Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 150, Nos. 5 & 6. Whole Nos. 914 & 915, November/December 2017

Precision Thinking by Jim Fusilli

This first Jim Fusilli story for EQMM is set in the 1940s in “Narrows Gate,” a fictionalized version of Hoboken, New Jersey, the author’s hometown. Narrows Gate was also the setting of his well-received novel of that title, and of the short stories “Chellini’s Solution” (chosen for 2007’s Best American Mystery Stories) and the Edgar-nominated “Digby, Attorney at Law.”

Delmenhorst Flooring had its warehouse on Observer Road in Narrows Gate, across from the clanging Erie-Lackawanna switching yard. Founded in 1921 by Hans-Josef Bamberg, a German immigrant, Delmenhorst was, for many years, northern New Jersey’s largest dealer of Armstrong printed and molded inlaid linoleum. Prior to World War II, it was a prosperous enterprise. It sold and installed quality flooring at a fair price.

Operating out of a candy store a short walk from the warehouse, Mimmo and the crew took notice. Delmenhorst trucks came and went without interference, and its salesmen called on customers throughout the county and as far west as the Pennsylvania border. To the crew, this meant its trucks could cart cigarets, liquor, auto supplies, and whatever else they boosted, and its salesmen could case homes for jewelry, silver, and furs. Since Delmenhorst also put down linoleum in the bars and clubs the crew owned, in a sense, they were already partners. The German had his hands in Sicilian pockets.

Bamberg lived on the other side of the Hudson on Riverside Drive, a big house. He took the Narrows Gate ferry twice a day. Shortly after Germany declared war on the U.S. in late ’41,

he made a one-way trip, going head over heels into the icy, choppy river. By the time his frozen body bobbed up under the West Side piers, nobody gave a damn.

The bosses put Santo Rizzato in charge of the linoleum business. From a desk in the Buchanan Bus Lines maintenance shop at the north end of the mile-square city, Rizzato managed the soldiers who ran the whores and the card games in the flophouses under the viaduct, plus he had every bus driver and mechanic paying down in slow motion what they borrowed to bet prizefighting, horse races, football, and whatnot. Rizzato carried a clipboard, which gave the crew the illusion that he was some sort of businessman. He went to work immediately, moving downtown to an office above Delmenhorst’s warehouse.

Rizzato replaced Delmenhorst’s German salesmen with locals, most Sicilians and Italians who couldn’t spell linoleum on a bet but had a genius for theft. They began to tool around the county in the company’s long Buick wagons so roomy a pair of sofas could ride in back. Those Buicks, like the trucks with Delmenhorst Flooring painted on the sides, made the crew invisible to the cops’ eyes. What they pilfered rode in broad daylight under not much more than flimsy tarps.

Soon, though, the cops started fielding complaints even from the people who hadn’t been robbed: the linoleum didn’t fit, curled at the edges, was mismatched; the whole apartment smelled like glue for weeks. The Narrows Gate cops picked up one guy, a ciuccio two years off the boat, after his Buick rolled backwards down the yellow-brick hill at Sybil’s Point and crash-landed in a park filled with mothers and baby strollers; it knocked the Good Humor man into a flower bed. In back of the Buick, the cops found a four-burner stove and two bowling balls. In a big display at the precinct, Rizzato fired the thief and promised to make good for damages to public and private property. Later at Buchanan Bus, the ciuccio was hung feet-first from an engine hoist. As the muscle went about their work, Rizzato informed them that the word pinada had its roots in Italy, a pignatta being a terra-cotta pot that breaks when smacked just so.

Rizzato had no choice but to go see the Armstrong regional team in Newark. He told them his best salesmen had gone to war, but he could handle installation and maintenance if they did the selling. Noting their business in northern New Jersey was now running close to zero, the company agreed.

Rizzato called down to Buchanan Bus and told them to send Mickey Gagliano to the Grotto, a clam bar by the Tubes. Rizzato was halfway through a pot of mussels in red gravy when Gagliano walked in, his expression as blank as a full moon.

Rizzato told him.

“Except I don’t know nothing about linoleum,” said Gagliano, who had wavy black hair and green eyes, a combination that made no sense except that he was half Irish.

“You can patch a tire, right?”

“I can.” Gagliano nodded.

“So what’s the difference? Somebody got a hole in the floor, you fix it. They need a new floor, you take up the old one, you throw down some glue, you give them what they want.”

“I don’t know what they want.”

“Armstrong will tell you.”

“Who’s Armstrong?”

Rizzato stopped, a gravy-filled mussel shell halfway toward his mouth. “You get one more stupid question, Mick.”

Gagliano, who had no feel for irony, said, “This Armstrong. He’s gonna tell me if the floor is big, not big?”

Rizzato slurped and tossed the shell aside. It landed on the sawdust on the terrazzo floor.

“Look. They make the sale. You come in, you look at the specs, you take a ruler, you take a knife. Boom. Off you go.”

Gagliano tried to avoid staring at Rizzato’s pockmarks, but it was impossible. Sandy looked like he slept facedown on dry rice. “What if I—”

“Go practice,” Rizzato instructed.

Gagliano set off along Observer Road toward Delmenhorst’s warehouse, which was loaded with Emerson radios and bicycle parts the crew hijacked. As sparks flew in the switching yard, once again Gagliano was wishing he wasn’t born missing a kidney that had turned him 4-F, plus he accidentally perforated an ear-drum as a kid, the reason being he used a pencil instead of a Q-tip. Cracked concrete and weeds under each step, he saw himself a failure at flooring and hanging from an engine hoist, Rizzato’s boys tuning him up good.

Incredibly, though, Gagliano demonstrated an aptitude for the task. The Armstrong salesmen gave him exact dimensions. The tools he had worked right, especially the steel blade that was shaped like a hawk’s talon. It cut through the linoleum like butter in the summer sun. The tape measure became his friend, and the glue pot too. It was easy once you knew how. Crawling like a crab, whistling some kind of tune, Gagliano could do a kitchen in under an hour.

His success confirmed his long-held suspicion that, though he was slow on the uptake, he was not dumb, no matter who said otherwise. Achievement made him feel warm and cozy. Up and down Narrows Gate, Mickey Gagliano walked like a man.

“Mickey,” said Rizzato, “you are in demand.”

They were in Rizzato’s office. His in-box overflowed with invoices, his sister-in-law Lucille having yet to arrive to do the paperwork. Rizzato spent the mornings on the crossword puzzle he took from the Jersey Observer and placed on his clipboard. He used a mechanical pencil, which made him feel like he was doing it in ink.

“Spot anything useful?” he asked.

Gagliano was so engrossed in his new career that he forgot he was a thief. He was the guy who’d boosted the armored car outside the Mirco Brothers Clam Bar when the driver stopped for a pepper-and-egg sandwich, the crew netting forty-seven K. He was fifteen back then.

“ ‘Useful’?” asked Gagliano, tilting his head in confusion.

Rizzato looked up at Gagliano, who was standing in his carpenter’s pants with his hands clasped behind his back. “Jewelry? Sundries?”

Sundries?

“A new coat?”

“Sandy, I don’t leave the kitchen,” Gagliano explained.

“Maybe there’s a silver set.”

He was going to mention the Del Marinos got a new toaster. “Ain’t we making money on the job, though?” Gagliano asked. “I mean, I’m doing two, three kitchens a day. The Yellow Flats uptown? I heard they want linoleum in the halls in every building. That’s what? Twelve buildings, five floors, the lobbies. I was thinking if Armstrong gets that, we’re—”

“We’re what? We don’t need to go look for armored cars? You think the crew is content with what I’m pulling down here?”

Gagliano held his tongue. As far as he knew, Delmenhorst was doing what it was supposed to: putting in flooring at a fair price. The Germans made a good living when they ran it.

“You need to be precise in your thinking,” Rizzato said, hoisting out of the creaking chair. “What is the point of your assignment?”

To satisfy the customer. She tells everybody in the neighborhood that Mickey Gagliano does the job right and new business comes knocking. “To case the joints?”

“To case the joints,” Rizzato repeated. “See? You’re not a dimwit after all.”

Gagliano drew up, offended. He had half a mind to tell Rizzato that letting the Armstrong guys go into the homes and pitch the business took away most of their chances to see who had what worth boosting.

“So...?” said Rizzato impatiently.

Stung, Gagliano heard himself reply: “The Finnegans. I heard he hit the trifecta at Freehold.”

“What Finnegans?”

“The lawyer. Tommy.” Gagliano gave him an address. Uptown in the Irish section, it was a nice brownstone with stained-glass windows and lace curtains. “He likes the ponies.”

“You go in,” Rizzato told him.

“I can’t. My mother lives around the corner. Plus,” Gagliano added, “I got five jobs tomorrow and Thursday. I’m up and down the county.”

Displeased, Rizzato sat and rubbed his forehead.

“You got half a dozen guys down the bus depot who could do it,” Gagliano offered. “In and out.”

Rizzato calculated. True, he had a roster of petty thieves who could break in with no notice. But if he didn’t send in the Armstrong guys first, Mimmo might not credit him with the score.

“Those pants,” Rizzato said. “Why?”

“Carpenter’s pants. They sell them at the Army-Navy store.”

“It’s a costume,” he said, unleashing his annoyance. “You look like a clown.”

Gagliano dipped into one pocket and pulled out a tape measure. Out of another pocket came a bubble level. He reached down near his knee and produced his blade for slicing through thick sheeting.

But Rizzato had turned away. Pencil in hand, he was looking at 14-Across.

Michael Gagliano’s mother Mary Alice Gagliano, nee McGrath, went to St. Matty’s with the Finnegan brothers. Tommy and Kenny were Irish twins, born nine months apart, and they were as close now as they were as kids. Tommy, the smarter of the two, was a lawyer — taxes, not criminal. Kenny, who was quicker than his older brother, was a cop. Not merely a cop. Kenny Finnegan was a New Jersey state trooper. Decorated.

Said Tommy, who called from his office across the river: “Kenny. Someone broke in.”

Kenny raced along the New Jersey Turnpike, lights flashing, sirens wailing; averaging eighty miles an hour, he arrived in Narrows Gate less than twenty minutes later. All of Cleveland Street watched as he slammed on the brakes, cut the screamer, and leaped up the stairs to his brother’s front door, where his sister-in-law Susan simpered.

Just in from St. Matty’s where she taught second grade, Susan Finnegan was in beige blouse, tweed skirt, and brown shoes.

Well over six feet tall and so fit he appeared carved from marble, Kenny was in full uniform: blue saucer-shaped hat, long-sleeved light-blue shirt, black necktie, navy riding breeches with a gold stripe along the side, a long-barreled Colt revolver on his hip.

“What did they get, Sooze?” Kenny said as he led her back into the house, much to the disappointment of the nosy onlookers.

“I was afraid to check.”

“You think he’s still here?”

Susan Finnegan, nee Lindemeyer, shrugged.

Kenny Finnegan snapped open his holster with his thumb. “You stay here,” he told her as he edged toward the patio and backyard. The door was open; a lawn chair lay on its side; there were footprints in the grass.

Soon he returned. “He’s gone,” he said. “The kitchen’s a mess.”

She gasped. “Your mother’s silver!”

Kenny wondered if Tommy had told his wife he hit the trifecta at Freehold. Pulled down $959 and change. That was sweet, even if it wasn’t a week’s salary for Tommy.

“You have any cash in the house?”

She sighed. “In the kitchen too.”

Not the household funds, thought Kenny, for the A&P, the dry cleaning, and so forth. “I’ll look upstairs. Maybe start a list, Sooze. What’s missing.” The second Kenny Finnegan entered the bedroom he knew the thief had come for the cash. The mattress was at an angle as if it had been lifted and dropped. The nightstand drawer was open on his brother’s side, but not Sooze’s. His bureau was in chaos; hers was disturbed but not in shambles. Same thing with their closets: Tommy’s hats and clothes were on the floor.

“Sooze,” yelled Kenny, “where’s your fur?”

“In storage,” she replied from the bottom of the stairs. “Kenny, they took the steaks right out of the freezer.”

His big feet thudding down the stairs, Kenny returned to the first floor. He followed his sister-in-law into the kitchen.

She handed him the list he had requested.

“A can opener?” Kenny asked as he scanned.

“Electric. It doesn’t work.”

“Serves them right.” He nodded toward the table. “What’s this?”

“Samples,” she replied, lifting the leather-bound book about the size of Life magazine. “Linoleum.”

On the front, embossed in gold, was the word Armstrong.

“What do you need linoleum for?” He and Tommy had put in the parquet floor a week before Pearl Harbor.

“He said I’d made an appointment,” she replied, passing him the salesman’s business card. “But I didn’t.”

Susan and Kenny were drinking coffee when Tommy arrived. Always unflappable, the gray-haired lawyer in worsted wool placed his briefcase by the coat tree in the hall. He loosened his tie.

Susan rose to accept his embrace. He kissed the top of her head.

Kenny caught his eye. He rubbed his thumb across his index and middle fingers — the universal sign for cash.

Tommy pointed to the pocket of his slacks.

“Ma’s silver. Aunt Ellen’s clock,” Kenny summarized as he stood. “Better call Paolo.”

Narrow Gate’s lone Sicilian cop. Kenny knew Enzo Paolo wasn’t on the take.

As he squeezed by, nudging the refrigerator, he gave Sooze a tap on the shoulder. He punched his brother hard on the arm.

“Where are you going?” Tommy asked.

“Candy store,” Kenny replied.

Mimmo, a.k.a Domenic Mistretta, was sitting at the oval wooden table, the soda fountain on one side, a pinball machine on the other. It was a pleasant afternoon in Narrows Gate, sunny, perfect for stickball, so only a few kids were scanning the comics. Behind the counter, old man Russo was examining the names of the dead in the Jersey Observer. His son had enlisted in the navy on December 8, 1941.

Mimmo, who once held an honored position in the Farcolini Family, had grown old and slow. Still, he ran a productive crew and right now he had $2,802 in a drawer in the table, money dropped off by the bagmen who collected from bartenders, hot-dog vendors, and neighborhood widows who took bets on the numbers for the crew.

When the ding bell rang over the door, Mimmo, who wore smoke-colored sunglasses even indoors, looked up from his copy of Beauty Parade, a girly magazine. He saw Superman who, for some reason, was dressed as a state trooper.

Kenny Finnegan dipped his hand into a jar, took a Mary Jane, and placed a penny on the counter.

“What?” said Mimmo. There wasn’t enough time to summon his bodyguards Fat Tutti and Boo Chiasso, who were at the piers collecting the crew’s share on a shipment of Canadian whiskey.

“I’m Finnegan. Tenth and Cleveland.”

The Irish, thought Mimmo. Their grievances were supposed to go through the mayor’s office.

As he unwrapped the peanut-butter-and-molasses candy, Finnegan said, “Linoleum.” He popped the Mary Jane into his mouth.

Mimmo frowned in confusion, but then the light went off.

The state trooper saw his expression change. “Everything he stole from my brother Tommy goes back. Including the nine hundred and fifty dollars he had in his nightstand.” The cop was in a mood to make trouble.

“Plus the scam ends,” he continued. “It won’t take me but a few hours to pull the reports. If I find your men crossed county lines, it’s a matter for the state. And the superintendent’s got no taste for your kind.”

“ ‘My men,’ ” Mimmo said with a chortle. But for some reason, at that moment, he realized Rizzato had never turned over any cash from any of the burglaries. Not a penny.

“Have it your way,” Kenny Finnegan replied as he retreated. He feared no one, but he knew it was insanity to turn his back on a threatened member of the Farcolini crew. “Next stop, Armstrong.”

Mimmo gave him a dismissive wave with the back of his hand, but the message took. As soon as the squad car peeled away from the curb, Mimmo was up and padding on flat feet to the phone booth.

Old man Russo chased the kids from the candy store.

Santo Rizzato arrived ten minutes later. He was out of breath, having trotted from the Delmenhorst warehouse a few blocks away.

By coincidence, Fat Tutti arrived too.

“You know who was just here?” Mimmo asked.

Gasping for air, Rizzato shook his head. He produced a handkerchief to dab his forehead and pockmarked cheeks.

“The state police.”

“Here?” asked Rizzato. “What for?”

“What’s the point of robbing the brother of the state police?” said Mimmo.

“I don’t know— Who robbed the state police?”

“Who’d you rob today?”

Rizzato had to think. He had three guys out, two who went in with rolls of flooring, glue pots, the works. One was—

“Who?” Mimmo repeated.

“Finnegan,” Rizzato moaned. “I heard he was a lawyer, not a cop.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Fat Tutti saw Boo Chiasso walking toward the candy store. As fit as Finnegan the Cop, taller even, Boo was wearing a nasty scowl, which meant he was primed for work. Fat Tutti waddled toward the door and whispered a few sentences to his colleague. Boo made a U-turn and headed off for the Delmenhorst warehouse.

“Mimmo,” Rizzato said, “what’s going on?”

“You been dry for a while. Why’s that?”

“The Armstrong guys. The salesmen. They don’t know how to case a joint.”

“Everybody knows what money looks like.”

“Mimmo, people with money don’t want linoleum.”

“So why are we in the business?”

Rizzato said, “We were doing all right until the Good Humor man got run over and the cops stepped in.”

Mimmo said thoughtfully, “A risk like that. A state trooper. Your guy, what did he get?”

“I don’t know. He hasn’t checked in.”

“Find him. Bring it here. Everything.”

Fat Tutti escorted Rizzato to his car. The Cadillac groaned when Tutti sat behind the wheel.

What kind of Sicilian is called Claude? Tutti thought as he dislocated the man’s wrist.

Rizzato turned away. His stomach lurched. Bad enough Tutti broke Claude’s jaw by reaching into his mouth and giving it a twist.

On his bed on the top floor of a ratty three-story walkup in the shadow of the viaduct and a short stroll from the Buchanan bus depot, Claude Marzamemi had tossed the Finnegans’ silver, a wall clock, electric can opener, the wife’s pearls, and several steaks that had begun to thaw. But no $950. Tutti had torn Marzamemi’s pants by the pockets and found all of six dollars in bills and change.

Marzamemi was on his knees. When he sobbed, he went “woo woo woo.”

Fat Tutti told Rizzato to make a sack out of the soiled bedspread and pick up everything.

Meanwhile, while Lucille the bookkeeper cowered in a corner, Boo Chiasso rifled through Rizzato’s desk at the Delmenhorst warehouse. Then he went through the filing cabinets. That’s where he found a diamond ring, several bracelets, men’s and women’s watches, necklaces, cufflinks, a couple of brooches, a paper bag full of silver dollars, and two pistols. And cash held together with a rubber band. Boo unrolled the bills and counted quickly. In twenties and fifties, $950.

He used the phone on Rizzato’s desk.

“Give me Mimmo,” Boo told old man Russo.

Mimmo was at the counter. He knew he had the authority to do what was coming next. When Russo beckoned, Mimmo eased off the swivel stool. As that moment, Tutti, who was carrying the loot-filled bedspread, pushed Rizzato into the candy store. Rizzato fell, the side of his face striking the floor.

Three weeks after Rizzato disappeared, Mickey Gagliano went to see Mimmo. He turned up humble, which was still his way despite the success of his scheme.

“Can I have a word, Mr. Mistretta?”

It was late, closing in on midnight. Old man Russo was gone. Mimmo was dealing solitaire and Fat Tutti was drowsing in the back room, a Pep comic on his mammoth lap. Boo Chiasso was elsewhere: He took Lucille the bookkeeper to the pictures over at Radio City. Mrs. Miniver. Her husband objected, but what was he going to do? Tony Rizzato had a feeling his brother Santo was in an oil barrel somewhere out in the Meadowlands.

Mimmo waved for Gagliano to sit.

“Do you remember me?” he asked.

Mimmo did not. “Of course,” he said. “I got a memory like a hippo.”

“The armored car.”

“Wait. That was you? Forty-seven Gs. Am I right?”

Fifty-two. Gagliano had pocketed five thousand, four thousand of which he still had. The other thousand, minus fifty, he had planted in Rizzato’s file cabinet among the stolen goods after having failed to tell him Kenny Finnegan was a state trooper. “Yes, sir,” he replied. “That was me.”

An earner, thought Mimmo. “What’s on your mind?”

Gagliano fidgeted. He rolled his cap in his hands. “Mr. Mistretta, I’d like to run the Delmenhorst business for you.”

Delmenhorst? What the hell is— Then it came to him. “No, no. That’s done. Finito.”

“I’m sorry,” Gagliano said quickly. “I didn’t express myself right. I would like to run it like a legitimate business. Like it was under the Germans. Everything on the up and up.”

From deep in the back room, Fat Tutti let out a bestial snore.

Gagliano explained. The in-home business was nickel-and-dime stuff. For goodwill. Make the neighbors happy. But industry, that was another story. And the Yellow Flats uptown, plus they were throwing up projects all over the county. It was a gold mine. Remember, those salesmen were pulling down twenty Gs a year and Bamberg, the founder, he had a mansion over on Riverside Drive. You know, someday the war is going to end and people like a nice floor under their feet. At a fair price.

“I’m saying if I keep the costs down, run it shipshape, I can kick up to you solid, Mr. Mistretta. Heck, I can do the big jobs practically by myself. We can win like champions on this, hand to God.”

Impressed, Mimmo sat back. “You’re a go-getter, kid.”

“Me? Not me. You. You’re the man who made it right.”

Mimmo nodded. Who didn’t like a compliment? “So if you’re playing square and you’re kicking up, what’s in it for you?”

Smiling sheepishly, Gagliano said, “I like laying linoleum.”

So direct was the answer that Mimmo was instantly satisfied. He offered the kid his hand.

© 2017 Jim Fusilli. Black Mask Magazine title, logo, and mask device copyright 2017 by Keith Alan Deutsch. Licensed by written permission.