“Much as I hate to admit it,” Mintz said, “that one makes a certain sense. With both Willy and us gone, things go back to normal … But can we really do this?”
“Come on, partner,” DeGraw said, taking another pair of surgical gloves from Mintz’s pocket. “Nobody here. All we do is introduce what’s left of Mr. Wild Willy to the depths of the East River, where the little fishies will enjoy eating Italian once again. Then we’re home free: no murder, no suspects, no change on the Red Hook waterfront.”
“God help me,” Mintz answered, closing his eyes and trying to force a swallow through a dry throat, “but I just can’t do this. It’s too risky.”
Deflated, DeGraw slumped back against the building. “Okay, man. I understand.”
“Look, Frank, I’m sorry, but I just …”
“It’s okay, partner. I’ll handle it … how I handle it. Why don’t you just call it in.”
Mintz lifted the radio and hesitated, fingering the broadcast key without activating the call. “Wait a minute, what am I thinking? We have to do this.”
“No we don’t,” DeGraw said. “I’ll handle it.”
“No you won’t. You’re right about what they’ll do. They’ll investigate you.”
“Right,” DeGraw said, noticing that Mintz was calmer now.
“And you know, they might not find that you iced ol’ Willy, but if they nose around into your activities, they’re bound to find out about the boosted guns, don’t ya think?”
“That’s not for you, that’s for me to worry about. How many times do I …”
“I’m sorry for bringin’ it up, Frank, but you could end up stuck with gun charges off of Wild Willy bein’ found dead here, so we gotta do what you suggest, right? We gotta dump Willy in the channel. Just promise me, Frank, if this goes wrong, you’ll step up and protect me.”
“I got yer back from now till the tomb, partner,” DeGraw replied, slipping the gloves onto Mintz’s hands.
“Faster we’re outa here, better I’ll feel,” Mintz said. “Let’s go.”
Stomachs in knots, they collected all the parts of Wild Willy—including the Mafioso’s wallet—and packed them into a rusted barrel, which they topped off with cinderblocks. Then DeGraw used the side of his Glock to tamp down the metal tabs on the barrel lid until it was secure, and they rolled the barrel to the end of the pier where, without ceremony, they sent the creatures of Buttermilk Channel fresh Italian to eat.
This took longer than they expected. They were late, so they trotted out from the warehouses, heading along Wolcott, making a left on Richards, and sauntering into Red Hook Park.
A sector car was waiting for them.
Nico Dounis, a Greek patrol sergeant everybody called Nicky Donuts, got out of the car when they approached. “Don’t nobody answer the radio no more?”
Mintz looked down at his belt and found the radio turned off. “Shit, sarge, I guess I accidentally turned it off.”
“You two have a brawl?” Dounis asked.
“No,” DeGraw said. “Why?”
“You’re all sweaty.”
“Don’t know what yer talkin’ about, sarge,” Mintz said. “Not sweaty at all.”
“Climbing around the warehouses,” DeGraw said.
“Humid out tonight,” Mintz added. “Uh, horseplay, you know, boys’ll be boys.”
DeGraw recognized three too many excuses when he heard them.
Dounis did too. “Okay, what’s goin’ on?”
DeGraw could see Mintz’s mind go into overdrive, a panicky thought making its way toward the lips, so he took Mintz’s arm and turned him away, stepping forward himself to answer. “Little argument, that’s all. Nothin’, really. He don’t know a guy’s still got feelings for his ex-wife even if they get divorced, so I had to straighten him out.”
Dounis studied DeGraw through squinted eyes, but he stifled an urge to pursue it.
“Hey, it’s late,” Mintz said. “We should walk the park.”
“I walked it myself,” Dounis said. “It’s done.”
“But we’re not that late, are we, sarge?” Mintz asked, and again DeGraw wanted to pound him into unconsciousness, but resisted the urge.
“Forty-five minutes I’m callin’, and I got no word on the radio,” Dounis said. “What’s that on your knee, Frank?”
They all looked down and saw the purplish-red splotch visible even on DeGraw’s navy blue pant leg.
“Oil, I guess,” DeGraw said. “I knelt down to tie my shoe.”
“I ain’t no dope and I don’t appreciate bein’ treated like one,” Dounis said. “Yer late, ya don’t answer the radio, yer all disheveled like ya been fightin’, ya smell like a frickin’ brewery, and ya got blood on yer pants. Don’t tell me that’s oil, ’cuz I know the difference.”
The two patrolmen were stunned. Mintz was ready to speak again but DeGraw spoke first: “Yer absolutely right, sarge. We were negligent. We had a few beers at lunch and lost track of time. Then he insults my ex and I had to straighten him out. Only he don’t show proper respect, so we scuffled a little bit. I took a head butt to the nose and bled, after which I knelt in it when I went down to tie my shoe.”
DeGraw and Mintz waited a tense second while Dounis processed the new information.
“Over here,” Dounis said, walking Mintz about twenty feet away.
Much as he tried, DeGraw couldn’t make out what they were talking about.
Dounis then returned to DeGraw while Mintz stayed behind.
“Turn away from Mintz,” Dounis said, and DeGraw obeyed. “Exactly where was it you two went at each other?”
“Shit, I don’t know,” DeGraw answered. “What the hell did we ever do to you?”
“Where was it you bled? I need to know exact.”
“I don’t know, one of the piers.”
“The piers is your whole patrol, asshole. Which one?”
“How’m I s’posed to know? They all look alike. Like Greeks.”
“After two years, you know those piers like they was yer own pecker.”
“Somewhere around the railroad yard, I’m guessing. Can’t be sure, sarge.”
“That’s not what Mintz said.”
“What d’ya want from me? One of us is right and the other forgot. No big deal.”
“I gotta do somethin’ about this, don’t I?” Dounis said.
“Yer bein’ a hardass, Nicky Donuts. What’s wrong?” DeGraw said. “I never crossed you, not even once.”
Dounis turned to Mintz and said, “Don’t come over here and don’t you two talk to each other.” Then Dounis sat in the cruiser and made a call to the precinct while DeGraw and Mintz could only stare at each other, reading worry on each other’s faces.
When, within a minute, five police cruisers came tearing to that corner of Red Hook Park, Dounis had DeGraw and Mintz taken into custody.
Unfortunately for DeGraw, the forecast was wrong. It never rained that night. Wild Willy’s blood stayed on the pavement and was collected by the crime scene unit.
By noon, DeGraw had spent hours in an interrogation room at the 76th Precinct, where he was interviewed by Catucci and Bourne, two homicide detectives, and Gonzalez, an ADA who’d been summoned from the Brooklyn homicide bureau. Cho and Santos, of Internal Affairs, also watched through the two-way mirror.
To show good faith, DeGraw had waived the “forty-eight-hour rule,” which gives a policeman accused of a crime the chance to arrange for representation without having to answer questions. But he had invoked his right to have his Policemen’s Benevolent Association representative present, so Ken Stanley sat off in a corner.
Not hearing a radio check from DeGraw and Mintz, Dounis had sent other officers onto the piers to look for them. When they arrived, unnoticed in the thickening fog, they watched DeGraw and Mintz pack Wild Willy into the barrel with the cinderblocks and then roll it into the drink.
What was worse, DeGraw soon found out, was the fact that Mintz had turned on him under the pre
ssure of the questioning and was offering his full cooperation against DeGraw in return for a clean walk—which he was granted. It left DeGraw dumfounded.
“But how?” DeGraw asked. “How can he say I did the friggin’ murder? I was with him the whole time, and I swear, we didn’t kill the guy, we just dumped him.”
“’Cuz you were scared you’d be a suspect,” Bourne said, and DeGraw nodded.
“Not a bad story, but not good enough,” Gonzalez said. “Mintz told us everything. And they just raised the barrel, so I got a slam-dunk case against you. Do yourself a favor, pal, cop to a plea and I’ll cut you the best deal I can.”
“Be smart, Frank,” Bourne said. “Wait for your lawyer before you cut any deals.”
DeGraw hung his head and wondered how it all could have gone so wrong so fast.
At that same moment, Lou Mintz was a free man, cruising the streets of Brooklyn in his brand new Lincoln Navigator while singing off-key to a Dean Martin CD.
He hung a right on Bay Parkway and stopped on the corner of Cropsey Avenue, half-dancing his way into Bensonhurst Park. His feet felt like they were barely denting the grass as he approached two men sitting on a bench. One was an older gentleman named Bonfiglio, although Mintz knew him only as Big Fig.
“Nice new car, huh?” Bonfiglio said. “Pretty flashy.”
“That’s my new baby,” Mintz said. “Ride’s like a dream.”
Bonfiglio reached into his inner blazer pocket as Mintz sat next to him, then stuffed a bulging envelope into a copy of the New York Post and placed it on the wooden bench slats. Mintz picked it up and held the newspaper open while thumbing through a thick wad of hundred-dollar bills.
“Count it if you want,” Bonfiglio said.
Mintz sat back, putting the newspaper down again. “Looks about right.”
“Suit y’self, but later, when you do count it,” Bonfiglio said, “you’ll find more than we bargained for, just to show how appreciative I can be for a job well done.”
“’Preciate that,” Mintz said, and leaned forward to look at the other man. “Ya get the same appreciation, Nico?”
“More,” Nicky Donuts replied. “I got more.”
“Why him and not me?” Mintz said to Bonfiglio.
“He set it up,” Bonfiglio answered.
“But I did all the work,” Mintz said. “And damn good work it was.”
“Management always takes less risk and gets a bigger cut,” Dounis said. “Ain’t you hip to that yet?”
Bonfiglio laughed. “God rest him, but Willy never knew that, and now look.”
“Shit, I still gotta testify,” Mintz said. “Hardly seems fair that I get less.”
“Don’t worry, kid,” Bonfiglio said. “Cashflow won’t be no problem once we’re back to business in Red Hook. You’ll get everything what’s comin’ to ya.”
“Know what? I believe ya,” Mintz said, sashaying back toward his Navigator with the Post and envelope clenched under his arm. “Have yerselves a great day, gents.”
Five minutes later, Mintz turned off Shore Parkway onto Bay 17th Street, parked in the driveway of a quaint little white clapboard house, and went in through a side door. Without a word, he went upstairs to a bedroom.
Entering, Mintz tossed the Post and envelope onto the bed. Sandy turned away from the bureau and folded herself into Mintz’s arms.
“Went off without a hitch,” Mintz said, nuzzling her neck.
Mintz, the neurotic weasel who’d shy away from a dicey situation and whine about the danger, was now gone. Sandy gasped as this new Mintz balled her hair in his fist, tilted her head back, and took the front of her throat in his teeth. Then he trailed his tongue to her ear and took the lobe between his lips, all while she rubbed up against him.
“I can’t get enough of you,” she said, and when he moaned, she added, “Shush, the baby’s down for a nap.”
“I won’t wake him up,” Mintz whispered, leading her into the baby’s room. Watching the ten-month-old sleep, Mintz couldn’t help but smile.
“Looks just like his old man,” Sandy whispered.
Mintz beamed, patted the kid’s foot, and led her out of the room.
In the hall, Mintz kissed her and said, “Dress up nice and call the sitter, I’m takin’ us out tonight, special celebration.”
“Yeah?” she said. “Where?”
“Carmine’s, Italian place in the city,” Mintz said. “Food is absolutely to die for.”
Back at Bensonhurst Park, Dounis and Bonfiglio were still enjoying the high sun and the salt air that was wafting in off Gravesend Bay.
“The case against DeGraw?” Bonfiglio said.
“As much of a sure thing you can have against a cop,” Dounis said.
“Even with just the word of the guys you sent in there?”
“They watched the whole thing,” Dounis said. “Their testimony is all we need.”
“I don’t like the attitude on this Mintz,” Bonfiglio said. “The cocky ones like that, they’re trouble.”
“And spreading money around? This flashy car all of a sudden?” Dounis said. “Fuckin’ idiot don’t even know he’s forcin’ us ta be responsible here. And it’s too fuckin’ bad, I don’t care if he did do us a good job last night. He’s now officially dangerous.”
“Okay, so since we don’t need him for the case,” Bonfiglio asked, “where’s he gonna be tonight?”
“He told me he’s eatin’ at Carmine’s. Upper West Side.”
“Shall I let him have his meal first, or make sure they do him on the way in?”
“Mintzy’s a good kid,” Dounis replied. “Let him eat, drink his wine.”
“You old softy,” Bonfiglio said, laughing. Dounis didn’t laugh.
“When it might be my time,” Dounis said, “I hope I get the same consideration.”
“Cripes, yer goin’ all emotional in your old age,” Bonfiglio said.
“Guess I am.”
“It’s kinda sweet.”
“He did good work for us, Fig, helped us get Red Hook back. Give the kid his last meal, I happen to know he loves eatin’ Italian.”
“Hell, who don’t?”
They both nodded and thought of their favorite Italian dishes.
That night at the 76th, DeGraw still hadn’t been arraigned or made bail, but he didn’t have to stay cooped in a cell. Instead, the detectives gave him the professional courtesy of letting him wait it out in the relative comfort of an interrogation room. They even brought him pizza from Mario’s Place down the block, just the way he liked it: piping hot Sicilian slices with extra mozzarella cheese and spicy Italian sausage. Much as it pleased DeGraw’s palate, it still left him with indigestion.
After a sweaty hump and a few hours’ nap on DeGraw’s ex-bed, the babysitter came over and Mintz drove Sandy to Carmine’s Restaurant, Broadway between 90th and 91st Streets on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
The large upper room was crowded and festive, as usual. People flocked to this place that prepared such sumptuous Southern Italian fare and served it in great, heaping platters. Folks didn’t just grab a bite at Carmine’s place, they ate big and left feeling like they’d participated in an event.
Mintz fingered the wad of hundreds in his pocket and ordered up more bottles of Carmine’s best Montepulciano D’Abruzzo to go with the seafood antipasto that was as large and fulfilling as most normal meals. He and Sandy swooned over practically every sip of the red wine in between bites of the calamari, baked clams, baccala, whiting, muscles, bay scallops, and butterfly shrimp, the tangy red sauce sopped up with fresh homemade garlic bread.
A middle-aged gent at the next table couldn’t help but notice them. “Excuse me, but it’s my first time here and it’s great to see you two look like you’re enjoying yourselves. That food as good as it looks?”
“Better,” Mintz said. “You eatin’ alone?”
“Uh, well, blind date,” the professorial gent said. “Internet kind of thing. I guess either something w
ent wrong or she got cold feet.”
“Tough stuff, buddy,” Mintz said. “Might as well go ahead and order. This shit’s too good not to eat once yer here.”
The gent shrugged and nodded with a sad smile.
“Fuck ’er,” Sandy added. “She don’t know what she’s missin’, does she? Might as well enjoy your evenin’.”
“I’d invite you to join us,” Mintz said, “but this is kind of a special occasion, and, well, you understand.”
“Oh, by all means,” the tweedy gent said. “Enjoy your meal.”
He thanked them with a nod when Mintz had the waiter put a glass of their Montepulciano on his table and then raised the glass in a silent toast.
After that, while the gent ate alone, he took sidelong glances to see Mintz and Sandy happily tucking into entrees of Lasagna Bolognese, Fettuccini Alfredo, penne in olive oil with broccoli, gnocchi, bragiole, veal Parmesan.
The gent was amazed when Mintz and Sandy ordered dessert: espresso, tiramisu, spumoni, and chocolate-covered mini-cannoli. Then they topped it all off with large snifters of Sambuca Romana, a sweet anise-tasting Italian liqueur sipped with three coffee beans floating in it.
They had of course ordered far more food than they’d consumed, and had the leftovers wrapped to take home with them, good Italian food always tasting even better the next day. The containers filled two shopping bags, which Mintz carried in one hand as they rose to take their leave. He turned to say goodnight to the gent, but the guy wasn’t at the table and Mintz couldn’t remember seeing him go.
The cool night air made their bodies glow with the alcohol and the great food, as Mintz and Sandy sauntered back around the corner toward where the new Navigator was parked. Just when the world seemed like a perfectly lovely place and Sandy hooked her hand around Mintz’s arm, the gent stepped out from behind a van, raised the gun with a silencer attached, and began pumping shots into them.
Head-shot, Sandy was dead before she hit the sidewalk. Unable to grab his off-duty gun and already hit in the chest, all Mintz could do was swing the shopping bags at the gent, who raised his free arm to fend them off. The bags burst open and the containers rained great food all over the sidewalk.
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