Rizzo’s Fire

CHAPTER FOUR

“ So, Gary,” Rizzo asked in the cramped confines of Gary Tucci’s hospital room. “How you doing?”

It was nine-fifteen, just after the official end of visiting hours. Rizzo and Jackson, after making their introductions, had taken seats next to the large hospital bed. Tucci, pale and drained-looking, sat propped against three pillows, his wounded foot elevated and bandaged.

The young man tried to smile. “I’ve had better nights, Sarge,” he said. “Lot better.”

“I’ll bet,” Rizzo said. “Then again, you had worse, too. Like for instance, last night-when this guy shot you.”

Tucci nodded, his lips tightly compressed.

Rizzo shifted in his seat, pulling out his note pad.

“Why don’t you tell us what happened, Gary,” Priscilla asked. “Start from the beginning at the pizza place.”

“Yeah,” Rizzo added, clicking his Parker. “Tell us.”

The young man sighed and nodded again. After a moment, he began his narrative, adding nothing Rizzo and Priscilla hadn’t heard from the other witnesses. When he was finished, his eyes were moist with the memory, but no tears escaped.

Rizzo shook his head. “Sorry, kid,” he said, “but sometimes shit like this happens.”

The words brought a pensive look to the man’s face. “Yeah,” Tucci said. “Shit does happen.”

“Ever see this guy before Monday?” Priscilla asked.

“No. Never.”

“Do you think you can I.D. him?”

“Absolutely.” Here Tucci’s expression hardened. “I got close enough to ’im to clean his clock pretty friggin’ good. That uppercut was always my money punch.”

Now Rizzo spoke. “Yeah,” he said, “Nunzio was pretty impressed. Said you knocked the guy up on his toes.”

Tucci nodded. “Damned right. And you know what? I pulled that punch. I didn’t wanna knock the guy’s jaw up into the base of his god-damned skull. I figured he was just an asshole with too many drinks in him. If I’da known he was gonna cripple me, I’da beat him to death.”

Rizzo reached out and patted Tucci on his uninjured leg. “You handled it just right. You couldn’t know the guy’d come gunnin’ for you.”

Tucci shook his head angrily. “He told me he’d kill me, said it right out loud. Son of a bitch, if I believed him, I woulda pounded his face into that pizza booth.”

“Okay, Gary,” Priscilla said gently. “Don’t be getting all wound up, popping a stitch or spiking your pressure.”

“Okay,” Tucci said, “okay.” Then he smiled. “At least I cracked the asshole’s teeth for him. I can settle for that, I guess.”

“Good for you,” Priscilla said.

Rizzo rubbed an eye, soothing a slight tic. “Broke his teeth?” he asked. “How you know that?”

“I heard it,” Tucci said. “When I connected with that short right uppercut and slammed his mouth shut. I’ve heard it before, in the ring. If a guy don’t bite down right on his mouthpiece and he takes a hard hit, ’specially an uppercut, he can bust a tooth or two. This guy in the pizza place, he didn’t have a mouthpiece. And from the sound, I’d say he cracked more than one tooth. I hope he loses ’em, the bastard.”

Rizzo sat back and turned to Priscilla.

“The kid just saved us some shoe leather, Cil,” he said. Then, turning back to Tucci, added, “We just may get this guy. Lock his ass up. He may have some rough nights ahead of him in stir on Riker’s Island.”

Rizzo stood. “We’ll see,” he said.

Later, riding down in the elevator, Rizzo turned to Priscilla.

“You know,” he said, “I was so impressed with your bar idea and my hunter theory, I coulda missed this.”

Priscilla nodded. “Yeah. Busted teeth. The guy had to get treated for that.”

“Yeah,” Rizzo responded. “And if our other idea ’bout him being local is correct, then dollars to doughnuts his family dentist is from the neighborhood, too. Hell, my guy practices about two blocks from where I live. Has his office right on the lower level of his house on Tenth Avenue.”

“So we track him through the dentists, not the bars or hunting leads,” Priscilla said.

“Yes,” Rizzo said as they reached the lobby and left the elevator. “The bar and hunter stuff, that was all theoretical. The busted teeth, that’s fact. We go with fact over theory every time.”

As they neared the gray Impala, parked at the side of the ambulance entrance ramp, Rizzo shook his head.

“Now I gotta go back to Vince and tell him to hold off on that artist request. And him the guy pushin’ us to see the vic before running off half cocked, like a couple a half-assed rookies.”

Priscilla laughed, her face beaming. “Instead a just one half-assed rookie, eh, Joe?” she said.

“Yeah,” Rizzo answered, pointedly glancing behind his partner. “But from where I’m standin’, there ain’t nothin’ half-assed about you, honey.”

Again Priscilla laughed. “Yeah,” she said. “Karen mentions that once in a while. With the same dopey grin you got now.”

When Priscilla arrived at the Six-Two at four p.m. Wednesday, she found her partner at his desk, sipping coffee from a paper cup and leafing idly through a Daily News.

As she reached the desk, Rizzo greeted her. She sat down. “I thought I’d find you workin’ the horn to all the dentists in the precinct,” she said to him. “Isn’t that the excuse you used to grab some early overtime? Takin’ a little break, are we?”

“Nope,” Rizzo said. “Done with that. I hit gold on the eleventh call. Guy over on Twenty-fourth Avenue.” He looked down at the scribbled note sitting atop a messy pile of papers on his desk. “A Dr. William Davenport, DDS. I spoke to his receptionist or secretary or what ever they call themselves. She said they had to schedule an emergency appointment for nine a.m. Tuesday morning, two hours before their regular office hours. The call came in Monday night through the doc’s ser vice.”

Priscilla smiled. “Let me guess: couple of broken teeth?”

Rizzo nodded. “Yep. Two cracked molars and a chipped incisor.” He paused and sipped at his coffee. “Wanna hear the best part?”

Priscilla shifted in her seat, crossing her leg. “It gets better?” she asked.

“Yeah. Guy said he broke the teeth in a little accident he had. Seems he was out huntin’ all weekend, and Monday night, guess what happened?”

“A bear smacked his dumb-ass head and busted his teeth?” Priscilla asked.

“Not exactly,” Rizzo said. “Seems he tripped on something and banged his jaw. On the tailgate of his pickup truck.”

“Well, well.”

“Yeah. And right about then, the woman I was talkin’ to started getting a little uptight. Thought she was fuckin’ with doctor-patient stuff, so she put the doc on. His office hours end at five today. We got an appointment with him then.” Rizzo peered at Priscilla’s mouth. “You got any dental issues? Maybe we can get you a free cleaning or something.”

She stood up. “I’ll pass, Joe. Tell you what, I have to fill out the union forms so they can switch me over from the PBA. I need to get them to the delegate’s in-box today. So how far is it to this guy’s office?”

“Ten minutes. You got plenty of time. I’ll be waitin’ here.”

Just before five, Rizzo at the wheel, the two detectives drove toward the dental office of Dr. William Davenport.

“So how’s the redecorating project going?” Rizzo asked.

“Okay, I guess. Don’t ask what it’s gonna cost. Me and Karen coulda done the whole deal, painted all four rooms in a couple of days. For two, three hundred bucks.”

“Yeah, well, I’d be happy I was you,” Rizzo said. “Get the in-laws to pick up the tab, avoid all that aggravation and mess. You oughta count your blessings.”

“Yeah, I know. And they can afford it, that’s for sure. But this is just an apartment, not a condo. Lot a money to spend on something we don’t own.”

Rizzo slowed for a light and glanced over at his partner.

“What kinda building?” he asked.

“Nice old brownstone. On East Thirty-ninth off Third Avenue. We’re up on the second floor with one other tenant.”

Rizzo nodded, watching the traffic light. “Sounds nice. But like I tell my kids, rent is money down the drain. You gotta own something, build up the equity. The old Italians around here, the old-timers from the other side, you give ’em a choice between twenty thousand shares of some stock and a quarter acre of land, they’ll go with the land every time.”

“Depending on the stock, real estate might be the way to go,” Priscilla said. “But right now I’m not looking to buy. Karen will never leave Manhattan, she’s too into it. And anything in the city is way out of my league, dollar-wise.”

“Yeah, okay,” Rizzo said. “But Karen’s a high-priced lawyer making big bucks. Proportion it out and buy something soon. You won’t regret it.”

After a moment or two of silence, Priscilla replied. “I’d rather wait. We’ll do one-year leases, then see,” she said.

Rizzo grunted and eased the car forward as the light changed.

“Sounds like cold feet to me,” he said. “You lookin’ to keep the door half open, are you?”

She shook her head. “No. Not really. But there’s no hurry with anything. We can chill for a while.”

“Okay, Partner,” Rizzo said. “But remember this, somethin’ else I tell my girls. You buy together, better odds you stay together. Financial ties have saved more marriages than Dear Abby.”

“I think Dear Abby is dead, Joe,” Priscilla said.

“Well, then, Dear Whoever-the-fuck. You get my point. You tangle up your finances, it’s more of a commitment. So if Karen burns the toast once too often, you can’t just say, ‘Fuck off, Sweetheart,’ and head for the door. It’s like insurance, Cil. Believe me.”

“Well, Karen and I aren’t married.”

Rizzo shrugged. “Civil-unioned, married, what ever. Same shit.”

Priscilla shook her head. “We ain’t anything yet. Just together, that’s all. I get my medical and pension through the job, she gets hers through the law firm. Don’t be gettin’ me overcommitted here.”

Rizzo glanced at her as he wove through the traffic on Twenty-fourth Avenue.

“Didn’t you recently tell me you were done trollin’ around? When that redheaded nurse was droolin’ over you?”

“Sure,” she said with a small smile. “But you never know. That’s all I’m saying-you never know.”

“I get it, Cil. So, you’re the guy in this couple, eh?”

“Yeah, right,” she said. “Let me explain somethin’; there ain’t no guy. That’s sorta the point, Joe. We’re both female. Don’t be stereotyping my situation to fit your fantasies. Didn’t Mike warn you about me, Partner?”

“You bet. He warned me I’d have your shoe up my ass the first week we worked together.”

Priscilla laughed with Rizzo. “You’re right on schedule, paesan, ” she said, shaking her head gently. “Right on schedule.”

He slowed the car and angled in toward the curb to an open parking space. “This is it,” he said, glancing at the address on the building. Then, turning to his partner, added, “Just remember what I said. About the finances. Insurance, Cil. Doesn’t hurt to have some insurance.”

She released her shoulder harness and reached for the door handle. “Okay, Daddy,” she said. “I got it. In a year or so, they may reach me on the sergeant’s list. Sooner maybe, with all those retirements comin’ up. Then maybe I can swing my end of the nut a little better. So, we’ll see.”

Rizzo shut down the Impala’s engine and nodded.

“Good,” he said. “Now let’s go to work.”

“ To be perfectly honest, Sergeant Rizzo, he’s never been one of my favorite patients.”

Dr. Davenport, a silver-haired, stout man of about sixty, gazed across his broad, neat desk at Rizzo and Jackson.

“And I can’t say I’m overly surprised to have police asking about him.”

Rizzo slipped his note pad from the inner pocket of his jacket.

“Why is that, Doctor?” he asked. “He ever get rough in here?”

The dentist shook his head. “No, not really. But he’s… unpleasant. A bit nasty with my staff. He usually seems in a bad mood, angry about something. So it’s no real surprise that his injuries were sustained in an altercation and not a fall, as he told me.”

Priscilla leaned in slightly.

“Can you describe him, sir?” she asked. “Height, weight, age, features?”

Davenport shrugged. “Certainly,” he said. He then gave a description matching those given by the witnesses and victim.

The detectives exchanged glances, then Rizzo clicked his Parker.

“What was that name and address, Doc?” he asked.

Davenport stood. “His name is Carl Jurgens,” he said. “I’ll need to get his folder for the rest. My assistant was supposed to put it on my desk before she left, but I guess she forgot. Give me a moment.”

“Sure,” Rizzo said pleasantly. “Thanks.”

When the dentist left the room, Rizzo leaned over to Priscilla. “Good help is hard to find,” he said.

“Be thankful you don’t have that problem,” she answered.

When Davenport returned, Rizzo jotted down Jurgens’s home address and phone number. Then he raised his eyes to the man.

“How’s he pay you, Doc?” Rizzo asked. “Cash, check, insurance?”

He quickly scanned the folder’s contents.

“Well, let me see… my staff usually handles billing.” After a moment, he found it. “Here it is,” he said. “Insurance. He pays a small yearly deductible, then we accept his insurance assignment as payment in full.”

“Is the insurance through an employer?” Rizzo asked.

The dentist ran his finger across the paper before him. “Yes,” he said, “it appears to be.”

“Who’s the employer?” Priscilla asked.

“Gordon’s Sporting Equipment,” Davenport answered, raising his eyes to Priscilla’s. “The big outdoor supplies store.”

Rizzo nodded. “National chain, I think,” he said. Then, shifting in his seat, he asked, “Any follow-up visits scheduled, Doc? For Jurgens?”

Again the doctor scanned the file. “Yes. He needs to come in when his permanent crowns are ready. That should be in about two weeks. But I see we have him scheduled for Monday afternoon first.”

“This coming Monday?” Priscilla asked.

“Yes,” Davenport said, nodding. “That would be for the chipped incisor.” He looked from one detective to the next. “I need to restore it with a bonded filling.”

“What time is that appointment, Doctor?” Priscilla asked.

He frowned. “I’m really not comfortable with all of this, Detective,” he said. “My assistant opened the door here by telling you about his injuries, and I’ve added a bit to that. I’d rather not be involved any further. If you’re thinking about intercepting him when he comes for his follow-up care, I’d really rather you…”

Rizzo raised a hand in a calming gesture. “Don’t worry, Doc,” he said soothingly. “That’s one way we could do it, but not the only way. We’ve got his address and employer, you don’t need to be involved any further. When he shows up Monday, treat him the same way you normally would. I wouldn’t mention any of this to him, and tell your staff not to, either.”

Rizzo stood, indicating the interview was over. Jackson rose also.

“ ’Course,” Rizzo said as he reached across the desk to shake hands, “don’t be surprised if he misses that Monday appointment. He may have a more pressing engagement.”

The following afternoon, Thursday, at four o’clock, Joe Rizzo once again worked the phone in the Six-Two detective squad room. After some fifteen minutes, he replaced the black plastic receiver on its cradle and stood. He crossed the room and sat heavily in the chair beside Priscilla’s desk.

“Just got off the phone with Gordon’s Sporting Equipment,” he told her. “Their corporate office over in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. You ready for this? Our man Jurgens works in the Brooklyn store. Over on Bay and Shore Parkways, right here in the precinct. Gordon’s is big on hunting stuff-rifles, tents, knives, clothes, stuff like that. They’re one of only two places in the whole precinct. Imagine? We’da been showing that artist sketch around, maybe showin’ it to Jurgens himself and askin’ him if he ever saw the guy.” Rizzo laughed. “Who figured the guy worked in a place like that?”

Priscilla shrugged, a smile touching her lips. “This job stopped surprisin’ me a long time ago,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said. “Sometimes I forget how it is.”

“Did you call over to the place?” she asked.

Rizzo shook his head. “Didn’t have to. Friggin’ Nazi at corporate was all anxious to show me what good citizens these hunter types are. He went into the company payroll file. Jurgens is scheduled to work till closing to night, nine o’clock.”

“You wanna make the pinch at the store?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I think. Guy seems to be a boozer, chances are the best time to catch him sober is at work. And he’ll probably be less likely to give us a hard time if he isn’t tanked up. Plus, he may be embarrassed in front of his coworkers and just deny it all and come along quietly.” Rizzo paused for a moment. “Yeah. I think we grab him at work,” he continued. “After we bring him in, we’ll print him and have my buddy Torres compare the partial from the shell casing. That should be the clincher.”

“Let’s go, then,” Priscilla said. “We take him now, I can run him through Central Booking and still get home by midnight.”

“What makes you figure I’d stick you with the paperwork?” Rizzo asked lightly.

“Shit,” said Priscilla, “I never seen an old pro take a collar on straight time. We pinch the guy at ten to night, you’d be shoving me aside for the overtime. But not this early in the tour.”

“I forget sometimes, Cil,” Rizzo said, “you been on the job for a while.”

She nodded. “Long enough, brother. Long enough.”

“You run that DMV?” Rizzo asked.

“Yeah. Jurgens has a two-year-old black Ford F-one-fifty pickup registered to his home address on Stillwell Avenue.”

“Good,” Rizzo said. “Another nail in his coffin. You haven’t been out in the field with that gold shield for a full week yet, and you cleared two cases. You’re a friggin’ star already.”

“ We cleared two cases, Joe. And I think it’s you who’s the star.”

Rizzo laughed. “Yeah. I forget that, too, sometimes. C’mon, let’s go grab this asshole. I got a feelin’ he’s about to lose his God-given right to bear arms.”

Later, as Priscilla drove the Impala toward the large shopping center that housed Gordon’s Sporting Equipment, Rizzo cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. Priscilla glanced over.

“What?” she asked.

“Well,” Rizzo said, wrestling a piece of Nicorette from its packaging and putting it into his mouth. “This guy Jurgens. Chances are he’ll come along nice, like a good boy, but, you never know. He could decide to get stupid. Real stupid.” Rizzo looked at his partner’s profile, his eyes hooded.

“You up for some shit, Cil?” he asked.

She blinked hard. “What?” she asked.

Rizzo shrugged. “Just the two of us. If he wants to rock and roll, we gotta get it done. I’m just sayin’…”

She shot him a hard look, her dark eyes blazing.

“Yeah, Goombah, I hear what you saying. You ever ask Mike that question?”

Again, Rizzo shrugged. “Not in so many words,” he said mildly.

“Any of your male partners?” she demanded.

With a weary smile, Rizzo said, “Yeah, now that you mention it. One or two.”

Priscilla swung the Impala to the side of the avenue, stopping sharply and slamming it into park. The car rocked against the inertia as she turned to Rizzo.

“On my worst day,” she said, her eyes hard, “I can kick Mike’s butt and yours, too. Don’t worry ’bout it. Don’t you ever worry ’bout it. And you can just kiss my black ass, Joe, for asking me that question.”

“Okay, I hear you. Loud and clear.” He leaned toward her and smiled. “You can’t blame a guy for askin’.”

She shook her head. “Damn,” she said. “You are some piece of work.” She slipped the car into gear and pulled away. “We can handle this dude, Joe,” she said. “ I can handle him myself. You just suck on that gum, brother, and chill out.”

The shore Shopping Plaza was a sprawling, L-shaped complex of stores, built on a landfill that extended into the waters of Lower New York Bay. To the north, the Verrazano Bridge arched over The Narrows, connecting the boroughs of Brooklyn and Staten Island. The mall housed a huge Pathmark supermarket, a Citibank boasting a drive-thru appendage, a half dozen specialty shops, and the anchor of the complex, Gordon’s Sporting Equipment. The shopping plaza was only a short drive from the Sixty-second Precinct building.

As she drove across Shore Parkway and prepared to turn left into the complex’s large outdoor parking lot, Priscilla sighed.

“I got some mixed feelings about this,” she said.

“About what?” Rizzo asked.

“About picking up this jackass where he works. I know the guy’s a fool and deserves a kick in the ass, but it’s kinda cold, grabbing him in front of his coworkers.”

“Better to cuff him in front of the wife and kiddies?” Rizzo asked. “There’s no easy way to do this. Besides, he fucked up, he gets what he earned. End of story. When you were a uniform you made spontaneous collars, usually right at the scene. This is how detectives make arrests.”

Priscilla shrugged. “I know,” she said. “Just don’t seem right, is all.”

Rizzo grunted. “Let me explain about that, partner. There is no right. There is no wrong. There just is. ”

She angled the Impala toward Gordon’s, accelerating across the sparsely occupied parking lot.

“Yeah,” she said. “Mike told me about that. Said it was some of the nonsense your old man handed you when you were a kid.”

Rizzo opened the glove compartment and reached for his pack of cigarettes.

“It was my grandfather,” he said. “My old man died when I was nine, so me and my mother and sister moved in with my grandparents. Right here in Bensonhurst, over on Eighty-fourth Street and Seventeenth. Matter a fact, the high school where that guy Jacoby was wavin’ his joint, New Utrecht High, that’s my alma mater.”

“Oh, yeah?” Priscilla asked, parking the Chevy twenty yards from Gordon’s side entrance doors.

Rizzo nodded and undid his shoulder harness. “Yeah,” he said. “I went from high school to the army for four years, then into the NYPD.”

Priscilla put the car into park and shut it down. “I got my associates at Bronx Community, then went on the cops,” she said.

They climbed out of the car, Rizzo spitting out Nicorette and lighting his Chesterfield. They both leaned against the Chevy as he smoked.

“So what made you pick the cops, Cil?” he asked. “With me, it was a family thing. My grandfather was a cop for most of his life. I grew up with it. It was all I ever wanted to do. I was even an M.P. when I was in the Army.”

Priscilla nodded. “Lotsa guys come on the job like that. Me, I was brought up in a pretty fucked-up environment. My mother was wild, drunk, always runnin’ with men.” She turned to Rizzo and smiled sadly. “But I knew this old black beat cop when I was real young. His name was Ted and he always treated me special. Sometimes I would pretend he was my father, bein’ how I never actually knew my real one.” She shrugged. “So I guess, in a way, we got the same reason, kinda a family thing.”

“Yeah, kinda,” Rizzo said. “But, tell you the truth, if I was a kid now, twenty, twenty-one, I’d never wanna come on this job. It’s apples to oranges from when I started.” He looked out over the flat waters of the bay, nestled under the darkened sky and dragged deeply on the cigarette. “Apples to oranges,” he said again, a wistful note in his voice, an unfamiliar tone to Priscilla’s ear.

She nodded. “Lots of old-timers feel that way. Down on the job, sayin’ it’s changed, too political, can’t trust nobody, all that. But, you know what, Joe? It’s the times that’ve changed. Some for the good, most for the bad. But the job has always been good for me. Gave me order, structure. Somethin’ to be proud of. I know it can eat people up and spit ’em out-I’ve seen plenty a that-but if you tough it out, it’s meaningful. It’s real, Joe. Real. ”

Now Rizzo, the wise-guy edge back in his tone when he spoke, patted her arm.

“Yeah,” he said, tossing the cigarette away. “Real. Just keep in mind what my grandfather said. What I say about no right, no wrong. That ain’t nonsense, like you called it. That’s wisdom, kiddo. Wisdom.” He glanced at his watch.

“Now,” he said, his eyes twinkling under the artificial lights of the parking lot. “Lets us go do something meaningful. Somethin’ real. Let’s go lock up this shit-bag.”

Rizzo leaned back casually, resting his shoulders against the stacked boxes behind him. He, Priscilla, the store manager, and a sullen Carl Jurgens were gathered in the stockroom at the rear of Gordon’s Sporting Equipment. After standing in awkward silence for a moment, the manager cleared his throat.

“Well,” he said, glancing from one to another. “I’ll leave you here, then?” The man, tall and thin, in his mid-thirties, smiled at Rizzo. “If this is okay with you, that is. As I said, if you want more privacy, my office is…”

Rizzo held up a hand. “This is fine,” he said. “Thanks.”

“Okay, then,” he said, and left the room quickly, closing the door behind him.

Rizzo folded his arms across his chest and looked at Jurgens.

“So, Carl,” he said in a pleasant conversational tone. “Got any idea why we dropped by to see you?”

The man flushed slightly and avoided eye contact. “No,” he said flatly. “I don’t.”

Priscilla, to the man’s right, said, “Why don’t you tell us where you were on Monday night? Around nine o’clock.”

The man glanced nervously at her, then swung his eyes to Rizzo.

“Sounds like a reasonable question, Carl,” Rizzo said. “Why don’t you answer her?”

Jurgens looked back at Priscilla, a sheen of perspiration glistening on his forehead. He cleared his throat before answering. “Monday? Monday night?” he asked.

Priscilla nodded. “Yeah. Monday night. Columbus Day. ’Bout nine o’clock.”

Jurgens nodded. “Yeah, okay. Monday, Monday night at nine… I was home. With my wife.”

Rizzo eased away from the boxes, unfolding his arms. “Is that right, Carl? Home with the wife?”

“Yeah,” he said, his voice gaining strength. “You can ask her. She’ll tell you.”

Rizzo nodded. “I bet she will, Carl. I bet she will. But you know, your wife might not be gettin’ the whole picture. She may not know that legally, the only right she has is she can’t be forced to testify against you. But she can be charged as an accessory after the fact if she lies to cover for you.”

Jurgens’s flush deepened. “Accessory to what?” he said. “Cover for what?”

Rizzo glanced at Priscilla. She looked quickly to Jurgens, saw the anger stirring. Discreetly, she slipped her cuffs from where they were tucked in her belt at the small of her back.

Rizzo stepped in closer to Jurgens. “Turn around,” he said, his voice deep and threatening. “You’re under arrest.”

Priscilla moved quickly, cuffing first Jurgens’s right hand, then twisting it to meet his left wrist. She snapped on the second cuff, deftly adjusting its grip. Rizzo ran his hands rapidly over Jurgens’s body, keeping his own left leg angled inward to protect his groin.

Jurgens blinked in disbelief, straining against the Smith amp; Wesson handcuffs.

“Under arrest? What the fuck for?” he stammered.

Rizzo reached a hand into Jurgens’s front pants pocket, extracting a six-inch folding knife with a scarred bone handle.

“Two counts of attempted murder, second degree, two counts criminal use of a firearm, two felony counts assault, one misdemeanor count.” Now Rizzo gave a slight smile. “And what ever else the college boy A.D.A. can find in his penal code Cliff notes.”

Jurgens compressed his lips. “I want a fuckin’ lawyer,” he said. “A lawyer!”

Priscilla took the knife from Rizzo. “Okay, Carl,” she said. “We heard you.”

“What’s that?” Rizzo asked Jurgens, indicating the knife.

The man’s eyes darted to the weapon. “That’s my pocket knife,” he said. “I’m a sportsman.”

Rizzo nodded his head. “Yeah, Carl,” he said, taking the man by the arm and turning toward the door. “We already figured that out.”

As they walked him out, Priscilla began Jurgens’s Miranda warning. “You have the right…”