by F. P. Lione
It was so dark back there, even with the flashlights. I couldn’t see the bottom of the pit clearly, but I was guessing it was filled with stagnant water, garbage, and rats. To our left was a metal link fence that ran the length of the back of the parking lot, along the edge of the pit.
We saw a walkway with handrails on the other side of the pit, running along the back of the building across from us. There was a two-foot cement ledge that we could shimmy across while holding on to the fence, or we could climb through the pit.
“Take the ledge,” Joe said, reading my mind.
“Definitely. I’m not walking through that.”
I stepped onto the ledge, pulling back hard on the fence to make sure it didn’t pull away from the poles and we’d fall in the pit anyway. It seemed like it’d hold us, and I faced the fence and sidestepped my way along it. When I got to the middle between the poles, there was some slack in the fence and it pulled away.
“Whoa,” I said as the fence rattled.
“You okay there, buddy?” Joe asked.
“Yeah, just make sure you don’t pull on the fence when you’re in the middle.”
When we got to the other end I walked on top of the cement wall of the pit to get to the walkway. The further we got from the parking lot, the darker it became. I had my flashlight out, and I tried to listen for noises, but all I heard were the cycling HVACs. When we got to the end of the walkway we had to walk up a couple of steps to a platform that crossed us over to the other side of the alleyway.
There was a maze of metal walkways, stairs, and fire escapes. It was hard to hear anything with the sound of the air-conditioning units, and we were trying to sift through the drone of noises for footsteps, talking, or the crackling of footsteps on garbage.
We spent about fifteen minutes back there with our flashlights, looking for the broken window from the glass we heard break earlier. There were hundreds of windows and doorways, and unless something was broken, we were wasting our time back there.
“South David on the air?” We heard Rooney’s voice.
“Go ahead,” Joe said.
“There’s nothing going on over here. You want us to come over and help you canvass?”
Joe looked at me and gave me a “Nah” face and shook his head. “No, we’re gonna wrap it up here. Meet us back at the premise,” he said.
“10-4,” Rooney said.
We walked back up to 5th Avenue and over to 38th Street. Rooney was smoking a cigarette, talking to Connelly, Garcia, and Davis.
“So, Tony, I hope you and Joe are ready to do some real fishing on Sunday,” Rooney said as we walked up.
“Joe, did you hear what happened to Garcia last year when he went out fishing with us?” Rooney smiled, taking a drag.
“No, I must have missed that one,” Joe said.
“Oh, here we go,” Garcia said, shaking his head.
“It was hysterical!” Rooney barked out a laugh.
“Hysterical? You almost killed me!” Garcia yelled.
“We did not. Don’t blame me that you spent the whole trip puking over the side of the boat.” Rooney laughed.
“Do you know what he did?” Garcia half yelled at me, furious.
“No,” I said.
“Rooney invites me out with him, Connelly, McGovern, and O’Brien. When we left Montauk the weather was bad. I didn’t think we’d be able to fish, but the captain said it was supposed to clear up. They started pounding down beers before we left the dock. The boat was rocking, and I started feeling sick—”
Rooney cut him off. “You left a chum trail of puke.”
“Shut up, Mike,” Garcia said. “I put one of those motion sickness patches behind my ear and laid down on one of the benches next to the captain’s chair to sleep it off until I felt better. When I was sleeping Rooney took the box of patches and put them all over my arms and legs!” Garcia was raising his voice now.
“He . . .” Rooney cracked up. “He . . .” Rooney was laughing so hard he couldn’t get the words out. “We hear this little ‘Help me.’” Rooney started coughing now. “It sounded like . . .” Rooney’s eyes were tearing, and he couldn’t finish the sentence. “It sounded like a kitten mewing. I look over at him and he’s got . . .” He coughed again. “He’s got drool dripping from his mouth, and his eyes are rolling back in his head. His whole body looked like it was novocained, with his mouth opening and closing like a guppy.”
“I had to go to the bathroom and I couldn’t move,” Garcia yelled at Rooney.
“You were fine,” Rooney said, waving him away. “We took the patches off and you were up in half an hour.”
“Yeah, I was bouncing off the walls trying to make it to the bathroom. Do you know what it’s like trying to pee when you can’t stand up straight? I was slamming into the walls while the boat rocked. I peed all over myself and the walls.”
We were howling now, and Garcia said, “It’s not funny, he could have killed me. You’re nuts going fishing with him. He’s a psycho. If you find yourself in the bottom of the ocean from one of his stunts, don’t blame me.”
This Sunday, me, Joe, and Nick Romano are going tuna fishing off Montauk Point. Mike Rooney, McGovern, and Bruno Galotti from our squad are also going. I’ve never fished with Rooney before, but like most things with him, I’m sure it’ll be memorable.
We went inside the building and took the elevator up to the twelfth floor. As we stepped off I saw the camera up on the wall, the lens set on the elevator. I saw the stairwell door, its bar lock still in place, with the bottom half of the door flapping. It looked like someone had cut off a section of the door and kicked the rest of it in.
We followed the hallway to Goldman’s Jewelers and entered the receptionist area.
“Sarge?” I called out.
“Back here,” he said from somewhere in the back.
We walked past the tables where the jewelers work and down to the end of a long hallway with offices on both sides. There was nothing posh about the office—gray carpet, old furniture, probably ten million in diamonds in the safe.
We walked past the safe and saw they had attempted to access it. There was a saw with a circular diamond tip blade on the floor.
It was a custom-built safe made of concrete and steel. The first layer was Sheetrock, then concrete, then steel. They had cut through the Sheetrock and concrete and must have gotten scared off as they were cutting through the steel.
The tools were brand-new—a pry bar, a sledgehammer, a saw, and a flashlight.
Hanrahan was in the back office with the Holmes security guard and Lieutenant Farrell. They had a VCR set up and were rewinding the tape when we came in. It was from the camera facing the elevator, and we watched the hallway and the stairwell door. In one frame the hallway was empty, and in the next frame the four guys came out from underneath the cut stairwell door wearing masks and gloves.
The first guy came out of the door and held the bottom up for the others, looking up and down the hallway as he was holding it. The second guy was wearing a backpack and holding the sledgehammer. The third guy was also wearing a backpack, but he was talking into a walkie-talkie. The last guy was big, almost on his stomach coming through the door. He got up, slapped the guy who was holding the door on the shoulder, and pointed toward the premise for him to follow. They were all looking around the hallway as they walked and disappeared from the camera’s view. Approximately four minutes later we saw the four of them running like the tape was in fast forward.
The first guy held the door again as the other three dove underneath it. Thirty seconds later we saw Hanrahan and Noreen step off the elevator with South Adam and South Eddie behind them.
“Wow,” Joe said.
“Yeah, thirty seconds later we would have had them,” I said.
In all the years I’ve been here this is the closest I’ve gotten to grabbing something like this. There were a few burglaries where I’ve gotten there not long after the fact, like the Harper brothers that usually hi
t the garment district. We know a lot about them—that they usually hit on a long weekend like this and that they access from the roof or the fire escape—and we’ve never caught them.
“Somebody definitely warned them,” Hanrahan said, looking at Farrell, who was clicking his unlit pipe against his teeth.
Lieutenant Farrell’s the guy that handles the burglaries. He’s an old war dog who looks like Santa Claus and smokes a pipe. He’s about sixty years old, with more than thirty-five years on the job. They’ll be making him retire in a couple of years, which, believe me, is a shame. He’s one of the most brilliant cops I’ve ever met. He used to be a drinking partner of mine, and he’s been to the farm to dry out a time or two. He’s got no family. His wife left him long ago with two kids he probably wasn’t fit to raise. They’re all screwed up now. His daughter married an abusive guy, and his son battles with drugs. But he’s good at catching burglars, and he was so intent on the tape he didn’t realize we were in the room.
“Hey, Lou.” I smiled at him as he rewound it.
“Tony!” He shook my hand, happy to see me. “I hear you’re getting married.” I sent him an invitation, but I guess he didn’t want to say that in case anyone else in the room wasn’t invited.
“Yeah, it’s coming up soon,” I said.
“I’m surprised you’re marrying an Irish girl,” he said with a smirk.
“Half Irish, half Italian,” I said.
“Half Irish, half ashamed,” Rooney cut in. My family says half Italian, half ashamed.
I could see him eyeing me up, and I knew it was to see if I was drinking again. He gave me a nod, like he realized I was sober, but he did it in a way like he wished I were drinking again. Not because he wants me to get hurt, but so we could hang out like old times. Sometimes when I see him I miss drinking. I miss the connection we had over good scotch, stories about the job, and cigarette smoke.
“So what do you think?” I nodded toward the VCR.
“They knew the layout, they knew exactly where the safe was and what was in it. Maybe they know one of the employees or they bought jewelry here to scope the place out.” His eyes went back to the tape. “What happened downstairs?” he asked me.
I gave him the spiel about them jumping out the second-floor window, us hearing glass breaking, and the license plates of the three cars parked on 37th Street. “I never thought they’d go out the second-floor window,” I said, wishing I had realized it.
“Maybe you’re better off,” Farrell said, chewing on his pipe. “These guys were serious.”
I knew what he meant. I’ve seen burglary tapes where the perps had machine guns strapped around them, and you knew they had no plans to let us lock them up.
“Collect the tools,” Farrell said. “We’ll dust them for fingerprints. Maybe we’ll get lucky with the batteries from the flashlight. Holmes’ll get in touch with the owner so he can lie to us about what’s in the safe.”
The owners don’t tell anybody, not even the cops, what’s in the safe unless it’s broken into. Then they’ll jack up whatever’s in there for the insurance.
Joe and I collected the tools and loaded them in the RMP. It was still dark outside as we made our way back to the precinct. The streets were still pretty quiet and the air nice and cool.
Joe vouchered the tools while I filled out what I could on the complaint report. We finished up around 5:30.
Hanrahan and Farrell came back with the videotape from the premise and were talking to Terri Marks over by the desk.
“Boss, we’re gonna go downstairs for our meal,” Joe said. We’d skip the food and catch an hour’s sleep we’d need later for the parade.
“Go ahead,” Hanrahan said, looking exhausted himself. “If I need ya’s out I’ll call.”
“Thanks, boss,” I said as we headed downstairs to the lounge.
The lounge where we take our meal is supposed to be for precinct club members only. For the twenty bucks a year we pay in dues we get to sleep in the lounge, shine our shoes with the shoe-polishing machine in the muster room, and go to different functions like ski trips and picnics even though we have to pay extra for them.
There are four tables put together in the middle of the room with chairs around them to sit and eat. Cushioned benches are built into the walls on the outer perimeter, and there’s a TV perched on a stand across from someone’s old couch that they donated to the room. The TV has cable, which the club also pays for.
There’s an old moldy refrigerator that stinks so bad we try not to open the door ’cause the room will stink for hours afterwards. You can’t put your food in it or it’ll absorb the smell. Someone put a sign on the fridge that says, “Your mother doesn’t work here, clean up after yourself,” but the thing is still filthy. On top of the fridge is an ancient food-splattered microwave that you have to stick a matchbook in to keep the door closed.
The lounge was dark and quiet. The only light was from the TV with the sound muted off. Joe and I took off our shirts, vests, and gun belts and passed out on one of the benches.
Joe’s watch beeped twice, and we finally dragged ourselves up at 7:15. I used the bathroom, washed my face, and brushed my teeth before heading upstairs. Joe was moving slower than me this morning and grunted as he walked past me into the bathroom.
The sun was shining when I went upstairs, and I could already feel the heat in the air. I went across the street to the deli and got Joe and me coffee and ham, egg, and cheese on a roll. I bought an extra pack of cigarettes; I knew the prices would be jacked up in Brooklyn to accommodate the parade.
Joe, Rooney, and Connelly were standing on the front steps outside the precinct when I walked up.
“I’m not looking forward to this one,” Rooney said, shaking his head. “Why did I do this?”
“So we could pay for our tuna trip on Sunday,” Joe said.
“That’s right,” Rooney said, then added, “Does this mean you’re gonna miss church?”
“Yup,” Joe said.
“Won’t you get in trouble with the big guy for that?” Rooney raised his eyebrows and pointed his thumb toward the sky.
“Absolutely not,” Joe said like Rooney was nuts. “And don’t call him the big guy, it’s disrespectful. What’s the matter with you, a nice Catholic boy like yourself? You should know better than to say something like that.”
Now, if I woulda said something like that to Rooney, we’d have ended up fighting about it, but he never yells at Joe.
“You’re right, Joe, that was disrespectful.” Rooney nodded and looked down. “I’m sorry. I just always thought it was a sin to miss Mass,” he said with a shrug.
“It’s not a sin, Mike, but like I told Tony, if you’re only going because you’re afraid God’s gonna punish you, you’re going for the wrong reasons anyway. I don’t like to miss church, and I don’t do it very often. But the Lord likes fishing, and he’ll be there with us.” Joe smiled.
“You’re gonna need the Lord to keep up with me,” Rooney said arrogantly.
“I always need the Lord, Mike,” Joe said.
“You think you can catch more fish than me?” Rooney asked, obviously doubting it.
“Yup,” Joe said confidently.
“Ya wanna bet?” Rooney asked, taking a step closer to Joe.
Joe paused. “Sure. I’ll tell you what. If I catch more fish than you, you come to church with me next Sunday.”
Rooney seemed to be thinking it over, then said, “Okay, but if I catch more fish than you, you buy me lunch for a week.”
“Deal,” Joe said as they shook on it.
I don’t know what Joe was thinking. Not that I didn’t trust God, I was just surprised Joe would use him in a bet. Plus, tuna fishing isn’t like fishing off a pier. The chances that none of us would catch anything were always there.
We were taking two vans over to the parade, one with Hanrahan and the other with Sergeant Bishop, the administrative sergeant who most of us hate. He’s a real player, shady and personabl
e with the brass, which makes him dangerous. Rooney went across the street for coffee, and then he, Connelly, Joe, and I went to sit in one of the vans to wait for Hanrahan and Noreen. Walsh and Snout got in the van. I guess we didn’t have enough cops to work the detail and they were asking everyone to work the overtime. Snout and Walsh were stupid enough to take it this time, but I doubted they’d be looking for it next year.
A couple of the day tour cops got in the van. They looked raring to go, while us midnight cops looked rumpled and exhausted. When Noreen got behind the wheel, Rooney yelled, “I would have jumped in the driver’s seat if I knew Noreen was driving.”
“Mike, you’re probably not even van qualified,” Noreen said, adjusting the rearview mirror so she could look at him.
“Like that would matter,” Rooney said.
I saw Noreen smirk and gun the van in reverse, sloshing Rooney’s coffee on his shirt.
Rooney jumped up and tried to hold his coffee out in front of him when Noreen gunned it in drive and pulled out onto 35th Street, sloshing it on his pants leg.
“You stupid, friggin’—” he started yelling.
“How do you like my driving now, Mike?” Noreen smiled at him in the rearview mirror.
“Come on, I’m soaked. What’s wrong with you?” He shook his head as he flicked the coffee off his hand and glared at the back of Noreen’s head.
We took the West Side Highway to Canal Street and went over the Manhattan Bridge. The bridge connects the Bowery and Canal Street in Chinatown to Flatbush Avenue in downtown Brooklyn. We took the Flatbush Avenue exit and turned onto Eastern Parkway.
The parade is less than ten miles from our precinct, and we made it there in about twenty minutes. If this were rush hour on a day other than a holiday, it’d be a nightmare.
Noreen said, “We’re here,” as she parked the van near the corner of Eastern Parkway and Underhill Avenue. There was a mix of vans and RMPs from different precincts around the city, all packed in together. We were on the east side of Prospect Park, the crappy side. There were “No Parking Today” signs posted on telephone poles up and down Eastern Parkway, and the barriers that would be used later were still in piles on the corners of Eastern Parkway and the side streets.