Absolution

by Henry Hack

  I remembered the first time he had made one for me at the end of my first week of sweeping the floor for him. He passed it across the counter and said, “You got money to pay for this, right?”

  “Uh, not right now, Mr. Stern,” I said. “I thought maybe if I continued to work for you, maybe when I got paid –”

  “No geld? Maybe you vant to steal this egg cream, too? Like you stole the Snickers bar?”

  I was humiliated and a tear started down my cheek. I got off the stool and turned to leave vowing to never set foot in the place again when Mort’s hand on my shoulder stopped me. “Mikey,” he said, “I am so sorry I said that. That was bad of me. Ach! Vat’s wrong vit me? How could I say such a hurtful thing? Drink up. No charge. And from now on this is an addition to your pay. Every day, one free chocolate egg cream for my hard-working Mikey. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I said, taking a large gulp from the glass. And true to his word, Mort Stern never said another hurtful word to me again for the rest of his life, and I never had to pay for an egg cream again. His life. Snuffed out by some street skell who I now vowed to hunt down and arrest, and hoped he would resist that arrest so I could exact some street justice on his murdering body. Then a shadow from the past crossed my mind as I remembered I vowed to hunt down and arrest my parents’ killer, the one that got away, and so far I had failed at that, hadn’t I?

  I went back to the cleaning closet and took the spaghetti mop and bucket and filled it halfway with water. I mopped up Mort’s blood from the floor and rinsed the mop of all traces of it in the slop sink. I selected the floor broom and deliberately and carefully swept Mort’s floor for the last time. When I finished, I glanced behind the empty counter and said, “All done, Mr. Stern. I’m going home. Good night.”

  I set the lock on the front door, closed it tightly, and locked the deadbolt with the key from Mort’s keychain. I went over to speak to the patrolman assigned to guard duty. “I know this fixed post is a boring assignment, but don’t be concerned about taking a little stroll once in a while for a cup of coffee. I doubt anyone will attempt to break in, but you never know.”

  “Anything valuable in there, sir?”

  “Only my memories, son, and they’re not worth anything to a burglar.”

  “Understood, sir. I’ll take good care of Mr. Stern’s property.”

  SEVEN

  I got on the radio and asked the location of my three teams of investigators. The two teams of detectives responded that they were cruising areas of Richmond Hill and Woodhaven near the streets where the Q-10 bus stopped on its way north to the subway station on Union Turnpike. Cindy and Artie were switching between foot and car patrol on Liberty Avenue looking for Vinny and talking to people. None of them had a lead yet on Vinny’s whereabouts. I said, “Keep at it. I’ll be in the area. Let me know immediately if something pops.”

  Not twenty minutes later Unit 106-C got on the air. I recognized Cindy Jamison’s voice as she said, “We got an address where our guy may be.”

  “Let’s have it,” I said.

  “118-80 Liberty Avenue,” Officer Ferrand responded. “It’s on the second floor above a delicatessen. The el runs right by it. Uh, we got the location from a snitch I know in the neighborhood. I slipped him a twenty for the info.”

  “Good work,” I said. “You’ll get reimbursed for that. Let’s all meet on the nearest side street near that address right now.”

  “Uh, Lieut, this is Unit 106-E. Should we get a warrant first?”

  I was pissed off that this detective, Tom Catalano, from the 106 squad would broadcast that over the air. All radio transmissions are recorded and occasionally monitored. I then realized I could turn this in our favor. I said, “It’s not necessary, Tom. Our guy is not a suspect at this time, merely a person of interest. We’re going to knock on his door and politely request an interview. Understood?”

  All three units responded with a “Ten-four” and I held my breath waiting for one of them to add, “Do we kick it in if he doesn’t open up?” Thankfully, no one did.

  Fifteen minutes later we convened in front of the door that led to the upstairs apartment on Liberty Avenue under the full darkness of night and I said, “Hit the bell, John.”

  Detective Micena’s efforts at getting a response from the apartment’s occupants were in vain despite pushing on the button for a good two minutes. Since we couldn’t hear a buzz or chime, we had no idea if the bell was functional. I tried the doorknob, but the door was locked. It was a shaky latch, so with not much effort, I slipped it open with a credit card. After sending Catalano and his partner to the rear of the building, I led the way to the top of the stairs and motioned for Ferrand to try the bell on the door jamb. I put my ear to the door but couldn’t hear a buzz. I knocked on the door a few times. I knocked louder and said, “Mr. DeGiglio, open the door! Police officers!”

  When there was no response, I tried the doorknob. Locked. And this lock was no pushover like the one downstairs. Contrary to the door smashes seen on the TV police shows, any similar attempts by us to crash it in would have resulted in a broken foot or a dislocated shoulder. Damn it! I felt around on top of the door and checked under the mat. No key. I said to Detective Paul, “Richie, check the deli downstairs. It was open when we got here. Maybe he’s the landlord or knows if the landlord is nearby. Please come back with this key. I don’t want to call Emergency Services.”

  Paul nodded and went down the stairs. He was back in five minutes with a big smile on his face and a key in his outstretched hand. He said, “His brother owns the building, and he keeps a key here in case he has to get in for something.”

  “No problems getting him to cough it up?”

  “Not at all. I spoke some German to him and we got along fine.”

  I had heard some wild stories about Detective Paul when he was in a South Bronx squad and I said, “I guess your German came in handy when you dressed up in that Nazi uniform you guys had in the 40 Squad?”

  John Micena, who had been Richie’s partner for the past five years, and who probably had heard his stories more than once, could hardly suppress a grin. He said, “Boss, Richie said that story is a nasty rumor.” Then he turned to Richie and said, “Vere are your papers, you zun-of-a-bitch!”

  Everyone cracked up with laughter including me – the boss – who was losing control of the situation. “Knock it off. Open the door Paul, and let’s hope DeGiglio didn’t escape out the back window.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Catalano and Nitzky will catch his ass if he tries that.”

  “Let’s find out,” I said as Richie unlocked the door and the five of us rushed in, guns drawn, and went in separate directions. No one was in the apartment. No one, that is, except for the apparently dead young man slouched on the sofa, eyes half open, dried spittle on his chin. The hypodermic needle, empty of its contents, was stuck in his left arm. Several glassine bags – empty – were scattered nearby, and the foul odor of the corpse’s feces permeated the air.

  I broke the silence by saying, “Is that him?”

  Officer Ferrand, gagging a bit, responded, “That’s him, sir. That’s Vinny DeGiglio.”

  “Shit!” said Micena.

  “Shit, indeed,” Detective Paul said, waving at the space in front of his face. “I wonder if this is a typical overdose or if the real perp gave him a hot shot.”

  Micena bent down to more closely examine the glassine envelopes. He said, “They’re all stamped in red with the letters HHC.” Turning to the two cops he said, “Recognize them?”

  Cindy and Artie both said no, and I said, “We’ll get Narco involved. Maybe they can point us in the right direction. Start making the calls, John.”

  So here we went
again for the second time that day. Crime scene search, medical examiner, assistant district attorney on call, all of it. Two dead ones. The first one is now a goddamned whodunit, the second one is either an accident, or another goddamned whodunit. It was time to take a break and put our heads together over a beer or two. I said, “After we wrap this scene up we’ll meet at Gallagher’s and think this whole thing out.”

  “Uh, sir,” Officer Ferrand said, “Cindy and I, too?”

  “Yes. You’re with this team until I say you’re not. I’ll clear your overtime with your commanding officer.”

  “Thank you, sir,” they both said with big smiles on their young faces.

  . . .

  John’s call to Queens Narcotics resulted in the arrival of two of their detectives at our scene. After we briefed them on the Stern shooting, Detective Lou Isnardi said, “HHC means Happy Horse Combo. We see it a lot in the north part of the boro – Corona, Jackson Heights, Astoria – and as far south as Jamaica and South Jamaica.”

  “What does it mean?” I asked.

  “Horse, as we all know, is heroin. The combo part can be added cocaine or ground up Quaaludes. Either one makes it a powerful hit.”

  “How many bags would it take to kill our guy here?” John Micena asked.

  “Not nearly as many as are laying empty here,” the other narcotics detective, George Geyer, said.

  “Could he have shot all of this at once?” I asked. “I mean, if it’s so powerful, wouldn’t one or two bags be enough to get him high?”

  “Depends on his habit,” Isnardi said, “but yeah, two should have been plenty to do the trick.”

  “Who’s the big distributor of HHC?” Paul asked.

  “Not sure,” Isnardi said. “We’ll kick it around with the rest of the squad and get the word out to our informants to concentrate on this for you.”

  “Thanks, guys,” I said. “We’re about ready to wrap up here and ship the body out. Care to join us at Gallagher’s for a couple of brews?”

  “Love to, Lieutenant,” Geyer said, “but we got a buy/bust going down in an hour.”

  “Find me the guy who sold HHC to our dead guy here and next time the drinks are on me.”

  “You’re on,” Isnardi said as he and Geyer headed out the door.

  After the deputy ME had examined the body, I had crime scene swab his hands for gunshot residue even though I was now convinced he was not our shooter. Vinny had nothing in his pockets except four one-dollar bills. I said to the lead crime scene tech, “Look for any weapons, but a couple of other things that may be pertinent.”

  “Such as, Lieutenant?”

  “Tools,” I said. “Our perp sawed a hole in some floorboards and went through it.”

  “I’m aware the team in Stern’s store found fibers – blue ones – on the edge of the hole. We’ll look for that shirt or jacket, and check all his clothes for sawdust as well. And any tools, saws and drills we may find.”

  “Great,” I said as they went to work. We hung around until they finished. They found no guns or blue-colored garments, but did come up with a hand drill and a keyhole saw that had some bits of wood in its teeth. They bagged them up and took them for forwarding to the lab.

  “Looks like Vinny cut the hole himself a few hours or so prior to the stick-up,” John said, “and the shooter went through the hole.”

  “Yes, it does,” I said. “Now let’s go find that shooter.”

  We locked the place up and kept the key as the deli was now closed. I told Richie to return it tomorrow and tell the deli owner to notify his brother the apartment now needed a new tenant.

  “Ja wohl, mein Leutnant,” he said, snapping to attention and saluting.

  We all chuckled and headed to Gallagher’s for a much needed libation.

  Gallagher’s was a police hangout located on Lefferts Blvd., on the border of the 102 and 106 precincts, and it drew cops and detectives from both commands. We got a booth and ordered two pitchers of Michelob. The waitress put down a few bowls of pretzels and potato chips, and I eyed my crew as we awaited our beer.

  Two young police officers, Ferrand and Jamison, their unlined happy faces bursting with enthusiasm, and obviously thrilled to be working on a murder case with us. Tom Catalano and Dan Nitzky from the 106 Detective Squad, seasoned veterans about my age – early forties – but not experienced in homicide investigations as were my two top guys on the case. Catalano, about twenty pounds overweight, mostly in his belly, rarely smiled and had a habit of running his hand through his curly, graying hair which had thinned out noticeably since I had last seen him a couple of years ago. Maybe he was feeling for new growth. Dan Nitzky was tall and thin with combed-back grayish-blond hair. He had what you would call smiling blue eyes, and he was quick with a witty remark or joke. Glancing at Richie Paul, the similarity in the color of their blue eyes – ice blue – was startling. Richie, while equally witty and funny as Dan, could turn those eyes on a suspect in such a way to make the bad guy’s blood run cold. Nazi eyes we called them to break his chops, but it didn’t seem to faze him – he seemed to relish it. He was of German and Irish descent, but down-played his Irish half saying, “The Irish are too merry for this job, that’s why they study so hard and get to be top brass and off the dirty streets. Gotta submerge that good-guy tendency. Gotta be tough on these scumbags.”

  Denise, our waitress, poured our first round and as we raised our glasses, Detective John Micena said, “A toast to this team and to the arrest of the skell that shot Mort Stern.”

  We all took a long pull with shouts of “here, here” and I smiled at my senior man with the nickname Johnny the Jack which was hung on him years ago when he was a uniformed cop in a tough Brooklyn precinct. He claimed it was an unfair representation of him saying, “I used necessary and sufficient force on my perps in order to effect the arrest. And if my blackjack, duly authorized by the department to be utilized, was necessary, so be it.”

  That always got a laugh and a comment such as “Yeah, and your utilization of that jack got you four trips to Internal Affairs, right?”

  John would smile that big Italian smile, his cheeks would redden a bit and his light-brown eyes would open wide as he said, “Five trips, and not one rap on my record from those fucking head hunters. How about that, wise guy?”

  The first two pitchers of beer disappeared and Denise brought two more. I was happy with the camaraderie developing among the team and I decided to keep things light awhile longer. But things got serious in a hurry when Dan Nitzky asked Richie Paul about the rumor the 40 Detective Squad in the Bronx had a Nazi uniform to dress up in and terrify some suspects. Richie said, “In light of what happened to Mort Stern, an Auschwitz survivor, let’s put that rumor on hold. I know I kid around a lot, but we can all agree that story would not be appropriate at this time. What would be appropriate is to decide how we are going to catch our perp. We should finish our beer, and get to it. Right, Boss?”

  Talk about setting the stage and getting a cue. Richie went up another notch in my eyes for that little speech. I said, “We will all meet in the 106 Squad at 0800 tomorrow. First we will re-canvass along Rockaway Blvd. for a possible suspect seen going into or coming out of Stern’s store. We might get lucky, as the crime was committed in broad daylight.”

  “Do you think Vinny was at the scene at all?” Cindy Jamison asked. “Or did he just cut the hole and leave?”

  “He could have hung around as a lookout or to drive the getaway car,” I said.

  “He doesn’t own a car,” Ferrand said. “Uh, that I know of. He always took the bus.”

  “Then our perp may have a car,” Micena said, “and maybe somebody saw it.”

  “Maybe,” I sa
id, “but unless we have new information to act on, I want John and Richie to follow up with Queens Narcotics and the rest of you to perform the canvass. Any questions?”

  There were none so I said, “Drink up. I got the tab. You guys chip in for Denise’s tip. See you tomorrow.”

  EIGHT

  It had been a long day, a long, sad, depressing day, and I guess it showed on my face when I walked in the door at 9:30 that night. My wife, Vivian, who I had called briefly to inform her of Mort’s murder before she saw it on the evening news said, “Can I get you a drink, hon?”

  “I had a couple beers with the guys, but I could use a nightcap. First, I want – I need – a big hug and kiss from the love of my life.”

  She hugged me hard and kissed me hard all the while choking back tears and sobs. She knew Mort Stern well, as did my two teenage kids. They all had been subject to the diabolical philosophical arguments from the wise, old Yiddish sage of Ozone Park.

  “You need a drink, too,” I said. “What’ll it be? I’ll make them.”

  “Pour me whatever you’re having – on the rocks.”

  I went into the kitchen and made us vodkas on ice, at least a double, and brought them back into the living room. We clinked glasses and I said, “To Mort, may he rest in peace.”

  We took a long sip and Vivian said, “Despite what that old kvetcher believed, or said he believed, I know there is a God, and that Mort is with him.”

  “Kvetcher? From a puritanical Lutheran?”

  “Mort taught me well,” she said smiling. “I now know a lot of Yiddish words and phrases, some not too flattering.”

  “Where are the kids?” I asked.

  “Andrew is in his room, studying I hope, and Maddy is over at some friend’s house, also studying.”