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The Striver

Page 20

by Stephen Solomita


  Last night’s confrontation hadn’t been without an effect, but it wasn’t the one Boots expected. Just a year before, Boots had killed a man. That had made a difference, knowing that he could pull the trigger. He’d crossed a line, as Jill was quick to point out. But not this time. No, he was already on Jill’s side of the line when Ungaro came through the door and he didn’t feel particularly different this morning. Maybe that had something to do with Ungaro’s survival. Maybe not.

  Boots turned over the couch cushions and thrust his hand into the couch’s interior. He came up with a handful of lint, a discarded envelope from the Social Security Administration and four Winchester 7.62 millimeter, hollow-point rifle cartridges. Boots tossed away the lint, but thrust the envelope and the cartridges into his pocket. He didn’t know exactly what he planned to do when he finally reported in, but he was determined to leave the apartment clean.

  Jill took out a cigarette and lit up, instantly producing a craving in Boots so intense that it bordered on demonic possession. ‘Tell me what you’re thinking,’ she asked as she blew a thin stream of smoke toward the ceiling.

  ‘I’m trying to make sure they can’t be followed by Winuk or Pianetta.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Then … then I don’t know what. Look, if I write this up – I mean everything we’ve done over the last few days – OCCB’s gonna find Corry. No question, no doubt.’

  Jill pulled on her cigarette. ‘So, what should we do?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Boots finished his search without finding any indication of where Corry and her brother had gone – all to the good – and he felt his attention shift as he took a seat next to his partner. For the past four days, he’d been focused on protecting Carlo’s victim. Now the victim, herself, had put the issue to rest. So, what next? What to tell Karkanian, if anything? And what to do about a young man named Theodore Winuk? Boots had already made several calls, both to his snitches and to uniformed cops in the Six-Four known to work the streets hard. Although Winuk’s name was recognized by several, Boots had been too preoccupied to ask for details. That would come later.

  ‘So, what do you say we head back to Greenpoint?’ he asked.

  ‘To do what?’

  ‘To eat lunch and talk about our next move. If we have a next move.’

  Jill allowed Boots to help her to her feet. With their objective accomplished, the codeine prescribed for her last night was starting to look better and better. Her ribs were on fire. She winced as she eased her purse over her shoulder, winced again when her cell phone began to ring.

  ‘Boots, would you grab my phone. It’s buried at the bottom of my bag.’

  Boots readily complied, glancing at the screen as he handed the phone over. ‘It’s from Karkanian.’

  Resigned, Jill put the phone to her ear. ‘Damn,’ she whispered to Boots, ‘I can’t get away from this guy, even when I’ve been shot.’

  FORTY-FOUR

  Corry Frisk experienced a moment of panic as she crossed DeKalb Avenue and entered a pathway leading between a pair of towering sycamores. She’d lived too much of her life on the street to have any illusions about men like Johnny Piano. The attack on her had also taken its toll, and the time between getting into Carlo’s Lexus and this very moment seemed a mere eye blink, as though she’d be drawn back to that long night if she made the simplest mistake. Even the blue skies and the unseasonable warmth – the temperatures were already in the low sixties – appeared to mock her.

  Better off dead. The words bounced from one corner of her awareness to the other. Better off dead than a strung-out junkie whore afraid to work the streets. Better off, better off …

  Maybe thirty grand wasn’t all that much money, but it was enough to get them out of town, she and Tommy. Enough to put a roof over their heads, enough to get her in a methadone program, enough to get Tommy into some kind of rehab. The money was the difference between hope and hopeless.

  The neighborhood of Fort Greene, Brooklyn, was more or less typical of gentrifying communities in New York. Not far from the Navy Yard where Corry had worked, Fort Greene’s original housing included hundreds of generous townhouses built after the Civil War in the Italianate style. Long Island University, the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Paul Robeson Theatre were all in Fort Greene, as was Brooklyn Tech, one of the city’s best high schools. No surprise, then, that gentrification came early to the neighborhood. But if the yuppies who poured in were able to force out the mostly black tenants by driving up rents, the enormous housing project that dominated the area between the northern end of the park and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, the Walt Whitman Houses, guaranteed economic integration. In Fort Greene, the poor and the wealthy, if not the rich, continued to rub shoulders.

  Fort Greene Park on that day reflected this dynamic faithfully. The warmth had drawn hundreds of people onto its thirty acres and the paths were crowded with mothers pushing strollers and baby carriages, kids cutting school, elderly men and women in search of a sunny bench, pet owners walking dogs of every size and shape, from Yorkshire terriers to scarred pit bulls.

  Corry was naturally encouraged by the presence of so many witnesses. If Johnny decided to take her down, he’d have to do it in front of them. And he’d have to wait until she told him about Teddy, which also meant that Johnny had to be there himself. Otherwise, she’d walk away.

  If they let her.

  Although Corry wore a pair of oversized sunglasses beneath a floppy hat with a six-inch brim, she nevertheless drew a few sharp glances as she walked past a kids’ playground and onto a sunlit field. A hundred yards across at its widest point, the little meadow described an irregular oval bordered with leafless trees. Corry made her way to the center of this oval, her heart rate increasing with each step. Yeah, you could tell yourself better off dead, but the better part depended on how you came to die.

  Take a breath, she told herself. Take a long, deep breath. You’re liable to start shaking any minute. Talk about a tell. The men you’re gonna deal with live on fear. Fear is like food for them.

  Corry closed her eyes for a moment as she pulled herself together. When she opened them, three men, led by John Pianetta, were approaching from the western side of the clearing. A short, middle-aged man, his face all jowls, walked on Pianetta’s left. The man on his right was much younger. He had the eyes of a hawk and Corry assumed he was the muscle.

  Corry let Pianetta come to within four feet before she raised her hand. ‘Close enough,’ she said, surprised to find that her fear was rapidly being displaced by a swelling anger.

  ‘Whatever you say, lady.’ Pianetta stopped his entourage with a wave of his hands. ‘So, here we are.’

  ‘You bring the money?’

  ‘What, you’re not gonna introduce yourself?’

  Corry took off her glasses and raised her chin. ‘You know me now?’

  Though Pianetta didn’t answer, the question produced the desired effect. When the gangster stretched out his left hand, the older man passed him a brown paper bag.

  ‘What about you?’ he said. ‘What proof do I have that you’re not gonna lie through your teeth?’

  Corry pointed to her face. ‘Same answer.’

  ‘You’ll have to excuse me, lady, but you could’ve caught that beating anywhere. Maybe you were fucking around on your old man and he found out. Maybe you cheated your pimp and he found out.’

  ‘It doesn’t bother you? What your son did to me? Not even a little bit?’

  ‘You want sympathy, call Oprah. Me, I’m here on business, so I’m askin’ you again, show me some proof that I can trust what you’re sayin’.’

  Corry knew, going in, that this moment would come. Still, she hesitated, as though considering her response. Then she said, ‘Carlo wore a brown leather coat, full length, which he took off and left on the back seat of the Lexus. That was after he parked the car under the bridge.’

  ‘That’s good, because my son was partial to leather coats
. But unfortunately, the cops impounded his car and—’

  ‘Yes or no?’ Corry stretched out her hand, palm up. ‘Pay or go home.’

  Pianetta’s mouth tightened. Women like Corry didn’t make demands on men like John Pianetta. Even if they had something to sell, they came on bended knee. Meanwhile, as Corry was quick to recognize, Johnny Piano was in a bind. He had to find out who killed his son. It was expected of him by men like the pair who flanked him.

  ‘I want the story,’ Pianetta said as he handed over the bag. ‘I wanna be convinced. Start with when the guy showed up, the guy who killed my son. I don’t give a shit about the rest it.’

  Corry opened the bag and looked inside, taking her time. She found six packs of banded, well-worn hundreds. Though she ran her thumb over the bills, she didn’t count them.

  ‘I fought your son,’ she finally said. ‘I fought him with every ounce of strength in my body. Big mistake, because it only turned him on, right? Me struggling, him punching me in the face? “C’mon, bitch, c’mon bitch, c’mon bitch.” That’s what he kept sayin’ as he pounded me, over and over again.’

  Corry stopped suddenly. She glanced around, at the clear sky and the twisting branches of a leafless elm. I’m alive, she thought to herself. I’m alive.

  ‘I basically gave up,’ she said. ‘He’d do what he’d do, and then he’d kill me. Then and there, you understand, in the cold, on the concrete. I was helpless. But then this guy came up behind Carlo. From out of nowhere on a Saturday morning when the streets were empty. I watched his face as he walked up and his expression didn’t change. He looked curious, like he was trying to decide about something, but he only said Carlo’s name. That’s when Carlo realized somebody was there.’

  ‘Did Carlo recognize him?’

  ‘He did when he finally turned around. Carlo told the guy that I was just a whore and he should mind his own business. But the guy paid no attention. And he didn’t say a word, either, just kept looking at Carlo. I think he might still be looking, except Carlo said … he laughed when he said it, laughed way back in his throat …’

  ‘Said what?’

  ‘Said he’d be through in a minute if the guy wanted to take a turn. That’s when the guy shot Carlo, one time, in the head.’

  ‘He didn’t say nothin’? Just drew and shot my son?’

  ‘He didn’t say a word to Carlo, or to me, either. And he didn’t stick around afterward. He just walked away like nothing happened.’

  Corry paused for breath. Time for the payoff. Time for the ghost behind the curtain to emerge. ‘This guy, he was in his twenties and tall, better than six feet. His hair was light brown and he wore it pretty short. I knew him right away because I ran into him a few times at a bar in Brooklyn called the Waterfront. He had green eyes—’

  ‘You could see this in the dark? His fuckin’ eyes?’

  ‘—and his friends called him Teddy.’

  The old guy on Johnny’s left was first to react. His face tightened as far as his jowls would permit and he grunted. Johnny’s chin came up a second later. He looked at the old guy, then shook his head in disgust.

  ‘He had the gun with him, this Teddy?’

  ‘Yeah, he pulled it from inside his belt.’

  ‘And he just shot Carlo without sayin’ a word?’

  ‘He said “Hey, Carlo” when he walked up, but that was it.’

  Corry took a step back, then another. Now that they had what they wanted, all three men were looking at her the way Teddy looked at Carlo. If she was going to make a clean getaway, now was the time.

  ‘Where ya goin’?’ Johnny asked.

  ‘To spend my money.’ Corry took another step.

  ‘Nah, nah, nah. That’s all wrong. No, the way I see it, you got two choices.’ Johnny Piano’s smile had too much pleasure in it to be genuinely menacing. ‘You could toss that bag to me right now, or you could make me find you and take it back. Simple, right? The easy way or the hard way.’

  But Corry had a third choice, one she’d prepared well in advance, and she chose that moment to put it into play. Spinning on her heel, she broke into a fast walk, putting just a little more distance between herself and Pianetta before speaking into the cell phone concealed in the breast pocket of her coat.

  ‘Kill ’em, Tommy,’ she said. ‘Kill ’em all.’

  FORTY-FIVE

  Karkanian’s voice sounded in Jill’s ear before she could say hello. ‘Tell me where you are,’ he said.

  ‘Jackson Heights.’

  ‘In Queens?’

  ‘Last time I checked.’

  ‘Now tell me that Littlewood’s with you.’

  ‘Whether it’s true or not?’

  ‘I don’t have time for your bullshit. Just answer the question.’

  ‘He’s here.’

  ‘Are the two of you alone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Go to speaker.’

  The command was pretty much unnecessary. Boots already had his ear to the phone and there was no mistaking the stress in Karkanian’s voice. The man was as nervous as a teenage boy entering an adult prison.

  ‘OK, boss,’ Jill said. ‘We’re on speaker.’

  ‘Detective Littlewood, are you listening?’

  ‘I am,’ Boots said.

  ‘How long have you been in Jackson Heights?’

  ‘About four hours.’

  ‘Both of you?’

  Boots glanced at Jill and shook his head. ‘Captain, do you wanna tell me what’s goin’ on? Or do I need to contact my union lawyer?’

  ‘Four hours, right? In Jackson Heights?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Jill said, ‘and we must’ve spoken to fifty people.’

  ‘OK, that’s good. Littlewood, do you remember that gangster you confronted under the Pulaski Bridge on Monday morning, the same gangster you confronted again at Woodhull Medical Center?’

  ‘Now I know I need a lawyer.’

  ‘Well that gangster, John Pianetta, was shot dead in Fort Greene Park an hour ago, along with two of his known associates.’

  Jill was first to speak. ‘Make my day. Tell me he died in pain.’

  ‘No such. All three men were shot from a distance and died within a minute.’ Karkanian’s relaxed tone conveyed his relief. Jill and Boots, both under his command, were off the hook. ‘Now, I’m very busy, so let me just say this once. The shooting went down at the southeastern corner of the park and the scene’s crawling with media assholes. You are not to go there. You are to report forthwith to an MCC parked at the northwestern edge of the park. That would be Myrtle Avenue and St Edwards Street. Forthwith, detectives. Which means, in case you didn’t understand me, right the fuck now.’

  The forthwith part was just for show, as all concerned knew. Absent a helicopter, the trip from Central Queens to a Mobile Command Center in downtown Brooklyn would take at least forty minutes. That would have been true even if Boots and Jill, as they started down 90th Street, hadn’t run into Theodore Winuk coming up the block.

  Far from startled, or even apprehensive, Winuk’s eyes narrowed when he saw the two cops. He shifted toward the curb, but didn’t slow down until Boots drove a fist into his stomach. Then he doubled over and dropped to one knee.

  ‘I’m not mad,’ Boots told Jill as they continued on down the street. ‘In fact, I assumed he’d come back.’

  ‘So, why did you hit him?’

  ‘Because he expected me to react and I didn’t want to make him suspicious. I already know, of course, that he won’t find anything in the Frisk apartment. If the issue was in doubt, I would’ve taken stronger measures.’

  FORTY-SIX

  Boots and Jill didn’t discuss Teddy Winuk on the ride to Fort Greene Park. Short term, the only compelling issue was whether or not to reveal what they knew about Corry and Tommy Frisk. Karkanian had said that Pianetta was taken out from a distance, which necessitated the use of a rifle. Boots had found rifle cartridges in the vacated Frisk apartment. Was that a big deal? Was it evidence?


  Millions of rifle cartridges were manufactured and sold every year. And even if the ballistics unit was able to identify Winchester as the manufacturer of the bullets that killed Pianetta and his associates, it would prove nothing. Winchester-manufactured 7.62 millimeter cartridges were sold all over the world.

  ‘What’s Corry’s motive?’ Jill asked. ‘Why would she take the risk? Because Johnny’s kid attacked her? It’s not enough, especially with Carlo dead. There’s gotta be another reason for walking into the lion’s den.’

  ‘True enough, but it’d be a pretty good joke if she and her brother pulled it off.’ Boots slipped into a momentary silence as he drove up onto the Kosciusko Bridge. Newtown Creek, a block from where Carlo’s body was found, lay directly below them. Out in the distance, the Pulaski Bridge spanned the creek. ‘Think about it. We’ve been doin’ everything in our power to protect Corry, right? But all the time she’s been the predator. Personally, I’m startin’ to feel like a jerk.’

  NYPD Mobile Command Centers come in a number of sizes, from ordinary vans to busses to eighteen-wheelers. The one Boots and Jill reported to was the size of a Winnebago and clearly marked. Inside, long shelves with chairs set before them supported six computer monitors and the Center’s communications system. The shelves ran three-quarters of the way from back to front. The remaining space, separated by a partition, was given over to the sort of leather chairs that might be found on a private jet.

  The back of the MCC was unoccupied, the computer monitors blank. In front, a lone man sat with a newspaper on his lap. Not Captain Serge Karkanian, as Boots expected, but Chief of Detectives Michael Shaw, Jill Kelly’s uncle.

  ‘Ah,’ Shaw said without rising, ‘Come in and find a seat.’

  Boots felt his thermostat ratchet up a degree or two. He was going to have to jump through a few hoops and he really wasn’t in the mood.

  Shaw ran the pale fingers of his left hand through a shock of white hair that had fallen across his forehead. Like the detectives he commanded, Shaw wore a suit instead of a uniform, this one navy blue. According to Jill, Shaw’s many suits were meticulously hand-tailored, but this one fit his narrow frame loosely.

 

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