Paradise City

by Lorenzo Carcaterra

  “Tell me what it is you need me to do,” Paula said.

  17

  JENNIFER SAT ALONE at a small table in the back of a poorly lit room, the blue glow of a computer screen lighting her face, a large cup of Starbucks to her right, legal pad and pen at her elbow. She was in the records room in the basement of One Police Plaza, attempting to piece together the life of Giancarlo Lo Manto. One of the lessons of the job that Jennifer swore by was always to know who it is you’re giving your back to. In the span of less than seventy-two hours, Lo Manto had gone from an Italian cop she was ordered to keep an eye on to a full-blown partner with whom she was about to walk side by side into a Camorra shooting gallery. She had already been targeted and shot at, forced to pump bullet holes into an adversary bearing down on her, and she still wasn’t sure why. All she knew about Lo Manto was what she had seen for herself and heard from a few other cops, who knew him only by reputation. To a savvy street vet like Captain Fernandez, Lo Manto came off as a young Sherlock Holmes, using guile and instinct to capture his prey, matching his brain to the enemy’s brawn and walking away with both his life and a solid arrest.

  The younger cops painted a different portrait. They saw Lo Manto as an Italian Dirty Harry, quick-tempered and with a hard-won taste for action. He was a cop with no qualms about pulling a gun and shelling out the barrel into a criminal’s chest. He was an action junkie, his addiction fueled by the crime-ravaged streets of Naples, where he was free of the barriers of search and seizure and Miranda warnings. He worked his cases hard, wild bull-charging against the various Camorra factions as if he were on a mission that only he could accomplish. He squeezed his informants, spread the word among his street sources, and displayed an uncanny ability to hit Camorra hot spots hours after a fresh six-figure connection had been completed. Jennifer had heard Lo Manto referred to by some of the cops who had worked with him on the various task forces as a “loose cannon with a brain,” but wasn’t put off by that assessment. In fact, she found she didn’t mind riding alongside a cop as determined and daring as he was, willing to risk it all for the chance at a takedown. What bothered her, however, and what she was hoping to get at least the glint of an answer to from the computer files on Lo Manto, was the darker side of his personality.

  Her cop antennae were raised high enough for her to realize there was more to his quest than merely another notch on his arrest record. There was a secret that drove Lo Manto, forced him to go head-to-head against the best of the Camorra, challenged him to bring them down, and not only defeat them but leave the gang under a rubble of ruin. Jennifer reached for her coffee and took several long sips, rubbing the ache from her neck muscles with her free hand. She clicked onto the Intelligence Division site and typed in his name and her code and then waited the few minutes it took for the information to be processed. She leaned in closer to the computer, tossing the empty coffee container into a nearby bin, and began to read about the man who had, in a short span of time, become the first partner she ever had who would willingly give his life for her in the heat of battle.

  “Been looking all over the building for you,” Captain Fernandez said to her, in a voice not even close to being a whisper. The sound of his words startled her, forcing her to drop her pencil and bump her leg against the base of the computer desk.

  “Looks like you found me, Cap,” she said, trying to put on a smile and eager to get one back in return.

  Fernandez grabbed a brief glance at both her notes and the computer screen, watching her move with a degree of unease as he did. “I catch you in the middle of something?” he asked.

  Jennifer gently eased her chair away from the computer and stood up, inches away from her captain, her manner calm and at ease. She had grown to trust and respect Fernandez in her years working under his command and felt there was no reason to keep the truth away from him. “I’m trying to learn as much as I can about my new partner,” she said.

  Fernandez smiled. “And you figured a computer would tell you what it is you need to know?”

  “I figured it was a good place to start,” Jennifer said. “Other than what I’ve seen and heard for myself and some rumblings here and there, I don’t really know all that much about the man.”

  “Why do you think you need to know any more than that?” Fernandez asked. “He’ll be there for you if the time comes and you’ll be there for him. That’s as much as I ever wanted to know about any of my partners.”

  “It’s not enough, Cap,” Jennifer said. “He’s planning on going up against some pretty heavy guns, top-tier action. And it’s not just because they had the cubes to lift his niece. With him, it goes miles beyond that. I’d like to know why.”

  “He know you’re doing this?”

  “I didn’t tell him,” Jennifer said. “But if he’s as good a cop as everyone says, then I’m sure he figured it to be a move I’d make.”

  “What are you looking to find?” Fernandez asked.

  “His history would be one,” Jennifer said, sitting back down, wishing she had a fresh cup of coffee. “Give me a sense of him if I knew his background, family details. Also, see the kind of cop he was over in Italy, read about some of the busts he took down, some of the criminals he chased. I guess I just feel like I need more answers than what I already have. I can’t really put it into words.”

  Fernandez folded his arms across his bulky chest and took a deep breath, leaning the weight of his body against the edge of a wall. “He’s always been a hard puzzle to crack,” he told her. “There’s a special kind of fuel to Lo Manto that makes him run harder and tougher than most any other cop you’ll come across. I’ve worked with him on half a dozen task forces and I’ve never seen a badge that had a better understanding of who it was he was up against than Lo Manto. He doesn’t let you in on much; guess that comes out of all those years working alone and not being able to trust anybody. But when he gives birth to a plan, my advice would be to make sure you do all you can to follow it.”

  “You ever work with him over in Naples?” Jennifer asked. “See him in action on his own turf?”

  Fernandez nodded. “About three, maybe four years ago. We were on a three-month operation, NYPD working the cash angle and Lo Manto dealing with the heroin in Naples. He went at it full-tilt night and day, making snap decisions that kept him a jump ahead, moving the players, cops and crooks, like they were all pieces on one big chessboard. He had more street informants than any twelve cops, reaching out to people from all walks, knocking on the most surprising of doors. At the end, the Camorra was out four million in cash and just as much in smack. The bust made page one in both countries, but Lo Manto made sure to keep his name clear of any newspaper story.”

  “So, he’s not a glory hog,” Jennifer said. “I didn’t get a feel of that from him. He seems to be more about the case he’s on than what road solving that case will actually take him down.”

  “How important is all this to you?” Fernandez asked. “Getting to know about Lo Manto? Figuring out his inner clock?”

  “He’s not the only cop who likes to know all the answers before he goes through the door,” she said. “Besides, it might help us work together better.”

  “Have you thought about asking him?”

  “How far would that take me?” she asked, smiling at the question.

  “I imagine he’d duck and dodge it pretty well,” Fernandez said. “But at the very least, it would be entertaining to watch.”

  “You think I’m wasting my time?” Jennifer asked. “You’ve been through these clips and files. Am I going to learn anything I don’t already know?”

  “That depends not on where you look, but how you look,” Fernandez said. “But no, you’re not going to get all your answers down here. Just a lot more questions.”

  “Then where, Cap?” Jennifer asked. “Where do I look?”

  “You want to know Lo Manto, then you forget Naples, forget the busts, forget he’s even a cop,” Fernandez said. “You go back to the East Bronx,
to his neighborhood. To the closed doors that may not ever open for you. All your answers will be there, on those streets, with those people. They’re not going to be all that easy to find. I tried a couple of times and I came away empty. But that’s where they are. That’s where the truth can be found.”

  Jennifer nodded and turned back to the computer screen. Fernandez unfolded his arms, moved from the wall, and began to walk away, heading down the narrow passage between computer and file drawers. He was halfway down the hall when she lifted her head and called out to him. “Hey, Cap?” she said in a voice loud enough to draw stares from the faces at the surrounding cubicles.

  Fernandez stopped and turned back to look at Jennifer. “Was wondering when you were going to ask how I knew to look for you down here,” he said with a smile.

  “Well?” she said, hands stretched out, her shoulders arched against the soft recline of the roll-back chair.

  “Lo Manto told me,” he said. He gave her a wink and a wave and continued on his way out the front door.

  The burly man rested his arms on the edge of the roof, his body spread out across the tar, gazing down at the crowded street below. The afternoon sun bore down heavily on his black jeans and T-shirt, the light leather jacket tossed off to one side, the back of his thick neck streaked with thin lines of sweat. He kept a set of binoculars wedged near his right elbow, next to a long, silver thermos filled with hot espresso. He had an unfiltered cigarette dangling off his lower lip and a set of wraparound shades protecting his eyes from the heated glare. He had a rifle scope in his hands, focusing the eyepiece on the stairs of a tenement building across the street. Once he felt he had his target within the required distance, he made a mental note of the temperature and degree of tilt, taking into account wind velocity, range of motion, and other potential hazards, regardless of how minute. He had briefly toyed with the notion of attempting an early morning or evening shot, reducing the power of the sun and of passing cars and pedestrians, but had cast aside both possibilities after reflecting that he would be replacing the unknown factor of glare with the equally troublesome issue of shadows. Besides, the burly man took jobs these days as much to test his skill level as he did to fill his bank account. And there was no greater challenge to a professional shooter than a moving target drenched in sunlight. It would make the head-only hit and the $75,000 cash prize that came with the result all the sweeter.

  The burly man had been born to money; both his parents were renowned doctors and medical scholars. He was raised in the warm grasp of luxury and wealth but found comfort in neither. He was eight when a wayward uncle gave him a hunting rifle and nine when he made his first kill, a buck grazing along the rush of a north Maryland stream. It was at that very moment, the second the hot bullet seared its way through flesh and bone, that young Gregory Randell had found his true calling. That was three decades ago and now the burly man, known within his chosen profession as “Flash” because of the speed with which he dispensed of a target, was coming close to the end of the line, ready to put away his rifles and scopes and settle down for a more peaceful and benign way of life. He had killed many more than he could ever count since that first drop in the Maryland woods, never bothering to distinguish between human prey and animal trophy. This was going to be his final conquest. He had grown weary of the business, tired of the endless late-night phone calls and meetings with quiet men whose names he never bothered to learn. He had remained fearless throughout, not concerned with either prison or betrayal, knowing that the men he dealt with wanted nothing more than to rid themselves of an annoyance and were willing to put up large blocks of money rather than stand up to their foe and pull a trigger and end it on their own clock and dime. In all his years as a paid assassin, Flash Randell had never lost his taste for the kill or his love for all the little steps that needed to be taken in order for a job to be completed in the desired manner. What he had grown weary of and had decided to do without weeks ago was the business end of a hit man’s life. It left him cold and tired, listening to the drone of millionaires as they fretted over his payment schedule and whined over the accrued expenses that were so crucial to the job he performed. And if he failed, a fate that he had yet to experience, it would turn him from hunter into prey, another prospect of his trade he didn’t relish.

  He turned away from the street and lifted his face up toward the sun, his eyes closed, the front of his shirt wet with cool sweat. This was his last target, his last hunt. And he would make it his best.

  The killing of Giancarlo Lo Manto would be one hit no one would ever forget.

  Lo Manto stood on the third step of the tenement stoop and looked down at Felipe Lopez. The boy’s eyes shone like dark beacons when he spoke, the weight he gave to each word more that of a seasoned adult than of a young teen living hand-to-mouth on hard streets. “You got more people looking for you than we got looking for that Osama dude,” Felipe told him. “Only difference is the price on your head is a lot lower and you got no rock tunnels to hide you from sight.”

  “Who’s looking the hardest?” Lo Manto asked. He reached into the front pocket of the boy’s blue T-shirt and grabbed a fresh pack of cinnamon chewing gum.

  “Depends on which way you mean hard,” Felipe said. “Who’s dangling the most cash or who’s got the most people out on the street?”

  “Give me both,” Lo Manto said. He looked away from the boy, his eyes casually running the length of the street, a sea of strange faces, empty of emotion, burdened with their own concerns, blankly walking past them. “Hard numbers if you got them.”

  “Word is anybody brings you in, dead better than alive, gets to cash out,” Felipe said. “Walk away with enough money in their pockets to live crime-free for a year, maybe two. That’s on talk from your crowd.”

  “That offer open to anybody?”

  “If you got two legs and a halfway decent pair of eyes, you make final cut,” Felipe said. “They don’t seem to care who brings you down, so long as down you go.”

  “You see any new faces around the neighborhood?” Lo Manto asked. “Not the usual set of basement knockoffs, but Samsonite leather, real dealers.”

  “No one face to point to,” Felipe said. “But a lot of whispers about a shooter brought in just to put a few pins through your back. Guy’s supposed to be good, is what I hear. If he misses you, or just wounds you, it’d be the first exam he ever failed.”

  Lo Manto sat on the third step of the stoop and stretched out his legs, resting his arms and shoulders against the hard, cement base. He looked over at Felipe and gave the boy a smile and a slight shrug. “We must be running on the right track,” he said. “To get them to give us all this unwanted attention.”

  “Or maybe you’re the kind of guy that just pisses people off,” Felipe said. “And from what I hear your problems ain’t just with the Italians and their shooters. Once words make their way uptown and down, every wannabe from goomba to Crip who can get his fingers on a Glock is going to be aiming it at you.”

  Lo Manto stared at the boy for several seconds, the sun warming both their faces, their eyes shaded by the brims of baseball caps. “I brought you into this to be my eyes and ears,” he told him. “And that’s what I expect you to do and keep doing. But the second the heat gets turned up, you’re out. I’m paying you to listen, not to take a bullet.”

  “Truth be told, you’re not paying me all that much to make either play,” Felipe said. “I can make a fast and solid twenty a day just picking cans and bottles up and down the West Side.”

  “That for real?” Lo Manto asked, giving the boy the slightest of smiles. “Then why’d you say yes to the offer? Run out of trash bags to bring in your haul?”

  “Not even close to being true,” Felipe said. “I was looking to try something different and this sounded easy enough to do.”

  “Seems fair,” Lo Manto said. “Just keep floating under everyone’s radar. Don’t ask too many questions and don’t go near anyone your gut tells you can link you to me.�
��

  “These guys are careful about what they say to begin with,” Felipe said. “But you grew up here. You know how information gets passed around. The places and faces may have changed some since you left, but not the way the bad go about their business.”

  “This shooter everyone’s got their ear out for?” Lo Manto asked. “You pick up a name?”

  “Just his street name,” Felipe said. “The hard faces on the crew call him Flash. That sound like anybody you ever crossed with before?”

  “I’ll get someone to run the name through the system,” Lo Manto said. “If we come up with a face and his real ID, then maybe he’s nowhere near as good as he might like to think.”

  “He don’t have to be great,” Felipe said. “Sometimes just lucky is enough. I just hope he don’t miss by much and end up hitting some innocent guy doing nothing but standing by.”

  “You mean an innocent like you?” Lo Manto asked, a smile inching across his face.

  “Like something like that never happens,” Felipe said. “Last three library books I read, all had somebody in them got shot when they had nothing to do with anything. Meantime, the hero? He walks away clean, like not even a strong wind come his way.”

  “Maybe you’re just reading the wrong kind of books,” Lo Manto said.

  “Maybe so,” Felipe said. “But the same holds true for newspapers, TV, and movies. In all those places, same thing happens. Guy like you walks away clean. Guy like me gets one through the head.”

  “I’ll do my best to change that,” Lo Manto said, taking a quick scan of the nearby rooftops.

  “If you do, you’ll be the first,” Felipe said. “Besides, I’m not too worked up about it. Just aware, that’s all.”

  Lo Manto stared at the boy, marveling at his ability to ignore his surroundings and his plight and assume command of his situation. In so many ways, he reminded Lo Manto of the destitute street kids in Naples, kids who lived a hand-to-mouth existence, supplementing what they got from begging on corners with what they could steal from local grocers and merchants. These were children forced by fate and circumstance to deal with daily life as adults, bearing the responsibilities of broken homes and splintered families as they brokered for food and shelter, clothes and medicine. They shared a bond with Felipe, each moment of their tattered days etched across their rapidly aging faces. And he could see it all in their eyes, dark, penetrating, filled to the brim with equal doses of sadness and determination, anger and humility.