Damaged Goods (9 page)

Outside, in the hallway, Moodrow tried to think of a nice way to break the bad news. He’d gotten what he wanted, access to Ann Kalkadonis, and now the committee had to go. It was really that simple, but simplicity didn’t make it easier. Leonora was sure to be pissed off and he didn’t need that. Nevertheless, as the committee was waiting in the cafeteria, he plunged on.

“Hold up a minute, Leonora,” he said to her retreating back, “I’m not going down there with you.”

“Now what, Stanley?” She spun around, faced him with her shoulders squared. “What’s the game?”

“I’ve decided to take the case pro bono. That means the foundation is out. I’m not reporting to anybody but my client.” He folded his arms across his chest, absorbed the full force of Leonora’s glare.

“You know, you’re really a prick. I’ve been playing your game for the last two days.”

“And now it’s my turn to play yours?” He hesitated, searched for an inoffensive way to phrase what had to be said. “Look, those people have nothing to contribute.
Nothing.
I’m not putting them down, Leonora. They offered Ann refuge and that’s all to the good, but they can’t find Jilly Sappone. I just don’t have time for them.”

“That’s great, Stanley. I can see your reasoning. If you don’t want their money, they have no hold over you. But somebody’s got to tell them and if that somebody is me, I’m going to smack you so hard, you’ll forget about what happened to the
back
of your head.” She stared up at him through narrowed eyes. “It’s really that simple.”

It went better than Moodrow expected. He began by thanking the Haven Foundation for all they’d done on behalf of Ann Kalkadonis, then carefully explained that client confidentiality obliged him to report directly (and only) to Ann Kalkadonis. Even the cops had no real claim, though he fully intended to use them whenever necessary.

“Time is what it’s all about,” he concluded. “Days, maybe a week at the outside. I don’t wanna insult anybody, but I can’t be running off to meetings every afternoon.” He glanced down at his ancient windup Timex, a watch he’d dubbed “Old Reliable” because it stopped every morning and afternoon at 3:22. “In fact, if I hurry, I can still find Carmine at the Gemini Lounge. That’s where he spends his afternoons.”

Moodrow stood up before the protests could begin. “Leonora, you wanna walk me out? There’s something I need to ask you.”

Leonora, now more bemused than angry, told the other women to wait for her, that she’d be back, then quickly joined Moodrow as he made his way between the tables. “You did that very nicely,” she said. “Short and sweet.”

“Don’t worry, Leonora, you’ve still got them by the balls.”

“The balls?”

Moodrow pulled up short, stifled a giggle. “I’m gonna ask Jim Tilley to keep civilians out of Ann’s apartment. That means you’re the foundation’s only source of information. You oughta be able to work with that.” He took her by the arm. “You mentioned a private eye last night, said she worked with computers.”

“Ginny Gadd. I assume she’s out, too.”

“No, I need her. And I need you to do me a favor. I want you to give her a call, tell her I’ll be in touch later this afternoon.”

“First you insult me, then you ask a favor. Stanley, if I didn’t love you, I’d hate your guts.”

“Bullshit. You may be playing two games here, but you want Jilly Sappone as much as I do. That’s why you came to me in the first place.” He gave her a chance to deny it. When she didn’t, he continued. “I need a second favor, Leonora. Somebody has to go over to Ann’s apartment and check it for security.”

“She’s fourteen floors off the ground and there’s no fire escape. Unless Jilly learned to fly in prison …”

“Check the lock, make sure it’s shielded. The frame, too. I don’t want that lock punched out; I don’t want the door jimmied. The shades have to cover the windows completely and the lamps have to be up against the windows. No shadows, no silhouettes. I’d do it myself, but I have to catch Carmine before he goes home. Jilly’s aunt lives there and I’d bet my left testicle that she’s in touch with him.”

“T
AKE ME AWAY, MOODROW
. Take me the fuck away.” Carmine Stettecase held out a pair of small, pudgy hands. “The shit that’s happenin’ to me now, I’d rather be in the joint.”

They were sitting at a back table in the Gemini Lounge, Carmine’s supper club, located at the intersection of Wooster and Prince Streets on the western edge of what had once been Little Italy. The Italians, who’d occupied the neighborhood for more than eighty years, had begun to move out in the early 1950s, with Latinos, mainly Puerto Ricans, coming in to replace them. The process continued for the better part of two decades, until trendy New Yorkers in search of affordable housing “discovered” the neighborhood in the late Seventies. The ten years that followed saw the manufacturing lofts remodeled, the ancient tenements refurbished, and the neighborhood renamed, emerging as the Soho district.

The new settlers brought something Little Italy had never had; they brought money, and Carmine Stettecase had gone with the flow. He’d traded his candleholder Chianti bottles for halogen wall sconces, purged his jukebox, dumping Frank Sinatra and Vic Damone in favor of Thelonius Monk and the Kinks. His menu no longer featured calamari
fra diavolo,
but the marinated asparagus (or so Moodrow had heard) was to die for.

When the lounge (much to Carmine’s surprise) began to catch on, he’d added strings of white Christmas lights to the ceiling trellis, a matched pair of platinum-blond bartenders (one male, one female), and a performance artist with a tattooed skull. His own operation was moved to a back table and confined to the afternoon when the restaurant and bar were closed.

“I’m not a cop anymore, Carmine. Haven’t been for almost five years. Not that I wouldn’t like to do the world a favor and oblige you.” Moodrow, his face a dead mask, stared into a pair of eyes so light they were nearly invisible, eyes the color of an ice cube in a glass of vodka.

“Forget it. If you ain’t busted me by now, you’ll never bust me. I did some time with the feds, but punk cops like you never got close.”

“Life isn’t over, Carmine. Unless you retired and forgot to hold the party.” In spite of the defiant words, Moodrow knew the man was right. Unless they were bent, precinct detectives like Stanley Moodrow stayed clear of big-time mobsters like Carmine Stettecase. Sure, if you stumbled on them, caught them in the proverbial act, you’d make the bust. Long-term investigations, on the other hand, were the province of whatever federal-local task force happened to be operating at the moment.

“Never happen, Moodrow. Ya wanna retire, ya gotta have someone to step into your shoes. Me, I got a kid that can’t even control his mother-in-law. I swear to Christ, if Tommaso wasn’t my own flesh and blood, I’d shoot him.” Stettecase opened a Veniero’s cake box, plucked out a miniature cannoli, popped it into his mouth. “So, whatta ya want, Stanley? Bein’ as I know you always hated my guts and this ain’t a social call.”

“After I left the cops, I went into business for myself. Right now, I represent Ann Kalkadonis.” Moodrow stared across the table, tried to gauge Stettecase’s reaction. As a kid, Carmine had built his reputation on a hot temper and a squat, fireplug physique. Now, at sixty-two, his temper had gone the way of his body. At least a hundred pounds overweight, Carmine Stettecase seemed about as volatile as the pastries he stuffed into his mouth. Not that he wouldn’t kill Jilly Sappone or Stanley Moodrow or anybody else who got in his way. “I assume you know what happened to her.”

Carmine shrugged. “Guess I’m gonna solve both of our problems at the same time. Lucky me.” He stared at Moodrow for a moment. “How the fuck did you jerks let that maniac outta jail? I don’t care if he’s been inside fourteen years. You gotta be crazy to put a maniac like Jilly on the street.”

“Gee, and all this time I thought you were the one pulling the strings. Life sure can surprise you.”

“It ain’t funny, Moodrow.” Carmine ran a soft palm over what was left of his hair. “What I shoulda done is listen to Dominick.” Dominick Favara had been Carmine’s boss for thirty years, right up until cancer did what a dozen would-be assassins had failed to do. “Dominick told me to make Jilly disappear. He said, ‘Fuck ya son, fuck ya daughter-in-law, and fuck ya daughter-in-law’s mother. Fuck Josie Rizzo.’ He told me I should put Josie in the same hole with her nephew.”

Moodrow nodded solemnly. Just as if they weren’t talking about murder, about an execution. As if Carmine’s bodyguards weren’t scattered about the restaurant. “Why didn’t you?” he asked.

Carmine looked at his lap for a moment, then sighed before consoling himself with a cream puff. “In case ya haven’t heard, we don’t kill women. We ain’t like them fuckin’ spics, them Cubans and Colombians. Women don’t get hit unless they’re gonna rat.”

“I wasn’t talking about Josie, Carmine. Why didn’t you kill Jilly Sappone?”

He shrugged, managed a laugh that rippled through his jowls. “The first mistake I made was lettin’ my kid marry into that family. I knew better at the time, but I figured I was such a hot shit I could take care of anything. My second mistake was doin’ the Godfather bit and givin’ crazy Jilly Sappone a job. Then I let Josie Rizzo move into the family building and I was fuckin’ history. Hey, three strikes you’re out, right? I figured for sure somebody would kill Jilly in prison.”

Moodrow reached into his jacket pocket, noted the alarm on Carmine’s face, and grinned broadly. “Hey, Carmine,” he said softly, “you already searched me, remember? Your gorilla’s holding my piece.” He gestured to the three-hundred-pound giant sitting at the bar. The three-hundred-pound giant in the two-thousand-dollar suit.

“Habit, Moodrow. When ya live this long in my business, ya pick up habits.” Stettecase shifted inside his own two-thousand-dollar suit. He played with the diamond ring on his finger, twisting it back and forth. “So, whatta ya got in there?”

Moodrow took out a sheet of folded paper, laid it on the table in front of him. “Tell me something, Carmine. Whatta ya think’s gonna happen to Ann’s kid, Theresa, if your boys start blasting away at Jilly Sappone?”

“Yeah, I heard about the kid. Bad break for Annunziata.” He stared at the paper for a moment, then looked up at Moodrow. “Bad break for both of ’em.”

“So what you’re saying is the kid doesn’t matter. Just another casualty of war.”

Carmine laughed. “Hey, bad things happen to good people, right?” When Moodrow didn’t respond, he raised his hand, palms up, and said, “Nobody wants to hurt the kid. Like I already said, we’re not fuckin’ spics here. But it ain’t like I could show myself soft. If it wasn’t for soft, I wouldn’t be in this mess.” He popped another cannoli into his mouth. “Jilly’s gotta be an example. You heard what he done to Carol Pierce?”

“Yeah, I heard. I was up there an hour after it happened.”

“Well, I’m gonna do the same thing to Jilly. I don’t care if I have to do it after he’s dead. And I’m gonna leave what’s left of him on a street corner in the neighborhood. And …”

“Enough.” Moodrow waved him off. “You don’t have to impress me. I know what you are.” He ignored the fat man’s frown. “Look, I want you to lay off for a week of so. Give me a chance to find Jilly on my own.”

“In ya fuckin’ dreams, Moodrow.” Carmine’s voice had lost its jovial tone. “And if ya insult me again, ya dreams are gonna take place under a coffin lid. You ain’t a cop no more.”

“Somehow I didn’t expect you to cooperate out of the goodness of your heart.” He raised the sheet of paper. “When was the last time you—or anybody you know—laid eyes on Jilly Sappone? Fourteen, fifteen years ago?”

“Yeah, about that.”

“What makes you think your boys’ll recognize him? What makes you think he won’t walk right by them when he comes after
you
?” Moodrow tapped a forefinger on the table. “In fact, I’ll bet most of the creeps in this room never knew him.”

Carmine pointed to the sheet of paper. “I take it you got a photograph?”

“One for you, Carmine.” Moodrow didn’t bother to mention that the undated mug shot was five years old.

“And you wanna make a deal.”

“Right, again.”

“And ya got some way to stop me from reachin’ out and snatchin’ it away.”

“You’re too fat to reach across the table, but I’m willing to admit that you could
have
it snatched. Only then you wouldn’t get to phase two.”

Carmine shook his head, muttered, “Christ, Moodrow, you always had balls. Elephant balls. So, what’s ‘phase two’?”

“Jilly didn’t do Carol Pierce. Ann Kalkadonis, either. No, Jilly’s running with a partner, as you already heard from Buster Levy. It’s gotta be somebody he met in the joint, somebody whose picture’s on file. I’ll have a list of Jilly’s prison buddies within a few days. After Ann makes an identification, I’ll pass you a photo.”

“And all you want is I should lay off for a week?”

Moodrow smiled, knowing a promise extracted from Carmine Stettecase would carry all the sincerity of a kiss from a Delancey Street prostitute. “Yeah, Carmine, I want you lay off for a week, give the kid a chance. But I want something else, too. I want you to call Buster Levy, tell him to speak to me. I want you to ask him not to lie.”

“Whatta ya want from Buster?” Stettecase’s mouth narrowed suspiciously. “What’s Buster got to do with
you
?”

“I’m sure he’ll tell you after I finish with him.” Moodrow pushed the photo across the table, watched Carmine pick it up, unfold it, stare down at Jilly Sappone. “Jilly got a lot older, right?”

“Yeah, just like the rest of us.”

“Ya know what I think, Carmine? I think for the most part Jilly’s laying low. I think he sends his buddy out to run errands, to set things up. Jilly may be crazy, but he was never stupid.” Moodrow paused briefly, then continued. “I know you already put a bounty on Jilly’s head, that you’ve got every crew within a hundred miles looking for him. What good is it gonna do you if Jilly’s not on the street? If the key to finding Jilly Sappone is finding his partner?” Moodrow stopped again, gave the idea a moment to sink in, then broke into a giggle. “Carmine,” he said, “listen up. I’m making you an offer you can’t refuse.”