About 7:30 P.M. when he thought the last tail had dropped off, he hailed a cab to a middle-class neighborhood in Queens which had earned the reputation recently of being racist because it protested that a big low-income project would bring ghetto blacks to the neighborhood. Sgt. Philosophus Jones had lived there with his family peacefully for the last ten years, having moved there for the same reason as other residents—getting away from the crime. He could not join the protests as he told Bressio once “’cause I still got to live with my people. But Jesus, Al, this wasn’t racist when it started, but it’s becoming that now. I’m gonna move out. I just may have to move out.”
“Racism?”
“No. The damned project. My kids will be drawn right into all that shit. Needles in the arms. Pimps looking to sell my daughter’s ass. Shakedowns on the way to school. No way, man.”
Jones lived on the fourth floor of a neat red-brick apartment building. His daughter answered the door, a pretty little girl with a bright open grin, and two pink ribbons in her hair. “Hello. My name is Nancy Jones. What’s yours?”
“Al Bressio, honey. Is your daddy home?”
“Who is it, Nancy?” came a woman’s voice.
“It’s someone for daddy.”
“The department?”
“My mother wants to know if you’re from the police department. My father is a policeman, a very good one, and sometimes he has visitors from the department, and he’s sleeping now.”
Bressio heard Mrs. Jones laugh from the kitchen at her daughter’s explanation. She came out of the kitchen drying her hands on a towel, laughing at her daughter’s openness. When she saw Bressio, the laughter died.
“Yes. Can I help you?” she asked coldly. She instinctively shielded her daughter’s head with a hand, bringing little Nancy to the far side of her hip behind an immaculate white apron.
“I’m Al Bressio. I know your husband quite well, I’d like to speak to him.”
“He’s sleeping,” said Mrs. Jones.
“I know. He would want you to wake him.”
“Wait here,” said Mrs. Jones. She disappeared into the apartment, pulling Nancy by the hand. Bressio heard muffled arguing from a far-off room. Finally Jones came to the door in his police trousers and an undershirt, rubbing sleep from his eyes.
“Phoss. I need a place for the night.”
“I don’t know, Al. I hear you’re into the white powder now. I don’t want anything to do with it in my home.”
“I’m not in it. It’s coming after me. I just need six hours. Six hours, Phoss. A hundred an hour?”
“What good’s six hundred if this place becomes a shooting gallery?”
“It won’t unless you spread the word I’m here.”
Jones blinked himself awake. When his mind had time to focus, he shook his head emphatically. “Not in my house, Al. I’m sorry. Not in my living room. No way, man.”
“Twelve hundred,” said Bressio.
“That’s a lot of money.”
“It’ll buy a nice trip to Bermuda and some nice school outfits.”
“Al, truthfully, I would like to help you ’cause I would like to help you. Out in the street, okay. That’s one thing. But back there is my living room, and my wife, and my daughter, and my son, and my kitchen, and my bed, and Al Bressio, you ain’t coming in. Not with your connections or nothing. You want to come in, Alphonse, you gotta kill me right here at this threshold.”
“What’s this killing, Phoss? Here, let me pay you for yesterday.” Bressio reached for some bills, but Jones waved him off.
“You use that to keep you alive. If it all works out, then you take care of me. I’m sorry, Alphonse. Truly. But don’t come back here again.”
Bressio watched the door close in his face. He needed sleep to be sharp. If he had to, he could stay awake for two days running, but the awareness dwindled to sub-nothing at that stage. Looking at the closed door, standing in the hallway, his hands at his sides, helpless, Bressio thought about Felli’s offer.
With the family, he would have protection, with the family he could close his eyes and be rested and sharp and protected. Of course, when he was alert, he would be expected to perform certain duties, but even these would be made easier because the family liked to protect its talent. All he had to do was pick up a phone and say, “I’m yours.” And then they would ask him to prove it.
It was a wise decision. All the odds pointed that way. Even the bookie knew. When he had called him the night before from Cutler’s, he had found his credit turned off for the first time.
“So if I’m not alive, I couldn’t collect if I won,” Bressio had said.
“You’d be surprised who comes collecting for stiffs, Al. Sorry. No bet.”
No bet. Bressio walked slowly down the hallway. Going to the family now would be a smart move. But he wasn’t going to. No. He was a beautiful person. And God help anyone reaching into a pocket too quickly within the shooting range of that beautiful person. God help them.
XX
MEMORANDUM
At 6:38 A.M., agent Clyde Forrest, in charge of a maximum sensitivity operation, when inspecting area of highest sensitivity did discover upon personal observation that objects of that sensitivity were no longer on the premises. He reported said fact at 7:15 in a high state of anxiety, repeating quote—I should have sent the memos—unquote. He did not explain his comment.
cc: Special Investigation on Pren Street Operation.
XXI
“You’re lying to me, Clarissa. I know there’s an important message. Now, I can’t stay on this phone too long. So what is it?”
“Al, I’m not going to tell you.”
“You don’t know about these damned things. You almost got me killed by withholding those other messages. Now do you want to get me killed for sure.”
“It’s Cutler. He got a phone call from Mary Beth last night. She’s back with Marvin.”
“She got out of the farm?”
“It’s not a jail, Al.”
“The hell it wasn’t. Where is she now?”
“I don’t know. Don’t go looking for her Al. Just don’t, please.”
Bressio hung up and dialed Mitchell, Walker and Cutler. His eyes stung from lack of sleep. He could even feel and hear his heart beat. Morning was upon New York City, a gray, drizzly morning that made the world gray. Bressio watched the morning shoppers on Queens Boulevard bundled in rain slickers, covered by umbrellas, a people that got through the weather never enjoying it. You had to get out of the city to think of weather as more than a nuisance. He let the drizzle come in on him, for he did not wish to shut the door of the glass telephone booth. Sometimes they got stuck, and wouldn’t’ he be a fine sight in a closed glass box. Glass shards were as good as bullets sometimes.
“Just a minute, please. Mr. Cutler said to put you right through to him.”
Bressio listened to the clicks of the transfer of lines. He didn’t see any tails at the moment. Whether they had planned it or not, it was a good strategy to keep people on him. It was like a sword in his back. Yet in a way that strategy could backfire if he were a less reasonable man. He might be pushed to lashing out wildly at someone like Don Carmine … if he were not a reasonable man.
“Al, this is Jim Cutler. Mary Beth phoned me last night and said she was returning to Fleish. I thought you had assured me this wouldn’t happen.”
“Nothing of the sort. I said I would try.”
“I got the impression she was going to Pren Street. That’s a dangerous area now, correct?”
“Just how do you know that?” yelled Bressio. “How the fuck do you know that? What are you telling me she’s in Pren Street for? What kind of shit is that?”
“I just said, Mr. Bressio, that I got the impression she was going to Pren Street. She mentioned the loft. In our agreement you were to provide her with protection, if I am correct. That is a dangerous place. If she is there, I would appreciate your getting her out of there. That is all I’m asking. I
am a father and I am worried about my daughter. I was under the impression that your high fee covered a situation like this. Perhaps I am wrong. There really isn’t too much I can do. Is there?”
“If I’m absolutely sure she’s there, I’ll get her out. If I’m 100 percent certain.”
“That’s all I can ask. And I am grateful.”
“Yeah, well, I got the doctor’s report on her yesterday.”
“Yes?” Cutler’s voice was anxious.
“She’s, uh … she’s coming along fine, Mr. Cutler.”
“It’s Jim, Al. I’m sorry for the harshness, but you understand the concern a father has for his daughter.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
From an open subway booth waiting for an F train into Manhattan, Bressio dialed Dawson’s office. Dawson wasn’t in. Bressio dialed his home. Bobo answered.
“He’s right here, Al. We’re together again, no thanks to you … It’s your procurer, Murray.”
Bressio heard the phone change hands.
“Hi, Al. What’s up?”
“You seen Mary Beth?”
“No. Not for days.”
“You know where L. Marvin is? He’s not in that loft, is he? I mean, I fucking warned you and him about that loft.”
“I don’t know, Al. I don’t know. He and Becky were talking about loft living last night. I loaned her my Rolls … Excuse me, I loaned the little farm tramp Bobo’s personal car. Does that suit you, Bobo? … and she and Marvin drove off in it, and this morning the chauffeur found it parked in the garage, but without the keys. If you see Becky, would you get the damned keys from her? Bobo is the only person I know with a Rolls and only one set of keys. Will you shut up, Bobo? This is business.”
“But you don’t know for sure where she is or where Mary Beth is or where L. Marvin is, right? I mean you don’t know that.”
“Knowing the nature of the girl from Iowa, and knowing L. Marvin, I would say they took a look at the loft, and might still be there. Yes.”
“That’s not sure,” said Bressio.
“You’re not going there, are you?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“You want company?”
“Thanks, Murray, but you’d only get in the way and get me killed probably.”
“If you need me, Al, for anything, you know where to get me … Shut up, Bobo, you and your money can go piss up a rope. Just call if you need me, Al. I’ll be here all day. Bobo and I are making up.”
The Manhattan-bound train opened its doors, and Bressio dropped the phone and rushed into the maw of the car. He sat across from an old woman with a large brown paper bag of what appeared to be wool. She avoided looking at him. A transit patrolman seeing Bressio’s pistol, flagrant in holster behind unbuttoned jacket, turned and walked out of the car.
In Manhattan, Bressio heard what he didn’t want to hear. An unmarked car with two plainclothesmen signaled him over.
“You’re Alphonse Bressio, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“A Sergeant Philosophus Jones, twenty-seventh precinct, is trying to reach you.” The plainclothesman checked his watch. “He’s eating now. You can get him at that luncheonette on University Place near the Dardanelles Restaurant. Do you know the place?”
“Yeah,” said Bressio. He was running out of small change, and with his last dime, he got the luncheonette’s pay phone, and asked for Jones. He had the feeling that morning that he was living in telephone booths.
“Hey, Al. I got some information that may be of help. Big bad thing happened at Pren Street this morning, no one in the department knows what, the narcos are being super-hush about it.”
“How many dead?”
“Don’t think anyone’s dead, but we’re staying off that street as requested by their liaison this morning. I hear some people are being kept in their loft on the third floor and can’t leave. Even the connected people don’t know what’s going on, but that street is an armed camp. Did you know that?”
“Yeah,” said Bressio. “I know that. I’ll take care of you if I’m breathing.”
“That’ll be nice, Al, but I didn’t reach out for you for that. You know why I did what I had to do last night, don’t you? You should know best of all.”
“I do, Phossy. You’ve been better at it than I. I wish I knew how you did it so successfully.”
“It’s the small things, Alphonse. You don’t even give ’em the small, meaningless things. You think about it there, fella. Good luck.”
Maybe Mary Beth wasn’t in the loft. Maybe other people were being held there? Maybe no one was being held there? All Phossy knew was what the precinct was talking about.
And maybe Mary Beth was there.
The rain was letting up, and Bressio felt his stubble of a beard, and his mouth tasted like wax when he entered a rent-a-car on Thirty-eighth Street.
“How long did you want the car for?”
“A half-hour. Make it a day,” said Bressio, who told the clerk he did not care whether it was a coupe or a hardtop or an economy model. “A car. Just a car.”
The clerk smiled with great effort and double-checked Bressio’s credit card and driver’s license.
Near Washington Park, Bressio parked the car, and waited for a car that might be a tail to pass from view down the block. He removed his .38 police special from its holster, checked the bullets that he knew were there, checked the hammer action again and put the gun back in the holster. The gun was in working order. God willing, he would not have to use it.
He picked up Pren Street as it came into Houston and at fifteen miles an hour drove slowly towards 285. For a street where the narcos had something big going, there seemed to be very few unmarked cars. There were only two parked cars on the street. The warehouse was closed, even though it was midweek. No one was on the street. In all the jarring, noise-grinding city of New York, this street was quiet as a cave. Bressio pulled up at the corner in front of 285. The metal door was closed. Bressio noticed a Venetian blind across the street move ever so slightly.
With great deliberation and very small movements he got out of the car. Standing by the door of the car with his hands clearly away from his shoulder holster and clearly empty, he looked up to the third floor loft. He saw a figure in the window, the very dusty window. Was it a woman? A man?
“Mary Beth,” Bressio called out. “Mary Beth.”
The figure did not move, and Bressio called out louder. “Mary Beth. Mary Beth.”
Bressio saw the window nudge open, then flung open wide. His stomach jumped at its suddenness. He wanted to scream out for no sudden movements. For God’s sake move slow. Who else was it but L. Marvin Fleish with his short haircut. He was wearing a T-shirt.
“Hi, Al,” he yelled. “We’re locked in here. Could you bring up something to eat?”
“Not so loud,” said Bressio. “And don’t make any fast moves. Nothing to rile anyone.”
“Hey, baby. Don’t hassle it,” yelled L. Marvin. “If you’re worried about all the creeps, I’ll keep you covered.” And with a booming yell lest anyone missed the threat, L. Marvin Fleish screamed, “I got you covered, Bressio. Go ahead.” And to support this claim, out of the window came the Sea Scout training rifle.
The first nervous shot from across the street started the fusillade, and Bressio dropped to the pavement, his face in something smelly and sticky. The brat-brat of pistols and the bloom-blooms of shotguns and the pinging of bullets going into brick exploded down Pren Street. The weeks of quiet maneuvering, of back-alley killings, of frightened greedy people with guns all let loose on Pren Street. It only took one person thinking an artificial rifle was real.
Bessio felt a tug at his jacket, but he just stayed flat. That was how a bullet felt going through cloth.
“Al Bressio. Help me. Help me. Al, help me. They have guns. They have guns.” It was Mary Beth’s voice. There was firing inside the loft building also. Obviously some people had been planted there waiting, and they were excha
nging shots with the narcos or with themselves.
Bressio was off the sidewalk into the building with his gun out and running up the steps, feeling a sharp sting in his ass and keeping on running. The hallway was floodlit now, and someone came fast at him falling backward into Bressio, who brushed him aside and down the stairs like a leaf. Past the damned second-floor loft, whose door was shut, and up a flight to the third-floor loft and into a rifle pointing down the stairs right at his face. Bressio’s pistol was alive with two immediate and immaculate shots in the forehead, then chestbone. The rifleman convulsed and Bressio was at the top of the stairs on the third floor. The loft door was open. Fleish knelt with his hands covering his eyes. Before him was a body bubbling blood from the stomach. The body had sandy blond hair. Becky Hawkins.
“Who’s in there? Who’s in there?” yelled Bressio, getting close to a wall.
“It’s me, Al. Your cousin Joey. Joey Bugellerio.”
“Anyone else?”
“Just a friend. He’s okay. You still heavy on that Cutler woman?”
“No. Never was,” yelled Bressio.
“You were for the smack, right?”
“What do you think?”
“That’s what I thought. We had a little accident in here.”
“What do I care? What’s the status of the smack?”
“I guess it’s still downstairs. We heard the shooting and we came down from the roof. We caught some rifle shots and ducked in here. The broads got in our way.”
“Who you working for?”
“Ourselves and some other guys. You want to join?”
“You join me.”
“Who you with?”
“Myself.”
“Okay.”
“C’mon out,” said Bressio.
“You come in.”
Bressio heard the throat gurgle of a wounded person inside the loft.
With pistol in front of him he turned the corner exposing himself. Joey had a sawed-off shotgun pointed at Bressio’s belly, his friend had a light pistol pointed at Bressio’s chest. They stood in the middle of the loft. Mary Beth Cutler was curled in a fetal position by the bathroom door, surrounded by a small carpeting of blood. Bobbi sat by her mother, staring down at what was left of a face. Bressio knew what a shotgun could do to a face. L. Marvin trembled by the body of Becky Hawkins.
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