Rizzo's Fire

doing this a lot of years. Now I’m near the end. I been laboring in obscurity for a long time, just the way I wanted it. No flashy squad, no silk stocking precinct, just me and Brooklyn, for better or worse. And I managed to build a solid rep anyway. Cops all over the city have heard of me and all the bosses know how good I am at this, but you know what, Cil? It’s gettin’ a little old for me. Sometimes, lately, I kinda feel like I’m the greatest chef in… in Ireland. At the end of the day, nobody really gives a damn who boiled the fuckin’ potatoes.

“But… if we develop this, if we tie into Mallard, break that case, I go out on the A-list.”

Rizzo leaned close to her. “And you. What about you? Your stock goes way up. You’d have the friggin’ politicians tripping over their mistresses rushin’ to get you promoted. You could call your own tune. Think about it.”

Priscilla held his dark brown eyes. A moment elapsed.

“And if somebody else does get killed, Joe. That’d be okay with you?”

He shrugged. “I explained that already. Nobody else is getting killed. And besides, what do you think, we hand this over to Manhattan South and they solve it in twenty minutes? With the resources Mike can provide us, you and me got the same chance as Manhattan does. Hell, we got a better chance.” He paused and turned back in his seat, once again gazing out at the snowflakes dancing across the car’s hood.

Priscilla spoke to his profile. “Because you’re smarter than they are. Right?”

He nodded without turning to her. “Your call, Cil. I’ll leave it up to you. I want to poke around some, see where it goes. I told you why. I’ll leave it up to you.”

After a long moment, she spoke, her tone pensive. “Okay, Joe. We’ll take a look. But if it’s starts getting heavy, we gotta reconsider.”

Rizzo reached for his shoulder harness, pulling it forward, securing it.

“Okay then, let’s go. I’ll tell you how I think we should handle it.”

“Where to?” she asked, as she turned and secured her own shoulder harness.

“Well, first, back to Lauria’s place. We need to get that suitcase and the box full of rejection slips. And anything else related to his writing, even that old IBM. It could all be evidence. I want the suitcase dusted for prints, even though we were pawin’ at it without gloves on. Maybe the killer got careless when he searched it for Lauria’s copy of the play and left some prints on it. We have to inventory the contents of both suitcases, the one from the apartment and the one from the garage. Then we’ll secure them in the precinct evidence locker. The chain of possession is fucked up enough already, we gotta start stabilizin’ it, recording everything. So, we’ll go to Lauria’s place, then the precinct.”

“Okay,” she said.

“But first,” he added, “head back up Rockaway Parkway. Find me a candy store.”

He smiled into her questioning eyes.

“I gotta pick up one absolutely last pack of cigarettes.”

AFTER THEY had secured all the gathered evidence in the precinct’s property locker and were seated at Priscilla’s desk in the squad room, Rizzo asked her for one of the two copies of Lauria’s play she had run off.

“I guess I’ll have to read this crap,” he said absently. Then he pulled the note pad from his jacket and dropped it onto her desk. “Do me a favor. Contact the Air Force and get confirmation that Carbone’s brother’s been overseas at least the last couple a months. Check if he had any leave in October or early this month. All the names and numbers are in my notes.”

Priscilla nodded, glancing at the note pad. “Okay, and I’ll call the cousins on Long Island and over in Jersey, size them up a little. Like we did with Carbone and her husband.”

Rizzo nodded. “All right, thanks. See if they can point us at any other relatives or family friends who mighta had any kinda relationship with Robbie. Anything at all they can add to this.”

“I’m on it, boss,” she said. Rizzo moved back to his desk, checked his address book, then punched Mike McQueen’s work number into the phone.

“Comstat, Detective McQueen,” he heard through the line.

“Hello, Mike, it’s Joe.”

“Joe, hi, how are you?”

“Couldn’t be better, kiddo, couldn’t be better. You got a minute?”

“Sure, what’s up?”

“Well, me and Cil got us a situation here. I’d like to discuss it with you. Face-to-face.”

There was a pause. “Everything okay?” McQueen asked, the caution in his tone not fully disguised by the superimposed casualness.

“Right as rain, buddy, right as rain. You workin’ tomorrow?”

“Yeah, Joe, I’m steady eight-to-fours, weekends off.”

“Well, good for you, banker’s hours. Good for you. Listen, how ’bout lunch? Down at Pete’s maybe, like last time, or I can come into the city. I’m off tomorrow.”

“Sure, Pete’s is fine, just five minutes across the bridge from the Plaza. How about one o’clock?”

“Great. Looking forward to it. See you then.”

“Okay,” McQueen said. “Is Cil comin’?”

Rizzo hesitated. “Not this time, Mike. Next time, maybe.”

Now it was McQueen who hesitated. “Okay,” he said. “But everything is all right?”

“Yep, everything is just fine,” Rizzo said. “But we don’t need Cil along this time.”

Another hesitation. “Well, okay, Joe. See you tomorrow.” The line went dead.

Everything was just fine, Rizzo thought. Just fine.

FRIDAY AT one o’clock, Rizzo smiled across the table in Pete’s Downtown Restaurant. “Well, you sure look fancy today, Mike. Another new suit?”

“Yeah,” McQueen said. “To celebrate my bump up to second grade.” He waved for a waiter, then turned to Rizzo.

“Double Dewar’s, rocks?” Mike asked Rizzo.

“Sure.”

With drinks before them and their lunch orders placed, Rizzo raised his glass.

“To us, Partner. And to the future.”

After sipping his drink, McQueen rotated the Manhattan glass slowly between his fingers, then asked, “So, what’s up?”

Rizzo filled him in on the Lauria case, stressing its possible connection to the murder of internationally acclaimed playwright Avery Mallard.

“Think about it, Mike,” he said softly. “What other explanation could there be for Lauria having that play stashed at his sister’s, and not one copy of it in his apartment? What possible explanation could there be for the existence of that manuscript? No matter how you slice and dice, it comes back to one simple fact: Lauria and Mallard were somehow connected. Connected by that play. And whoever killed Lauria most likely searched the apartment, specifically lookin’ for the play, found it and took it. Lauria was a real low-tech guy, there ain’t any cyberspace copies of that play floatin’ around. The killer felt confident he had the situation under control.”

Rizzo smiled at McQueen. “We just fell into it, kid.”

“Well,” Mike replied, “it may be quite a lucky stumble for you.”

“You bet,” Rizzo said. “Like Yogi Berra once said, I’d rather be lucky than good.”

McQueen laughed. “Or better yet, good and lucky.”

Rizzo took a sip of his Scotch, then continued.

“If this is Mallard whackin’ Lauria, and then somebody evening the score by killing Mallard, or even if it’s just an interested third party killed them both, there’s gotta be a link between the two victims.”

McQueen nodded. “Yeah, well, good luck with that. Some Brooklyn loser and a celebrated Pulitzer Prize-winning New York playwright. Shit, I studied Mallard in English lit class at NYU. The guy is-was-a friggin’ living legend.”

“Yeah, so I hear.” Rizzo drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “So what’s the word at the Plaza, Mike? About the Mallard case.”

“Not much. Manhattan South is on it, with some Major Case support. The brass is all over it. Lots of pressure to nab somebody, and time is passing. The case is getting cold.”

Rizzo nodded. “What angle are they playin’?”