“Up front I’ll tell you this much,” he told the special agent. “I can’t and won’t jeopardize my investigation for your informant. She’s in the crosshairs, you’re that concerned, you’re gonna retire anyway, maybe you two should hop a jet someplace remote enough nobody bothers looking for you.”
Stebenow produced a set of cassette tapes. “Here’s what I mentioned before. You can put the recorder back on if you’d like. These are from a federal wire in an apartment above Eddie Vento’s bar in Williamsburg. Our informant lives there rent-free. Bridget Malone is one of three girlfriends we know Vento has, but she’s also the one gets the most attention. She works as a bartender in Fast Eddie’s, Vento’s bar on the first floor of the same apartment building. Just for the record, you can burn me with those tapes worse than with anything we recorded five minutes ago. Those’re federal property.”
Kaprowski rubbed his chin.
“Look, we’re both after the same bad guy here,” Stebenow said. “Eddie Vento goes away, maybe he gives some of his friends up, no doubt the world’s a better place. I’m not asking you to blow your investigation. I am asking for extra attention to the plight of the informant. If you should pick something up, for instance, you deem intrinsic to her protection, I’d appreciate a heads up. Me, not the Bureau. Of course I’ll do the same. Chances are I’ll probably come to you first anyway.”
Kaprowski toyed with the cassettes as he mulled over what the special agent had said. Then he set the tapes down.
“You leave here, I never wanna see you again unless I call you first.”
“Understood,” Stebenow said.
“And I’m gonna wanna sit on this, what you brought me here today. I’m gonna wanna sit on it a few days at least.”
“Is there someone I can contact besides yourself in the event of an emergency?”
Kaprowski didn’t answer.
“I’m the one’s gonna burn when this is all over,” Stebenow said. “Just my coming here forfeits my career. The tapes, they’re brought to the Bureau’s attention, those can put me away.”
Kaprowski was staring into Stebenow’s eyes then. Neither man flinched. Kaprowski said, “Unless they sent you here on purpose, the Bureau.”
Stebenow pointed to the tapes. “Why I brought those, in case that’s what you thought. Give them a listen.”
“Then I’d be complicit.”
“Then give them to someone else to listen to. Give them a line of shit where you got them.”
Kaprowski rubbed his chin again. “You need to use the bathroom before you go?”
“No, but thanks for asking.”
Kaprowski stood up from behind his desk and led the way back up to the kitchen where he stopped to point at the sink.
“Water?” he said.
“No thanks,” Stebenow said.
Kaprowski headed through the dining and living rooms to a small vestibule at the front of the house. He opened the front door, then the screen door.
“I appreciate this,” said Stebenow before he stepped outside. He turned to say good-bye and offer his hand, then flinched when the door closed in his face.
Chapter 12
Detectives Brice, Levin and Kelly had met for breakfast at a diner on Astoria Boulevard a few minutes before nine o’clock in the morning. Brice and Kelly sat on one side of the booth; Levin on the other. Each had ordered a western omelet with home fries, buttered toast and coffee. They ate without speaking. Kelly finished first. Brice next. Levin was still picking at his omelet when Brice pointed to a magazine he’d brought with him.
“There’s an article in here about Deep Throat,” he said. “They’re showing it all over the country now. I saw it myself yesterday in Connecticut.”
“So much for visiting family,” Levin said.
“Huh?” Kelly said.
“I saw it with my brother,” Brice said. “Point is, the film is a hot item now they banned it. Article says the same thing. Wiseguys have contracts working with theater owners all over the place, everything under the table. Guys are making a fortune. They can’t get a theater, they use schools, warehouses. Churches, they find a pastor desperate enough.”
“Best thing they did for the wiseguys behind that movie was ban it,” Levin said. “They’re probably doing twice the volume they were before.”
Brice tapped the magazine. “They’re doing better’n that,” he said. “It’s a major score for the mob, this film.”
“Just like Prohibition,” Levin said. “Mob’s best friends, politicians.”
“You guys seen it yet?” Brice asked.
Levin was the oldest at age forty-one. He removed his glasses and leaned across the table to see the magazine. “The movie or the article?” he asked. “No, to either, though. I only read the Racing Form and I can’t afford the movies.”
“I have,” Kelly said.
“What’d you think?” Brice asked.
“It’s better than the old stag things they had, but she’s no Rita Hayworth, the broad they used.”
“I’m talking about what she did, the deep throat thing.”
“It was impressive. The girl is gifted.”
“That’s one way to put it,” Levin said.
“Being all of six inches, though,” Kelly added, “I never had to think about what she was working with in that movie.”
“He say six or three?” Levin asked Brice.
“Ask your wife,” Kelly said.
“Hey, I’m divorced,” Levin said. “Be my guest.”
“Anyway,” Kelly continued, “the guy was hung.” He held two fingers apart and added, “Thick, too. Like this.”
Brice finished his coffee and moved the cup to the near edge of the table for a refill.
“Meantime,” he said, “I’ll bet she got spit for making that thing, a couple grand or something.”
“They told her she’d be a star someday,” Levin said.
“I heard it was twelve hundred,” Kelly said. “And that ain’t so bad a day’s pay for a couple blow jobs. She’d have to give a couple hundred she was working the streets.”
“Compared to what the wiseguys make off it when all is said and done?” Brice said. “Couple hundred grand, I bet this movie makes. At least that.”
“Now you’re talking out your ass,” Kelly said. “Maybe a hundred grand and a big maybe at that.”
“You talking legit or under the table, because they’re gonna make it both ways,” Levin said.
Brice pointed to the article again. “They already are.”
“Except that’s not the only act in town,” Kelly said. “Take a look-see the papers. There’s still plenty other fuck films a guy can see without going through the trouble it takes to see that one.”
Levin motioned at Brice. “The kid is right,” he said. “Once the court banned it, they turned it into gold for the mob. They have leeches been working overtime figuring ways to bleed whatever they can from it.”
“I’m not saying they’re losing off it, the wiseguys, that’s for sure,” said Kelly a little defensively. “And you’re right, between the legal showings around the country since it’s banned in New York and what they’re doing with bootleg copies, it’s been a score they made with that movie, but it’s not the only movie on the block. There’s a dozen flicks they advertise the Daily News and the Post every day.”
Levin finally finished eating. He pushed his plate away and pressed his back flush against the booth’s backrest. “That wasn’t half bad,” he said.
Brice said, “I read where the guy made it, the director, the one wrote it, whatever, he used to be a hairdresser.”
“Imagine?” Levin said. “Guy like that with his hands all over your wife’s hair?”
“Me, I liked the other broad they used, not the star,” Kelly said. “The short one. She wasn’t so bad-looking. Had a little mileage on her, but she was a lot better than the skank did the magic act.”
“You like her as what, best supporting?” Levin said.
&
nbsp; “Yeah, why not?” Kelly said. “I like her because she’s short can give me a stand-up blow job. I’m talking looks. The star, Linda Lovelace, she had them crooked teeth turned me off. And that goofy fuckin’ actor, the one played the doctor, where they hell they find that schmuck?”
“Man’s hung, he’s one blessed schmuck,” Levin said.
“I thought you didn’t see it?” Brice said.
Levin thumbed at Kelly. “He just said the guy was hung. I don’t watch pornos. I have enough insecurity without seeing some guy hung enough he can choke a horse.”
Kelly winked at Brice. “Circumcision, his people are crazy for it.”
“At least my people aren’t cursed at birth,” Levin said.
Kelly flipped him the bird. “I guess it’s making some extra scratch now the courts banned it, but I didn’t think much of it. All the controversy’s just an excuse to watch a fuck film, you ask me. Respectable people are talking about it, the talk shows at night, so now it’s okay to go see a porno. Deep Throat. Catchy title, I guess. Her thing is down her throat.”
Levin winked at Brice. “What thing’s that?” he asked.
“Huh? Her tickler, what they called it in the movie. I don’t know. Fuck’s the difference?”
Brice and Levin laughed, then Levin said, “Since that Times article the beginning of the year everybody and their mother cares. They all wanna see that movie now, including out the suburbs, why we’re stuck on this thing, because it’s already hit the gossip trails and is getting back to the parishes. It’s starting to piss off the church on Bingo nights. Guys are out jerking off to this broad and her sword-swallowing routine and nobody shows up the Bingo.”
“The Bingo nights?” Kelly said. “What, are you wearing your hat too tight?”
“Which is another waste of our precious time, you ask me,” Levin said. “This chasing a porno. You see the paper the other day, Monday? Some building super caught a shotgun in the chest the back of some park in Canarsie. His wife found him. She was right there with him, a couple yards away in their car.”
“Married and they went to a park to do it?” Brice asked.
“The hell do I know? Maybe to spice it up. Point is that’s real crime, this chasing a porno is bullshit.”
“Levin can’t help himself,” Kelly said to Brice. “College boy gave up Homicide for the easy life and now he feels guilty for it.”
“I’m just saying,” Levin said.
“Levin’s right,” Brice said. “We’re on this Deep Throat thing so’s to make the judge put the kibosh on it look good is all. Him and the mayor and the rest of the country we’re supposed to be setting an example for.”
“Tyler his name was,” Levin said, “the judge.”
“What a joke, set an example,” Kelly said.
“Has to do with the war, you ask me,” Levin said. “Everything we did over there is a disaster. Soon’s we pull out, the Communists we were supposed to stop will walk right into South Vietnam. Between getting our asses kicked in the war and this Watergate mess, I figure the government figures the country needs something else to focus on. Replace the abortion the war’s been and what this Watergate thing is becoming with something supposed to protect our morality. Deep Throat it is.”
Brice moved his magazine from the table to the bench seat alongside him. “With all the other bullshit goes on in this city, the drugs and whatnot, here we are chasing a fuck film, doesn’t make any sense to me,” he said. “Wiseguys’d paid off the right set of politicians, they’d put it to rest already.”
“That isn’t gonna happen,” Levin said. “There’s more money in it being illegal. Everything’s under the table this way, including our overtime.”
Kelly shot Levin a dirty look as a short, thick waitress stopped at the table and refilled their coffees.
“Thanks, hon,” Brice said. He saw Levin staring at her ass as she walked away and tried to look interested, too.
“This morning we got a tip on a guy out to Massapequa on the Island,” said Kelly, getting their attention back.
“What, ’s he showing the film in his basement?” Levin said.
“He’s showing it somewhere, what some neighbor a his said, she’s the one called it in.”
“What’s that about?” Brice said. “He charge guys come to his house? He’s gotta have another place to show it.”
“He does,” Kelly said, “except we don’t know where yet. Like it says in your article there, either they use some theater, the VFW, something like that, Knights of Columbus, or they find a warehouse someplace. Then they charge a premium, couple bucks more than they get for legit movies.”
“Not to mention the guy found in a dumpster this week,” Levin said. “Tommy DeLuca. Tommy Porno to be exact.”
“Guy they chopped his mitts off,” Kelly said. “Was running the film around Long Island for somebody. Question is who.”
“Maybe our boy in Massapequa knows,” Levin said.
“Why we’re going there,” Kelly said. “To find out. But now I hear there are guys in Jersey making posters, signing them Linda Lovelace and charging the morons an extra deuce a piece for them. You believe it?”
Kelly took another sip of coffee, then covered his mouth with both hands and belched when he was done. “God bless,” he said, then pushed his plate away and slid out of the booth.
“So let’s go see this guy,” he said.
“Massapequa?” Levin said.
“It’s where he lives.”
“We got a warrant?”
“Not yet. We’re just gonna feel him out.”
“What about the cream puffs in Nassau? Can’t the cops there look into the shit on their own doorstep?”
Brice looked up at Kelly and motioned toward Levin. “He’s pissed it’s on the Southern State,” he said. “The track is on the Cross Island.”
“Belmont’s closed now, youngster,” Levin said. “They’re up to Saratoga for the summer meet and what I’m pissed at is I gotta be in the same car with you two after you both ate eggs.”
“Leave the window open,” Kelly said. “Air’ll do you good.”
* * * *
Kathleen Hastings had just come back from the gym and was anxious to take a shower when she heard her husband talking to himself in the basement. Billy had left the door open at the top of the stairs. Concerned he’d started another day using amphetamines, she headed down the basement to check on him. She stopped when she heard the washing machine was running. Then she heard Billy speaking Latin.
“Fidelis ad Mortem, Fidelis ad Mortem, Fidelis ad Mortem,” he was saying over and over. “Fidelis ad Mortem.”
Kathleen called to him before continuing down the stairway.
“Fidelis ad Mortem,” Billy said.
“It’s me,” she said.
“What?” Billy said. “I’m busy.”
She reached the bottom of the stairs and was in the den Billy had finished paneling last year. She saw he was sitting at his workbench at the opposite end of the room. She saw the light was on in the laundry room and asked him if he was doing the wash.
“Just some things I wanted,” he said.
It was odd, she thought. Billy never did laundry.
“What were you saying before?”
“Huh?”
Frustrated with his being evasive, Kathleen set her hands on her hips.
“The police motto from when I was in the academy,” he said. “Fidelis ad Mortem.” He winked at her. “Faithful until death.”
Kathleen didn’t like the way he looked. “You do anything?” she asked. “Pills, I mean.”
“Not a one.”
“Anything else?”
“Nope.”
She didn’t believe him. Since he’d been forced to retire, Billy had been abusing the drugs he used and was lying on a regular basis. The downtime he’d been spending around the house had started to concern her as well. Billy needed to find a new job or she would have to. Lately, though, especially the last tw
o weeks, he’d been pestering her to add more details to the notebook he seemed obsessed with lately.
“Okay, you tell me,” he said.
“Tell you what?”
“There anything else?”
“What are you talking about?”
“How was your workout?”
“Good, but I need to shower.”
“Any good-looking young men watching you?”
“No.”
“Can I watch you? In the shower, I mean.”
“No. Then I want to soak in the tub for a while. You need to look for a job.”
“I do?”
“Yes.”
“What if I already went looking?”
“Where?”
“That place on the Island I told you about.”
“You think you got it?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if they know. I’m probably overqualified.”
“You told them you were on the job?”
“Had to. Came from a guy I used to work with. He told them first.”
Kathleen shifted her weight onto one leg. “They know what happened?”
Billy had been cleaning his .38 Smith & Wesson Special before Kathleen came home. He turned and picked the weapon up. “The guy interviewed me said he heard I got jammed up,” he said. “He didn’t ask what for and I didn’t tell him why. Okay?”
“I don’t mean to push you, but we’re going to need income soon and if you can’t find something fast I should be looking.”
He set the .38 back down. “We’re okay,” he said.
“You could’ve told me. That night at the bar, I mean. How was I supposed to know?”
“Jesus Christ,” he said. “Again with the bar? Forget that night already. Doesn’t do any good to bring it up.”
“It’s just I feel guilty. I never would’ve... well... I just wish you could’ve told me is all.”
He put a hand on the .38.
“Don’t you have to give that back?”
“No,” he said. “This one’s mine.”
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