Walking the Perfect Square (30 page)

“And you, will you not tell my daughter what you know?”

“I just said—”

“I’ll meet your price,” he cut me off, the disdain heavy in his voice. “You’re a fool to sell yourself so cheaply and to believe in secrets. When more than one person knows anything, secrets can’t exist.”

“But you’re a man of your word,” I spit his vow back at him.

“Do Jews believe in ghosts, Prager?”

“What?”

“Never mind. I’ll keep my word. Now get out!”

He didn’t have to ask me again. I would have run if I could have.

Not wanting to be stained by the black-hearted man in the corner office, the sun no longer lingered at the garage’s flat rooftop. In my car, I cut the brace off my throbbing knee. That done, I sat for what seemed hours watching as road trucks fat with asphalt rumbled by. The stink of hot tar was no longer just from the furnace of my imagination.

I should have been happy, I thought, calculating the sum of the parts. I’d found Patrick in spite of the all doubts and roadblocks. I’d found his sister, a woman I could love and one who could love me. I’d rediscovered ambition and self-confidence and my right jab. I’d even begun to form friendships outside the job for the first time in a decade. By all accounts, I’d won. But my life wasn’t simple math and never did victory taste so bitter as it did just then. I was changed.

Finally driving away, I caught a glimpse of my eyes in the rearview mirror. They were vaguely foreign to me and I thought I could see the faint outline of a ghost. Accelerating onto the entrance ramp for the expressway, I forced myself not to look back.

AS DIFFICULT AS it had been to confront Francis Maloney, I knew today had the potential to be worse. Maloney hadn’t meant anything to me. He was just an awful little man who turned out to be smaller and more cruel once you scratched the surface. And maybe I would never feel completely clean again for having made a deal with him, but Rico was something else altogether. I had loved and trusted Rico. Now I would have to undo with my head what my heart still fiercely wanted to feel.

I’d kept the phone off the hook all night, trying to work out how to approach my old friend. So I got no calls and no sleep and failed to come up with a blessed thing. Ironically, like so many times before, Rico bailed me out. Almost the second I put the phone back in its cradle, it started ringing.

“Hey buddy, how ya doin’?” Rico asked with a big grin in his voice.

“Tired. Couldn’t sleep. What’s going on?”

“You up for lunch today?”

“Sure, why not?”

“Geez, Moe, your enthusiasm’s killin’ me.”

“Sorry. I’m beat.”

“Well, go back to bed,” he advised. “Let’s say we meet at Villa Conte’s at one. And screw Karl Malden, leave your American Express card at home. Lunch is on me.”

Located on 4th Avenue near the Verrazano Bridge, Villa Conte’s was atypical of Italian restaurants in Brooklyn. The menu featured recipes from the north of Italy: no meatballs, red sauce or lasagna here. Conte’s was renowned for its veal dishes and wine sauces. It was equally famous for its high prices and snooty waitstaff.

Rico was all smiles and hugs when we met. Everything was roses in Rico Tripoli’s world today. Even when the waiter sneered condescendingly at Rico for his crude Sicilian dialect, Rico let it roll off his shoulders.

“I ordered for us,” he said, holding onto the waiter’s arm. “First we’re gonna have a green salad with champagne vinaigrette. After that there’s grilled portobello mushrooms. Then we’re havin’ an appetizer portion of tortellini in cream sauce. The main course is a double-stuffed veal chop with asparagus in white wine and lemon. That okay with you?”

When I nodded my approval, he let go of the waiter’s arm. The waiter looked at his forearm as if he wanted it amputated.

“That’s a lot of food,” I commented. “What are we celebrating?”

Just then, a man in a beautifully tailored silk suit—the owner, I assumed—arrived at the table with drinks. He bowed, placing a glass before each of us: “
Due
Campari.”

“Campari tastes like Vick’s Formula 44,” I protested, “only it doesn’t help your cough.”

“It’s good for your digestion,” Rico countered. “Just drink it. The wine’s comin’ with the food.”

We ate the salad, mushrooms and tortellini in relative silence. As advertised, the food was incredibly good. But I was already stuffed. Having anticipated this, Rico told the waiter not to start cooking the veal until he gave the word. I asked again about what we were celebrating.

“The word came down last night,” he said, puffing out his chest, “I’m gettin’ my gold shield.”

I congratulated him, raised my wine glass and signaled to the waiter.

“Champagne,” I ordered, explaining that I was to be billed for it. The waiter liked that.

I think he liked even better that I didn’t ask how much. Rico blushed, pleading that it wasn’t necessary. I disagreed. He let me win.

The sparkling wine poured, I toasted my old friend and clinked his glass. “So you broke this big case you’ve been working on, huh?”

“Not exactly,” Rico squirmed a little. “We’re close there . . . anytime now.”

I claimed not to understand. How could he make detective without making a big case? Gold shields were hard to come by in the best of times and now with the city always on the verge of fiscal
meltdown, they were nearly impossible to get. He squirmed some more, giving the waiter the sign to start cooking the veal. Rico suddenly decided he’d rather not talk about his making detective.

“This wouldn’t have anything to do with Francis Maloney’s unexpected retirement,” I asked innocently between sips of champagne, “would it?”

Rico didn’t spit out his wine in mock surprise. He didn’t stand, throw his napkin down and storm out in a cloud of indignation. He’d been found out and he knew it.

“I told ’em you was too smart for your own damn good,” he said. “I warned ’em you’d catch on sooner or later. Which one was it, sooner or later?”

“Sooner, but it wasn’t you. I didn’t connect the dots to you until late in the game. Sully, on the other hand, was about as subtle as a blind elephant. He should’ve let me stumble into things instead of serving ’em up on silver platters. My good fortune made me suspicious.”

“I warned ’em. I warned ’em,” he repeated. “But they were worried that the kid would turn up before they could get the shit on Maloney out to the public. If the kid turned up too soon, they were afraid
Gotham
magazine would kill the story.”

“They, who’s they?” I wondered.

Fidgeting with his fork, he said: “Powerful people.”

“Powerful enough to buy you off with a shield.”

“Powerful enough to get ya back on the job, if that’s what ya want, with a shield a your own,” he offered like a mother’s kiss to make the hurt go away. “They were impressed that ya got Maloney to quit without givin’ up . . . you know, the stuff about the fags. How’d you do that, anyways?”

I’d like to say I wasn’t tempted by his offer of a return to the job, that a shield gotten with a nod and a wink wasn’t worth having, but I was tempted. There’s no doubt in my mind people had sold more than their self-respect for a gold shield. Having gotten a taste of detective work and realizing how much I missed the job made the offer all that more appealing. But I was weary of making deals. It had to stop somewhere. I just didn’t tell Rico. As long as he thought I was interested in the bait, he’d keep his line in the water. There was more I wanted to know.

“Don’t you worry about what music I played to make Maloney do a jig,” I snapped. “Why’d they want to get rid of the bastard in the first place? You did say he was a big-time fund raiser, right?
So why get rid of him at all and why go through all of the shenanigans to do it?”

Looking a little shaken, Rico excused himself and made for the bathroom. That was all right. I needed some time to myself, to organize my thoughts. When he returned, Rico seemed steadier, calmer. I reminded him that he’d left some questions hanging. Unfortunately for me, they were going to have to stay that way.

“To tell you the truth, old buddy, I’m in no position to answer much about Francis Maloney,” he regretted to say. “That’s all political crap that I got nothin’ to do with.”

I didn’t quite believe him and guessed he must have used his time away to make a phone call to his handlers. But I couldn’t afford to antagonize him if I wanted my answers, so I tried a different line of questioning. These were questions he couldn’t sluff off on somebody else. They were questions about us.

“Okay, Rico, I understand, that’s not your territory. But what about us? Why’d you do it to me? Couldn’t you find somebody else’s chain to yank?”

“I didn’t so much do it
to
you as I did it
for
me. I don’t see where you come out so bad in this deal.”

“You don’t, huh?”

“No,” he raised his voice defensively. “You got at least a grand and the contact at the State Liquor Authority. For what, a few weeks of playin’ detective? Where’s the downside to that?”

“You used me. There’s a big downside to that.”

“Grow up, Moe. People use people all the time.”

“Even if that’s so,” I said, “why me? I thought we were close.”

“Not close enough for me to partner up with you and your brother in the liquor store. My money isn’t good enough for you two.”

“I explained that twenty times already, Rico. It has nothing to do with you. It has to do with my dad going bankrupt and Aaron’s plans. So you used me because you wanted to hurt me somehow, is that it?”

“Maybe that’s part of it,” he admitted. “But there was other things. There wasn’t alotta time, so it wasn’t like I could go research the perfect candidate. I knew you were gettin’ antsy and would wanna get outta the house after sittin’ on your ass. And I knew if I could get you curious, you’d go for it. You’ve always been a nosy bastard.”

“There’s more you aren’t saying.”

He slapped the table: “See what I mean? You always wanna know every fuckin’ thing. No answer’s ever good enough for you, is it? All right, I’ll tell you. I figured you was smart enough to follow where we led you and not experienced enough at detective work to fuck things up.”

“You figured wrong.”

“No, it was Sully, that fat moron. I told him not to be so obvious, that you’d get curious about the wrong stuff, but . . . Hey, it worked out better than I coulda hoped for. The little shanty prick is out and no one got dragged through the mud.”

“What about finding Patrick?” I asked disapprovingly. “Or don’t you give a shit about him? What the fuck was he, just a convenient excuse? You gonna think everything turned out better than you could have hoped if he washes up on Manhattan Beach?”

“That’s not what I meant. You know me better than that.”

“No I don’t. I don’t know you at all anymore. Can you really want the shield that bad?”

“You bet your ass I want it,” he hissed. “And I need the pay.”

I was incredulous. “What happened to all the bread you inherited? You know, the money you were going to use to come in with me and Aaron? You told me you could’ve walked away from the job, moved down to Florida and—”

“My divorce settlement happened to it. I got to keep the house, two pair of underwear and my fly swatter. She even got my Rangers season ticket. She cleaned me out. I guess I deserved it. And Rose, she’s great, but she pushes me. She was never married before, so she don’t understand things. She coulda married any uniformed jerk, she tells me. A cop’s nothing without a shield. I know it’s her old man talkin’. And every week the house needs a new this and a bigger that. What the fuck could I do?”

The veal was served before I could answer. It might as well have been a live calf for all the interest I took in it. At least Rico tried to eat his. The waiter panicked over our lack of appetite. People had sent veal back for being under or overcooked, but no one, apparently, had rejected it on purely aesthetic grounds. I enjoyed his temporary despair. Before he ran screaming to the chef, I called the waiter over and asked him to wrap mine up. I wasn’t feeling well. Report of my illness cheered him right up. As the waiter removed my plate, I noticed Rico’s eyes widening and focusing on something over my left shoulder. Rico made to stand up.

“That’s all right, don’t get up,” a relaxed male voice called from behind me. Then a strong hand clapped me on the shoulder. “This must be Moe Prager.”

I turned, looking up at a handsome man in his mid-fifties. His silver hair was swept back and perfectly coifed. He had sparkly blue eyes, a pleasantly crooked mouth full of capped, white teeth and pointed jaw. He was dressed in a charcoal grey wool suit, a maroon silk, square-knotted tie with matching pocket hanky and light pink shirt. The hand on my shoulder had once lived a rough life but was now manicured. Its cuticle-less fingernails were clipped in perfect symmetry and reflected the candlelight like a freshly waxed car. On the ring finger was a gold Claddagh ring atop a plain wedding band.

The spiffy Irishman held his right hand out to me: “Joe Donohue. Perhaps you’ve heard the name.”

Joe Donohue was a legend. A highly decorated cop who’d been wounded twice in the line of duty, he’d risen through the ranks of the NYPD faster than any man before or since. After retirement, he made a small fortune in the private sector and had recently reappeared on the public stage as the mayor’s chief consultant on police affairs. Rumor was Donohue was angling for a run at the office itself. But most recently, I’d heard his name coming out of Rico’s mouth. Joe Donohue was supposed to be Francis Maloney’s hook in City Hall. I shook the legend’s hand.

“
Prego, Alphonso, tre espressos
,” Donohue addressed the waiter by his first name, holding out a crisp twenty-dollar bill. “Then you give us some privacy, okay?”

Alphonso made a show of trying to refuse the money, but took it in the end. Donohue’s little passion play with the tip money wasn’t lost on me. Pay attention, Prager, it was meant to say. They always take the easy money in the end.