Gigi seemed to understand.
Joe clicked on the TV that sat on a swiveling platform in the corner of the room and put on the local cable news channel. On screen was a very serious looking reporter speaking in hushed tones. He was saying something about how things were about to get underway. Behind him, a room full of people—photographers, other reporters, political types—were milling about in groups, whispering in each other’s ears. There was a background buzz of low voices. Behind them, on a crowded stage, were lots of men in uniforms that featured some funny hats, lots of gold stripes and shiny brass buttons and stars. If there had been a Sousaphone up there, you might almost have mistaken them for a wayward marching band. Their middle age and sour expressions, however, were a dead giveaway. Cops! Up there as well, were several suits; George Healy among them. But it was the Brooklyn DA who stepped up to the array of microphones aligned in rows atop the rostrum. There was a flurry of activity in the auditorium and on stage. Then things got very quiet, all cameras focusing on the stage. Still cameras click, click, clicked away. The introductions alone took nearly eight minutes. Boredom began to show on the faces of the men on the stage and an impatient chatter came up from the crowd. Understanding he was losing the audience, the Brooklyn DA sped up the proceedings.
“On September twenty-fourth, two-thousand-one, while the city and the nation were still reeling from the tragic events of the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, several nine-one-one calls were received by the NYPD. These calls, the transcripts of which are included in your press packets, were to report that someone had either jumped or was thrown from the roof of Building Four of the Nellie Bly Houses. A pair of New York City Police personnel, Detectives Russell Monaco and Finnbar McCauly, were already on scene …” His narrative went on like that for a few minutes, laying out events in the most linear and vague fashion possible. Then he came to the part where the lying began in earnest. You could tell he was lying because his narrative became far more detailed. “.and upon learning of the homicide of retired Detective Monaco on the fifth of January this year, and in receipt of a tip from a reliable and confidential source alerting her to past possible illegal financial transactions between Reverend James Burgess and the recently deceased Detective Monaco, NYPD Detective Hines of the Internal Affairs Bureau, with the approval of her commanding officer, Captain Skip Rodriguez, began an exhaustive review of Detective Monaco’s past cases.”
When the Brooklyn DA had finished his compelling fairy tale, several representatives from the various other law enforcement agencies took their turns at the podium to explain their parts of the puzzle, to tell their lies. Blades got a turn to stand before the cameras and explain that she was most gratified for Evelyn Marsden, who had, after all these years, finally found out why her precious son had been taken from her. She also got to explain that the NYPD had several suspects under arrest in the killing of Carter Blaylock, the man who had been forced to execute the Marsden boy.
Detective Keyes was his usual terse self and did less than two minutes in the spotlight. Not surprisingly, the longest part of the presentation was done by George Healy. Somehow that bothered Serpe the most. Joe didn’t mind so much that he had been left out of the story. He hadn’t gotten involved in this mess for glory or gain, but to pay a debt that was long overdue. It didn’t even bother him that every clown who’d been at the mic had lied through his teeth. It was that George Healy was the biggest liar of the bunch. His brother had risked his life and deserved better than what George was giving him. Bob wouldn’t see it that way, but brothers can be easily blinded.
The main thrust of George’s song and dance was that the Suffolk PD had concluded, with a high degree of certainty, that Khouri Burgess had murdered the first three oil drivers in order to cover up the true target of his intentions; Rusty Monaco, the fourth victim. With credit card receipts, electronic toll records, they could place Khouri Burgess on Long Island on two of the dates of the murders. One of those dates was the night Rusty Monaco was murdered. Eyewitnesses said that Khouri often spent time playing ball at a community gym his father’s foundation had built in Wyandanch, very near where Monaco’s body was found. George also explained that no one could provide exculpatory alibis for the nights of the other two homicides. There was mention of the shooting at Gigi’s apartment, but if you sneezed you would have missed it.
“What about that?” she asked Joe, pain and exhaustion creeping into her voice.
“It’s a done deal. The cops will take your statement when you’re feeling up to it. You shot in self-defense not knowing whether Khouri Burgess was shooting at you or McCauly.”
“How did Khouri Burgess know to come to my apartment?”
“He was following McCauly. Finn wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. Since it was always your brother who had dealt with the Reverend Burgess, Finn didn’t know how to make contact without calling too much attention to himself. So the idiot tried to squeeze money out of the kid first by claiming he already had the pictures and negatives. The idiot led Khouri right to him and the blackmail material. Cops always say that if criminals had half a brain, they’d be in trouble. When cops become criminals, I guess some of them lose half their brains.”
“And the money.”
“We haven’t told anyone about it,” Serpe said. “I don’t think they give a shit. They assume that your brother used most of the money to buy the condo and that if there was any leftover cash, McCauly took it and hid it somewhere. Wouldn’t be the first time money got stashed and the guy who hid it died without sharing the whereabouts. Word is that’s what happened to the Lufthansa money that was stolen at JFK.”
The rest of the news conference went pretty much as expected. The press seemed almost complicit. They asked very few incisive questions or ones that raised even the specter of doubt. The one or two probing questions that were asked were swatted away like one-winged flies. Really, the only surprising thing was Tim Hoskins’ absence. George Healy made liberal mention of him and he would get credit for doing the leg work, but he was nowhere to be seen. Hoskins wasn’t great with the press, so maybe the bosses didn’t want him around.
Serpe clicked off the TV. He had spent the better part of his morning rehearsing what he wanted to say to Gigi. The first part was a speech about Rusty. That it was awful that he turned out to be exactly what everyone thought him to be. Joe meant to say that he never intended for things to work out the way they did and that all he ever wanted to do was to repay his debt to her brother. That he considered the debt paid in full, but that he wished the truth could have been less painful. The second part of his prepared talk was about the two of them. How he understood that they didn’t have much of a future together as a couple. Still, he meant to say, that he’d like to see her when he could. That he liked being around her because he didn’t have to pretend to be somebody he wasn’t. When he put the clicker down on the bedside table and leaned over to talk to her, Serpe noticed she was sleeping. Whatever he had to say would keep.
[Dead Serious]
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 14TH, 2005—VALENTINE’S DAY
It was an anniversary both dark and light; exactly one year ago to the day that Serpe’d received the late day call to make an emergency delivery up in Kings Park to someone named Healy. Later that evening, the Russians caught the hose monkey hiding in the oil yard and beat him to death. The monsters left him to rot in the sludge at the bottom of the International’s tank, the tank that still held Gigi’s money. Frank had taken Joe to Lugo’s that night for a drink before they headed their separate ways. Frank went home to his wife and kids and approaching destiny; Joe to his cat and a bottle of Absolut.
Joe sent John and Anthony home early so they could do what young men did on Valentine’s Day. Bob Healy had the whole day off. He and Blades were up at some ski resort in Vermont and weren’t scheduled back until later that night. Serpe suspected they weren’t doing much skiing up in the Green Mountains. They were up there celebrating Valentine’s
Day, Blades’ justly earned promotion, and her transfer from IAB to Brooklyn North Homicide. Shit, Joe thought, a month into a relationship, you really didn’t need an excuse for celebrating.
He put in a call to Gigi to see how she was doing. She’d been transferred to a rehab facility in Connecticut about a week ago and Joe called her every day just to bust her chops and make sure she did her work. He remembered how much he hated that part of his recovery and how much it helped to have Marla around to push him. Joe’d even gotten in touch with Gigi’s last girlfriend and urged her to call and visit. But he wasn’t acting out of guilt. This wasn’t like what had happened to Marla. In fact, the way Joe saw it, Gigi would probably be dead if he hadn’t gotten involved with her. Finn McCauly would have come calling regardless. Given what he’d done to Stanfill in order to get his hands on those pictures, there’s no telling what he would have done to Gigi. Hell, he nearly broke her neck anyway.
Joe shut the trailer lights, set the alarm, closed the door behind him, and padlocked it. It was about five and the sun was still above the horizon, if not by much. Only a month ago, he would have been standing in fallen night. Spring was coming and, for no reason he could explain, that made him really excited. He came down the steps in two strides, checked the trucks to make sure their tank valves were closed, and walked through the gates to chain them shut.
“Happy Valentine’s Day.” The voice was familiar, the words were strange.
“Hoskins?” Serpe turned ready for battle. “Calm down, shithead. I’m not here for a fight.”
“Then what?”
“You ever get an itch on the bottom of your foot?”
“What?”
“An itch, you ever get one on the bottom of your foot?” Hoskins repeated.
“Sure.”
“You know when those are the worst? When you’re driving. You like struggle to move your foot inside your shoe and that don’t work. Then you’re reaching down and sticking your finger inside your shoe and you’re trying to drive and that don’t help.”
“Is there a point to this?” Serpe asked, but not too impatiently.
“But you know what’s really frustrating is when you manage to work your way out of your shoe and you can like rub your foot on the car mat or against the corner of the brake pedal and that still don’t help.”
“I know how that feels.”
“Well, Serpe, I got an itch like that, but it ain’t on the bottom of my foot.”
“Sucks.”
“I think you wanna hear about it.”
“You do?”
“I do. You got a hot date with Monaco’s sister?”
“She’s rehabbing her shoulder.”
“Then let me buy you a drink. Lugo’s okay?”
“I’ll meet you there in five minutes,” Serpe heard himself say, but not quite believing it.
This was getting to be a weird tradition, Joe thought, as he pulled into the back lot of the bar. This was the second Valentine’s Day in a row he’d be drinking with a man at Lugo’s. At least he liked Frank. The same could not be said for Hoskins. But for him to approach Joe, never mind ask him for a drink, took a lot. Drinking with your buds was one thing. Drinking with your sworn enemy was something else entirely. As he walked through the parking lot entrance into Lugo’s, Serpe remembered the last time he was there. He imagined he could smell the cloying scent of Kathleen Cummings’ perfume, feel her arms around his neck. Men had sacrificed their left testicles to be with her, so she said. He wondered how much they were willing to sacrifice to get away?
“What are you smiling at?” Hoskins asked Joe as he walked up to the bar.
“The thought of drinking with you.”
“Fuck you, Serpe.”
“That’s more like it.”
“What are you having?”
“Blue Point lager.”
“I got you a Bud. Come on over. I got us a booth in the back.”
“How romantic.”
Hoskins didn’t say fuck you, but he thought it. Serpe could see it spelled out on Hoskins’ jowly face. When they slid into the booth, neither even bothered to make a move to clink bottles. Joe got to it. “About that itch …”
“I got leukemia,” Hoskins said. “Some kind you need lessons for just to pronounce.”
“Fuck!”
“Yeah, fuck is right.”
“I’m sorry,” Joe said reflexively.
“Bullshit, but thanks anyways. I started treatment and the doctors got that look on their faces like maybe I shouldn’t invest in that condo in Myrtle Beach. I think that’s why the itch is so bad. If I’m going, I’m not going with this bullshit case hung around my neck. My coffin’s gonna be big enough without having to stuff a fucking albatross in there. I don’t want it on my conscience.”
“You’d need a conscience to worry about that,” Joe said.
“I discovered mine late. About thirty seconds after the doctor told me I had leukemia. World would be a better place if everybody thought they were dying.”
“Everybody is dying.”
“Then if they realized it more,” Hoskins said. “So like I said, the itch is bad. I don’t think the Burgess kid killed those drivers.”
“Is that why you weren’t at the news conference?”
“Joe ‘the Snake’ Serpe noticed I wasn’t there. I’m honored.”
“Look, Hoskins, just because you’re dying doesn’t mean I like you any better. So let’s—”
“Okay, you’re right. This is business. No, I missed the press conference because that’s the day the doctor gave me the good news. I thought they were gonna ask me to prepay my bills.”
“Honesty. That’s a start. So what is it about the case that you don’t like?”
“How about everything? I mean, the stuff in the city, the stuff about Burgess and his son, okay, I buy that. I buy the blackmail. What I don’t buy is that it was Khouri Burgess that killed those drivers.”
“Why?”
“The Burgess kid, he strike you as a criminal fucking mastermind?”
“Not really,” Serpe admitted.
“More like a frightened little kid, you ask me. Besides, the case is weak. It’s all circumstantial,” Hoskins said. “They’ve executed people on less.”
“Sometimes they executed the wrong man.”
“I’m listening.”
“We got no physical evidence tying Khouri Burgess to any of the crime scenes. I mean like zero. The piece he killed himself with was a three-fifty-seven. All the oil drivers were done with a nine, the same nine. The NYPD searched high and low and couldn’t find a nine millimeter or anyone who says he ever knew Khouri Burgess to be in possession of one. Christ, Serpe, there’s not even an African-American hair at any of the crime scenes except at the one where the nig—”
“—Cameron Wilkes was murdered.”
“That one, yeah. I did a little canvassing on my own. Went back to Wyandanch, Hagerman, and the other neighborhoods where the murders took place and not one person could remember seeing anyone who looked like Khouri Burgess at all. It’s not like you wouldn’t remember him with that weird freckled fucking skin of his. Remember, the Mets had a player with skin like that a few years back. Butch something.”
“Huskey, Butch Huskey.”
“Right. Him. You remember someone like him walks by you or is hanging on your corner at night. Even nig—black folks remember a face like his and he wasn’t exactly a shrimpy little guy.”
“Okay, I agree with you there,” Serpe said. “That is odd.”
“And why make Monaco the fourth victim? That don’t sit right with me. Killing him first or last just calls too much attention to itself.”
“Even if I agreed with you—”
“You don’t?”
“You make some good points. I’m not saying you don’t make some good points, but what does it matter? What do you expect me to do about it?” Joe asked.
“Help me prove it.”
“You’re serious.”
“Dead serious.”
Serpe thought about it for a minute before answering. “Did you go to your bosses or George Healy with your suspicions?”
“Come on, Serpe. They’re still orgasming over getting this shit wrapped up in a nice bundle. They don’t wanna hear nothing that doesn’t fit in with the story they told the world or the one they told themselves.”
“You’re right. But why come to me? You hate my guts. Last time I checked, you were coldcocking me in the parking lot of a funeral home.”
Hoskins squirmed in his seat. “Look, I don’t wanna marry you or nothing, but I’m not as blind as this lazy fucking eye makes me seem. I saw how you flushed out the Russians and found the retarded kid’s killer. It was you and your partner that found out that the fifth oil murder was a bullshit copycat thing. Shit, if it wasn’t for you and Healy, Burgess would still be preaching this Sunday. And even though I can’t stomach what you did to Ralphy, he used to talk about you all the fucking time. He thought you were the best detective the NYPD had.”
“Enough. Okay. What do you need?”
“Let’s look over the files together,” Hoskins said.
“Me and Healy have been over those files twenty times.”
“Maybe, but it’s been a couple of weeks. We could go to the actual crime scenes together. Maybe you’ll see something I missed.”
“Tomorrow, four pm, my office.” Serpe stood up and took a final pull on his Bud.
Hoskins held out his hand. “Come on, it won’t kill you.”
Serpe shook it. He didn’t melt like the Wicked Witch of the West, but he wasn’t exactly filled with Christian love for the man either. Too much bad had passed between them to forgive. As he left Lugo’s, he swore to himself that he was going to spend next Valentine’s Day with a woman no matter what it took. Before he left the bar, he made sure Kathleen Cummings was nowhere in sight.
She wasn’t around, but Serpe didn’t quite make it out of the bar. Stan Brock grabbed Joe by the forearm, and when the ex-boxer grabbed you, you tended to stop in your tracks. They shook hands and Stan demanded Joe have a beer on him as payback for the last time. It wasn’t like Joe had anywhere else to get to.
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