Old Flame (4 page)

CHAPTER

8

A
fter Danny left, I called the Minority Opportunities Bureau, the outfit Ferris worked for, and asked for the director. The operator connected me to Lou Torricelli. He wasn’t in. I left a voice-mail message. Said I wanted to see him on a matter of importance. I gave him my cell number. I ran some errands and called him again. Another voice-mail message. The man had a thing about returning calls. Called him a few more times. Same result. I had the feeling Torricelli was ducking me.

I needed an in. I went looking for my brother.

I finally caught up with him at Nolan’s Gym.

Nolan’s, on Ninth and Forty-first, sat atop a Hasidic-owned discount electronics store. An interesting, if incongruous, juxtaposition of commercial enterprises.

The wooden floors were bowed and scraped of finish. Yellowed fight posters dating back to the 1940s hung on the peeling walls. A ring with very tight ropes sat in the center of the floor. Two munchkins in headgear, looking remarkably like Mayan temple pictographs, pounded the shit out of each other with great verve.

Nolan’s counted several Golden Gloves champions, including me, among its alumni. On my big night at the Garden, I won in a walkover when my opponent, a tall, beefy black guy with diamonds in his teeth and the disposition of a reef shark, failed to appear. I eventually learned that just before the bout he was arrested and charged with a series of drive-by shootings.

Lucky me.

Nolan’s other distinction was that there were no showers, making it arguably the most odoriferous spot in Hell’s Kitchen. The sour aroma of fifty years of accumulated sweat hung in the air like swamp gas.

Dave was working the speed bag with metronomic precision. Small, pawing, rhythmic strokes performed with an economy of motion. His gray T-shirt was blotched with sweat. He had been at it for a while and was breathing hard.

“I heard you had a problem the other night,” he said.

“The other three guys had the problem. I saw it as an opportunity.”

That brought a resigned shake of his head.

“What’s up?”

“I’ve got two things I need your advice on,” I said.

“I don’t see you anymore . . . Franny and the kids miss you . . . and you want my help,” he said as the tiny bag thrummed under his fists.

I reached over and stopped the bag in mid-thrum.

“Very impressive for a man your age,” I said. “But you’ve got to concentrate here.”

He flashed a lopsided grin and motioned to one of his minions —a bullet-headed guy with a thick body and dull, tiny eyes — to fetch a towel. The towel came. Dave mopped his face and draped it around his neck.

“OK,” he said, reaching for a bottle of water. “What’s so important?”

I told him about Ginny and Tony Ferris.

“So, Ferris is black. That’s got to be a thorn in Ollie Doyle’s dick. And I’m sure the lovely Jeanmarie isn’t too thrilled about it either.”

“That would be my guess,” I agreed.

“Both of them are open sores.”

“Here’s the problem, Dave. Ferris worked for the Minority Opportunities Bureau, a city agency.”

Dave gave his thick gray hair a vigorous rub with the towel. “The M-O-B. Interesting acronym,” he said. “Could be a clue.”

“Could be,” I said.

“So, all of Ginny’s husbands worked for the city. Maybe she’s a pension-digger.” He smiled at his little joke.

“Anyway, I called Ferris’s boss, a guy named Torricelli, and he’s never around. I get the feeling I’m being avoided.”

“You do have that way about you.”

“It runs in the family. I could perch in his office until he’s willing to see me, but it’ll just piss him off even more.”

“What do you want from me?”

“Any thoughts?”

“Why don’t you go see Terry? He could set it up.”

The mention of Terry Sloan’s name made me wince. Sloan was Dave’s buddy, and our local city councilman. That exalted position gave him more connections than a fuse box. The last time I was involved with Sloan was when he tried to make a quick buck from the 9/11 disaster.

“I would, but I’d need to be hosed off afterward,” I said.

In the ring, one of the Mayans connected with a roundhouse right, knocking the mouthpiece of his opponent across the canvas and sending him into the ropes. A pink mist of blood sprayed from his mouth.

Dave pulled the towel from his neck, neatly folded it, and laid it on the back of a folding chair.

“Sometimes you’ve got to dance with the devil,” he said.

“Sometimes,” I agreed.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“Getting involved with Ginny and a bunch of shit that you’re not physically up to, and that’s not your business.”

“I’ve thought about that a lot lately.”

“Come up with anything?”

“I think so. At first, I thought it would be great to be back on the hunt, doing something that I used to be pretty good at. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I was bullshitting myself.”

“There’s another reason.”

“Yep. Once, a long time ago, she loved me. It’s got to count for something.”

Dave nodded.

“What’s your other problem?” he said.

I told him about Danny Reno’s predicament.

“I heard about Barak. The guy’s got razor wire in his head. What did you tell Reno?” he asked.

“I’d make a novena for him.”

“Good advice.”

CHAPTER

9

L
ike Hell’s Kitchen, the Hudson Democratic Club is an anachronism. With roots firmly planted in Tammany Hall, the club had deftly camouflaged itself in the pretty green foliage of Reform. But nothing had changed. There was still a Boss, and it was Terry Sloan. Terry had a piece of every deal in the Kitchen. Mayors came and went, but Terry hummed along, merrily plying his trade in the political bazaar, and fattening his bank account. Higher office held no interest for him simply because it didn’t pay as well.

The club occupied a room on the ground floor of an unremarkable building near the Hudson River that Terry happened to own. The rent went from one pocket to the other. It was a large, bare-bones room with several offices around its perimeter. The precinct captains and other hangers-on who relied on Sloan for their no-show daily bread were dozing or playing cards.

My tax dollars at work.

Albert Mallus, Sloan’s majordomo, bagman, and the éminence grise of the operation, intercepted me at Sloan’s closed office door.

Mallus and I had a history. The long and short of it was we didn’t like each other. At all.

“He’s busy, Steeg,” Mallus said.

“Fuck you, Albert,” I said, brushing past him.

I opened the door to Sloan’s office and walked in. Mallus was right behind me.

A photo display of Sloan’s long reign graced his properly spacious, serious-looking office. There was the obligatory set of flags, and all around the room mayors, cardinals, congressmen, and senators smiled down from the walls. It made me want to gag.

Sloan was at his desk, his head lolling back in the chair, a dreamy look in his eyes. Kneeling in front of him was a woman with a long ponytail. Her head bobbed up and down.

“Hi, Terry,” I said.

Her head stopped in the middle of a downstroke. She scrambled to her feet, shielded her face with her hands, and beat it the hell out of there.

“I guess this is what’s called servicing the base, or is it the other way around?” I said.

He swiveled his chair around and I heard the rasp of a zipper. With that accomplished, he swiveled the chair back to me.

“Hey, Jake, good to see you,” Sloan said, as if this were just an ordinary occurrence in the life of a public servant.

“Taking a break from the pressures of office?” I said.

He grinned broadly. “What can I tell you? They’re drawn to power like a moth to a flame. You know how it is.”

“Actually, I don’t. Put on a few pounds, Terry?”

That bothered him. Getting caught in a Bill Clinton moment was nothing compared to having his weight become the subject of comment. He quickly buttoned the jacket of his banker-gray suit. Truth be told, Terry
had
put on a few pounds. His once boyish face had fleshed out, and his jowls had succumbed to gravity and begun the inexorable cascade over the collar of his starched white shirt.

“After a while, those rubber chickens add up,” he said, giggling nervously.

“Doing the people’s business requires sacrifices the average voter can’t even begin to comprehend. Must be a bitch.”

Sloan smirked. “What brings you here?” he said.

“Ever hear of the Minority Opportunities Bureau?”

His face pinched up in a fair approximation of deep thought, but I knew that couldn’t be it, since it would be a first.

After a few long moments of coming up empty, he looked past me to Mallus.

“Albert, you familiar with them?”

“Yeah. They make sure the niggers and spics get a piece of the action.”

Nicely put!

“We are talking about your constituents here, Albert, aren’t we?” I said.

He jerked a thumb in Terry’s direction. “His maybe,” he said. “Me? I don’t give a shit.”

It was a short right. Probably didn’t travel more than six inches, but I made a quick pivot and got my shoulders and hips into it. It was more than enough to send Mallus crashing to the floor.

Terry sprang from behind his desk and grabbed me. For a seriously overweight man, he moved pretty well.

“Come on, Steeg,” he said. “It’s just talk. You know how it goes.”

“How
does
it go, Terry? Tell me.”

“He doesn’t know you like I know you. It was a mistake. Won’t happen again.”

Mallus tried to sit up and get his eyes to focus, but his senses were not where he thought he had left them.

Terry ignored him.

“Why are you interested in the Minority Opportunities Bureau?” he said.

I told him, then added, “I’m just poking around until a lead shows up.”

Mallus had managed to climb into a chair. Surprising. I thought it would take him longer. No question about it, I was out of shape.

“Funny how everything that goes around comes around. Every guy in the neighborhood took a shot at Ginny, and she wound up with you. Then she dumps you, and now she needs you again. Go figure.”

“The vagaries of the human heart are profoundly mysterious.”

“Whatever. Now that you mention it, I have heard about the bureau,” Terry said. “Run by a guy named Torricelli. The guy’s an asshole.”

I took that as high praise.

“Too honest for you?”

“Why do you have to be such a fucking pain in the ass, Steeg?”

“Family tradition. What’s your problem with Torricelli?”

“OK, you’re right. Too much of a fucking straight arrow, if you know what I mean.”

I did indeed. Terry was intimating that Torricelli didn’t play his brand of ball. Even though he didn’t return my calls, I was warming to Mr. Torricelli.

“How so?” I said.

“We’ve had a couple of run-ins in the past. I don’t want to go into details.”

I smiled sweetly. “Please do,” I said.

Sloan looked over at Mallus sitting very quietly with his head cradled in his hands. His gaze lingered a moment, and then moved back to me.

“Gideon El had this construction company — all on the up and up — ”

“Of course.”

“And fucking Torricelli buried him in so much paperwork that Gideon couldn’t get the thing off the ground.”

Gideon El, né Randall Carver, the noted civil rights activist
cum
lowlife, had traded in his megaphone for an opportunity to bid on city contracts.

“What happened? The protesting business isn’t paying like it used to, or was Randall just looking to expand?”

“Is there anyone you
do
like?”

“With each passing day, the list grows ever shorter.”

“Look, I got a lot of shit to do. What do you want?”

“I want to see Torricelli, but he doesn’t want to see me.”

“What a shock.”

“I need you to set it up. Dave figured you would help.”

“Does that mean if I do it you’ll leave?”

“Absolutely.”

“Consider it done.”

CHAPTER

10

T
erry Sloan called. My meeting with Torricelli was on.

In twenty years of public service, Terry had yet to introduce a bill in the city council, but he sure knew how to grease the wheels of government.

Louis Torricelli’s office was on the sixth floor of a mud-colored hive of a building that housed a bunch of agencies no one has ever heard of.

There was no receptionist. I didn’t expect one; city agencies are not particularly user-friendly. I stopped the first person I saw, a plump woman with a bad dye job toting an armful of file folders. She had the numb look of a lifer.

“Lou Torricelli?” I said.

She took a few seconds to decide whether divulging his whereabouts was part of her job description, a really important issue for city employees. And it drove me nuts.

The look on her face reminded me of the day Dave’s wife, Franny, asked me to take her to the Department of Education to pick up her teaching license. Dave couldn’t make it. The process should have taken no more than a few minutes, but there was a snag. Two typists were assigned the task of typing the certificate number on the license. One only did certificates ending in odd numbers, the other handled even numbers. Franny’s certificate ended in an even number, and that typist had just left for lunch and wasn’t expected back for an hour. As politely as possible, I asked Miss Odd Number to bend the rules a bit. Her reaction left something to be desired. I typed it myself. There was quite the commotion. Had Dave been there, there would have been blood on the walls.

Bad Dye Job was still thinking.

I waited her out.

After a few very long moments, she jerked the file folders toward an office in the back. “Over there,” she finally said, punctuating it with a really deep sigh.

The nameplate on the glass-paned door read
LOUIS TORRICELLI, DIRECTOR.

The door was closed. I knocked and walked in.

He looked up with a start.

My first impression was that this was a man who rarely smiled.

His office was quite the treat. Paint the color of day-old guacamole peeling up near the rust spots where the ceiling and wall met, a wooden desk purchased during Boss Tweed’s reign, bookshelves heavy with thick reports that no one ever read. And behind the desk a smudgy window offering a delightful view of another mud-colored building stained with pigeon droppings. No wonder the man didn’t smile.

“Whaddya want?” Torricelli said.

Perfect!

“Name’s Steeg.”

The look on his face said he was drawing a blank.

I passed him my expired NYPD photo ID and a business card.

He studied them very closely.

“You’re not with the cops anymore?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Save it,” he said, passing the photo ID back, but I noticed he kept my business card.

“Terry Sloan called?” I prompted.

That seemed to do the trick. His nose wrinkled up as if he smelled something bad.

We had something in common.

“Yeah?” he said.

Torricelli had a receding hairline and was going to fat, the ultimate destination for someone who sat on his ass all day.

“To talk about Tony Ferris,” I said.

The color drained from his face.

“It’s awful,” he said.

“You might say.”

“What happened? Who . . .?”

“He was beaten to death. The
who
remains to be seen.”

“I called Ginny. I . . . can’t believe it. Look, I’ll help any way I can.”

“How long has he worked here?”

“Fifteen years.”

“Any problems?”

“With Ferris?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“No. I mean . . . maybe.”

“You’re losing me.”

“Not with Ferris. No problems there. Man did his job.”

“Then with who?”

“I’ve been getting some strange calls lately. Ferris got them too. A guy with an accent. That’s why when you started calling I didn’t want any part of you. When you showed up, I figured this was not my lucky day. No offense, but you kinda look the part.”

It was less than heartening to learn that I looked like a goon.

“Even though I’m here with Terry Sloan’s blessing?”

“Are you nuts? As far as I was concerned, it cinched the deal.”

Terry’s stellar reputation had a way of preceding him.

“Ferris and his wife were getting threats too.”

“He never said anything.”

“Did you go to the cops?”

A fine sheen of sweat turned Torricelli’s forehead glassy. He rubbed his eyes with a kind of resigned weariness.

“Are you kidding? He said he knows where I live. Knew my wife’s name. Knew where she worked, even where my kids went to school. I don’t need this shit.”

Torricelli slid the desk drawer open and came out with a small brown bottle. He removed the cap, fished out a tiny white pill, and slipped it under his tongue.

“Look, I’m sorry I was short with you before. I wasn’t being rude. I was being scared.” He took a deep breath. “Here’s the situation. I got three more years until the pension hits, and the last thing I need is to stroke out here. That would be like, you know, the ultimate indignity.” His skin turned the color of the walls.

“We can do this another day.”

He waved his hand. “I’m OK now. Just fire away. Ask me anything you want.”

“What does your department actually do?”

“Do you have any idea what the capital budget for construction is in New York City?”

“Not a clue.”

“It’s big enough to make the Pharaohs, Incas, and Mayans combined look like a bunch of fucking mound builders. And that doesn’t even include the cost of renovating existing stuff. Everywhere you look in this city, somebody’s hammering, drilling, or laying fucking brick.” He looked at the rust stains on the ceiling. “Except around here.”

“The shoemaker’s children go barefoot.”

“Tell me about it. In the old days, most of the work went to outfits with sweetheart arrangements with the right guys in whatever administration was in office. See, they knew what the deal was. Administrations come and go, but these guys soldier on. Projects get proposed, bids come in, and the same construction companies usually wind up with the work.”

“And BMWs magically appeared in the driveways of certain elected officials,” I said.

“Sure, but one fine day all bets were off. In the sixties, the civil rights movement changed the equation. They pushed for federal and state legislation ensuring that minorities would have a piece of the pie, and they got it. And you know what? God bless them! Remember the riots? If I were black, I would have tossed Molotov cocktails right along with them.”

I was falling in love with Louis Torricelli. If he kept this up, I could definitely see us picking out furniture one day.

“So the Minority Opportunities Bureau was created to ensure that blacks, Hispanics, Indians, Asians, whatever, got a fair shake. And if they were going to play fuckaround like their Caucasian counterparts who held the key to the lockbox for like a million years, more power to them. It’s the American way.”

“So the bids come in,” I said. “You examine them and — given certain guidelines which I don’t have to trouble myself with — you make sure that minorities are fairly treated in the bidding and awarding process.”

“Bingo. But we also ensure that minority bidding companies are not only owned by members of minorities but also have a preponderance of minority employees in their workforce. Some of the incumbents try to get around the law by setting up subsidiaries or phantom companies. We sniff them out and basically fuck them over.”

“But you don’t completely get rid of them.”

“Right. They’re like fucking roaches. You step on one and the little fucker has already laid its eggs, waiting to be reborn as a new corporation under a different name.”

“I could see where conflict might arise,” I allowed.

“Yeah. Up to a few years ago, construction sites were turned into battle zones. You had blacks and Hispanics, armed to the teeth, bussed into the site and looking for work, and all hell broke loose. It wasn’t pretty, and everyone concerned went about it all wrong. But at the end of the day, these guys needed jobs, and the dickhead construction companies and the unions were in cahoots to keep them out. My job is to prevent that from happening again.”

“Did Ferris work on sensitive stuff?”

He pointed to files on the bookshelves. “Everything we do is sensitive. Where big money is involved, tempers get frayed real easy.”

Torricelli’s color had returned to what I guessed was normal for him, and he was breathing easier.

“Can you get me a list of projects Ferris was working on?”

He shook his head. “It’s against the rules. But if I happen to leave a bunch of file folders on my desk and go to the john for a few minutes . . . With all the crap I got here, things sometimes go missing.”

Torricelli was definitely one of the good guys.

“Is Ferris close to anyone here?”

“Lisa Hernandez, his assistant. But she’s out today. Flu, I think.”

“Do you have her number?”

Torricelli flipped through his Rolodex and found her card. He scribbled her number on a Post-it and passed it to me.

He pulled my business card out of his pocket and held it between his thumb and forefinger. “If I get jammed up, can I call you?” he said.

“Count on it.”

He slid the card into his shirt pocket. “I appreciate it.”

“One last question. What was your take on Ferris?” I said.

“Off the record?”

“Sure.”

“Let’s just say he favors restaurants with tablecloths.”

“Hard to do on a city paycheck.”

“I wouldn’t know. I’m an Applebee’s guy myself.”