“Any rumors about the shooting from your gangster friends?”
Guma smiled and shrugged. “There’s always plenty of rumors. Mob guys like to gossip more than little old ladies. But it’s too early to say what’s real and not, even for wiseguys with ears to the streets. However, no one I talked to was buying the ‘robbery’ charade. Also, I found this interesting; the Italians are a little nervous about one of the Russian gangs nosing around the docks. But no one knows if there’s a connection to this.”
Karp looked at Fulton. “What about you, Clay?”
“I went out to New Rochelle with the detective assigned to talk to the widow.”
“How’s she doing?”
“Not well,” Fulton replied. “I guess she collapsed when she was told by a captain with the New Rochelle Police Department. The paramedics had her drugged up when we got there, but she was pretty much in shock and crying nonstop. Tough thing to see; she obviously loved him. She kept saying that she begged her husband not to go to the meeting and claims that Vitteli is behind it. She couldn’t provide anything to go on. But it could be worth talking to her again when she’s had a chance to pull herself together.”
“I take it Vitteli and his guys all told the same story?”
“Practically word for word, which is suspicious enough,” Guma replied. “Two males jumped out of an alley, at least one of them with a gun, and demanded their wallets. Carlotta apparently was packing a .380 and tried to draw down on the gunman but got beat to the punch and took one in the chest and another to the head. He was gone by the time the paramedics arrived. I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to look at the papers yet, but there’s a photo of Charlie Vitteli slumped against the wall with blood on his hands. He says he tried to give Carlotta CPR.”
“I’ll bet,” Karp replied sarcastically. “Somehow I think a photograph of him with blood on his hands may be apropos when all is said and done.”
“Maybe,” Fulton said. “But Vitteli’s a crafty son of a bitch. You can bet that if he’s involved, there isn’t going to be a lot pointing directly at him.”
“Probably not,” Karp agreed. “But what about Vitteli’s men? Maybe there’s a weak link.”
“I’ll stay on the boys over at homicide,” Fulton said. “Maybe call Vitteli’s guys in one at a time for a few questions. Might get somebody to slip up.”
“I’ll bet somebody already has,” Karp said. “We just need to figure out who.”
5
“HEY, DETKA, COME HERE, BABY,” Alexei Bebnev shouted drunkenly as he grabbed at the waitress, who slapped his hand away from her hip and deftly moved past the table where he sat with Frank DiMarzo. A wave of anger passed over his face as the woman disappeared into the crowd at the bar, but then the Russian laughed as he glanced at his companion. “I don’t want that telka anyway; she’s a fat bitch. Plenty of fish in sea, right, my friend?”
DiMarzo smiled though he disliked the Russian and wished he was elsewhere. It had been a week since the murder of Vince Carlotta and the guilt weighed on him. All he had to do was close his eyes and he’d see the look on the doomed man’s face when Charlie Vitteli grabbed his arm and the first bullet slammed home. “You son of a bitch!” The words echoed in his mind and caused his gut to clench as though they’d been directed at him and not Vitteli. He heard them again as he watched the evening news coverage of Carlotta’s funeral and saw the man’s grieving widow holding his infant son.
Only at the moment of the shooting did DiMarzo realize that Vitteli was behind the plot. He’d of course recognized him as well as the other four men from the photograph that had been ripped out of the magazine and assumed that Joey Barros, pictured in the magazine and present at the murder, was the “Joey” who Bebnev met, with Marat Lvov, to set up the assassination. And Bebnev’s account of the comment he overheard that “Charlie wants this done ASAP” could have only meant Vitteli.
The photograph was now safely tucked away inside the Bible on a bookshelf in his childhood room at his parents’ modest brick row house in Red Hook. He wasn’t sure why he was reluctant to get rid of it—after all, it might be evidence to connect him to the crime—but something told him the photo could be important later, so he stashed it.
He just wanted to be done with it all, but things kept dragging out. Three days after the murder, Bebnev had paid him eight thousand to split with Gnat Miller. When he complained that they were owed another six thousand, the Russian said he needed to collect the rest from Lvov, which was why they were now sitting in a noisy club in the Little Odessa area of Brighton Beach, Brooklyn.
At first, DiMarzo wondered why Bebnev insisted that he accompany him to the club. The Russian made it sound like he just wanted to party before handing over the money. But looking around, DiMarzo figured that his partner in crime wanted backup.
DiMarzo was a tough kid from a bad neighborhood, but the crowd in the club was made up of some of the roughest-looking men he’d ever seen in one place. Many of the rugged Slavic faces bore scars and disfigured noses; the predominant language was Russian spoken in loud, coarse shouts over the repetitive pounding of Euro/techno/Russian music, and he knew that many of the dark tattoos he could see on various arms and necks represented Russian Mafia affiliations. Everybody, including the women—some of whom looked as tough as the men—seemed to be dressed in black leather.
Making DiMarzo even more nervous, Bebnev apparently felt so emboldened by his presence and several beers that his boasts about pulling off “the job” kept growing in volume. He also made a show of pulling out a fat roll of bills to pay for their drinks, tipping the waitress lavishly. DiMarzo noticed that some of the clientele were paying attention.
“You see look on asshole’s face,” Bebnev shouted over the music. He laughed as he made his fingers into a gun. “It was like, ‘Oh shit, man, now I’m going to die.’ And ‘bang, bang,’ I make it happen, fucking damn straight, man.”
“Not so loud,” DiMarzo said. “You’re talking too much.”
“Fuck that, sooka,” the Russian replied, slurring his words. “These are my people. And no one fucks with Alexei Bebnev.”
At that moment, a fat, bald man entered the pool hall followed by a couple of big, thuggish-looking men dressed all in black and wearing sunglasses. The fat man looked around the bar until his eyes settled on Bebnev.
“There’s the money now,” Bebnev told DiMarzo. He waved at the fat man and yelled. “Marat! Zdraast vooee che! Come sit!”
Lvov saw the wave and headed for the table, followed by his goons. He did not look happy.
“Who is this?” the fat man asked, nodding at DiMarzo.
“Just a friend,” Bebnev replied. “He sometimes is great assistant, if you follow me.”
Lvov looked DiMarzo over with small, piggish eyes set in mounds of pink flesh and said, “Then he will not mind leaving us.”
“Not at all,” DiMarzo said, getting up before Bebnev had a chance to say anything. He headed for the door, and without looking back walked across the street to wait beneath the elevated Q train tracks.
A few minutes later, the fat man emerged, followed by his entourage. He spotted DiMarzo and studied him for a few moments before saying something to one of his men, who also gave DiMarzo a hard look. He had made his mind up to run if they decided to cross the street toward him, but instead the trio walked up to a dark sedan parked illegally in front of the bar, got in, and drove away.
When they were gone, Bebnev emerged from the bar. He, too, saw DiMarzo and sauntered over.
As the young Russian walked up, DiMarzo noticed that Bebnev had a fresh bruise surrounding one eye that was well on its way to swelling shut. “What happened to you?” DiMarzo asked.
“A misunderstanding,” Bebnev said. “Sort of like initiation. Me and Lvov are like brothers now.”
Some brothers, DiMarzo thought. More like the fat guy didn’t like Bebnev’s big mouth. But he didn’t say anything. He just wanted his money and to get the hell out of Little O
dessa. “He pay you?”
Bebnev nodded, pulled an envelope from the inner pocket of his leather coat, and offered it to DiMarzo. “Here is four thousand.”
“Four? You owe me and Gnat six,” DiMarzo complained.
“That was before this,” Bebnev said, pointing to his eye. “I take all risks, you do shit. Take it or leave it.”
DiMarzo snatched the envelope from Bebnev’s hand. “We’re done, asshole,” he spat. “Don’t call and don’t come around.”
“Fine, little pedik,” Bebnev snarled. “I don’t hang with homos. I have new friends.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” DiMarzo replied. He turned to leave but stopped when he saw a large man who’d just come out of the bar standing across the street staring at them.
Even from that distance, he could see that the man had a long, jagged scar running from the top of his big bald head, across his nose, and down to the jawline on the other side. Although it was winter and cold outside, he was wearing a T-shirt that seemed to barely contain his muscular chest and arms, which were covered with dark tattoos. The man took a drag on a cigarette and tossed it down in the gutter without taking his eyes off DiMarzo and Bebnev.
“I think I’d avoid that bar for a while,” DiMarzo said to Bebnev, nodding toward the man.
Bebnev looked in the direction indicated and DiMarzo saw him swallow hard. But he managed a weak smile. “I’m not afraid of him,” he said. “But I have other things to do.”
With that, Bebnev scurried off down Brighton Beach Boulevard in the direction of Coney Island. DiMarzo watched him go, and when he turned to look back across the street, the large man was gone. He shuddered and trotted up the stairs to the train station above. If I never see Bebnev and Little Odessa again, it will be too soon, he thought as he pulled out his cell phone and called his friend Gnat Miller.
6
MARLENE PAUSED OUTSIDE THE EAST Village Women’s Shelter to wait for three raggedy, middle-aged women to move from her path into the building. Noting the tattered layers of clothing, she marveled that such people survived the brutal winter months in New York City, where sunlight rarely made its way down through and between buildings to warm the streets. She knew there were never enough beds in shelters to house Gotham’s street people, nor, for that matter, enough space on steam grates or protected nooks around buildings to shelter them from the elements.
On closer inspection, these three seemed livelier than most, more like hard-luck gypsies than down-and-out street people as they huddled together while carrying on an animated conversation. One was a large black woman who’d stuffed her copious dreadlocks beneath a colorful scarf and rolled her eyes and muttered; the other two were white, at least beneath the grime that coated their faces, one thick and the other perilously thin. But they didn’t seem to belong to the streets like other homeless people, at least to Marlene; it was more like they were acting out parts in a play.
Nor did they seem to belong at this shelter. The former deli on Avenue C and 6th Street wasn’t a way station for the homeless, but a refuge for women from many walks of life trying to escape violent domestic situations.
The shelter had been started by Mattie Duran, a stocky, combative woman with long dark hair, a swarthy complexion, and an even blacker personality. She’d executed her stepfather, in his sleep, the man who raped her since childhood, and she’d served time in prison, which had done little to improve her social skills or outlook on life. Fifteen years earlier, she’d shown up in New York City with a trunk full of cash obtained under mysterious, probably violent, circumstances. She used the money to open the shelter as a place of refuge for women and children in immediate danger from the men in their lives.
After opening, Duran refused all funding from national, state, and local governmental resources. She wasn’t going to let them have that kind of control over how she ran her shelter. Instead, after her own money ran out, she relied on private donations to stay open.
Marlene started volunteering at the shelter not long after it accepted its first client. She was in a dark period of her life as well, pushing the boundaries of the law as well as her marriage when dealing with men who abused women. She’d even killed a few—always in self-defense, though she’d certainly put herself in positions where the violence had been inevitable. That little fact had earned her Duran’s grudging acceptance if not her friendship. Nor had Duran turned down the substantial funds that Marlene donated, which had earned a gruff “thank you,” but little else.
Mattie had disappeared several years earlier. No one knew if it was because the mercurial woman, who had never been able to quiet the ghosts of her own disturbed past, had decided to try a different path to peace. Or perhaps one of the many enemies she’d made over the years had finally caught her in a moment of carelessness and silenced the ghosts forever.
Marlene had devoted quite a bit of time and money to trying to locate Duran but had come up with nothing. However, she continued to donate money and volunteer at the shelter and knew the type of clientele it served, most of whom didn’t carry themselves with the same confidence and aplomb as the three women she was speaking to now.
“When do you want to meet again?” Marlene heard one of them ask the others.
“In thunder, lightning, or rain?” the black woman added in a thick Jamaican accent.
Suddenly, the woman who’d spoken first noticed Marlene and poked the other white woman, who had her back to her, in the shoulder and nodded. “Here she is now, Anne,” she said. “Go on, tell her what you know.”
Marlene smiled as Anne turned and saw her. A fleeting storm of emotions—fear, uncertainty, anger—played across the woman’s face. “Tell me what, Anne?” Marlene asked.
“Are you Marlene Ciampi, the wife of the district attorney?” Anne responded.
Marlene’s expression turned serious. Plenty of people asked her that question, but rarely just out of curiosity. “I am,” she replied. “Why do you want to know?”
The woman’s face contorted as if mirroring some internal debate, but then she shook her head. “Nothing, it’s nothing,” she said. “Sorry to bother you.”
The woman turned back toward her friends. But Marlene reached out and touched her arm. “Really? Nothing?” she asked. “Your friends seem to think you have something important to tell me, something to do with my husband.”
Though she didn’t turn back around to face Marlene, the woman’s shoulders sank and she sighed. “Not so much your husband as Charlie Vitteli and Vince Carlotta,” she said.
Marlene’s radar suddenly went on full alert. Her husband had told her about Dirty Warren’s remarks that the murder was a “setup,” as well as Butch’s own suspicions that Charlie Vitteli was somehow involved. In the weeks that had passed since the murder, there’d been plenty of rumors phoned into the police and DAO, but so far no leads had panned out, nor had any credible witnesses stepped forward. This woman might be just another street person who tended to mix fantasy with reality, but Marlene had been around long enough to know that sometimes the information that tipped the scales of justice came from the most unusual places. “What about them?” she asked.
The woman turned and looked at her for a long moment and seemed about to speak, but then her hand went to her mouth. “I don’t want to get involved,” she said. “Nothing good ever comes of it.”
“If you’re afraid, my husband can arrange for your protection,” Marlene said. “And I’ll help, too. What’s your last name, Anne?”
The woman backed away from Marlene as if Marlene were holding a poisonous snake. “No one could protect my Sean; no one could protect Mr. Carlotta,” she said. “And you can’t protect me. No one gives a shit about me.”
Marlene took a step toward the woman as she tried to think of what to say to assuage the woman’s fears. But the other two edged between her and Anne.
“Scared she is,” the other white woman warned.
“Too much trouble,” added the black woman.
“
I understand that, but if you know something that could help solve a murder . . .” Marlene tried to continue, sensing that this woman might be aware of something important.
At that moment the steel door of the shelter opened and an enormous man the size of her husband and Clay Fulton put together emerged and walked up to the women. Mark DiGregorio provided the daytime security for the women’s shelter. No violent boyfriends, husbands, stalkers, or other miscreants ever made it past his vigilant eyes or prodigious girth; those who tried once never tried again.
“Good morning, Marlene, are these ladies bothering you?” he asked, eyeing the three women suspiciously. “They’ve been asking for you all morning but don’t seem to have any real business with the shelter.”
“No business with you, mon,” the black woman said, scowling up at him. She then looked at her friends. “With this woman, yes. But not today, says Anne, so let’s go, my weird sisters.”
“Wait,” Marlene said. “Tell me where I can find you.”
The other white woman cackled. “On the heath, of course.” And with that, the three hurried down the sidewalk toward Houston Street.
As she watched them go, Marlene shook her head. “Weird sisters is right. Guess it takes all sorts, eh, Mark?”
DiGregorio grinned. “My family, including my parents, my sister, and me, spent a lot of time as missionaries in Jamaica teaching English and the gospel. All that juju gives me the creeps. Let’s just say I heard a lot of strange stories about witches and shit like that, and sometimes there’s more to this old world than we can see.”
Marlene nodded. “I agree, and I think there’s more to those three than meets the eye, too. If you ever find out anything about them, or they come looking for me again, give me a call.”
“You got it, sister,” DiGregorio replied with a laugh as he hurried up the stairs to open the door for her.
Walking into the shelter, Marlene made her way to the office of the shelter’s new director, Bobbi Sue Hirschbein. “Good morning, Bobbi Sue,” she said after she’d knocked and been invited in. “Got anything you’d like me to do first?”
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