by J. L. Abramo
“Why wait until the last minute to try baiting me?”
“It was my advice. I felt it would make it much easier for you to come to a quick decision. She is planning to speak with the prosecutors first thing Monday morning.”
“And what will they think of her failure to come forward six months ago?”
“She will say she was afraid to speak out, considering what she knows of your temper. It doesn’t really matter. The value of her testimony will persuade the DA to offer immunity. Call me by six tomorrow if you are interested in dealing. Otherwise, good luck in court. Would you like my phone number?”
“I have your number. Go fuck yourself,” Salerno said and hung up.
“How did I do?”
“Great, Sal.”
“What do you think?”
“I think what I thought before. He will send his boys and they will watch. If you stay put, so will they. And as soon as you can ID their vehicle call me.”
“I brought a pinochle deck. Can you stay for a few hands?”
“I have some business. Watch Goodfellas. I’ll have Di Fara’s send a pie up in a couple of hours. Don’t drink too much of that scotch. I’ll call you this afternoon, and you call me if you need anything or if anything looks wrong. I appreciate your help. I don’t know how to thank you.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll think of something. Get out of here.”
I ran across the avenue and ordered a pizza to be delivered at two.
I felt obligated to make a timely decision regarding Benjamin Foster’s moral dilemma.
The question was: How can you inquire about who may have misplaced a briefcase full of cash without broadcasting the fact that someone found it?
The answer was: You can’t.
I needed a different approach, and I had an idea. But first I wanted to know more about the prospective client.
I called Tony Fazio.
“A-1 Trash Removal.”
“Tony, Nick.”
“What’s up?”
“Ben Foster?”
“He reached out to you?”
“He did.”
“What’s it about?”
“I really can’t say, Tony. What can you tell me about him?”
“Ben is a good guy. A very hard worker. He must put in sixty hours a week at the salvage yard, and helps us out when he can. A wife and two small daughters, three and five, all crammed into a tiny basement apartment on West Ninth Street. Not much more I can tell you.”
“That’s enough. Thanks.”
It was enough for me to take a ride to see Hector Ramirez in Sunset Park.
According to the police report, the Nissan with a treasure in the trunk plowed into a support column beneath the Gowanus at 3rd Avenue and 43rd Street. Hector and his wife Rosa ran a restaurant at 36th and 3rd, a block south of Sunset Park High School. When something out of the everyday came down in the neighborhood it was a very good bet Hector Ramirez had heard something about it.
Hector and Rosa served up some of the tastiest Caribbean dishes in Brooklyn at Café La Morena. I had been a frequent patron for years. Three months earlier Hector asked for my help. His son had been running around with a group of schoolmates who were pulling stereos out of cars in Park Slope and Hector caught wind of it. When confronted by his father, Raul swore he wasn’t involved in the robberies. Hector believed the boy, but was worried about guilt by association and peer pressure down the line. He wanted to knock some sense into the kid but thought it would be more effective coming from outside the family. Hector enlisted me to give his son something to think about.
I stopped the boy outside the high school.
“Raul.”
The boy recognized me. He had seen me in the restaurant a number of times, but didn’t know who I was or what I did.
I left it to his imagination.
“Yes.”
“I’m investigating a series of auto break-ins and your name came up.”
“My name.”
“I’m going to give you a friendly warning. I want you to listen carefully. Can you do that?”
“Yes.”
“We are going to catch the thieves. We are talking grand larceny. If you are not in it, stay out of it. It’s a road that leads somewhere you don’t want to be. Am I clear?”
“Yes.”
“Find some new friends,” I said, and I left him to think it over.
I hadn’t been to the restaurant for nearly a month. Hector was behind the counter with his daughter Marielle who served tables when she wasn’t taking classes at Long Island University Brooklyn Campus. Hector was pleased to see me.
“Can we talk?” I asked.
“Of course.”
“In private?”
“Come, there is no one in the back dining room. Marielle, por favor, ask your mother to please dish up some chicken and rice.”
“How is Raul doing?” I asked when we were seated.
“Good. You gave him a scare. He immediately ditched those guys he had been hanging with. And just in time. They were picked up by the police two days later. Thank you, my friend.”
“I’m glad I could help.”
Marielle brought plates of food and glasses of iced tea to the table. Her father thanked her and waited for her to leave the room.
“So, Nick, what is on your mind?”
“I’m trying to get some information without attracting a lot of attention and you may be able to help.”
“I understand. Please tell me what you are looking for.”
“There was an automobile accident at Forty-Third Street a few weeks back. Do you know anything about it?”
“Only what I have heard in bits and pieces on the street. There was talk of a second vehicle involved, which may have been pursuing the first. After the crash, the second car raced away.”
“There was no mention of a car chase in the police report.”
“The police were never alerted that night. From what I understand, the car was spotted the next morning by a bus driver who called it in. The police did some canvassing in the area but found no witnesses. The people in this neighborhood are very tightlipped when it comes to the police.”
“Have you heard anything about the driver?”
“The driver?”
“No one was found in or close to the vehicle. I saw photos of the car, it was bad. It’s difficult to imagine someone walking away from such a violent collision.”
“Perhaps the driver managed to leave the vehicle but didn’t make it too far. But I am only thinking aloud, I have heard nothing about a driver. I could try to learn more, but it will be hard to do without attracting the attention you want to avoid.”
“It would be better if you don’t. Forget it.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you more.”
“You may have told me enough, I appreciate your time, and please thank Rosa for the terrific food,” I said, rising from the table.
“Won’t you stay for coffee?”
“I hate to eat and run but I have other business. Thanks again.”
“Anytime,” Hector said.
There were a number of medical facilities in the general vicinity of the accident. Calvary Hospital at 55th and 2nd was closest so I drove over.
I waited on line for twenty minutes to speak with an admissions clerk.
“Could you tell me if anyone was admitted a few weeks ago, possibly a victim of a serious automobile accident?”
“Could you be more specific about when?”
I took a look at the police report and gave her the date. She punched it into her computer.
“A body was found lying on the ground a few blocks from here around half past eleven that night and brought in by ambulance. John Doe. DOA.”
“Cause of death?”
“That’s all I can tell you, and I have people waiting behind you. Try the Sixty-Eighth Precinct.”
I thanked her and went out to my car.
I was debating whether or not making no
ise at the 68th was a good idea when my cell rang.
It was John Sullivan.
“Nick, I’m at Coney Island Hospital. It’s your uncle. It’s not good.”
“What happened?”
“I’ll fill you in when you get here. I’ll be up at I.C.U.”
When I came off the elevator I spotted Sullivan sitting in a chair near the nurses’ station.
He rose to meet me.
“Can I see him?”
“Not yet. There’s nothing we can do here right now. Let’s go down to the cafeteria, I’ll buy you a cup of coffee and tell you what I know.”
By the time John got back to the table with coffee I was jumping out of my skin.
“Di Fara’s sent a kid over with a pizza around two. Apparently they gained entrance behind the kid when your uncle buzzed him in. When the kid didn’t come back, old man Di Fara sent one of his dishwashers to check it out. He couldn’t get through the security door, so it was called in. Two uniforms arrived and the store manager got them inside. They found the delivery kid gagged and tied at the end of the hall and discovered your uncle.”
“And?”
“They did a job on his face. Broke his jaw and the ER doctors had to work on his left eye. A few busted ribs. He lost a lot of blood.”
“What are the doctors saying?”
“I’ve been able to get two words out of them. Touch and go.”
“I’ll kill the motherfuckers.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First we need to find them. And then we need to talk to them about Vincent Salerno.”
“Get anything from the kid?”
“Not much. He was so petrified he could hardly speak. They grabbed him from behind at the third floor landing, warned him to be silent and escorted him at gunpoint to the far end of the hall. Two men. Wearing ski masks. One held the weapon while the other wrapped him in duct tape.”
“Then they knock on the door and my uncle lets them right in. They came for the name of the witness and when Sal couldn’t tell them, because there is no fucking witness, they tried to beat it out of him. And he held out.”
“You don’t think they broke him?”
“If he had to come clean about anything, to get them to stop short of killing him, he told them there was no witness, and that the scheme was his alone. I know my uncle. Sal would never mention our names even if his life depended on it.”
“I’m really sorry, Nicky.”
“It was me who enlisted Sal, and he knew what he was doing. And he’s a tough bastard, he’ll pull through. But these scumbags have shown they mean business—and as long as they are out there on the street, you and your family are not safe.”
“I’ll send Maggie and the kids to her mother until after my day in court.”
“The message Salerno sent through Annie was a warning to change your testimony or else. Maggie and the kids are safe for the moment. The danger to your family doesn’t begin until Salerno sees you didn’t take the threat to heart. If we can’t find these guys before Wednesday you are going to have to make a difficult if not impossible choice.”
“We have uniforms canvassing Avenue J from Coney Island Avenue to the subway station. Maybe someone saw two men who looked out of place, in or around a dark blue sedan, can give a description. Something. We might get lucky, though honestly I’m not very optimistic. I hate to ask, but is there anything from Carmine Pugno?”
“Carmine said he had ideas but wanted to wait until he could offer a more manageable list of possibilities. I think it’s time to call him and take what he has, as much as I would prefer not to. You can do something for me.”
“What’s that?”
“Do you know anyone at the Sixty-Eighth who would answer a few questions without a what for?”
“Possibly. If I was doing the asking.”
“A dead man was picked up off the street in Sunset Park two weeks ago, on a Thursday night between eleven and midnight. The body was delivered to Calvary Hospital. Hospital records have him listed as a John Doe. I’d like to know who he was.”
“What killed him?’
“I’d like to know that also.”
“I’m guessing you don’t want to hear a what for from me either.”
“I’d rather not.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“I need to go back up and find out when I can see my uncle.”
It was two hours before they would let me into the room. It broke my heart to see him that way. He was awake but couldn’t speak. His face was almost totally hidden by bandages. Only his right eye was uncovered and I was convinced I saw recognition in that eye when I reached the bed. He had no way to communicate but something in his eye said he was glad to see me, and glad to be able to see me. I vowed the men who beat him so brutally would pay.
I sat at his bedside, my hand resting over his. He fell asleep. My father had died alone. I pledged Sal would not. I was prepared to sit there until I was convinced he was out of the woods. When a doctor woke me it was three hours later. He coaxed me out of the room.
“It will take time, but his ribs and his jaw will heal. We saved the eye. There may be some loss of sight. He will need hospital care for three to four weeks. Did your uncle serve in the military?”
“Army. Vietnam.”
“Then I recommend transfer to Veterans Hospital. It would be far less costly. We should be able to safely move him in a few days. Detective Sullivan and a pair of brothers who rolled up to the hospital entrance in a garbage truck all gave blood. Your uncle will probably be asleep for quite a while, and it’s late. I suggest you call it a night. He has endured the worst of it. I can assure you he is not leaving us anytime soon.”
It was what I needed to hear, and I trusted he was not simply telling me what he knew I needed to hear.
I thanked him and I headed home.
The next morning, after what is commonly referred to as a fitful sleep, I was at the hospital by seven to look in on Sal.
He was awake. He looked more alert, but not much prettier. He would need to be fed intravenously until they could get his mouth working again.
I sat with him for a few hours. Listing all of the people who had dropped in to see him or had sent best wishes. Recapping all of the events leading to and immediately following his ordeal. Telling him where we sat on the Salerno thing. Expressing optimism I didn’t truly feel, but his good eye told me he was pleased to hear it. I eventually began reading to him from the Daily Racing Form. Like a dutiful parent reading from Winnie the Pooh. I paused after I was done running down the third race at Aquaduct.
“I’m really sorry, Uncle Sal,” I said.
He shook his head to tell me there was no apology necessary.
I continued reading to him until he was asleep. Then I quietly left the room and headed to my office.
After I settled into my desk chair and before I could check for phone messages, John Sullivan called.
“We caught a break.”
“Go,” I said. I was ready for some good news.
“A janitor sweeping in front of the Associated Supermarket saw the two men come out of the building, cross Avenue J, climb into a dark blue Chrysler sedan and drive off.”
“Get a plate number?”
“No. But he said one of the men had hair the color of a ripe pumpkin, so we have a partial description and the make of the vehicle. I put out an APB with instructions to report but not engage. I’m the primary on your uncle’s assault, if one of our units spots them I’ll hear about it first. It’s something.”
“It’s something,” I repeated. “Let me know if it pans out.”
I listened to the voice mail. There was a message from Carmine Pugno asking me to call back.
“I was sorry to hear about your uncle,” he said when I had him on the line. “Will he be all right?”
The man was definitely plugged into Brooklyn current events.
“I think so,” I said.
Pugno left it at that
and got down to business.
“I have something for you.”
“Go on,” I said. I was ready for some better news.
“I believe you are looking for the Rose brothers.”
“Who are the Rose brothers?”
“Mike and Pat Rose. A pair of animals out of Jersey.”
“Okay.”
“Strictly muscle for hire, no affiliations, who won’t stop short of going all the way if the price is right.”
“Okay,” I said again, wondering how many teeth he would have left by the time he finally stopped me having to pull them.
“I had two of my guys staking out Salerno’s warehouse since he got there yesterday morning. At three in the afternoon the Rose brothers showed up.”
“Does one of them sport orange hair?”
“Yes.”
“A dark blue Chrysler?”
“Am I telling you things you already know?”
“You’re filling in the critical blanks.”
“Can you use a license plate number?”
“Sure.”
I jotted it down on a Totonno’s Pizzeria menu.
New Jersey registration.
“My guys tailed Michael and Patrick to the St. George Hotel in Brooklyn Heights. If these are the men you were looking for, there’s not much more we can do for you.”
“You’ve done enough. I’ll take it from here.”
“Do you need some time?”
“I could use a little time. Can your men stay on them for a while and keep track of them if they move?”
“Yes. But only for a while.”
“Thank you. And please thank your father.”
“You can thank my father by never reaching out to him again.”
Done and done.
I called Sullivan at the 70th.
“Pugno made our guys. They’re holed up at the St. George but I can’t say for how long.”
“I’m stuck here until my partner gets back from a doctor’s appointment. Can you keep track of them for two or three hours?”
“Carmine has it covered. He’ll let me know if they move. Meanwhile, here are their names and the plate number of the Chrysler. See what you can find out about these bastards.”