Tragic (8 page)

“There’s the money now,” Bebnev told DiMarzo. He waved at the fat man and yelled. “Marat!
Zdraast vooee che!
Come sit!”

Lvov saw the wave and headed for the table, followed by his goons. He did not look happy.

“Who is this?” the fat man asked, nodding at DiMarzo.

“Just a friend,” Bebnev replied. “He sometimes is great assistant, if you follow me.”

Lvov looked DiMarzo over with small, piggish eyes set in mounds of pink flesh and said, “Then he will not mind leaving us.”

“Not at all,” DiMarzo said, getting up before Bebnev had a chance to say anything. He headed for the door, and without looking back walked across the street to wait beneath the elevated Q train tracks.

A few minutes later, the fat man emerged, followed by his entourage. He spotted DiMarzo and studied him for a few moments before saying something to one of his men, who also gave DiMarzo a hard look. He had made his mind up to run if they decided to cross the street toward him, but instead the trio walked up to a dark sedan parked illegally in front of the bar, got in, and drove away.

When they were gone, Bebnev emerged from the bar. He, too, saw DiMarzo and sauntered over.

As the young Russian walked up, DiMarzo noticed that Bebnev had a fresh bruise surrounding one eye that was well on its way to swelling shut. “What happened to you?” DiMarzo asked.

“A misunderstanding,” Bebnev said. “Sort of like initiation. Me and Lvov are like brothers now.”

Some brothers,
DiMarzo thought.
More like the fat guy didn’t like Bebnev’s big mouth.
But he didn’t say anything. He just wanted his money and to get the hell out of Little Odessa. “He pay you?”

Bebnev nodded, pulled an envelope from the inner pocket of his leather coat, and offered it to DiMarzo. “Here is four thousand.”

“Four? You owe me and Gnat six,” DiMarzo complained.

“That was before this,” Bebnev said, pointing to his eye. “I take all risks, you do shit. Take it or leave it.”

DiMarzo snatched the envelope from Bebnev’s hand. “We’re done, asshole,” he spat. “Don’t call and don’t come around.”

“Fine, little
pedik,
” Bebnev snarled. “I don’t hang with homos. I have new friends.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” DiMarzo replied. He turned to leave but stopped when he saw a large man who’d just come out of the bar standing across the street staring at them.

Even from that distance, he could see that the man had a long, jagged scar running from the top of his big bald head, across his nose, and down to the jawline on the other side. Although it was winter and cold outside, he was wearing a T-shirt that seemed to barely contain his muscular chest and arms, which were covered with dark tattoos. The man took a drag on a cigarette and tossed it down in the gutter without taking his eyes off DiMarzo and Bebnev.

“I think I’d avoid that bar for a while,” DiMarzo said to Bebnev, nodding toward the man.

Bebnev looked in the direction indicated and DiMarzo saw him swallow hard. But he managed a weak smile. “I’m not afraid of him,” he said. “But I have other things to do.”

With that, Bebnev scurried off down Brighton Beach Boulevard in the direction of Coney Island. DiMarzo watched him go, and when he turned to look back across the street, the large man was gone. He shuddered and trotted up the stairs to the train station above.
If I never see Bebnev and Little Odessa again, it will be too soon,
he thought as he pulled out his cell phone and called his friend Gnat Miller.

M
ARLENE PAUSED OUTSIDE THE
E
AST
Village Women’s Shelter to wait for three raggedy, middle-aged women to move from her path into the building. Noting the tattered layers of clothing, she marveled that such people survived the brutal winter months in New York City, where sunlight rarely made its way down through and between buildings to warm the streets. She knew there were never enough beds in shelters to house Gotham’s street people, nor, for that matter, enough space on steam grates or protected nooks around buildings to shelter them from the elements.

On closer inspection, these three seemed livelier than most, more like hard-luck gypsies than down-and-out street people as they huddled together while carrying on an animated conversation. One was a large black woman who’d stuffed her copious dreadlocks beneath a colorful scarf and rolled her eyes and muttered; the other two were white, at least beneath the grime that coated their faces, one thick and the other perilously thin. But they didn’t seem to belong to the streets like other homeless people, at least to Marlene; it was more like they were acting out parts in a play.

Nor did they seem to belong at this shelter. The former deli on
Avenue C and 6th Street wasn’t a way station for the homeless, but a refuge for women from many walks of life trying to escape violent domestic situations.

The shelter had been started by Mattie Duran, a stocky, combative woman with long dark hair, a swarthy complexion, and an even blacker personality. She’d executed her stepfather, in his sleep, the man who raped her since childhood, and she’d served time in prison, which had done little to improve her social skills or outlook on life. Fifteen years earlier, she’d shown up in New York City with a trunk full of cash obtained under mysterious, probably violent, circumstances. She used the money to open the shelter as a place of refuge for women and children in immediate danger from the men in their lives.

After opening, Duran refused all funding from national, state, and local governmental resources. She wasn’t going to let them have that kind of control over how she ran her shelter. Instead, after her own money ran out, she relied on private donations to stay open.

Marlene started volunteering at the shelter not long after it accepted its first client. She was in a dark period of her life as well, pushing the boundaries of the law as well as her marriage when dealing with men who abused women. She’d even killed a few—always in self-defense, though she’d certainly put herself in positions where the violence had been inevitable. That little fact had earned her Duran’s grudging acceptance if not her friendship. Nor had Duran turned down the substantial funds that Marlene donated, which had earned a gruff “thank you,” but little else.

Mattie had disappeared several years earlier. No one knew if it was because the mercurial woman, who had never been able to quiet the ghosts of her own disturbed past, had decided to try a different path to peace. Or perhaps one of the many enemies she’d made over the years had finally caught her in a moment of carelessness and silenced the ghosts forever.

Marlene had devoted quite a bit of time and money to trying to
locate Duran but had come up with nothing. However, she continued to donate money and volunteer at the shelter and knew the type of clientele it served, most of whom didn’t carry themselves with the same confidence and aplomb as the three women she was speaking to now.

“When do you want to meet again?” Marlene heard one of them ask the others.

“In thunder, lightning, or rain?” the black woman added in a thick Jamaican accent.

Suddenly, the woman who’d spoken first noticed Marlene and poked the other white woman, who had her back to her, in the shoulder and nodded. “Here she is now, Anne,” she said. “Go on, tell her what you know.”

Marlene smiled as Anne turned and saw her. A fleeting storm of emotions—fear, uncertainty, anger—played across the woman’s face. “Tell me what, Anne?” Marlene asked.

“Are you Marlene Ciampi, the wife of the district attorney?” Anne responded.

Marlene’s expression turned serious. Plenty of people asked her that question, but rarely just out of curiosity. “I am,” she replied. “Why do you want to know?”

The woman’s face contorted as if mirroring some internal debate, but then she shook her head. “Nothing, it’s nothing,” she said. “Sorry to bother you.”

The woman turned back toward her friends. But Marlene reached out and touched her arm. “Really? Nothing?” she asked. “Your friends seem to think you have something important to tell me, something to do with my husband.”

Though she didn’t turn back around to face Marlene, the woman’s shoulders sank and she sighed. “Not so much your husband as Charlie Vitteli and Vince Carlotta,” she said.

Marlene’s radar suddenly went on full alert. Her husband had told her about Dirty Warren’s remarks that the murder was a “setup,” as well as Butch’s own suspicions that Charlie Vitteli was
somehow involved. In the weeks that had passed since the murder, there’d been plenty of rumors phoned into the police and DAO, but so far no leads had panned out, nor had any credible witnesses stepped forward. This woman might be just another street person who tended to mix fantasy with reality, but Marlene had been around long enough to know that sometimes the information that tipped the scales of justice came from the most unusual places. “What about them?” she asked.

The woman turned and looked at her for a long moment and seemed about to speak, but then her hand went to her mouth. “I don’t want to get involved,” she said. “Nothing good ever comes of it.”

“If you’re afraid, my husband can arrange for your protection,” Marlene said. “And I’ll help, too. What’s your last name, Anne?”

The woman backed away from Marlene as if Marlene were holding a poisonous snake. “No one could protect my Sean; no one could protect Mr. Carlotta,” she said. “And you can’t protect me. No one gives a shit about me.”

Marlene took a step toward the woman as she tried to think of what to say to assuage the woman’s fears. But the other two edged between her and Anne.

“Scared she is,” the other white woman warned.

“Too much trouble,” added the black woman.

“I understand that, but if you know something that could help solve a murder . . .” Marlene tried to continue, sensing that this woman might be aware of something important.

At that moment the steel door of the shelter opened and an enormous man the size of her husband and Clay Fulton put together emerged and walked up to the women. Mark DiGregorio provided the daytime security for the women’s shelter. No violent boyfriends, husbands, stalkers, or other miscreants ever made it past his vigilant eyes or prodigious girth; those who tried once never tried again.

“Good morning, Marlene, are these ladies bothering you?” he
asked, eyeing the three women suspiciously. “They’ve been asking for you all morning but don’t seem to have any real business with the shelter.”

“No business with you, mon,” the black woman said, scowling up at him. She then looked at her friends. “With this woman, yes. But not today, says Anne, so let’s go, my weird sisters.”

“Wait,” Marlene said. “Tell me where I can find you.”

The other white woman cackled. “On the heath, of course.” And with that, the three hurried down the sidewalk toward Houston Street.

As she watched them go, Marlene shook her head. “Weird sisters is right. Guess it takes all sorts, eh, Mark?”

DiGregorio grinned. “My family, including my parents, my sister, and me, spent a lot of time as missionaries in Jamaica teaching English and the gospel. All that juju gives me the creeps. Let’s just say I heard a lot of strange stories about witches and shit like that, and sometimes there’s more to this old world than we can see.”

Marlene nodded. “I agree, and I think there’s more to those three than meets the eye, too. If you ever find out anything about them, or they come looking for me again, give me a call.”

“You got it, sister,” DiGregorio replied with a laugh as he hurried up the stairs to open the door for her.

Walking into the shelter, Marlene made her way to the office of the shelter’s new director, Bobbi Sue Hirschbein. “Good morning, Bobbi Sue,” she said after she’d knocked and been invited in. “Got anything you’d like me to do first?”

A tall, austere woman who tied her long gray hair back into a bun that made her face more severe than necessary, Hirschbein had been the assistant director when Duran disappeared. She’d had her own horrific experiences with domestic violence; her alcoholic ex-husband after years of beatings and emotional abuse had shot her and left her for dead before committing suicide. She could be tough when it came to championing the shelter’s mission and fierce in her defense of women who needed help. But,
unlike Duran, she had not let one man’s cruelty change her kind and gentle nature, nor cause her to blame all men for the actions of some.

Marlene always suspected that Duran recognized that she needed someone to balance her grim outlook with a more positive perspective when she appointed Hirschbein to the position. After Mattie disappeared and it was clear she wasn’t coming back anytime soon, the shelter’s board of directors, which included Marlene, had promoted Bobbi Sue and never regretted the decision.

“Good morning, Marlene,” Hirschbein replied, her sudden smile making her look ten years younger. “Yes, if you don’t mind. A seventeen-year-old with an infant came in a few nights ago. She told us her boyfriend hit her—she’s got a pretty good black eye and a split lip; said that it was the first time and that he’s been acting out of character. She thinks he’s in some sort of trouble and took it out on her. But after that she clammed up and won’t give us his name or press charges.”

“What’s her name?” Marlene asked.

“Nicoli Lopez,” Hirschbein replied. “Says she lives in the Bronx now, and she’s originally from Brooklyn but her father won’t let her come home.”

“Want me to talk to her?”

“Yeah, if you would. Maybe you can get her to open up. I’ll send someone to bring her to the room.”

A few minutes later, Marlene was sitting in what the staff called “the Room,” or “the Room of Tears,” a small, but comfortable place that looked more like a young woman’s bedroom than where battered women were asked to describe why they’d come to the shelter. The room had once been not much different than an interview room at a police station with its plain, unadorned walls and institutional furniture. But it had softened under Hirschbein’s direction with some of Marlene’s money. Landscapes and still-life paintings dominated the wall art; light was provided by windows and lamps rather than harsh fluorescents; and the furniture consisted
of overstuffed chairs and a fainting couch with a small coffee table in front of it.