Rizzo’s Fire

CHAPTER TWELVE

The next morning, Tuesday, Rizzo arrived at the Six-Two just before seven-thirty, a half hour before the start of his day tour. Two fellow detectives, Mark Ginsberg and George Parker, were alone in the squad room at Parker’s desk, sitting out the last thirty minutes of their morning tour. Rizzo crossed the room, pulling up a chair and greeting the two men.

“How was your night?”

Parker shrugged, huge shoulders straining against his thin cotton shirt. “Quiet,” he said. “All the white folk were sound asleep, nice and peaceful.”

Ginsberg laughed. “That’s why I told you to transfer over here, George,” he said. “We’re gettin’ too old for excitement.”

“Yeah, I know the feelin’.” Rizzo glanced at his wristwatch. “Can you give me a minute, guys?”

“Sure,” Parker said. “What’s on your mind?”

“Those two street robberies you guys are carrying. And the Hom case, the third robbery me ’n Jackson caught.”

“What about ’em?” Ginsberg asked.

Rizzo smiled as he answered. “I got a name.”

“No shit?” said Parker. “From where?”

Rizzo shrugged. “Came to me in a vision.”

“Oh,” Ginsberg said. “Like that, eh?”

“Yeah, Mark,” he replied. “Like that.”

Parker spoke next. “So, it’s the same perp on all three? The way we had it made?”

Rizzo nodded. “Yeah. Same guy.”

Ginsberg smiled as he spoke. “Well, it’s kinda late for Yom Kippur and too early for Christmas, so what’s this, a Thanksgiving present you’re handin’ us?”

Rizzo shook his head. “Who said anything ’bout a present, Mark? But bein’ today’s Veterans Day, let’s call it a transaction. A transaction between three old vets.”

Parker snorted. “Shit, you call Mark’s three years in the fuckin’ Coast Guard telling dames on yachts to put their bikini tops back on being a veteran, Joe?”

“Hey, it’s the Jewish navy, what can I tell you?” laughed Ginsberg.

Rizzo rubbed his hands together. “Let’s talk,” he said.

Parker sat back in his seat. “Talk to my attorney here, Joe. I let him handle all our negotiations.”

“And I let George pick out the rib joints we eat at,” Ginsberg said.

“Me and Jackson caught a homicide,” Rizzo began, watching both cops nod their understanding. “So we’re gonna be busy for a while. I came up with a name on the robberies. But here’s the thing: the perp is thirteen.”

“Shit,” Parker said. “That’ll kill a couple a days for the arresting.”

“Exactly,” Rizzo said. “I lock this kid up, either me or Jackson gotta sit with him durin’ the whole process, right through to the fuckin’ Family Court appearance. Then we hafta transport him to Spofford or wherever the fuck they ship ’im pending disposition. It could take two days, not to mention havin’ to kiss his mother’s ass the whole time.” He looked from one to the other. “I ain’t got that kinda time right now, guys.”

“I hear you,” Parker said. “So, whaddya got in mind?”

“I’ll cut a deal,” Rizzo said. “I give you the name. You make the pinch, walk the kid through, or maybe get Olivero to do it for you-he’s the friggin’ youth officer. Then me and Jackson get sole credit on the Hom case, shared on your two cases. That gives me and her three cleared cases, a cushion for us to work this homicide. We just cleared a shooting and that dick-waver case, so with the robberies, that’s five in-what?-five, six weeks we been partnered? It’s more than good enough.”

Parker and Ginsberg exchanged looks, then Ginsberg leaned toward Rizzo.

“How do we know the name’s good?” he asked.

Rizzo shrugged. “Try it out. Go talk to the kid. Squeeze him, lean on the mother. She’s an immigrant, ask her for her green card, scare her a little. If the kid don’t cop to it, line him up and bring in the vics. I bet one or more can make the kid.” He looked from one to the other, noting the interest in their eyes. “If it don’t work out, nothin’ lost, nothin’ gained.” He paused, allowing a smile to come to his face. “I got a feelin’ it’s gonna work out, though. A good feeling.”

After a moment, Parker crossed his hands on his broad, flat midriff and said, “You know, I been at the Six-Two less than a year, but I hear good shit ’bout your little deals, Joe.” He turned his hard brown eyes to his partner. “Whaddya think, Counselor? Sounds like a plan to me.”

Ginsberg turned his gaze to Rizzo. “I’ll say yes. I have faith in Joe’s… vision.”

Rizzo slipped a piece of paper from his jacket pocket and tossed it onto Parker’s desk. “Good,” he said. “That’s the kid. Lives with his mother, and word is he ain’t wrapped too tight, so watch out when you pick ’im up. Don’t let his baby face fool you.”

Rizzo stood. “One more thing.” The two detectives turned their eyes upward to meet his.

“This kid might be wearin’ Rebel colors,” Rizzo said in a serious tone. “If word gets around the neighborhood he’s a Rebel, we got a very serious problem.”

The two cops furrowed their brows for a moment. Then, a sudden awareness appeared in Ginsberg’s green eyes.

“I smell some diarrhea, Joe,” he said cheerfully, “and I think it’s runnin’ down Zee-Boy’s leg. Am I right?”

Rizzo shook his head gently. “No squeal on The Rebels, Mark,” he said. “They don’t exist, far as this case goes. If you convince Olivero to help out, make sure he gets that, too.”

“Done,” Ginsberg said. They shook hands and Rizzo once again glanced at his wristwatch. The bargaining hadn’t taken very long.

“Go on, guys,” he said. “Take off. I got the squad covered. Go on home.”

Parker stood, his six-four frame towering above Rizzo.

“Pleasure doin’ business with ya, paesan, ” he said, laying a large hand on Rizzo’s shoulder. “Truly a plea sure.”

Later that morning, Rizzo and Jackson sat at a small table in the detective squad interview room, across from Detective Second Grade Robert Dellosso, known around the precinct as Bobby Dee.

“Tough way to get started in the precinct, Cil,” Dellosso said, “catchin’ a cold homicide.”

“Somebody’s got to do it,” she said.

“Bobby,” Rizzo said, “Vince told me he had you and Kenny do a canvass at the scene.”

“Yeah, we did. Four and a half friggin’ hours and all of it on straight time.”

“Thanks. How’d you make out?” Rizzo asked.

“Waste a time. Tough enough to canvass for info when you don’t know the date of the crime, but then factor in this guy Lauria, it’s fuckin’ impossible.”

“Why’s that?”

“This guy was the Invisible Man, Joe. Not one person off the block knew who we were askin’ about. And maybe two, three people on the block itself knew him, and them only ’cause they were friendly with the homeowners, the Annasias.”

Rizzo ran his hand through his hair. “Yeah, I’m not surprised. Seems the guy was a loner, kept to himself.”

“Big time, Joe. Even the local shopkeepers couldn’t place the guy. Me and Kenny had a picture of Lauria we took outta the apartment. Even that didn’t help.”

“Well,” Rizzo said, “thanks for tryin’. And thank Kenny for me.”

“Hey, no problem,” Dellosso said. “I owe you plenty a favors. Anyway, I’m almost done with the DD-fives, I’ll give ’em to you when they’re finished.”

“Thanks,” Rizzo said. “And do me one more favor, if you don’t mind. Give me that picture of Lauria, too. Cil and I can use it.”

“Sure.”

“You’re sure it’s him, right, Bobby? The picture, I mean. You’re sure it’s of Lauria?”

“Hey, Joe, me and Kenny ain’t that stupid. We had the landlord I.D. it before we showed it around.”

“Yeah, well, I know. Just thought I’d ask, that’s all.”

“What now?” Priscilla asked, when Dellosso had left the room.

Before he could answer, a uniformed officer assigned to the squad room opened the door and stuck his head in.

“Hey, Joe,” the cop said. “Call for you on three-five.”

“Thanks, guy,” Rizzo said, standing and leaving the room, Priscilla following. He took the call at his desk, gesturing for Priscilla to sit down.

“Rizzo,” he said.

“Hey, Joe, good morning,” he heard. It was Detective Dan Schillings from the CSU team.

“Hey, Dan, mornin’. What’s up?”

“Some prelims on that Lauria case,” Schillings said.

“Tell me,” Rizzo replied.

Schillings cleared his throat. Rizzo heard a faint rustle of papers coming through the line.

“Two sets of prints in the apartment. One was the vic’s, the other belonged to MaryAnn Carbone, thirty-eight-year-old female, last known out in Canarsie.”

“The cousin I been hearin’ about,” Rizzo said. Then a thought came to him. “Why were her prints on file, Dan?”

Again Rizzo heard the shuffling of papers.

“Hold on… here it is. She works as an aide in the public school out on Rockaway Parkway. They print for that job.”

“Okay. Where’d you find her prints?”

“Various, mostly kitchen and bathroom. Nothin’ in the rear bedroom, nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Okay,” Rizzo said. “Just those two sets, that’s it?”

“Yeah, that was it, print-wise. But we got lucky.”

Rizzo’s eyebrows raised. “Tell me.”

“We had a mutual fiber transfer hit. We found what looks like a foreign fiber on Lauria’s T-shirt. I sent a couple a guys out to the scene. They’re taking samples of all the clothes in the apartment. In a few days, I’ll be able to tell you if this fiber is from a piece of Lauria’s clothing or possibly from the perp. It’s a start.”

“If we ever I.D. a suspect, that fiber can help nail the guy,” Rizzo said.

“Yeah, could happen. We’ll see.”

“Anything else of value?” Rizzo asked.

“Not yet. Backyard was clean. In fact, the whole scene was pretty clean. There were clear prints on the inside and outside doorknobs of the front door. So they weren’t wiped down.”

“The vic’s prints were on the knob?” Rizzo asked.

“Yeah,” Schillings said. “And the first cop, Malloy. His prints were on the outside knob.”

“So no strange prints or wipe downs, the perp either had gloves on or used a handkerchief or what ever while he was in the apartment.”

“Yeah, most likely. Nothing seemed to have been wiped down, nothing we could find. Looks like the perp went out of his way to keep it clean.”

“Okay, Dan. Anything more?”

“Nope. I’ll be in touch about that fiber and anything else that turns up.”

“Alright, buddy, thanks.”

The line went dead. Rizzo replaced the receiver and turned to Priscilla. He quickly filled her in.

“So you figure the no-print angle is significant?” she asked.

“Do you?” he asked with raised eyebrows.

“What’s this, a pop quiz? Okay, then,” Priscilla said. “Let’s see, now. The lack of prints and the no wipe down means the perp wore gloves. That could mean he came to the place with murder in mind, or it could mean it was just a burglar, a pro, a guy who wears gloves and doesn’t break in carrying a firearm. So, when the thing went down, he had to strangle the vic because he carried no weapon. So, we still got nothin’. Am I right?”

Rizzo shook his head. “Cil, I gotta tell you, you once told Vince you weren’t as pretty as Mike, but you were smarter. Well, you were wrong.”

He leaned in toward her and gently patted her knee.

“You’re way prettier and a damn sight smarter, too,” he said with a wink. “Now follow through on what you just said. If it was a pro b and e man, a guy with gloves, no firearm, all that, how’d he miss that watch?”

Priscilla twisted her lips. “Again with the freakin’ watch?”

Rizzo smiled.

“Yeah,” he said. “Again with the friggin’ watch.”

While sitting in the Impala eating their Burger King lunches, Rizzo filled Priscilla in on the arrangements he had made with Ginsberg and Parker regarding the Hom robbery.

“Sounds like a good deal,” she said. “We get sole credit for the Hom case and shared with the other two, they get to do the dirty work.” She bit into her burger. “I can get used to that.”

Rizzo nodded. “Plus they owe us now. We solved two cases for them. We’ll cash those chips someday.”

“You make stuff simple, Joe. I can use some of that.”

Rizzo noticed a somberness in her tone. He turned in the passenger seat, facing her more fully.

“Now that didn’t sound like the usual sharin’-a-burger bullshitchitchat. What’s goin’ on?”

“You really wanna hear it?” she asked, dabbing ketchup from the corner of her mouth with a crumpled napkin.

“Sure,” he said.

“Okay, you asked for it. I’m havin’ breakfast yesterday with Karen. Very nice, I cooked her eggs, she’s all happy, everything is cool. Then all of a sudden, things get all melodramatic. She says, ‘We need to talk.’ ”

Rizzo winced. “Ouch. That usually means trouble in paradise.”

“Yeah, well, this wasn’t the first time we had this conversation. See, Karen is very close to her parents, they’ve been really cool with her ever since she came out to them in high school. It’s impossible for her to relate to my situation with my own crazy-ass mother. So now it’s the holidays, this friggin’ Thanksgiving, and Karen’s folks are going away on a cruise. She figures this for the perfect opportunity to mend my fences, have a little down-home Thanksgiving with my old lady.”

She sat silently for a moment, shaking her head as the scene replayed in her mind.

“She means well, Joe. But she just don’t get it. I don’t have a mother. All I got is some drunk who dumped me out in the backseat of a gypsy cab ’cause she was too fuckin’ stupid or disinterested to get her ass to a hospital on time. But Karen figures we invite her over, sip some sherry, eat some turkey, and exchange decorating ideas for the apartment. Blah… blah… blah, Upper East Side bullshit. I swear, sometimes I think Karen sees the whole world as some Vassar sorority round-table jerk-off club.”

“So,” Rizzo said. “How’d you leave it off?”

“I told her no friggin’ way. That old lady just doesn’t exist for me, Joe. Not after the hell she put me through till I got the fuck outta her grasp.”

“Sounds like you’re not kiddin’.”

“Damn right I ain’t. But now I gotta deal with all this… You know what Karen told me? She said she expects me to be the person I am, not just some hard-ass cop I like to pretend to be. She expects me to do the right fuckin’ thing with this. And do you know what the right thing always is, Joe? What she wants me to do.”

They sat in silence for a moment before Rizzo spoke. “Yeah, Partner,” he said. “The right thing. I know all about the right thing.”

“Can you imagine? I mean, I love the girl, but, Jesus, can her head be any farther up her own ass? Does she really figure my old lady is gonna drop her gin bottle and bake me and my girlfriend a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving?” She shook her head. “Jesus, girl, get real.”

“This is the stuff people gotta hear, Cil,” Rizzo said, allowing himself a small smile.

“What stuff?” Priscilla asked.

“This stuff,” he said. “It’s so routine. It’s the same-old same-old everybody’s gotta deal with. I mean, that decorator thing you told me about, and how Karen’s old man wants to hook you into corporate city, and her mother wants you off the cops. Now this, this crap about your mother. It’s the same stuff couples been dealin’ with since Eve boosted that apple and fucked everything up.”

“We are a couple, Joe. We ain’t fuckin’ Martians.”

“Exactly,” Rizzo said emphatically. “That’s what the boys in pink and the pain-in-the-ass lesbos gotta start publicizin’. Get this stuff out there, you’ll have the sympathy of every straight man and woman in the world.”

Priscilla shook her head. “Hell, I’m not looking for any sympathy from any-fuckin’-body. I’m just looking for some peace. Get Karen off my back with this bullshit. My mother is fucked up. Totally. And nothing is ever going to change that.” She let air out from between her lips. “Now these goddamned holidays gotta be a freakin’ issue.”

She turned full face to Rizzo. “Please tell me we’re working Thanksgiving, Partner. Please.”

Rizzo shook his head. “Sorry. I checked the duty board through New Year. We’re off Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day. That’s three fuckin’ arguments you can have with Karen. Ain’t the holidays fun?” he asked, his brows raised.

“Yeah, a freakin’ riot.”

After a moment, Rizzo spoke again. “Why don’t we do this? I’m having Thanksgiving at my house. Just my girls, Jen, her mother and mine. Why don’t you and Karen come? You can tell her you feel obligated, new partner, you gotta say yes, like that. You can push off this reunion from hell showdown for another month. Think about it. It’ll be fun watchin’ my mother and mother-in-law watchin’ you and Karen.”

Priscilla laughed. “Yeah, that sounds just great, Joe.”

“No, seriously,” he said. “It’ll be fine. Plus, maybe you and Karen can do me a favor and try to talk Carol out of goin’ on the cops. Hell, maybe Karen can get her old man to hook Carol up with some nine-to-five big payday bullshit job.”

“Okay, Joe, I’ll think about it.” After a pause, Priscilla spoke again. “Actually it may not be a bad idea. Karen would like to meet you.” She smiled at him. “I told her what a broad-minded, liberal Democrat you are, but somehow I don’t think she believed me.”

“Yeah, broad minded,” he said. “Though I gotta tell you, broads ain’t been on my mind as much as they were when I was younger.”

“Well, good for you,” she said.

They ate in silence for a while, watching pedestrian traffic move along the avenue in front of the Burger King’s parking lot.

Then Priscilla spoke once again, her tone neutral, her face expressionless.

“I gotta say, though, you did surprise me a little.”

“Oh, when was that?”

“In Lauria’s kitchen. With that black M.E. When you so diplomatically reminded him to check the corpse’s eyes for what ever. In case the guy was too stupid to think of it himself. You know… maybe since he was black and all.”

“Well, well,” Rizzo said with a laugh, “did that get your pan ties all bunched up?”

“A little bit, yeah,” she said.

“Cil, you need an explanation, I’ll give you one. But it’s not gonna break my heart any if you don’t believe it, so don’t hurt yourself tryin’.”

He turned full face to her, speaking carefully.

“There’s a few M.E. s out there who do it for the science, for the love of it. Those are the fucked-up ones, the head cases who like carvin’ up bodies, pokin’ around the maggots for clues. They’re like dysfunctional high school science nerds tryin’ to invent a better jerk-’em-off machine. But most M.E. s, the guy at Lauria’s place more’n likely, are guys with medical degrees who can’t get licensed to practice or can’t pass their boards or what ever. Some can barely speak English, guys from Puke-istan or some other shit-hole somewheres. They take the M.E. job for the steady paycheck, benefits, and a pension. Same reason guys become cops or garbagemen or work down at the DMV. They ain’t exactly consumed with ambition, you know? That’s why I reminded the doctor to get potassium levels from those eyes. I didn’t figure him for a slacker ’cause he was black. I figured him for a slacker ’cause he was an M.E. End of story.” He sat back in the seat, taking up his burger.

“Okay, Joe,” Priscilla said, turning to her own food. “I was hoping it was something like that.”

“All right, then,” Rizzo said. “Let’s skip the awkward silence, okay, and get back to business.”

“You got it,” she said. “Tell me.”

“Jesus,” he said, shaking his head. “Now she’s gonna start talkin’ like me. A fuckin’ Frankenstein I’m creatin’ here.”

“That invite for Thanksgiving still stand?”

“Sure,” he said. “If you decide to come, I’ll tell Jen to fry you up some chicken. You know, sos you’ll have somethin’ to eat.”

Priscilla tossed her crumpled napkin at him. “Okay, Joe. I get it. Okay.”