House Reckoning: A Joe DeMarco Thriller

by Mike Lawson

  Joe had said, “What did you do, Dad? Are you okay?” Gino whipped around, surprised to see him there, and said, “Go back to bed, Joe. Right now.” That’s all he’d said but he looked ashamed—like Joe had caught him doing something wrong. He’d never seen a look like that on his father’s face before. For days afterward, his father barely spoke to him and his mother, and Joe never saw the shirt again although he knew it had been one of his dad’s favorites and his mom could have washed out the blood.

  He remembered, too, the times when his father seemed to throw himself into chores around the house, as if he was trying to drive out his demons by working himself to a state of exhaustion. One time he replaced the entire drainage system around the house, replacing all the pipes that led from the downspouts to a dry well in the backyard, and he dug the trenches by hand when he could have rented a machine. It was like he wanted to work with a pick and shovel so it would take longer to finish the job. When Joe had asked his mother why his dad was replacing all the pipes, his mom had snapped at him and said: “Don’t ask. Go do your homework.”

  Joe had created a fantasy for himself when he was a kid. He’d convinced himself that his dad was nothing more than Carmine Taliaferro’s protector and that he’d never been involved in the truly criminal things that Carmine had been accused of doing. He now knew that what he’d been trying to do was reconcile in his own mind how a person he admired so deeply could have been something less than admirable.

  None of this, however, changed DeMarco’s feelings for his father. He still loved and missed the man. He could still remember the way Gino’s eyes used to light up when he saw Joe after they’d been apart for a while. But he’d come to accept that Gino had been the man Lynch said he was, and so although he never stopped loving him, he quit pushing the cops to find Gino’s killer and moved on with his life.

  Now things were different. Now he knew his father’s death had been an act of treachery engineered by his own employer. And more important than Carmine’s duplicity, the man who’d killed his dad wasn’t some common mafia hood. Brian Quinn was a cop who had reached the pinnacle of his profession because of the way he had supposedly dedicated his life to the law. Joe couldn’t accept that the man who ran the most celebrated police force in the country was as much of a criminal as his father had been.

  On the other hand, he couldn’t figure out what he could possibly do to make Quinn pay for his crimes. He had no intention of doing what Tony had said: there was no way he was going to kill Brian Quinn. He knew if did he’d most likely end up in jail, and he wasn’t willing to sacrifice his own life to avenge his father’s death.

  The other thing was, Joe didn’t know if he could kill Quinn. He’d killed while working for John Mahoney, but those had been acts of self-defense, not cold-blooded murder. He’d never executed anyone. He also knew, however, that the likelihood of Quinn being convicted for his father’s murder was practically zero. It had all happened too long ago, and based on what Tony had told him, the only person who could possibly testify against Quinn was Carmine Taliaferro, who was now rotting in a grave.

  So DeMarco had two choices: either do nothing or figure out a way to destroy Brian Quinn’s life—and doing nothing was intolerable.

  DeMarco took a cab to One Police Plaza, where the commissioner of the NYPD had his office. He didn’t go into the building, however. In fact, he wasn’t even sure why he went to 1PP other than a desire to see Quinn. He just wanted to put his eyeballs on the guy.

  He found a coffee shop where he could see the entryway to 1PP, not having a clue if Quinn was in the building and, if he was, if he would even leave by the front entrance. While he waited, he took out his phone and went online to learn more about the man.

  Being a New Yorker, DeMarco knew that NYPD commissioners ran the gamut from the despicable to the extraordinary. President Theodore Roosevelt had once been the leader of New York’s finest. A number had been blatantly corrupt, the most recent example being Quinn’s predecessor, who had been indicted on sixteen federal counts and sentenced to four years in prison.

  Quinn, at least according to Wikipedia and the New York Times, had been an exceptional cop: he’d busted high-profile criminals, received multiple commendations for valor and outstanding acts of public service. He was given credit—at least by the Times—for reducing violent crimes in all five boroughs and was reported to be progressive, innovative, and completely intolerant of any corruption within his ranks. His greatest achievement was building an extremely competent, high-tech antiterrorism division that he claimed was better than anything the federal government had.

  The final thing DeMarco learned in his Internet wanderings was that Quinn was speaking that afternoon at a symposium on counterterrorism at Columbia University; cops from around the globe were attending the event.

  DeMarco tried to get inside the auditorium to hear Quinn speak, but was informed that the event wasn’t open to the general public. Maybe the organizers were worried about terrorists showing up to get some insight into how the cops would eventually catch them. To attend the lecture, you had to be in law enforcement, politics, or journalism, and attendees had to register in advance.

  DeMarco, having no better idea what to do, decided to hang around outside the building where Quinn was giving his speech; an hour later he was rewarded for his patience when he saw Quinn leave the building in the company of his security people. Quinn hopped into a black SUV illegally parked at the curb and took off, and DeMarco got lucky, caught a passing cab, and followed Quinn to the Carlyle hotel.

  DeMarco took a seat at the long black granite bar in the Carlyle. He could see Quinn and another man seated in a chocolate-colored leather banquette thirty feet away. The other man was the president’s chief of staff, a political warhorse who had been trampling other politicians with his big hoofs for thirty years. DeMarco had no idea why the president’s chief was in New York talking to Quinn. Sitting two tables away from Quinn was his security detail, two guys in suits built like light heavyweights. They made no attempt to conceal the pistols they carried in shoulder holsters.

  Quinn was tall and lean—he looked like a man who jogged every day—and although DeMarco knew Quinn was only a couple years older than him, Quinn’s hair was completely gray. He had a handsome, rugged profile and his gray hair made him look distinguished and older than he was; it wasn’t hard to imagine him commanding the largest, most renowned police department in the country.

  But now what? How could he possibly destroy a man who had after-work drinks with the president’s right-hand man?

  Half an hour later, DeMarco decided that not only was he wasting his time watching Quinn, but the urge to do something stupid—like walk over and confront Quinn and maybe smash a fist into his arrogant face—was becoming overwhelming. It was time to leave.

  As he was leaving he glanced over at Quinn again and this time Quinn noticed him and they briefly made eye contact. It may have been DeMarco’s imagination but he thought Quinn looked startled, as if he recognized DeMarco. Or as if he were seeing a ghost.

  17

  DeMarco spent the night at his mother’s place in Queens, sleeping in the room where he’d slept as a boy. Trophies from athletic events and framed certificates earned for minor achievements when he was a kid were no longer proudly displayed in the room; knowing his mom, those objects were carefully packed away in a box in the attic. He had no doubt she’d saved the trophies. The only thing that remained in the bedroom from when he was young was a picture of him and his dad, on the nightstand next to the bed. In the photo, he was dressed in full catcher’s regalia—chest protector, shin guards, the mask tilted back on his head—and his father was standing beside him holding a baseball in the air. The day the picture had been taken, he’d just made the game-ending out, diving for a pop-up, and his dad was beaming like his son was the MVP in the World Series.

  He lied to his mom about why he was in New York, just saying that Mahoney had sent him up to see a guy. His mom didn’
t care; she was just glad to see her son. Her hair was completely gray now and thinning a bit, and her face had wrinkles appropriate to her age. Had she been able to afford it, Maureen DeMarco still wouldn’t have opted for a facelift or Botox. She thought people who did that sort of thing were silly and vain. She’d always been thin and now she seemed frail, but as far as DeMarco knew she was in perfect health. Her mom, DeMarco’s maternal grandmother, had lived to ninety-two and he wouldn’t be surprised if his mom lived at least that long.

  Financially, she was doing okay. She’d been worried how she was going to survive after Gino was killed but found out that her husband had a half-million-dollar life insurance policy and had been paying the premiums on the policy for years. Back in those days, half a million was a lot of money. When the claims adjuster read the articles in the New York Post claiming that Gino DeMarco had been a hit man for the mob, he initially refused to settle the claim because he said Gino had lied about his occupation. On the insurance forms, Gino had written that he was a “property manager”—the same lie his mother used to tell when people asked what her husband did for a living. The life insurance company had a change of heart when Carmine Taliaferro’s own lawyer paid the claims adjuster a visit, pointing out that numerous people would swear that Gino DeMarco had indeed been Taliaferro’s property manager and that Gino had never been convicted for a crime. Carmine, the heartless prick, must have figured that he owed Maureen DeMarco that much.

  After she collected from the insurance company, Maureen went to see his Aunt Connie and she steered his mother to an honest financial adviser, and between her investments and Social Security, Maureen DeMarco was doing okay. She was still living in the house that she and Gino lived in when they first got married, which she now owned outright. So his mom was doing all right. She never dated after his father died but she did charity work, helped out in a boutique during the Christmas season, and had friends at the church she still attended. She wasn’t lonely, but on the other hand, she didn’t seem particularly happy. But then, DeMarco could never remember her being all that happy. She was still, however, one of the best Italian cooks in Queens and DeMarco dined well that night.

  DeMarco did his best not to let his mother see that something was bothering him, and tried to keep the conversation on her and what she’d been doing. There was no way he was going to tell her about his discussion with Tony Benedetto. He asked about his Aunt Connie—as old as she was, she still had a boyfriend—and his mother asked, as she always did, who he was dating. They were both starting to believe that he would never give her a grandchild, and he could tell that bothered her more deeply than she was willing to admit. He claimed he was tired and went to bed early. He didn’t sleep. He spent the night thinking about how to destroy Brian Quinn.

  After Joe went to bed, Maureen DeMarco poured a glass of red wine—the last few years she’d started drinking a glass before she went to bed—and took a seat in the living room, in the recliner where Gino used to sit. She didn’t know why she’d kept the recliner all these years; she’d even had it reupholstered once. Normally, she watched the news before she went to bed, but not tonight. Tonight she did what Gino used to do: she just sat there in the dark.

  Something was bothering her son, she had no idea what, but something was weighing heavily on his mind. She didn’t think it was a woman. He usually told her when he was having girlfriend problems. It could be his job, of course. She knew from talking to Connie the kind of stuff he did for that devil, Mahoney. She’d told him he should find a normal job—he had a law degree, for crying out loud, and he must have met some people down in Washington by now who could steer him toward something decent—but every time she brought the subject up, he always said work was going fine and he liked what he did. He was still such a liar.

  She’d spent twenty-seven years with a man who wouldn’t talk to her and kept things from her, and although her son talked to her more than Gino used to, he was basically the same way. She didn’t understand it. Was Joe trying to protect her? Was he trying to keep her from worrying? Why couldn’t the DeMarco men understand that her not knowing was worse than anything they could possibly tell her.

  The next morning DeMarco rented a car and drove out to Long Island. Sal Anselmo worked at a Mazda dealership in Wantagh. DeMarco didn’t know what Anselmo had looked like when he was a thug working for Tony Benedetto and Carmine Taliaferro, but now he looked like . . . Hell, he looked like a used car salesman.

  Anselmo was five foot ten and packing thirty pounds too many. He had a perfect head of thick, dark hair that DeMarco was sure was a toupee, and his teeth were so white they were either false or had been dipped in bleach. He was wearing black loafers, black slacks, and a purple shirt with a matching purple tie. Imagine a Concord grape exposing its teeth as it strained to please.

  When DeMarco walked into Anselmo’s office, Anselmo rocked back in his chair and said, “Jesus.”

  Because DeMarco looked so much like his father, he was used to this reaction from people who had known his dad. He suspected Brian Quinn had noticed the resemblance when he saw DeMarco at the Carlyle.

  “I’m Joe DeMarco, Gino’s son,” DeMarco said.

  “Thank God,” Anselmo said. “For a minute there . . .”

  “Yeah, I get it. Tony Benedetto sent me.”

  DeMarco said that to simplify things. He figured telling Anselmo that he’d been sent by Benedetto was the easiest way to get Anselmo to cooperate.

  “You’re working for Tony? I thought he was retired.”

  “Not exactly. And I don’t have time to explain things to you.”

  “Well, I don’t know what you want, but let me tell you something. I’m completely legit now and no way am I going to get involved again with—”

  DeMarco cut him off. “You used to go out with a teacher named Janet something. She was your mistress and she saw a cop kill an unarmed man in an alley. She told you, and you told Tony. I want to know Janet’s last name and where she lives.”

  Anselmo didn’t say anything for a minute. “I don’t know. That was a long time ago and I’m not sure I feel like digging up the past.”

  “Sal, let me explain something to you. The mood I’m in right now, I’m about two seconds away from dragging you out from behind that desk and beating the shit out of you.”

  DeMarco knew what Anselmo was now thinking: he had no idea what Joe DeMarco did for a living, but he was probably figuring that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. All he knew for sure was that here was a guy who was a carbon copy of the deadliest killer he’d ever known.

  “Just take it easy,” Anselmo said. “I’ll tell you, but I don’t want this coming back at me. I’m still married and I don’t want my wife hearing about Janet. I also don’t want to get involved in whatever you and Tony are into.”

  DeMarco didn’t say that the only thing Tony was into was catching his next breath of air. He didn’t say anything. He just stared at Anselmo.

  “Anyway,” Anselmo said, “her last name is Costello. I haven’t seen her in ten years but last I heard, she was still teaching at a grade school in Queens.”

  Janet Costello might have been an attractive, sexy schoolteacher when Sal Anselmo was having an affair with her, but time had not been kind to her. One reason why, DeMarco suspected, was booze. He could smell the wine on her breath when she asked who he was and why he was knocking on her apartment door.

  She was short and dumpy looking—broad hips and swollen ankles—and, like her ex-boyfriend, a few pounds overweight. Her hair was a mousy brown color and fixed in a frizzy, unruly perm. It appeared as if someone had painted two bright red spots on her cheeks the size of silver dollars, but the color was due to broken veins, not rouge.

  DeMarco was willing to bet that she was the type of drunk who got through the school day by taking little nips from a bottle hidden in her purse and ingested breath mints continuously to disguise the odor. Once she got home at night, she probably went through a couple of bottles of ch
eap vino, whatever brand she could afford on a teacher’s salary. He also imagined she was still employed because she had tenure and because there were probably worse teachers in the New York City school system. God help those kids.

  “Ms. Costello, my name’s Joe DeMarco and I need to talk to you. This has to do with something you saw when you were dating Sal Anselmo.”

  “What?” she said. “Who’s Sal Anselmo?”

  “You know who he is. He was your boyfriend and after you saw Brian Quinn shoot an unarmed man, you called him. I know this because I’ve talked to Sal.”

  “That idiot,” she muttered. Then she asked, “Are you a cop?” Before DeMarco could answer, she said, “Look. I told you the last time Quinn sent people to lean on me, I wasn’t going to say anything.”

  What the hell?

  “No, I’m not a cop, Ms. Costello. I work for Congress and I’m investigating Quinn.”

  “Congress?”

  “Yeah.” DeMarco took out his ID and showed it her. “Can I come in and talk to you? Please.”

  The apartment was a small, cluttered, one bedroom affair. The furniture was mismatched, yard sale quality. Her TV set was an older model, a big, boxy thing, not one of the new flat screens. A few paperbacks in a low-standing bookcase were covered with a layer of dust.

  The jacket she’d worn that day was draped over a chair near a small table near her kitchen, and the kitchen was the size of a galley in a not-so-big boat. There was a dish on the table that had the smeared remains of her dinner and lying on the kitchen counter was the box the dinner came in: Salisbury Steak Lean Cuisine.

  She pointed him to a small couch and she took a seat at one of the two chairs near the dining room table. “I don’t know what Sal told you but—”

  “Ms. Costello, let me explain something to you. If you’re called to testify in court or in a congressional hearing and if you lie, you’ll be convicted of perjury and you’ll go to jail. Perjury’s a felony. I don’t know what the laws are in New York for teaching positions, but I imagine if you have a conviction you’ll lose your job. Now, will you tell me the truth? And maybe you’ll never be asked to testify and everything could end right here, but it won’t end here if you lie to me.”