Back to Brooklyn

by Lawrence Kelter

  Chapter Fifty-Nine: I Hope He Ain’t Making a Monkey out of Himself

  They stopped home to change before going out to dinner. Lisa looked especially radiant and Vinny more relaxed than he’d seemed in a great while.

  “Look at that,” Lisa said pointing at a car parked in front of Joe’s house. The license plate on a white Audi read: SEL-UR-HSE. “Joe must be talking to the real estate agent inside. It would be a good thing for you to hear what she has to say, Vin—it being half yours and all.”

  “Yeah, that’s a smart idea,” he said as he parked the Caddy. “I hope this works out. Joe’s up to his ass in debt, and our share would give us enough for a down payment on a place of our own.”

  “You know what I think? I know that we’ve been together ten years but I think this is just the start for us—you a successful lawyer and me…” She thought for a moment. “I can be your PI. I’ll find ’em and you’ll fry ’em.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Vinny took a long look at her. “I’m happy you got such grandiose plans for the two of us but maybe we should concentrate on one case at a time before we go turning into a Law & Order spinoff. We got weeks of trial ahead of us and the DA’s got lots of ammunition.”

  “Sounds like you’re worried about the case. Is that it?”

  “Yeah, of course. I’m seriously worried. It ain’t gonna be easy.” He pulled the lever, opening the door. “But we’d better get inside so we don’t miss nothin’.”

  “You think we ought to ring the bell?” Lisa asked as they walked up the steps.

  “Nah, it’s busted, remember? Besides, Joe never locks the front door.”

  “Well that ain’t the safest thing to do.”

  “Believe me, Lisa, every second-story man in a five-mile radius knows that Joe’s got nothing but lint in his pockets. Trust me, he’s plenty safe.”

  “I guess. I just hope he ain’t making a monkey out of himself in front of this realtor.”

  Vinny shrugged and pushed the door open. They walked in on Joe, his bare, naked butt crack once again staring them in the face. The realtor was on the couch looking up at Joe with her skirt hiked up around her waist and her legs straddling his shoulders.

  Chapter Sixty: Hey! Who Asked You?

  Lisa kept her eyes covered while the realtor tugged down her skirt and stepped into her pumps. She grabbed her coat and raced toward the door, her face bright red.

  “Don’t forget these, dear,” Vinny said as he scooped her panties off the carpet. “Victoria’s Secret. Very nice. Hey, Lisa, you think you’d like a pair of these?”

  Lisa had her eyes covered. She split them just wide enough to see what he was holding. “Vinny! For God’s sake, would you just hand her the damn thing. I’m mortified over here.”

  She snatched her panties from Vinny and disappeared out the door.

  Vinny walked to the door to shut it behind her but not before the sound of screeching tires filled the air. “Way to go, Joe. I didn’t think it was possible for you to be a bigger embarrassment than you already are but you just took the damn thing to a whole new level. Look at Lisa for crying out loud. She’s horrified over there. She may have to go into therapy.”

  “Does he have his pants on yet? I’m afraid to look.”

  Joe had tugged up his jeans and was slowly cinching his belt. “Who’s embarrassing who? You ever think about knocking before you come into someone’s house?”

  “Eh…it’s my house too, Joe.”

  “Eh…but you don’t live here, do you, Vin? You’ve been cock-blocking me my whole life.”

  Lisa lowered her hand. “You ever think you might lock the door when you’re in here knocking boots with the local realtor? Put a necktie around the doorknob or something? For Christ’s sake, that’s the second time in a month I’ve seen your johnson. I swear to God—I’m gonna go blind.”

  “The two of yous relax.” Joe pointed to the couch. “Sit down and let me explain.”

  Lisa recoiled. “No way! I ain’t ever sitting on that couch again.”

  “Suit yourself,” Joe said plopping down in the exact spot in which the realtor’s butt had made a deep indentation. “It’s not like I planned it or nothing.”

  “So, Svengali, just how did this tender moment come about?” Vinny asked.

  “Like I said, it wasn’t planned. I asked her over to get a better idea of how much we could get for the place before I called Mom and Dad. That was your suggestion, Vinny. Remember?”

  “Okay. Yeah. So?”

  “So she wanted me to sign a realtor’s agreement at six percent and I told her that she had to sweeten the deal. How was I supposed to know how’d she react? I just wanted her to lower her commission rate. I mean what would you do if all of a sudden you had bare naked beaver staring you in the face?”

  Lisa cringed. “That’s very couth, Joe. Why don’t you just call it a muskrat?”

  “Exactly what words did you use when you told her, ‘sweeten the deal?’” Vinny asked.

  It took Joe a moment to recall. “Oh yeah. I said, ‘You want this deal, sweetness? You’d better drop your pants.’”

  Vinny shook his head. “Joe, you’re un-fuckin’-believable.”

  Lisa snorted. “I guess she’s one hell of an accommodating salesperson.”

  “Well, Lisa, he did tempt her with his John Han-cock.”

  Joe gave Vinny the finger, paused a moment, then shared one with Lisa as well.

  “What’d she say about the house anyway?” Vinny asked.

  “Six seventy-five.”

  “Wow,” Vinny said. “That’s pretty good. What do you think, Lisa?”

  “That’s sound like a lot of money. But are you sure your parents want you to sell their home? I mean they lived here almost forty years.”

  “Lisa, they gave it to us,” Vinny said.

  “Yeah? Well that don’t mean they expected you to sell the fuckin’ thing. I wouldn’t get too excited about this big transaction until you get it straightened out with them first.”

  Vinny wandered over to a chair and carefully checked it before sitting down. He exhaled a deep sigh. “She’s got a point, Joe.”

  “But like you said, Vin, they gave it to us.”

  “Yeah. I know, but thinking about it, I ain’t sure that means anything.”

  Joe’s shoulders drooped. “And here I thought all my problems were solved.”

  ***

  “You sure this is okay?” Joe asked as he squeezed into the Caddy’s backseat.

  “Yeah,” Vinny said. “I need to bring you up to date about the lead we got on Bald Louie.”

  “I know but I don’t wanna get in the way if yous was planning a romantic evening.”

  Lisa laughed. “Yeah. Good one,” she said with deep sarcasm.

  Vinny took offense at her comment. “Um…what’s so funny about you and me having a romantic evening?”

  “Give me a break,” she said. “Joe, Vinny’s idea of a romantic evening is eating pizza and watching the ball game in his boxers.”

  “Come on. Don’t say that,” Vinny said.

  “Tell me it’s not true.”

  “It’s not true. There’s been plenty of times I been romantic.”

  “Oh yeah? Name one.”

  “There was the time I…”

  “Name one time you brought me flowers.”

  “Lisa, what’s this all about?”

  She pursued him like a heavyweight boxer who had his opponent on the ropes. “How about a card or chocolates? How about perfume?”

  “Come on. I brought you those things.”

  “Oh yeah? When? Give me a date, or an occasion.”

  Joe cleared his throat loudly. “Maybe you two ought to go out by yourselves. I got a can of tuna and some chips in the pantry and I’m just aching for a homemade tuna noodle casserole.”

  “Sit right there,” Lisa said. “You’re not going anywhere. I want you to hear this. Well, Vinny, you got any of those dates for me? How about one?”


  “Um…I ain’t so good with dates. You know that.”

  “Then name an occasion, a birthday or an anniversary perhaps.”

  “Vinny, you don’t do none of those things?” Joe asked seemingly stunned by the news.

  “Hey! Who asked you?”

  “I did,” Lisa said.

  “You know I ain’t so good at that kind of stuff. It’s just not me.”

  “Oh no? Well it’s me, Vinny. Don’t that count for nothin’?”

  Joe tried to reach for the door button but Lisa slapped his hand.

  “No. You stay. I’ll go,” she said. “The two of you can talk about Bald Louie and Big-fuckin’-Donna with her immense knockers, and I’ll eat the stinking tuna noodle casserole.” She grew still angrier. “And what the fuck was that with the news reporter the other day, that Lena Kyle? You was practically dry humping her on the courthouse steps.”

  “Me? I didn’t do nothin’.”

  She kicked the door open and got out.

  “Lisa,” Vinny said, “Don’t be like that.”

  But her hand was up in front of her ear, showing that she didn’t want to hear him.

  Vinny turned to Joe with a scowl on his face. “‘I don’t wanna get in the way if yous was planning a romantic evening,’” he repeated, mocking his brother. “When are you going to learn to keep your fuckin’ mouth shut!”

  Chapter Sixty-One: That Means Nothing to Me

  “I can’t believe you and Joe went to dinner last night and left me to eat a can of tuna in your brother’s house.”

  “You made me do that,” Vinny said as he piloted the car through traffic. “You got out of the car and ran into Joe’s house.”

  “So what, was there some kind of invisible force field around the property that prevented you from coming in after me? No. You just took off and left me for dead.”

  They’d been going at it from the moment they opened their eyes and were now behind schedule. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I sat there fifteen minutes waiting for you to come in and get me. But did you do that? No. You and Joe went out, ate like kings, and left me in a house with an empty pantry and no ride home.”

  “Joe’s car was there.”

  “But not the car keys, genius. Was I supposed to hotwire your brother’s car?”

  “Look, Lisa. I’m sorry but I thought that’s what you wanted. I figured you needed time to cool off.”

  “Does it look like I’m cooled off? You’re completely clueless, Vinny. That was a test and you failed miserably.”

  “I don’t need no tests right now. I gotta be in court to defend Theresa in an hour and I gotta be focused. You think I could take your pop quiz tonight, after we get home from court?”

  “Are you coming home after court or are you gonna body slam Lena Kyle again? She got so close to you during that interview I thought she was gonna slip her microphone in your pants.”

  “Lisa, what are you talking about? All I did was answer a few questions—that’s it!”

  Lisa became silent and stayed silent, which disturbed him all the more, distracting him while he wrestled with rush hour traffic.

  ***

  Whorhatz was already on the bench when Vinny dashed into the courtroom.

  “Nice of you to join us, Mr. Gambini. Do you know what time it is?” Whorhatz asked.

  Vinny checked his watch. “Yeah. It’s exactly nine-thirty.”

  “And what time was court scheduled to begin today?”

  “Nine-thirty, Judge. I’m right on time.”

  “Not in my book.”

  “What book is that, Judge? Because when I learned to tell time, nine-thirty was nine-thirty. You judges learn something different?”

  “That’s right, Mr. Gambini. As a marine I was taught that if you’re not fifteen minutes early, you’re late. On time is late, and late is unacceptable. So what do you think? Are you on time or are you late?”

  “I think one of us needs a new watch.”

  The jury members and the audience laughed but Whorhatz was not amused. He turned to the DA. “Call your first witness, Mr. Gold.”

  Gold called Detective Parikh, who once again explained the sequence of events that led to Theresa Cototi’s arrest, relating the details for the jury as he had for the judge three weeks earlier at the preliminary hearing.

  “So the victim died on February twenty-sixth, is that right?” Vinny asked as he began his cross-examination.

  “Yes,” Parikh said. “At approximately four in the morning.”

  “You were there at the crime scene?”

  “Yes, I was the detective assigned to the case.”

  “So you investigated the scene and then I guess you called the forensics team?”

  “Yes.”

  “And they did their stuff. And then what?”

  “One of the onlookers thought he recognized the victim.”

  “How could that be, Detective, being that the victim’s head was pulverized by a hit and run driver?”

  “He recognized the victim’s basketball jacket.”

  “Really? This bystander must’ve been especially astute to have remembered that jacket so well.”

  “Not really. It was very distinctive, a royal blue and orange Knicks basketball jacket. You don’t see too many of those anymore.”

  “You mean on account they stink and can’t hardly win any games?”

  “Yes.” He laughed. “With a big orange thirty-three on the back.”

  “Patrick Ewing’s number?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s retired now. Didn’t he get traded from the Knicks more than a decade ago?”

  “Well it makes sense, doesn’t it? The victim had been in and out of jail for the last ten years.”

  “You mean that he’d own an older jacket, one he purchased before he began to make prison his home address?”

  “Yes.”

  “I guess it does. Okay. What happened next?”

  “This gent, he owns the grocery store down the block and remembered that the victim had been in to buy some groceries the other day and that he was with Ms. Cototi. She’s a regular customer. He was able to provide her name and address from deliveries he had made to her apartment.”

  “I see. So at that point you paid a call on Ms. Cototi?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how did that go?”

  “It appeared that I had woken her up. She seemed groggy.”

  “Groggy like she had just gotten out of bed?”

  “I already said that.”

  “Right…and she knew absolutely nothing about the victim’s fall from the roof?”

  “No, nothing.”

  “And I guess at that point she became hysterical from hearing such terrible news.”

  “Yes, that’s correct.”

  “At that time did you have any suspicion at all that Ms. Cototi might’ve been involved in the victim’s death?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “How come?”

  “It was just my first impression, I guess.”

  “They say that first impressions are usually pretty good. Actually, they say that first impressions are best. Maybe you should tell us about that.”

  “She seemed to be in a genuine state of shock, and…well it was her appearance I guess.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She way sleepy, terribly groggy. She was rubbing her eyes and yawning when she opened the door. And her stature, she kind of looked like a kid.”

  “‘Like a kid,’” he repeated. “Almost childlike?”

  Parikh thought before answering. “I guess so, yes.”

  “She’s kind of tiny, ain’t she?”

  “Yes, she is petite.”

  Vinny returned to the defense table and checked his notes. “The victim was weighed in at the morgue at a solid one hundred and seventy-two pounds. It make any sense to you that this childlike person, a mere five-foot nothing, who’s maybe ninety pounds after eating a larg
e tray of lasagna, could maneuver a fully grown man up the stairs to the roof, and then force him over the ledge? That strike you as kind of improbable?”

  “It did,” Parikh said. “I mean, yes.”

  “You know, I think I would draw the same conclusion as you. You think almost any detective would?”

  “Objection,” Gold said. “Calls for conjecture.”

  “Sustained.”

  Vinny continued. “And at that time you considered the death a suicide, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see. So what made you change your mind?”

  “Well for one thing, there was no suicide note.”

  “That’s right,” Vinny said. “You said in your testimony that you couldn’t find a suicide note and that it’s pretty rare that the victim doesn’t leave one behind. Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Um…” Vinny bit his nail. “Any idea what the national statistic is for finding a note when a suicide is committed?”

  “I’m not quite sure.”

  “Well don’t you think that you should be sure?”

  Gold objected. “Badgering the witness.”

  “Your Honor,” Vinny began. “The witness stated that the incidence of not finding a suicide note was, in his words, ‘pretty rare.’ I’m just trying to determine what ‘pretty rare’ means.”

  “The prosecution’s objection is overruled,” Whorhatz said.

  Vinny continued. “Detective Parikh, would it surprise you to know that the national statistic for the frequency of suicide victims leaving notes is somewhere between fifteen and thirty-eight percent?”

  Parikh seemed startled. “Yes.”

  “On average, a suicide note is left a mere twenty-six percent of the time. What do you think now, Detective? Is not finding a suicide note rare or is it a pretty common occurrence?”

  “I guess it’s pretty common,” he admitted.

  “I guess the next time you find a body you won’t jump to the conclusion that it’s a homicide just because there ain’t no note. That sound like a fair assumption?”

  “Yes. I suppose.”

  Vinny grinned at Whorhatz. “No more questions, Your Honor.”