A Bullet for Carlos (40 page)

“Let’s go,” I said, and stepped into the elevator.

Tip stayed silent until we hit the street. “What the hell was that about? That’s the second time I’ve heard him mention something like this.”

“I’ll tell you over lunch. I’m starved.”

“It better be good.”

“Then take me somewhere that has good food.”

“What did you think of our friend Carlos?”

I thought for a minute. “I’d like to say he was lying through his teeth, but I’m not sure. I watched him pretty close and he seemed genuinely surprised when I told him about Mena.”

“I know, but he could be that good of an actor. He had plenty of notice that we were there.”

“It’s going to be tough to prove anything, especially with him volunteering the semen statement.”

“We’ll see when we get the report from Ben,” Tip said.

“And there’s still this witness,” I said. “The one who saw someone leaving Santiago’s house.”

“That’s who we’ve got to find. Whoever called it in might have some real information.”

A few minutes later, Tip pulled off the main road onto a street lined with hundred-year-old oaks, and quaint houses mixed with apartments. “Where are we going?” I asked.

Tip pulled into the drive of what looked like an old house converted into a restaurant. He opted for valet parking. “This is Crapitto’s,” Tip said. “You said you were hungry.”

“You must really want this story if you’re taking me out to Italian.”

I followed him into the restaurant where a young waiter seated us, providing menus. It didn’t take long to decide. “Calamari for appetizer,” I said, “with a house salad and Veal Picatta.”

Tip had linguine with crawfish.

During lunch, I filled him in on all the details of my youth, the details I left out when I told him stuff before, like my mother dying when I was twelve, and Dominic and Zeppe’s family raising me. I hated trusting a man with private information. A long time ago I trusted a man and he betrayed me. Then Sean and Jerry betrayed me. If Tip Denton did, I swore I’d get him for it. “So that’s it,” I said. “One day I’m in undercover, a hero, and the next day IA is investigating me and wanting my badge. And it looks like my partners were dirty.”

“And this is all because of Carlos?”

“None other.”

Tip squinched up his face, his puzzled look. “How did you get assigned down here with that behind you?”

I dipped a piece of bread in the pesto and devoured half of it with one bite.

“You don’t put butter on that?” Tip asked.

“God forbid. My Uncle Zeppe would have killed me.” I waited until I finished chewing then continued. “To get back to your question, the captain had a problem. After the drug deal, the papers declared me a hero, and there is
nothing
New Yorkers like more than a common hero. So the captain assigned me to cold cases instead of suspension.”

Throughout the meal I talked, eventually returning to the night in the alley when Sean and Jerry got killed.

“And you’re
sure
it was Carlos’ men who did that?”

“Definitely,” I said, surprised at how comfortable I was telling him all this. It helped that he seemed to believe me.

“And you think, now, that your partners were dirty…but you didn’t know it at the time.”

“Exactly. A detective named Frankie Donovan confirmed it. He’s good. I trust him.”

Tip spread a mound of butter on his bread, then poured a little water into his coffee to dilute it, all with me shaking my head. “Now that Carlos knows you’re here, he’ll be after you. He played it cool so far but that won’t last long. Wait till night falls.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Everything happens at night,” Tip said. “That’s when the snakes come out.”

“Not all snakes come out at night.”

“Down here they do. Too damn hot during the day.”

“I should have known.”

Tip downed the last of his coffee then signaled for the check. “Maybe you better stay at my house for a few days.”

“Sure. And where am I going to sleep, with you and Elena?”

He looked at the check, peeled off three twenties and set them on the table, then stood to go. As we walked out the door he said, “I’ve been thinking about what you suggested, you know, about sleeping with me and Elena…I think I might like that.”

“Get in the damn car and drive,” I said.

Chapter 49

Filling in the Gaps

L
ou Mazzetti propped his feet on the table and sipped on his second cup of coffee. He smiled at Donovan as he walked in.

“I can tell by the look on your face you got something,” Frankie said.

“Only about four minutes worth of something.”

Frankie pulled a chair out and sat next to Lou, reaching for the folder between them. “Who did he call?”

Lou lost his smile and shook his head. “Like everything else, Donovan, there’s good and bad news. Good news is we’ve got a name: Karen Stark, married, two kids, a teacher who lives in Queens.”

“And the bad news?”

“Karen Stark is married, with two kids, and she’s a teacher who lives in Queens.”

“You’re telling me she’s clean?”

“Not just clean, squeaky clean. Good credit. No record. Husband is clean and works at the transit authority. Kids aren’t old enough to be involved.”

Frankie slurped his coffee. “And all four minutes went to this Karen Stark?”

“Yeah,” Lou said. “So I got to wondering the same thing you are. Why would somebody erase the records if she’s clean?”

“Exactly.”

“I did some digging. Sean called Karen Stark four other times in the past six months.”

Frankie leaned forward, his head cocked to the side. “Four times in six months doesn’t sound like an affair; besides, that doesn’t make sense.”

“Listen, Donovan. You’re not smart enough to figure this out.” Lou took his feet off the table and scooted the chair in. “I had them look up Stark’s records, to see who called her, or who she called, near the same times as Sean.” Mazzetti smiled. “Guess which number came up?”

“Spit it out.”

“Randall.”

“Who?”

“Randall. Internal-Affairs Randall.”

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah,” Lou said. “Holy shit is right. Now we know why no one wanted this solved.”

“So what does it mean? Was Sean working for them?”

“No way. If he was working for them we’d have calls going to
Randall’s
home phone, not his sister’s.”

“Then Randall was in on it with Sean,” Frankie said.

“Here’s the clincher. All of the calls came a day or two before a drug bust, and it just so happens most of those busts went bad.”

Frankie slapped the table, almost spilling the cup of coffee. “We got him, Lou. We
goddamn
got him.”

Mazzetti drained his cup and slam-dunked it into the trash can. “
Damn,
I do good work.”

Two days later Frankie
got a call from Mangini, detailing the time and place of the bust. He felt dirty even taking the tip, but this was for a good cause; he hated nothing more than a dirty cop. Besides, this one would produce double pleasure. Not only the thrill and excitement of busting some major bad guys, but then being able to call Gianelli and tell her the good news.

This had been the tightest operation he’d ever worked, the only people in on it Mazzetti, Morreau, and one rookie that Morreau thought highly of, a guy named Booker, young black kid with high recommendations. He waited until half an hour before he had to leave, then Morreau called in five more uniforms, but he took away all cell phones before they left the building and had them pair up with either Frankie or Lou so there was no chance of a leak, intentional or not.

It took about thirty-five minutes to get to the warehouse in Red Hook, taking the last few blocks at a crawl with lights off. He got there plenty early and stationed a sharpshooter on the third floor of one building, offering clear shots at anyone in the front. Another shooter he put on a docked ship, again with clear shots. Lou stayed with the first guy, mostly for security but also because Frankie didn’t want Lou to get hurt. As much as Lou complained about his age and his health, if it came down to a fight, he’d be in the thick of it and probably get his ass shot up.

Morreau took the rookie and one of the other uniforms with him, positioned on the left in the back of a burnt-out bus, and Frankie took the other uni with him, cuddled up in the bed of a ’78 Chevy truck that had seen better days. The guy with him had night-vision goggles, as did the ones on the boat and in the warehouse. These weren’t the goggles where all you saw was a green blur moving through the night; these were military-grade, and damn good.

The uni tapped Frankie’s leg, whispering, “Got two cars coming in with their lights off.”

Frankie was on the radio with Morreau. “We got—”

“I see them.”

Six guys got out of the cars—Colombians, Frankie assumed. Three of them stood in the open and three took a position to the rear. Frankie and his team barely had time to get in place before another car came in. The new car parked maybe fifty yards away, keeping their lights on as they got out of the car. There were three of them, all wearing cop uniforms. The guy in the front approached the Colombians, hands held high, showing him no weapons.

“You got the money?” one of the cops asked.

“Si. The drugs?” This from the guy in front of the Colombians.

“Right here,” the cop said.

They both walked forward, meeting in the middle. Words were exchanged, but nothing could be heard. Frankie had to wait to make sure the cops were going to go through with their plan. If they busted them now, the dirty cops could argue that they planned on busting the Colombians, that they hadn’t logged it in as a precaution against dirty cops, so Frankie had to play it tight.

The front guys chatted, then both returned to their base. After a minute or so, all three cops moved forward, as did the three Colombians. The other three stayed behind the cars.

They met in the middle again, bags and briefcases laden with goodies grasped by one of the team members. As they exchanged the goods, one of the guys from behind the cars popped up and shot the cop on the right. The shooter on the boat took about a millisecond to respond, taking him out then the one next to him. The guy in the building took out the Colombian in the middle of the three up front, but missed with his second shot.

Guns were going off everywhere, them firing at each other, and Frankie firing at them, mostly the Colombians because Frankie wanted to prosecute the cops. Morreau and his men came out of the bus, guns blazing, and managed to take down one of them. Another of the bad cops had fallen by now and the third one had taken cover inside the car. Within a minute it was over.

When Frankie rounded them up they had three dead Colombians, two wounded badly, and one hiding under the car. He also had two dead cops and one hiding
in
a car. Mazzetti used the megaphone to draw him out, threatening to firebomb it if he didn’t. The door opened and out he came.

“Fuck me,” Morreau said, and Frankie repeated it.

Chapter 50

Differences

T
ip passed by the exit for the station, continuing north on I-45.

“Where are we going?”

“You know I work better at home; besides, we’ve got all the charts there. Unless you got a better idea.”

“I don’t care one way or the other. As long as we solve this case.”

We drove in silence for a few more minutes. “How long does it normally take you to solve a murder?” I asked.

“There’s no way to know. I’ve got one case I never solved, and one I solved in five minutes.”

“Five minutes?”

“A woman’s husband was cheating on her and rubbing it in her face—being seen where his wife’s friends go, taking her to dinner where they used to eat. The wife caught wind of it and waited outside the restaurant and ran over him with her car. After that she backed up and did it a few more times.” Tip laughed. “We solved that one in five minutes, but that wasn’t fair. That should have been listed as a suicide.”

“Suicide?”

“Sure, when a man cheats on his wife and then shows off the mistress in front of the wife’s friends…” Tip shook his head. “That dog don’t hunt. Not in Texas.”