Rizzo’s Fire (15 page)

“But he took you in anyway.”

“Oh, yeah, he took me. Right after he got a phone call. Seems like Karen’s old man knows a board member at the Y, so the wheels got greased for me and my weak entry submission.”

Rizzo widened his eyes in mock surprise. “I’m fuckin’ shocked. You mean, shit like that really happens? Wheels get greased? There goes my last shred of faith, right out the fuckin’ window.”

“I don’t wanna discuss it,” Priscilla snapped. “Shouldn’ta brought it up. Leave it at this, it just pisses me off, okay? Karen shoulda known better than to go to her old man behind my back. What am I, the little black poster child? The charity of the fuckin’ week? What?”

Rizzo shrugged as he drove. “Maybe you’re just family, Cil. Maybe the guy’s doin’ what he’d do for his daughter. What
I’d
do for
my
daughter.”

“Well, I ain’t his fuckin’ daughter.”

“Daughter-in-law, then.” Rizzo turned briefly to her and winked. “Son-in-law, what ever the fuck. Relax. Welcome to the world. Besides, this guy, this teacher, now he’s singin’ a different tune, right? Now he figures you got the goods. You want my advice?”

“No. Not really.”

“My advice,” Rizzo went on, ignoring her, “is to go to that party. Kiss some ass, or maybe get your own ass kissed. This could be the break you need if you’re serious about this writing stuff.”

She sat silently for a moment. “I’m serious, Joe.
Real
serious.”

“Okay, then. End of discussion. Go do what you gotta do. And thank Karen’s old man. The guy did just what he shoulda done.”

After a few moments of silence, Priscilla spoke up, her tone leaving Rizzo no doubt: the discussion was over.

“What now? About this Hom case, I mean.”

He shrugged. “Well, we’ll follow Frankie’s lead to The Rebels. But we’re going to have to develop this in de pen dent of him. Even if we could get the D.A. to use Frankie as an eyewitness, which, by the way, we could never do, can you imagine him on the stand? The newest, greenest Legal Aide lawyer could tear him apart, probably make him seize out right in the witness box.” Rizzo shook his head. “No, Frankie’s done his part. He’s out of it from now on. We gotta work it from some other angle. An angle that plays out with the perp copping.”

“No argument here, Partner,” Priscilla said. “We’ll just leave Frankie in his happy place.”

“With the half-assed descriptions we got from all the vics, we couldn’t even do a valid photo array. And if we tried a mug scan with no description on record, the defense would scream fishing expedition, demand a pretrial Wade hearing, and maybe get any I.D. precluded. Then we’d have nothin’. But now, with Frankie’s info, now maybe we can figure a way to go. We’ll see. Let’s get back to the precinct.”

The “bad kids” that Frankie had referred to were members of a local street gang known as The Rebels. They were one of two such gangs housed in the Six-Two, the other being The Bath Beach Boys. The Rebels were the younger of the two gangs, serving as a training ground for eventual admission into the older and more professionally criminal Bath Beach Boys. The Bath Beach Boys, in turn, then served as an apprenticeship for further criminal progression to the Brooklyn organized crime mob currently headed by Louie “The Chink” Quattropa.

The Rebels were generally aged fourteen or so to eighteen or nineteen. If by age twenty or twenty-one a member had failed to move up to The Bath Beach Boys, his organized-gang days were considered over, and most such failures moved on to relatively mundane lives of semirespectability or descended into drug addition. Some entered loner lives of crime, usually resulting in their premature death or long, repeated periods of incarceration.

During his many years in the precinct, Rizzo had dealt with both groups, as well as several neighboring street gangs from the Sixty-eighth, Sixty-sixth, Sixty-first, and Sixtieth Precincts.

Rizzo parked the Impala on Benson Avenue, and he and Priscilla walked a short block to the precinct. They went to the rear of the first floor and entered a small office marked “Community Policing.”

Rizzo made the introductions.

“Priscilla Jackson, meet Sergeant Janice Calder, our community policing officer. We’ve apparently caught her on a very rare night tour. What’s up with that, Jan? Have a fight with the old man?”

The uniformed sergeant, a twenty-year veteran and an acquaintance of Rizzo’s, smiled. “No,” she said. “My daughter is home from college for a few days, so I switched to four-to-midnights this week to spend some time with her. Her friends keep her busy at night.”

Rizzo nodded, turning again to Priscilla. “Janice here makes sure the good people of the Six-Two are informed, educated, and aware. That way, they can all get to die in bed, unmugged, unraped, unshot, and unmolested. She also helps the precinct cops do a better job servin’ the needs of the citizens, not to mention fixing an occasional parking ticket that might inconvenience some community board member or well-connected brother-in-law.”

Calder laughed, reaching to shake Priscilla’s hand. “Now, Joe here knows damn well I’d never do such a thing,” she said. “Welcome to the precinct, Priscilla.”

The two women made small talk, searching for friends in the department they might have had in common.

Then Rizzo got to the point.

“Is Tony in, Jan?” he asked, referring to her office mate and the precinct youth officer, Tony Olivero.

She shook her head. “No, he’s off till Saturday. Does a day tour when he comes back in.”

Rizzo nodded. “I need to go through his stuff. The Rebel photo book, specifically.”

“No problem,” Calder said with a shrug. “Help yourself.”

Rizzo moved to Olivero’s desk.

“What’d the little darlins do this time?” Calder asked, returning to her own desk and sitting down.

“We figure one of ’em for three street robberies,” he answered.

Calder’s eyes widened. “No shit? Those three the last month or so?”

Rizzo nodded, slipping a five-by-eight-inch photo album from the lower drawer of Olivero’s desk. “Those are the ones.”

She frowned. “Sounds wrong to me, Joe. The Rebels might be dumb, but they ain’t stupid. The Chink finds out they’re robbin’ the locals, he may whack a Rebel ass or two.”

“Yeah, it struck me as odd, too,” Rizzo said. “But maybe one of the Indians is off the reservation. If Louie Quattropa don’t scare this kid, we may have a newbie psycho on our hands.”

“Well, I wouldn’t worry about it,” Calder said. “If he’s pissin’ off Quattropa, he’s gettin’ the short-stay rate.”

“Yeah, probably,” Rizzo agreed, standing up. “I’m gonna borrow Tony’s picture file. Tell him for me if I don’t get it back to his drawer by Saturday.” He turned to leave.

“No problem, Joe, take care.” She turned to Priscilla. “Good to meetcha. Don’t bend over in front of this guy, Priscilla,” she said, nodding her head toward Rizzo. “I never did trust him much.”

Priscilla laughed. “Guess you haven’t heard yet. I don’t bend over for
any
man.”

“Well, good for you, honey,” Calder said. “I gotta admit, I have a few times and it usually wasn’t worth the effort.”

Rizzo shook his head. “Let me the fuck outta here,” he said, heading for the door, the women’s laughter ringing in his ears.

CHAPTER EIGHT

ON THURSDAY MORNING
, Rizzo and Jackson made their visits to Bik and Feng Hom and the other two elderly victims of the recent street robberies. Each victim carefully leafed through the photo album Rizzo had borrowed from Olivero’s desk. It contained full-color photographs of the eighteen members of The Rebels who held criminal records. None of the photos was identified as the assailant in the cases at hand.

Later, Rizzo sat behind the wheel of the Impala parked in front of the last house they had visited and sighed.

“Well,” he said, “maybe Frankie was wrong.”

Priscilla frowned. “Or maybe the perp is a newbie like we figured and not in the book yet. That would explain why he didn’t know Frankie was probably sitting there in the dark, looking out over the corner. Or maybe he’s clean, no record yet, so no picture. Or maybe these old vics just can’t make the guy. They sure as hell couldn’t describe him very well.”

“They probably couldn’t describe a teenage Frank Sinatra too well, either,” Rizzo said. “But they’d still be able to pick his picture out of a mug book.”

“Joe,” she said, shaking her head gently, “why is it that every time you refer to anyone I’ve heard of, they’re
dead
?”

“I don’t know,” he answered. “Guess I ain’t that impressed with anybody you ever heard of who’s still alive.”

Rizzo started the engine, adjusting himself in the seat. “Let’s go to work on our other cases, give this one a rest. To night, after dinner, I’ll run down to the high steps on my own time, show Frankie this book of assholes, see if he can make one. If not, we can still go to plan B, even without a positive I.D.”

“And what is plan B?” Priscilla asked.

Rizzo smiled, pulling the Impala out into the street.

“Tell you when I tell you,” he said. “Let’s see what Frankie’s got to say first.”

She shrugged. “Okay, boss,” she said. “What ever.”

They spent the balance of the tour crisscrossing the precinct and its surrounding neighborhoods, methodically working some of the dozen open cases they carried. Later, at the precinct, they wrapped up with a paper trail of the day’s activity.

At three-fifty p.m., her relief detective present in the squad room, Priscilla waved good-bye to Rizzo.

“See you Sunday morning, Joe,” she said, referring to their next scheduled tour. “Enjoy the swing days.”

“You too, kiddo. If I get lucky with Frankie later to night, you want me to call you? Or should I save it for Sunday?”

“Call,” she said. “We’ll be home to night. No plans.”

Later, a little after nine o’clock, Rizzo left the schoolyard, photo album in hand, and returned to his Camry. Frankie, like the victims, had not been able to I.D. a suspect.

Rizzo glanced at the face of his Timex. He sighed. No use putting it off any longer, he was already out, it wasn’t that late, it was as good a time as any. He started the car and headed for his last stop of the night.

In the sparse weeknight traffic, it didn’t take long to reach the battered, litter-strewn block in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn. Rizzo parked under a streetlight, tossing the NYPD vehicle identification card onto the dash, hoping it’d be garlic to any vampires roaming the darkened, cold streets, searching for a car to boost.

He crossed diagonally to a dimly illuminated storefront, its painted windows opaque. From above the door, a bloodied and pained Christ gazed down at him from a two-foot-long wooden crucifix. The words “Non-Combat Zone,” in military-style stenciling, were emblazoned with dark red lettering on the plain gray metal door. Rizzo reached out a hand and pressed the doorbell.

Father Attilio Jovino, although considerably older than Joe Rizzo, still cut an impressive figure. He had come into the priesthood only after a bloody and violent tour of duty in the jungles of Vietnam, and he still carried the hard-edged, flinty-eyed look of a U.S. Army Ranger.

Now, sitting at the desk in his office in the rear of the youth sanctuary he had founded more than fifteen years earlier, Jovino smiled across to his visitor.

“So, Joe,” he said, intertwining his fingers and leaning forward across the desk. “I always look forward to your visits. And even more so since I usually get to share a cigarette with you.”

Rizzo reached into his coat pocket, extracting a crumpled pack. “Yeah, well, there’s a story there, Tillio, but that’s for another visit.”

Jovino shrugged as he dug out an ashtray from his desk drawer. “As you wish, my son.”

They smoked in silence for a few moments, Rizzo’s eyes occasionally rising to the huge crucifix hanging on the wall behind Jovino’s desk.

“Is it Jesus making you uncomfortable,” the priest asked, “or is there something on your mind?”

“Yeah, well, a little a both, I guess,” Rizzo conceded. “I stopped by ’cause I needed to talk to you.”

Jovino nodded and sat back in his seat. “I’m listening,” he said, letting smoke trickle from his lips. “And we’re alone here.”

“Yeah, well, relax, Til,” Rizzo said. “I ain’t confessin’ nothin’ here.”

Jovino smiled. “All right,” he said. A moment passed, Jovino drawing on his cigarette. Then, again leaning forward, he asked in a soft voice, “But, if you were, would it perhaps have something to do with that twelve-thousand-dollar cash donation you recently bestowed upon my sanctuary? You know, you never did satisfy my curiosity about that.”

“Well, that’s okay, Father,” Rizzo said with a shrug. “All you need to know is the money was clean. Clean as any money can be, anyhow. I hope it’s being put to good use.”

Jovino nodded. “Twelve grand saves more than one life around here. Considerably more. These runaway kids don’t need all that much. Food, a little doctoring, kindness. Concern. And a good deal of faith and hope.” He paused here and smiled warmly at Rizzo. “Wherever that money originated, it was delivered to these kids by Christ. That’s good enough for me.”

Rizzo took in a deep breath. “Yeah,” he said, expelling slowly. “Christ.”

Again Jovino nodded. “Christ appears in many forms. Sometimes even in the guise of a Brooklyn cop. A cop, I should add, who looks tired, seems uncharacteristically unsure of himself. What’s the problem, Joe? You can tell me.”

Rizzo tried to lighten his tone. “Not exactly a problem. Just a . . . a situation, that’s all.”

Jovino sat back in his seat. “Ah, yes,” he said, “a situation. Of course. I experienced a few situations myself before I came to the priesthood. One involved the lovely young sister of my best friend. Another a small incident of mayhem in the highlands outside of Hue. I can assure you, my friend, I know something of ‘situations.’ ”

Rizzo shook his head, dropping his eyes to the red tip of his burning Chesterfield. “It ain’t quite that dramatic, Father.” He raised his eyes slowly to meet Jovino’s.

The priest spread his arms. “So, tell me, then.”