He got the call in the middle of his morning coffee. Eddie recited the number of a payphone and the words “ten minutes” and hurriedly hung up. The kids were home for Christmas vacation and Eddie had insisted that Elaine take them someplace.
“Where are we supposed to go at nine in the morning?” Eddie didn’t care, anywhere, just so they were out of the house.
“Take ‘em to the zoo—”
“All the way up in the Bronx, in the Winter?”
“Fine, take them to the Met, they can look a the dinosaurs. I’ll drop you at the subway so you won’t have to park in the City. Call a cab when you get back.”
“Eddie . . . ,” Elaine began, then saw his “don’t ask about my business” face and the rest of her words drained away. Eddie grabbed his coat and his keys and a few minutes later had the DeVille parked in front of Arney’s Little Liquor Locker on Stanley Avenue. He stood outside and pretended to scan the headlines on the newspaper racks. There was a picture of LBJ shaking some Chinese guy’s hand and Mansfield was complaining that the Congress wasn’t paying proper attention to the President’s proposals. What a scam! If JFK hadn’t pissed off Big Sam . . . , Eddie shook his head in disgust. At exactly 10:10 the payphone on the sidewalk behind him rang.
“Yeah?”
“Eddie?”
“Yeah, how’re we gonna do this?”
“Got a pencil? I’ll give you the address.”
“I’m not comin’ to your office.”
“No, it’s an apartment we use.”
“And if someone sees me goin’ in there?”
“Tell them you’ve got a lady friend.”
“And when that gets back to my wife, then what?”
“Look, Eddie . . . .”
Eddie glanced around quickly, then hunched over the phone. “Forget it. No apartment.”
“If you’re thinking you can get out of our deal, your arrest warrant is still right here on my desk.”
“If I’m going to live long enough to do you any good, we have to do this smart. The meet’s got to be someplace that I can explain if I get asked any questions or if anybody sees me going in or coming out.”
The phone went silent for fifteen seconds, twenty.
“Bolger,” Eddie whispered, “you still there?”
“You’re going to see the dentist.”
“What?”
“My dentist. You go there right now. Anyone asks, your tooth was bothering you and he told you to come by and he’d squeeze you in when he could. Here’s the address.”
The dentist’s office was in Manhattan on the sixth floor of an undistinguished building in the eighties on the East Side. Brass letters on the door spelled out: Dr. Myron Feldman, DDS.
“My name is Edward Montefusco,” Eddie told the Japanese-looking young woman in nurse’s whites.
“Yes sir. Dr. Feldman will see you as soon as he can. You can wait in examination room three.”
The girl waved Eddie into the exam room, gave him a nervous smile, then pulled the door closed behind her. Harold Bolger sat in a cheap plastic chair in the corner. On the small swing-out metal table attached to the patient’s chair was a tape recorder. Eddie frowned then half reclined in the treatment chair when he realized that Bolger had the only other seat in the room.
“This is great, just great,” Eddie said, glancing at the array of pliers and steel probes. “All we need are the thumbscrews.”
“Look, Eddie, it was either this or a cell. You’ve made your choice so let’s not make this any harder than it has to be.”
Eddie sighed, then slumped back in the chair.
“Yeah, sure, I remember. Fine! Where do you want to start?”
“I want cases where the statute of limitations hasn’t expired, recent armed robberies, murders. Also, any info I can use. Guys who’ve disappeared, who got whacked, maybe big scores we’ve never been able to get a handle on.”
“That covers a lot of ground.”
Bolger shrugged. “You pick it.”
Eddie had been the a major weapons supplier to the Abruzzi Family for over twelve years. That was a lot of scores. But one at the beginning, one of his early jobs, still stood out.
“Okay, I’ve got one,” he said quietly a moment later and nodded toward the tape recorder.
Bolger slipped in a fresh cassette and pressed the “Record” button.
“This is FBI Special Agent Harold Bolger. Interview with Confidential Informant 3821 on . . . .” Bolger glanced at his watch and recited the time and date, then pointed to Eddie as if to say, “You’re on.”
“It was summer, eleven years ago,” Eddie began, closing his eyes and reclining in the patient chair, letting the words flow out of him. For a moment he visualized himself lying on a psychiatrist’s couch, beginning therapy, expiating his crimes, then the image faded and all that was left were the pictures in his head and the torrent of words being sucked down into Bolger’s little machine. . . .
Willie Bats was a big man, barrel-chested, with wavy brown hair that glistened with a daily application of Vitalis.
“So, kid,” he said to Eddie, “I hear you’re good with guns.”
They were in the old Gotham Grill on Houston where a lot of the made guys liked to go, a place where you could get prime steak sandwich and a decent beer, where nobody would bother you and you could do business without worrying that someone was listening to what you were saying.
“Yeah, I am,” Eddie said evenly. Willie was not the kind of guy who respected modesty.
“A friend of mine needs a gun. I’d like you to help him out.”
“Yeah, sure. Something special?”
“Oh yeah, very special.” Willie’s lips curled in smile that was mean and promised pain.
“Something with some real kick? I’ve got a Colt .45—”
“No, a .38 Smith & Wesson, five inch barrel.”
“Like the cops carry?”
“Yeah, just like that. Can you get me one?”
“Sure. Standard loads?”
“I want those, what are they, Federal bullets.”
“Just like the cops use.”
“Yeah, just like the cops use. When can you get it?”
“Tonight, a hundred bucks.”
Willie Bats gave Eddie a long hard look, then cocked his head and smiled. “Okay, sure. The guy’ll meet you at the Bella Luna in Brooklyn. He’s tall, dark hair, blue eyes, good lookin’ guy. His name’s Mike. At ten o’clock he’ll go into the men’s room. You follow him in. He’ll give you the money, you give him the piece. Wrap it up in newspaper, stick it into a paper bag.”
“Does he know my name?”
“You tryin’ to insult me?”
“Tell him to call me Jack.”
“Anyone, and I mean anyone, asks you, especially any of the people in this room, we never had this conversation.” The expression on Willie Bats face promised no mercy if the gun was ever tied back to him.
“Yeah, me too,” Eddie said, not wanting to know what Willie was planning.
The Bella Luna was one of those family restaurants with wooden floors, little round tables with red-checked tablecloths, and candles stuck in Chianti bottles next the bread basket. Eddie found a spot across the street halfway down the stairs to an empty basement apartment where he could wait unobserved. At a couple of minutes to ten he crept to the edge of the big glass front window and stole a glance down the length of the dining room to the men’s room door at the back. At ten on the dot a tall, dark-haired guy headed for the can. A couple minutes later, his face wearing a confused expression, he slouched back to his table. He repeated the trip twice more with a similar lack of success.
Jeez, did Willie Bats think he was a fool? You didn’t go into a neighborhood restaurant, use the can and walk out, and figure the owner wouldn’t notice. So, was he supposed to go in and order dinner and let the waiter and the busboy and cashier all get a good look at him? Eddie ducked back into his hiding place and waited for his contact to leave. At twenty after ten the guy came out and headed up the deserted street. Eddie followed and called out softly just as the guy reached his car.
“Mike?”
“Who the . . . . ?”
“It’s me, Jack. Sorry I missed you at the restaurant.” Eddie held up his empty right hand. In his left he grasped a paper bag. “Let’s get off the street.” Eddie pointed to the Mike’s car, a dirty ‘52 Plymouth coupe. The tall man scowled then unlocked the passenger door and slid in first.
“Show me.” Eddie handed over the bag. Mike quickly unwrapped the gun and checked it with professional efficiency. “It’s clean?”
“As a saint’s halo. Untraceable, even if they could read the serial number.” Eddie held out his hand and twitched his fingers. Mike glared, then reached into his black leather coat and handed over five wrinkled twenties.
“I don’t like you following me to my car,” Mike said with as much menace as he could put into his voice.
“But you want the waiter to get a good look at both of us?” Eddie shook his head and opened the door with his gloved hand. The dome light glowed briefly, accentuating the driver’s classic features, like the face on a Roman coin, then Mike was washed in darkness as the door latched closed. Hurriedly he twisted the newspaper back around the barrel and slid the pistol under the front seat.
An hour and a half later Mike and his partner, NYPD Patrolman Bruce O’Neil, were sitting their RMP, getting ready to begin their 12 to 8 a.m. shift. Mike glanced at this partner, short-cut red-blond hair, handsome face, just beginning to get a little puffy, bull neck, then looked away and pulled the patrol car out of the 41st Precinct lot.
“So,” Bruce asked, glancing at the driver, “you got any big plans for tomorrow?”
Mike continued to stare straight ahead, watching the traffic. “I’ll probably hit a few of the clubs,” he answered in a half-bored voice.
“Come on, a sensitive guy like you, you must have some action planned.” Bruce punched Mike’s shoulder and grinned. Mike took a sudden left turn and bounced O’Neil against the passenger door. “Hey, watch what you’re doin’!”
“So, what’s on your schedule tomorrow night? You taking the wife out?”
“Yeah, right! Or, I could get it on with somebody really hot — Glooowria,” Bruce said, dragging out the syllables. “And if Lynn asks, we’re pulling overtime.”
“Why would your wife call me? If she asks anyone it’ll be the sergeant.”
“Old Sully’s got me covered.”
“So Lynn suspects something’s going on?”
“Who knows what goes on in a broad’s head? I just don’t want the aggravation. ‘Where were you, Bruce? Why don’t you pay any attention to me, Bruce? We need new furniture, Bruce.’ Jesus, that’s Lynn’s favorite occupation these days — bitch, whine, bitch, whine. Let me tell you, I’m tired of having to straighten her out. If we’re working overtime she’s got nothing to complain about.”
“What do you mean, ‘straighten her out’?”
“What the hell do you think I mean? If you ever learned how to keep a woman in line maybe you’d have one of your own.” Mike clenched his jaw and stared straight ahead. “Jeez, Harris, you really are a boy scout. Remind me to introduce you to my sister if she changes her mind about joining a convent.” Bruce brayed a harsh, nasal laugh. “The wops have got a new place on Decker. Let’s go pay ‘em a visit.”
“Those are serious guys, Bruce. We can only shake them down so many times before—”
“And we’re cops, so let’s kick some ass.”
Mike wasn’t supposed to know who was tipping Bruce off on the betting parlors, and the counting rooms and the girls. Bruce just told him he had a snitch and to keep his mouth shut and just take his cut. But it wasn’t a snitch, Mike knew, at least not the usual kind. It was Tommy Alfieri who ran a crew in the Pellegi family who were trying to move in on the Abruzzis. Using the cops to screw up the Abruzzis’ operations was just an irritant, a reminder that they weren’t content to live with the crumbs that fell off the Abruzzis’ table. And it was an irritation the Abruzzis and their Lieutenant, Willie Bats, couldn’t openly do anything about.
You couldn’t hit a cop and you couldn’t whack a made guy like Tommy Alfieri, not without permission. You had to sit there and take it until there was a meet that settled things and the Pellegis were either told to stop or were given a bite out of the Abruzzi empire. But Willie Bats wasn’t going to wait and he wasn’t going to be pushed around and he wasn’t going to give up a damn thing. So he reached out to Mike Harris and made him an offer that had nothing to do with money.
Bruce and Mike hit the Abruzzis’ place, a bookie joint behind a barber shop, took all the money and burned the betting slips and then took off. Bruce split the take 70-30 with Mike because it had been Bruce’s snitch who gave them the tip.
“So, you decided what you’re going to do with your cut?” Mike asked at the end of the shift.
“Gloria’s got expensive tastes,” Bruce answered, laughing and waving a sheaf of bills under Mike’s nose.
In the locker room Mike fiddled with his shoes pretending that he had a knot in one of the laces until Bruce headed for the showers. Hurriedly, from the small of his back, he pulled out the clean Smith and Wesson .38, rubbed off his prints, and swapped it for Bruce’s service revolver. Five minutes later he was changed and headed home. He went to bed but tossed and turned, too keyed-up to sleep. Finally he gave up, dressed, ate a light meal and around ten that night made a call. Lynn answered.
“He still there?”
“Just left.”
“I’ll be right over.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
Mike parked a block away and let himself in with his own key. Lynn was waiting for him just inside the door. They didn’t make to the bedroom. He took her in the club chair in the living room, leaning over her, his weight supported on the upholstered arms. Then she made him a snack. When she turned back to the stove he noticed the fist-shaped bruise low on her back that had now turned gray-green and he clenched his own fist in repressed rage.
For a while they watched TV and then did it again, this time in the bedroom. It gave Mike a perverse thrill to take her in Bruce’s own bed. He slipped out just before two and headed for the address Willie’s guy had given him. It was a narrow old building cut up into two apartments per floor. He picked the lock on the front door and crept upstairs. The lock on the apartment was a new Yale and for a while he was afraid he wasn’t going to be able to get in. Flinching at each creak and rattle in the old building it took him three or four minutes before he finally caught the last tumbler and twisted the bolt free.
Carefully, quietly, Bruce’s gun sweaty in his hand, Mike crept through the apartment. When he was sure it was empty he went back to the bedroom and grabbed a pillow, then unscrewed the bulb in the table lamp wired to the switch just inside the front door. Against the living room wall near the kitchen was a cheap desk supporting a phone amidst a nest of papers, phone numbers scrawled on napkins and half a dozen business cards. Mike added one more card to the pile.
There was a closet to the right of the front door. About four feet beyond the door the hallway widened into the living room. Doubling the pillow over the .38’s muzzle, Mike waited around the corner behind the closet wall. An hour went by and the only sounds were distant muted sirens and the occasional screech of brakes. Finally, a little after four, Mike heard a key turn in the lock, then the snap of the light switch followed by a muttered “Crap!” when the lamp failed to respond.
Mike huddled in the darkened corner, the pillow smothering the gun. A gray shape blurred past him heading for the lamp. Mike didn’t wait and barely aimed, just fired into the blocky shape’s broad charcoal back. The gun made a hollow, muffled “pop-splat” sort of noise and a cloud of feathers boiled into the air. “Shit,” the target gurgled and thudded to the floor, the sound of his fall louder, it seemed to Mike, than the noise of the shot itself. For a moment Mike watched Tommy Alfieri rolling and moaning as if he were a spectator then the spell broke and Mike hurried forward, pushed the pillow wrapped muzzle an inch from the back of Tommy’s head and fired twice more. The shots seemed even louder and the bullets made surprisingly audible snaps as they penetrated Alferi’s skull. Panting, out of breath as if he had run a race, Mike wiped his prints from the gun and dropped it and the pillow next to the body.
Think! Was there anything else? Mike was halfway to the door, then turned back, screwed the bulb in and wiped his prints off the glass. He listened at the door, then slipped into the hallway and down the deserted stairs. For a moment he had a vision of disaster when his engine ground and ground and refused to start, but he waited fifteen seconds and turned the key again. Finally the motor coughed twice, then caught and Mike drove very carefully back to his apartment. It took three days for the smell to alert Tommy’s neighbors.
Bill Cleary, was just entering the precinct when the Post guy on the crime beat slid up next to him. “I hear you’ve got a suspect in that mob hit.”
“It’s a continuing investigation,” Cleary said, not slowing down.
“Word is that it’s a cop out of the 41st.”
Cleary whirled around. “Where’d you get that?”
“A little birdie told me. So?”
“We’ve investigating all leads.”
“Bill, FYI, this one’s not going away.”
Cleary turned away and pushed through the swinging doors. An hour later he and his partner, Larry Kudlacik, were in the Captain’s office in the 41st. Bruce O’Neil stood in front of the desk.
“You know a guy named Tommy Alfieri?” Cleary asked.
Bruce looked from the two detectives to his Captain then back to Cleary.
“Yeah, he’s a snitch I’m cultivating.”
“You ever been in his apartment?”
“What? No, why should I?”
“We found your card with your home number on the back in his desk.”
“So? That doesn’t mean I was there.”
Cleary glanced at Kudlacik then back to Bruce. “Can I see your weapon?”
Bruce raised his eyebrows, shrugged, and handed it over. Cleary examined the revolver closely then put it down on the desk.
“Any reason why you’re carrying a weapon without a serial number?”
“What? Let me see that!”
Bruce snatched up the pistol and stared at it in dismay. Where a serial number would have normally been there was only a sanded-flat patch of steel.
“This isn’t my weapon.”
“No, this is your gun.” Kudlacik handed Cleary a bulging manila envelope with chain of evidence signature lines on the front. Cleary extracted the .38 they had found next to Alfieri’s body. Holding the gun by the barrel, Cleary showed Bruce the serial number.
“Where’d you get that?”
“On the floor next to Tommy Alfieri’s dead body.”
“This is bullshit! Someone’s trying to set me up.”
“Or.”
“Or, what?”
“Or you and Tommy Alfieri had a falling out over whatever scam you two had going and he told you that you’d either play ball or he’d turn you in. So you got yourself a clean gun with the idea of killing him and leaving the clean gun so we’d think it was one of his own guys who did it. No one’s gonna shed any tears if the crooks kill each other. But you screwed up. You got confused and put the clean gun in your holster and used your service weapon to do the job.”
“I’d have to be a moron to do something like that.”
“People doing their first murder can get rattled, make stupid mistakes. We see it all the time.”
“Listen, I didn’t kill—”
“But,” Kudlacik broke in, “maybe it wasn’t murder. Maybe he was your snitch and he tried to turn you, threatened you. There was a struggle. He ran for his desk where he had a piece. You panicked and shot him before he could get his gun, then, in a state of shock, you dropped your gun and ran. Later, you realized it was too late to go back for it so you got this one as a replacement. See, that could be . . . voluntary manslaughter?”
“Involuntary manslaughter, I’d say,” Cleary answered. “Cop like you with a good record. Punk like Alfieri. People get threatened, they panic, things happen. You’d be out in three.”
“But I didn’t—”
“Or, it might be that you were a crooked cop and you killed Alfieri in an argument over the take, which would be . . . twenty years?” Cleary looked at Kudlacik.
“More,” Kudlacik said, shaking his head.
“I didn’t do it.”
“Where were you Saturday night?”
Bruce glanced down for an instant. “I was with a friend.”
“You told your wife you were pulling an extra shift.”
“You think I’m going to tell her I’m seeing another woman?”
“What’s the woman’s name?”
Bruce paused for half a second but knew he had no choice.
“Gloria Metzger. I’ll give you her number. She’ll tell you we were together the whole night. I didn’t leave till seven Sunday morning.”
“Tell you what, why don’t you get a lawyer down here. I’ve already called the Deputy D.A. In the meantime, we’ll go talk to this Gloria.”
“I didn’t do it.”
“Involuntary manslaughter, that would be the smart play,” Cleary said over his shoulder and he and Kudlacik headed out the door.
“I heard he got five years,” Eddie said, turning and glancing at Bolger. “He probably only did three with time off for good behavior.”
“Gloria. . . . ?”
“Had a memory lapse. Willie Bats is real good at giving people memory lapses.”
“And Mike Harris?”
“He’s a sergeant out in Queens, last I heard. Wife, couple of kids. You understand this is all hearsay, all through the grapevine, second hand. Willie Bats can’t let himself be tied to a hit on a made guy. A cop takes him out, well, those are the breaks. Everybody knows but they don’t know, if you get my drift.”
“How the hell is this supposed to help me? You give me a story I can’t verify, a killer I can’t arrest, and a case that’s already closed.”
“I told you I’d spill my guts. I didn’t promise it would get you any collars.”
“Bullshit! You’re here to help me make cases, not waste my time with trips down memory lane!” Bolger angrily shook his head. “You’re comin’ back day after tomorrow for another appointment. Between now and then, you better think of something I can use. If I had just one witness who could put the finger on this Harris . . . .”
“You’d really go after that cop? He’s one of your own.”
“He’s a cold blooded killer and I’d put him away in a heartbeat if I could.”
Eddie shook his head.
“That’s the difference between you and me. Here’s this dirty cop, beating up his wife, and all he does is three years. There’s this other guy who’s killed five, six guys at least, and he gets whacked. Who the hell cares? And there’s this third guy who takes out the killer, puts the wife-beating bastard in the joint, takes care of his wife and kids, pays his taxes, and he’s the one you want to put away? That makes no sense to me, none.”
“Yeah, Eddie, you’re right. That’s the difference between you and me.”
Eddie got out of the chair, stretched and turned toward the door.
“One more thing,” Bolger asked, looking up from his recorder. “You said Harris got married. Was . . . ?”
“His wife’s name is Lynn,” Eddie said over his shoulder then pulled the door closed behind him.