Rizzo's Fire

CHAPTER TWENTY

MONDAY MORNING THE TWO DETECTIVES once again returned to Lauria’s former home. There, they showed a recent photograph of Avery Mallard to the Annasias. Neither remembered ever having seen him in Lauria’s company or in the vicinity of the house.

As Rizzo drove once again to the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, Priscilla commented from the passenger seat, “I like workin’ Brooklyn, Joe. I get to spend lotsa time in Manhattan.”

“Yeah,” Rizzo said. “And the tolls are on the city.”

Her face grew serious. “I still think we shoulda called first. This could be a waste of time. These people may not even be in today…”

“Yeah, could be,” Rizzo said, “but I wanna catch ’em cold. I don’t want them with any time to think about this, why two cops are comin’ to see them. With Kellerman and Thurbill and the others, they already talked to cops, they knew they were involved. These people at the agencies, they have no reason to think cops are coming to talk to them. It’s better this way, trust me.”

She nodded. “Well, when you put it like that… I guess so. Okay, so we’ll just drop in.” Her face brightened. “We can say, Oh, we were just in the neighborhood and figured we’d stop by and ask, ‘Hey, you kill these two guys? You know who did, maybe?’ I can deal with that.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Rizzo said. “Catch ’em with their alibis all up in the air.” He shrugged. “We’ll see.”

The first literary agency they visited was located on Columbus Avenue at West Seventy-first Street. A little research by Priscilla had shown that this particular agency was well known for its representation of stage drama. The eventual letter declining the work had been signed by an Evelyn Myerson.

Ms. Myerson was twenty-six years old, employed by the agency as a first reader, and assigned to what was referred to as the “slush pile,” a myriad of eclectic unsolicited works received by the dozens each month. Myerson had obtained her B.A. in English literature from a small local college in her native Midwest, then relocated to New York City for a career in author representation.

After a short interview, it was clear to both detectives that the surprised, pleasant young woman had no recollection of Robert Lauria or his play. It was apparent to Rizzo that the woman had, most probably, scanned the work only briefly before returning it to the unproven, unknown Brooklyn playwright.

The second agency, at Ninth Avenue and Fifty-third Street, proved to be a dead end as well, also involving a young, inexperienced first reader serving more as a clearing house worker than literary representative. She, too, gave the detectives the impression that she hadn’t read A Solitary Vessel before mailing out her rejection letter.

Rizzo had deliberately started the interviews in the northernmost location of the city, working southward and nearer to Brooklyn as the day progressed. He and Priscilla left the Impala parked on Seventh Avenue and Twenty-seventh Street, stopping at a panini shop for a quick lunch.

The last of the three agencies was located in a tall office building on Seventh between Twenty-seventh and Twenty-eighth Streets in Chelsea. They rode the elevator and entered the third-floor office complex.

A young receptionist examined Rizzo’s badge and I.D., her eyes growing wide.

“Oh,” she said. “Is everything all right?”

Priscilla smiled. “Yes, everything is fine,” she said. “We just need to speak to Linda DeMaris. Is she in?”

“Linda?” the young woman asked. “Linda doesn’t work here anymore, Officer.”

“Oh?” Rizzo asked. “Since when?”

“I’m not sure… If I had to guess, maybe about a year.”

“Okay,” Rizzo said. “Was she a first reader here?”

The woman shook her head. “No, not when she left. Maybe she started as one, but I wouldn’t know.”

“So what was Ms. DeMaris?” Priscilla asked. “An agent?”

“No,” the woman said, her voice lowering, her eyes widening once more. “Is Linda in some kind of trouble?”

“No, nothing like that,” Rizzo said. “We just need to ask her about something, no big deal. But tell me… was she an agent?”

“No, sir, she was an administrative assistant. To Helen.”

“Helen?” Priscilla asked.

“Yes, Helen Crothers, one of the agents here.”

Rizzo nodded. “Do me a favor, will you? Get ahold of Helen. We’d like to speak to her.”

The woman reached for the intercom. “Sure,” she said. “Helen’s usually out to lunch at this hour on Mondays, but she happens to be here today. I’ll get her.”

HELEN CROTHERS was in her mid-fifties, sharp-eyed and intelligent-looking, her black hair short and dabbed in gray. She smiled across her desk at the two detectives.

“So,” she said. “How can I help you?”

“Well,” Rizzo said, “we wanted to speak to Linda DeMaris, but we understand she no longer works here.”

“Yes, that’s correct. She left about a year ago.”

Priscilla spoke up. “She was your administrative assistant?”

“Yes, that’s correct.” She frowned. “Is Linda okay? Is everything all right?”

“Far as we know, yeah,” Rizzo said. “We just need to ask her a question or two.”

“Is there anything I can help you with?” Crothers asked.

“Maybe you can,” Rizzo said. “Let me ask you, as an administrative assistant, did Ms. DeMaris screen incoming manuscripts? You know, unsolicited stuff the agency receives for representation?”

“Sometimes, but not very often. Actually, Linda resisted those assignments.” She smiled. “She’d spent more than a few years as a first reader, Detective. Her promotion to A.A. was somewhat long in coming.”

“So she did have a history here as a reader?” Priscilla asked.

“Most definitely,” Crothers answered. “As I said, for a good number of years, until about fours years ago.”

“And, as your assistant, she’d still occasionally read submissions that came in unsolicited?”

“Yes. Occasionally.”

“Ms. Crothers, you ever hear of a guy named Robert Lauria? From Brooklyn? Wrote an unproduced play called A Solitary Vessel?” Rizzo asked.

The woman frowned, then shook her head. “No, those names are not ringing a bell. Why?”

“His name came up on a case we’re working,” Rizzo said. “It turns out he submitted a play to this agency and it was rejected by Ms. DeMaris. We were just hoping maybe she had some additional info on the guy.”

“That would be unlikely, Detective,” she replied. “We process hundreds of submissions each year.”

“So we’ve been learning,” Priscilla said. “Do you keep any record of them?”

Crothers tossed her head from side to side. “Yes and no. When a first reader turns down a work, generally no record is kept. But when something goes beyond the first reader and receives serious consideration, it will often be entered into our databank.” She turned to the computer on her desk. “What were those names again?”

After keying in the information, Crothers shook her head. “No,” she said. “Neither is showing here.”

Rizzo nodded. “Okay, thanks, we’ll just talk to Ms. DeMaris. Do you know where she’s working now?”

“Oh, yes, Detective, I can help you with that. You see, Linda left us for a marvelous opportunity that opened up for her.”

“Oh?” Priscilla asked. “And what was that?”

Crothers’s smile broadened. “A personal assistant position for a very important and influential man.”

Rizzo crossed his leg, sitting back in his seat. “And who might that be, Ms. Crothers?”

“Thomas Bradley,” she said. “The Broadway producer. Have you heard of him?”

Rizzo turned to Jackson, and they exchanged smiles. Turning back to Crothers, he began to stand as he answered her.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “His name does ring a bell.”

SEATED IN the Impala on Seventh Avenue, Rizzo turned to Jackson with a smile.

“It’s always the last place you look, Cil,” he said, “every time.”

Priscilla started the engine. “And of all the suspects, you left Bradley for last.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Bradley looked good to me almost from the beginnin’. Remember when we talked to Kellerman, Mallard’s agent, and I told you speaking to him was pure gold?”

“Yeah, I remember,” Priscilla answered.

“Kellerman was the first guy to mention the rift between Mallard and Thomas Bradley, you know, how Mallard wanted that female character to be screwin’ the two brothers and Bradley didn’t. That’s what tipped me. Lauria’s play, the one that Bradley seems to have stolen, had no love triangle. Mallard put it in there on his own. He was a horny son of a bitch, wasn’t he? Four wives, all those girlfriends, the guy’s life revolved around women. Lauria, on the other hand, saved his nickels and dimes for phone sex and blow jobs at the massage parlor. The play idea appealed to Mallard, but he wanted to spice it up with the sex angle. Bradley wanted to keep it pure, the way Lauria originally wrote it.”

“You think Mallard and Bradley were in it together?” Priscilla asked.

He shrugged. “I dunno. Could be. But more likely it was just Bradley, and he spoon-fed it to Mallard.”

“Why you leanin’ that way, Joe?”

“It makes the most sense. Bradley steals the play, feeds it to Mallard. Bradley knows the play’s good, great even. He also knows he’s got no chance in hell of raisin’ a few million bucks to stage a Broadway production of a play written by some asshole from Brooklyn. But, if he gets Avery Mallard’s name on it, and he hypes it as a second Pulitzer by the American master, all the fat-cat art patrons in the city start liquidatin’ assets and tossin’ cash into Bradley’s hat.”

Priscilla nodded, easing the car out into the speeding downtown traffic. “So Bradley originally got the play from Linda DeMaris.”

“Bingo. DeMaris spent years eatin’ shit at that agency, then finally she gets a promotion. But every once in a while, some boss, maybe Crothers, says, ‘Hey, Linda, you ain’t doing anything, go help out with that slush pile.’ DeMaris gets pissed, but she’s gotta do what she’s told. So she grabs something off the pile and actually starts reading it. And it’s fuckin’ great. So, what to do with it? Hand it over to Crothers, then go out and get coffee for the big agents’ meetin’ that afternoon? No, DeMaris has a lead in to a big Broadway producer. Maybe she was sleepin’ with the guy already, maybe not, but she takes the play to him, and this plot to reject Lauria and spoon-feed Mallard gets hatched.” Rizzo smiled.

“Dollars to fuckin’ doughnuts, Cil, we get Mike to access the un-censored copy of the ‘confidential’ statement Bradley gave Manhattan South, that alibi mistress of his turns out to be Ms. Linda DeMaris.”

“So, Mallard comes up clean here?” Priscilla asked.

He shrugged. “My money says he does, and here’s why. When Lauria learns about An Atlanta Landscape, he freaks. He knows it’s his work, only with a sexy female screwin’ the brothers tossed into the mix. Then he finds out Kellerman is Mallard’s agent, and he sends a letter, through the agency, to Mallard. Mallard reads it, and in his heart, he knows it was Bradley who spoon-fed him the play under the guise of just helping him write it. I’d bet my pension Mallard never once saw the actual Lauria script. It seems unlikely a guy of his stature would deliberately plagiarize so blatantly. So he goes to Bradley and says, ‘What the fuck?’ He demands an explanation. Maybe threatens goin’ direct to Lauria. Bradley says, relax, it’s just a nut trying to make a score with some phony plagiarism claim. But Bradley’s still worried. He knows Lauria wrote the play, and maybe the guy could prove it. Maybe with one a those whaddaya-call-its? Poor man’s patents. So Bradley sees his entire career goin’ down the shitter. And Mallard’s, too. Bradley’ll forever be known as the guy who destroyed Avery Mallard’s literary legacy.”

Priscilla picked up. “So Bradley whacks Lauria.”

“Yeah,” Rizzo responded. “And he grabs all the incriminatin’ evidence he could find in the apartment, all the copies of Lauria’s play. Only he misses that box of rejection letters, and he never even knows about the duplicate manuscripts in Carbone’s garage in Canarsie.”

“But Bradley knows enough about the business to realize something like that could exist somewhere,” Priscilla suggested.

“Yeah, and he also knows a full-blown motive-based homicide investigation could turn it up, so he makes Lauria’s murder look like a break-in, just a random killing.”

Priscilla interjected, “But he still can’t relax. Mallard might still try and reach out to Lauria in response to that letter. Bradley figures if Mallard learns Lauria’s been conveniently murdered, the shit could still hit the fan.”

Rizzo continued. “So Bradley figures Mallard’s washed up anyway, been dried out for ten years already. Bradley can best protect himself by killin’ Mallard. That explains the time frame of the two murders. He had to act fast, so he kills Lauria on the thirtieth of October, Mallard on November second. Then he uses that DeMaris dame to alibi him for the one murder the cops would question him on: Mallard’s. Nice and neat.”

“So when do you figure they’ll be fishin’ DeMaris outta the river?” Priscilla asked.

“No, Cil, not gonna happen,” Rizzo said, shaking his head. “He whacks her-he’s the married man, she’s the goumada-and he becomes number one on the suspect hit parade. Once his alibi witness turns up dead, Manhattan South starts takin’ another look at the Mallard case, only now with Bradley the target.” He smiled. “This is real life. The only people find themselves involved in different murders all the time are TV characters on those old shows like Murder She Wrote and Diagnosis Murder. No, DeMaris is safe for now. Maybe not indefinitely, but at least for now.”

“This is great, Joe,” Priscilla said in frustration. “We solve both cases, but we can’t write a freakin’ dis-con summons on the evidence we have, let alone prosecute some showbiz hot shot for a double homicide.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Rizzo said. “We’ve got zero chance for an indictment. Tomorrow, we’ll go talk to Bradley. Rattle his cage a little. We play dumb on the DeMaris angle at first, like we never saw the confidential part of his statement where I bet DeMaris is named as the alibi, and we don’t know she’s relevant. Then we drop her name on him and let the guy simmer a few days over Thanksgivin’. After that… we’ll see.”

Priscilla pursed her lips. “What about Manhattan South, Joe? We been stringin’ D’Antonio along with our verbals and vague DD-fives, but now we might have to come clean.”

“Bullshit,” Rizzo said. “All we got is a lead on the Lauria case. That’s our case, Cil. And we’re just too stupid to make the Mallard connection.”

Priscilla looked skeptical. “We’re jugglin’ hand grenades here, Partner.”

“Maybe,” Rizzo said. “And if one of the pins falls out, we might have to run for cover. But for now, it’s okay. Believe me, Cil, stupidity is always your best defense on this job. There’s no regulation says a cop can’t be too stupid to see the nose on his face.”

“This is not just about covering our asses,” she said. “You gotta see that, for Christ’s sake. If we screw up here, even a little bit, somebody gets killed. I know you think you can handle this-”

“No, Cil, I don’t think. I know. Believe me, if I start having doubts, we’ll bring it to Manhattan. But like I said before, it’s not like we’re riskin’ some innocent citizen. DeMaris is part of this, she’s dirty, same as Bradley. She put her ass on the line here, not me.”

“Even if you’re right about that,” Priscilla said, “there could be something else, some angle we’re not seeing. Maybe some citizen is at risk here. I’m just saying-”

But Rizzo was adamant. “I know what you’re sayin’. You either trust me on this or you don’t. I told you before I’d leave it up to you, and I’m telling you now I can handle this. We can handle this. Manhattan South isn’t some magic bullet gonna solve this overnight. Hell, by the time we fill them in and they get up to speed, whoever the fuck you’re so worried about can already be dead. We’re close to the end here, Cil, believe me. The safest way to go now is for us to stay on course. The time to turn this over to Manhattan may come, but for now we’re committed. We just need to ride it out.”

After a moment she responded. “Okay, Joe. I’ll stick with it if you say it’s still cool. But try to remember, I can’t retire in less than a year like you’re gonna do. I need this job. And the last place I want to end up is in state prison with blood on my hands.”

“I hear you,” said Rizzo as he dug his cigarettes out of the glove compartment. “Just for your information, though, me and Mike had a very similar conversation back around August or so.” He turned to her, winking.

“And look at Mikey now. Plaza big shot with fancy new suits and everything.”

AT FIVE o’clock that afternoon, Rizzo sat at the desk in his basement office, cell phone in hand. McQueen answered on the third ring.

“Hello, Mike,” Rizzo said. “I’m glad I caught you home.”

“Yeah, well, I was just about ready to leave,” McQueen said. “My folks are coming in for Thanksgiving. I’m on my way to pick them up at the airport.”

“Okay. This’ll only take a minute.”

“I’m listening.”

“The Mallard file, the one you downloaded for us. There’s a statement in there from a Thomas Bradley. The guy’s married, and he alibied himself with a girlfriend he was supposedly bangin’ at the Marriott Marquis. The cop from Manhattan South confidentialed it to protect the guy. The downloaded copy was censored, referred to the girlfriend as ‘companion,’ then, at the end where she was named, it was blacked out. And the reports on her interview were censored, too.”

“So?” Mike asked. “Is it important?”

“I wouldn’t be burnin’ up my weekday minutes if it wasn’t, Mikey. I need you to take a deeper look into the file for me. I wanna know if the alibi witness is a broad named Linda DeMaris. If it’s not her, get me the name and contact info for whoever it is.”

“Okay, I can do that easy enough,” McQueen answered. “I’ll call you tomorrow with it.”

“Thanks,” Rizzo said.

“So what’s the latest?” McQueen asked. “Is this going anywhere?”

“Oh, yeah, Mikey, that it is. Just make sure you keep your hair trimmed, they might be takin’ your picture sooner than we figured.”

McQueen laughed drily. “I just hope it’s not for a fuckin’ mug shot.”

“What is it about you young cops?” Rizzo asked. “Cil’s shakin’ in her boots, too.”

McQueen sighed. “I’ll call you tomorrow, Joe.”

“Okay, kid, tomorrow.”