Johnny Porno

Chapter 38

Stebenow surprised Levin when he sat across from him in a booth of the mostly empty Mount Olympus Diner on Hoyt Avenue in Astoria, Queens. He waited for the waitress to leave after taking Levin’s order before he removed a cassette tape from his jacket pocket and set it on the middle of the table.

“I got tapes coming out my ass,” Levin said. “I hope you don’t think I’m listening to that one, too.”

“Just run-of-the-mill wannabe speak,” Special Agent Stebenow said. “Half a dozen rank-and-file punks trying to sound like their favorite wiseguy. Consider it another good-faith gesture.”

Levin looked from the tape to Stebenow and back. “It was you,” he said. “On a couple tapes delivered to my place. That was you. I get them the same way from Organized Crime. I just assumed… you working with somebody else on this? Somebody from NYPD?”

Stebenow crossed his heart. “No,” he said.

Levin was staring into the special agent’s eyes. “Go ’head,” he said. “I’m listening.”

“Kelly sent somebody to kill my witness. Some punk off the boat affiliated with the Westies, the Irish crew running Hell’s Kitchen. Billy Quinn. He’s got a record in Ireland and a short sheet here. I stopped him with a warning shot. We have him, but he won’t talk. He had a shiv and was heading straight for where Bridget was sitting two seconds after Kelly left the scene. I tailed her last night. So was Kelly tailing her. If I wasn’t there she’d be dead.”

“You got him, get him to give up Kelly.”

“Never happen. He knows enough to sit it out.”

“And?” Levin said.

“How close are you to taking Kelly down?”

“What makes you think I’m in charge?”

“You have an idea. Tell me.”

“I don’t have an idea. And I couldn’t tell you if I did.”

Stebenow motioned at the tape.

“Yeah, so?” Levin said. “The hell’s that do for me, you’re willing to lose your job and maybe get prosecuted? I’m not.”

“Look, the Bureau won’t bring her in,” Stebenow said. “I made her stay at a motel last night, but that won’t help her if Vento’s on to her.”

“If it was Eddie Vento last night you wouldn’t have saved her,” Levin said. “Your witness’d be dead. Vento wouldn’t send amateurs and he wouldn’t risk a knifing.”

“Your guy is onto my witness, and if he wasn’t working for Eddie Vento last night, all she was was lucky. The other thing is he saw me. He saw me turn and look at him. I spotted the move for what it was and had my weapon out before his guy made it across the street.”

“You tell the girl about Kelly?”

“I didn’t have to. She knew he was a cop. You wouldn’t need a degree to figure that out.”

“Why aren’t your guys moving on this?”

“Pro’bly the same reason you guys didn’t. Or were you there last night and I’m just retelling this for my health?”

“Go easy, my friend. I wasn’t there last night. You do anything official with the guy you grabbed?”

“He’s at a safe house for now.”

“He’s at a safe house why?”

“Because we can get away with holding him longer than you. She’s out of danger so long’s he’s there. This way he doesn’t get a call to his attorney. Soon as he does that she’s dead.”

Levin was incredulous. “What the hell do you hold him on?”

“He was coming at me with the knife. It’s good enough for now.”

“For how long?”

“I don’t know, probably not much longer. And like I said, soon as he’s out, he gets word back to Kelly and Vento, they’ll make sure they don’t miss the next time.”

“He talks, this guy you have, we can all move on Kelly.”

“Who would give up Vento thirty seconds after we cuffed him,” Stebenow said. “But this kid isn’t gonna talk.”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Levin said. “Can’t you convince your people?”

“The Bureau isn’t going to move because Bridget hasn’t delivered enough to nail Vento yet. We think she’s close. He nearly spilled something about a porn guy they whacked in Canarsie last month. That was supposed to be her hook, that she wants in on the movie business to become a porn star. Vento was supposed to make the connections, but Kelly obviously had something made him act before we could.”

“How much more do they need, the Bureau?”

“I raised a few flags, but nobody cares about this kid. She gets whacked they’ll try and nail Vento for that. She’s nobody to the Bureau or the prosecutors.”

Levin looked Stebenow in the eyes. “I’m gonna ask you something and I want a straight answer.”

“Shoot.”

“You banging this broad?”

Stebenow rolled his eyes. “No,” he said. “No.”

Levin was still staring. Stebenow didn’t flinch. He pointed to the tape. “The only thing on that worth hearing,” he said. “Vento mentions something about Kelly not trusting druggies. Called it ‘big mouth syndrome’ when they get high.”

“Druggies in general or her?”

“What happened last night is a little more than an implication it was her.”

Levin sipped his coffee. “Bridget Malone’ll get less sympathy from Internal Affairs than she gets from you guys.”

Stebenow waved the comment off. “How close are you to taking him down?”

“It was up to me, he’d’ve been doing time already, but it’s not up to me.”

“I need this guy off the street,” Stebenow said. He toyed with the sugar dispenser while Levin sipped his coffee again. “What would make things move on your end?” he asked.

“A direct order from the brass upstairs,” Levin said. “Nothing less. I can’t make believe I know what happened yesterday. Think about it. How do I document it on your end?”

“When are you on him again?”

“Tomorrow. Why?”

“Is it okay if I contact you? I’ll leave a message under the name Casper.”

“The friendly ghost? Nobody’d figure that one out. Are you kidding me?”

“Call my number when you get the message.”

“When or if?”

Stebenow was anxious. “I don’t know yet,” he said, “but I’ll leave that message soon as I do.”

Levin bit his lower lip. Stebenow got out of there.

Levin was on his second cigarette before the two-year-old green Catalina drove through the lot and parked at the curb in front of the diner. Levin got in and handed Kaprowski the tape Stebenow had turned over.

“And this is?” asked Kaprowski, holding the tape up.

“A gift from a fed wants us to bring Kelly down,” Levin said. “Tape’s his bona fides. Proves he’s not jerking our chain, except his was the voice on the last set of tapes I listened to, so I’m thinking you already know this and maybe you’re jerkin’ my chain.”

“Excuse me?” Kaprowski said.

“This guy working with us or not?”

“That’s a bold fuckin’ question, detective. Answered the wrong way it could bring down an entire operation.”

Levin took a moment. “You won’t answer my question,” he said, “which I’ll assume you can’t. Am I right about that?”

“First hand knowledge of a renegade federal agent is dangerous stuff.”

“And that’s as close to an answer as I’ll get, eh?”

“As good as it gets,” Kaprowski said. “Now, you buy it, his motivation?”

“Yeah, I do. I think he’s worried about the girl. Says Kelly already tried to take her out.”

“He banging her?”

“I don’t know. I asked, he said no, but who knows.”

“Fuckin’ Kelly,” Kaprowski said. “I’d like to be the one cuffs him, this finally goes down.”

“You’ll have to wait in line,” Levin said. “Prick’s mine.”

Kaprowski offered Levin a Marlboro.

“No thanks,” Levin said.

Kaprowski lit his cigarette. “That former head of the painters’ union was clipped a few months back? Three of the five families had claims on him. That’s showing sparks now.”

“The guy they got outside some apartment building in Whitestone, I remember. Was back in May, so why now?”

“Sometimes the shit these guys stir takes time to brew. Point is, I don’t want a dirty cop preempting a bigger bust.”

“Except Kelly will feed you Eddie Vento.”

“And Vento may or may not clam up. He does, that’ll be the end of that. Today he’s yapping over the phone about a dozen missing movies. The name you gave me last week, Vento’s got people out looking for him, Johnny Porno.”

“Why’s that?”

“We don’t know yet. We will soon enough. Ties into Kelly, we’ll do your special agent friend the favor he wants. We get Vento to roll, that’d be the real victory. Vento makes a deal keeps him on the street we can nail a few union delegates his friends have in their pockets. Vento feeds us one or two delegates, they’ll roll on whoever they’re kicking back to. Union boys are used to bullying their wives but are soft it comes to jail time. They think for a minute they’ll go away, they’ll cough up every wiseguy they know.”

“I told the fed with the tapes we couldn’t do anything.”

“And you were right. We can’t. Not without having Kelly dead to rights.”

“I didn’t believe him I’d say turn him over to his own. Let them handle it.”

“That’d only move things in a direction we don’t want,” Kaprowski said. “Besides, you do believe him, right?”

“I do. I think he wants out. I think he wants to save this woman. Maybe to save himself.”

“Yeah, well, he can always go to confession,” Kaprowski said. “You watching Kelly today? Maybe you should.”

“I’m reviewing tapes for Internal Affairs at some point, but I can probably swing it later tonight.”

“IA is a cover you can’t blow so make sure you do what they ask,” Kaprowski said. “If this agent is so concerned about his witness, he’s the one should keep an overnight vigil.”

“You’re sounding a lot more conflicted than you did a few days ago.”

“Maybe it wasn’t a woman this agent was trying to protect I wouldn’t be. Go home and listen to your tapes. You hear anything you think I should know, call.”

“Great. That’ll leave me time for a beer and a cat nap.”

“Oh, please,” Kaprowski said. He turned to Levin and rubbed two fingers together. “Know what that is?”

“Polish mating call?”

“Don’t push your luck. I only look this cheery from an earlier bowel movement.”

“Pleasant image. Thanks.”

“As good as it gets,” Kaprowski said.