by Dave Daren
Despite my window shopping, I made good time to the street where the club was located. I was working out what I wanted to say in order to get inside, then stopped as I came around the corner and saw a line of police cars along the street, most pulled up in front of the social club. The ubiquitous old men had moved away from the front door and sat on a nearby stoop, their eyes glued on the social club and the cops who moved in and out of the building.
There were plenty of neighbors outside as well. A few had gathered in a cluster near the outer ring of police cars but most stood on their stoops or the sidewalk and watched the action with anxious looks. I walked slowly towards the group gathered near the social club, then spotted a middle-aged woman leaning on her gate. Unlike the other gawkers, who treated the scene like a live TV show, she looked genuinely sad and I could even see the glimmer in her eyes from unshed tears.
“What’s going on?” I asked quietly as I sidled up next to her. “Why are the police at the club?”
The woman studied me for a moment, and it was obvious she didn’t recognize me. She hesitated, clearly not sure if I was someone who could be trusted with whatever news was breaking at the social club.
“I was just there with a friend of mine,” I added as an explanation. “He took me for the show.”
The woman looked towards the social club, then back at me.
“I’m Hunter,” I said.
“Are you with the press?” she asked.
“No,” I replied. “I came to visit my friend, and I saw this when I stepped around the corner. It looks serious.”
“Someone was killed,” she sighed as she made the sign of the cross. “They found the body inside the club this morning.”
“Who did?” I asked even though that wasn’t what I really wanted to know.
“Jerome and Arturo, I guess,” the woman replied. “I mean, they’re the ones who always open the place up in the morning.”
I looked towards the two old men who were still in their spots on the stoop. A detective stopped and spent several minutes talking to them, but they kept their answers short. The detective gave up and ventured inside the social club just as the coroner’s van pulled up.
“Was it a member of the club?” I asked.
“Well, I assume so,” the woman replied. “Who else would have gone inside?”
“Someone trying to steal something,” I suggested.
The woman looked at me like I was crazy to even think of such a thing, and she was probably right. Only a fool would try to steal from the social club, since that was as good as stealing from the Mafia. What made even less sense, though, was that a member of the club, and basically, a member of the Mafia, had been killed there.
It wasn’t hard to guess who had been killed, but I needed to confirm it. I walked towards the small crowd and hung around near the back in the hopes that someone might offer a name. There was plenty of murmuring, but no one offered up any clues as to the identity of the victim. A few of the more daring gawkers offered their own ideas on what the scene had looked like inside, along with suggestions as to why no one had heard anything the night before when the murder took place.
I glanced towards the two old men again, Jerome and Arturo I guessed, and debated how to get closer to them. The stoop they sat on was inside the ring of police cars, and I’d only seen one non-policeman get close enough to talk to them. I watched a woman with two small coffee cups approach one of the officers, then nod towards the old men. The officer let her through and she carried the cups to the men. She said something as she handed over the cups, and one of the men replied, and then she slipped past the officer and back towards one of the nearby brownstones.
I was wondering if I could slip through the police cordon with an offering from the nearby bakery when I saw one of the old men stand up slowly. He edged down the steps, his hand locked on the railing as if he were afraid he might fall. One of the officers on duty approached him and the two had a long discussion while the old man pointed towards the brownstones on the other side of the street.
I started to edge my way in the direction indicated by Jerome or Arturo and just made it to the street as the officer finally let the old man pass. Jerome or Arturo limped past the officer, and I saw a burly man with gray hair approach the social club’s watchdog.
“Any news, Art?” I heard the burly man ask as I slowly closed the distance between us.
“Nothing,” Art replied as he plowed ahead.
The burly man shook his head and retreated as the detective stepped back outside. For a moment, I thought the detective would set off after his slowly escaping witness, but the officer’s explanation seemed to settle the detective’s doubts. He turned towards Jerome for another round of questions, and I quickly trotted after my target.
“Arturo?” I asked when I was next to the man.
He was shorter than me, though that may have been because he walked bent over. His hair was still black as midnight, and his eyebrows were still thick, but his skin was filled with wrinkles and sagged around his chin and neck. He stared balefully at me from two beady brown eyes and it was clear from the angry look that he considered me a no-good interloper.
“I ain’t talkin’ to anyone,” he muttered as he ambled past me.
“That’s fine,” I said quickly. “I just wanted to ask who the victim was.”
“Lookin’ to scoop the rest of the vultures?” Arturo suggested.
“No,” I replied as I matched my step to his. “I’m supposed to be conducting a deposition this morning. Of one of your members. He didn’t show.”
Arturo had reached the bottom step for one of the brownstones. He finally stopped, and after he’d grabbed the railing and heaved himself up the first step, he turned to look at me again. The anger was still there, and he prodded me in the chest with a bony finger.
“So you’re the new errand boy for the Febbos,” he said disdainfully. “Well, you can tell your new boss he got his wish.”
“What are you saying?” I pressed.
“You know what I’m saying,” he replied. “George is dead, and don’t think we don’t know why.”
Arturo gave me another jab in the chest, then started the painful climb up the steps. Normally, I would have offered to help, but I had a feeling Arturo would rather throw himself over the side of the stairs then let me guide him to the top step. The front door opened and a middle-aged man with a big belly and the same black hair appeared. He ignored me and trotted down the steps to the older man. Arturo said something in rapid fire Italian, too quick for me to understand, but the second man shot me a venomous look as he guided Arturo inside.
I took one more look at the scene around the social club, then started the long walk back to my apartment. I didn’t want to believe my client had taken his revenge on the man who had killed his long-time friend, but at the moment, I didn’t have any other suspects. And neither would the police.
Chapter 17
Arturo hadn’t said it was Giorgio Marinello that was dead, but I doubted there were any other George’s at that particular social club that were of interest to the Febbo clan. I needed to pass along the news before it was plastered all over the noon broadcasts, which meant I had a couple of phone calls to make.
The first person I called once I was back inside my own apartment was Liz Bennet, my law school buddy and now co-counsel on Anthony’s murder charge. The long-legged beauty with bobbed dusky blonde hair had offered her services pro bono back when this whole mess had started, and she hadn’t backed away even when we’d discovered that our client was the notorious son of mob boss Salvatore Febbo. She was also, at the moment, the only other attorney I could work out my ideas with.
“Good morning, Mr. Morgan,” Liz purred when she answered the phone.
“You sound like you’re having a good day,” I noted.
“And you do not,” she said. “The deposition didn’t go well?”
“It didn’t go at all,” I sighed as I took a seat on my couch. �
�Marinello never showed.”
“We’ll have to get a warrant then,” Liz mused.
“Won’t do any good,” I replied. “He’s dead.”
There was a long moment of silence, and for a moment, I thought we’d been disconnected.
“Liz?” I asked just to make sure she was still there.
“Still processing,” she replied. “How did you find out? Have the police asked to talk to our client?”
“When Marinello’s attorney, what’s his name?” I muttered. “Anyway, when he called it for the day, I tried to guess where George would hide. I went by the social club where Desmond and I met him the first time, but when I got there, the place was crawling with police. The coroner showed up as well.”
“So it may not be George,” she said.
“Well, I managed to talk to one of the old guys,” I replied. “You know the ones, the guys that always sit out front of those places.”
“I know them,” she agreed.
“He told me George was dead, and that they blame the Febbos,” I added.
“Shit,” Liz muttered. “I’ll assume they passed that theory onto the police.”
“I think that’s a safe assumption,” I replied. “But I’ve got to be honest here, this doesn’t seem like a move Anthony would make.”
There was another long moment of silence, though I could almost hear the gears in Liz’s brain shift as she tried to fit the pieces together.
“I think you’re right,” she finally said. “But the police won’t see it that way. They’ll go with the theory that George killed Francie, either at Anthony’s request or for reasons of his own, and now Anthony ordered George killed, either to keep him from talking about how much Anthony paid him or out of revenge for Francie.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” I replied. “I need to call Anthony next and give him the update, see if he has an alibi for last night.”
“Good thing he’s staying at the house on Long Island,” Liz noted. “He’ll have plenty of witnesses who can place him there for the night.”
“Like the police will believe anything they say,” I replied.
“We do what we can,” Liz said. “Listen, I’m glad you called because there’s something I really need to discuss with you.”
“You mean other than how many murder charges the police are going to try and pin on our client?” I asked.
“I wanted to tell you in person…” she said and then hesitated.
I felt the hairs on the back of my neck start to prickle, and I tried to ignore the sense of dread that seemed to move through my veins.
“Are you dropping the case?” I asked.
“No, no,” she said quickly. “I’ll still work on the case, but it will have to be limited to phone calls and the like.”
“Okay,” I said in a puzzled tone. “Why?”
“The firm’s offered me the lead on a matter,” she explained. “In London.”
“England?” I asked.
“Yes,” she agreed, “England. I’ll probably be there for a year. If I do well, I’ll be made a partner when I get back.”
“That’s… wonderful,” I said.
And it was. A partnership meant a lot more than just money. It meant stability at the job in a time when so many people didn’t have that. Liz, naturally, had accomplished that at what had to be record time. I felt a twinge of envy, especially when I considered my own lost opportunities at McHale, Parrish, but then I reminded myself that I was where I wanted to be.
“Hunter?” Liz prodded.
“Sorry,” I said quickly. “Just remembering our law school days. You must be the first one in our class to make partner.”
“If you don’t count those who went out on their own,” she laughed. “I’ll be leaving in a couple of days, but we should meet at least one more time before I do. Just so we can go over the case and decide what to do next.”
“Of course,” I agreed. “And, Liz, I’m really proud of you.”
“Thanks, Hunter,” she replied. “I guess we both found what we wanted.”
We reminisced for a few more minutes, about law school and the horror of job interviews, and then mutually promised to arrange a last meeting before she left. After we’d hung up, I sat on the couch for a moment and tried to imagine what it would be like to be asked to handle a major case in London. It wasn’t hard to understand why Liz was feeling so giddy, and I decided I should ask Anthony if the Febbo’s ever did any business in London, say, or maybe Rome, that might require some legal assistance from time to time.
With a sigh, I realized I had to stop daydreaming and make the phone call I’d been putting off since I’d left Red Hook. Part of me hoped that Anthony was still in his own meeting, but he answered quickly, while I was still preparing the voicemail message I wanted to leave.
“Hunter,” Anthony said.
“Is the meeting over?” I asked in surprise.
“We’re taking a break,” Anthony replied. “Did you learn anything from Marinello?”
“No,” I said. “And unfortunately, I have more bad news.”
“What did that little shit say now?” Anthony demanded.
“He didn’t say anything,” I replied. “He’s dead.”
There was a very long pause, even longer than the one I’d had with Liz. But I could still hear noise in the background, like the buzz of voices and the sound of a car driving by.
“Are you serious?” Anthony finally asked.
“I don’t have official confirmation from the police, but I’m ninety-nine percent sure that the body they found in the social club is Giorgio Marinello,” I replied.
“When did this happen?” Anthony pressed.
“Nothing official yet, but probably either late last night or early this morning,” I said. “And I’m assuming he wasn’t killed somewhere else and then dumped at the social club. That would mean it could have been earlier.”
“Fuck,” Anthony muttered.
I could hear someone say something to Anthony about heading back in. Anthony said he would be there shortly, and then I could have sworn I heard a school bell ring somewhere.
“Listen, come out to the house,” Anthony said. “We can talk about this, and I have another matter I want to discuss as well.”
“When do you think you’ll be done?” I asked as I tried to figure out how soon I should leave.
“We’ll be done soon,” Anthony said. “We’ll be there by the time you arrive.”
Anthony hung up before I could say anything else. I suppose I was meant to run downstairs and hop in my battered Volvo, but I puttered around the apartment for a bit, and then decided to grab a sandwich from the Vietnamese place before I had to face the LIE.
I left the apartment and ventured towards Park Slope to one of my favorite sandwich places. It was still early for most of the nearby office workers to be out on lunch, so I was able to enjoy my order of summer rolls and spicy pork sandwich in peace. The summer rolls were excellent, with shrimp that were just firm enough and peanut sauce that made me want to scrape the little container for each precious drop. The sandwich itself was a masterpiece of the sandwich arts with a perfect loaf of bread that was soft and chewy but still strong enough to hold the contents. The pork was coated in a spicy mix, grilled to seal in all the flavors and juices, and then served with carrots, radish, spicy mayo, and cilantro so fresh I could still smell the garden it had come from.
And the delicious meal had the extra bonus of keeping my mind distracted from Liz’s departure for London and Anthony’s growing legal problems. Sometimes, I had learned early on, you only found the solutions you needed when you stopped thinking about a problem and spent time on something else. It’s a terrible cliche, but Vietnamese summer rolls and Mexican rice bowls had gotten me through plenty of rough spots in law school and my time at McHale, Parrish, and I was hoping it would still be true.
Sated and reasonably happy, I walked back to my apartment building to retrieve my car. My Volvo h
adn’t fared so well the first time I drove to the Febbo estate near Riverhead, but Anthony’s guys had managed to repair most of the damage. Fortunately, it had all been superficial and the engine and other important parts still functioned exactly as was intended, though Anthony’s guys had also given my reliable ride a fresh oil change along with the paint repair.
“Swedes are real careful about that,” one of the mystery mechanics had noted during a discussion about the damage. “They build their cars like tanks. Safety first and all that stuff.”
“Thank goodness,” I’d replied.
“Yeah, sure,” the mechanic said, though he didn’t sound convinced that it was necessary.
The only damage that hadn’t been repaired was the mirror on the passenger side. Despite several attempts to fix it, it still refused to move on its motor. You could hear the thing struggling to move if you tried to adjust it with the dashboard button, but then the whole thing would die and you would have to do it the old fashioned way with bare hands. That in itself wasn’t a big deal, but anytime the car remained parked for more than a day, the mirror would start to droop in its frame and I would have to reset it before I could take the car on the road.
Sure enough, the mirror was pointed towards the concrete floor of the garage when I arrived at my spot. I jimmied it back into position, then climbed inside the tank that had saved my life. I pulled out of my spot, and turned towards the exit. The garage was eerily quiet, and I realized for the first time just what strange hours I was keeping now that I didn’t have an office to go to any more.
Even the drive along the LIE moved along quickly, and I was soon past the denser suburbs just outside the city limits and into the smaller seaside towns. There was a brief flurry of activity near Brookhaven as I neared the lab, but after that it was quiet enough that I rolled down the windows and enjoyed, if not the freshest air ever, at least something that smelled vaguely of salt air and turned soil instead of diesel fumes and hot tar.
