Casino Moon

26

PATROLMAN WENDELL LONG never wanted to be part of a modern urban police department. In his mind’s eye, he saw himself as a Clint Eastwood–style state trooper, with mirrored shades, knee-high boots, and a spotless uniform, riding up and down the curving highways of Southern California on his motorcycle. He imagined profiling typical offenders, pulling over young male blacks driving expensive European sports cars. He yearned to use a command voice and tell people to assume the position against their vehicles, so he could search and humiliate them. While others talked about how horrible the Rodney King videotape was, he secretly burned with envy for the LAPD.

Yet every day, he found himself touring the drab province of Atlantic City, looking for some hint of excitement and adventure. On this bleak Tuesday afternoon, he had to settle for pulling over the bull-necked, shaggy-haired Italian-American male driving a navy Impala with a broken taillight down Indiana Avenue.

“What was I? Speeding?” said the Italian-American, who had a monobrow and the body of a steroid addict.

Patrolman Long was prepared to write a routine traffic summons. But when he asked for a driver’s license and registration, the Italian-American first hesitated and then handed over two conflicting pieces of identification.

“Ah shit,” said Richie Amato, making his second mistake of the day so far. “Gimme those papers back. I gave you the wrong ones.”

“Would you get out of the car, please, sir?” asked Patrolman Long.

Stupidly, Richie tried to shove the unregistered .45 semiautomatic further under his seat. He only succeeded in giving the cop probable cause to search the car. Patrolman Long found not only the gun, but the trunkful of bloody clothes in back.

“All right,” said Richie, trying to sound flip even as he swallowed hard and began sweating. “What would it take to make you forget what you just found?”

“Go ahead,” said Patrolman Long, smiling and finally getting to use a phrase he’d only uttered in dreams. “Make my day.”

Richie was brought down to the dungeon-like police holding facility, under the old Masonic Temple on Ventnor Avenue. Flies buzzed past dank stone walls, and the exposed pipes knocked overhead. He was put in a cell and handcuffed to a bench, facing a white alcoholic wife-beater and a ragged black man in a Malcolm X T-shirt. After a few minutes, the black man took out his penis and began to urinate on Richie’s brand-new Tony Lama snakeskin boots.

“Hey! Hey!” Richie strained at his handcuffs and cried out to the guards at the nearby officers’ station. “This guy’s pissing on me!”

The black man finished soaking Richie’s pant cuffs and put his penis away. “Not anymore I ain’t.”

The guards laughed and several hours passed while Richie waited for the paperwork to be filled out so he could call his lawyer. The trouble ahead of him seemed endless, sickening. The cops were sure to find the two outstanding warrants he had for armed robberies, and soon they would realize the bloody clothes in the back of his car belonged to Larry DiGregorio.

If by some chance he did manage to get out, Teddy would have him killed for sheer sloppiness.

A new pair of guards came on duty and for the next two hours they steadily ignored his requests to go to the bathroom. He felt his urinary tract backing up and his liver catching fire from the steroids. If it wasn’t for the pain, he wouldn’t even know where his liver was. At four o’clock, the black prisoner’s penis appeared in his fly again, like the bird coming out of a cuckoo clock, and began to spray Richie’s pants, as though part of a normal routine.

“Oh God!!!” Richie shouted. “Please help me!!”

P.F. walked by a few minutes later.

“Detective,” Richie called out to him. “Can you get me out of here? I need to call my lawyer.”

“Not my case.” P.F. shrugged and started to stroll away.

He’d almost forgotten the conversation he’d had with Sadowsky the F.B.I. agent. Fat chance he was going to implicate himself by volunteering information about Teddy. But here was Richie, begging him to stop and talk. “Wait a sec, wait, wait.”

P.F. paused and half turned toward him.

“How long are they gonna keep me waiting?”

“I don’t know,” P.F. said out of the side of his mouth. “What are you in for?”

When Richie didn’t respond, P.F. went by the officers’ station to check the arrest report. The details about the gun and the bloody clothes brought an immediate smile to his face.

“Beautiful,” he said, coming back to face Richie through the bars. “You must be very proud of yourself.”

“I gotta talk to my lawyer,” Richie insisted. “I didn’t do nothin’.”

“Well now, see, you’re in a situation,” said P.F.

“Whaddyamean?”

“You’re a known O.C. associate with outstanding warrants, and you’re driving around with that shit in your car. Brilliant. It must take you an hour and a half to watch 60 Minutes.”

“Fuck you,” said Richie. “Get me my lawyer.”

“And my lawyer too!” said the black prisoner, whom P.F. recognized as Stevie Ray Banks.

P.F. put his hands in his pockets and started to walk away again. “I’m sure they’ll give you a call as soon as they get done with all the paperwork.”

Stevie Ray took out his penis again.

“Love to Ted,” P.F. said.

“Come on, come on!” said Richie, jiggling slightly. “Help me out here.”

“‘Help me out, help me out.’ That’s the problem with our culture now. We live in a society of victims. Everyone feels aggrieved. ‘Help me out, help me out.’ Unbelievable. Likethey expect something for nothing. My day, you had to work for a living.”

“You gotta get me out of here.”

His pathetic tone interested P.F., and he took a couple of steps back toward the cell. “Well, now, let’s go back to the old merit system. What do you have that’s worth bartering for? You didn’t happen to be around the Boardwalk the other night, did you?”

“I never go to the Boardwalk. That’s just for tourists.”

“Ah well, that’s too bad, isn’t it. The way I figure it, you’ll do a nickel and a dime at least in prison for what they found in the back of your car.”

“No way, no day.” Richie shook his head.

“Sentencing guidelines, Richie. They’re a bitch. They’re talking about bringing back the death penalty in some of these cases too. Seems a shame to waste your youth.” His eyes flicked down to Richie’s neck. “What happened? You cut yourself shaving?”

Richie nervously fingered the scabs and gouge marks on his throat. “I don’t know anything about any Boardwalk.”

“Oh, then you can’t tell this friend of mine what happened to Nicky D.”

Richie looked down at his damp boots and wrinkled his nose. “I don’t know any Nicky.”

“Then that’s the biggest shame of them all,” said P.F. “I know a guy over at the F.B.I. that might have been able to help you out. But since you don’t know anything, there’s no point. Right?”

Richie stiffened. “I’d have to talk to my lawyer first.”

“Absolutely not,” P.F. said. “We either talk about cooperating now or forget the whole thing. You call your lawyer and take your chances with Teddy back out on the street. And I bet he’d have some kind of wild hair up his ass with you getting locked up the way you did.”

He felt good saying it. This was how it was before. When he was actually doing police work, instead of just coasting on bad memories. Call ’im a Pigfucker and wait for him to deny it.

“I’m not scared,” claimed Richie.

“A fine thing too. A man can do a lot without fear in his life.”

The other two prisoners eyed Richie hungrily, like cavemen watching a water buffalo. He rubbed his wrist where the handcuff had been digging into it.

“I wouldn’t talk about everything, you know,” he murmured to P.F. “And I want them to drop all these fuckin’ charges with the car. I don’t want anybody to know I been arrested again.”

“That is none of my affair,” said P.F. “I’m merely passing the message.”

A half hour later P.F. was down the hall, calling Sadowsky’s beeper number. The witness might or might not cooperate, he said when he got the callback. It was too early to tell. But he hoped Sadowsky would keep his word about talking him up to the casino people.

“You got it, old buddy,” said the agent.

P.F. knew he was lying. But there was something exhilarating about getting involved again. He had to fight the urge to go tearing down the hall, bellowing about his prowess as a detective. The guards on duty would think he was some old fool. But there was no denying it. He was making a comeback. Porcine coitus was about to take place.

“Anything else I can do for you in the meantime, old buddy?” asked Sadowsky, sounding pleasingly anxious.

“Just lay off my job at the casino,” said P.F., trying to tamp down his enthusiasm. “I want at least one thing I’m sure of.”