Payback

by Lorenzo Carcaterra

  I gazed down at Mike. His body was curled in a tight ball, one of his hands resting limply by his side. His face was a red mask and he was having trouble breathing. I looked back up at Connie and shook my head. “I don’t know,” I said. “And not knowing that scares me as much as I know it scares you.”

  Connie nodded, not bothering to hide the tears in her eyes or the sadness etched across her face. She stared at me for a few moments and then disappeared silently into the kitchen.

  51.

  ONE POLICE PLAZA

  LATER THAT DAY

  I STOOD FACING CHIEF CONNORS AND Dee Dee Jacobs, the U.S. Attorney. Dee Dee was to my left and the chief was sitting behind his desk. They were both drinking coffee and staring at my bandaged hands. “You going to fill us in?” the chief asked. “Or make us guess?”

  “The firm sent two guys to rattle Connie early this morning,” I said. “They went there to warn her, not to do damage. But one of them did hit her.”

  “Are they still among the living?” Dee Dee asked.

  “They’re at Beekman Downtown. Me and Bruno got them there. They’re a little banged up, one more than the other, but they should be good to go in a week or so.”

  “I put in a few calls up to the Rockport police department,” the chief said. “Asking about the Frank Muncie case. See what they had to say about it, if anything. And I filled Dee Dee in on what happened up there between you and Muncie.”

  I shifted my feet and my mouth went dry. “What did they say?” I managed to ask.

  “Well, first I had to ease their curiosity as to why the NYPD Chief of Detectives was calling about a case I have no business in,” he said. “I danced around it as best I could. Told them Muncie’s name had come up during a routine interrogation one of my homicide detectives was working on.”

  “Not exactly a lie,” Dee Dee said. “Not the truth, either. But still.”

  “They buy it?” I asked.

  “Seemed to,” the chief said. “They called back after about an hour. They needed time to dig up whatever file they had on the case.”

  “And?” I asked.

  “Muncie was someone they had their eyes on since he moved to the area,” the chief said. “He was a known pedophile and liked to hang around playgrounds and schools. Cops ran him off whenever they spotted him. He was close to normal when he was sober, but once he started on the bottle, that’s when the demons shook loose.”

  “They have any suspects from back then?” I asked.

  “More than one,” Dee Dee said. She had an open folder in her hands and was reading from the chief’s notes. “He had a few threats against him from fathers demanding that he stay away from their kids.”

  “The Rockport cops figure he got too close to one kid and was done in by a father, a brother, a relative,” the chief said.

  “That’s more on the money than they know,” I said.

  “In short, they didn’t look into his murder too hard back then,” Dee Dee said. “And they’re even less interested in it now. Just another dead pedophile who got what he deserved.”

  We all stayed quiet for a few moments. “So how did Eddie Kenwood come to find out what happened?”

  “You were seen, Tank,” the chief said.

  His words caused me to take a step back. I lowered my head and tried to piece together all the images from that day. “We got out of there as fast as we could,” I said. “We didn’t have much to pack and the cabins were usually empty at that hour, most people either hiking or hitting the tourist sites.”

  “All you need is one pair of eyes,” Dee Dee said. “A guy named Jason Chatwood was sitting in a garden chair under a shady tree. Just down the road from your cabin. He saw you come out of Muncie’s cabin and then saw you and your family hustle up, pack, and pull

  out.”

  “But he didn’t go to the cops, right?” I asked.

  The chief shook his head. “He talked to them, but he didn’t tell them everything he saw,” he said. “Not sure why—maybe he was one of those mind-your-own-business guys. But he never forgot what he saw. So it became a story for him to tell, sitting around the dining room table or at the local bar. Something to share with close friends.”

  “How’d you find him so quick?” I asked.

  “He was an assistant to the landlord who rented out to your folks,” the chief said. “I imagine he thought a random murder wouldn’t do too much damage to the business. But a pedophile living in one of the cabins might cut into his family-vacation trade big time and cost him a job.”

  “Which still leaves Kenwood,” I said. “When does he come into it?”

  “That’s where the words ‘It’s a small world’ enter the picture,” Dee Dee said. “Kenwood’s mother was named Edie Chatwood. Jason was her uncle on her father’s side. Jason would often come down to New York during the holidays, spend time with the family. Might not have mentioned the story for a few years. If at all.”

  “But you and Pearl started getting lots of tabloid attention from all your busts,” the chief said. “As was Eddie Kenwood from his. If it was just the name Rizzo, old Jason might not have made the connection. But not many kids are named Tank. And not many cops are, either.”

  “So you figure he put two and two together and passed on what he knew or thought he knew to Eddie?” I said.

  “That’s as good an answer as we can come up with,” the chief said. “At least for now.”

  “If what we dug up is right, and I’m pretty sure it is,” Dee Dee said, “then you caught some luck. Again, I might add.”

  “How do you figure that?” I asked.

  “Jason Chatwood died two years ago,” the chief said. “The cabins are still there but have been refurbished and modernized and go for a lot more money than your parents paid.”

  “The original detective assigned to the case is dead, too, as is his boss,” Dee Dee said. “Kenwood’s parents are long buried, as well. And that leaves Eddie Kenwood with a story he heard from an old family relative. He might still be able to prove you were up there when the murder happened. A big maybe, the way I imagine cabin rental books were kept. But that’s all he can prove.”

  “And that’s not going to take him very far,” the chief said.

  “And where do I stand with you?” I asked, looking from the chief to Dee Dee.

  “I have no jurisdiction in Maine,” the chief said. “And the very last thing I’m eager to do is look to solve a pedophile’s murder.”

  “I don’t work the local news,” Dee Dee said. “You got no worries from my end.”

  “How did you connect Jason Chatwood to Kenwood?” I asked.

  “Chatwood didn’t have any family, other than his sister and his grandnephew,” the chief said. “He didn’t have much in the way of money, either. But he did have a small piece of land in Portland, Maine. He left that land to Eddie Kenwood.”

  “And we got our hands on Chatwood’s phone logs going back five years,” Dee Dee said. “We matched his number with the one we have on file for Kenwood and they talked at least three, sometimes five times a month. From there, we put two and two together until we crossed the goal line.”

  I nodded. “Thank you,” I said. “And I’m sorry I didn’t come to you sooner with this. I honestly didn’t know how. Frank Muncie deserved what he got. I can’t stand here and tell you different. But his murder cost me my brother. And Muncie sure as hell wasn’t worth that.”

  “No,” the chief said. “He wasn’t worth that.”

  “But finding your brother’s killer is worth something,” Dee Dee said. “Peace of mind, if nothing else.”

  “For you,” the chief said. “And for his son.”

  “You’ve both earned that,” Dee Dee said.

  I looked at them, turned, and walked quietly out of the office.

  52.


  THE BROWNSTONE

  THE SAME DAY

  IT DIDN’T TAKE LONG FOR word to spread about what had occurred at Tramonti’s. My crew rushed to my place as fast as they could, joining Pearl and Chris in my living room. Chris stood next to Connie and held her hand, Gus between them, eagerly chewing on one of Chris’s sneaker laces. Carmine sat in a lounge chair in a corner of the room. His demeanor was calm, but I knew that below the surface a hurricane was brewing. In the world where Carmine spent the greater part of his life, there was one rule that was absolute and sacrosanct: Never touch family. I looked at him and we exchanged a glance and I nodded. If we were going to take down the accounting firm for the murder of my brother and his wife and an assortment of other crimes, I would need Carmine at his best. And nothing stoked an old gangster’s engine more than attacking someone who’d dared threaten a member of his family.

  Along with my usual crew, Alban and Bobby Gregson had been invited to the meeting. I glanced around the room, waited as Carl found a seat next to Bruno and while Alexandra passed a cup of hot coffee to Alban, and then walked next to Pearl and picked up the two thick folders he had resting on his legs.

  “Bobby and Chris have done great work digging into the financials of the accountants,” I said. “The money trail begins in New York and stretches down into Mexico and South America, across the country into Los Angeles and Hawaii, and across the Atlantic into a number of banks I hope no one in this room has any money in.”

  “They cover their trail well,” Pearl said. “Everyone who invests with them turns a sizable profit, anywhere from twelve to eighteen percent a year.”

  “But the actual profit numbers are higher,” Bobby said, stepping away from the wall he was leaning against and moving deeper into the room. “Which means they skim as little as three and as much as six percent from each of their deep-pocketed clients.”

  “Just to be clear,” Alban said, “you’re the fed?”

  “That’s beginning to sound like my middle name,” Bobby said. “But, to answer your question, yes, I’m the fed.”

  “How much does that kind of skim earn them?” Carmine asked. “Ballpark it if you don’t know for sure.”

  “Judging from the numbers from the last calendar year, I would put it at anywhere from three to five million per client,” Bobby said. “All nontaxable, clean, and laundered in offshore accounts.”

  “How can they hide so much and the clients not get a whiff of what’s going down?” Carl asked.

  “The clients have nothing to complain about,” Chris said. “They’re making lots of money themselves. It would be different if the firm were making profits and they weren’t. But these guys know how to keep their investors happy.”

  “How hard was it for you two to dig up all this information?” Bruno asked.

  “My office has been looking into it for a while,” Bobby said. “We were able to string a few threads together, navigate our way through the dozens of LLCs these guys set up. You need a tour guide to help you through these financial waters.”

  “Is what you have enough to get you a search warrant?” I asked.

  “More than enough,” Bobby said. “Once the papers are drawn, we’ll hit the firm and take everything they have, from hard drives to printouts to investment folders. And we’ll also bring in the partners and charge them.”

  “So now we know they steal,” Alban said. “We also know they rape and beat young women. We know they have people willing to kill for them. We know they have millions they can use to keep their secrets safe. What we don’t seem to know is what are we going to do about it.”

  “We’re going to rat them out,” I said.

  I caught Carmine’s smile and watched him stand as he addressed the room. “Turn them over,” he said. “Take those numbers Chris and the fed dug up and put them in the right hands. Then let the mob take care of the rest. They’ll know what to do, and they won’t be shy about doing it.”

  “I will do all that is asked of me,” Alban said. “Alexandra will, as well. But I will not stop there. The man who did damage to Sasha must be turned over to me. And what happens to that man is no one’s business but mine. Agreed?”

  “No issues there, Alban,” I said. “And the same holds for the one who ordered the job on my brother and his wife.”

  “Somehow, little of this sounds anywhere close to being legal,” Bobby said. “Just thought I’d throw that fact out there.”

  “Tough shit,” Carmine said. “Nothing these guys do is legal. They’re no different than any other outfit racking in large scores. They need to go down, plain and simple. Anybody that helps us get that done is on our side.”

  “If being in on this gets you jammed, we’ll help clear you of it any way we can,” I said to Bobby. “We’re here to take down some bad people, not jam up a good cop.”

  “I appreciate that,” Bobby said. “But I want these bastards as much, if not more, than anyone in this room.”

  “Not more than me,” Chris said.

  Bobby glanced over at Chris and nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m here to help you see them get taken down.”

  “Carmine is dealing with the mob crews with money tied to the firm,” I said.

  “I’ll do the same with the hedge-fund guys,” Bobby said.

  “I have contacts with the cartels,” Alban said. “I’ll start feeding it into their pipeline. In time, no one in that firm will be safe from their hands.”

  “We need to pull the U.S. Attorney’s money out of their cash flow,” I said.

  “Leave that to me,” Carmine said. “Me and Randolph owe each other a chat. I handed the dough over in cash, expect it back the same way. It shouldn’t take long. Next to what he’s hauling in, the hundred and fifty large I gave him is small-time.”

  “He likes to keep contact with his clients to a minimum,” Pearl said. “And, if he has to meet, he likes to do it in a place nobody will notice.”

  “No worries,” Carmine said. “I got a place for us to do our business. Quiet and out of the way.”

  “Let’s move on to Eddie Kenwood,” I said. “We’re looking to pin a murder rap on him, which means he will come at us hard. And we need to be ready for when that happens.”

  “We keep Chris, Carl, Alexandra out of the line of fire,” Pearl said. “We lost one team member last time out. I don’t want to see that happen again.”

  “They stay in the backup vans,” I said. “And only come out when we give the all-clear.”

  “You can count on my help,” Alban said. “You’ll have my men by your side.”

  “And who better to help take down a gang of dirty cops than a bunch of past-their-prime mob guys?” Carmine said.

  “I want Kenwood taken alive,” I said. “He deserves to spend time behind prison bars. That will kill him faster than any bullet we can put in him.”

  “The chief backing you up on this?” Bobby asked.

  “He’ll have his men in place,” I said. “Kenwood and his crew are a stain on the department. And he wants to be rid of the whole bunch.”

  “So, if I got a clear picture of all this, which I think I do,” Bobby said, “I’m helping close out two cases working alongside Carmine’s mob buddies and Alban’s Seven Samurai crew?”

  “Now, you tell me,” Carmine said. “What fed could ask for better company?”

  53.

  HUBBA’S, PORT CHESTER, WESTCHESTER COUNTY

  TWO DAYS LATER

  CARMINE SMILED WHEN HE OPENED the white door leading into the tiny restaurant hidden in the middle of a nondescript suburban street. Carmine had broken all protocol. He called David Randolph directly and told him there was something crucial they needed to discuss and it would best be done free of any prying eyes.

  For such a meeting, Hubba’s, on a late Sunday morning, was the perfect place.

 
It had been a hangout for decades for nearby public and private high school students, who flocked to it after a concert, movie, or club-hopping excursion. It was the size of a subway car, with swivel stools at a counter instead of tables and chairs; paper plates had been tacked to the wall in place of a menu. The specialty of the house was a small hot dog on a toasted bun topped with chili, onions, and melted cheese. The drink of choice was “Hubba water”—red Kool-Aid. The lines were around the block on any weekend night, and on most school days students were lined three-deep along the narrow strip. Once inside, they would order everything from a burger with the works—which meant the same toppings you got with a hot dog—to bowls of the spiciest chili in the county. Late Sunday mornings were the only time the place could be counted on to be deserted.

  “Ain’t this great?” Carmine said with a wide smile, slapping Randolph hard across the shoulders. He waved to a burly man working behind a hot grill in a corner and smiled at a young waitress who stood ready to take their order.

  “You better have a damn good reason for forcing me to meet you in this swamp,” Randolph said, not bothering to hide either his anger or his frustration. “It barely registered on my GPS.”

  “Watch your tongue,” Carmine said. “These people have worked hard to make this an in-demand place. Once you get a bite of their food, you’ll have a change of heart, guaranteed.”

  “I didn’t come here to eat,” Randolph said. “I came to hear you tell me what it is that you claimed was so important I was the only one you could share it with.”

  Carmine ignored Randolph and asked the waitress to bring him two dogs with the works and a glass of Hubba water. She looked to the man behind the grill, who nodded. “I got you covered,” he said. “Be there in a few.”