“We’re good. Now tell me what you had for Melendez.”
“I been copping from Malik since his name was Melvin and I know the pretty lady was askin’ around about Malik’s new friends. Am I right?”
“You’re the new fucking Kreskin.”
“Who?”
“Forget it.”
“Whatever. Well, one day, a few months back, I went around to Malik’s and I seen him with dis guy I went to Xaverian with and they was doin’ some business, if you know what I mean.”
“This guy have a name?”
“Frankie Motta.”
I twisted my hands around Vinny Cee’s collar and lifted him over by the railing.
“Listen to me you lying piece of shit. Frankie Motta has to be fifty-five, sixty fucking years old. I don’t like having my time and money wasted.”
Vinny Cee flailed his arms and kicked his legs frantically as he tried choking out some words. I relaxed my grip enough to let his lies flow a little more easily.
“Frankie Junior.”
“Frankie Junior what?”
“His son. I went to school with Frankie Motta’s son.”
I let him down, but not free. “How many years ago was that?”
“We got out in ’76, I think.”
“Were you tight, you and Frankie Junior?”
“Nah, Frankie was always braggin’ about how tough his old man was. He thought he was tough too, but he was a punk. Nobody would touch him because a his dad’s rep.”
“I can see that. Second generation’s always got it too easy.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind, Vinny,” I said, smoothing out his rumpled clothing. “Nothing you’ve got to worry about.”
“I understand stuff.” Oy, there were those hurt feelings again. “I ain’t stupid, ya know.”
Who was I to argue? Maybe he hadn’t looked in a mirror just recently. Or maybe he had, and all he saw were thin white lines and razor blades.
When I first met Wit, he literally lived out of a suitcase. It’s not like the guy went from one Motel 6 to another. From the Pierre to the Plaza to the Waldorf was more likely. Sometimes I think his rootless-ness was a hedge against the grief over his grandson’s murder. It was as if he hoped having no permanent address would make it harder for the grief to find him. Worked about as well as his drinking.
These days he lived in a tidy, three-bedroom apartment on Fifth Avenue in the Village. For Wit, this was blue collar stuff. Of course, it was really about as blue collar as a private jet. But given the polo pony world out of which he’d fallen, it was a start. The package of documents that Fishbein had faxed to Klaus, and Klaus to Wit, was waiting for me in the lobby. There was also a copy of the
I was going to leave it at that, but then I remembered about Carmella’s grandmother and the promise I’d made. Earlier, I had intended to ask Ronnie to ask Miriam to do it. But under the circumstances, I figured I’d asked quite enough of them, too much. Wit, on the other hand, always liked to be asked favors. Made him feel needed.
“Wit,” I said when I got upstairs, “how’s your Spanish?”
Rico was a lot more receptive to my presence when I showed back up at his place. It was late. He was less drunk and, as he was quick to mention, Marisa had thrown him a freebie because of my financial largesse.
“A fuckin’ freebie! Man, I almost felt like a cop again,” he cooed.
I felt sick.
That summed up the difference between us. He had seen his being a cop as a means to an end, something to use for his own good. Naively, I suppose, I’d come to see it as a way to do some good. Strange, I had almost laughed at Carmella Melendez for voicing that same sentiment to me. What’s that they say, you criticize in other people what you despise about yourself? I’d outlived my naivete. I hoped Melendez would as well. I suspect that hole in her shoulder would go a long way to that end.
“What’s that?” he asked, pointing at the envelope in my hand.
“The personnel file of a detective who I think tried to kill me.”
“This have anything to do with what happened in Red Hook last night?”
“You know about that?”
“Name me five people in New York that don’t.”
“I get your point. And yeah, it’s got everything to do with Red Hook.”
“You must be getting close.”
“Not that I’m sure exactly what it is I’m close to. All I know is that Larry must’ve been mixed up with the Anello Family.”
“The Anellos. Get the fuck outta here!” Rico was skeptical. “They ain’t even an active family anymore, not since the Russians swallowed up their territory.”
“You kept up on things when you were-”
“-away. Yeah, they have papers and TV in prison. When you do your bid in isolation, you got all the time in the world to keep up and think.”
“Sorry.”
“You and me, we’re way past sorry, Moe.”
“Way past.”
“So. .”
“So I think the Anello Family is trying to make a comeback. At least with the drug trade.”
“Drugs? That don’t sound like Larry. Not his style, especially him knowing what happened to me.”
“I know, but Marge told me he grew up with Frankie Motta.”
“So what? We all grew up with connected guys. That don’t mean shit.”
“They were close there for a while when Larry first got on the job. Then Marge said they had a falling-out, but Larry wouldn’t talk about it.”
“Maybe Larry owed him.”
“We’re talking a long time to owe somebody,” I said.
“You owe somebody, you owe somebody. Owing these guys a favor don’t come with a time limit. Believe me, I know.”
“Larry never owed anybody anything. It was everybody that owed Larry. It was his strategy, the way he built the rungs on his ladder.”
“Not for nothing, Moe, we didn’t know Larry Mac before we all served together. Could’ve been an old debt.”
“But it’s Motta’s kid fronting the drug move, not his old man.”
“Don’t mean the old man ain’t behind it, even if the kid’s leading the charge.”
“I guess not. Look, Rico, I’m beat. I’m gonna crash out on your floor, okay?”
“You don’t mind the roaches, they won’t mind you.”
“That’s comforting.”
“Hey, toss me that file. I don’t sleep so good sometimes.”
“Here.” I handed it to him after removing the
Although a lot of what Rico said made sense, there was definitely something else at play. There was more here than an old debt and new drugs-there had to be. No one kills cops without a good reason, especially not the mob. Bad for business, killing cops. And what about Malik Jabbar, Kalisha Pardee, and Larry Mac? I was missing something.
I know the world is a messy place and that to expect things to snap together like Legos is crazy, but I
