New York City Noir

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New York City Noir Page 24

by Tim McLoughlin


  I then turn around to see four armed men surrounding the Escalade that’s just pulled up in front of the laundromat, their .45 pistols trained on the driver and passenger. Moments later they are chased off by the loaded weapons of those inside of the vehicle.

  The thieves are shocked to find that the pistols they’d gotten on loan from a man called Sam were without firing pins. They should’ve known better though, especially since the quartet stiffed the very same man for a pair of Glocks the previous summer, having sprayed him with mace before making a run for it with the merchandise. Addicts don’t think. They just react.

  Backup units arrive to aid Nabors, and some splinter off to chase the armed men fleeing from the laundromat. But none of the blue boys notice that the driver’s-side window on Nabors’s squad car is down. Nor do they see the young writer reach through the opening to commandeer the Mossberg shotgun in the holster next to the shifter. The writer slides the weapon into a nylon sleeve normally used for his yoga mat and slings it over his shoulder before disappearing into the local Bravo supermarket for a bottle of Snapple Peach Iced Tea. People see him, but they are not the kind to snitch to the authorities.

  * * *

  Brownie is tackled, clubbed, stomped, kicked, and then arrested by several white officers who don’t have the brains to make it in any other profession. Trevor and Steve take one for the team as they too are apprehended by officers with few other career options.

  Twenty minutes later the fire department is taming the blaze. Three men are on their way to Brooklyn central booking and the young writer is on his way back down Nostrand to his residence, having never earned as much as a glance from the authorities during the entire mêlée.

  Sam has his Mossberg by 5:35 p.m. Shango has my money fifteen minutes later. Reuben Goren has a concussion and a cake of shit in his pants. And by five to the hour, Winston will be handing me my tickets.

  I am smiling on the inside as I turn onto Madison, anticipating the surprise I’ll find on Jenna’s dark and lovely face. It’s the last house on the left at the end of the block. She lives with a thirty-eight-year-old man who still rents. Tsk tsk.

  But then I notice the taxicab in front of the rented residence they share, the place she moved into to remind me of my past transgressions. Perhaps he’s heading into the city to buy some testicles, or maybe a rug for that hairline that keeps going back. Then I see that he’s carrying bags. And she’s right behind him, holding what appears to be a pair of plane tickets.

  That’s when I know that the trip to Brazil begins today. The whole “next month” thing was a screen of smoke to throw me off. She knows me so well. She still knows how to make me suffer.

  Another rock rolled up that long steep hill, another show of cunning and strength, before I stumble and fall, bouncing all the way back to the beginning. Jenna and I are the only loop I can’t escape, the only checkmate that always evades me. She is like the sound Coltrane chased in his dreams, never to be had, never to be held, never to be won, in a season of games that lasts forever.

  ONE MORE FOR THE ROAD

  BY ROBERT KNIGHTLY

  Greenpoint

  Officer David Lodge stumbles when he attempts to enter the blue and white patrol car triple-parked in front of the 94th Precinct, dropping first to one knee, then to the seat of his pants. His nightstick, which he forgot to remove from the ring attached to his belt, is the most immediate cause of his fall. When it jammed between the door and the frame, Lodge had one leg in the vehicle with the other just coming up. From that point, there was nowhere to go but down.

  Lodge ignores the guffaws of his colleagues, the eleven other cops of the midnight-to-eight tour, the adrenalin pumping as they mount up to ride out to patrol their assigned sectors. For a moment, as he struggles to gather himself, he stares at a full moon hanging over Meserole Avenue. He wonders if the moon’s bloated appearance is due to the brown haze and drenching humidity trapped in the atmosphere. Or if it’s just that his eyes won’t focus because he passed the hours prior to his tour at the local cop bar, the B & G, just a few doors down from the precinct. Lodge has reached that stage of inebriation characterized by powerful emotions and he stares at the moon as if prepared to cradle it in his arms, to embrace a truth he is certain it embodies.

  “Yo, spaceman, you comin’ or what?”

  The voice belongs to Lodge’s partner, Dante Russo. Lodge works his way to his feet, then yanks his nightstick free before getting into the car. He is about to address his partner, to offer a halfhearted apology, when the radio crackles to life.

  “Nine-four George, K?”

  Russo fires up the engine, shifts into gear, and pulls away. “That’s us, Dave,” he reminds his partner.

  Lodge brings the microphone to his mouth. “Nine-four George, Central.”

  “George, we have a 10–54 sick at one-three-seven South 4th Street. See the man. A woman unconscious in the hallway.”

  “That’s in Boy’s sector, Central.”

  “Nine-four Boy is on another job, K.”

  “Ten-four, Central.”

  Russo proceeds down Metropolitan Avenue at trolling speed, passing beneath the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, before turning onto Morgan Avenue. The job on South 4th Street is now far behind them.

  “Where we goin’, Dante?” Lodge adjusts the louvers on the air-conditioning vents, directing the flow to his crotch. “The job’s in the other direction.”

  “We’re goin’ where we always go.”

  “Acme Cake? You serious?”

  Lodge steals a glance at his partner when his questions go unanswered. Dante’s thin nose is in the air, his jaw thrust forward, his lips pinched into a thin, disapproving line.

  Not for the first time, Lodge feels an urge to drive his fist into that chin, to flatten that nose, to bloody that mouth. Instead, he settles his weight against the backrest and faces the truth. Without Dante Russo, David Lodge wouldn’t make it through his tours, not since he started having black-outs. Nobody else will work with him, he knows. Shitkicker is what they call him. As in, You hear what the shitkicker did last night?

  “What about the job?” he finally says. “What do I tell Central if they wanna know where we are?”

  Russo sighs, another irritating habit. “C’mon, Dave, wise up. We both know it’s gonna be some junkie so overdosed her buddies dumped her in the lobby like yesterday’s garbage. Now maybe you wanna go mouth-to-mouth, suck up that good HIV spit, but me, I’m gonna let the paramedics worry about catchin’ a dreaded disease. They got a better health plan.”

  * * *

  When Lodge and Russo finally roll up on the scene twenty minutes later, two Fire Department paramedics are loading a gurney into an ambulance. A woman strapped to the gurney attempts to sit up, despite the restraints.

  “You see what I’m sayin’?” Dante Russo washes down the last of his frosted donut with the last of his coffee. “Things worked out all right. No harm, no foul.”

  * * *

  Three hours later, Russo breaks a long silence with an appreciative whistle. “Well, lookee here, just the man I want to see.”

  Lodge brings a soda bottle to his mouth and takes a quick sip. The one-to-one mix of 7-UP and vodka lifts his spirits. He is on the verge of a blackout now, and predictably reckless.

  “What’s up?”

  “The Beemer.” Russo jerks his chin at a white BMW trimmed with gold chrome, stopped for the light at the intersection of Metropolitan and Kingsland Avenues.

  “What about it?”

  “That’s our boy.”

  “What boy?”

  Russo pauses long enough to make his annoyance clear. “That there car belongs to Mr. Clarence Spott.”

  “Who?”

  “Spott’s picture is hangin’ in the muster room. He’s one of the bad guys.” Dante’s mouth expands into a humorless smile. “Whatta ya say we bust his balls a little?”

  “Fine by me.”

  When Russo momentarily lights up the roof rack and
the BMW pulls to the curb, both cops immediately leave their car. They are on Metropolitan Avenue, a main commercial street in the northside section of Greenpoint. The small retail stores lining both sides of the avenue are long closed, their gates down and padlocked, but several men stand in front of an after-hours club across the street. David Lodge stares at the men till they turn away, then he joins Russo who stands a few feet from the BMW’s open window. Lodge knows he should approach the vehicle from the passenger side, that his job here is to cover his partner on the driver’s side. But David Lodge has never been a by-the-book officer, far from it, and knowing his partner won’t object, he settles down to enjoy the show.

  “Why you stoppin’ me, man?” Clarence Spott’s full mouth is twisted into a pained grimace. “I ain’t done nothin’.”

  “Step outa the car,” Russo orders. “And that’s officer, not man.”

  “I ain’t goin’ no place till I find out why you stopped me. This here is racial profilin’. It’s unconstitutional.”

  Russo slaps his nightstick against the palm of his hand. “Clarence, you don’t come out, and I mean right this fuckin’ minute, I’m gonna crack your windshield.”

  The door opens and Spott emerges. A short, heavily muscled black man, his expression—eyes wide, brows raised, big mouth already moving—reeks of outrage. Lodge can smell the stink from where he stands. And it’s not as if Spott, who keeps his hands in view at all times, isn’t familiar with the rules of the game. There’s just something in him that doesn’t know when to shut up.

  “Ah’m still axin’ the same question. Why you pull me over when I’m drivin’ down a public street, mindin’ my own damn business?”

  Russo ignores the inquiry. “I want you to put your hands on top of the vehicle and spread your legs. I want you to do it right now.”

  Spott finally crosses the line, as Lodge knew he would, by adding the word pig to his next sentence. Lodge slaps him in the face, a mild reprimand from Lodge’s point of view, but Spott sees it differently. His eyes close for a moment as he draws a long breath through his nose. Then he uncoils, quick as a snake, and drives his fist into the left side of David Lodge’s face.

  Taken by surprise, Lodge staggers backward, leaving Spott to Dante Russo, who assumes a two-handed grip on his nightstick before cracking it into Spott’s unprotected shins. When Spott drops to his knees on the pavement, Russo slides the nightstick beneath his throat and pulls back, choking off a howl of pain.

  “How you wanna do this, Clarence? Easy or hard?”

  As Spott cannot speak, he indicates compliance by going limp and crossing his hands behind his back.

  Russo eases up slightly, then pushes Spott forward onto his chest. “You all right?” he asks his partner.

  “Never better.”

  David Lodge brings his hand to the blood running from a deep cut along his cheekbone. Suddenly, he feels sharp, even purposeful. As he watches his partner cuff and search the prisoner before loading him into the backseat, he thinks, Okay, this is where it gets good. His hand goes almost of itself to the soda bottle stuffed beneath the seat when he enters the vehicle. He barely tastes the vodka as it slides down his throat.

  “You got any particular place in mind?” his partner asks as he shifts the patrol car into gear.

  “Not as long as it’s private. One thing I hate, it’s bein’ interrupted when I’m on a roll.”

  * * *

  Lieutenant Justin Whitlock sets the precinct log aside when David Lodge and Dante Russo lead Clarence Spott into the nine-four. Both sides of Spott’s face are bruised and he leans to the left with his arm pressed to his ribs. His right eye, already crusting, is swollen shut.

  Whitlock is seated at a desk behind a wooden railing that runs across the nine-four’s reception area. He glances from the prisoner to Russo, then notices the blood on David Lodge’s face and Lodge’s blood-soaked collar.

  “That your blood, Lodge?”

  “Yeah. The mutt caught me a good one and we hadda subdue him.”

  Whitlock nods twice. The injury is something he can work with.

  “I want you to go over to the emergency room at Wyckoff Heights and have that wound sewn up. Count the stitches and make sure you obtain a copy of the medical report. Better yet, insist that a micro-surgeon do the job. Tell ’em you don’t wanna spoil your good looks.”

  “What about the paperwork on the arrest, loo? Shouldn’t I get started?”

  “No, secure the prisoner, then get your ass over to Wyckoff. Your partner will handle the paperwork.” Whitlock’s expression softens as he turns to Russo. “How ’bout you, Dante? You hurt?”

  Russo flicks out a left jab. “Not me, loo, I’m too quick.”

  Whitlock glances at the prisoner. “I see.” When Russo fails to respond, he continues. “Did the mutt use a weapon?”

  “Yeah, loo, that ring. That’s what cut Dave’s cheek.” Russo lifts Spott’s right hand to display a pinkie ring with a single large diamond at its center. “You know what woulda happened if Dave had gotten hit in the eye?”

  “He’d be out on the street with a cane.” Whitlock’s smile broadens. He and Russo are on the same track. “Charge the hump with aggravated assault on a police officer. That should keep the asshole busy. And make sure you take that ring. That ring is evidence.”

  Spott finally speaks up. “I wanna call my lawyer,” he mumbles through swollen lips.

  “What’d he say?” Whitlock asks.

  “I think he said something about your mother, lieutenant,” Russo declares. “And it wasn’t complimentary.”

  Russo leads Spott through a gate in the railing, then shoves him toward the cells at the rear of the building. “Hi ho, hi ho,” he sings, “it’s off to jail we go.”

  Smiling at his partner’s cop humor, David Lodge trails behind.

  * * *

  Five minutes later, Dante Russo emerges to announce, “The prisoner is secure and Officer Lodge is off to the hospital.”

  “You think he’s sober enough to find his way?”

  Russo starts to defend his partner, then suddenly changes tack with a shrug of his shoulders. “Dave’s out of control,” he admits. “If I wasn’t there tonight, who knows what would’ve happened. I mean, I been tryin’ to straighten the guy out, but he just won’t listen.”

  “I coulda told you that when you took him on as your partner.”

  “What was I supposed to do? When I was told that nobody wanted to work with him? I’m the PBA delegate, remember? Helping cops in trouble is part of my job.”

  From David Lodge, the conversation drifts for a bit, finally settling on the precinct commander, Captain Joe Hagerty. Crime is up in the precinct for the second straight year and Hagerty is on the way out. Though his replacement has yet to be named, the veterans fear a wholesale shake-up. Dante Russo, of course, at age twenty-five, is far from a veteran. But he’s definitely a rising star within the cop union, the Patrolman’s Benevolent Association, a rising star with serious connections. Dante’s uncle is the trustee for Brooklyn North and sits on the PBA’s Board of Directors.

  They are still at it thirty minutes later when Officers Daryl Johnson and Hector Arias waltz an adolescent prisoner into the building. Dwarfed by the two cops, the boy is weeping.

  “He done the crime,” Arias observes, “but he don’t wanna do the time.”

  “Found him comin’ out a window of the Sung Ri ware-house on Gratton Street,” Daryl Johnson adds. “He had this TV in his arms, the thing was bigger than he was.” Johnson gives his prisoner an affectionate cuff on the back of the head. “What were ya gonna do, jerk, carry it all the way back to the projects?”

  “Put him in a cell,” Whitlock says, “and notify the detectives. They’ll wanna talk to him in the morning.”

  “Ten-four, loo.”

  Within seconds, Daryl Johnson returns. Johnson is a short, overweight black man long renowned for his deadpan expression. This time, however, his heavy jowls are lifted by an extensi
on of his lips unrelated to a smile. “That mope locked up back there? I mean, it’s none of my business, but who does he belong to?”

  “Me,” Russo responds. “Why?”

  “Because he’s dead is why. Because somebody caved in his fucking skull.”

  * * *

  The evidence implicating David Lodge in the death of Clarence Spott is compelling, as Ted Savio explains in the course of a fateful meeting on Rikers Island several months later. Ted Savio is Lodge’s attorney, provided gratis by the PBA.

  Although Savio’s advice is perfectly reasonable, Lodge is nevertheless reluctant to accept it. Lodge has been ninety days without a drink and the ordeal of cold turkey withdrawal has produced in him a nearly feral sense of caution. Alone in his cell day after day, he has become as untrusting as an animal caught in a snare. At times, especially at night, the urge to escape the inescapable pushes him to the brink of uncontrolled panic. At other times, he drops into a black hole of despair that leaves him barely able to respond to the demands of his keepers.

  “You gotta face the facts here, Dave,” Savio patiently explains, “which, I note, are lined up against you. You can’t even account for your movements.”

  “I had a blackout. It wasn’t the first time.”

  “You say that like you maybe lost your concentration for a minute. Meanwhile, they found you passed out in the basement. Holding a bottle in your hands.”

  “I knew that’s where it was kept,” Lodge admits. “But just because I was drunk doesn’t mean I killed Spott.”

  “You had the victim’s blood on your uniform and your blood was found on the victim.”

  “That could’ve happened when we subdued the mutt.”

  “We?”

  “Me and my partner.”

 

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