“Tell her not to do that,” the tall one said.
“No need,” John said over his shoulder. “I’ll only be a couple minutes.”
“Smart man,” the tall one said.
“John!” Melinda yelled. She had opened the front door.
“I’m right back,” he said.
He stepped out on the stoop. Both men chose a side and grabbed John by an elbow. His mother yelled from a living room window as Melinda stepped out on the stoop.
“We’re just gonna talk,” the tall one yelled. “Tell the old bag to keep the cops out of it.”
John hadn’t liked being grabbed. He took extra exception at his mother being called an old bag and slammed an elbow into the tall man’s stomach. His right hand free, he shifted his weight onto his right leg and came up with a half uppercut, half hook, but the punch barely glanced the short man’s forehead.
John tried to recover his balance when the short man threw an uppercut of his own, a perfect shot to the crotch. John gasped a moment before he doubled over and then dropped to his knees. Then he was being dragged and he could hear Melinda and his mother screaming from the stoop.
Chapter 50
Billy stepped out of his wife’s car with the two-day-old newspaper folded around the Walther. He crossed the street and was heading for the car John Albano had been forced into when it suddenly jerked away from the curb. He watched as it made a quick U-turn across the lawn alongside Albano’s mother’s house. He heard tires screech and had to hustle back onto the sidewalk as the Marquis bounced off the curb and sped away.
Billy turned toward the car thinking he might be able to shoot the tires out, but yelling from the Albano house distracted him. He could see an older woman on the stoop. He flashed his phony badge with his free hand and told her he was police. Then he saw the girlfriend heading for the Valiant and Billy rushed up the driveway, opened the driver’s side door and showed her the Walther. He told her to move over.
He saw the key was in the ignition and started the car. He shifted into reverse and quickly backed out of the driveway. As he straightened out the car in the street, Billy saw someone holding up a hand in his rearview mirror. On his right the old woman had started down the stoop and was yelling something when Billy turned to Albano’s girlfriend.
“Don’t get nervous,” he told her.
He leaned to his right and extended his right arm out across her chest. He leveled the Walther at the house and fired one shot at the stoop behind the old lady. Then he shot at one of the tires of a parked car at the curb. As he drove away, Billy turned to his left and swore he saw Sean Kelly lying on the street in front of somebody holding a gun.
* * * *
Brice had been watching Kelly sitting in his car more than twenty minutes before the lieutenant detective finally got out of his car. Kelly walked to the far corner, turned as if he’d forgotten something, then turned again and continued walking until he was standing alongside the passenger side of the Riviera parked off the corner. Kelly spent the next five minutes in a crouch talking to the driver through the Riviera’s passenger window. When a dark sedan pulled up at the curb directly across the street from the Albano house, Kelly stood up and headed back toward his car.
Brice could see Levin approaching the van in the right side view mirror. He leaned out and motioned toward the street. “Kelly,” he said. “He’s coming this way.”
“Cuffs,” Levin said.
“You’re busting him?”
“Right now.”
Brice handed Levin his handcuffs, then saw the scuffle going on in front of the Albano home. John Albano was being half led, half dragged across the street by two goons.
“What’s this about?” he said.
Levin had pulled his service revolver from his ankle holster. “Two-to-one they’re Vento’s goons,” he said.
Brice watched Albano being shoved into the back of a navy blue Mercury Marquis. One of the two goons sat in back with him; the other sat up front.
“We gonna sit here and watch?” Brice said.
“That’s OC, kid. I’m not. Now excuse me a minute.”
Levin stepped out in front of the van to block Kelly.
“And I’m not you,” Brice said.
He removed his weapon from its ankle holster, got out of the van and crossed the street in a low crouch. The Marquis had already pulled away. Brice was about to fire a warning shot when he saw a white compact car backing out of the Albano driveway. He put up a hand for it to stop when a shot was fired from inside the car.
Brice dropped to the ground. A second shot had him roll toward a parked car for cover. When he looked up again, he saw the white car was headed in the same direction as the Marquis. Then he saw the old woman clutching her chest at the curb and ran to give assistance.
* * * *
Kelly had already stopped in his tracks when he saw Levin holding the department issued .38 in one hand and handcuffs in the other.
“The fuck is this?” he said.
“Your buddy killed the girl, but you’re mentioned on a tape,” Levin said.
“Excuse me?”
Levin was about to explain when the first shot rang out from somewhere across the street. He crouched at the knees, but continued to hold his weapon on Kelly. A second shot sounded a moment before a white car raced passed them. Both men hit the pavement.
Kelly, on his stomach now, glanced to his right.
Levin said, “I’ll shoot as soon as cuff you.”
Kelly motioned toward Brice as the junior detective was getting inside a car parked at the curb.
“He a rat, too?”
Levin heard the engine start and then tires screech when Brice pulled away.
“He had nothing to do with this,” Levin said. “You wanna blame somebody, look to your ex-sister-in-law. She’s the one tipped off IA about you a long time ago. Something to do with a safe-deposit box?”
Kelly’s eyes narrowed. “You two’re gonna have a great future with the department after this, Jew-boy.”
“I’m fine with what I’m about,” Levin said. “And Brice’ll always have you he ever needs an excuse to join IA.”
“You think so, huh?” Kelly said.
“Sure,” Levin said. “A piece of shit like you? No problem. Now, extend your hands before I break them.”
* * * *
Nancy knew little Miss Oklahoma lived at one of the NYU dorms on Bleecker Street from following Louis there one night last month. She had parked off the corner of Bleecker and LaGuardia Place more than an hour ago and was feeling antsy when she spotted Louis’s car in her rearview mirror. It had just turned onto Bleecker Street. Nancy ducked behind her steering wheel as Louis pulled up to the curb across the street from the dorm.
Her teeth clenched when she saw the blonde getting out of the Cutlass holding a beach bag. The blonde took a step away from the car, then turned back to say something to Louis. Nancy’s eyes opened wide when he flipped the blonde the bird.
Nancy heard the blonde yell, “Fuck you, too!” before she slammed the car door shut.
Louis was still holding his middle finger up. Another few seconds passed before he brought his hand down and pulled away from the curb.
Nancy was smiling. The lovebirds had obviously had a fight. She wondered if Louis had shorted the bimbo on her end of the robbery or if he had outright cheated her.
Or maybe it was something else.
Nancy wasn’t taking any chances. She pulled out of her spot and followed Louis.
* * * *
He’d already reconfirmed the car would be there when they stopped for gas. Sharon Dowell had said it was parked in her driveway. Louis still wasn’t sure what the car looked like, he hadn’t actually watched the movie yet, but Jimmy had a sucker willing to buy it for five thousand dollars above the original sticker price. Louis needed to find out what the original sticker price was before he agreed to buy the car from Sharon.
The night he’d gone down on her, Louis had as
ked why the director of the porn movie was being so generous.
“Two things,” Sharon Dowell had said. “One, I gave him something he never had before or pro’bly since. And two, he needs to get rid of everything has anything to do with that movie. Government wants his ass now. Lawyers probably want him to get rid of any connections he has to Deep Throat, the car included.”
“Too bad for him,” Louis said. “But good for us.”
“I guess so,” Sharon had said. “Or just luck. Right place at the right time.”
Louis had liked the idea of it having been luck, then remembered she had said something else he wasn’t clear on. “What was one again?” he’d asked. “What you say?”
“Gave him a back-to-backer,” Sharon had said.
“One after another?”
“Without coming up for air. You didn’t have crabs, I might’ve treated you.”
“Wow,” Louis had said, genuinely impressed at the time.
Now he was thinking about Florida again. He remembered when the Jackie Gleason show had first moved to Miami in 1964 and he was introduced to one of the original June Taylor dancers, a long-legged bisexual woman with a live-in bisexual girlfriend. After a night of smoking dope and drinking, they had formed a threesome that lasted through a long weekend and might’ve gone on longer except for a huge professional football player with the newly formed Miami Dolphins—the dancer’s girlfriend’s boyfriend. Louis had been intimidated by the burly competition and had opted out of the relationships.
Aside from the retirement community it had become since the sixties, Louis still had fond memories of the female talent available on Miami beach and throughout the sunshine state. Young women in bikinis were what he was thinking about as he drove across the Williamsburg Bridge. A Manhattan bound train on the same bridge brought him back. He glanced to his left and realized how close he was to Fast Eddie’s bar, the joint run by the same mob guy John Albano had been working for. He wondered what was going on with Albano and whether or not Nancy had fallen apart and confessed yet. He hoped not, but it would be her own problem if she did. Until Louis was positive he was safe, he wasn’t going anywhere near his ex-wife.
He glanced at his watch and saw it was close to three o’clock. If things went right, he could be on the road heading south within a day or two.
Louis turned on the radio hoping to hear a few baseball scores, but the rock-and-roll station Holly had switched to was promoting an upcoming concert by the Allman Brothers and playing their music. Louis sang along with “Ramblin’ Man,” making up the words when he didn’t know them.
* * * *
Kelly had been giving him shit about having to meet him so close to the address he’d provided over the phone because, he’d said, “How the hell would it look for me if some Organized Crime unit is there to bust you?”
Eddie Vento had to reassure the dirty cop he’d fatten his monthly envelope. Then the cops showed up alright, except it appeared they were there to get Kelly.
It’s what Vento feared dealing with the dirty cop, that he’d get cocky and sloppy and it would come back to haunt everybody else, which was why he’d made a follow-up call to the Irish kid, Tommy Burns, when he stopped for gas.
He didn’t see where the gunfire had come from, but when he pulled away from the curb, he saw Kelly was on the ground and he wondered if the cop had been shot. He didn’t stick around to find out. He took off instead and managed to get away because the police hadn’t bothered to seal off potential escape routes.
Still, he couldn’t be sure the men he sent to grab Albano hadn’t been caught. Their original plan was to meet at a car wash on Rockaway Boulevard after the Marquis took a detoured route to make sure it wasn’t being followed. There would be a few extra men and a third car waiting for them.
After speeding away from the scene outside John Albano’s mother’s home, Vento pulled up at the curb a block from the car wash and waited for the Marquis. Two minutes passed before he saw it approaching from 101st Avenue. A few minutes later he saw Albano being moved from the Marquis to an Oldsmobile Delta 88. When he saw one of his men drive the Marquis into the car wash, Vento made his way to the Oldsmobile. He quickly scanned the street for police pursuit, saw none and sat up front in the Delta 88. The two men who had abducted Albano sat in the back. Both men put on baseball caps.
“Nice of you to join us,” said Vento over his left shoulder. “And don’t think I forgot how you hung up on me.” He tapped the driver on the leg and said, “Let’s go.”
“This is bullshit,” Albano said once the car was moving.
“You know anything about the cop they just pinched outside your mother’s place?” Vento asked.
“No.”
“You sure?”
“I don’t know anything about any cops.”
“Because he’s probably throwing up his guts right now,” Vento said. “Which means they’re gonna come knocking on my door before the end of the day and I don’t need the extra exposure.”
“Which is probably why you shouldn’t kill me,” Albano said.
One of the two men in the back kicked him. Albano grunted.
“Easy, fellas,” Vento said. “He’s right about not killing him. At least not until I know what the hell all the cops were doing at his mother’s place. You wouldn’t have gone running to your mother, John, would you?”
Albano grunted again. “I get a shot at you later, I’ll break that foot,” he said to the guy kicking him.
A loud thump followed. This time Albano remained quiet.
“Warehouse, Eddie?” the driver asked.
“The bar,” Vento said. “Use Third Street. We’ll go in the back so’s I never left. They’re gonna come for me sooner or later. This way it don’t look like I had something to hide.”
“And this piece of shit?” the driver asked.
“He don’t talk to me at the bar,” Vento said, “yous can take him the warehouse after you remove that other package from upstairs in the apartment.”
* * * *
Angela had dropped him off at the bar half an hour ago. In the time since John Albano had attacked him, the bruises on Nick’s face had turned a nasty shade of purple. It still hurt him to do more than sit still, which is what he was trying to do outside Eddie’s office.
The bar noise had hurt his headache too much to stay upstairs. Between the stares from some of the crew and customers, Nick figured he was better off waiting for Vento alone. He had brought the gun just in case the wiseguy went crazy. It was wrapped in a towel inside the small gym bag he had brought with him. Nick believed in loyalty up to a point. He wasn’t about to take any more abuse than he’d already taken at the hands of John Albano.
It was close to three o’clock when Nick heard the back basement door open. Eddie led the way, followed by John Albano and two husky guys he knew were with another Brooklyn crew.
“I forgot about you,” Vento told Nick. “Wait there.”
Albano was shoved inside Eddie’s office, Nick noticed his hands had been tied behind his back. The husky guys went inside the office and the door closed a second later.
There was some laughing before the door opened and the two husky guys stepped outside. One of them was holding a fresh fifty-dollar bill. The other looked at Nick and said, “Gotta learn to duck, buddy.”
Nick was too embarrassed to reply.
“Get in here,” Vento yelled.
Nick nearly stumbled getting up from the folding chair. He squinted from the overhead light inside the office.
“Si’down,” Vento said.
Nick sat in the chair alongside the one Albano was sitting in. He saw Vento was holding a handgun. Nick dropped his right hand to the gym bag.
“What’d you bring your lunch?” Vento said.
Nick started pulling the zipper.
Vento tossed him a pocketknife. “Untie his hands.”
Nick dropped the pocketknife, but used the opportunity to finish opening the bag. Albano leaned for
ward to give him easy access to his bound wrists. Nick made sure to nick Albano’s back after cutting through what looked like shoelaces.
“Fuck,” Albano said.
Nick slashed sideways to get him again. He drew blood the second time, but then Albano snapped his head back and Nick thought he heard a gunshot before everything went dark.
Chapter 51
Brice had made sure the old lady wasn’t hit before escorting her to the curb behind the Dodge. She had been frightened more than anything and insisted he take her car. Brice took her keys and used the six-year-old Rambler to pursue the men who had taken her son. He drove less than a few feet when he realized the front left tire was flat. He fed the engine gas anyway.
If not for the white car, he might’ve missed seeing John Albano being hustled from one car to another. Brice pulled into an open spot on the street about ten cars behind the Valiant. He could see two people inside the car, the driver and a woman.
He removed his service revolver, set it on the passenger seat and waited.
* * * *
The Mercury Marquis had gone around the Cemetery before it turned left on Pitkin Avenue, then right on 80th Street, then right again on Liberty Avenue. It turned left on 84th Street and then right onto 101st Avenue.
Billy had followed the Marquis onto Rockaway Boulevard but pulled up at the curb when he recognized the Buick Riviera parked about six cars ahead on his right.
“Five’ll get you ten your boyfriend’ll be getting out of the Marquis into another car any minute now,” he told the girlfriend.
Then he could feel her cold stare.
“I hope you’re not thinking about jumping out,” said Billy, turning to her. He showed her the Walther again. “You’ll be dead before your feet touch the ground.”
“What do you want?” she said.
“Your boyfriend.”
“Why?”
The Marquis had pulled alongside the line at the car wash up ahead. Billy saw Albano being hustled out of one car into another, an Oldsmobile it looked like. A few seconds later Eddie Vento was out of the Riviera.
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