“Christ, Maksins, I think Eddie’s dead!”
Wolf came over from the cage to get a better look. He and Frank Robinson were standing on either side of Kennedy’s desk, looking down on him with counterfeit compassion.
“You want us to call a priest, Eddie? You may have died during the night.”
Maksins was holding something behind his back. When Kennedy looked up from his papers, the huge blond brought his heavy hand out. He was holding a crucifix. He pushed this across the desk at Kennedy.
“Stand back, Van Helsing! This will hold him off!”
Robinson laughed. “No, get a sunlamp! Jesus, Eddie. What’d you do last night? Last time I saw eyes like that, man was three days in Maspeth Creek.” The smile went away as he got a longer look at Kennedy. “Got the flu, Eddie?”
Kennedy was pleased to see Stokovich coming out of his office wearing his executive face.
“No, no, Frank. Got a little wrecked with Wolfie last night. Slept lousy. Give me a break, hah?”
Robinson wanted to dig a little, but Stokovich was already talking. Leaning up against the bulletin board, he got right into it, in his fashion, letting the men catch up however they could.
“Okay, okay, listen up. I’ve got that little shit Sorvino on the phone this morning. Some of you guys are letting your case-summary copies disappear between here and the DA’s office. I told the DA that we’d have all case briefings in his hands every afternoon. That’s every afternoon, Kolchinski. I read your summary on that Hell’s Angels asshole and it’s a nice piece of work. I don’t see much from the canvass. You give the second platoon a bounce again, I think you’ll get something from the street this afternoon. There’s a regular club meeting in Jersey, so maybe the neighbors will have more to say without those shmucks in the area. You get anything from Daphne over there?”
“Not a lot, sir,” Kolchinski said. “He had the flag up when we took him, the whole nine yards of liquid sky straight up the arm. He tapped it in when we came through the door and he’s been on the nod ever since. I’d like Maksins here to give me a hand when we question him. Guy’s a monster and I don’t want to dance with him again. It took three men to take him out of the Scorpio this morning. But he’ll roll over. He’s gonna be sick soon.”
Kennedy looked across the room at Kolchinski. Ben was a heavy-featured Pole with a hairless skull. He could bench-press four hundred pounds. It was not usual for him to ask for anyone’s help with a suspect. Stokovich shook his head.
“Not Maksins. I got plans for you, Wolfie. You have a court call today?”
“No, sir. They’ve gone into chambers to jack their way around the Fourth.”
Stokovich looked down at a clipboard. “You’ve got Seaforth hearing that? ‘Go Forth and Sin No More.’ Good luck with that dildo. He rolls over on the Fourth like he had a coin slot in his back. So you’ve got some time?”
Maksins didn’t talk much. When he did, it was in a voice that didn’t go with the narrow-hipped body: a tenor voice that hit each consonant hard, like a xylophone player learning the scale. English was a second language to him.
“Yes, sir. I have the time. I was going to go over to Fourteenth Street, look-see if our fist-fucker is back in business and kick some fluffs over on Christopher Street.”
Maksins was trying to locate a young Cuban male prostitute who had been seen in the company of an older gay male at a hellfire club. The older man had later been discovered dead in his Barrow Street town house. The M.E.’s report suggested that the cause of death was a human fist inserted into the man’s rectum. A black leather glove with chromed nailheads had been found at the scene. The body was trussed and suspended by its ankles. There were also some satanic nuances. Satanism was making converts in the demimondaine latitudes of Manhattan gays. It was ironic that a womanizer like Wolfgar Maksins had been assigned to the case. Ironic but also appropriate. He was a good-looking man, and he found it easy to get information from the secretive and cellular gay community. He had learned to use this lever. He wasn’t above some low-level flirtation if it would free up a conversation. Now and then this flirtation would be taken too literally. This was always a mistake.
Stokovich turned away before Maksins had finished speaking—pushing the room, demanding more and better and sooner. Kennedy watched him from his desk and felt a sense of diminishment, a lack in himself. Where the hell did Stokovich get the energy?
“Okay. Who’s next? Robinson? You’ve got a lecture at the Academy, don’t you? You get that Friction Ridge handbook I sent you? Yeah? Good. You were supposed to run down those Armenians. Anything? No? Well, why don’t you try our buddies down on Mulberry? These Gypsies hit three old moustache petes and a widow on Hester Street. They’re jerking off all over the San Gennaro society too, so get Deke here to go on the street for you. Okay, Deke?”
Fratelli smiled his pirate’s smile, and touched the side of his sharply hooked nose with a forefinger. He was dressed in his Armani best again today, a double-breasted black suit in raw silk, patent-leather loafers, a charcoal-gray shirt, and a thin scarlet tie. Fratelli had been born on Mott Street. He had a cousin in an honored society. Fratelli would finish his career in Intelligence, handing the news both ways, helping the NYPD work with the Sidernese factions. Deke Fratelli was another new-minted sergeant whose rank was in limbo pending the outcome of the Guardians’ suit. Unlike Maksins, Fratelli took it lightly. He understood that a race was like a family, and your family was supposed to use whatever it took to help you along in life. It worked for him; it worked for the Irish too. Why the hell shouldn’t the blacks put a branch into the spokes if it could get a few more black men into management? Deke believed that his rank would hold. He had scored in the top seven percent citywide.
“Don’t have to, boss. I was going to tell Frank anyway, story is that the Gypsies are in a room at the Holland right now. I’ve got two guys from Midtown South sitting on them. Soon as we wrap here, me and Frank’ll bop over and bag ’em.”
Stokovich looked at Fratelli for a second. “Shit, Deke, do I want to know how you did that?”
“Maybe we owe a favor—a guy needs a break on street parking or something.”
“I don’t want to know. You scare me, Fratelli. Eddie, what’s the story on the Ruiz kid?”
Kennedy had the sheet under his hand. “I took the grandfather up to the M.E.’s and got a positive. Kearny sent the package over this morning. Can you ask Patrol if the ACU guys and the RMPs could look for a primary crime-scene location? Probably indoors. There’ll be a lot of blood. It’ll be someplace like one of those DAMP projects, or a warehouse. Whoever did it, I figure they had something going with the kid. I’ve got a sheet from Toxicology says the kid was whacked out on speed when he died. Looks like a drug hit—maybe the kid was getting fast with the bank. He was sharp enough to think of it. Pendleton sent up the tape. I’m going to play it for some of the Anti-Crime guys, see if we can get a matchup. Computer has nothing on the kid. Teletype’s got nothing. No prints available either. We’re looking for a Salvadoran chick named Nadine, a hooker who works for that asshole Mantecado. Kid was with her. It all ties into Los Hermanos. I’d like to talk to whatever narco guys we have on that store. And on the Muro thing, we haven’t tagged that Olvera guy. He wasn’t in the church on Myrtle, so we’ll have to get back out there sooner or later. Mokie Muro’s supposed to be in the Bronx, I hear?”
Stokovich nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. I can’t get any help from Quantico, but everything we have says that Mokie and this Tinto guy are the ones we want. That’s yours, Eddie.”
A kind of pressure wave went through the room. It was gone in a second, as Stokovich went down his case lists, and the talk went around as the Task Force traded information, offered suggestions, and the work assignments got handed out in a way that only seemed casual. Stokovich knew how to run men, from the rear, with an easy hand and no negotiations allowed. As the meeting broke up, Farrell came over to Kennedy and asked him where the Green Book wa
s. When Farrell asked Kennedy for the book, Kennedy knew what was coming.
Hell. He had known yesterday.
In Stokovich’s office, on the wall facing his desk, Stokovich kept a pair of eight-by-ten color photos of the twin suns of his professional life: Richard J. Nicastro, the hardcase Chief of Detectives, and Benjamin Ward, the Commissioner. When Kennedy came into the office, Stokovich was leaning back in his padded swivel chair with his feet up on his blotter, writing in a small black leather notebook with a gold lieutenant’s shield embossed on the cover. Stokovich wrote in blue marker, in a controlled hand, quickly and concisely.
Kennedy stood in the center of the room, watching the bank of Motorola handsets charging in their racks as the big white GE clock ticked through three minutes. Kennedy was working hard on holding in his temper. Being able to keep other people waiting was Stokovich’s reward for ten years of having had it done to him. One of the prices you paid for the badge was being treated like a child.
Stokovich finished with a flourish, snapped the book shut, and took his feet off the desk.
“Eddie, I’m gonna pull you off the Ruiz thing. You know why?”
Kennedy shrugged. “I know it’s got the spooks all over it. Do I get to find out what the hell is going on?”
“What do you care? You don’t have enough other work, we’ll find you some. I got homicides up the ying-yang in the Green Book.” Stokovich had good antennae. Kennedy was off, and he’d been off ever since he came in yesterday.
Kennedy walked over and sat down in the oak chair in front of the commander’s desk. Stokovich offered him a stick of Dentyne.
“It just pisses me off a little, Bruno. I have this ACU guy, Stradazzi—I get the feeling he knows more about the Ruiz case than I do. He’s got spook written all over him, but I talk to a friend in Personnel and I get a simple Italian patrolman with no marks—no marks at all, you know—which is interesting. Everybody’s got some shit on their records, even before you get out of the Academy. But not Stradazzi. Hey, that’s okay by me, Bruno. What gets me is you. You know goddam well that Stradazzi is with State, or he’s one of your FBI trainees, or he’s from Justice, or the DEA. Christ, maybe he’s from Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. So he’s a liaison guy. Why not say so? Am I in or out around here? What’s the big secret?”
“Eddie … you know I can’t tell you every fucking bit of stuff goes on in the squad. I’ll tell you this. You got a sheet from one of the Field Associates.”
It seemed to Kennedy that the floor of Stokovich’s office had dropped about three feet. His stomach did a slow roll. “A Field Associate! Those shits rat on Patrol, not on detectives! What the fuck are you telling me!”
Stokovich raised a hand, palm out, and spoke soothingly, softly, as if to a child.
“Eddie, take it easy. I put it wrong. What I mean is, you pissed off somebody yesterday, and whoever you pissed off is one of Internal Affairs’ little stoolies. So whoever it is filed a formal complaint against you and you’re going to have to talk to a couple of dorks from Internal Affairs. Just routine.”
Kennedy stood up. “Routine! You tell me I have to take a call from a pair of college-boy suits from IAD! No fucking way, sir, all due respect, sir. I have a couple of questions, sir. Have you filed a PD468-123 on me, sir?”
“No, Eddie, it’s not that—”
“Are you instituting a command discipline here, and if you are, on what schedule? Schedule A? Did I miss a meal somewhere? Maybe I don’t have my locker secured or properly tagged? No? Shit, don’t tell me I engaged in unnecessary conversation? God, not that! Or, holy shit, sir, you don’t mean to tell me that I have failed to maintain a neat and clean personal appearance? I mean, I know my eyes are a little red, but red eyes aren’t a uniform violation, are they? If they are, you better file on that dork Bozeman because every time he goes for a walk they have to warn off the seven-twenty-sevens from La Guardia!”
In spite of himself, Stokovich had to laugh.
“Or, wait, is it Schedule B? That’s it, a fucking Schedule B? Let’s see … Nope, here’s my gun! And … Yep, here’s my shield! And my ID. You want to check them out, sir? Or is it Schedule C? Am I going to hear from the departmental advocate?”
“Eddie, will you sit down and shut the fuck up!”
“Has the Zone Commander filed a PD468-121? Charges and specifications, all seven copies, sir? If so, sir, then I formally request a goddam lawyer, sir!”
“Sit down, Kennedy, or I will slap your ass with a command discipline! You’re only two months shy of getting your last CD cleared off your sheet, so don’t be an asshole about this. Sit, will you? Eddie? Come on!”
Kennedy stayed where he was for a full minute. Out in the squad room there was absolute silence. It pressed against the wall. He managed to cap his anger long enough to sit down. Stokovich, for all his ambition, had always been a fair man. Kennedy could not believe that his commander was about to let one of the notorious Field Associates start a precedent by filing on a gold shield.
Field Associate! What a name! Spy, snitch, stoolie, fink, rat, weasel—they were closer to the mark. Kennedy had heard—hell, the whole Department had heard—about this latest scheme from the Commissioner’s office. Nobody knew just how many Field Associates there were. Department gossip put it at maybe four or five snitches in each precinct, for a total of close to four hundred of them in all five boroughs. The rumor had it that they were recruited by Internal Affairs while they were still in the Academy. Staff instructors in the classes kept an eye out for trainees who had the right qualities—Christ only knows what those were—and one day the kid got a visit from a member of IAD. The deal was simple: Complete your training; go to your assignment; take up your patrol duties like any ordinary police officer. Ride in the RMPs, or walk a post with a Portable. Make your friends. Keep your nose clean. And report to us regularly about the men and women you work with. Let us know if they’re doing anything they shouldn’t be doing. Take down their names and badge numbers and get back to us, in secret, with your shit list. Oh yeah, and don’t for heaven’s sake worry about your buddies finding out what you’re up to, because your name will never come into it. The guy you’re ratting on will never know where the accusation came from. Just give us the names, and we’ll do the rest.
“The rest” had become pretty well known in the NYPD. Each precinct had someone called the Integrity Control Officer. Usually a lieutenant or better, the Integrity Control Officer had only one precinct responsibility, and that was to insure that everybody in the precinct, every civilian and every Member of Service, stayed straight. They were a direct result of the Knapp Commission scandals of the early seventies. Kennedy had once looked up the “Duties and Responsibilities of the Integrity Control Officer” in the Patrol Guide. They were worth remembering.
The Integrity Control Officer …
• Develops an Integrity Control Program … responsive to Precinct conditions.
• Observes precinct conditions and visits Corruption Prone locations at irregular hours.
• Assists the Precinct Commander in developing sources of information among members of the command regarding integrity matters.
• Gathers information from all sources regarding criminals residing, frequenting, operating, or employed within the precinct and determine if unnecessary contact exists between such persons and Members of the Service.
• Instructs uniformed members during roll call training on the proper methods of identifying, reporting, and combatting corruption.
• Maintains rapport with uniformed Members of the Service … to seek symptoms of corruption.
• Conducts investigations … in response to official communications received from Patrol Borough Field Internal Affairs units.
• Compiles, maintains, and updates CONFIDENTIAL PERFORMANCE PROFILE of subordinate members, verifies the PROFILE annually with the CENTRAL PERSONNEL INDEX of the Personnel Bureau, and forwards all necessary PROFILE information to member’s Commanding Offic
er when member is transferred.
• Conducts CONFIDENTIAL PERFORMANCE PROFILE check when new members are assigned to Command.
• Inspects Time Cards, Overtime Records, Property.
• Maintains … CORRUPTION PRONE LOCATION FILE.
• Develops liaison with Patrol Borough Field Internal Affairs Unit to exchange information for self-initiated anti-corruption programs.
Kennedy had read all this with mixed emotions. The Serpico case had triggered the worst political and ethical crisis ever encountered by a North American police department, and a depressing number of the resulting allegations raised by the Percy Whitman Knapp Commission had proven to be true. Although there were a number of cases in which members of the NYPD had been skimming profits from narcotics investigations, or stealing heroin from evidence vaults and reselling it to the syndicate, most of the men and women in the NYPD had felt, with some justice, that they had all been inferentially ruined by the Knapp hearings. Kennedy knew many good cops who had been driven out of the service by the scandals, or who had turned into drones and toadies like Oliver Farrell, just to stay out of trouble. Many of the so-called corrupt practices of the NYPD were simple procedural faults. But in the hysterical aftermath of the Knapp Commission, when the New York press discovered that papers could be sold at staggering rates by crucifying some confused and frightened patrolman for everything from public swearing to alleged brutality, the survivors of that holocaust, including current Commissioner Benjamin Ward, had decided to purge the force of thousands of experienced officers. They were considered tainted by the fact that they were in uniform and had served during the sixties and seventies.
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