CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Sam had all day.
He sat near the alleyway at the rear of the ServMark Building in his unmarked, brown Plymouth Gran Fury, reading the Daily News and laughing at Howard Stern. All Howard talked about was pussy, and although jokey, managed to express the insecurities Sam felt regarding it—whether he got his share, whether he did it right, whether he came too soon or couldn’t get it up. Maybe it was why sex with his wife had fallen by the wayside and why he would find condoms that weren’t his in their bedroom, or why she dressed to the nines to spend the day shopping at Wannamaker’s.
She had needs, and was jealous that Sam was always busy looking after those grieving widows and children whose fathers or mothers lay bleeding in the street and whose lives would never be the same because some shithead decided to kill and only Sam could provide the salve of justice. He looked forward to the day he could take his wife away from the rat-hole that was the City of so-called Brotherly Love and retire someplace nice, like Biloxi.
After he cracked this case, he thought, it was time to take early retirement, try to get a job like Jericho’s with nine to five hours among law-abiding, middle class people instead of the street scum he dealt with who told him they were going to Allentown because they wanted him to think they were going to Wilmington. That was Sam’s world. Muck.
His mind wandered, contemplating his woes. He failed to keep track of cars going up Cuthbert, but when the stretch limo turned wide off Sixth and stopped at the steel door at the back of the ServMark Building, he snapped to. He fired up the Plymouth and pulled behind the limo. He got out, pulled out his Id. and pressed it against the darkly tinted window. It immediately purred down.
Sam got in the passenger side. The limo seemed bigger than his living room.
“Know who I am?” he asked.
“Some police officer. A detective.”
Sam had already checked Willie out and picked up on the respect. Willie must have learned well at West Penn. His rap sheet showed no arrests after his release. His parole officer had considered him rehabilitated. He had been working for the ServMark CEO for five years, before that he slung hash for a deli on Passyunk.
“That’s right. Homicide. You have a pretty fancy job Willie, how’d you score working for a big wheel like Gary Bigelow?”
“I applied. I had a commercial driver’s license and did security at Club Coconuts on Delaware Avenue.”
“…and did some boxing at West Penn. Were you any good?”
“Yeah. I was good.”
“Know why I’m here?”
“No, Detective. I don’t.”
“You did time with Deadly Eddie Matthews, didn’t you?”
“I did. But me and Eddie wasn’t tight. We just knew each other.”
“See Eddie since you been out?”
“Nope. He’s a piece of work.”
“Here’s my card, Willie. If you hear from him, get in touch.”
“What’s he been up to?”
“You don’t wanna know. Too much. By the way, what’s it like working for Mr. Bigelow?”
“Sweet. He’s a good guy to work for.”
“Ever chauffer any of his passengers around?”
“If he asks.”
“What’s his connection to Luca Cunnio?”
Lanza studied Willie’s face for a response to the surprise question. Real people might show something with their eyes or lips or a tell of some kind. Cons were good liars. Their perfect response was a tell in itself. Willie didn’t even blink.
“I know who he is,” Willie said. “But I certainly never saw him and Mr. Bigelow together.”
“Luca didn’t help you get this job, did he?”
“I told you, I applied.”
Sam let it go.
“Make a list of people you haul for your boss. I’ll look you up again for it. Don’t let me down.”
“No sir. I will, I mean I won’t. You won’t get me in trouble will you?”
“Not if you help me out. And don’t tell your boss about our chat, okay Willie?”
“No sir, I won’t. No need to.”
As he went back to his car, Lanza thought Willie was key to unlocking the relationship between Luca Cunnio and Gary Bigelow. Cunnio’s minions, Angie and Paulie, would help too. One of those drones killed the twink. Sam had squeezed their balls like a wet sponge. He intended to squeeze more. Willie, too.
Lanza sat across from Jericho’s desk. Jericho had come up in the world from his days as a bureaucrat for the Department of Corrections. The plants in his office were actually alive. His new company kept them watered, fed, and pruned. And his office equipment was all handsome and new compared to the beat-up crap Sam had to deal with.
Jericho swiveled to and fro in his throne-like, black leather chair. Sam leaned back and propped his shoes against the edge of Jericho’s wide oak desk, hoping their thin, worn soles were visible to the oversized insurance executive who over their respective careers had run marathons of achievement while Sam still walked a beat.
“You just tell me when you take early retirement, Sam. Maybe I can line something up for you,” Jericho said.
“Thanks anyway, but when I retire I want time on a beach, and it ain’t the Jersey shore,” Lanza said.
“Suit yourself. Coffee?”
Lanza waved it off. “You remember that night Luca’s two sad sacks tried to snatch you and the priest and the kid got shot?”
“How can I forget?”
“Well, two of the dead kid’s buddies say they don’t know who fired the shot, but it was either Paulie or Angie, and the other two say they didn’t see who the hell did it, they say it could have been anybody including you or the priest.”
“It was Paulie,” Jericho said.
“Yeah, but here’s my problem. The eyewitnesses aren’t sure and we don’t have a gun, and if either of them pointed the finger at you or the priest, who’s to say?” If he had to, Sam was a skilled-enough interrogator to get witnesses to say almost anything.
“But everybody heard them tell me and Bill to get into the car, Eddie too. Bring them in for attempted kidnapping or conspiracy. It’ll only be a question of time until one rats out the other for the killing,” Jericho said.
“You shoulda stayed a cop, Jericho. I don’t know what you’re doing fucking around with this namby-pamby bullshit. What do you do? Look for over-priced body shops or whatever? But you got the case right. I’m here to ask if you’ll testify to support a kidnapping charge against Luca’s two guys.”
“Of course. Bill would too. That’s how it went down.”
“About your friend Conlon, how well do you really know him?”
“There you go again, over-thinking. It makes you a good cop, but you got Bill all wrong, always have.”
Sam said, “Uh-huh. Can I use your phone?”
Jericho turned it around to face Sam who punched out a number. “Gimme Billings,” he said into the phone, asking for a member of his crew. “Yeah, me. Get ahold of Angie and Paulie. Bring ’em in. Let me know when you have them and I’ll come right down.”
“What have you learned about the Henrietta Jackson matter?” Jericho asked.
“Nada. Crapola. But a lot of shit is going on. You and the priest are common denominators. So is the food outfit. So are Luca and the Department of Corrections. I suspect the Jackson woman was collateral damage. I don’t know yet how the pieces fit, but I’m close. I can smell it.”
“I think you’re onto something. I got the same instincts. I wish I could join you on the case, but you know how it is, there might be a body shop out there overcharging its labor rates.”
Jericho’s phone rang. Sam stood, gave a faux salute, and saw himself out.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Bill paced the kitchen and wrung his hands. If he had a bottle, he may have reached for it, yet a faint voice within whispered you can do it. He remembered Louise’s words: no woman wanted to be second. He took it to mean second to alcohol,
so why should he put himself second? Why should he give up his personal power to a destructive habit? Unfinished business would take all the self-control he could muster. So much depended on it. No, he thought, wring your hands. Punch a wall. Bring her home.
The drop was close. Louise would be back, and Eddie, well, he would get his for what he did to Mikey Osborne and Thunder Woman and for fucking up Louise’s head let alone for abusing her body.
When the phone rang it was Luca. He was parked around the corner and would be at the house in two minutes. Keep the front door unlocked.
“I heard from Bigelow,” he told Bill as he came in. “He’s got the money together and will have Willie make the drop for when we set it up. How is it going down?”
“We’ll pass the money at Suburban Station, sometime around 5:00 p.m. It’ll be a good place for us to scatter. Will you be there?”
“Yeah, keep my eye on things. I’ll be watching both yiz.”
Bill’s radar pinged. No way would Luca see a million in cold cash pass under his nose without a grab. How might he do it? Scenario number one: kill Eddie; scenario number two: kill both Eddie and him.
“You have to be out of sight,” Bill said. “If Eddie sees you it will queer the drop and he’ll take off with the documents.”
“The station has a million places I can hide.”
“That’s why I chose it,” Bill said. “When I take him down to a platform, you come out of hiding and be at the top of the stairs. Get him when he comes back up.”
“I’ll put a gun in his back and escort him out the door,” Luca said.
“Exactly.”
“Okay, priest, set it up—the money for those documents. When I call and ask you to join me for some scungilli, it means I got the cash.”
Bill’s radar went off again. Why wouldn’t Luca just grab the money then? Yet he didn’t plan to nab Eddie and the money until after the exchange. The docs were important to Luca too. There was a tie-in of some kind.
“Scungilli. Right,” Bill said.
Luca got up and left. Minutes later, fighting off an urge to go to the liquor store, Bill took a walk. He walked up Girard to Broad Street and back, thinking the whole time about Louise.
So much was at stake. So many things could go wrong. Even if he carried it off, who would Louise be? People in captivity did strange things. Survival sometimes caused their values to flip; they get used to their captors, sometimes their captors reveal parts of themselves only a woman could see. What if she really did love Eddie?
As he thought about it, Bill wondered if he ever really knew her. He was unable to tease out the difference between want and need, sex and love. They were all conflated. He finally decided understanding didn’t matter. If he didn’t know himself, how could he know anybody else? He decided not to over-think his mission. He decided to rely on his instincts. Yet doubts still nagged him. After all, nobody kept track of how often their instincts were wrong.
CHAPTER SIXTY
Angie and Paulie were in separate interrogation rooms at the Roundhouse. First up: Angie.
Lanza threw his jacket across the back of the chair opposite his suspect and offered him a Pall Mall, which he refused. Angie was used to being grilled, so Sam wasn’t surprised at his nonchalance.
All that changed when Sam said, “I know you shot the kid outside Dirty Frank’s.”
“Whoa dere Detective,” Angie said holding his hands up, “slow down dere. Who said it was me?”
“The witnesses all say it was you.”
“First, I didn’t do it, but even if those faggots say I did, I mean, like, don’t you need more than that? Ain’t it my word against deres? And what about a gun?”
“Here’s what you need to know, smart-guy. I’m well on my way to getting what I want, including getting Paulie to crack. Yeah, does that surprise you, your asshole buddy turning on you? You don’t think he tells us the same thing he tells you, do you?”
“You’re bluffin’,” Angie said.
“You guys think all you have to do is point a finger at one another and you’ll get off, but you’re both going down”
Angie squirmed. He took his eyes off Lanza and looked aside, eyes unfocused, wheels turning. Angie was softened up.
“But you could help me,” Sam said, relief visible on Angie’s face. “Gimme all you got about the connection between Luca and the food company honcho.”
“I don’t know enough about it,” Angie said.
“Gimme all you got. I’ll decide how useful it is. Think about it for a minute while I talk to my lieutenant, see what kind of deal we can make…”
Lanza let Angie stew while he left to take a pee. He stopped at his desk, returned some calls, and studied Angie’s pal Paulie through the two-way where Detective Billings was putting it to him. He smoked a cigarette before going back into the interrogation room and face the pudgy gangster.
“So?”
“Here’s all I know,” Angie said. “There’s some kind of deal between Luca and that Bigelow guy.”
“Is Willie the limo driver involved?”
“I don’t think so. I think he’s only, like, the bag man. A couple years ago Bigelow was spreading money around. I don’t know what it was about.”
“Spreading? Where?”
“Harrisburg.”
“How do you know it was Harrisburg?”
“I heard Luca tell Willie over the phone once that he had to make another delivery to Harrisburg.”
“What was going on in Harrisburg?”
“Beats the hell outta me.”
“What did you do with the gun?”
“We ain’t got no gun. I told you before, me and Paulie, we went back to our vehicle and that’s when we heard a bang. We didn’t see nothin’.”
“You can go,” Lanza said. “Don’t leave town.”
“Does Jersey count?”
“No, Angie, Jersey doesn’t count. Just stay out of trouble or I’ll, you know, have to shoot you.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
Bill didn’t need to drive all the way to American Uniform Sales on State Road to purchase the handcuffs, but there were fewer cameras to worry about. Shopping for Louise’s disguise was easier. Browsing the women’s department at Strawbridge and Clothier, looking for the right kind of jacket with a hood.
It didn’t take long. The mannequin was adorned with a fashionable, sporty-looking Calvin Klein number and caught his eye as soon as he saw it. It was perfect, reversible in gray and black and with an oversized hood. She would like it, stylish but sedate. The hood would hide her face and the garment wouldn’t scream out among the hustle and bustle of Suburban Station.
He ran his hand down the smooth satin finish and imagined the touch and warmth of her body underneath it. A sudden pall came over his mood as he recalled their time together may well be over with no future except for him to save her life. Yet he still wanted to please her and wanted her to find pleasure in the garment he chose. But reality impinged on his fantasy; Eddie would purchase the zippered hoodie for Louise.
Back at Day Street, he paced and waited for Eddie’s call. The deal had more double-cross hazards than the Appian Way, and Jericho’s discovery of ServMark’s merger talks meant the precarious filament Louise’s life dangled from stretched thinner.
Bill’s life wasn’t secure either. With an international mega-merger at stake, Luca could whack them all. And would Louise matter to Luca? Forget about it.
The phone rang as Bill’s urge to get obliterated became more tenuous. It was Eddie.
“Why can’t you call me earlier in the day?” Bill snarled.
“You Cinderella or somebody?”
“I don’t want to miss your calls.”
“I been checking on you anyways. You don’t go out much, so what’s the big deal?”
“We’re close to the drop,” Bill said.
“What’s the plan?”
“Once I get the call, we’ll meet at the post office in Suburban Station. From there we
walk toward the Seventeenth Street end. The platform is temporarily roped off for repairs. We go down to the platform so you can check the money and give me the documents. Louise will be lookout at the top of the stairs.”
“Who she lookin’ out for?”
“Luca, cops, anybody that doesn’t look right.”
“I like the plan,” Eddie said. “Lots of people around. And don’t try to fuck me, I’ll be strapped.”
“Don’t tell Louise what’s up when we’re at the station, only that you’re going with me to check the money. You sure she’ll be lookout and not run?”
“She don’t give two shits about you no more,” Eddie added. “Yeah, she’ll do whatever I tell her.”
“Then you disappear with the money and I take Louise and the documents.”
“That’s the deal okay.”
“But there’s something you need to do. Strawbridge has a Calvin Klein hooded jacket. It’s on a dummy right at the entrance to the women’s department. It’s gray and black. Go buy it for her.”
“Why?” Eddie asked.
“It’ll blend nice with the crowd and is reversible. It can be changed over to make it harder for cameras to pick us up. I suggest you alter your look too. Get the hoodie in a large. I want it blousy to cover her better.”
“I dunno about all this crap—
“Don’t fuck up the plan, Eddie, not now. We’re too close.”
“Where did you say it is again? Strawbridge’s?
“The women’s department. Gray and black. On a mannequin. Size large.”
“How close are we to the drop?” Eddie asked.
“Any time. Could be tomorrow or the day after. Get to Straws right away.”
“Okay. I’ll get there.”
“Keep in close touch,” Bill said, “for when the money is in.”
They rang off. Bill slipped on a jacket and headed to Strawbridge and conceal himself inside the store near the ladies department. With luck he’d see Eddie and a cab would be available to follow him as they left.
But even if he tracked Eddie to where he lived, getting to Louise would take time. He’d have to hang out close by their place and wait for Eddie to leave. If it was an apartment house, what apartment would it be? Suppose Louise resisted? The process could take weeks to carry off, and Bill had already dangled the extortion payoff under Eddie’s nose. But at least he’d know where to get to Eddie, assuming Eddie stayed on after getting the money.
I Detest All My Sins Page 19