Like they read my mind, two uniforms busted in through the office doors with a rather annoyed man handcuffed behind his back. He was rattling off something about a phone call and a lawyer and police brutality when they shoved him into the chair next to my desk.
“Mornin’ boys, I see you brought me a present.”
“Good morning, Detective,” answered the older cop with a gruff voice. “Yeah, Christmas is come early for ya this year. You take him from here?”
“I got him,” I said, and thanked the officers. They left without another word. The guy in the chair started rapping again, and when he didn’t stop talking after I asked him nicely, I pulled the billy club out of my desk and smacked it on the edge of his chair, making him jump like a scared kid.
“Cut the comedy, yo yo. You’ll get your phone call soon enough.” Finally, he was quiet. I took a form out of my desk drawer and fed it through the typewriter.
“Name?”
“Screw you copper.”
“Name?”
“Up yours.”
“Now look, we both know your name isn’t Up, is it Mr. Yours?”
“Now who’s the comedian?” he replied with an oily sneer. He was right, enough playing.
“Listen, Johnny,” I said to him, and he seemed surprised I knew his name. “Johnny, there’s two things that can happen here today. You can play nice, answer my questions, and eventually leave here with all your teeth still in your mouth. Or, you can be a smart ass, and leave here with your teeth in your pocket. Really, makes no difference to me, but it would be faster if you just answer the questions.”
“You know my name, why you askin’ me?”
“Protocall. Now, Name?”
“Johnny Princeton.”
“Good. Address?” I asked as I banged out his name on the keys.
“Four-thirteen West Eighty-third.”
“Supplier?”
“Hey, wait a minute,” he said, annoyed, “What is this? You can’t ask me questions like that! I want my phone call! Who’s in charge here?”
Almost as he said it, Captain Waters appeared behind me.
“I am punk. What’s your beef?”
“I want my phone call, flatfoot,” said the man in the steel cufflinks.
The Captain made no change of expression, except for the most minute twitch in his left eye. “Detective Riggins, why don’t you show the gentleman to the interrogation area, then please see me before proceeding.” With that, Captain Waters gracefully walked back to his office and shut the door.
“Interrogation room? What about my phone call?” Princeton whined.
“Phones are down. We forgot to pay the bill. Let’s go.”
I yanked him up by the arm and took him through the back door, down the stairs to Interrogation Room B, the one where the walls were so thick, you couldn’t hear a thing coming from inside. I locked him in and made my way back to the Captain’s office. I had a sick feeling I knew what he was going to say. At the same time, a little bit of a thrill ran through me. Maybe I was the sick one.
“You’ve been tailing Princeton for six months. Got anything on him worth our time?” the Captain asked as I entered the office. His overheads were out; the only light came from a dim desk lamp with a brown-stained shade.
“I know he’s supplying half the Village with H. Sells reefer to high school kids. At least one junkie died from his stuff.”
“Which one?”
It was hard for me to say it. “Toots Freeman. The horn player.” It hurt to say because he was a damned good bugle boy, dead at twenty-three with a needle in his arm.
“Got anything that can stick?”
“Not really. Witnesses won’t talk. They’re too scared. Uniforms caught him making a drop this morning. We can get him on possession, but not much else.”
“So why all the bother?” The Captain asked. He already knew the answer; he just wanted to hear it come from my jaw.
“He’s not as small potatoes as he would lead us to believe. He’s got connections – big connections. If we get him to talk, we can go after the big guys.” You know, the usual.
“He won’t talk. He’s smart enough to know you can’t pin anything on him. There’s only one way to get a little prick like that to squeal.”
“I thought you’d say that, Captain. He’s already in B.”
“Take LaRue with you. And try to keep him quiet.”
I nodded and turned to leave.
“Oh, and Riggins?”
“Yes sir?”
“Don’t go too far this time. Got it?”
“How far should I go, Captain?”
“Keep him alive.”
“Got it.”
Ten minutes later my hands were starting to ache from bashing Princeton’s face in with my fists. LaRue played the good cop well; he gave Princeton ice for his face, water and a towel. Then I’d smack the water out of his hands, wrap the towel around his neck and pull it until he almost choked out. I didn’t particularly like this detail; in fact I’d only had to do it twice before, once on a juiced-up punk that was going around carving up old ladies with a switchblade, the other time on a middle-aged man who had a thing for thirteen- year old girls, even if they didn’t have a thing for him. This time was a little different; Princeton hadn’t directly hurt anyone. Then I thought about high school kids getting their hands on reefer before they were old enough to make an intelligent choice about it, getting strung along for a good time, until a couple of years later when he’d turn them on to opium, or hash, or heroin. Then I thought about the last couple of weeks, a rough couple of weeks, with three junkies dead, two OD’d and one who jumped off his roof thinking he could fly. My right fist smashed his nose dead-on; blood gushed from the broken mass and he cried.
“Tell us who your supplier is, or so help me God I’ll take your head off!” I screamed at him through his sobs.
“I can’t, I ca…can’t, they’ll kill me.”
“I’ll kill you if you don’t talk soon.”
“You…you can’t kill me, you’re the cops, man! You ain’t supposed to…” Before he could finish I grabbed the billy off the floor, and swung it hard, aiming right for his face. He screamed; LaRue jumped to his feet ready to stop me, knowing the blow could crush his facial bones and pierce his brain. But I had no intention of killing Princeton. I stopped just short of his face.
“Don’t tempt me, punk. I’ve done it before. I’ll lay you out and put a blade in your hand, make it look like the uniforms missed it when they frisked ya. Don’t believe me?” I raised the club.
“I believe you!” He screamed, and blood shot out of his mouth.
LaRue stepped in. “Johnny, just tell us who your man is. If you want, we can set you up somewhere where no one will find you. We can help you get a job, live a respectable life. Get away from all this junk. Just give us the name.”
“Copper,” he said, weeping, “I believe him more that he’ll kill me than I believe you’ll give me a new name and a job. So can it, ok? The guy’s name is DeFalco. Lenny DeFalco. He works for the…”
“We know who he works for,” came a voice from behind. Funny thing, when you’re in the moment, when your adrenaline is pumping and you’re focused on one goal, it’s hard to hear a door open. I turned around and saw Captain Waters, a very sad look on his face, standing next to none other than Mayoral candidate Tolaski. Oh, guess I forgot to mention it…he was an Assistant District Attorney.
Damn.
+++
An hour later I was sitting in the Captain’s office, alone, listening to some non-descript big band blaring out the Jersey Bounce way too fast and way too loud. Generally the Captain didn’t like anyone touching his radio, but the soup I was in now was so thick and so hot I honestly believe I could have jumped up and down on the damned thing and not made things any worse. I smoked as I sat, the minutes ticking by; when I smoked through a half a deck of Camels, the Captain walked in and shut the door.
“Well, fine pickle we’
re in this morning,” was all he said as he sat in his over-stuffed red leather chair, the kind of chair reserved for Captains and Mayors and guys like that. “Fine pickle.”
“What’s this ‘we’ stuff?” I said somewhat belligerently. I didn’t care much for niceties at the moment. He knew and I knew the score – the D.A. saw me beat the guy to a pulp. Not the Captain. All Waters had to say was the obvious: he didn’t condone brutality, and had no idea I was going to turn the creep into a punching bag.
“What I mean, Detective,” he said rather snottily, “Is that the D.A. is pissed to boiling. He’s on a rampage against our use of force. The dumbass believes he can fight crime in this city by turning the cops into a bunch of well-wishing choir boys, and he could very easily use this little incident as an example.”
“No shit,” was all I said, not regretting the curse.
“No, none at all.” The Captain paused; he was deep in thought now, a million miles away, his eyes fixed on a point in space far behind me. I lit another Camel and sat back.
“Detective,” he started, slowly, “You’ve been on the force for, in one capacity or another, more than ten years. Your father was a damned good cop for almost thirty. You’re one of the youngest men to make Detective in the history of New York, and your record, though flawed, speaks for itself.” He paused, I waited. “What you did to Princeton may not have been official police business, but I gave the order. I’m a part of this as much as you are, and I won’t let a good man like you get pummeled by that arrogant Tolaski so he can get votes. If you go down, I’m coming with you.”
That took me by surprise. I knew the Captain was a man of honor, of his word, even if he too were flawed, but I never expected him to stand on principal to the point of his own ruin. I wasn’t sure what to say. I thought about it, carefully.
“Captain, how much trouble can Tolaski make for us? I mean, really, what can he do? Charges? Dismissal? Smear story in the paper?”
“He can do all of that. But he won’t. I’ve cut a deal.”
A deal? I thought. What was going on here…since when did Captain Waters start dealing with politicians?
“I don’t understand, Captain,” was all I managed to say.
“It’s a new world, Will,” he answered; he always called me ‘Will’ when he was deadly serious. He’d called me Will when I was a kid, before I started going by Riggins. He called me Will when he told me my old man had been killed by a junkie. “It’s a new world, with new rules. Men like Tolaski are using tactics in place of brute force. He’ll turn this little incident into a crusade to get votes, to give him more power so he can enact his own form of corruption. He’ll funnel money earmarked for fighting crime into welfare and urban renewal projects…of which he’ll get some hefty kickbacks, on the taxpayer’s nickel. But the wonderful thing about this new world, my boy, is that anyone can play.” An evil, scary grin stretched across his aged face, giving him the countenance of some demonic cartoon. I didn’t recognize him at all in that instance. And I was sure as hell glad he was on my side. Then it clicked.
“You have something on him, don’t you. You have dirt on the D.A.” I said, soft and cool.
“Not something. Many things. He’s a dirty man, Will, like all the rest of the politicians. For starters, he has a mistress in the Village. He’s got ties to union bosses, many of them with connections to the mob, of course. And he’s got a secret little corporation, under an alias, that supplies office paper to three of the top construction companies in the city. Funny, how a ream of typewriter paper can cost $450, isn’t it?”
“The kickbacks,” I said, not surprised one bit.
“That’s right. The kickbacks.” The Captain got up from his chair, walked across the room and poured himself a coffee from his private pot. He took a long sip, then poured a second cup and returned to his desk. Without a word he produced a bottle of Dewar’s White Label from his desk, poured a shot into each of the cups, and handed one to me.
Normally I wouldn’t use Dewar’s for anything except to strip the varnish off my wood floors, but at the moment I didn’t really care if he were handing me Sterno with an olive. “Thanks, I could certainly use it right now.”
“It’s not to calm you down, kiddo, it’s a celebratory drink. To the system,” he said, raising his cup, “May it always work to our advantage.” We clinked and drank. He let out a heavy sigh, and spoke again, a little more quickly this time. “Tolaski will keep his mouth shut. None of this will ever be brought up again. In return, we promise to minimize our use of force, except in extreme circumstances. To placate his mainly false sense of morality, he insisted you get at least a suspension without pay. It was at that point I mentioned the name of his mistress in the Village, and the final outcome was that you get to take a two-week vacation, paid, in order to help relieve the stress of working so hard for so long. Acceptable?”
Acceptable? It was freaking fantastic.
“What about the case? What about Princeton?”
“Don’t worry about Princeton. He talked. We’ll follow up the leads. By the time you get back, we should be ready to move, with you back at the helm.”
“What about Princeton’s safety? LaRue promised him we’d protect him.”
“Do you want him to have protection?” Funny thing was, I did. I had always believed that people could change, if they really wanted to. If they weren’t too far gone.
“He at least deserves a shot at a new life. We owe him that much, I think.”
The Captain looked at me strangely, as if he never considered me to have any compassion for the dregs. “I’ll make the arrangements. But he gets one chance only.”
“That’s all he deserves, that’s all he gets. Now what about LaRue?”
“I was wondering when you would ask. He’s in the clear. He’ll be taking over the investigation in your absence.”
“Good,” I said, “I feel better already.”
For once I wasn’t being sarcastic.
+++
An official memo went out to the boys who needed to know: I was taking a two week vacation, effective tomorrow, a little R&R to alleviate the stress this case had brought down on me (citing how close it was to the case that inevitably killed my old man.) The boys in Vice shook my hand, wished me well and told me to hurry up and get back so we could kick some keesters; LaRue went over the case files with me and told me not to worry, he’d have everything nice and neat for me when I got back. A swell bunch, those guys. Not one of them offered to take me out for a drink.
I called Fast Freddie and told her to meet me in front of the station at two-thirty. No point in sitting around here all day, I figured. The black cab pulled up in front of me at 2:29:50 on the dot.
“You’re early,” I said as I climbed in the back.
“By what, ten seconds?” she shot back. The chick was uncanny. “What’s the score, Riggins? You never need to hitch in the middle of the bright. You always use a squad car to do your daytime snooping. So what gives?”
“I got into a little trouble, nothing big, but I get to take a two-week vacation courtesy of the state, starting now.”
She turned around, a look of surprise and worry on her face. Damn, what a beautiful face. Shame it was always pointing away from me. “You got sent up? Suspended?”
“Not exactly,” I said. She didn’t need to know the details. “Two weeks with pay, officially a vacation to relieve stress.” Dirty thoughts of Freddie relieving some stress entered my mind, and I shook them off quick. She didn’t say anything, kept looking at me, wanting more info. I had to give her something, so I said, “Crooked politician caught me putting the chops to a pusher, and tried to make a big deal out of it. Captain Waters saved my ass. Now I get to take it easy for a while. No big deal, really. Everything is cool as a cucumber.”
“I’m hip,” she said back, turned around and pulled the Checker out into traffic, the custom Continental engine and twin pipes roaring like a hot rod. “So since you’re on leave, how about some
tunes?” Before I could answer she had the radio turned up, with Chuck Berry rockin’ it up through the dashboard speaker.
“Don’t you even want to know where I’m heading?” I said above the twang of the guitar.
“Jerry’s Bar and Grill, and I’m buying,” she said, and hit the gas harder. That was all right with me.
We sat at the bar at Jerry’s, far from the TV so we didn’t have to hear the noise. Jerry, the owner/bartender, had been a pretty good friend of mine now for about two years, ever since I moved into the building across from the bar. And I don’t just mean bartender-customer buddies; we went to ball games together, hung out watching the tube and even went on a couple of double dates. I still had to pay for my drinks though, so having Freddie pay the tab (and therefore getting back some of my hard-earned money I forked over to her every week) sounded like a nice way to start my vacation.
“Hey Riggins, hello Freddie,” he said with his typical half smile, half tough-guy look. “The usuals?”
“Too early for the hard stuff, Jerry,” Freddie said, “Just a beer for me. In a glass, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t. How about you, Riggins? Hair of the dog?”
“Yeah, set me up with my buddy Jack and a beer chaser. I’m on vacation.”
“Vacation?” he asked fast, as if I’d never taken one before. Well, come to think of it, it had been a while.
Murder on Tiki Island: A Noir Paranormal Mystery In The Florida Keys (Detective Bill Riggins Mysteries) Page 2