Conseco’s murder. So it was easy to see why Carmella thought they were connected: Tillman is ignored and dies- cause — and Alta is murdered shortly thereafter- effect.
Problem is, humans sometimes put the cause and effect stamp on things that are completely unrelated. I had a psych professor in college who used the example of a little boy tapping a light pole with a stick. One time the kid taps the streetlamp and just as the stick makes contact with the pole, all the lights in the city go out. Mightn’t the kid or someone watching the kid link the two things together and attribute the blackout to the boy’s tapping the streetlight? They might, but they’d be wrong, dead wrong. The same danger existed here. I had to be careful not to fall into the trap that had already snared Carmella. I had to work backwards from Alta’s murder, not forward from Tillman’s death.
SIX
Located just past Shell Road where 86th Street breaks off at an angle from Avenue X, the Gelato Grotto was a Brooklyn institution, a place that was already there when I was born and would be there after I was dead-the odds on that having just recently improved. I’d eaten at the Grotto a hundred times over the years with friends, my brother and sister, high school dates, but not because I liked the pizza. The regular pizza never failed to disappoint. Their Sicilian was better, but nothing to get excited about. I was partial to Totonno’s in Coney Island or Di Fara’s on Avenue J. Still, it was Brooklyn pizza and, like Ferguson May, the late philosopher of the 60th Precinct, used to say, “Sex and Brooklyn pizza got a lot in common. Even when they’re bad, they’re good.”
For me, I kept going back because of the gelato. The Grotto was the first Italian eatery of any kind I could remember that sold homemade gelato. I’m talking the early ’60s here, when most Americans thought Spam kebobs with pineapple chunks and green bean casseroles were gourmet food and everyone called pasta spaghetti. No matter how disappointed I was by their pizza, the gelato was compensation enough. Another thing that set the Grotto apart was how it looked. Unlike the usual cramped Brooklyn pizzeria, the Grotto was an al fresco affair with plastic trees and plastic vines and outdoor tables with colored umbrellas on a concrete patio surrounded by curved stucco walls. It was kind of goofy and felt as much like a secluded grotto as falling down stairs felt like skydiving, but it was just so Brooklyn.
Sadly, Alta Conseco wasn’t the first person to take her last gasping breaths within the stucco confines of the Grotto. The place had a history of violence stretching back many decades. I guess what made the place so popular also contributed to the violence. Whereas most pizza places are strictly local neighborhood affairs, the Grotto drew crowds from all over the borough. It was located close to the Marlboro Housing Projects and the rail yards. You had a lot of people mixing-Jews, Italians, Irish, African-Americans, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Russians, Chinese, Pakistanis, Mafia-types, bikers, cops-who didn’t necessarily want to hold hands and sing campfire songs together. You add a little alcohol to that mix on a sweltering summer night and watch out.
I didn’t figure to barge in, flash my old cop badge, and get the information I was looking for. The days when I could use my badge and have people think I was still on the job had long since come and gone. The only thing I could flash with any credibility these days was my AARP card. But sometimes you don’t have to improvise a strategy. You just have to get lucky, and I did.
In 1977, the year I fucked up my knee and got put out to pasture by the NYPD, Nick Roussis was in his second year at the Six-O. Nick was a good guy, but the job wasn’t for him. He quit to go into the family business. The Roussis family owned several ethnic restaurants throughout Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. We’d run into each other over the years and Carmella and I had done a job for him, flushing out a guy in the main office whom the family suspected of embezzling funds. That was in the mid-’90s and I hadn’t seen him since, but there he was-a few pounds heavier, hair thinner and grayer-chewing out the guy behind the clam bar at the Grotto.
“Tony, how many fuckin’ times I gotta tell ya, wiggle the knife to open a slit and then cut around the clam? You don’t do that, ya gonna slice t’rough yer freakin’ palm. Okay?”
I waited for Nick to walk away from the raw bar before approaching him. He saw me coming and I saw the recognition in his eyes.
I held out my hand to him for a shake, but he used it to pull me close and hug the breath out of me. When he was done with that, he playfully shoved me aside.
“Moses fuckin’ Prager! How are ya, ya old cop bastard? It’s been what, five years?”
“Fifteen.”
“Fifteen! Nah, get the fuck outta here.”
“Fifteen.”
“Jesus, time flies.”
“Yeah, don’t remind me. So how you doing, you old Greek prick?”
“Good, good. So ya came to see me, Moe?”
“Not at all. I’m still getting over the fact you’re here. I knew your family owned some pizzerias, but I didn’t know you owned this place.”
“Yeah, sure. We bought in after you did that job for us and then about ten years ago, when the original owners got too old to handle it, we bought the whole shebang. We made a nice deal with them and everybody lived happily ever after.”
“Business is good?” I asked.
“The economy is killin’ some of our restaurants, but this place is recession-proof. People come from all over the map to eat at the Grotto.”
“Glad to hear it, but what the hell are you working the floor for instead of sitting back at headquarters counting your money?”
“I’m no good in an office, Moe. I go into the office a few times a week, but I’m bored there. I need to get my hands dirty. Keeps me alive. So how’s that hot-lookin’ partner of yours?”
“Carmella? Christ, Nick, it has been a long time and it would take a week to explain all that’s happened between then and now. I’m basically retired from the security business and I spend most of my time at the wine stores these days.”
“C’mon, let me get you some lunch or somethin’. You look like you haven’t eaten a good meal or been in the sun since December.”
We sat a table in the shade. I had a slice of Sicilian-pretending to like it-and a beer. Nick had a salad and a dozen clams.
“Between you, me, and the wall,” Nick said, “I always hated the pizza here, but, hey, it helped send a whole generation of Roussis family kids to college. So, now that lunch is done, ya wanna tell me what yer really doin’ here? I know ya didn’t come for the pizza.”
“I’m doing someone a favor, looking into something.”
Nick’s jovial face turned stony cold. “What thing is that?”
“Alta Conseco’s murder.”
Nick’s voice got downright icy. “I thought you were retired.”
“I am. This is a favor and don’t worry, neither me or the client are looking to hurt anybody. This isn’t an insurance thing and I’m not working for a lawyer looking to sue you or the business. You have my word on that.”
I offered him my right hand again and this time he shook it. Of course, the next words out of my mouth were a lie.
“I’m working for the Tillman family, the guy who-”
“I know. He’s the guy that cold-hearted bitch and her partner left to die. Can you believe that shit? I can’t help thinkin’ what if that was my mom or one of my kids. If it was someone from Tillman’s family that clipped her, I can’t say I’d blame ’im.”
“Nice.”
“I’m just sayin’ is all…”
“It’s okay. Will you help me?” I changed gears.
“Anyway I can.”
My instinct was right. If I’d told him the truth, he’d have closed his shell tighter than any clam he had on ice
