Critical

9

It had been one of those frustrating days for Detective Lieutenant Lou Soldano. The only positive thing that had happened was learning from Jack that his detective sergeant friend's daughter was apparently off the hook as far as being charged for murder, and likewise for the boyfriend in the other case. But in the case Lou was really into, he'd gotten nowhere. He still had no idea who the Asian floater was, even after a lot of effort. He didn't even know for sure whether the guy was American.

After his powwow with Freddie Capuso, where he learned that the victim was whacked because he was about to rat about something, Lou had driven back to headquarters, where he sought out Sergeant Detective Ronnie Madden in Organized Crime. Ronnie had not heard about the hit, so he couldn't add anything. Instead, he'd given Lou some background on Louie Barbera, including the fact that as a cover he ran a restaurant in Elmhurst called the Venetian. Ronnie confirmed Freddie's opinion that relations between the Lucia and Vaccarro organizations were hardly copacetic, but a turf war was not imminent.

Lou then went to Missing Persons to see if they had made any headway identifying the victim. They hadn't, and Lou got the impression they were waiting for a missing-person report to come in and do their work for them. Lou tried to suggest that it might be important to be a bit more proactive, but it got him nowhere.

Lou had even forced himself to go over to the FBI, which he was generally loath to do. He hated the way they acted superior, as if they thought of themselves as the aristocrats and the PD as a bunch of ignorant commoners. In contrast to Missing Persons, they had yet to be alerted about the case. Lou tried his best to do that, but they said they'd prefer to hear about it through official channels, meaning "Leave us alone because we're too busy to look into your particular lowbrow pet project."

At this point Lou got the idea of going back out to Queens to visit Louie Barbera. As he drove over the Queensboro Bridge, he admitted to himself that he'd become fixated on a single case to the detriment of all the others he had pending, but it was his personality to do so. Whenever he got involved in a task which he thought would be easy but wasn't, he took it personally. Such was the case in the current situation, and as he got off the bridge and into Queens, he was doggedly committed to finding out the who, the why, and the wherefore of the Asian floater, come what may.

Lou found the Venetian on Elmhurst Avenue without difficulty. It was part of a relatively new strip mall sandwiched between Fred's DVDs and Gene's liquor store. Lou parked in the small lot in front of the strip. Two cars down was the traditional black Cadillac, which made Lou smile. The mid-level wiseguys made an attempt to be nondescript so as not to stand out, and then they all drove the same vehicle. It didn't make sense, although in this particular instance, it gave Lou the encouragement that Louie Barbera was available.

The first thing Lou noticed when he walked in were all the black velvet paintings of Venice. He'd recalled such paintings in Italian restaurants when he was growing up but hadn't seen any for some time. He also noticed that all the tables had red-and-white checked tablecloths, which was also a throwback. The only things the Venetian lacked were the old Chianti bottles with candles and several years' worth of drippings clinging to the sides.

"We're closed," a voice said out of the gloom. There was very low-level illumination and, coming in from the sunshine, Lou's eyes had to adjust. When they did, he could make out five men playing cards at a round table. Espresso cups dotted its surface. Ashtrays were overflowing.

"I assumed so," Lou said. "I'm looking for Louie Barbera. I was told I could find him here."

For a moment, all five people sat like statues. Finally, one of them who was directly facing Lou said, "Who are you?"

"Detective Lieutenant Lou Soldano of the NYPD. I'm an old friend of Paulie Cerino." Lou thought he saw the group stiffen at his announcement, but it could have been his imagination.

"I never heard of him," the same man said.

"Well, no matter," Lou said. "Are you Louie Barbera?"

"I might be."

"I'd appreciate a moment of your time."

With merely a nod from Louie, the four men seated with him stood up. Two went to the deserted bar. The other two moved over to the wall opposite the bar. Everyone had taken their playing cards with them. Louie gestured toward the seat directly opposite him, and Lou sat down.

"I'm sorry to interrupt your game," Lou said, eyeing the man's ordinary clothes and overweight body. He obviously wasn't at the same level as Vinnie Dominick.

"No matter. Why are you looking for Louie Barbera?"

"I want to ask him a question."

"Like what?"

"Like whether there's any more than the usual animosity between the Lucia people and the Vaccarro people."

"And why do you want to know?"

"There's a rumor on the street that there'd been a professional hit last night. Now, when something like that goes down, and the victim happens to be associated with one of the two families, hostile feelings can boil over, resulting in a major blowup. We at the NYPD don't mind if you professionals bump each other off, but we get aggravated when innocent people get hurt. Then we'd have to come out here and clean things up. Am I making sense?"

"You're making sense," Louie conceded. "But I don't know anything about any hit."

"Are you sure? I mean, I have your best interests in mind. It's always better to keep the peace for your real line of work and for mine, too."

"I'm a restaurateur. What do you mean my 'real line of work?'" Lou thought for a minute. He was tempted to tell the bozo sitting in front of him that an identity game was a pitiful waste of time, but he thought better of it. He coughed into his closed fist and then said, "Then let me put it this way: Are you sure all your waiters, busboys, and kitchen help are going to show up today, particularly those of Asian extraction?"

Louie leaned back and called over to the men lounging on the bar stools, "Hey, Carlo, has the whole staff checked in today?"

"Everybody's accounted for," Carlo said.

"There you go, Lieutenant," Louie said.

Lou stood up and took out one of his business cards. He placed it on the table. "In case you suddenly hear something about the hit, give me a call." He then headed for the door. A few paces away, he turned back into the room. "I'd also heard a rumor that Paulie Cerino is getting out on parole. Give him my best; we go way back."

"I'll do that," Louie said.

As soon as the door closed, the four hoodlums returned to the table, taking the same seats they had vacated earlier. Carlo Paparo was seated directly to Louie's right. He was a muscular man with large ears and a pug nose. He wore a black turtleneck under a gray silk sports jacket and black slacks.

"Did you know that clown?" Carlo asked.

"I'd heard of him from Cerino, but I'd never met him. Paulie hated him so much he loved him. Apparently, they'd butted heads for so long they'd come to respect each other."

"He's got balls just showing up like this. None of the cops in Jersey would do such a thing without a partner and backup SWAT team waiting outside."

Louie had been recruited from Bayonne, New Jersey, to fill in as boss for the Vaccarro Queens operation. In Bayonne, he'd run a similar but smaller enterprise. When he'd made the transition, he'd brought over his most trusted underlings, including Carlo Paparo, who had been with him the longest, Brennan Monaghan, Arthur MacEwan, and Ted Polowski. Tuesday and Thursday afternoons they played penny ante, unless there was something big going down.

"Have any of you guys heard anything about Vinnie Dominick and his pack of assholes knocking anybody off?" Everybody shook his head.

"I think we ought to check it out," Louie said. "The detective is right. We don't want any trouble with the police nosing around just when we're about to jack up operations, especially cops from downtown. Most of the local guys we can handle, but even that might change if the big boys come causing trouble."

"How do you propose to check it out?"

"We could contact that skinny Freddie Capuso," Brennan suggested. "It would cost a few bucks, but he might know who got bumped off."

"He'll know shit," Carlo said. "Half the time we used him, it turned out he gave us crap. He's just a damn gofer."

"I think we should tail Franco Ponti for a few days," Louie said. "If Vinnie needs somebody whacked, he always uses Franco, and if there's to be more killing, I'd like to know sooner rather than later who's getting bumped off. The Lucias are causing enough trouble in general. I don't want them ruining our expansion plans."

"It'll be easy to follow Franco with that ancient hog he drives around," Arthur MacEwan said, giving everybody a good laugh. Franco's car was famous in the neighborhood, with its black-and-white foam dice and a picture of him and his then girlfriend, Maria Provolone, at the senior prom hanging from his rearview mirror.

"It's the tail fins that crack me up," Ted Polowski said. "What's it from, the nineteen fifties?"

"You know, I'm liking this idea of tailing Ponti better and better," Louie said, while thinking over his own suggestion. "Remember last year when we were wracking our brains about how they get their drugs into the city and never figured it out."

"We never thought of tailing Ponti!" Carlo said, knocking his forehead with the heel of his hand. "How come we were so stupid? I mean, we tried everything else."

"Maybe this little episode will have an unexpected payoff," Louie said, not knowing how prophetic his comment would turn out to be.

"When should we start?" Carlo asked.

"My mother, God rest her soul, always said, 'Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today'…"

"Yeah, yeah," Carlo said. "Because today is yesterday's tomorrow."

Brennan, Arthur, and Ted smiled wanly. Like a lot of Louie's pet sayings, they'd heard both of the proverbs one too many times.

"Time is money," Louie said, raising his eyebrows teasingly. He knew his minions found his adages sappy.

"All right!" Carlo said. "We'll have to do this in shifts. I'll start. Who wants to come along?"

"I'll come," Brennan said.

"Keep me posted," Louie said.