Paradise City

by Lorenzo Carcaterra

  For the briefest of moments, Lo Manto had toyed with a religious life. He was attracted to it not because of any specific calling or spiritual thoughts, but because he knew from the priests he had spent time with that they got both their first-rate education and extensive travels on the nickel of the Church. It was his best friend from school, Hank Somettri, who, at the age of fourteen, offered the sagest advice. “If it’s free school and travel you’re after, then join the army or the navy,” Hank said. “At least that way, you can still get laid. But if it’s something else you’re after, then my thinking would be to get laid before the Roman collars get their hands on you.”

  “It was only a thought,” Lo Manto said, a bit defensive. “It’s not like I’m eager to spend my life in a monastery.”

  “Tell you the truth,” Hank said. “Sometimes I think even living in a monastery would be better than staying in this place the rest of our lives. Be nice to get away from all the shit that goes on around here.”

  Lo Manto never answered his friend that day. He knew his family was in deep financial trouble, both to the government and, even worse, to Camorra loan sharks. Hank’s father had been out of work for close to eighteen months, and his mother’s housecleaning jobs brought in just enough to cover the food bills. Every hour of each day, the family found themselves deeper in debt, buried in a hole from which there could be no escape. The Camorra waited until Hank turned seventeen. By then, Lo Manto had been living in Naples for over two years, but kept in touch with his friend with regular letters and the occasional phone call. “They want me to go work for them, Gianni,” Hank had said to him in the middle of their last phone conversation. The boy’s voice was filled with dread, a somber feeling of helplessness etched in each word he spoke. “And I don’t think that’s something I can do.”

  “Then you need to get out of there,” Lo Manto told him, the memory of his father’s death still fresh in his mind. “Don’t wait, Hank. Just tell your parents to pack and go.”

  “Go where?” Hank said. “Where can we go that they can’t find us if they want to make the effort?”

  Two weeks later, Hank Somettri was killed crossing White Plains Road near Our Lady of Mercy Medical Center, hit from behind by a dark blue van with no license plates. His grave was still fresh when the boy’s father was found slumped on a bench in a small park in lower Manhattan, a bullet in the back of his head. Neither killer was ever apprehended. The Camorra let his mother live, allowing her to mourn the loss of her family for the rest of her days.

  Lo Manto sat back in the pew, lowered his head and closed his eyes. He had been waging his war against the Camorra for close to two decades and still there was no victory in sight. He had confiscated millions of dollars in drug money, disrupted the flow of their business operations, and arrested and killed more than fifty high-ranking members of the massive criminal organization in two countries. Despite his efforts, the Camorra was as powerful today as it was the night of his father’s murder, still trolling the waters and stripping the shore of all its wealth, leaving in their wake battered bodies and ruined lives. He had watched the casualty count mount by the day. He had seen with dismay the destructive effects of the physical and emotional pounding given to the innocents who were mere prey to the Camorra quest for power and control. And he could do nothing to bring it all to an end. “There will always be so many more of them than there will be of us,” Inspector Bartoni had told him early on in their time together. “That must be accepted as fact. Ours is a battle not fought for victory but for justice. It is the one lesson you must never allow yourself to forget.”

  But the words of Inspector Bartoni were lost on Lo Manto. He was not content with the occasional rush of justice. He was not satisfied with a drug bust or the takedown of a Camorra faction. It was not enough for him to see a group of Camorristas led away in cuffs, off to serve double-digit prison terms. He needed to see them all brought to an end. He wanted to achieve what had eluded every detective, Italian and American, who had ever stepped in against the strength of the organization and looked to bring its churning engines to a halt. But as he sat there, inside the secluded serenity of a small and empty church, Lo Manto began to feel as if he had ventured on a fool’s quest. The doubts that so often haunt even the most dedicated had slowly crept in and started to gnaw at his steel-centered confidence.

  He folded his hands on his lap and stared across the aisle at the statue of St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes and police officers. The specter of so many ruined and damaged lives haunted his thoughts and actions, and even a prayer to his favorite of all the saints seemed a futile gesture. He needed more than a series of arrests to put a dent in the Camorra, more than simply to cause a disruption of their steady flow of cash and drugs. He had to look beyond the scope of paid assassins who sought the blood of innocents in return for a padded bank account. He had to venture past the informants who offered their knowledge, expecting his leniency as their reward. He had to cause a massive tremor within the Camorra hierarchy, a blow that would buckle the criminal enterprise and cause it to gasp for air. In order for that to happen, Lo Manto had to accomplish the one deed that had eluded him in all his years as a detective.

  He needed to bring down the don.

  Lo Manto lifted himself out of the pew, genuflected in front of the main altar, and walked with quiet steps toward the statue of St. Jude. He looked up at the sad bearded face with the cold distant eyes, made the sign of the cross, and whispered a silent prayer. He then reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a five-dollar bill. He folded the bill and slid it into the thin slot in the donation box that was fixed into the wall directly under the statue. He leaned over to his right, toward four rows of votive candles, half of them unlit, and pressed two buttons that turned on the soft glow bulb in each. He gave one final glance up at St. Jude, bowed his head, and slowly walked up the aisle leading out of the church.

  The time for prayer was now at an end.

  Felipe stood on the top deck of the Circle Line boat, both hands grasping the railing, a smile as wide as the Hudson River below him on his face. Lo Manto held the envelope Silvestri had given the boy, its lip torn open, glancing down at the four names written out on the folded sheet it contained. Jennifer had her back to the choppy water and her face to the sun, hands in her pockets, her hair held back by a blue scrunchie. “I was only kidding when I mentioned the boat ride to you,” she said to Lo Manto. “I wasn’t expecting it to turn into an open invitation.”

  “I thought my friend would like it,” Lo Manto said, nodding at Felipe. “And I owe him a favor for what he did for me the other night.”

  “Is this a favor I should know about?” Jennifer asked. “Or maybe you can give me a little something on your friend here? Given that we are still partners, at least until your plane leaves New York.”

  “I already told you my name,” Felipe said to her. “Other than that there isn’t much left to tell.”

  “How about I ask the questions?” Jennifer said to Felipe. “And you just work your best to come up with the right answers.”

  Felipe turned away from the railing and started to walk toward the door leading to the concession stands. “How about I go get some candy bars and a soda first?” he said.

  “Pay for anything you put your fingers on,” Lo Manto said to him. “We get tossed from here, we have to swim back to the city.”

  The boy disappeared through the opening as Lo Manto stepped closer to Jennifer. He folded the paper along with the envelope and slid both into his back pocket. “It’ll do us all a little good to get out of the city for a while,” he said to her. “The river water gives us a chance to clear our heads and take in some fresh air.”

  “Didn’t take you for the kind that liked to hang out with kids,” Jennifer said, a little bit of a tease to her words. “You don’t come off as the patient type to me.”

  “Felipe’s a kid only on the outside,” Lo Manto said. “Inside, he’s older than you and me put together. He’
s seen a lot for a boy his age. But he’s never been on the Circle Line and I thought it was time.”

  “My friends and me used to sneak rides on these when we were kids,” Jennifer said, her stance softening a bit. “Usually on Wednesdays, when we had half days because the kids from public school would come over for religious instruction.”

  “I came here with my seventh-grade class one time,” Lo Manto said. “We were a hard-to-control bunch—mix of Italian, Irish, Hispanic, and Eastern Europeans all roped together and handed over to one brother. I guess he figured the trip would be a bonding experience and maybe, with enough prayers and a little luck, even help calm us down a bit.”

  “Did he catch any luck?” she asked.

  “Not even a five-minute break,” Lo Manto said, smiling at the long-forgotten memory. “On the way up, we rifled through the concession stand like red ants on a piece of fruit. Then we jumped on the next boat heading back, leaving the poor guy stranded on the island, just him and three of the kids too afraid to make the move.”

  “That must have scored you at least a week of detention,” Jennifer said.

  “Try a month—and enough homework to keep us off the streets for about four weekends,” Lo Manto said. “Not to mention the grief we had to get from our folks at home. Still, in spite of that, it sure as hell was worth the effort.”

  Jennifer stepped up to the railing, gripped the hard red wood with her right hand, the sea water spraying cool mist across her face and hair. She tilted her head to one side and gazed over at Lo Manto, the warm sun giving a yellow glow to his hard features. “How about this next move?” she asked. “You think that’s going to be worth the effort?”

  “If it doesn’t happen here and now, then it will happen on some other street in some other city,” Lo Manto said. “Fighting them is what I do. It’s all that I do, until they put a stop to me.”

  “It sounds like they’re looking to make your last stop on your old streets,” Jennifer said. “You’ve been plenty good against them in the past. So now they figure the best way to put an end to all that is to come at you harder and heavier. I don’t know much about what you have planned to balance that out, but I hope it’s at least as solid as what we heard they have ready to go.”

  “We won’t know that until it’s over,” Lo Manto said. “And most times it’s luck, not the plan, that gets you through.”

  “Where does that kid in there fit in?” Jennifer asked.

  “He doesn’t,” Lo Manto said firmly. “And he shouldn’t. I want him kept out of the action end. He’s been through enough shit in his life. There’s no call for him to have to wade through mine.”

  “Same go for me?” Jennifer asked, moving closer to Lo Manto, his dark eyes staring down at her, his thick dark hair flowing in the warm southern breeze. “You going to try and keep me out as well?”

  “You were asked to keep an eye on an Italian cop during his visit to New York,” Lo Manto said. “You’ve done that, above and beyond. And for all that, you have my respect and my heart. But nobody, not Captain Fernandez and not me, asked you to give up your life. Not at the start of this and for sure not at the end.”

  “Do I get to vote?” she asked. She was slightly taken aback by both the force and the passion of his words, the first true indication that he thought of her as more than a police partner. “Or is this a decision that’s only yours to make?”

  “Only if your vote comes down the same as mine,” Lo Manto said. “That’s the case, then we have ourselves a landslide election.”

  “I have my orders, Detective,” Jennifer said, pushing herself clear of the railing. “I expect to do what I’ve done from my first day on the job, and that’s follow them as best as I can. You can like it or you can bitch about it. Either way’s fine by me.”

  Lo Manto took her hands in his, his touch warm and soft. He gazed into her eyes and smiled. He leaned his head against her shoulder, his hair brushing the side of her face, and then kissed her gently on the lips. She moved her hands away from his and wrapped them around his neck. She held him close to her, not wanting to let go, not wanting to ever lose him, not wanting this moment to ever end. They stood there under the warm summer sun, their kisses lit with passion, their arms wrapped tightly around each other.

  “I’ve seen a lot of people I care about die doing what I do,” he whispered. “Many of them died because of me, the position I put them in, the choices I left them. That’s not going to happen on this one. I won’t let it. The Camorra is in this fight to bring me down. They have no quarrel with you. But if I let you come into this standing by my side, they’ll take you out just as soon as they would me. And I can’t let that happen.”

  “That’s the case, then you better damn well be on your best game, Detective,” Jennifer said. “I’m not all that eager to be toe-tagged in the Bronx, either.”

  Lo Manto turned away and looked out at the harsh waves of a cold river, the scenic tree-lined landscape, the occasional house breaking into the formation. He still wasn’t used to working side by side with a partner let alone one he had fallen in love with, and he was never comfortable sharing his game plan with anyone. While other cops saw a partner as an added measure of security, one more gun to cover their exposed backs, Lo Manto saw partners as major impediments to the task at hand. They limited his flexibility, weakened his ability to alter his thinking on the fly, and forced him to stick much closer to a prearranged timetable. It was no longer enough for his plan to succeed or fail on its merits and his skills. He needed Jennifer to move and react as fast as the moment demanded, which meant she had to see not only what was around her but what wasn’t. She had to know not just who was shooting, but why the shots were coming down at her from a certain position. She also had to know, instinctively, what would follow. Her ability to do so would determine whether she would come out of the shoot-out dead or alive.

  “You do what I say as I say it and when,” Lo Manto said to her, his eyes still on the river. “Every step of the way. If you’re not okay with that, I need to know now, not when we’re out there ducking shells.”

  Jennifer thought for a moment before she nodded. “You’re the one who knows how they think,” she said. “Not me. I’ll let you have this one. But if I see or hear anything stupid about your plan, I’m not going to be shy about letting you know.”

  Lo Manto turned to her and smiled. “We won’t have a problem,” he said. “My plans are never stupid. Just dangerous.”

  “I’m not afraid of danger,” Jennifer said.

  “I am,” Lo Manto said. He eased himself away from the railing, heading toward the candy shop in search of Felipe.

  Pete Rossi walked on the water side of the West Side pier, his head down, listening to Gaspaldi give him the final run-down on the plan to rid themselves of Giancarlo Lo Manto. “There’s no way the badge walks from this,” Gaspaldi said, wrapping up. “Even if one, even two of the shooters are off their mark, it won’t matter. There’s going to be more bullets coming off their guns than we saw in Saving Private Ryan. He’ll have no way to go but down. His family might as well start making funeral plans now.”

  “It’s not a done deal until he’s dead,” Rossi said, his voice not bothering to hide the harsh sentiment behind each word. He had never felt comfortable around Gaspaldi, thought him too eager to go for the hard play rather than a smarter, more strategic option. Rossi also didn’t like the fact that a pimp had risen as high as Gaspaldi had managed to do within the tight inner structure of the Camorra. It might have gone down well in the years his father was building his crime base, taking only the most ruthless and devious along with him, but not for an organized crime operation that was now three-quarters focused on the legitimate world. On top of which, he didn’t like Gaspaldi and never turned to him for advice or counsel. He found the man crude, rude, and untrustworthy and didn’t make any attempt to mask those feelings. Rossi lacked his father’s ability to compartmentalize the men who worked for him, allowing each to flourish within
his own category, wanting nothing more from them than what was expected. If they failed in the chosen task, they would be killed. Don Nicola Rossi was a great crime boss because he was able to deal with even the most complicated issues in the most direct manner. But what made him a legend as a don made him questionable as a father.

  “He will be dead, Mr. Rossi,” Gaspaldi said. “He may have walked from other jackpots in other years, but not this one. I’ll stake everything I got on it.”

  “Believe me,” Rossi told him, “that is exactly what you will be doing.”

  Rossi stood with his back to the low tide that beat against the sides of the empty pier, facing the traffic running both ways on the West Side Highway, the lower end of De Witt Clinton Park just visible beyond it. He had spent many a Sunday morning walking with his father on the cobblestone streets, a large pretzel coated with salt and yellow mustard in his right hand, the don’s two silent bodyguards a short distance away. The piers were active in those years, still a steady and lucrative source of Camorra income, most of the money derived from stolen cargo from the hulls of packed ships and high-end cuts of workers’ wages. Don Nicola was in an open competition with Tough Tony Anastasia’s Pistol Piers farther downtown as to who could generate the most money each week. His father ruled these streets as if he were a king entitled to them by birthright, deciding who worked and who would be prevented from shape-up, who paid the weekly ransom and who would be allowed to keep a larger chunk of his salary or his haul. Rossi would see the looks on the faces of the hard-living men when they stood in his father’s presence. It was a fretful glance filled with the residue of fear.

  That was an element of his father’s life Pete Rossi had always known about and, on many different levels, respected. The part that he didn’t know and was now causing him grief involved his relationship with a woman he had been told only hours earlier was his mother. Even if she had executed an inappropriate means of escape, a don as powerful as Nicola Rossi would not have allowed it. He would have dragged her back and forced her to remain under a Camorra roof until the day of her death. It would have been her mission to raise the son. That in and of itself was troubling, knowing his real mother was alive and living in Naples.