Suspects

by William Caunitz

  Finding himself at a loss for the proper words, he looked at her pleading eyes and said nothing. How does a man tell the woman he loves that he will never see her again? How does a man sever from his life the only woman he has ever been completely happy with? “I’m sorry,” he said feebly, his eyes falling to the floor.

  She rushed at him, pushed him aside, threw open the door. “You’re a fool, Tony Scanlon. A goddamn fool.” She slammed the door and was gone.

  The empty weeks soon became empty months. He became reclusive, spending his days in the solitary regimen of mastering his new leg. He’d jog in place, do aerobics, pace endless circles. Days sped by, nights lingered with loneliness.

  He took to going to Roseland, always timing his arrival to coincide with the end of the evening’s ballroom dancing and the beginning of the disco program. He would walk into the lobby and go up to the showcase and pretend to be looking at the collection of shoes worn by famous dancers, and look in the glass’s reflection to see if there was anyone he knew. It would have been unseemly for a detective sergeant to be seen going dancing alone.

  Once inside the ballroom he would walk onto the mammoth dance floor and lose himself among the twirling shadows, whirling himself under the glittering lights, clapping his hands to the booming beat. He had become a Roseland regular, one of the lonesome people harboring their own fears and their own secrets.

  After eleven months on sick report Scanlon yearned to be returned to full duty. On his weekly visit to his district police surgeon he would ask the doctor to send him back to work. The doctor, a benign-looking man with a slight Scottish accent, would look askance at him and leave his request unanswered. On Monday of the first week of the twelfth month of sick report, Scanlon visited his district surgeon. When Scanlon entered the doctor’s sixth-floor office in the Police Academy, the surgeon was writing in Scanlon’s medical folder. “I’m sending you before the board, Sergeant. You’re being surveyed.”

  “I don’t want to go before the Medical Board. I want to stay in the Job,” he protested. “I’ve been promised.”

  “I’m afraid you don’t have any choice. The chief surgeon and I have decided that you’re unfit for full duty.” The doctor removed his glasses, assumed the expression of a maternal uncle. “Three-quarters tax-free isn’t a bad pension, Sergeant.”

  “I don’t want a goddamn pension.”

  “I’m sorry, you’re out.” He put his glasses back on and continued to write in the medical folder.

  Scanlon rushed from the doctor’s office. He telephoned Jim Gebler, the president of the Sergeants’ Benevolent Association. He told the feisty SBA president what had happened, of Fat Albert’s promise that he could stay on the Job and be promoted to lieutenant. “Can you get a contract in with the chief surgeon?”

  “You get your ass over here now, I’ll start making some calls.”

  When Scanlon arrived at the SBA office in lower Manhattan he went directly into Gebler’s corner office. The SBA president’s thickset face was flushed. “We got a problem, Tony,” he said, going to shake Scanlon’s hand. “I just got off the phone with the chief surgeon. He told me that the first deputy wants as many bosses as possible put off the Job during this fiscal year.”

  “But why?”

  “They want your budget line so that they can promote friends. Things are getting rough. There ain’t much money around for promotions. They gotta make vacancies.”

  “So I have to reach out to the first dep or the PC.”

  “Looks that way. And the first dep and I don’t get along. I’ll give the PC a shot for you.” Gebler’s face brightened. He snapped his fingers. “That’s the way to go.”

  Scanlon quickened. “What? Tell me.”

  “Joe Gallagher. He and the first dep are asshole buddies. They go drinking and screwing together. If there is anyone in the Job who can put a contract in with the first dep it’s Gallagher. Do you know Gallagher?”

  “I was in the class behind him in the Academy. We still bump into each other in the Job.”

  Gebler went over to his cluttered desk. “The LBA is having their monthly meeting at Ricardo’s this afternoon. Gallagher is sure to be there. You hustle your ass over to Astoria and I’ll get on the phone and tell Gallagher to be expecting you.”

  The drive from Manhattan to Astoria, Queens, took Scanlon the better part of ninety minutes. He double-parked in front of the restaurant and hurried inside. The noontime meeting was long over, and most of the delegates and members were crowded into the large circular bar. Scanlon’s eyes slid along the bar searching for Joe Gallagher. He picked out the largest group of men and pushed his way through, knowing that Gallagher would be in the center, holding court. “Joe,” Scanlon called out, breaking through to the center.

  “Tony Scanlon, luv. How the fuck are you?” Gallagher pushed away from the bar, draped his big arm around Scanlon’s shoulders, and led him over to one of the cocktail tables on the raised part of the floor that circled the bar.

  “Did Jim Gebler call you?”

  “I spoke to him, luv. And you don’t have a problem anymore.” Gallagher’s eyes held a gleeful glint.

  “I don’t have a problem?”

  “Not anymore, luv. I got on the horn to the first dep. I told the lad of your difficulty, that you were one of the Job’s true heroes, and that you were a personal friend of mine.” Gallagher paused to sip the drink that he had brought with him from the bar. Good politicians always stop before they drive home their good deeds—it gives the supplicant time to ponder the magnitude of the favor that was just done him. “The first dep called the chief surgeon. He made an appointment for you to see your district surgeon in the morning. Nine o’clock. Okay, luv? Does Joe Gallagher do the right thing or doesn’t he?”

  Scanlon sagged with relief. “I owe you a big one, Joe,” he said, taking Gallagher’s hand, shaking it with enthusiasm.

  “Nothing to it, luv. Maybe someday you’ll be in a position to do the right thing for me. Right?”

  That night Scanlon went to Roseland to celebrate. He’d never forget what Joe Gallagher had done for him, never. He thought that since he’d been returned to full duty, everything else might also have changed for the better, and perhaps now might be the time to try and make it with a woman. Perhaps being away from the Job had something to do with his problem. But how should he approach a woman, now? Every time he thought about it he was filled with anxiety and a tense ache gripped his chest. How does he tell a woman that he’s an amputee? When does he tell her? What does he say to her? What if he does tell her and she rejects him, walks away? What does he do then? And worst of all, what if a woman does go with him and he can’t perform, can’t get it up? Hi. My name is Tony. I’m an amputee and I have erectile dysfunction. Why me? What did I do to deserve this cross?

  He finally reasoned that he would be better off to try to make it with a hooker. He reasoned that they considered their bodies to be income-producing property, so there’d be no emotional involvement, no worry on his part about being able to perform, no embarrassment if he couldn’t. It had to be different with hookers. They were used to servicing cripples. Hookers performed one of society’s more useful functions.

  He left Roseland around two in the morning and walked the four blocks to the Hotel Arnold. He stood at the green-cushioned bar studying the five ladies of the night who had staked out their territory with empty bar stools. The one on his far left looked hard and unsympathetic. The other one on his left, maybe. His hands were wet and he could feel the nervous twitch in his neck. The one closest on his right looked nice. She had short brown hair and hazel eyes and a lissome body. But most of all she reminded him of Jane. Perhaps it was her smile, or perhaps he just wanted her to be Jane. He really didn’t know. But when she glanced in his direction, he smiled at her and she smiled back at him. Going over to her, one question plagued him: What will I do if she rejects me? He slid onto the stool next to her. “Hi. May I buy you a drink?”

  “I only
drink club soda,” she said, hefting her glass at him.

  “Oh, I see.” He hesitated, aware of his heartbeat. Urging himself forward, he blurted, “My name is Tony Scanlon. I’m an amputee.”

  She put her glass down and put a cigarette to her lips. He picked up the white throwaway lighter from the bar and lit it. She held his shaking hands in hers and moved her head toward the flame. “I’m Sally De Nesto.”

  Scanlon put the empty glass down on the treasure chest and thought, No one ever promised you it would be easy. He picked up the receiver and dialed Sally De Nesto’s number. When her machine answered he waited for the beep, and then told the machine to tell its mistress that he would like to see her tomorrow night. He knew that she liked him and that she would reschedule her appointments so that he would be her last date. He wondered how many tricks she turned in one day. But then, what did that matter? She was there for him whenever he wanted her. He still wished he could make it with a straight woman. If he could only get up the courage to keep trying. He turned on his side and beat his head into the pillow. Tomorrow he had an appointment to meet the Zimmerman family.

  8

  The streets were full of interesting people out for a Saturday-afternoon stroll. Scanlon decided to park his car several blocks from the Zimmermans’ East Side town house and walk, people-watch.

  He took the vehicle identification plate from behind the visor and tossed it onto the dashboard. It was one thing to work on your own time and quite another to feed a parking meter with your own money, especially at today’s rates, twenty-five cents for twenty minutes. He slid out the ashtray and flipped the hidden toggle switch that cut off his car’s ignition system, reached under the front seat and pulled out the Chatman mechanical brake-wheel lock, and secured it around the brake pedal and the steering column. Sliding from his car, he hoped that it would still be there when he returned.

  Most of the houses on East Seventy-ninth Street had shield-shaped stickers glued in their windows—This House’s Alarm System Is Connected Directly to the Police. There were other posted warnings: This Block Is Patrolled by the East Side Observer Corp. Arabesque grilles covered most of the first- and second-floor windows, designer bars to keep the burglars out.

  Scanlon’s concentration was fixed on house numbers when a woman jogger brushed past him. Her shorts were so brief that the cheeks of her behind jutted out like naked half-moons. He was reminded of the witness Thomas Tibbs: there had been something odd about the way the perp had fled the crime scene, the witness had stated. His thoughts about Tibbs ended when he noticed the chic woman with the blue rinse in her hair waiting patiently at the curb for her little fag dog with pink bows in both ears to finish its bowel movement. Secured in her hand was a yellow-and-brown pooper-scooper. Scanlon wondered if that was one of those designed by Mr. Henri of Paris, France. Shit shovels for the rich. Only in the Big Apple, he thought, pausing before a house to check the address written on the back of a matchbook.

  Four strips of black Thermopane streaked vertically down the front of the antique orange brick facade. A brass nameplate by the door read: Stanley Zimmerman, M.D.

  He rang the chimes and stepped back, glancing up at the scudding clouds. He breathed deep. Summer scents were in the air. No answer. He leaned forward and rang again. Peering through the square of glass in the center of the heavy door, he saw a narrow passage to the right of a mahogany staircase. Up against the left wall, next to the tall sliding doors that led into a room, was a table of carved, gilded wood with a top that was inlaid in ebony and pewter. He pressed the button again.

  A man’s voice came from the intercom set into the doorframe. “Who is it?”

  He placed his mouth in front of the metal box. “Lieutenant Scanlon.”

  Zimmerman led the policeman into the room with the tall doors. Scanlon took in the delicate chairs with the bouffant cushions, the Queen Anne sofas. It was a stuffy room with a green-and-gold antique desk, a buffet, and a crowded bookshelf.

  As Scanlon lowered himself onto one of the dainty chairs he noticed Stanley Zimmerman’s hands. They were long and graceful, as though they had been sculpted.

  “When we talked yesterday, I told you that our family would be sitting shivah today. I forgot that today was Saturday. We don’t sit shivah on the Sabbath.”

  “I knew that,” Scanlon said, hoping that the chair was sturdy enough to support him and his fake leg.

  Zimmerman expressed surprise at Scanlon’s knowledge of Jewish law. The policeman explained that as a rookie he had worked in the Six-four in Borough Park, a compressed Brooklyn neighborhood of over two hundred synagogues. Thirteenth Avenue had been his beat. It was there that he had learned to distinguish among the Lubavitcher and the Satmar sects, and it was there that he had learned the difference between kosher and glatt kosher, and it was there that he had learned about shivah, the seven days of mourning.

  “I guess policemen learn a lot about other people’s customs,” Zimmerman said lamely.

  “That we do.”

  Zimmerman’s gaze fixed on some point behind Scanlon. “I miss her terribly.”

  Scanlon nodded sympathetically. He saw the anguish in the eyes, heard the sadness in the voice, and felt uncomfortable being there, as though he were an intruder among the bereaved.

  “Tell me how my mother died,” he said, looking down at the floor.

  An attempted robbery that had gone awry, he told the doctor. He added that the entire resources of the department had been thrown into the hunt for his mother’s killers, and that teams of detectives had been pulled off other cases to work exclusively on this one. Scanlon watched him closely as he talked. Everyone is a suspect, a truism among police adages. The doctor’s face remained tense. Sunlight made a filigree design on the walls of the room. Scanlon finished his dismal narrative, leaned forward, waiting for the son’s response.

  “Why, Lieutenant?”

  Thinking that he was referring to the heinous double homicide, Scanlon shook his head as though unable to comprehend the senselessness of the crime.

  “Why would anyone, with an accomplice standing by, and with a van for a getaway, want to hold up a candy store? For what end? To steal some jelly beans and some small change?” Scanlon fell under his questioning gaze. “And why my mother’s store?” The demand had sudden vigor.

  Scanlon’s phantom leg was distracting him. “Perhaps it was a target of opportunity for a couple of cokeheads.”

  “Really?” A mocking tone. “Has your investigation so far led you to any other conclusion?”

  Scanlon shrugged. “There is, I guess, the possibility that it was a paid-for killing. Like the CBS murders, a contract on the life of one of the victims, the other unfortunate just happening to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “I suppose someone like Gallagher would make mortal enemies. Narcotics work must be a nasty business.”

  “That is true. And, of course, your mother might have been the intended victim.”

  Zimmerman leaped to his feet, his face ablaze with anger. “How dare you insinuate such a thing?”

  Scanlon held up his palms in a gesture of appeasement. “I said a possibility, Doctor. That doesn’t make it gospel.”

  “I don’t want to hear any more of that talk. Do you understand that, Officer?”

  “It’s my job to examine every possible contingency, no matter how unpleasant or implausible it might seem to the victim’s family.”

  “Not in my home, you won’t. And for your information, my mother was a wonderful woman who didn’t have an enemy in the world. She was a woman who did good for other people. She …” He began to sob.

  Scanlon waited for him to regain his composure.

  Wiping his eyes with a handkerchief, Zimmerman said, “I just don’t know what we’ll do without her. She was the rock that supported the entire family.”

  Scanlon thought of his own mother. “I understand that.”

  An air of uncertainty came between the two men.

>   Scanlon watched him twisting the handkerchief. “Do you know that your mother worked for organized crime?”

  Zimmerman’s eyes flashed at him. “You’re crazy.”

  “She took gambling action for the local bookmaker. His name is Walter Ticornelli. Have you ever heard your mother mention that name?”

  “No, I haven’t. And I don’t believe a word of what you’ve just said. Mother working for a bookmaker! It’s ridiculous.”

  “No it isn’t, Doctor. It goes with the franchise in that neighborhood. People didn’t just flock to her store to see her, or to buy things. They came because they could lay ten cents or a quarter on a number, or bet the flats or the trotters. Your mother took that action. She might have accidentally stumbled onto something connected with the bookmakers’ other business. Narcotics? A hit on someone? Something that made your mother a liability.”

  The air was heavy with unspoken anger. “I think you had better leave my home, Lieutenant.”

  “Our investigation to date leads us to believe that it was a holdup, but, as I told you before, I have to look into every angle. If you don’t want to help, there is nothing that I can do to force you. She was your mother, not mine.” He started to rise up from his seat.

  “Of course I want to help.”

  Scanlon lowered himself back down. The interview had become stressful; most cops agree that such interviews are counterproductive. “Do you live here alone, Doctor?”

  “With my wife and daughter.”

  “Are they home?”

  “My sister and my wife are shopping for shoes for my daughter. I persuaded them to go.”

  Scanlon saw the wrenching sense of loss in his eyes and felt sorry for him.

  Examining his hands, Zimmerman said, “Andrea, my daughter, was nine years old yesterday. We were to have a birthday party. Mother bought a cake. Instead we sat shivah.” His eyes filled again.

  Scanlon recalled the crime scene: chunks of cake and whipped cream and raspberry filling mixed with body parts and gore. Walter Ticornelli had stated that he had observed Gallagher carrying a cake box into the store. “Tell me about your mother, Stanley.”