The Payback Game

by Nathan Gottlieb

“Yes there are,” Damiano said. “One is he might’ve been screwing somebody’s wife, and the jealous husband or boyfriend put a contract out on him. Cops are no different than men in other walks of life. They have trouble keeping their peckers in their pants.”

  With a glance at Cullen, Hannah said, “I couldn’t agree more. But if this cop was screwing somebody’s wife, I think that’s something he would’ve told Galvani. They apparently were very open about personal things.”

  The detective nodded. “Yeah, that’s true for most partners,” she said. “However, what if the woman he was fooling around with was another cop’s wife? That might’ve been something he was too embarrassed to tell his partner.” She paused to take another bite on her sandwich. “Another possibility, of course, is Maloney could’ve been involved in some criminal activity.”

  “What kind?” Cullen asked.

  “You want an example?” Damiano said. Cullen nodded. “Well, there was a story a few years back about a cop who was part of a gang that robbed a string of jewelry stores. Another example? Two cops were discovered to be moonlighting as hitmen for one of the mobs. I could go on and on about the criminal activities this cop might’ve been involved in. None of which he’d want his partner to know about.” She checked her watch. “Let’s start back. My lunch hour is almost over.”

  After finishing off her sandwich, she crumpled the bag, tossed it in a nearby bright yellow trash can, then led the way back across the walkway.

  “Boff,” she said, “keep me in the loop on this. I’m overloaded with cases right now and can’t get directly involved, but if I can contribute in some way and get credit for a collar on a cop killer, I will.”

  “You got it,” Boff said.

  Back in his car, as Boff pulled out of his parking space and into traffic, he glanced at Hannah. “We’ve got a lot of theories on our plate. Before we work on any of them, I suggest we first try and find out something more concrete about that transfer order. It might shed light on what Maloney was doing off the job.”

  “I can ask Uncle Mike to use his cop sources to look into that.”

  “Good. Another thing we really need to consider is that Doyle could’ve been killed over something that had absolutely nothing to do with the dead cop.”

  At this, she made a face. “But it’s so obvious that’s the reason why,” she said.

  “Which is what bothers me,” Boff said. “I distrust the obvious. I’ll keep looking into this dead cop, but I’m also going to stay open to the idea that something in Doyle’s personal or professional life got him killed.”

  Hannah didn’t look pleased. “You know,” she said, “it’s beginning to sound to me like you’re just trying to complicate this case so you can drag it out and take more of Uncle Mike’s money.”

  Without replying to her, Boff looked in his rear view mirror at Cullen. “Danny, tell Hannah how many times I’ve discarded the obvious and hit pay dirt.”

  “Too many to count,” the boxer conceded.

  After Boff dropped them at the gym and drove off, Cullen asked Hannah, “Do you have a boyfriend?”

  “Not at the moment. Why?”

  “I was thinking maybe you and I could have dinner together.”

  Hannah threw up her hands. “Jesus, what is it with you boxers? Do you guys hit on any chick that comes near the gym?”

  He smiled. “If they look like you, yeah, we do.”

  “Well, for your information, Mr. Boxer, I’m not interested in dating anyone who makes his living punching people in the face. End of discussion.”

  Chapter 8

  Knowing he was going to need help on this case, Boff called a friend who was a private investigator and had his own nine-man firm. Pete Wallachi had worked with him before and was one of the few investigators Boff respected.

  “Pete, it’s the Big Boffer.”

  Hey, man! What’s up?

  “I’m on another safari hunting down a killer.”

  You gotta be kidding. Didn’t you say on our last case together that you weren’t going to take any more jobs like that?

  Boff dodged the question. “Are you hungry?”

  Nathan’s in Williamsburg?

  “Sounds good. See you there.”

  When Boff arrived at the chain restaurant, Wallachi was already there, leaning against his car, waiting. The investigator was a ruggedly-built fitness freak around Boff’s age. Nathan’s was the one bad habit he’d never been able to break. After shaking hands, they went inside the restaurant, ordered three dogs each with chili, melted cheese, and red onions, then took a table.

  “So how’s Manny?” Boff asked.

  Wallachi smiled. “Manny is Manny.”

  “He any better?”

  “Ahhh…let’s just say he’s still a work in progress.”

  Boff laughed. “The day he retires he’ll be a work in progress.”

  “Probably. Anyway, how the hell did you get involved in another murder case? You nearly got killed the last time. Twice.”

  “Three times, if you count the bomb wired to my engine block.”

  “And now, barely three months later, you’re at it again?”

  “I got an offer I couldn’t refuse,” Boff said.

  “From who? Don Corleone?”

  “Close. Mike Cassidy.”

  Wallachi looked impressed. “Well, hell, I can see how that would’ve been hard to refuse. Cassidy still has the best sources in the city. I’m guessing he hooked you into taking the case by offering his contacts for this and maybe some future cases you might be on?”

  “Correct.”

  “So tell me about this one.”

  Boff gave him a full rundown without leaving out any pertinent details. If Wallachi was going to work with him, he had to be up to speed on all developments.

  While he listened, the investigator worked on his first dog. When Boff was finished, Wallachi took a couple minutes to digest both his dog and the info about the case. Then he said, “So…you wanted to see me because? Your life has been threatened again? You need bodyguards?”

  “Not yet,” Boff replied. “What I want is your help doing surveillance on Galvani. I’d like to find out if this cop’s as clean as he’s billed to be.”

  “No problem.”

  “Also, Pete, I seem to recall you have an op who used to be a detective in the 71st Precinct. Is he still working for you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Will you set up a meeting for me with him?”

  “You got it.” Wallachi put his hot dog down and pointed a finger at Boff. “Look, I want you to know right now, so you don’t bitch later, that Manny’s going to work with me on this.”

  Boff made a sour face. “Is it necessary to string your brother-in-law along again?” he said.

  “Necessary? No, Frank, it isn’t. But as you saw the last time, he’s a bit clueless about surveillance. He needs the experience.”

  “No point me arguing about this, right?”

  Wallachi merely resumed eating.

  ***

  Boff was loading dinner plates and glasses into the dish washer that night when Cassidy called.

  Let’s talk. My clubhouse. Soon as you can get here. He hung up.

  Boff took the elevator down to the garage under his high-rise building. Before getting into his Malibu, he used his bomb detector to see if there was an IED attached to his engine. After the device showed his car was clean, he put it back in his pocket, opened his trunk, took out an aerosol can with no label, and used it to spray a clear coating on his license plates that would make them invisible to cameras.

  When he arrived at the pub, he found Cassidy and Hannah sitting in a booth. Both were drinking Brooklyn Brown Ale out of bottles. Boff slid in opposite them.

  “You want Coke with lime, right, Frank?” Cassidy said.

  “It’s after work hours. I’ll have a mug of beer.”

  Cassidy waved over an attractive waitress in her fifties. “Wendy, would you get Hannah and me refills and a m
ug of beer for the new arrival?”

  “Sure, Mike,” the waitress said. She pointed at Cassidy’s bottle of ale. “So you’re off the draft beer now, are you?”

  “Not exactly,” the old reporter replied. “It’s just that after awhile the draft kinda loses its taste for me. So I take a short break from it.” He held up his empty bottle. “Plus, I like patronizing the local brewery. Did you know the Brooklyn Brewery was started by two local guys, one of whom was a former AP foreign correspondent?”

  “No, I didn’t,” the waitress said. “That’s interesting. You’ll have to tell me that story sometime over a few beers.”

  After she left, Cassidy nodded at Boff, “Wendy was a cop in the 40th Precinct in the South Bronx. She was one of my best sources and a good drinking partner. She’s got a solid pension and doesn’t need this job, but she likes the bar scene. Especially with me always around.”

  “That,” said Hannah, “is because she has a crush on you.”

  Cassidy spread his hands. “Well, at one point, Wendy and I actually did date. But we were better at being friends than lovers.” He returned his attention to Boff. “Frank, there’s a lieutenant in the 71st named Fitzsimmons. He comes up to drink with me once in a while. I called him and he confirmed that the captain had filed transfer papers for Maloney. The captain never told Fitz his reason for doing it, but my pal had a pretty good idea why.”

  “Which was…?”

  “Maloney was screwing around with the captain’s wife.”

  “Well, if he was,” Boff said, “that makes the captain a suspect.”

  Cassidy shook his head. “Not necessarily, Frank. Fitz’s wife plays bridge with the captain’s old lady and knows her pretty well. Apparently the captain and his wife fell out of love a few years ago. The only reason they stayed together was for the kids. But they made an arrangement. Each one could date whoever they wanted, just as long as they were discreet and didn’t bring the person home. So given that? I doubt the captain was jealous that Maloney was doing his wife. Certainly not enough to hire a hitman.”

  “So why was he transferring him?”

  “I gather you don’t hang around with cops very much.”

  Boff smiled. “Only when I’m defending them in court.”

  Wendy returned with the drinks, set them down on the table, and left.

  “What you’ve got to understand about cops,” the old reporter began, “is its way more than just a job to them. It’s a whole culture they buy into. And I’m not just talking about that ‘Thin Blue Line’ crap. In cop culture, it’s a serious no-no if one of them is screwing another officer’s wife. So while I don’t think the captain was jealous, I’m sure he was embarrassed. That’s probably why he put in the transfer.”

  Hannah leaned forward. “Galvani didn’t mention that. Do you think he knew but wouldn’t tell us?”

  “That could be,” Boff replied. “Then, again, if it was a violation of some unwritten police code, Maloney might not have wanted his partner to know. Mike, is this Fitz guy sure about the marriage?”

  “If Fitz said it, you can take it to the bank.” Cassidy took a quick hit on his fresh bottle of ale. “He also told me that after Maloney and his wife got divorced, they managed to remain friends. So I was thinking the ex-wife might be able to give you some insight into what was troubling him.”

  “Her name’s Stephanie O’Connor,” Hannah said. “Nicky told me that.”

  “Frank, I’ll ask Fitz to get her address for me and any other info you might need to know about her.”

  “By the way,” the redhead said, “I asked Galvani to check with Internal Affairs to see if they had anything going on with Maloney at the time he was killed. He got back to me later and said IA told him no.”

  Boff held up one finger. “Again, that’s assuming we can trust Galvani,” he said. “I’m going to check him out more closely tomorrow with a friend who’s a top-notch private investigator.”

  “Count me in,” Hannah said.

  Cassidy leaned back and cracked his knuckles. “So at this point, Frank, what do we know for sure?”

  Hannah answered. “We know that Maloney was killed because he was involved in something risky. Most likely something criminal in nature. Two, Nicky was murdered because he was going to write about the cop’s faked heart attack. I think we should concentrate on those things.”

  After taking a sip on his mug and setting it back down, Boff leaned forward and said, “Mike, before we go all-in on this Maloney angle, I want you to consider the possibility that your friend Nicky’s murder might’ve had nothing to do with the dead cop.”

  At this, Hannah shook her head. “Despite your distrust for the obvious, Boff, I don’t see how you can discount the fact that Nicky was working on Maloney’s murder.”

  “I understand,” Boff said patiently. “How long did he indicate he’d been on that story?”

  “About two weeks.”

  “If it was only two weeks, I wonder how much he could’ve discovered in that short period of time. My guess is not much. Certainly not enough to make him an imminent threat to anybody.”

  “True to an extent, Frank,” Cassidy said. “However, with Nicky’s reputation for digging up dirt, if he was asking questions about the dead cop, it could’ve spooked somebody.”

  “A point well taken,” Boff said. “Still, I’d like you to stay open to the possibility that Nicky was killed because of something going on in his personal or professional life. As you know well, an investigative reporter makes enemies.”

  Cassidy nodded. “I had more than my fair share of them.”

  “Let me ask you this,” Boff went on. “In the last few weeks before he was killed, did Nicky seem upset about something? Or act differently than he usually did?”

  The old reporter gave that some thought. “Well, there was one thing. About two and a half years ago, Nicky enlisted some philanthropists he knew to help raise the three million he needed to start a nonprofit charity. The charity’s mission is to create civic centers in the ghettos to help kids get off the streets. It also provides academic counseling for talented young basketball players to help them have a better chance of going to college.”

  “Why the focus on basketball?”

  “It had to do with Nicky’s childhood. Nicky grew up in Queens playing hoops on the playgrounds with a lot of troubled kids from broken homes. Some of those kids went on to make All-City and get college scholarships. Those were the lucky ones. Many of the others got mixed up in drugs, joined gangs, or ended up dead or in prison. Nicky wanted to give kids a chance to avoid that same fate.”

  “What was upsetting him?” Boff asked.

  “It had to do with a camp upstate that he was hoping to build for his ghetto kids. In order to raise money for the camp, he went to see an ex-Knick who’s a managing partner for an investment bank. He convinced the celebrity banker to help him organize a charity benefit for the rich and famous in Saratoga Springs. The shindig pulled in close to two million. Nicky wanted to have the camp ready for this summer. But it wasn’t.”

  “Did he say why it didn’t get built?”

  “No, and he didn’t want to talk about it, either. But it was obvious he was pretty upset.”

  Boff nodded. “That’s something else I’ll have to look into. Meanwhile, I want Hannah and me to check out all the stories Nicky had broken during the last few months or so.”

  “Why?” Cassidy asked.

  “To see if one of his columns could’ve pissed somebody off enough to make them a suspect. How do we get access to those old stories?”

  “Anybody can,” Hannah said.

  Boff looked surprised. “Really? How?”

  “I gather you don’t read newspapers online,” she said.

  “I don’t read newspapers. Period.”

  “Well, under every headline in the web version of the News is the byline in blue. If you click on the byline, you’re transferred to a page with other stories this writer has done, beginning wit
h the most recent. There are about ten stories to a page, and you can click on many more pages.”

  “That’s good to know,” Boff said. “I’d like to start in on that tomorrow. Let’s meet here for lunch and bring our laptops. We’ll check out his stories for the last year. How’s that sound?”

  “Fine,” Hannah said. “Although I still think we shouldn’t stray too far from the Maloney murder.”

  “We won’t. But when I work a case, I try to explore all possible angles. If only to eliminate them. Nicky’s stories are something I’d like to eliminate.” He drained his mug. “I’ve got to shove off now. My wife waits up for me.”

  “Before you go,” the redhead said, “I’d like to know what it is with boxers? Both Cullen and that twerp with punk hair hit on me.”

  Boff spread his hands and smiled. “It’s like this. The boys train very hard and don’t have a lot of time or energy to go out at night looking for girls. So when a pretty one like you shows up at the gym? They try to make the most of the opportunity.”

  “Well, call off your horny doggies. I’m not about to date a boxer. I’m sure none of them has been to college. And they aren’t all that bright. I mean, look how often they get hit in the head. And, like, what do these guys know about anything except boxing?”

  Boff and Cassidy exchanged looks.

  “You want to tell her, Mike? Or should I?”

  “I’ll do the honors.” Cassidy turned to her. “Hannah, some of the smartest people I’ve ever met didn’t even finish high school. I barely got through myself. On the flip side, some of the dumbest people I’ve known not only had college degrees, but in a few cases, a masters and even a PhD. I’ve also met tunnel rats who were brighter than some of my fellow reporters. So, young lady, take that chip off your shoulder.”

  She frowned and changed the subject. “What time do we meet here tomorrow?”

  “How about noon?” Boff said.

  Hannah nodded, stood up, kissed Cassidy goodbye, and left, obviously miffed that her Uncle Mike had given her a dressing down in front of Boff.

  Chapter 9