.

  Stuart said, “I went there to get laid, and for the record, I didn’t shoot until I, and the civilian I was with, were fired at.”

  “You went all the way to Jersey City to knock off a piece of ass?” Hartman asked incredulously.

  Stuart shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Yes. The lady is into game playing. She likes to make it on this big conference room table, and have you sit naked at the end in an executive chair, watching her play with her clit.” He had their rapt attention. “She squirms her way down to you and spreads her legs, and—”

  “We get the picture,” Hartman interrupted.

  “How long were you in that conference room?” Gebheart asked.