“Club soda with a wedge of lime, please, Willie.”
“And for lunch?”
“A Cobb salad.”
“The same,” said Wit.
“Very good, gentlemen.”
Wit took a minute to look me over before saying another word. He did have a way of making me feel like a specimen under a microscope. For most of the rest of the world, he masked his electron beam beneath oodles of charm and tales of the rich and debauched. I guess I should have felt honored that he didn’t try to camouflage his inspecting me.
“Are you gonna wait till I squirm before you say something?”
“You’ve crossed the line, haven’t you?”
“You’re the second person to accuse me of that today. At least I knew what he was talking about, but what are you referring to?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“The dark-haired beauty.”
“No, Wit. I stepped up to the line, yeah, but I didn’t cross it.”
“There’s only trouble there, Moses.”
“So you’ve said. Right now, that’s the least of my worries. What have you found out?”
“Very little, actually. The silence surrounding the late Chief McDonald continues to astound me.”
“You said you’ve learned very little, but very little isn’t nothing.”
“Our Larry was not beloved,” he said.
“Ambitious men usually aren’t.”
“I suppose not. When people feel they’re being reduced to an exploitability quotient, I imagine they find it less than endearing. I have hit upon a number of sources willing to tell me this or that about how Chief McDonald screwed them or used them or walked on them. There’s no shortage of people griping about how Larry managed to get the bump to deputy chief and then over to chief of detectives, but no one’s talking about the suicide.”
“No one thinks it’s murder?”
“Why would they? There’s nothing to indicate it was anything other than suicide.”
“He didn’t leave a note,” I said rather feebly.
“Come, Moe, many, many people have taken the pipe and not left a note. There was a time not long after my grandson’s murder that I came very close to doing myself in. I had my neck in the noose and my feet on the stool. I didn’t leave a note.”
“But people would have known why. They would have understood it was grief over your grandson even without a note. Larry would have wanted people to know why.”
Wit opened his mouth to respond, but Willie came by with our drinks. He and Wit engaged in a second round of their patented banter before Willie politely excused himself. Wit and I clinked glasses, my host looking rather too hungrily at my Dewar’s. Discussing suicide and the murder of his grandson probably weren’t the best things for his continuing sobriety. Thankfully, I hadn’t ordered bourbon. The time had come for a change of subject.
“So Wit, in all your travels, you ever do a piece on organized crime?”
“I have had the occasion, but not in many years. Why do you ask, other than to change the subject?”
Not much escaped Wit.
“Frankie ‘Sticks and Stones’ Motta.”
“Quite a colorful moniker,” he said.
“Never heard of him, I guess. How about Tio ‘the Spider’ Anello?”
“Tio Anello, the man who had his arms in everything? Absolutely! He was the subject of one of my first pieces for Esquire back in the early ’70s. After Anello’s wife died, he started dating this society brat named Ceci Phelps Calvin. It doesn’t get any WASPier than that. Of course she was doing it to rub her parents’ faces in the shit. One
“Sounds like you liked the guy.”
“I’m not certain I had any great affection for the man. The Mafia holds no particular romance for me. However, I did respect Anello. He was very old school. And you realize how us Yale men feel about old-school types. He was never once arrested. Never sold anyone out. Avoided publicity like the plague. Moe, as foolish as it was, he really loved this girl, but he put a stop to their relationship before the ink was dry on the first newspaper story about their affair.
“And unlike Carlo Gambino, Anello had a serious no-drugs policy in his family. It’s the one thing he didn’t have a piece of. Gambino gave lip service to it and looked the other way while he shoved the drug money under his mattress. I know for a fact Anello had people in his own family seen to for selling drugs.”
“Seen to?” I teased. “Interesting turn of phrase.”
“Must I explain the facts of life to you, Moses?”
“No. But his no-drugs policy cost him in the end. Probably why he didn’t have the money or the troops to withstand the Russians moving in on him. The Red Mafia doesn’t have a no-drugs policy.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Stop it, Wit. You sound like the Spider’s campaign manager.”
“I’ll send you a copy of the piece.”
“I’d like that.”
Willie brought our salads and we were too busy stuffing our mouths with bits of bacon, chicken, and avocado to do much talking. But not a second had elapsed between the time his knife and fork hit Wit’s plate and he was back at it.
“You’ve piqued my curiosity, Moe. Why bring up Anello and this other fellow, Motta?”
“No reason, their names just came up in conversation. Larry’s ex and I had dinner the other night. I was hoping she might remember something, but it was sort of a waste.”
“Who was this Frankie ‘Sticks and Stones’ character?”
“Forget it, Wit.”
“Satisfy an old man’s curiosity, will you? I am paying for lunch, after all.”
“Capo in the Anello family. Real tough guy, hence the name. He did a stretch in federal prison and I haven’t heard about him in years. Apparently, him and Larry were tight when they were kids, but Larry never mentioned him to me.”
Wit rubbed his little gray beard and stared off into space. “And the dark-haired beauty, what of her?”
“Like I said, the line didn’t get crossed. Let’s drop it, okay?”
“Very well, my friend.”
“Thanks for the help.”
“Better to thank me for lunch. I’m afraid I wasn’t much help,” he said.
“Yes and no. Sometimes it’s what you don’t find that’s revealing. From the way Larry was acting and the things he said, I thought there might have been something going on recently that was the problem. But no, it’s definitely about the past.”
“What is?”
“Everything.”
I needed to clear my head. The weight of the case, of my lack of sleep, and of my flirtation with Melendez was getting to me. I felt like a fighter pilot pulling too many Gs, losing consciousness, the blood unable to feed my brain.
I started driving over to the Mistral Arms, then turned away. Rico would have no answers and being with him would only add to the weight. Seeing him now, his life in the world of crack whores, cigarette butts, and one-eyed cats, made things worse than when he was completely out of my life. The Rico Tripoli I had known was gone. The harder part to accept, I think, was that the Moe Prager he had known was gone too. You can always rebuild burned bridges, but not the people to cross over them.
I made my way toward Columbus Avenue, to City On The Vine, our first shop. I parked at a meter across the street, but couldn’t manage to get out of the car. I stared at the store. I’d had mixed feelings about the wine business way before I got into it. Like I said, the business was Aaron’s dream, a dream of redemption for our father’s failures, and of security and of a hundred other ingredients that didn’t belong to me. As I gazed through the rush of traffic at the store, I realized
Once I made the decision to move on, the paralysis was gone. I drove into Brooklyn across the Brooklyn Bridge, but instead of exiting onto the streets and going to talk with Klaus, I continued on the B.Q.E. to the Gowanus and finally onto the Belt Parkway. Even the thought of hanging with Klaus wasn’t enough to get me inside one of
our stores, not today. Halfway across the bridge, it began drizzling rain. Perfect! But the rain had stopped before I made it to Bay Parkway and I found I was pulling off the Belt at Stillwell Avenue.
Coney Island is a dirty, dark-hearted place, a place that once was and no longer is. Rain washes nothing but the good away in Coney Island. And when the weather drives the visitors back to their cars and subways, they take their happy memories with them. In their wake, only the truth of the place remains: the moldering garbage, the rusted and crumbling rides, empty arcades, and sideshow spielers pitching their rigged games to the crush of absent hordes. I looked up and noticed that the top of the Parachute Jump was lost in the low clouds that covered the beach. I knew just how that felt, to be lost that way.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I could see the future.
A few weeks from now I’d think about the circumstances surrounding Larry McDonald’s suicide or homicide or whatever-icide, and I’d put them away as if I were sliding a few singles change back into my wallet. How many times in my life had I been so completely preoccupied with something or someone that there wasn’t enough room in my head to think, in my heart to feel, in my lungs to breathe? Christ, if we could turn our preoccupations into occupations, we’d all be fat and happy.
And then there was Carmella Melendez. Was my obsession with her any different than with Andrea Cotter, my high school crush, or the ten other women whose paths I’d crossed in the course of my life and thought I could never be without? Now, I barely remembered some of their names or faces or why it was they so consumed me. No doubt, there’s something magical in obsession-a spark, the ultimate reminder of what it feels like to be alive. Yet, afterthought is the sad fate of all obsession. Some obsessions rush out like the tide; others recede slowly like middle-aged hairlines, but they do recede.
Yes, I could see my future. It included vague, half-remembered questions about Larry’s death and wistful smiles about a foolish kiss. Time would bleach out the color and sand off the sharp edges of these things like everything else that seems pressing and urgent at any given moment. Unfortunately, there were people in the world whose vision of the future didn’t jibe with mine. Wish I had known that before I got Carmella’s call. Guess my powers of prognostication had their limits.
The low, misty clouds of the late afternoon had turned darker than the night itself and the romantic pitter-patter of earlier showers was now long forgotten. Rain fell in solid sheets, landing on the roof of my car like swipes from a dull axe. I took it slow over Red Hook’s slick and vacant cobblestone streets. Between the blinding rain and the black streams of overflow sewer water, I couldn’t be sure of where the street might dip or where the next pothole was looming.
In spite of the awful weather, or maybe because of it, Crispo’s was booming. Above the pounding rain, I could hear the buzz of the crowd and the thumping jukebox bass halfway down the block. The noise left me cold. Driving past, I couldn’t shake the sense that all the revelry had the vibe of a party at the end of the world. What the fuck? I was a Cold War baby and my mother’s son. Either way, I was brought up believing we were always on the verge of extinction. At least, thank God, the Cold War was over. My mom’s legacy of pessimism would be considerably harder to outrun.
Although I’d found a spot near the corner, no more than forty paces from Rip’s front door, I managed to get soaked to my skin. Inside, the place was even more crowded than I expected, but it didn’t take me fifteen seconds to spot Melendez at the corner of the bar, not far from where we’d met the last time. The broad smile that had graced her lovely face that last time was gone. Even after making eye contact, her demeanor remained much the same as it had been the first time I saw her in the vestibule of the 60th Precinct house. She wore her scowling Don’t fuck with me! face. I didn’t have to look more than five feet to her left to see why. Detective John Murphy, her partner, was there, staring at me like a plate of cold leftovers.
And then, in the tangle of damp bodies to Murphy’s right, I caught a glimpse of something else, something familiar. It wasn’t so much a face as a part of a profile in silhouette. I couldn’t quite make it out, but it registered. For a reason still unknown to me, I found myself looking back-not at Melendez, but at Murphy. He had followed my gaze and the silhouette had registered with him as well. He turned his eyes my way and in them there seemed to be a mix of confusion and worry. Something was wrong. I peeked over to Carmella. She had been watching the exchange of glances. Now she, too, seemed worried and took a step toward me.
Murphy’s eyes got big with panic and he shouted something at Melendez. His mouth worked in super-slow motion, his gaunt face contorted by the movement of his lips; it was impossible to make out his scream above the music. Some wiseass had played “Dominick the Donkey (The Italian Christmas Donkey)” and gotten the bartender to turn it up. The crowd started clapping and singing along with Lou Monte:
A pair of shoes for Louie
And a dress for Josephine
The labels on the inside says
They’re made in Brook-a-lyn
With the mention of Brooklyn, everyone cheered. Murphy began pushing his way to his partner.
That’s when the shooting started. I caught the first flash out of the corner of my eye, felt the burn on my right cheek, heard the explosion. When the shots come from over your right shoulder, handgun fire is fucking loud. It doesn’t sound like firecrackers or a car backfiring in the street. Murphy got hit flush in the neck, spraying blood and panic everywhere as he collapsed. Carmella was going for her piece when the second shot whizzed by me. The frightened girl next to Melendez ran right into the path of the bullet. She fell into the crowd. A third shot. This one hit Melendez, spinning her sideways against the bar, and she crumpled.
I tried to run to her, but the crush of bodies was too great. I reached under my jacket for my.38. As I did so, I saw an automatic, maybe a 9mm, sticking out of the mass of bodies from the spot where the silhouette had been. I didn’t wait around for the muzzle flash. I dropped. Now the shots came in a hurry, one blast almost catching up to the next catching up to the next, and one body, then another, fell on top of me. The lights went out, glass showering down. I crawled through a moving web of legs to where I thought Carmella would be. I called her name and felt a hand, sticky and wet, grab my forearm.
“Moe, it fucking hurts. Oh, Christ, Moe!”
I felt for her mouth and clamped my hand over it. “Can you crawl?”
Her head shook no against my hand.
“Can you climb on my back?”
This time her head shook yes. I laid flat on my stomach. She rolled on top of me and as I raised up to crawl, only one of her arms curled around me. I headed directly to the kitchen. Almost everyone was running in the other direction, toward the front door. Although there seemed to be a momentary cease-fire, the screaming and the chaos went on unabated. I wanted to check Carmella’s wound, but I was afraid to stop just yet. I pushed through the kitchen door with my head and shoulder. The galley was deserted, as near as I could tell.
“I’m gonna lay you down and then fireman-carry you. It’ll hurt like a bastard, but try not to scream, okay?”
“I won’t.”
“Where are you hit?”
“Right shoulder.”
“Okay, here we go. One, two. .”
I rolled her gently off my back onto the tile floor. Then I gathered her up and placed her over my shoulder. As I placed my hands under her armpits, her body writhed in pain. I’d been shot at but never shot, so I could only guess at her agony.
Shit, just thinking about the sound of my snapping knee ligaments made me nauseous. Making my way through the lightless kitchen, it occurred to me that the.38 had been in my hand this whole time. My knuckles were scraped and raw from crawling and from having been trampled on.
I kicked open the back door and waited. Nothing. I ran down the alleyway. Rip’s was close to the corner, so it was a short run back to my car. I laid Carmella on the fr
ont seat next to me and pulled away before the cops arrived. This had setup written all over it and I wasn’t in a cop-trusting mood at the moment. As I pulled away, I pressed a wad of glove box napkins against her wound to stanch the flow of blood.
“How’s Murphy? How’s Murphy? How’s. .” she kept repeating, her breathing growing shallower and faster. Her skin was almost colorless and clammy to the touch.
He’s fucking dead! “I don’t know. I sorta lost sight of him. Just keep quiet and calm.”
I pulled over by a public phone, removed the soaked napkins, and looked at the wound. It seemed small, but I knew that meant nothing. It’s what the bullet does after it enters that matters. I pushed her forward and saw the back of her blouse was also completely covered in
“Listen, Carmella, do you trust me?”
“I do.”
“I’m gonna get you some help, but I can’t take you to a hospital.”
“I understand.” She took rapid little gulps of air.
“Okay, good, I’m gonna make a call and then I’ll be right back. I’m not gonna let anything happen to you.”
“I know you won’t. You always save me.”
Good thing she believed it. I sure as hell didn’t. For all I knew, I had just condemned her to death.
My brother-in-law, Ronnie, had been a trauma room surgeon at Kings County Hospital before he and my little sister moved to New Mexico a few years back. If there’s one thing you learn to deal with at Kings County it’s gunshot wounds. These days, he teaches at the university medical school and works at the trauma center. Suddenly I was feeling very grateful Miriam and Ronnie had decided to use the timing of our grand opening party to vacation in the city and show their kids where mommy and daddy had grown up.
“She’s sleeping now. The shot was a through and through. The wound is pretty clean, but I have no way of knowing exactly how much damage was done. I know it looks like she lost a lot of blood, but the slug didn’t hit a major artery. In any case, you should get her to a hospital as soon as you can,” Ronnie said, slipping the latex gloves off his hands.
Soul Patch mp-4 Page 15