I’m a beggar. Can’t be a chooser. Least it’s a step up from freelancing.
Samantha, who’d stayed quiet during Novak’s pitch, shook her head slowly. “I guess you do have a job.”
“We’ll see. Whether I do or don’t, we’ve a story to get.”
“We?”
“You got anything better to do?”
“Only avoid arrest and death.”
“We still need to figure out what’s going on in the Oh-Nine.”
“That doesn’t sound like a great way to avoid arrest and death.” She took in a breath. There was no humor in her voice. “Listen, I need to know something now. What happens if you have to choose between the story and me?”
“You.”
He’d said it without hesitation—a surprise in itself. In the past, he’d have had to think about it or hemmed and hawed or maybe even picked the story and lost the woman. But the Garfields and the New Haven Life Insurance Company hadn’t picked him.
“Why? Doesn’t seem like the right choice for a top reporter.”
“And look where that’s gotten me.”
There was something else, something talking to Laura last night made him realize. Samantha was like him in a lot of respects. They had more in common. She’d grown up in one of the boroughs and come up the hard way. Harder even than Taylor, he had to admit. She’d overcome so much to get through the academy and make it on to the force. He was enthralled by the doubled bravery of working a dangerous job for a department that didn’t want her. The only thing he and Laura had in common was a dead newspaper. Sources. Stories. Worthless. Those were the things they’d had to talk about. He and Samantha had each fought harder, for more, and so maybe had more to share.
He sipped his coffee. A bit of Irish whisky would be so nice in this. “Without getting arrested and killed, is there someone there you know we can interview? Someone who will talk without bringing Slive down on you?”
She lowered her own cup and looked at her reflection in the black liquid. A small smile turned up the corners of her mouth. “Donald Priscotti asked me out a bunch of times. He might be desperate enough to meet me for a drink and not tell anyone.”
“How desperate?”
“Lives with his mom. Hasn’t had a date in years, if ever. Desperate. He’s the clerk in the precinct on the dayside.”
“Sounds promising.”
“Promising that I have to go on a date with a desperate guy?”
“No, that he’s the clerk. He sees and hears everything. And it’s an interview, not a date.”
“We’ll see what he thinks it is. It’ll have to be me alone. I’ll tell him I’m trying to clear my name.”
“I watch from somewhere in the place. With bad cops involved, you need a witness.” Interviews were supposed to be on the up and up, no made-up stories, no undercover stuff. The MT was gone. People were trying to get Samantha. The precinct had dirty cops and two people were dead. I need to break the rules just to get by. “I’ve got a source from the Knapp Commission indictments. He’s a cop hunter and knows all the other cop hunters. I’m going to ask him about what’s going on.”
“Cop hunter. Pleasant term.”
“I’m afraid that’s what we’re doing now. Slive said he wants to close the case fast. With the conclusions he’s already come to, it’ll get a lot harder for us to figure out what really went down. The judicial process flattens everything. People shut up.”
Samantha took two minutes to arrange drinks with Priscotti at a nondescript place, Freddie’s Grill and Saloon, on East 43rd near Grand Central. Taylor planned to get there a half hour ahead of time.
Priscotti was a fat man, fat beyond the stereotype of the overweight cop, his uniform stretched tight across his gut, his back and all sorts of other places. His chubby face lit up like he’d spied an all-you-can-buffet as he approached Samantha. She smiled back. The smile was fake. Taylor had known her long enough to be sure of that. So was the laugh that followed. Priscotti ordered whiskey. She ordered wine. Taylor was too far way to make out what was being said but could tell things were going well. This bothered him.
Stupid to be jealous. She’s playing him.
He forced himself not to stare. He gave the room the occasional look round to check for possible cops and then went back to reading the papers. The Times, of course, wrote the longest obituary for the New York Messenger-Telegram. Column inches and inches on the Garfield family, going back more than a century. The two other dailies did well enough by the MT. Journalists knew how to bury their dead.
He chanced a look. Samantha and Priscotti were leaning in close, their faces very serious. Now Samantha’s intensity didn’t appear feigned. Priscotti slid his big ass off the stool and threw cash on the bar. Samantha got up and followed him to the door.
Shit, that’s not part of the plan.
Samantha didn’t give him a look.
Now what? Shouldn’t follow or I’ll blow it. Whatever it is.
He got up.
Too dangerous not to.
The yellow cab pulled away from the curb as he reached the sidewalk. He sure as hell hoped Samantha knew what she was doing.
Taylor’s meeting with Jersey Stein was set for nine o’clock. He’d planned it so Samantha could trade roles and be the watcher. There was nothing to do but go see the investigator from the Manhattan DA’s office. This was going to be tough. In an interview, there were so many things to pay attention to. Question. Answer. Follow-up. Hint. Mistake. Sign of a lie. Everything that lived between the lines. How was he supposed to concentrate when he didn’t know what was going on with Samantha and an officer from the precinct where just about every cop wanted a piece of her?
Chapter 17
“Surprised you met me so quickly.”
Stein finished his glass of Royal Crown Cola. It was said he never drank booze. “Your paper’s dead, right?”
“Killed before we could put out a last edition.”
“Then you can’t do me any damage.”
“You’re a sentimental man.”
He was the opposite, in fact. As well as being a teetotaler, Stein pursued corrupt cops with a single-minded zeal. That was still a dangerous business, even with the revelations of the past five years.
“Sentiment will get you killed. You’ve always operated under the romantic misapprehension your stories bring about some kind of justice. Justice comes with a conviction.”
“A few of mine helped.”
“Helped, hurt. Who knows? What is it you want?”
“I’m working on the cop killing in Alphabet City.”
“Are you now? Who would you be doing that for?”
Stein signaled for another RC. Here was the time for Taylor to keep things under control. Keep off the booze. Stay focused. The hangover headache pounded against his forehead. He ordered a Bloody Mary, extra spicy. Stein’s face, with its prominent cheekbones and clear hazel eyes, remained impassive. How to answer Stein’s question? Desperation was a sour tang on his tongue. The drink wouldn’t help with that. Haven’t said yes to Novak yet. No sense muddying the waters here.
“Maybe I’ll freelance it. A guy’s gotta eat.”
“Probably shouldn’t have met you so quickly then.” He shook his head ruefully. “All this is off the record.”
“With you, it’s always off the record.”
“That’s right. Quotes are for guys running for office. Or idiots trying to get knocked on the head.”
“The Dodd shooting is pretty messy,” Taylor said.
“That’s a broad generalization.”
“Is the mugger’s gun still missing?”
Stein nodded. “So I hear. A little odd that is.”
“You’re not helping much.”
“Ask me something smart, and maybe I will.”
Taylor sipped vodka, tomato juice and horseradish through the thin plastic straw. The unpleasant grinding of the hangover slowly began its transformation into a comfortable little buzz. He thought thro
ugh everything he knew. Some things—the briefcase, the threat on Halloween—he wasn’t ready to give to the DA’s office.
He was distracted. Why had Samantha left without a signal? What if he had her all wrong? Maybe she’s playing me. The ache from the end of the MT, behind all his other worries. When would that go away?
Focus, dammit. Looking into a Seagram’s Seven mirror, he remembered the crime scene.
“Dodd was shot in the face. Mortelli caught one in the leg and one in the chest. Must have knocked him down. May have killed him instantly. How does that play out as a gunfight?”
“See, I knew you could get to specifics.” Stein reached into both outside pockets of his green suit jacket. He pulled out the little three-inch spiral notebooks he always carried. There were six—no, seven—on the table. Stein sorted through them, looking at their bright-colored covers. He picked up one that was Halloween orange and flipped its pages. “Dodd still might have shot first. Mortelli points the gun at him and Dodd fires, catches him in the chest, and Mortelli fires back before falling.”
“Yeah, I know that’s a possibility. Do you believe it happened that way?”
“No. More importantly the ME’s office doesn’t. John Mortelli died instantly. Shot through the heart. They both hit the ground corpses.”
“Will they confirm?” Taylor asked.
“That’s your job.”
“What have you heard about Officer Callahan?”
Stein leafed through the little pages some more. “The gal who was his partner? Somehow got lost when it went O.K. Corral for Dodd.”
“She got a radio call sending her the wrong way.”
“A call no one else heard.”
“I’ve got an officer who says he did.”
Stein’s thin black eyebrows moved up. “Name?”
“Anonymous tip.”
“Anonymous, shit-on-i-mous. What the hell can I do with that? Nothing.”
“We’re trying to confirm it with another officer.”
“Who’s we?”
“People have to work. I’ve got help.”
“Really? Be careful. Callahan’s a fugitive, you know.”
“Everyone keeps telling me to be careful. This isn’t a business for caution. You should know that. How come you’ve got one of your notebooks going on this case?”
“One never knows when the District Attorney for the County of New York will seek justice.”
“My source on the radio call said …” Now it was Taylor’s turn to flip pages covered with the scrawled stutter-step attempt to solve a crime. “ ‘There’s a right way to do the job. But the dirt’s getting back in. Too many have their hands out.’ What’s going on in the Oh-Nine?”
Stein put his hand over Taylor’s notebook. “You and I never met, right?”
“Sure, whatever you say.”
“There is a gang operating out of the precinct. As far as we can tell, they’re just grass eaters taking nickel and dime bribes to look the other way on street-level stuff. Uniformed officers, it appears. Plainclothes and detectives may be clean.”
“How many?”
“Haven’t nailed that down yet.”
“Dodd wouldn’t join. Is that why he’s dead?”
“Think that through. If the two shootings are more than they seem, then your theory is a bunch of low-level grass eaters murdered a fellow cop. The result? More heat on them. If it is a setup, it’s awfully sophisticated for this group. They’re not the brightest of lights. Maybe this is about something else—assuming someone can prove the whole thing was staged to kill Dodd.”
“Like what?”
“That’s our sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. How do you know Dodd wouldn’t join the pad?”
“His wife told me.”
Stein chuckled as he wrote with a golf pencil. “They always make that mistake. They never talk to the wives. Expect them to stay in the kitchen and cry. Sometimes they know the whole story. Or a neat little piece of it.”
“Why is Trunk out and Slive from IA in, if it’s not about the dirty cops?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ah c’mon. You must.”
“I mean it. I know Slive. He’s the son of some deputy chief or assistant deputy chief. That’s important by itself. He went in and cleaned out three precincts after Knapp. I mean went through like a storm. That’s just as important as who his father is in these days of clean hands. Your shit-on-i-mous source got one thing right. The dirt always gets back in.”
“Why aren’t you coming down on the gang in the Ninth? Just because they’re small time? Not like you.”
“Waiting for it to play out. Not the time yet to turn on the lights. We will.”
A black man in a blue suit stopped behind Taylor and Stein’s barstools. He was tall and broad and could pass for a Jets linebacker. Check that, Taylor thought, not with the way the Jets are playing. More like the Steelers. He knew James Brent as Stein’s partner at the DA’s office for the past two years. He’d joined after working for the FBI doing difficult, dangerous and maybe even crazy work down south, where Taylor figured everything was crazy anyway.
Stein slipped off the stool, lithe for his fifty-plus years. The many colored notebooks disappeared into pockets.
Taylor swung around on the stool to Stein’s partner. “I’m still looking to do that feature on your time with the bureau.”
“And I’m still not talking to reporters. Stories don’t help investigators.”
Stein tapped Taylor lightly on the shoulder. “You see. James is a very smart man. He knows to avoid journalists. Just like I do. Now we’ve got to go talk to some politicians who never ever take bribes. Given the city’s finances, we’re pretty sure that’s the only place they could be getting the money. Call again if you stay out of work.” He shook his head and repeated Brent’s words. “You’re a smart man. Too goddamn brave for your own good, but smart at least.”
“I’m not the one who tells cops how many years he’s going to put them away for,” said Brent.
“Like to set their expectations.”
They were gone.
Taylor sucked every drop of Bloody Mary from around the ice cubes. He used the men’s room and then was stopped by the sight of the payphone. The black handle of the receiver looked like the exclamation point on an insult. He had no one to call. There was no city desk, no cop shop, not even the warm voice of the night operator at the Messenger-Telegram with the phone messages that were the lifeblood of his work. Officials. Interviewees. Sources. Tipsters. Readers with conspiracies. Even angry officers. No paper, so no way for all that information to get to him. For the first time that day, Novak’s offer came into clear focus. He couldn’t be a reporter unless he had somewhere to be one. The editors at the News thought he was a loose cannon. It’d be the same at the Post—worse, if Worthless ended up there. A suburban paper? He couldn’t go to one of those rags and chase DWIs and burglar alarms. He’d die.
The chill night air hit his face. The suburbs. He did need to go out there tomorrow, though. To the Mortellis. The death of the MT had interrupted his plans to do a story on the bonds. Now he’d take one more day on this, the strangest sort of loose end he’d encountered. As much as he’d like to know where the case had gone to, he needed to know where it had come from. Maybe he’d get something from the father.
He went home in the hope of finding Samantha. He wanted to know where she’d gone. He wanted to know he could trust her. He just plain wanted her.
Chapter 18
His second visit to the Mortelli house was very different from the first. This time, the dead man’s mother had picked him up at the station.
He sat in an overstuffed chair in an over-furnished living room with a coffee cup on a saucer. The shag rug was the same color as the coffee. A mantle clock donged three.
Cecilia Mortelli smoothed the fabric of her black dress across her legs. “Thank you for taking an interest in John’s death. No one else seems to care. Not even the ones w
ho should. You asked to see my husband on the phone. He’s not here. I threw him out.” She kept smoothing the already smooth fabric. “John’s life should never have ended the way it did.”
“You have my condolences, Mrs. Mortelli—”
“Cecilia, please.”
“I’m trying to find out what really happened. People who knew John say he acted totally out of character. I’m sure this is difficult, but I need to know. Did your son have a violent side?”
“No, no, no.” She shook her head with each no. “He was never in a fight in his life. He couldn’t stand seeing anything hurt. He volunteered at the dog shelter. He was going to veterinary school until all the music stuff happened. I never understood this punk thing. My son wasn’t a punk.”
“When did you talk to him last?”
“I visited him four days before he ….” Her index finger and thumb, nails lacquered a dark red, rubbed the bridge of her nose. “We met in Grand Central. I gave him forty dollars. It was the most I could manage.” She shook her head. “I had to take it out of the household fund. My husband doles out the money in little drips and drops. There was a big change in him. When I’d gone down three weeks earlier, he’d been happy. We’d had lunch at a favorite place on Park. We got lots of stares because of his clothes and crazy hair. I didn’t care. He’d talked all about the dogs he was taking care of and some of the people he’d met. Some men need to sow their wild oats. I thought if he was happy, he’d get through this. Maybe even taking care of the dogs would bring him back to what he was supposed to do. But my last visit was totally different. He was frightened. Someone had scared him. I told him to go to the police. He said he couldn’t. It was the police.”
“Who on the police?”
“He wouldn’t say anything else. Ran out of Grand Central. That was the very last time I talked to him.” Tears ran down both cheeks. Pulling tissues out of a silver box, she cried for a couple of minutes, blew her nose and smoothed the dress again. “I’m sorry. For the first few days I couldn’t stop. Now it comes all of the sudden in waves like that.”
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