The Good Guys

by Bill Bonanno

  That kind of convenient disappearance happened pretty often, although maybe not on that level, and the hideout was usually in a place like Red Hook in Brooklyn or Flushing, Queens, rather than Naples. But Slattery knew that the mob only searched for people with whom it did business. If forced to guess about this guy, Jim Slattery would have put his chips on gambling losses.

  But he listened to O’Brien and Russo with as much enthusiasm as he could fake. The relationship between agents in the field and their supervisors can be more complicated than a large family with an inherited fortune. Often it is symbiotic. The agent in the field is dependent on his or her support team. A supervisor can get up on the wrong side of the bed one morning and end a six-month investigation on a whim. But the career of the street agent or supervisor might also hinge on an agent’s work. If an agent screws up, the support team might sink with him. So for a case agent it’s a balancing act between the bureau’s rules and the needs of his people.

  There are good and bad supervisors, case agents, and support teams. It really is the luck of the schedule. There are wimps afraid to take a step outside the box without permission from Washington in triplicate. But there are just as many people who would take a bullet to protect their operation. Well, maybe an administrative bullet, but if it came down to it, they would risk their careers to give the agents in the field the support they needed to succeed.

  Generally the agents who worked with Slattery respected him. O’Brien knew that Slattery got all the punch lines. In this situation, for example, he knew that they didn’t even have enough evidence to interest the Mayberry PD, much less convince the bureau to commit time and resources to the investigation. And he had no doubt Slattery knew it too. But he was also pretty confident Slattery would get the real message: Trust me on this one.

  His timing was perfect. Today was the day on which Slattery semiofficially stopped giving a damn. Spend the bureau’s money? Sure, the taxpayers can afford it. Bend the rules? Break them? Okay, break them in fucking half. Just make sure nobody gets hurt and remember the golden rule: Cover thy ass.

  Slattery grabbed a yellow legal pad and a government-issue Bic pen. “National security, huh? That’s pretty serious stuff.” Each of them played the game superbly. By the time Slattery finished covering the long sheet of yellow paper with his notes, the pieces seemed to fit together neatly. Officially Slattery determined that there was not even hard evidence that national security had been compromised for him to go through the whole rigmarole of informing Washington. Instead, the best he could do—and he said this to O’Brien and Russo with a straight face—was provide limited support for an additional week. That way, if this did turn out to have serious implications, no one could accuse him of allowing national security to be compromised. And if it turned out to be something as benign as the mob trying to collect a debt, he could still defend his actions. It was all right there on the sheet of yellow paper.

  Slattery would designate this a “preliminary investigation,” meaning they would be investigating to determine if there was anything worth investigating. It would cut down substantially on the initial paperwork. But limited support from the FBI is still quite impressive. Consider it the silver standard rather than the gold. In an effort to locate Columbia University Professor of Slavic Languages Peter Gradinsky before the mob found him, and determine why he had taken a hike, government resources would be employed on an “as available” basis. This wasn’t a full-court press; the bureau wasn’t going to take any agents off their current assignments to work this one. There were probably eleven hundred agents working in the New York office, and they were already busy conducting probably ten times their number of investigations, just about every one of which was deemed more important than this one. But memos would be circulated stating the basic facts with an enlargement of the yearbook photo. Support facilities would be available for transcriptions, translations, and basic research. Agents with downtime might be recruited to do some grunt work. O’Brien and Russo were satisfied. Thrilled, actually.

  Obviously this was not a “Priority.” Not a whole lot was going to happen in a hurry. But normal investigative procedures would be taken: With the permission of a friendly federal judge, which would be easy to obtain once the catchall term “national security” was invoked, the Gradinskys’ telephone would be tapped. Based on available manpower, for at least part of each day—exactly which hours would be determined based on Grace Gradinsky’s patterns—there would be visual surveillance on the apartment, and when she left, she would be tailed. Another subpoena would be obtained, this one for a record of the telephone calls Gradinsky had made from both his apartment and his office; the numbers would be run through a reverse phone book to try to determine whom he’d called. All his recent credit card purchases would be examined and his accounts marked to ensure that the FBI would be notified immediately if his cards were used. Hotels and motels in the New York metropolitan area, with an emphasis on the lower-priced places where he might pay with cash, would be checked to determine if he had registered using his own name. His bank records would be subpoenaed to determine if he had made any sizable transactions, either deposits or withdrawals, within the past month. Car rental agencies would be contacted to see if he had rented a car. The professor’s photograph and a brief descriptor would be circulated throughout the NYPD, transit police, housing police, and all other local law enforcement agencies with a request to contact the bureau with any information about this missing person.

  Accomplishing all of this could take several weeks, and Slattery felt confident that long before it was completed, Professor whoever would show up somewhere. Most probably alive.

  The first action was getting a tap on his home and office telephones. Unlike bugging a social club or a mob hangout, this was pretty simple. Judge Margot Sklar signed a warrant that same afternoon. That night FBI technicians went into the basement of the Gradinskys’ building and located the telephone box. It was an old one, a rusting gunmetal-gray box overflowing with a rainbow of wires. It was the kind of mess that installers and repairmen referred to as “an electric circus.” Normally, unless a technician gets lucky, in a box crammed with as many wires as this one it would take more than an hour to locate and isolate the Gradinskys’ phone. But in this case the technician picked out the wire seconds after he’d opened the box.

  It was the one with the tap already on it.

  FIVE

  This is no fucking way to treat me,” Bobby Blue Eyes complained.

  “You still breathing?” Fast Lenny asked.

  “Yeah, so?”

  “So shut the fuck up and keep breathing. Fucking skinny marink like you, you should be happy we even take you along, all the good you can do if we get jammed up.”

  “He’s got a point there, Bobby,” Jackie Keys agreed sympathetically. “What the fuck we need you for? We wanted comic fucking relief, we woulda brought Robin fucking Williams.”

  There was no way of predicting how people would act on the way to a job. Even a setup like this was supposed to be. Crime is a dangerous business: If things go wrong, people could end up dead or spending years in a ten-by-twelve cage. There were probably as many ways to prepare for a job as there were people doing them. I knew people you couldn’t shut up with a lead pipe when they were on the way to do some work, while there were other people who wouldn’t make a sound. Some people always ate a big meal; other people got so nervous they couldn’t eat one bite. One man I knew quite well was a singer, so to relieve tension on the way to a job, he would sing Broadway show tunes; another guy talked sports. Just as in this particular situation humor and bravado were used to lighten the very somber mood.

  Five men were squeezed into Fast Lenny’s Chevy as they headed uptown to the Garment District. Lenny was driving. Jackie Keys was in the death seat next to him. Bobby was sitting in the back, squashed between Little Eddie and Tony Cupcakes like a doughnut between two boulders. Bobby’s nose was itching, but there wasn’t anything he could do about
it. Both his arms were pinned against his sides, and if he wrestled them free, he would have to sit uncomfortably with his arms out in front of him for the remainder of the ride.

  Everybody had an assigned role in the heist. Fast Lenny was driving the backup car. If the truck got tailed, he would use this car to slow down the pursuit. Jackie Keys would open up the truck door if it was locked and get the engine started. Bobby would drive the truck. Eddie and Tony would provide whatever muscle was necessary. A job this simple could have probably been handled by a couple fewer people. The only people absolutely necessary were Lenny, Keys, and Bobby. But Lenny knew that Tony was having some trouble earning and wanted to throw something his way, and Eddie he owed for bringing him into an exotic car job right off a lot in Scarsdale six months earlier. Besides, extra muscle was never a bad thing to have along.

  In those days after six o’clock in the evening the Garment District emptied faster than a bus full of geriatrics at a turnpike service area. Nobody actually lived in the area and there were no restaurants to draw a crowd. So after dark it really was possible to hijack a delivery truck right off the street without too much difficulty.

  Fast Lenny Matriano, who less than a year earlier had completed a four-year stay in Dannemora for assault with a deadly weapon, the weapon being a thirty-eight-ounce Dave Winfield model Louisville Slugger—although Lenny swore in court that he’d checked his swing—parked the car on 29th just off Broadway about forty minutes before the truck was scheduled to get there. From that spot they had a nice clear view of the electronics store. The store’s outside lights were turned off, meaning it was pretty dark under the opened awning, and the interior lights were dimmed. Bobby assumed that the owner had also forgotten to put a decent tape in the exterior security camera. Lenny was conservative. He liked to take a good long look at the neighborhood before going to work. He liked to get the feel of it.

  Meanwhile, Bobby was still locked between Eddie and Tony tighter than a champagne cork. He was trying to squirm free, but the more he moved, the harder Eddie and Tony pressed against him. They thought it was hysterical.

  While waiting for the truck to get there they traded Garment District tales. Everybody had at least one. There isn’t a connected guy in New York who hasn’t done some work in the Garment District. Since they sewed the first schmatteh, there has always been some manufacturer who needed cash to pay for his next season or settle a gambling debt or get his pregnant girlfriend fixed and no bank would give him toilet paper. So he was willing to pay the going interest rate. Plus. Or maybe one of the union locals was having problems. Or a furrier had a walk-in box with good minks and bad locks. Or a designer who needed some arm to help him get the money he was owed. There was always something. But all Little Eddie wanted to talk about was what he was going to do to Benny Rags the next time he came around. “Ever see a guy shit velvet?” he asked rhetorically.

  The truck got there about twenty minutes late. It was one of those big U-Hauls. The driver parked next to the hydrant directly in front of the store. Jackie Keys was out of the car and halfway down the block even before the driver left his cab. Bobby, Eddie, and Cupcakes were only a few steps behind him. The adrenaline was flowing. Bobby noticed that the driver didn’t bother locking the cab. As they approached the store, Bobby saw the driver knocking on the glass door, then cupping his hands and peering inside. He was looking for somebody. Ah gees, Bobby thought, now where the fuck is the owner?

  The driver was a black guy, middle-aged, wearing glasses. His black leather coat was unzipped and he was wearing one of those T-shirts that boasted “I’m with Stupid,” with an arrow under it. When he heard them coming, he turned around and the arrow pointed directly at Little Eddie. Eddie reached him first. “What’s going on?” Eddie asked as friendly as he could manage.

  “I’m looking for the owner here,” the driver explained. He pointed to a hand-printed sign taped on the inside of the door. “He went somewhere for a sandwich.” It was then the driver spotted Jackie Keys climbing up into the cab. “Hey,” he shouted, and ran protectively toward his truck.

  Little Eddie grabbed him by the shirt and pushed him against the truck, which shielded him from the view of passing cars. Bobby knew he had about thirty seconds to get the truck rolling before the odds of being spotted increased dramatically.

  Eddie lifted the driver off the ground and half shoved, half tossed him into the cab. Unfortunately Jackie Keys was in the driver’s seat, trying to get the truck started. The driver slammed into Jackie, knocking off his glasses. They landed under the brake pedal. Jackie reached for them, but they were stuck under something. “Fuck!” Jackie shouted.

  The driver was too terrified to scream. Over and over he repeated, “Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me.”

  “Shut the fuck up, fuckhead,” Cupcakes snapped at him. “Nobody wants to fucking hurt you.”

  The driver scrambled over Jackie and into the passenger seat and pressed up against the door, holding up his hands protectively in front of him. He glanced at the handle, clearly wondering if he could get the door open and make a break for it.

  “Don’t even fucking think about it,” Cupcakes warned him. Before the driver could make a decision, Little Eddie had moved to the passenger side of the truck and was standing outside the door. The driver relaxed into a ball, leaning against the door. “That’s a good boy,” Tony said.

  Jackie was reaching under the brake pedal, struggling to get his glasses loose. Bobby said to him evenly, without any sense of panic, “Forget it, Keys. Just get the truck started now.”

  Jackie relaxed. “Yeah.” He started to pop out the ignition, then stopped abruptly, as if smacked in the face by a sudden realization.

  “What?” Bobby asked.

  Jackie turned to the driver. “Give me the key.” The driver handed it to him. “Thank you.” Jackie slipped the key in the ignition and the engine ka-ka-chunked into life. Jackie got out and Bobby slid behind the wheel.

  On the passenger side Little Eddie opened the door and got in, squeezing the driver into the middle. “Don’t say one fucking word,” Eddie warned him. The driver nodded.

  Bobby checked the rearview mirror. Lenny was right behind him. Bobby put the truck in gear and took off. He stopped at the first traffic light, hitting the brake pretty hard, and as he did, he heard Jackie Keys’ glasses crunching under his foot. He headed for the East Side Drive. He’d planned a route on which there were no tolls and little chance of traffic at that hour. He took the drive south and got off at the Williamsburg Bridge exit. Fast Lenny followed several car lengths behind until he was sure they’d gotten away clean, then he took off.

  Bobby drove down through the Lower East Side, finally stopping next to a vacant lot littered with all kinds of garbage in the shadows of the bridge. Little Eddie got out of the truck first, dragging the driver with him. Holding his shirt collar with his right hand and sticking him with the pointing finger of his left hand, he told him, “I ain’t got time to fuck with you, so listen good. You say one word to the cops, I swear to God I’ll find you and cut your motherfucking balls off. Okay? Got it?”

  The driver nodded. “I won’t say nothing. I swear. Just don’t hurt me,” he pleaded once again. “I got kids.” Bobby smelled something familiar, then saw the stain spreading in the driver’s crotch. That didn’t surprise him. He’d seen lots of guys pee in their pants. He’d seen guys so scared they shit themselves.

  “All right,” Eddie continued, releasing the driver’s shirt and putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. “But I gotta do this or they’re gonna be over you like oil on Arabs. They’re gonna think you gave up your load to us.” And with that he punched the driver in the face. It was a short but powerful blast. The driver staggered backward, blood pouring out of his smashed nose, trying desperately to maintain his balance. “Hey. Asshole,” Eddie instructed him, “fall down. Don’t be no fucking hero.” Without taking his eyes off Eddie the driver half sat, half stumbled onto the ground. “Good boy, now
you just sit there for a while,” Eddie said, then got back into the truck. “Let’s get outta here,” he told Bobby, shaking his head and sighing. “Fucking guy.”

  Bobby drove to a warehouse near the Fulton Fish Market, under the West Side Highway extension. Fast Lenny was waiting there with Cupcakes and Jackie. They were already laughing about the store owner. “Fucking guy goes out for fucking dinner? What the fuck was he thinking? Fucking asshole.”

  The truck had a roll-up rear door, which was padlocked. The key was on the same chain as the ignition key. Bobby opened the lock and lifted the door. Then he just stood there, stunned, staring into the empty truck bed. “Holy fucking shit,” Cupcakes said with awe when he realized what had happened, “we been robbed.”

  The five of them stood there staring at nothing for a few minutes. They couldn’t believe it. Somebody had had the balls to hijack the load from the hijackers. “I’m gonna fucking kill that fuck,” Little Eddie promised, deciding instantly that the thief had to be the owner of the store. “That no-good motherfucker set us up.”

  Eddie figured the owner had to be double-dipping. By stealing the merchandise off the truck before it could be stolen, the owner could sell it hot for a substantial amount of money, then after the truck was hijacked, he could get the total value of the load from his insurance company. Even to Eddie it seemed like a smart plan, except for the fact that Eddie intended to personally rip out the guy’s lungs and feed them to the lions in the Bronx Zoo.