“Well, yes.”
“Where was he laid out?” Mike almost shouted.
“Patarama. All the family are still down the old neighborhood.”
***
Thunder rumbled as Mike and Jim got out of the Plymouth. Darkness clicked on the feast’s lights and bandstand music funneled into the Patarama alley. At a basement window tilted open, they stopped and stooped to look down into the prep room. Five cadavers under white sheets lay on gurneys parked in a loose circle.
Cogootz, his Yankee cap at the back of his head, earphones draping his neck, skated the mop across the floor in careful arcs.
“So they made fun of me and goofed on me, and thought I was a jerk,” somebody was saying. “But I’m not stupid.”
“Yes, you’re stupid,” a man’s voice said.
“No, you’re stupid,” Cogootz snapped. “And you got shot because you’re a rat bastard.”
The detectives scanned the prep room for the other man, found no one. In another room maybe.
Then the voice said: “You talk with the dead, and I’m stupid?”
The voice ran a chill through Mike. It sounded like Cosmo.
“Yeah, I talk with the dead. So what? First of all, they ain’t dead. I see to that. And they got a lot to say, and they don’t like you either. Nobody likes you, fat boy.”
“But I gotta hand it to you, you fooled the whole fucking neighborhood.”
“Well, that means I ain’t stupid,” Cogootz said.
“And you think you’re a hero because you got away with murder.”
Mike’s and Conroy’s faces, tinted green by the fluorescence from the window, looked at each other, then watched Cogootz swing the gurneys out of the way of his mopping.
“It means I’m smart.”
“Yeah, real smart,” the voice said.
A woman’s voice butted in: “Leave him alone! He’s smart, look what he did. Gave them what they deserved.”
“Be quiet,” Cogootz said. “I mean, not so loud, Mrs. Lodiccio. Please. Somebody might hear.”
“Sorry,” Mrs. Lodiccio said.
“That’s okay,” Cogootz said. “You shouldn’t have to hear all this. I saw your daughters before. They were crying like I cried when my mother came here.”
“Oh, no, I feel so bad. Please tell them, Pasquale, that it’s not what they think, that I’m doing fine.”
“I can’t do that, Mrs. Lodiccio.”
“Oh, please.”
“I start talking like that and right away they think I’m patso. It would do no good, believe me. Your daughters will be all right.”
Cogootz shut his eyes, as if to keep from saying too much. “Anyway, I had a talk with Fish, that son of a bitch, and he admitted everything.”
“Of course he admitted everything,” Mrs. Lodiccio said. “He don’t want to go to hell, where he belongs.”
“Yeah, well, that’s where he’s going. Pray for him, okay, but that’s where he’s going.”
A damp wind whipped around a corner of the building, the detectives shifted their backs to it.
Cogootz got back to the mop, backed himself into a gurney and nudged it against a wall. “Why are you crying, Mrs. Gannon?”
“I worry for the neighborhood, you know, the schoolyard murder and all.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. But it’s gonna be okay. I’m here, so don’t worry. As long as we got these songs” — he tapped the small tape player in his shirt pocket — “and as long as I can sing them, we got the neighborhood.”
Cagootz beamed. He had become important. Soon the whole neighborhood would thank him.
“I hope you’re right, Pasquale, but look how people are now. No one is decent to anyone anymore.”
“You mean decent like it used to be?”
“Yes, kindness, love.”
“I know what you mean,” Cogootz said. “And you know what else?”
Cogootz pointed with his thumb. “That mountain over there? That’s not a mountain. That’s Fat Cosmo, a mean son of a bitch, never was nice to nobody, so nothing changed for him.”
“Yeah,” Fat Cosmo said. “But it was Fish who raped your daughter. Not me.”
Cogootz stomped, a bull charging the massive cadaver. “Shut up, you fat animal.” He pulled the sheet from Fat Cosmo’s face.
Bent at the waist, his face inches above Cosmo’s, he growled: “I told you never say that. I told you don’t tell nobody.” He stood straight, squared the Yankee cap on his head, sent his voice down an octave. “You coulda stopped him, scumbag.”
“You don’t know shit.”
“Fuck you. I’m sorry for the language, Mrs. Lodiccio and Mrs. Gannon. I’m very sorry, but this guy. You know?”
“That’s all right, Pasquale,” Mrs. Lodiccio said.
“Yes, it is all right,” Mrs. Gannon said. “You’re a fine man. What you did, somebody should have done years ago.”
“Thank you, ladies. Anyway, I hear everything, Fat Cosmo.
That’s why I know all the songs, all the parts, the words. Because I listen. I listen to how people talk, that’s how I talk like them. Talk like you. It’s jerks like you too important to listen.”
“Listen, huh?” Cosmo snapped. “The neighborhood is headed out of the picture and you’re mopping floors and singing doowop like a dimwit.”
“I sing for the neighborhood, fatso, and my singing is what’s keeping it going. What did you ever do for the neighborhood?”
“Cogootz, did you kill me?”
“Nice try, fatso. You killed Fish, and his uncle had to do something about it.”
“I didn’t kill Fish, you did.”
“Okay, yeah. But the neighborhood says you did it and got killed because you did it, and that’s what counts.”
“You were a rat, Cogootz. You talked to Mike.”
“Yeah.” Cogootz strutted now, slowly, mop dragging behind him. “And he believes me, because he knows I ain’t a scumbag like you.” He stopped and bent at the waist. “And let me tell you about Fish. The big brave Fish, tough guy. Scared shit when he seen me. You could see in his face he knew what was up. Then when he seen the gun, he says: ‘Stop fucking around, man.’ But he knew what was up. He was scared so stiff that he couldn’t even fall when I shot him. Right in the head, but it took two more shots to get him down. With all his bullshit, he couldn’t say shit.”
“Don’t you feel bad?” Cosmo asked.
“Why should I feel bad? You guys thought I’m stupid, but you can’t be stupid and set up a guy with a phone call the way I did. He really thought he was gonna get laid and instead he got shot. And you know why I ain’t stupid? Because I hear a lot of things in the club, Fat Cosmo. Lot of things in this room too. Got a lot up in here.” He tapped the side of his head with a finger.
“Yeah, you know a lot, but nothing to help when you get caught that you killed me and Fish.”
“Oh yeah?” Cogootz paced around Cosmo now, big hands folded behind him, powerful, confident. “A lot of people don’t know what I got. And I ain’t saying nothing even if they give me a going over, which Mike won’t let them do, ‘cause I ain’t a scumbag. I just listen. Get what I mean? And I never let Fish rape nobody.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t either.”
“Lying sack of shit.”
“No, I ... Cogootz, I’m sorry that I let Fish rape your daughter. Real sorry.”
“Sorry because you gotta look God in the eye. You ain’t sorry. Him and me know that.”
“I am, I am. Look. My fifty seven Chevy, it’s still in the garage, it’s yours. Just say you know I’m sorry.”
Cogootz stopped pacing, held the mop still, rocked from side to side. “Don’t tease, Cosmo.”
“Take it, just tell my mother you forgive me.”
“Yeah, I’m gonna bother your poor mother now. Keep the Chevy, stick it in your giggy.”
“Come on,” Cosmo whined, “I got some old forty-fives too.”
“Yeah, that you stole from m
e.”
“Forgive me, man.”
Cogootz squared the Yankee cap on his head, and threw the sheet back over Cosmo’s face. Then he put on the earphones, bopped a bass line, segued to a baritone part, a tenor part, then the lead. He stayed there for a few bars, then danced the mop to the center of the room, opened his arms, and ended the song with a sweet and soaring falsetto.
Acknowledgments
Old mug shots, conversations of criminal conspiracies, and Susan Mahoney, who read what I wrote and let me know what I was thinking.
About the Author
Ercole Gaudioso had a thirty-four-year career in law enforcement: twenty years with NYPD and fourteen years with New York State’s Organized Crime Task Force. While part of the Organized Crime Task Force, Gaudioso led the five-year investigation that resulted in the arrests of 40 Gambino Family members including John Gotti, Jr. Since retiring from law enforcement, Gaudioso has dedicated his days to singing, photography and writing. His essays, articles and photos have appeared in detective magazines. His short stories and photos have appeared in various literary magazines, including Inkwell and have received various awards in literary and photographic competitions. He has achieved a Masters in Writing from Manhattanville College in Purchase, New York, and an MFA in Professional Writing at Western Connecticut State University. The Mezzogiorno Social Club is his first published novel.
The Mezzogiorno Social Club Page 21