Paradise City

by Lorenzo Carcaterra

  “From what I hear, he’s going to need you to cover his back more than you’ll need him to watch yours,” Sal said, his voice taking on its more familiar cop tones. “Do you think the two of you alone are going to be good enough for whatever it is that’s coming down?”

  “Tell me what you think,” Jennifer said, playing the game, tossing it right back at her father.

  “I don’t know the man,” Sal said with a shrug. “Word on him matches what you say, he’s a solid badge, runs on skill not fumes. He might need to be better than that, though, given the rumbles about what’s about to meet him head on. Same goes for you.”

  “He’s got a plan in place,” Jennifer said. “I just don’t know what it is and what part I play in it.”

  “I guess he hasn’t learned the English word for partner yet,” Sal said. He gave his only daughter a hard look, more the look of a detective than a father. He needed to get a sense of whether she was ready to step into what was sure to be high-end action. Sal had gotten enough feedback about Jennifer to know she was a solid street cop with well-tuned instincts. What couldn’t be known yet was whether she had either the stomach or the knack for the quick kill, the ability to wipe the shooter’s slates clean and still walk away from it a whole cop. “Or he just may not want you to be in with him on this business he’s gearing up to face.”

  “It’s hard to figure,” Jennifer said. “He’s not the kind that likes to share much of what he’s thinking. A lot like you, Dad.”

  Sal Fabini smiled and pushed his chair back, ready for his first cup of coffee of the day. “He’s good-looking, too, from what I hear,” he said, his back to his daughter.

  “What’s that have to do with the price of tomatoes?” Jennifer asked.

  “Not a thing,” Sal said, turning to glance her way. “To me, anyway. How you feel about it might be a whole different story.”

  “Let’s keep the talk to the work,” she said. “And his looks, good or not, are not going to help him bring down the crew he’s up against.”

  Sal sat down, a large cup of coffee resting on the placemat between his elbows, a wide smile on his face. “That answers that question,” he said. “Which means you’ve already made your decision about which way you go on this and you made it before you walked in the door this morning.”

  “I can’t let him do it alone, Dad,” she said. “He thinks he can and he won’t ask for any help. But I’d like to be there when it happens. It matters to me.”

  “You’re making this personal,” Sal Fabini said. “That’s the fastest way for a cop to get jammed up.”

  “You made every case you worked personal,” Jennifer said, leaning the front of her body against the side of the Formica table. “It made you a shitty husband to Mom and not the best father to me. But it made you the best cop on the street. Making it personal kept you from getting jammed up.”

  “You came here for something, Jenny,” Sal said. “And it wasn’t just for my eggs and bacon. It’s time for you to put it out there. What do you need?”

  “Another gun,” Jennifer said. “And somebody I trust holding it.”

  “You asking me to back you up?” Sal said. He sat straight back in his chair, his dark eyes alive, the aging muscles on his forearms showing signs of life. “Put myself out on the streets again?”

  “There’s going to be more gunmen in this than he can handle,” Jennifer said. “I don’t know that for fact, just feeling. And I also don’t know when or how the attempt is going to come down. But what I do know is that he shouldn’t be in this alone.”

  “Why come to me?” Sal asked. “You’ve been on the job long enough to have some pals willing to lend a hand, even to a situation that would put them in the line of fire. And the odds are better than good they’d be a whole lot better at it at their age than I would be at mine.”

  “You’re my father,” Jennifer said. She reached a hand across the table and rested it on his right arm. “And the best cop I’ve ever known.”

  “Even better than this Italian sidekick of yours?” he asked.

  Jennifer smiled. “Yes, Dad,” she said. “You’re even better than Lo Manto. Just do me a small favor, if you don’t mind, okay?”

  “I know,” Sal said. “Never tell him you said so. Don’t worry. It stays between us, no matter how this situation turns out.”

  “That a yes?” Jennifer asked, watching her father push his chair back and walk to a small coatrack just off the kitchen entrance. “You helping me on this?”

  “You tell me when and where,” Sal said. He put on a blue blazer, opened the top drawer of a side cabinet, and pulled out two strap-holstered .38 Specials. “If I’m not here, call me on the cell. Don’t leave any messages. You don’t get me, keep trying until you hear my voice.”

  “Where are you going?” Jennifer asked, watching her father walk toward the screen door that led into the garage.

  “The range,” he said. “Been a while since I worked these guns. Be nice to see if I can still hit at what I aim, even if it’s only a paper target.”

  Jennifer stood next to the kitchen table, leaning against a counter, staring across the room at her father. “Thanks for this, Dad,” she said. “I owe you one.”

  “How about you do the dishes then,” Sal Fabini said, heading out the kitchen door, a few feet from his parked Mercury Grand Marquis. “This way we can call it even.”

  23

  CARLO BERTZ RESTED the high-powered rifle on the white towel he had spread near the base of the roof. He sliced open a paper bag and pulled out a thick slab of Muenster cheese and a hard roll, leaned back against the curved black tar edge, and snapped open a bloodred switchblade. He cut into the cheese and jabbed a long slice into his mouth, chewing slowly as if he were giving each bite some thought. He pulled a cold twenty-four-ounce bottle of Poland Spring from his jacket pocket and clicked the top up, washing down the cheese with several long gulps. Bertz looked down at the rifle and then up at the alarm clock he kept by his side. It ticked away loudly, the large white hand closing in on eleven-fifteen in the morning, the sun bringing with it all the power and heat of an August day. Bertz cut off a fresh piece of cheese, held it in his right hand, and closed his eyes, drowning in the noise and clatter that rose up from the long, narrow street. He was in the middle of the block, on the roof of a six-story tenement, one shot away from the elevated subway running up and down White Plains Road.

  Forty-five minutes removed from his next kill.

  Elmo Stalli walked along the backyards leading down the hill from the large medical center that bordered the Bronx River Parkway. He kept his head down, focused on the work that waited as he made his way toward the narrow building on East 234th Street. He had both his hands curled inside the pockets of a long and thin gray raincoat, fingers wrapped around the barrels of .38 Specials. On the inside of his coat, hanging on a leather strap around his neck, he carried a double-pump shotgun. Stalli walked through the tight back alley of a local bank and into the basement of the small row house that bordered it. He found a folded garden chair resting next to a battered boiler. He opened it and placed it facing the small, cracked window that offered a view of the curb and a row of parked cars. He sat down and rested the shotgun on his lap, the guns still in his pockets. He pulled a small CD player from his shirt and pressed Play, the mellow sounds of a remastered Enrico Caruso version of Tarantella napoletana by Rossini soon filling the dank room. It was his favorite song.

  The perfect song for a murder.

  Mifo slid the gearshift into neutral and gently eased the eight-cylinder 2003 Ford Mustang into an open slot between a brown Chevy sedan and a Volvo station wagon. He left the motor running, humming low, the supercharged, finely tuned engine clicking as softly as a row of piano keys. He was on the south end of East 234th Street, facing the middle of White Plains Road, the number two line rumbling above him, bringing carloads of tired passengers to and from the city. Mifo gazed out at the street traffic, quiet for a late summer morning in the m
iddle of a nine-day heat wave. He checked the gauges on the car and tapped his right foot on the gas pedal, watching each white line flip forward. He reached into the front pocket of his leather jacket and pulled out a thin cigar and a butane lighter. He lit the cigar, laid his head back against the leather rest, and kept his eyes on the street. He checked his wristwatch and smiled.

  It was almost time for someone to die.

  John Rummy stood in the middle of the large Italian deli, checking out the shelves crammed with pastas of all shapes and sizes. He took a deep breath, overwhelmed by the vast and varied aromas, and walked slowly down each of the long aisles, all of them filled with foods whose names he could never pronounce. He stopped in front of the olive bar, over two dozen trays filled to the brim with products from each region of Italy. He picked up a large plastic container, scooped out the thick, green Sicilian olives that had caught his eye, and then snapped a lid over them. He went to the register, waited as the pretty young woman with a head full of brown curly hair and a wide grin weighed the olives and put them in a brown paper bag. He handed her a ten-dollar bill, waited for his change, and walked quietly out of the deli, out into the heavy blanket heat of the East Bronx. At the far corner of East 234th Street, Rummy turned a sharp right and stepped into a small entryway, his back wedged against a polished wooden and glass front door. He popped the lid on the container filled with olives, grabbed two, and put them in his mouth. He rested the small bag between his feet and felt for the two black nine-millimeters hanging down against his chest, locked into two thin shoulder holsters. He spit out the olive pits and rubbed the tired from his eyes. He could never sleep well the night before a job, too anxious to get it done, playing it out over and over in his mind. It was only after the job was done that Rummy was ever able to relax, the adrenaline rush of the hit long since dissipated.

  The target’s life brought to an end.

  Gregory Flash Randell stood on the elevated platform of the southbound IRT number two subway line and glanced down at the street activity below. He leaned on the iron railing, munching on the back end of a ham and Swiss hero, a brown leather duffel bag by his feet. He was dressed light, thin black T-shirt, black jeans, and Nike sneakers. He knew there were four other shooters around, each one working out of his designated post, ready to take down the cop from Naples, none of them expecting him to be on the scene. That, he figured, gave him his first edge in the battle that would soon send a wave of bullets flowing down the streets beneath the station. He also was willing to wager that old man Silvestri had tipped off Lo Manto about the hit site and the cop would come into the situation expecting to be drawn on. Which meant he was primed for four gunmen and would never consider the possibility of a fifth. Randell had lain low and silent since his meet with Rossi, keeping his focus on all the elements he needed working in his favor. He didn’t know any of the names of the other shooters, but was confident enough to believe that the fatal bullet that would bring an end to Lo Manto’s life would be fired from his rifle.

  One more notch on a killer’s belt.

  Giancarlo Lo Manto parked his unmarked sedan on the northwest corner of East 235th Street and walked into a small pizzeria. He stepped up to the counter and nodded at the chubby bald man behind it. “Which one is the freshest?” he asked, pointing down at the wide array of pies, each resting in its own silver tray.

  “The Sicilian,” the chubby man said, reaching for the still-steaming pizza to his right, crust dark and thick. “Came out just before you came in.”

  “I’ll take a slice of that with a root beer, extra ice,” Lo Manto said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a five-dollar bill and left it on the counter. He waited while the chubby man clipped off a large piece and scooped it onto a white paper plate. He grabbed a plastic cup, jabbed it under a thin ice dispenser, watched it fill up to the top, and then shoved it under the root beer tap. He slid the cup onto the counter, leaving a thin line of white foam in its wake. “If there’s any change, it’s yours to keep,” Lo Manto said.

  He sat facing the street traffic, munching on his pizza and drinking his soda on a day he expected to die. He had been in a hundred dustups throughout his police career, both in New York and Naples, and in none of those had he ever gone up against either the skill level or the heavy firepower he knew was waiting for him two streets to the south. He had the inside information on the general layout of the hit, expecting the first move to come as he made his way up White Plains Road. It was Lo Manto’s idea to leak his destination to the four shooters by way of a confidential informant who owed Gaspaldi both a favor and bundle of money he would never be able to pay. Lo Manto felt he stood a better chance fighting them out in the open, on a clear street, in the middle of the day, than having them come at him one fast gun at a time, from areas beyond his control, increasing the odds that one of them was bound eventually to succeed.

  He had also kept his plans away from both Jennifer and Felipe, looking to shield them from any danger, not wanting to see either hurt. This was his fight and Lo Manto always liked the odds better when he walked into one on his own, free of the additional burden of having to give background cover fire. He had grown to respect his reluctant New York partner in their short time together, valuing her natural police instincts and her fearlessness under the hard gaze of a shooter’s scope. She was a first-rate detective and one of the best he ever had working by his side. And there was one additional factor in play that drove Lo Manto to keep Jennifer Fabini as far from harm’s way as possible. One he had never encountered before in his years as a detective.

  He was in love with her. Those shared moments aboard the Circle Line only helped to prove what his heart told him was true.

  He had not dared bring up the subject, afraid of what she would think and how she would react. In his many years on the force, he had never once dated a member of any police department, well aware of how much the negative complications of such a situation outweighed the physical pleasures. Besides, Jennifer had let her feelings on the subject be known to him and they echoed his own unspoken concerns, so there seemed little point in pursuing the matter to even a point of discussion. But as he downed the last drops of his root beer, two circular pieces of ice melting on his tongue, Lo Manto knew he had fallen for a woman unlike any he had ever met in his life. He slowly shook his head and drummed his fingers on the red-coated table and smiled. The tough cop with the killer body and the spend-the-night eyes had stolen his heart. That alone was worth the trip to New York City and a showdown with a band of Camorra gunmen.

  Giancarlo Lo Manto had found love on his way to a fight to the death.

  Lo Manto walked past Fran’s Beauty Salon, his head down, his ears tuned to every sound. He wore his thin leather jacket large and loose, hiding the two .38 Specials in his waist and the nine-millimeter jammed inside the back of his tight jeans. He moved with a quiet sense of purpose, casually checking the street traffic and the thin rows of pedestrians moving past. Lo Manto needed to sense that first bullet, feel its rush as it was fired, knowing that to do otherwise would hasten his demise.

  The blue and white city bus skidded to a slow stop at the corner of East 233rd Street, one block south of where he was walking, two elderly women stepping off, their arms weighed down with paper bags and purses. The overhead sun was strong and hot, drawing thin lines of heat from the cracked pavement and split-tar road. The hum and cackle of air conditioners could be heard up and down White Plains Road, dripping water leaking down from the back of their motors, drying the instant it touched the hot cement below.

  Lo Manto saw the shooter from the corner of his left eye. He was out in the street, across from him, partially hidden by a double-parked Deer Park water truck. He kept to his pace, waiting for the man to pull his gun, aware of all that was around him, the sounds of the day disappearing into the distance. In these moments, the scant seconds before the shooting began, all was reduced to silence. In the past, Lo Manto had always likened it to being in the middle of a silent
movie, the action nothing more than a series of blurs and freeze-frames, all of it played out in a slow-motion frenzy.

  John Rummy stepped away from the white Deer Park truck and pulled out one of his weapons. He planted his feet and took aim, standing in the middle of a busy intersection. He fired two shots at Lo Manto, the first smashing through the side window of a parked VW Beetle, the second pinging off the bottom end of a fire hydrant. Lo Manto pulled a .38 from his waist and crouched down behind a large blue mailbox. He glanced up and down the street, Rummy heading his way, treading through the crowded thoroughfare as if it were an empty wooded area and he was out alone on a hunt. Rummy rapid-fired as he moved, shots bouncing one after another off the tops and sides of the mailbox. Lo Manto kept his back braced against the now riddled box, waving pedestrians away from the area, knowing he needed to move clear before Rummy got any closer. He didn’t figure him to be the main shooter, only the lead scout whose job it was to bring the cop out into the open, primed for the primary to take him down.

  Lo Manto waited for the last volley to clear and then made his move. He ran from the mailbox toward a parked Chevy Impala nosed in tight on the far corner of East 234th Street. Rummy emptied one of his guns firing at Lo Manto, bullets cascading around the fleeing cop, shattering glass, setting off car alarms, whizzing past him at all angles, one near-miss taking out the rear tire of a parked van. Lo Manto jumped over the front end of the Impala, rolled to the ground, came up on one knee and fired three shots at the advancing hit man, none finding a mark. Rummy kept walking toward him, oblivious to all the activity around him, a middle-aged Terminator assigned one duty and determined to see it through to the end.

  Lo Manto saw the second shooter, Elmo Stalli, come out of a vestibule in the middle of the street, walking up toward him, guns loaded and ready. He knew Stalli would try to get him into a crossfire match with Rummy, banking on there being enough firepower aimed his way that there was little else for the cop to do but catch a few bullets and die. He also figured the third gunman to be working from one of the nearby rooftops, high scope aimed down. The street above and below was clear, police sirens wailing in the distance, the two shooters closing in, guy on the roof taking aim, the fourth assassin still out there, hidden. Lo Manto looked across his shoulder at Rummy and then turned to glance at the approaching Stalli, who had yet to let off a shot. He needed to take out one of them and had to go by instinct on which was the deadlier shooter. Gaspaldi had penciled in Rummy to be the stalk horse. It was either a ploy by the old pimp to make Lo Manto think the shooter wasn’t up to the top job or a sign that Stalli was indeed as good as all the indicators signaled. There really could only be one way for him to find out.