Nah, the Catholics have it down pat. Do something bad, tell God about it, then start all over. I liked that.
CHAPTER 7
INVESTIGATION
Brooklyn—Current Day
Frankie finished his wine, sat back in the chair and relaxed. He thought about what Nicky used to say about confession. Do something bad, tell God about it, then start all over. That defined Nicky’s whole life. He was the one who bought into that confession bullshit, but he would do it himself, with God. And it was always on a Saturday, as if it were a magical day for confessing.
Frankie wanted to sleep but couldn’t get that dead rat off his mind. He headed to his desk, spread the files, and sorted them by date. Renzo was killed nearly two months ago. The second murder, Devin, followed three weeks later and had as many differences as it did similarities. Devin was Irish, not Italian. Lived in an apartment, not a house. And most puzzling of all, he wasn’t tortured, just shot—once in the head, once in the heart. But the preponderance of evidence at the scene was the same. Frankie felt certain both murders were mob-related. It was a shame that people thought that way, but if two guys named Tortella and Ciccarelli got shot in Brooklyn, people assumed they were connected even if they were wearing priests’ collars and carrying chalices.
Whoever did this had powerful motivation. Frankie just had to figure out why. Why kill a person like this? Why make them suffer? Why shoot them after they are already dead? Why shoot them in the head and heart?
A new thought occurred. Based on Mazzetti’s statement, Frankie had assumed they were already dead, but he needed confirmation. Frankie scrolled through his contact file until he found the listing for Kate Burns. He dialed her number, recalling the days when she was on his speed-dial list, back when he thought he might finally have a relationship that would last. At least they still got along.
The phone rang a few times before she picked up.
“Hello.”
“Kate, it’s Frankie.”
“And I mistook you for the shy type.”
“I need to know if these guys were already dead when he shot them.”
A pause followed. “You mean Mazzetti’s murders?”
“Yeah, there were three.”
“I know how many there were, but the first two weren’t the same. The second guy was just shot. But the first one…”
“Renzo,” Frankie said.
“Thanks, the names are always a blur to me. I remember wounds.”
“That’s what makes you so attractive, Doctor.”
“Screw you,” Kate said. “Anyway, the first guy, Renzo, he got it bad. He was definitely dead before he was shot.”
“And Nino?”
“I haven’t confirmed it, but I’d bet on it.”
“Thanks. Sorry I bothered you at night.”
“Before you go, I thought you’d like to know that the actual murder weapon was a Louisville Slugger. I’m guessing we’ll find the same with Nino.”
“Yeah, me too. Thanks again.”
“Goodnight, Detective Donovan.” She cooed the title.
“I love you, too,” he said, and hung up. He regretted saying that to her—didn’t want to make her think… Nah, she won’t.
As he went through Tommy Devin’s file, he saw something in the inventory that stopped him cold—thirty-two packs of Winstons.
Thirty-two packs. Another link to the past.
If he assumed the murderer was Nicky or Tony, that still left a big question—how did they know the victims? To figure that out, Frankie had to know the victims. After picking up his favorite fine-point marker, he started making a chart. “Who are you, Nino? And what did you do to piss someone off so bad?”
There was no doubt that someone was sending Frankie a message, but were they warning him off, or giving him clues? Was this really tied to the old neighborhood, or was he reading too much into it? Maybe the guy bought four cartons and happened to have thirty-two packs left.
Frankie pulled a cigarette from a pack on the table. He lit it and sucked hard on that first drag. A memory brought laughter along with the smoke, damn near choking him. Nicky hated it when Frankie strained the cigarette. But that was back when cigs were important. Hell, back then they were everything.
CHAPTER 8
THE OATH
Wilmington—21 Years Ago
My eleventh birthday was the best of my life. Pops took off from work and invited Tony and Frankie to see the Phillies play. We smoked a whole pack of cigarettes before noon, knowing we’d be dry the rest of the day. An hour later we piled into the car with Pops. It was August-hot, but despite that, and the fact that our team didn’t win, we had a great time. Not only did we get to go to the ball game, but we celebrated my birthday dinner the next night at Tony’s house. Mamma Rosa made my favorite meal of meatballs and spaghetti. Nothing fancy, just the most delicious damn meatballs in the world and homemade pasta. When I thought I’d died from pleasure, Rosa brought out a plate of sfogliatelle—shell-shaped pastries stuffed with ricotta cheese. The sfogliatelle took this from the best meal to one made in heaven. I stuffed until my stomach hurt. It was a great way to kick off August.
I was no longer just Nicky; I was “Nicky the Rat.” The name Doggs gave me stuck, much to my dismay. Names were like that; they either stuck, or they didn’t. Frankie was hanging out more at Tony’s house, swearing he couldn’t stand to be in the same block with his father. He never told us about the beatings, but we saw the marks on his back when we went swimming. We spent most nights in Tony’s basement playing pool. The table was nice, but the basement floor wasn’t level, front and back sloping toward a drain in the middle. And the steps were always in the way, forcing the use of a short cue that made us feel like dwarfs.
Tony was kicking Frankie’s ass at nine-ball, winning all his cigarettes. While he did that, I played with a spider that lived in the rafter supports just above the old oil tank, a 250-gallon metal behemoth that sat in the corner, covered in soot and stinking like a factory. The other guys teased me about the spider, but they knew better than to kill it. She was mine.
By early March we’d saved enough money to make a deal with old-man Burczinski to rent his garage down off Broom Street. There was a line of row-houses with a hill behind them and a string of detached garages below. Must have been thirty garages, all covered by a flat roof. We sealed the deal with Burczinski then collected junk furniture to put in our hangout.
A few weeks later, a kid named Tommy McDermott joined our group. He was what we called “Black Irish.” He looked more Italian than Irish, but that’s where it stopped. Tommy thought beef stew was the best meal in the world. If it was, he was the luckiest guy in the world, because that’s what the McDermotts served five days a week. The other two days were pot luck, but no matter what, potatoes accompanied the meal.
The McDermotts had nine kids: six boys and three girls, and the half that weren’t rail-thin were just plain skinny. Tommy’s dad was a fireman, probably because he couldn’t make it as a cop. There was an old joke in the neighborhood that held more truth than not—Mick kids grew up to be either priests or cops, and dagos grew up to be priests or gangsters. With a few exceptions, they weren’t far off.
Tommy came into the group almost by accident. I was stealing cigarettes from Johnny’s store and, as I ran out, Johnny hot on my heels, I passed Tommy. I shot him a glare, as if to say, “Don’t you dare rat us out.”
It took me ten blocks to ditch old Johnny. Probably because he got winded going up the steep part of the hill on Maryland Avenue. That son-of-a-bitch could run for an old fuck. After that, I took a roundabout way back to the hangout, careful when I entered in case the cops had gotten wind.
Frankie let me in, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. “Where you been, Nicky?”
“Nobody came?”
“No, why?”
“That McDermott kid saw me get the cigs. Johnny chased me for half a mile. Maybe more.” I looked around, peeked outside. “Thought the mick might
have ratted us.”
Frankie took a long drag. “If he didn’t give you up, maybe he’s all right.”
“Yeah, we’ll see. If we go another week without a cop coming for us, I’ll be impressed.”
A week went by, then another. Finally I admitted that McDermott didn’t rat us out. I waited for him one day after school. “Hey, mick. Come here.”
Tommy McDermott looked at me with hard blue eyes, deep-water blue, like the color of the ocean. “You thought I’d rat you out?”
“You know better.”
“Fuck you, dago. I’m not scared of you. I just don’t rat.”
I looked him over, stared him up and down. He was poised to fight. “All right. I’ll buy that.” I held out my hand. “You can hang with us if you want. But we got rules.”
“If any of those rules involve fuckin’ my sister, stand in line. Everybody wants her, and she ain’t giving it out.”
I laughed, then laughed harder. “Okay, you’ll fit right in. C’mon, I’ll introduce you to the other guys.”
We walked to the garages, trading stories. I lit a smoke, handed one to Tommy, who bummed a light from me, then we slowly made our way down St. Elizabeth’s Street, across Broom Street and around to the garage. By the time we got there, the cigs were gone. I called in as we approached. “Yo, Frankie, comin’ in.”
The door opened, and we ducked in. “This is Tommy McDermott. Tommy, this is Frankie Donovan. We’ll find him a nickname soon.”
Tony flicked a cigarette butt at us from his perch on a worn old sofa.
“Oh, yeah,” I said, “And the one with the shit-eating grin is Tony “The Brain” Sannullo. Hate to say it, but he’s the smartest guy I’ve ever seen.”
Frankie passed cigs around. “Guess we need to give you a name, unless you’re okay with Mick.”
“Name’s gotta fit, right. I am a mick.”
I roared. “Told you you’d like this guy.”
Frankie crashed on the sofa and pulled out the latest Playboy, compliments of Tony’s older brother. We drooled over it, discussed which girl had the biggest tits and the best ass, then smoked some more.
“I gotta go eat dinner,” Frankie said. “See you back here later.”
“What’s going on later?” Tommy asked. All eyes went to him.
“Before we tell you, you better know this. Once you’re in, you’re in. Any ratting after that, and you’re dead. No excuses.”
“What am I in for?”
“Cigarettes—a whole shitload of them.”
“I’m in.”
“Be back here at 8:00.”
BY 8:05, NERVES WERE getting the better of us. “He ain’t showing,” Tony said. “I told you we shouldn’t trust him.”
“You didn’t say shit, Tony, so shut the fuck up.”
“Probably scared shitless.”
“Not everybody gets scared,” I said.
Tony spat. “Yeah, and not everybody’s a freak like you, Nicky. Some people do get scared.”
I patted him on the back. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you, little brother.”
Tony swung at me just as Frankie came through the door, out of breath and sweating. “He’s coming up the hill.”
“Alone?”
“Yeah, he’s alone.”
When Mick arrived, I got everybody in a huddle. “All right, listen. Before we do this, Mick needs to swear the oath.”
“What oath?”
“The rules we got,” Frankie said.
Tommy looked at each one of us. “Spit it out.”
“Friendship and honor,” I said. “That’s it. Two rules.”
“Who thought this shit up?”
Frankie pushed him. “Tony did.”
Here we were, eleven years old and nothing was more important than our friendship. Not family, not girls, not even cigarettes. Back then, we’d have died for each other. Or so I thought.
“Tony will explain it all,” I said.
Tony crushed his butt on the floor and stared at Tommy. “Friendship means we look out for each other. Nobody ever rats or betrays anyone else.” Tony waited for Mick to nod. “Honor means nobody fucks with one of us and not the others. We stick up for each other. And it means we don’t run, unless we all run. So, if there’s a fight and we’re gonna get our asses kicked, either we all run, or none of us run.”
“Good by me,” Mick said. “How do we do this oath? We cut ourselves or something?”
“We’re not dumb micks,” I said. “We swear to it, that’s all.”
“Swear on our mothers’ eyes,” Frankie said.
“So you’re not dumb micks, just dumb dagos.” Mick’s laughter got us all going. But after that, we swore on our mothers’ eyes, and everyone took it seriously. Since I didn’t have a mother, I swore on Mamma Rosa’s eyes. That was as serious as any oath got.
CHAPTER 9
MIKEY “THE FACE” FAGULLO
We did the job that night for the Borelli’s, and several more over the next few months. During the next year we picked up odd jobs, and occasionally got a cigarette heist to supplement the habit. Through it all, we managed to earn enough to pay Burczinski rent for the garage, which became the perfect hangout. We also started hanging out more at Mick’s house, mostly to stare at his sister Patti. Now we had a perfect triangle: Tony’s house to eat, the hangout to smoke or look at dirty magazines, and Mick’s house.
One hot Saturday morning, the three of us were sitting in the garage with no breeze. It was humid as hell. Frankie paced, straining every cigarette he smoked. The rest of us sat there sweating. “Let’s go to Mick’s,” Frankie said.
“Why, so you can drool over Patti?”
“Fuck you, Tony. It’s too damn hot here.”
“It’s no cooler at his house.”
“At least he’s got fans,” Frankie said. “I’m going. If you want to come, okay.”
Tony and I followed Frankie. It was only eight blocks, but Frankie must have fucked Patti a dozen times in his mind. Patti had grown into a beautiful girl with a great body, and she was, as Frankie described her, “fuckably sweet.” Half the boys in the neighborhood came to the McDermott house under the pretense of visiting one of the brothers, but they were really there to see Patti, hoping to get a glimpse of her in underwear, or, God forbid, to cop a feel as they squeezed past her in the hallway.
As we turned the corner to Tommy’s block, I tapped Frankie on the shoulder. “Get that glazed look off your face. Tommy’s dad is gonna know what you’re after.”
“I’d eat her pussy right in the middle of church.”
I roared. “You said that with such conviction I believe you.”
“You don’t know what pussy tastes like and you never will,” Tony said.
Frankie glared, as if to challenge him, but he was right. Twelve years old, and none of us had eaten pussy. Had done about everything else, but no one had sampled the forbidden fruit. “I’ll let you know as soon as I do, Tony.”
Well, there it was. The dare was out there. It wouldn’t be long before somebody got a taste.
THE NEXT DAY TOMMY came to the garage with a possible big job. He overheard his older brother, Jack, talking about a freight train loaded with cigarettes. It was unlocked and wouldn’t be unloaded for two days. His brother planned on hitting it the next night.
“It has to be tonight,” Tommy said. “Gonna have to be late too. The store doesn’t close till nine, then they take time locking up and shit.”
“Jack will be pissed.”
“He’ll be out for blood,” Tony said.
“Screw him,” Mick said.
“Easy to say that now, Mick, but if he finds out he’ll kick all of our asses.”
I thought for a long while. “I say we go for it.” The other guys agreed. “All right. We tell our parents we’re spending the night at each other’s houses, like we always do. We’ll hang around till eight, then leave. Meet here at nine.”
BY 10:20 THE MARKET was dark except for tw
o lights inside and one each at the front and back on the outside. Tony found the open boxcar within five minutes; it was full of cigarettes. “This is perfect.”
“Perfect my ass,” Frankie said. “How are we gonna get them to the garage without anybody seeing?”
“We got shopping carts,” Tony said. “They hold a lot of cigs, but we can’t risk more than one trip.”
“No, Frankie’s right,” I said, then thought it through. “Tony’s right too. We might make it to the hangout one time, but these carts are noisy. We can’t risk it twice.”
“Who you selling these to?” Mick asked.
I almost didn’t say, but hell, he was one of us now. “Couple of spics on Harrison Street.”
“I got an idea,” Mick said. “Mary Sitarski lives just around the corner. She’s got a shed out back they never use. Her dad used to butcher chickens or something, but he’s sick now, so nobody uses it. We can stash them there until the Puerto Ricans come get them.”
I smiled. “Just might work.”
“Best part is,” Tommy said, “there’s a path through the woods at the end of the lot. We don’t even need to go on the road.”
“Let’s do it,” I said. “Once we sell these to the spics, we’ll have a pile of cash.”
“How much for Mikey?” Mick asked.
“Nothing.”
Tony grabbed my arm. “Nicky, you telling me that Mikey doesn’t know about this?”
“Nobody knows but us.”
Frankie was shaking his head. “We gotta pay The Face his due.”
“Let me worry about The Face.” I stared each of them down. “We gonna get this done, or what?”
We loaded seventeen shopping carts full of cigarettes into Sitarski’s shed that night. Tommy told Mary the next day what we’d done, swearing her to secrecy and promising her a small cut if she kept quiet. Three days later, the Puerto Ricans picked up the cigs, and I collected the money—four hundred and seventy bucks each.
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