Skells

by F. P. Lione

  I also grabbed a roll of duct tape out of the closet to use on the stairwell door.

  As we exited the premise, I checked to see if the fifth floor had stairwell access. The sign said “5th floor access,” so I took the stairs down and used the push bar to release the door in the lobby. I put the tape over the lock so it wouldn’t engage, and we left the building.

  16

  We went back to the precinct and changed into street clothes—or got out of the bag, as we call it—and met up at the front desk.

  Terri Marks was asking Joe about the loft.

  “How many plants were there?”

  “Hundreds of them,” Joe said.

  “What was the firm’s name?”

  “Cosmic Enterprises,” Romano cut in.

  “Figures,” Terri said.

  They were talking about the grow lights and the irrigation system, and Terri said, “You ever smoke pot, Joe?” as she smiled at Fiore.

  The lou’s eyebrows went up.

  “No, Terr,” Fiore said. “Never did.”

  “Don’t feel bad, Joe,” Galotti said to Joe. “I didn’t know what it was either.” He was quiet for a second and said, “But Nick and Tony did.”

  “Bruno, I knew what it was. I just never smoked it,” Fiore said.

  “You’re a cop, you knucklehead—you’re supposed to know what it looks like,” I said to Galotti.

  “I’ve seen pictures of it, I just never saw a live plant,” Bruno said.

  “Here you go, you Boy Scout,” the lou joked as he threw a set of keys to Fiore. “It’s the black Lumina parked on 9th Avenue.”

  “Bruno,” I said, “why don’t you pull your shirt out of your pants and put it over your gun so nobody sees it.” He had his shirt tucked in, with his gun on the gun belt. We’re not allowed to show our weapons out of uniform. He pulled his shirt out as we walked out the front doors of the precinct.

  We walked down 35th Street toward 9th. Since we were gonna be sitting in the car for a while, we stopped to get more coffee in the deli on the corner.

  Geri’s eyes lit up when she saw us, and she smiled. “What can I do for you guys?”

  I don’t think she was talking about coffee.

  “Just getting some coffee,” Fiore said.

  It was a self-serve counter, and we each fixed our coffee, with Geri flirting with us.

  “Why aren’t you guys in uniform? Not that you don’t look good this way.”

  “Ah, we got tired of wearing the uniform,” I said.

  “I feel so safe with all of you in here.”

  “I don’t feel safe,” Romano mumbled, picking up a bag of potato chips, some peanut M&Ms, and both the Daily News and the Post since we forgot to take the paper out of the RMP.

  We paid for our stuff, each of us except Bruno tossing a couple of bills on the counter, and said good night.

  “You want your change?” she called after us. We laughed as Bruno bent over when she dropped his.

  We picked up the Lumina and drove back over to the premise. The car had tinted windows so anyone walking by wouldn’t see us. We pulled up next to the sarge’s RMP on 40th Street, next to the Port Authority wall that runs the length of 40th Street.

  I rolled down the window. “Hey, Boss.”

  “Make sure if you see anyone go into the building, that you call me,” he said.

  “You got it.”

  “Just be careful.”

  “We’ll be fine, Boss. What time is OCCB coming?” “Probably around eight o’clock.”

  I pulled into his spot when he drove away and parked next to the curb.

  “Where’s the cardboard condos?” Romano asked.

  “Port cops probably did a sweep after the stabbing last week,” Joe said.

  I figured we could keep an eye out for Easy while we waited.

  I picked up the paper and started reading the sports section. “Tickets went on sale for the Brooklyn Cyclones,” I told Joe, talking about the Mets’ farm team they built the stadium for in the old Steeplechase park on Coney Island. This was their first season, and the paper said over a thousand people waited in line to get tickets.

  “Yeah, I saw that. I think you had to buy them at King’s Plaza,” Joe said, which was the mall in Brooklyn. “I have to call them. I want to get tickets for my father—he loves the Mets, and he’d love to see them play baseball in Brooklyn again.”

  There was an article about the Jets’ owner, Woody Johnson, moving the team to LA if they couldn’t get a stadium in New York. There’s a lot of talk about a stadium on the West Side of Manhattan that the mayor’s in favor of. After New York lost the Brooklyn Dodgers, we won’t be so quick to lose another team to Los Angeles.

  “It says here that murder is down 18 percent,” Galotti said from the backseat.

  “In what country?” I asked.

  “Here in the city,” he said. “It says in the paper that in fourteen of the city’s seventy-six precincts there were no murders.”

  “That’s a lie,” I said.

  “Really, it says the five-o in the Bronx is a murderless precinct, and murders were on the rise for the past two years. There were no murders in six Manhattan precincts, four Brooklyn, and three Queens precincts.”

  “Let me see that,” I said, taking the paper from him. “Do they really expect me to believe that there were more murders in Staten Island than up in Riverdale?”

  That was impossible. Staten Island had 1,229 crimes, as opposed to the Bronx, which had 8,111 crimes when they broke it down into borough commands. If they ever told the truth about their stats, I bet murder would be up 18 percent instead of down like they said.

  We were bored out of our minds. We passed the papers back and forth while we watched the building. Romano and I would get out of the car every so often to smoke a cigarette. Galotti passed out around three, and Romano not long after him. Bruno was snoring lightly, and at one point Nick jerked awake. He looked around and realized where he was and went back to sleep.

  “You really think he’s seeing Denise?” Fiore asked quietly.

  “I don’t know, maybe.”

  “Why is that a bad thing?”

  “Come on, Joe, they’re both screwed up. He’s got a kid.” I lowered my voice. “His girlfriend is always causing trouble,” I said. “Plus, Denise’s too old for him.”

  “A couple of years isn’t gonna make a difference, and they’re talking about going to church together. Isn’t that what you want? You tell Nick he needs to get with God, and you tell Denise the same thing. Why would it be so bad?”

  “Joe, do you really think anyone in my family is ever gonna go to church?”

  “Yeah, I do,” he said, meaning it. “Remember the story of Paul and Silas when they were locked in the jail in Acts 16?”

  “I think so.” Something about an earthquake.

  “They were in prison, their feet were in the stocks, and at midnight they were praying and singing to God.” He looked at me like he was waiting for an answer.

  “Yeah, so. What’s your point?”

  “So an earthquake opened the doors to the prison and the stocks came off, and the jailer was gonna kill himself ’cause he thought they escaped. Paul and Silas told him not to harm himself, that they were still there—” He held up his hand. “Just let me finish the story before you start rolling your eyes,” he said.

  “I don’t see how this has anything to do with this, but you always manage to bring it around, so I’ll listen,” I said.

  “Then the jailer asked Paul and Silas what must he do to be saved. And Paul told him, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.’”

  “What does this have to do with my sister and Romano?”

  “You, Tony. Paul said if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you and your household will be saved. That includes Denise, your parents, Vinny, even Granny with the red underwear. I don’t know if things will work out between them, but I think both of them are searching for
God. Actually, most people are searching for God, they just don’t realize it.”

  Maybe he was right. The truth was I liked Romano, and while he may not have had his life in order, underneath it all he was a good guy. The same went for Denise. I just wanted her to be happy. I guess it didn’t matter if it was with Romano. It was probably too soon to be thinking that way anyway.

  The air was getting cool and a film of condensation settled on the car. I had to use the wipers every so often to keep the windshield clear.

  Galotti woke up around five and woke Romano up when he left the car to use the bathroom, the side of the building actually.

  I must have been dozing, because I jumped when I heard Fiore say, “Tony.”

  I looked at the clock, ten to six. He was looking at a guy walking eastbound on 40th Street from 9th Avenue on the opposite side of the street, which is the same side as the premise.

  “I like this guy,” Joe said.

  “Yeah, he’s got pothead written all over him.” He was a male white, midtwenties, with long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail.

  We watched him as he walked down the street, unlocked the front doors, and entered the building.

  “Bingo,” I said, putting the car in drive.

  We gave him a couple of minutes to get into the elevator and drove the car down. I parked right before the entrance to the building.

  I turned to Galotti and Romano. “We’re gonna be quiet when we go in there. You changed your shoes, right?” I asked Galotti.

  “I got sneakers on now.”

  “We’re gonna check the elevator,” I continued. “Once we make sure it went up to the fifth floor, we’ll go up the stairs. And whatever you do, don’t look at the camera.”

  We were careful not to slam the car doors when we got out. As we approached the glass doors in the front, we stopped. I walked past the building nonchalantly and looked to see if he was still in the lobby. The lobby was empty, so I waved them over.

  I pulled the door open and grabbed the glass to dull the noise, not that he’d hear me. Joe went in first and looked in the elevator. He turned his back to the camera and held up five fingers to show where the elevator stopped, and we walked toward the stairs.

  I could feel my heart start to pound on the way up. I was straining my ears to hear if the elevator was moving.

  We took our guns out as we approached the stairwell door on the fifth floor. We tiptoed down the hallway and entered the premise through the back door that we left open.

  It was pretty dark in there. I peeked through the black curtain and saw florescent lights on overhead and saw someone moving around in the office.

  I waved the others into the room, and we each walked down through a row of the wooden tables. The guy was in the office and had no idea we were coming toward him. I saw him in the metal closet. He had his back to me and he was going through the VCR tapes. He was probably wondering why the VCR wasn’t on. When we got about ten feet from the door, I pointed my gun at him and yelled, “Police! Don’t move!”

  He dropped the tape and grabbed his chest. “Dude, why’d you have to scare me like that?”

  “Don’t move!” I said again.

  He put his hands up. “Dude, I don’t know nothing,” he said as he took a deep breath. “Wow, you scared me.”

  “Put your hands on your head and turn around,” I said.

  “Dude, this is wrong,” he said as he turned.

  I holstered my gun, and Joe covered me as I cuffed his right hand and then his left.

  He kept blubbering the dude stuff. “Dude, don’t do this. Dude, it’s all a misunderstanding.”

  I hate being called dude.

  He was wearing old jeans, brown leather shoes, and a South Park T-shirt that said, “That sucks, dude.” I guess that’s why he talked that way.

  Fiore called the sarge. “South Sergeant on the air? Roll over to 9.”

  “South Sergeant on the air.”

  “Boss, this is Joe. Listen, we got a guy up here.”

  “Inside the premise?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Joe turned to Galotti.

  “Yeah, I know, go let him in. C’mon, Nick,” Bruno said.

  “Dude, what are you locking me up for? Dude, I just work here. I make sure the lights are on and check the tapes, then I go to my job.”

  I let him ramble. I didn’t answer him and didn’t ask him anything. Romano would take the collar, and the detectives would handle it after that.

  “Dude!” He was getting loud now. “If I get locked up, I can’t go to my work, and I’ll lose my job!”

  Romano and Galotti came in with the sarge and Noreen.

  “Is anyone else gonna be coming here today?” the boss asked the dude.

  “No, dude.” He seemed relieved that someone was finally talking to him. “I just come here to turn the lights on, change the tape, and make sure everything is working right. Then I stop back on my way home from work.”

  “Where do you work?” Hanrahan asked him.

  “Up on 53rd Street. I’m a graphic artist.”

  “So what are you doing here?”

  “Helps pay the bills, dude. Do you know how much rent is in this city?”

  “I’m a cop,” Hanrahan said. “I can’t afford to live in the city.”

  Hanrahan and Noreen took Romano and the dude back to the precinct and left me, Joe, and Bruno to watch the premise. Hanrahan wanted one of us to stay and help OCCB and two cops from the day tour handle the loft.

  Carl Beers and a Spanish female cop that I never met showed up right before 8:00 to relieve us. Galotti wanted the OT, so Joe and I went back to the precinct in the crime car.

  “I wonder if you’ll still make Cop of the Month for the assault collar now,” I said as I parked on 35th Street near the corner of 9th.

  “Why?”

  “That’s a nice collar for Romano.”

  “I hope he gets it before he leaves,” Joe said.

  I went down to the locker room to grab my bag, and I signed out at 8:10.

  The morning was cloudy, and a fine mist was spraying the air as I drove downtown. I cleared the tunnel and the Gowanus, but the fog was so thick around the Verrazzano that you couldn’t even see there was a bridge there. I took the lower level and exited to the right at South Beach.

  I saw Ralph’s wife at the corner with a group of mothers and kids waiting for the bus. She was dressed today in black pants and a beige silk blouse, and her hair was pulled back away from her face.

  Alfonse’s car was gone. He was probably down at the fruit stand down on Hylan Boulevard buying his vegetables for the day.

  I saw the school bus pull up in my rearview mirror as I parked, so I stood outside my car and waited for Ralph’s wife to walk down the street.

  She walked on her side of the street, slowly, keeping her head down. I think she wanted to avoid talking to me, but manners won out and she crossed the street.

  “Hi,” she said, looking embarrassed. “I’m really sorry about yesterday.”

  “Not a problem,” I said. “Did you go to court for that order of protection?”

  “I was in the hospital most of the day, and I had to get home for my kids. I’m going now,” she said. “I don’t know how this is gonna work—it’s Ralph’s house.”

  “How is it his house? Aren’t you married?”

  “Yeah, but the house is in his name. When we got married, the deed somehow wound up in his name only.” She gave me a look that said it was no accident. “If I can get on my feet and get a job, I can get another place—if he doesn’t come back and kill me first.”

  “Have you left him before?”

  “I’ve tried. He always comes back, though.”

  “Is he sorry?” I asked. Who knows, maybe he cries to her that he’ll change and she believes him.

  She gave a cynical laugh. “He’s never sorry.”

  “Then why do you take him back? You know this isn�
�t gonna change with him, right?” I asked.

  “I know, it’s getting worse. It’s been building all week. Yesterday he broke two ribs and my nose,” she said as she touched her nose and winced. Her eyes filled, and she said, “I don’t know what to do. He keeps saying if I leave he’ll take my kids away from me because I’m taking antidepressants.”

  Living with him, she probably needed antidepressants. “You have any family you can go to?” I asked.

  “I do, but no one I’d ask for help.” Probably why she was in this situation to begin with.

  “When you go to court today, talk to someone there. There’s help out there if you know where to look for it,” I said. “You’ll definitely get an order of protection, find out where to go from there.”

  She nodded. “Thanks.”

  “Yeah, good luck today,” I called after her for lack of anything better to say.

  I jumped in the shower. I felt like the dampness and grime from the pot greenhouse was sticking to me. I left my hair damp, pulled a pair of sweats on, and picked up my Bible to read before I fell asleep. I think I opened it, but I was asleep before I read anything.

  I woke up with a jump, aware that someone was yelling my name. My heart was pounding, and I heard banging on my door and Alfonse’s voice. “Tony, please! Open the door, Tony.”

  I jumped up and went toward the door, hearing him louder now. “Tony, oh no!” He rattled off a couple of things in Italian that sounded like Ave Maria or something as I opened the door.

  “Tony, thank God.” He held his hands together like he was praying. “Ralph’s back—he’s got her in the house.”

  “Did you call the cops?” I asked behind me as I went back into my bedroom for a shirt and my gun.

  “Yeah, about two minutes ago.”

  I put sneakers on without socks and tried to maneuver my feet into them while I trotted out the door. As soon as I hit the top of the steps, I could hear yelling from across the street.

  “Didn’t they give her an order of protection?” I asked Alfonse. “I saw her this morning—she was on her way to court.” I was hoping that no one did him a favor and let him off, though I couldn’t see that happening.