Rizzo’s Fire (17 page)

“Eighty-one more days,” he said, as he sat sipping coffee with Rizzo on a small bench outside the holding pen area of Central Booking, located in the basement of the court house.

“That’s great, Freddy,” Rizzo said. “I got about a year to go myself.”

Clarton shook his head. “Too goddamned long, Sarge, too god-damned long.”

“It’s the hand I got dealt,” Rizzo answered with a shrug.

Clarton sipped his coffee, his eyes peering over the cup’s edge to Rizzo.

“So, Sarge,” he said. “You wanna get down to business?”

Rizzo had been glad to find that the arresting officer was an old vet and not some nervous rookie afraid of his own shadow. Now his appreciation for the black cop’s seniority turned to an even more comforting respect for Clarton’s street smarts and directness.

“Yeah, Freddy, I do,” he said. “And just call me Joe.”

The cop laughed. “Oh, Lord, this must be a good one, we gettin’ all buddy-buddy here. What you need, Joe?”

Rizzo leaned closer to the man. “I read the arrest report and the rap sheet, Freddy. I know this guy Zumba is an asshole. And he ain’t a friend of mine.”

“Okay,” the cop said with a nod.

“So,” Rizzo continued. “This is the story. I owe a favor to the boss of the Angels. Over in Manhattan. The guy helped me with a runaway kid case, and it worked out good. This is his payback.”

“What is?” Clarton asked, his eyes narrowing.

Rizzo took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Okay, you got this guy on a DWI, possession, assault-two, and resisting. I need you to shit-can the assault charge. It’s a D-felony. Drop it to obstructing governmental administration, an A-misdemeanor.”

The cop frowned. “This shit is a pain in my ass. Only reason I’m even here is ’cause they got me workin’ with some kid thinks he’s gonna clean up Dodge City. This whole collar was his doin’, then he tells me he can’t book the guy ’cause he’s gotta baptize his sister’s kid this morning. Imagine that? When we first saw Zumba weavin’ his bike and pulled him over, I told the kid to ignore it, let the guy go, but no, the kid is all righteous, can’t let a drunk go with just a warning. See, the skell was only ’bout five blocks from his apartment. Shit, worst coulda happened was he wrecked and broke his own sorry neck. Damn fool out ridin’ a motorcycle on a cold night in November, served him right if he went down. But no, my partner wants us to lock the guy up.”

Rizzo smiled. “Kids,” he said simply.

Clarton nodded. “Yeah. Younger every day, seems like. Anyway, so then the Angel mouths off a little, next thing I know, the kid slaps him and the guy goes ape-shit, so we got to tune his ass up. Then we toss ’im and find the dope. Now you come askin’ me to drop the assault count. That really hangs me out if the guy starts bitchin’ ’bout the lump I put on his head. I need that assault charge to cover my own ass, Joe.”

Rizzo nodded. “Yeah, well, I understand. But I’ll talk to the man in Manhattan. There won’t be any bitchin’ about you smackin’ this shit-head around. The resisting charge still stands, and with an added obstruction, that more than covers your use of force.”

Clarton considered it. “Well,” he said after a moment. “I guess it’s not like we broke his fuckin’ head or anything.”

“Exactly,” said Rizzo. “What weight did the CPCS come in at?”

Clarton shrugged. “Haven’t heard yet,” he said. “It was just a taste, a little coke. What he had left over from his party-hardy night.”

“Probably his wake up,” Rizzo said.

Clarton ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “I hate to get into this kinda shit so late in the game. I don’t wanna be spendin’ my last few months with some I.A.D. or Civilian Review prick breakin’ my balls.”

“No way,” Rizzo said emphatically. “You drop that assault-two, you’ll never hear nothin’ from this guy again. He tries to fuck this deal up, I go to his boss. Zumba gets thrown in the fuckin’ river. Believe me, it won’t be a problem. Let him pay his fines for the dope and DWI and take an A.C.D. or time-served on the two misdemeanors. Everybody’ll be happy.”

Clarton nodded. “What do I get out of this, Joe? Your undyin’ gratitude?”

Rizzo laughed. “Yeah, exactly. Although, I gotta tell ya, my good-lookin’ partner did offer to come along and shake her ass for you, but I told her no.”

“I been awake for twenty-five hours straight,” Clarton said. “I’m too tired for any ass shakin’.” Now he shook his head, his small smile slowly fading. “Damn,” he said. “Me workin’ with a gung ho kid and you with a freakin’ female. They’re tryin’ to kill us, kill off all the old men.”

Rizzo stood, extending his hand. “Well, not much time left for them to finish the job, Freddy. We’re both almost out the door.”

They shook hands, Clarton standing to face him.

“Yeah,” he said. “I guess.” Then after a pause, added, “I’ll rewrite the report, shit-can the assault. When the A.D.A sees it and writes up the complaint, it won’t be there.”

Now, still holding on to Rizzo’s hand, he leaned inward, his firm grasp pulling Rizzo slightly forward.

“But if this Zumba character ever comes up complaining about the slappin’ I gave him, he
better
go in the fuckin’ river.”

He paused, his eyes hardening a little. “Or I got to come looking for you, Joe. Then
you
got to make it right.”

Rizzo nodded. “I hear you.”

CHAPTER NINE

AT TWELVE NOON
, Rizzo sat at his squad room desk, a roast beef hero in front of him. Priscilla sat next to the desk, her lunch sitting on the pull-out writing board above the side drawer.

“So,” Rizzo said, chewing as he spoke. “How’d it go at the party last night? Anything come of it?”

“Yeah, actually, something did,” Priscilla said. “I met Carlyle’s agent, a woman named Robin Miller. She’s pretty well known in the publishing world.”

“What’d she have to say?”

Rizzo saw animation come into Priscilla’s eyes as she answered. “Carlyle had given her some of my stuff. A couple a my short stories and the first few chapters of a book I’ve been fooling around with. Miller liked it. She said she had some ideas she thought I should hear. Then she gave me her card and told me to call her on Monday. I gotta tell you, Joe, as much as I didn’t want to go to that party, I’m glad as hell I did.”

“Good,” Rizzo said. “Sounds good. You may be on your way, kiddo.”

“Funny, though. For a party, it was kinda somber. Seems like everyone there knew that guy Mallard, the playwright that got murdered. Once they found out I was a cop, everybody was asking me questions. They figured I had some inside info on who the killer might be.”

“Did you tell them it’s not the only case in town?” Rizzo asked.

“Yeah, in a way. But they were pretty shook up about it and wouldn’t let it go. The guy was like a god to them.”

Rizzo pursed his lips. “I’ll bet if the cops ever do collar the guy that killed Mallard, all your new pals’ liberal bullshit pity for the bad guy will go right out the fuckin’ window. This is different, seein’ as how it was one of
them
got killed. If it was just some dumb-ass street cop, they’d be out raisin’ defense money for the perp.”

“Relax, Joe. Don’t go there.”

He nodded. “Yeah. Well, I’m glad you made a connection. That’s gotta help. But now, let’s talk some business.”

“Okay, boss, I’m listening.”

“Here’s the deal,” Rizzo said. “After we eat, we take a ride over to Seventeenth Avenue, to the Rebels’ hangout. We talk to the leader, kid named Costanzo Intrafiore. He’s about nineteen, and word is he’ll be movin’ up the ladder to the Bath Beach Boys soon. Next stop after that is soldiering for one of Louie Quattropa’s captains. See, Zee-Boy—that’s what they call Costanzo—he’s a real hard case. Genuine tough guy, not like some of the other Rebels. They’re posers, some of ’em, two-bit punks playin’ gangster. But Zee-Boy, he’s the real deal.”

Priscilla sipped at her bottled water. “You know the kid?” she asked. “Personally?”

“Oh, yeah, I know him okay. Matter a fact, we got sort of a special bond. See, he thinks I killed his uncle, and I think he’s an asshole. ’Bout twenty years ago, Zee-Boy’s uncle was runnin’ The Rebels. Guy’s name was Enzo. He was a hard case, too. If he’da lived, he woulda been a mob boss by now, maybe even Quattropa’s right hand. Guy had a lot of potential.”

Priscilla smiled. “I take it he died young. Did he leave a good-looking corpse?”

Rizzo shook his head. “Matter a fact, no. Actually, one of the ugliest I ever seen. See, I was workin’ patrol back then, in the Seven-Six. One night, about five, five-thirty in the mornin’, we get a radio call. Blue Caddy, plate so and so, just stolen, vicinity Blippety-blip Street. Well, guess what? I’m at the wheel, sittin’ at a red light on Court Street, and the friggin’ Caddy comes up President and turns onto Court, right in front of us.”

“It’s good to get lucky sometimes,” Priscilla said.

“Yeah. So I hit the lights and go after him. Guy speeds up, he’s gonna run. So we chase. Fuckin’ guy is doing damn near ninety, right on Court Street. I figure he’s gonna blow a light, broadside some citizen comin’ home from his night shift, and kill the poor schmuck. So I shut the lights, back off, break pursuit. My partner’s calling in the location and direction of the Caddy, all by the book.”

Rizzo took the last bite of his sandwich and began crumbling the wrapper as he went on. “So the Caddy never slows down, I never seen his brake lights come on, not even flicker. By now, he’s doing about a hundred, at least. A garbage truck comes up a side street, catches the green light at the corner and makes a right turn, goin’ maybe ten, fifteen miles an hour, right in front of the Caddy. The car smashes right into the truck. Sounds like a fuckin’ bomb goin’ off. The hood of the Caddy goes under the back of the truck, and the garbage hopper tears the whole top off the Caddy, along with Enzo’s fuckin’ head. Paramedics found what was left of it under a Pontiac parked forty feet from the impact area.”

Priscilla winced. “Ick,” she said.

“Yeah,” Rizzo said, “ick. Well, that was the end of Uncle Enzo. Gave himself a death sentence for grand theft auto, the asshole.”

“So, Zee-Boy wasn’t even born yet, but he figures the whole thing was your fault. Right?”

Rizzo laughed. “Exactly. So we gotta figure a little friction when we go see him.”

“Fuck him if he can’t see the humor in any of this,” she said with a shrug. “And when we do see him, is that when we go to the plan B that you mentioned the other day?”

He nodded. “See, with Zee-Boy ready to move up the junior mafia food chain, I’m bettin’ he don’t want any agita from The Chink.”

Priscilla frowned. “The Chink? Quattropa?” “Yeah. Unfortunate nickname in this particular case, ain’t it? Can you hear Cornelia Hom if we let it slip in front of her?”

“Yeah, maybe we call him Mr. Quattropa when we’re around her.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Rizzo agreed. “Anyway, if Zee-Boy does have some loose cannon robbin’ old ladies on Quattropa’s turf, we can maybe squeeze the kid to self-police. Remember the old man’s attitude about local street crime.”

Priscilla shook her head in disbelief. “This teenage gang shit is weird. I thought the only ones left were in the ghetto. Never realized there were any working-class white-boy gangs runnin’ around.”

“Yeah, well, it’s still the old days around here, Cil, in a lotta ways. Next door, the Six-Eight has two of their own gangs—The Monarchs and The Midgets. They mostly steal cars and sell ’em to the chop shops for the parts. Matter a fact, some kids register their family cars with the gangs. They drive over, show the car, ask for a bye. That way, maybe it won’t get stolen.”

“Unbelievable,” she said. “Nineteen-fifties stuff.”

Rizzo nodded. “Yeah. But there’s some signs of modernization. When I was a kid, the girls were just gang mascots, trophies. Now, The Monarchs got a separate female division and The Midgets actually integrate the girls. ’Cause of all this women’s lib bullshit they grew up with, I guess.”

“See, Joe, there you go,” Priscilla said. “You run hot and cold with this. You talk about your girls like equals, you raise ’em to be what they wanna be, then you say something like you just said. And freak out about Carol wanting to come on the job. You don’t make sense, Partner. Is it real or is it bullshit? Make up your freakin’ mind.”

“Take it easy,” he said. “Don’t get nuts. I’m just sayin’—”

She held up her hand. “Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re sayin’. What I’m wonderin’ is do
you
know what the fuck you’re sayin’?”

“Well, between my three girls, my wife, and now you, I guess I’ll get straightened out eventually.”

She nodded. “Yeah. Now let’s go see Zee-Boy. I gotta admit, I’m a little curious, Joe. A little curious.”

The Rebels’ headquarters was located on a mixed commercial-residential block of Seventeenth Avenue. For de cades the storefront had housed a family-operated tailor shop that had closed following the death of its elderly proprietors, Salvatore and Letizia Tommasino.

“I used to bring my family’s clothes here when I was a kid,” Rizzo told Priscilla as they pulled up in the Impala. “My grandparents’ house was four blocks from here,” he added with a small shake of his head. “Old man Tommasino musta flipped over in his grave when these jerk-offs rented the place for their hangout.”

“Well,” Priscilla said, “time marches on. Things change.”

Rizzo grunted and unsnapped his shoulder harness. “Yeah,” he said bitterly. “But just once, one fuckin’ time, I’d like ta see some-thin’ change for the better. One fuckin’ time.”

Priscilla swung her door open. “Open your eyes a little more, Partner,” she said over her shoulder. “Plenty of good stuff happens. You just gotta look for it.”

“Yeah, Cil, sure. Wait’ll you meet these fuckin’ characters, see how la-di-da you’re feelin’ then.”

They strode to the front door, solid metal with a small frosted window at eye level. Rizzo rapped hard on the door, then twisted the knob and walked in, Priscilla following.

The front room, which had once housed the store’s counter and cash register, now contained a small television, scattered chairs, and a wooden rack holding a radio and various pieces of sporting equipment. There was no one in the room, and Rizzo turned his eyes to the right. A doorway covered with a heavy dark red curtain led to the larger rear room where dry cleaning and tailoring had once been done. From past visits, Rizzo knew the back room was now divided into three smaller rooms used for various purposes by The Rebels.