Keeplock: A Novel of Crime

by Stephen Solomita

  Eddie and I had watched each other’s backs for six years, until he made parole five months before I came out. Eddie loved prison hooch and, by prison standards, I was a master brewer. On Saturdays, when nobody was working, our crew would gather on the courts after the morning count, cook up a spaghetti dinner, then eat, drink, and bullshit until dark. We usually kept away from the hustlers and the dealers in Cortlandt. Like most of the cons, we just wanted to do our time and get out. Eddie loved to talk about the big score he was going to make when the parole board finally cut him loose.

  “What I done wrong, cuz,” he’d say, “was takin’ on a lotta small jobs for the wise guys. I wanted to get in with the mob so bad, I would’a cleaned the fuckin’ toilets. Ya keep doin’ jobs, sooner or later you gotta get popped. You hear what I’m sayin’, cuz? That ain’t the way to go. I’m gonna set up one big fuckin’ score, then walk away.”

  I had Eddie Conte’s phone number in my pocket. He’d been luckier than most because his old lady had waited for him and he’d had someplace to go. It was a joke, really. If I had a home, I wouldn’t be trussed up on old McDonald’s couch. Meanwhile, my next address was going to be the House of Detention for Men on Rikers Island.

  They have a special jail in H.D.M. for parole violators. It’s not a happy place. There are no jobs and no activities. Everyone’s done hard time, and most of them are about to do hard time again. They scream, cry, curse. The air is filled with anger and the cells are filled with roaches. Prisoners only leave their cells for an hour a day, but they still make shanks and stab each other with monotonous regularity. Despite the shakedowns and the strip searches.

  Terrentini floated up to me. “Ya problem is that yiz don’t have values.” I heard the whoosh of erupting flame again. Smelled the turpentine. Five more years in hell. I couldn’t do the time, and I couldn’t be a rat, either. Fortunately, I had another option and it was real fucking simple. I could pretend to go along with Condon. Feed him bullshit until the job was done, then let the money take me as far away from New York as I could get.

  Condon and Rico came back fifteen minutes later. By that time my resolve had hardened. I’d been entertaining a ridiculous fantasy. I thought I could stay out of jail by avoiding crime.

  “You make up your mind, asshole?” Rico asked.

  “I got a couple of questions first.”

  Condon smiled and nodded to his partner. Rico backed away and took a seat off to one side of the room. They knew they had me. “What kinda questions?”

  “Suppose Eddie’s got his crew together. Suppose he already pulled off whatever he’s gonna do. Suppose he moved away and I can’t reach him. Do I have to testify if you bust him? Do you want me to wear a wire? Do—”

  “Awright, I get the picture.” Condon lit a cigarette and put it between my lips. “Look, Pete, the situation is real simple. You took somethin’ from us and you gotta give us somethin’ back. That somethin’ is the where and when and how of Conte’s move. If you can’t get to him, you’re goin’ upstate. On the other hand, you don’t have to wear a wire and you don’t have to testify. There was a cop killed about twelve years ago, cop named Bower. The killer was never caught, but we got reason to think your pal was involved. In the old days, Conte would’ve just disappeared, but now we do it different. Now we’ll settle for puttin’ Conte back in the joint. He’s forty-five and he still owes seven years to the state. If we add on a few felonies and he’s sentenced as a multiple offender, he’ll come out in a box. You know how to get in touch with him?”

  “I got his phone number in my wallet.”

  “You wanna call him?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Take the cuffs off, Rico.”

  Condon sat back in his chair and watched his partner fumble with the keys. I resisted the urge to rub my wrists and ankles, going to my wallet instead. Rico snatched the list out of my hand and examined it closely. I don’t know what he thought he was looking at, because the names and numbers were coded, but he handed it back to me a few seconds later.

  “Rico’s gonna stay here with you,” Condon announced, “and I’m goin’ into the social worker’s office. Listen on the extension. I don’t think I gotta tell you what to say.”

  “You don’t.” Two minutes later I was punching out the phone number. Eddie answered on the third ring.

  “Yeh?”

  “Eddie?”

  “Yeh.”

  “It’s Pete. Pete Frangello.”

  His tone changed immediately. “Cuz, you’re out. Son of a bitch. Where ya stayin’?”

  “In a shelter, Eddie. Over in Hell’s Kitchen.”

  “Not for long, cuz. Not for long. I got big fuckin’ plans, cuz, and you are the last piece of the puzzle. I mean if you ain’t decided to go straight.” He laughed at the utter stupidity of the idea.

  “Straight’s not part of my agenda. Never was.”

  “Agenda. That’s funny. Ya learned to talk real good in that school. Too bad you’re a fuckin’ criminal.”

  “Yeah? Well, whatta ya gonna do?”

  “You’re gonna do what you do best. But, look, talkin’ on the phone ain’t the smart thing to do. We gotta have a face-to-face. When could we meet?”

  “It has to be soon, Eddie. The board ordered Intense Supervision. I gotta be back here by ten.”

  “No problem, cuz. There’s a restaurant on Ninth Avenue and 27th Street. Mario’s. You still like spaghetti?”

  “With pepperonis,” I answered. Pepperoni was the only meat we could buy in the Cortlandt commissary.

  Eddie laughed appreciatively. “No pepperonis in Mario’s sauce. But the shrimps are fantastic. I’ll see ya in an hour, right?”

  “One hour, Eddie.”

  Condon waddled back into the room a minute later, obviously pleased with the conversation. “You did good, Pete. Real good. Here, take this.” He offered his card and I accepted it. There were two phone numbers on it. “I want you to call me every night at ten-thirty. Use the second number, not the precinct number. You could do it from a pay phone, but you might wanna tell Conte you have to be back here by ten o’clock. Tell him your P.O. won’t cut you any slack. I already squared it with McDonald so you can use his office to make the call. And I’m gonna have a conversation with your parole office, so if you gotta snort a little coke, you’re not gonna get busted for dirty urine. Basically, you don’t gotta worry about makin’ your P.O. happy. You’re workin’ for us.”

  EIGHT

  IT’S NOT MUCH OF a walk from the Paradise Hotel to Mario’s Restaurant on 27th Street. Unless you’ve just had your ass kicked by a sadistic cop. I wasn’t angry anymore. It was all in the line of duty for both of us, just a piece of the dance known as “cops and robbers.” Most of the bruises wouldn’t hurt until the next day, but I did have this very sharp pain on the right side of my lower ribs. Being as I didn’t want to limp into my appointment with Eddie Conte, I practiced a natural gait as I made my way down Ninth Avenue.

  “Dope-n-coke. Dope-n-coke.” The dealer stood back in the shuttered doorway of a freight elevator, offering his wares the way an aggressive panhandler offers his cup. I was tempted for a minute. A little dope to ease the pain; a few lines of coke to make me alert. I couldn’t tell you why it mattered, but I walked on by. Maybe it was the part I was going to have to play with Eddie. I’d already told him I was subject to Intense Supervision, and if I walked into the restaurant stoned, there was always the chance that he’d notice. Or maybe I was still holding on to my fantasies.

  Eddie Conte had been the undisputed leader of our crew in Cortlandt. He had a sharp Roman nose and he kept it tuned to the prison rumor mill, avoiding trouble when he could, making alliances when he couldn’t. “Fix it before it breaks, cuz,” he’d instructed. “Sniff it out and fix it up.”

  I recalled an incident in 1987 when a white prisoner named Andy Grant got into a beef with a Black Muslim. A few other Muslims had joined in to protect their brother and Andy caught a shank in the process. The enti
re white population took it personally, and the next day the yard was packed with armed men, blacks on one side, whites and Puerto Ricans on the other.

  The administration showed good sense for a change. They could’ve waited for the show to start, then opened up from the guard towers, but instead they defused the situation. They chose one black con and one white con to talk things over. The black prisoner was the Muslim Imam, Tariq Muhammad. The white prisoner was Eddie Conte.

  The further I walked, the more determined I became. I didn’t want any part of Eddie Conte and whatever he was planning to do to the world, but I wasn’t a rat. If I sold Eddie out, I wouldn’t be any better than a nurse stealing dope from a dying prisoner.

  Not that I was in a good spot. Not only couldn’t I turn Eddie down, even if his plan was idiotic, even if it was guaranteed to send both of us back to Cortlandt, I was going to have to invent some kind of bullshit for the two cops. Two sets of lies to keep straight, two sets of professional paranoids to fool. A decent performance would buy me time, which was all I could hope for.

  Mario’s was packed and the short, fat man who approached me was already shaking his bald head as he took in my prison haircut.

  “Do you have a reservation, sir?”

  “I’m supposed to meet someone here.”

  His expression changed instantly, a quick professional smile erasing the frown. “Are you Mr. Conte’s guest?”

  “That’s me.” I ignored the Mr. Conte bullshit. The fat proprietor was probably one of Eddie’s gombahs. Eddie had spent his whole life doing time for the mob. He didn’t have to go to a stranger for an Italian dinner.

  “Please. Come.” He led me through the crowded dining room, weaving between tables with the freaky grace of a dancing bear. A door in the back, just off the kitchen, led into a small private room. Two women sat by themselves at a table in the far corner. Eddie’s table was in the center of the room. He was pulling on a Heineken.

  “Hey, Mario, I see you didn’t have no trouble findin’ my cuz.” Eddie had a small, thin mouth. Set underneath that nose, it had a tendency to disappear altogether, but this time his grin was so broad that I could count his teeth.

  “Naw, Eddie. He’s as good-lookin’ as ya said he was.”

  I blushed. I couldn’t help it. My pretty-boy face had gotten me into more beefs than everything else put together, especially when I was young. Eventually I’d accumulated enough scars and made enough friends to be left alone, but the adolescent joints, Rikers and Spofford, had been rough. I’d also learned to use my looks to good advantage, practicing my innocent choir boy smile until I could melt a rich old lady’s heart at fifty paces.

  I raised a clenched fist. “One day, Eddie. Pow! Zoom!” It was an ongoing joke between us. Eddie Conte was five inches taller than me and dead game in a fight.

  “Right,” he answered, “one day. Only now it’s night, so ya gotta wait. Mario, see if you could get my friend a bowl of minestrone. You drinkin’ tanight, cuz?”

  “Sure. Coca-Cola.”

  “And a large Coke, Mario. With a cherry.” He turned back to me. “What’s doin’, cuz. Still adjustin’?”

  “Not anymore.” He nodded his appreciation. “Too bad about the conditions.” He meant the conditions of my parole. “What’s it like in the shelter?”

  “Actually, it’s not too bad. It’s in the old Paradise Hotel near the river.” I went on to describe Calvin’s reception and my response, omitting any reference to the cops.

  “Sounds like the joint, cuz.”

  “Just like the joint,” I agreed.

  “Here.” He stretched across the table and put a small roll of bills in my lap. “Five hundred. For comin’ down to talk.”

  “You don’t have to pay me to talk, Eddie. You’re disrespecting me here.” I started to pass the money back, but he pushed my hand away, then leaned forward and tapped his nose.

  “Take it from one friend to another. For what I got planned, cuz, this five hundred ain’t toilet paper.”

  I put the money in my pocket, mostly because I needed it.

  “Good. Now I got somebody I want to introduce.” He turned to the two women. “Big Momma, could you come over here a minute?”

  The woman who rose from the chair furthest away from me was well over six feet tall. Dressed in a light blue sweater and a black skirt that came to the tops of her knees, she projected a demure femininity despite her size.

  “Hi, Pete,” she said, sitting next to me. Her eyes were sky-blue and lively. “I heard a lot about you. My name’s Louise.”

  “And this here,” Eddie announced, “is the woman who waited for me. This here is my wife, Annie.”

  The woman who sat on his lap and planted a kiss on the top of his rapidly balding head was short and wiry. In her thirties and homely to begin with, she nevertheless held on to Eddie as if she owned him. Grinning an idiot’s grin, he nipped at her arm like a playful puppy.

  As for me, I was jealous. Eddie Conte was a younger, poorer Joe Terrentini. He had values. Ties to the community. For him, crime was a freely chosen career. For me, it was a sentence. Nevertheless, I managed my sweetest smile, said hello to Louise and Annie, then reminded Eddie that I was supposed to be back in the shelter by ten.

  “I know,” Louise announced. “Eddie told us about your problem, but we wanted to come down and say hello anyway. Maybe we’ll see each other again.”

  “I already got my fingers crossed,” I flashed her my sweetest smile.

  Louise returned the smile as she got up and turned to leave. Annie jumped off Eddie’s lap and leaned over me as she passed. “Watch this fuckin’ guy,” she warned, jabbing a thumb in Eddie’s direction. “He’s dangerous.”

  Eddie’s smile vanished before the door closed. He started to speak, then stopped as Mario reappeared with the soup and my Coke. Eddie looked annoyed for a moment, then asked me what else I wanted to eat.

  “The soup’ll do, Eddie. I don’t have a lot of time.”

  “Bring us a couple of cold antipastos, Mario. And a garlic bread. Also, bring me another beer.” He turned back to me. “Maybe we’ll pick a little while we’re talkin’. Pickin’ helps relax me.”

  “I could see that, Eddie.” I nodded at his waistline. He’d put on a few pounds in the six months he’d been out.

  He looked down at the small roll hanging over his belt. Touched it as if surprised to find it there. After Mario left, he started talking. “Yeah, cuz, I’m livin’ good. And I like it. You know what’s hard about this life? First ya go in the joint, then ya come out. You go in; you come out. Alla time like a fuckin’ yo-yo. It don’t make sense. I wanna do somethin’ that’ll settle the shit once and for all. Either way.”

  The warmth drained from his eyes. They grew sharp and cold, as life defying as ten years of Adirondack winters. I could do the same trick, of course, go from jovial boyishness to cold killer in the blink of an eye. I used to practice the move in the mirror while I was shaving. Eddie wasn’t using it to threaten me, only to drive home the importance of his message.

  “Guys like you and me,” he continued, “got no chance in the world. It’s already over as far as we’re concerned. Pete, it was over before we got started. We never had a chance.”

  I nodded wisely, just as if it wasn’t total bullshit. Just as if it wasn’t the ultimate disrespect. I know that I’m responsible. I’m not a child or a dog. Prisoners love to blame it on the past, on hard lives and bad breaks. But what about all those kids I’d met in the course of an institutional life who’d survived the foster care system? Who’d gone out to live normal lives (relatively normal lives, anyway) in the world? I’d chosen defiance, and even if I was locked into the cops and robbers game, it was my game and nobody forced me to play it. On the other hand, blaming the past is an important part of official prison mythology and ex-cons don’t challenge that mythology. Nobody burns the flag on a battlefield.

  “You know what I had to face in Cortlandt, cuz? I had to face the fact that all
my life I been a complete asshole. The wise guys ain’t gonna let me inside where the money is. They was usin’ me like a baseball team uses a player off the bench. Put me at short, put me on first, let me pinch hit when there’s nobody else left. I’m shovin’ that garbage behind me, cuz. What’d I come out, six months ago? I done four jobs for the boys, but only so’s I could get the money to set up the job I wanna do.” He leaned across the table again, his voice dropping to a prison whisper. “I’m gonna do an armored car. One time, one car, and I’m outta the life forever. You, too, cuz. You, too.”

  The door opened and Mario walked in with the two antipastos and the garlic bread. Eddie didn’t move, even after Mario left. He held me with his eyes and waited for a response.

  “You got an inside man, Eddie?” I asked. My voice was calm, but my heart was pounding.

  “Nobody.”

  “Then how will you know what’s in the truck? How do you know you won’t hijack ten thousand pounds of quarters?”

  Armored cars are the favored fantasy of hijackers. After all, they sometimes transport millions of dollars in old, untraceable bills. But they also sometimes carry coins and non-negotiable securities. Or brand-new, consecutively numbered bills, which is the problem with payrolls. Sometimes they’re empty because they’re on their way to make a pickup. Sometimes they’re empty because they’ve just dropped off a payroll. Schedules are deliberately juggled so that following individual trucks to determine their routes is useless.

  The traditional solution, from the hijacker’s point of view, is to corrupt someone inside. But the cops are well aware of this and inevitably begin their investigation by asking all employees to take a lie detector test. The inside man is rarely a professional criminal. Faced with ten years in prison, he (or she) jumps at the chance to testify in return for a light sentence.

  “Cuz,” Eddie said, finally sitting back, “you should just take my word for it. I mean it ain’t like I’m an amatcher. This part of it I got covered.”