Walking the Perfect Square (4 page)

All the papers showed the very same picture. I had no reason to believe there was anything unusual in that. All the stories said pretty much the same things. Patrick Michael Maloney was a twenty-year-old junior at Hofstra University on Long Island. An accounting major, he was a popular if unremarkable student who was a low-ranking member of the student government.

On December 7th, a Tuesday night, the student government and several other student groups held a fund raiser at a Manhattan bar. Patrick had bartended during the early part of the evening. After his stint behind the sticks, he joined friends and
other members of the student government for drinks. At approximately 1 A.M., after noticing his friend Christine Valentine wasn’t looking well, Maloney offered to drive Miss Valentine back to campus. Miss Valentine accepted Maloney’s offer and they made their way through the thinning crowd to the door. Before they reached the door, however, Miss Valentine felt herself getting ill and ran for the bathroom. Patrick, she recalled, had shouted after her that he would meet her outside when she was finished.

When Christine Valentine emerged from the restroom and exited the bar, Patrick M. Maloney was nowhere to be found. She made a few inquiries as to his whereabouts, but no one seemed to have noticed him. She simply assumed Patrick, a little drunk himself, she remembered thinking, had grown impatient and left. Though leaving without a word was very un-Patrick-like, she was quoted as saying, Miss Valentine didn’t give it a second thought until several days later. She was too drunk and nauseous at the time and there were plenty of other available rides back to campus. Of the other students who had attended the fund-raiser, none could recall seeing where Patrick had gone. The trail was already pretty cold when, two days later, the NYPD was alerted to Maloney’s disappearance by his worried parents.

I would like to say I spotted something unusual in the newspaper accounts of Patrick Maloney’s disappearance, but I couldn’t. I had read similar stories before. As a uniform, I’d worked cases that, but for a change of name, sex or hair color, were nearly identical. The cold fact was that, short of a magician’s hat, New York City was about the best place in the United States in which to vanish. Sometimes people vanished by choice. Sometimes not. There was one thing in the articles, though, that caught my attention: the Maloneys were from Janus, N.Y., up in Dutchess County. That sort of gave me a clue as to Rico Tripoli’s involvement.

In 1975, Rico, like a lot of New York’s Finest, had fled the city. Most moved over the Queens’ border to Nassau and Suffolk Counties on Long Island. Some moved beyond the Bronx to Westchester and Rockland. A few pioneering types had gone even further north to discover the rustic charms, relative crimelessness and better real estate values in Orange and Dutchess counties. Want to guess where Rico had fled? But clarifying Rico Tripoli’s role as facilitator in this did not help me understand what he had in mind for me.

THEY WERE ALREADY sitting there when I hobbled into Molly’s. Like all cops, Rico sat facing the door. He acknowledged my arrival by making a gun of his thumb and forefinger and shooting me hello. He began to get up to help me, but the anger in my eyes made him reconsider. The anger ran quickly out of my face. It was hard to stay mad at Rico.

Rico, a dead ringer for the young Tony Bennett, seemed tired. His boyish good looks had started to fray a bit around the edges. There were purple bags under his eyes and deep creases where gentle folds had once marked the outlines of his face. His gut was just beginning to creep over his belt. This was exaggerated, of course, by the tight fit of the shiny print shirt he wore beneath a hideous double-knit suit. I don’t know which I hated more: disco music or the fashion it inspired.

As I approached the booth, though, my attention turned to the man seated opposite Rico. He didn’t share my curiosity. His bald head never turned to look my way, not even after Rico had stood to greet me. He simply continued cradling a white coffee cup just below his chin. Rico and I embraced for a long few seconds, kissing cheeks before letting go. Out of the corner of my eye, I snuck a peek at the bald-headed man’s reaction. From the sour look on his puss, I figured he disapproved. Either that or he’d swallowed a live goldfish with his last gulp of coffee.

“Hey,
paisan
,” I slapped Rico’s cheek, “you’re looking good.”

“I look like shit, you lyin’ Jew bastard. This Auto Crime case is gonna get me a shield, but the hours . . .
mah—ron
! They’re gonna kill me. At least,” he smoothed the wide lapel of his suit jacket, “I get to work plainclothes.”

I raised my eyebrows. “You got a peculiar definition of plain clothes.”

Rico laughed. “I know. I’m wearin’ so much polyester I’m afraid to light a friggin’ match.”

Baldy cleared his throat.

“Sorry. This,” Rico said, gesturing to the seated man, “is—”

“—Francis Maloney,” I completed the thought, offering my right hand.

Maloney took it and tried squeezing the life out of it before giving it back. He had a ruddy, freckled complexion, an unsmiling mouth and blue eyes like cracked ice.

“You’re Prager,” Maloney scoffed in a voice as cold as his eyes. “So you’ve guessed my name. Pardon me if I don’t applaud.”

He wasn’t impressed by my powers of deduction. He wasn’t the type to be impressed by much. Maybe, I thought, if I pulled a silver dollar from behind his ear . . .

“I can read a paper and put two and two together,” I said, finally sitting down. “Is there a reason I should be trying to impress you?”

Rico ordered me a coffee, a Molly’s meatloaf platter and attempted to strike up some diplomatic chitchat. Francis Maloney wasn’t having any, his thick impatient fingers tapping out a message for Rico to get on with it.

“The Maloneys want your help,” Rico said.

“How can I help?” I wondered, staring at Maloney’s clothes. Maybe it was the neat creases in his impeccably ironed work shirt, I don’t know. Whatever it was, it seemed to me he wore his clothes like a uniform.

“Angela . . . that’s Mrs. Maloney,” Rico said, “she heard about you finding the kid that time in -”

“Christ!” I threw up my hands, “is
that
what this is about?”

Marina Conseco was the seven-year-old daughter of a divorced city fireman. On Easter Sunday 1972, her father took Marina and his four other children to Coney Island. When the father returned from buying hot dogs at Nathan’s Famous to where he had left his kids, he saw that Marina, the youngest, was gone. Three days later, she was still gone.

Coney Island was a very dangerous place for a seven-year-old girl. Beside the potential human predators, there was the ocean, a filthy canal, abandoned buildings, dilapidated rides, a bus depot and a confluence of subway lines. And if she had been used to satisfy someone’s twisted obsession, there were miles of dark
boardwalk and elevated highway under which the body of a little girl could be buried in amongst piles of bald tires and broken glass.

By the fourth day, the cops and off-duty firemen who’d volunteered to search, had pretty much stopped calling Marina’s name. The hope of finding Marina alive had silently mutated into a determination to find her corpse. After my shift that fourth day, I went out with a crew of two firemen from a ladder company in the Bronx. As we rode down Mermaid Avenue toward Sea Gate, I found my eyes drifting upward. Probably because I was so tired, my eyes were rolling up in my head.

I slammed on the brakes and jumped out of the car. When the two firemen followed me out of the car and saw what I was pointing at, they shook their heads in agreement. I wondered how many of those old wooden, rooftop water tanks there were in Coney Island. We agreed to count; one rooftop at a time.

We found Marina Conseco at the bottom of the fifth tank in half a foot of dirty water, alive! Her skull was fractured, as were her right arm and left ankle. She was in shock and suffering from hypothermia. She had been molested for two days and thrown into the tank to die. But as her family had said, Marina was a willful girl, and wasn’t about to cooperate with her attacker’s plans.

Finding that little girl was the only outstanding thing I ever did on the job. At another time, in another place, I might’ve gotten my shield for saving her. I wouldn’t have wanted to make detective on the back of Marina Conseco’s misery and on the strength of a lucky guess. The medal they gave me was embarrassing enough. One of the geniuses in my precinct took to calling me Truffle. That lasted for about an hour. When I informed him that truffles were fungi that pigs rooted out, the nickname lost its appeal. It’s funny, cooking shows make me remember that stupid nickname. But then, I also think of Marina Conseco.

“Hey,” Rico motioned for me to calm down, “Angela is my wife’s cousin. She’s a superstitious guinea like me. I told her the story about the Puerto Rican kid and—”

“Look, Mr. Maloney,” I shook my head, “I’m really sorry about your boy, but I think my buddy Rico here sold you a bill of goods. I found the girl six years ago and it was a lucky shot at that.”

“Luck, Mr. Prager, is all we’ve got left,” he admitted.

“But—”

“Listen, Prager,” he dispensed with the niceties, “I’ve neither the time nor the temperament for bargaining. I know you people
like to bargain and if it was up to me alone, I wouldn’t have any of your kind involved.”

Rico buried his head in his hands. It didn’t take a code breaker to figure out which people Maloney was referring to. Maybe if I’d been brought up in a different era or if I hadn’t been a cop, I might’ve reached across the table and introduced Francis Maloney to my left hook. But race baiting within the ranks of the NYPD was an Olympic sport and I’d been as willing a participant as any officer with whom I’d served. I suppose the least I should have done was leave. I didn’t.

“You always this charming when you want someone’s help?” I asked, my voice calm.

“If it wasn’t for your kind,” he continued his screed, “this country wouldn’t have the trouble with the niggers we do. But that doesn’t matter to me now. I’d kiss your rabbi and the starting lineup of the Knicks on their balls if it would relieve my wife’s grief.”

Other than the obvious tastelessness of his words, I found something about them both horrifying and intriguing. Maloney didn’t give me time to explore the matter.

“Here’s my offer,” he said. “Rico tells me you and your brother are looking for a liquor store in the city and that you’re short on scratch.”

“A wine shop, but yes.”

“If you help me on this and any information you come across leads to the boy’s whereabouts, you’ll receive a tax-free reward,” he touched his index finger to his nose, “for the amount of money you need for the store. Second—”

“Hold it! Hold it! Look, I’m not an investigator. I never even made detective. And my bet is you’ve got a lot of other people more qualified than me working this. All I did was get lucky once. Don’t you think I’m kinda low on the food chain to be making me an offer like—”

“First of all, boyo, don’t you worry about my ability to make good on my word. Second, a desperate man plays even the low cards in his hand when the picture cards aren’t winning. And last, you haven’t heard the entire offer. Now show me the courtesy of hearing me out.”

I nodded. “You’ve made your point. Go ahead.”

“I want you to be clear on this, Prager. If you throw in with us and I’m convinced you really put your heart in it, I’ll smooth the way for your liquor license whether or not you find the boy. You
know, I’m certain, how hard it can be to obtain a liquor license in this state. The hurdles are enormous. Why, many is the man who has the money, but can’t get the license. You get my meaning?”

“I’m not sure whether you’re asking me to help or threatening me,” I said.

“I’m not asking you for anything,” he stood abruptly from his seat. “I’m making you a proposition. Think about it. Rico will know how to reach me.”

I watched the fireplug of a man march out Molly’s door without once looking back. Even then I knew Maloney wasn’t the sort of man to look back, not at anything nor anyone. Rico started to explain, but I asked him to wait until after I’d had time to digest what had just transpired and a few bites of meatloaf.

“So,” I said, gazing up from my plate, “what the fuck was that all about?”

Rico shrugged. “The guy’s desperate.”

“More angry than desperate.”

“I guess,” Rico agreed. “Look, I didn’t know he was gonna get all weird on ya. Me and the wife was over their house a week ago for a family thing and I’d had a few and I was tryin’ to give Angela some hope. You know how it is. We were in the kitchen, just me and Angela, and I told her the story about the Conseco girl. I swear on my mother I wasn’t anglin’ for an in on the wine store. Truth is, until Francis called me up two nights ago, I didn’t know Angela had repeated what I told her. When he did call me up, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to get him to help you and your brother. I hope I didn’t do wrong.”

“I don’t blame you, but you know I woulda helped if you just asked me.”

“Yeah, I know,” Rico confessed. “But I figured I could do you a little good for your trouble.”

I was skeptical. “Can Maloney really deliver on his word?”

“You wanna know if he can deliver? Come on. Come with me.”

We got into Rico’s car and drove a few miles to a VFW Hall. We parked across the street and watched a crowd of about twenty people gather out front. They were equally divided in gender, all middle-aged or older. A coffee truck pulled up and the driver handed out coffee, sandwiches, whatever. Strange thing, though, no money changed hands. About five minutes after the coffee truck pulled away, a charter bus pulled up. The crowd piled in and the bus moved off. During this whole series of events, Rico shushed me whenever I began to ask a question.

“Take a guess what that was all about,” Rico said as the bus vanished in the distance.