Soul Patch

CHAPTER TWENTY

It came to me in my sleep. Who knows, maybe a roach whispered it in my ear. More than likely it was Wit’s article. What can I say, the man’s my good luck charm. Six years ago, it was his expose on the career of a New York politician that was the key to my discovering Moira Heaton’s true fate. But this time it wasn’t so much one detail or a particular sentence that made it come together for me. I had simply drifted off reading Wit’s piece, “Said the Spider to the WASP,” and when I woke I up, I knew it all revolved around ’72.

Although there were guesses I was making to help things fit snugly into place, I felt pretty confident. I also felt like an idiot for not seeing what was in front of my face from the day of the grand opening party. Larry had been trying to give himself away, not only at the party but that last time we spoke on the boardwalk. I just hadn’t been listening carefully enough.

“Rico.” I jostled him, Bento’s file spread over him like a paper quilt. He stank of cigarettes and sour scotch.

“What?”

“I’m heading out.”

“Whatever.”

I left most of the money in my wallet on the shelf in the bathroom. When I closed Rico’s door behind me, there were the usual ambient odors of urine and crack smoke in the air. Mostly there was a weary silence, emptiness. Even one-eyed cats have to sleep sometimes.

It was early yet, so I rode back into Brooklyn, back to my house. I showered and made some calls. Waited for some answers. My house felt even emptier than the Mistral Arms and nearly as desperate. I was

At a little after ten, I headed out the door and bumped into our regular mailman, Joey.

“Hey, Mr. P.”

“Joey, no more vacations for you, man. That guy who replaced you was-”

“-a dick. Yeah, I know.”

“There are guys on death row with a happier outlook on life than him.”

“Not only is he a miserable fuck, but he’s an incompetent one too. Here, Mr. P.” Joey handed me a neat stack of banded letters.

“What’s this?”

“That shithead delivered some of your mail to the Bermans even though he knew they moved.”

“Thanks for looking out for us, Joey.”

“No sweat, Mr. P.”

I tossed the banded pile of mail on the front seat and drove to Mill Basin.

Mill Basin is sort of Brooklyn’s anti-Ditmas Park. The area’s unifying theme seemed to be bad taste. Surrounded by water on three sides, it’s the kind of place where people who make a little bit of money turn perfectly lovely houses into things that would make Salvador Dali scratch his head. Yeah, it may be ugly, but it’s big and it’s mine! Just lately it had become quite popular with the Russians, who had recently began to wander beyond the confines of Brighton Beach. I took perverse pleasure in the fact that most of Frankie “Sticks and Stones” Motta’s neighbors were people he probably despised.

I came fully prepared to do battle, my.38 in its usual spot and my replica shield in my back pocket. I might as well have come with a cap gun and cowboy hat. The big but tasteful brick house on National was, as near as I could tell, unguarded. There were no obvious security cameras, no Beware of Dog signs, no nothing. The toughest thing I had to cope with was avoiding a medical supply truck backing out of

I parked at the curb, strolled up to the front door, and pressed the bell. It didn’t play the theme from The Godfather, but did the usual bong-bong-bong-bong. The way I figured it was that Motta was the shooter in Rip’s that night, that his kid had gotten in way over his head, and Dad was trying to fix the damage. When the door pulled back, I got the sense that maybe I needed to reassess the situation.

A petite Filipino woman in a white nurse’s outfit smiled up at me. “Can I help you?”

“I’m here to see Fran-Mr. Motta.” I was reaching around to my back pocket, ready to produce my fake shield. I needn’t have bothered.

“Oh good,” she said. “Visitors really perk up Mr. Frankie’s days. Come with me.”

I followed her through the house, barely noticing the decor or layout of the place.

Just outside a door, near what I assumed was the back of the house, she stopped and whispered.

“He’s having a good day, but don’t let it fool you. He becomes tired very quickly. My name is Anita. If you need me, just call out. There’s a monitor in the room so I can hear if he should fall or have trouble breathing. Okay?”

“Thank you, Anita.”

“I’ll be just down the hall.” She pushed open the door.

It was a spacious room, probably once a den, with high, angled ceilings. Long-necked fans hung from exposed beams, their lazy, spinning blades creating a gentle breeze. Large rectangular skylights let in the sun and the smell of salt air. There was a large stone fireplace surrounded on either side by a black granite ledge. The mantle was black granite as well, but that’s as far as the “den-ness” of the room went. Now a hospital bed sat where a leather sofa or loveseat might once have faced the big French doors that looked out onto the back deck and canal behind the house. Next to the bed was all manner of medical equipment and two large oxygen tanks.

In spite of the sun and salt air and fans, the nose-stinging medicinal tang and the stink of decay were heavy in the air. Frankie Motta was sitting in a wheelchair, staring through the glass of the doors that stretched from one end of the room to the other. A forty-foot boat

“Used to have one a them myself. Big motherfuckin’ boat. Didn’t do shit with it except let it impress my friends. Sat at the marina a few blocks from here. What a waste a fuckin’ time and money, boats. But now I like watchin’ ’em, you know?”

I didn’t say a word.

He turned the electric wheelchair at an angle away from the French doors and toward me. “I know you?”

“I’m an old friend of Larry McDonald’s.”

If I laid a glove on him, he didn’t show it. He rolled the chair closer to me and gave me a squint. “I seen you before. You was on the TV a few years back. Solved that girl’s murder, the cop’s kid.”

“Moira Heaton.”

“Yeah, her. I watched the press conference. Larry Mac got the big bump after that case.”

“You got a good memory there, Mr. Motta.”

“I got lung cancer, idiot, not Alzheimer’s.”

“Sorry.”

“Makes at least two of us. You got me at a disadvantage. You know my name, but I only know your puss.”

“Moe Prager.”

“Oh yeah, the Jew. Larry used to talk about you sometimes.”

“That’s funny, because Larry never once talked about you, Mr. Motta.”

“Frank.” It wasn’t a suggestion. “He wouldn’t, now would he?”

“I guess not, Frank.”

That pleased him, me calling him Frank. “Larry was always the smartest guy in the neighborhood when we was kids. He picked things up right away.” Motta snapped his fingers weakly. “Took stuff in like a sponge, you know? He always understood shit without being taught it.”

“Sounds like Larry,” I agreed. “Always knew how to get what he wanted without asking.”

Motta laughed at that, but the laugh transformed itself into a coughing fit. I grabbed a white towel and handed it to him. He sounded like he was hacking up what was left of his lungs. When the coughing subsided, he put the towel down and slipped a green plastic oxygen mask over his nose and mouth. He took shallow breaths. Shallow was probably the only option left to him. Finally, some color came back into his face, and the panic in his eyes, which he hadn’t bothered hiding, subsided.

He removed the mask. “You ain’t from Meals on Wheels and you ain’t a respiratory therapist, so what you doin’ here, Prager? Not that I don’t enjoy the company.”

“Wanted to talk about Larry with you, talk some old times.”

“Old times is all I got. No time to make new memories.”

“Does it scare you, dying I mean?”

“I used to be scared of it, but when you die this way, in little pieces. . Hey, when it comes, it comes. This!” he said, making a sweeping gesture, “This ain’t really living and it ain’t really dying, pal. It’s waitin’. I always hated waitin’.”

“I hate waiting too. Bad news is better than no news.”

“Exactly. I jus’ hope the lungs crap out on me before the shit spreads into my brain. I can see why you and Larry Mac got along. You think like he thought.”

Finally, an opening. “Not really. I wasn’t an ambitious cocksucker.”

If I thought that was going to make an impression on Frankie Motta, I guess I was going to be disappointed. Coughing out his lungs might have concerned him, but he was still a tough motherfucker.

“Come over by the doors a second,” he said, the electric motor whirring as his chair moved ahead of me. “How long you figure it’s been since that boat passed? Thirty seconds? A minute?”

“Something like that.”

“You see the water? Even though the boat’s gone, the water’s still telling you it was there. I hear there are some weird little seafaring cultures in Asia where they can read the ripples in the water like the Indians here can read tracks.”

“And this relates to Larry how?”

For the first time since I stepped into the room, the real Frankie Motta reared his head.

“Shut your mouth and pay some attention, then you won’t have to ask no stupid questions.”

“Your house, your rules,” I said.

He liked that too. Maybe he’d give me a gold star on my Delaney card for being such an apt pupil.

“See,” he continued, “Larry didn’t understand that stuff like about the boat. It was a big blind spot for him. He thought you could sometimes float a boat by without leaving a wake. Maybe I thought the same thing there for a while, but I learned. There was this time once when I had a boss, a foolish old man who had some silly ideas of honor.”

“A guy like Tio Anello, for example.”

“Yeah, hypothetically speakin’, a guy jus’ like him.” Motta smiled at me. He had a smile not too dissimilar from my father-in-law’s, as warm and welcoming as a lobster claw. “Well, old men, they lose focus sometimes and look backwards instead of the way ahead. They forget what’s important and what’s not. They think because a thing used to work one way for a long time, it should always work that way. You catchin’ this, Prager?”

“You mean like this old man maybe having rules against getting involved with the drug trade? Like that?”

He showed me the lobster claw again. “You’re pretty fuckin’ sharp.”

“Sometimes.”

“What does a guy like me do with an old man who taught him everything about the world, about survivin’, about all the important things? What does a man like me do when he can see the future in a way the old man he works for can’t?”

“Depends on what he thinks is more important, the future or the past.”

“From where I’m sitting today, it’s the past. But that’s only because I got no future, so that don’t count. Back in them days, I thought the future was important. I thought survivin’ was everything.”

“And anyone who thinks the future is important has to plan for it.”

“So I planned, but I tried to do it without hurtin’ the old man. I hid it from him, because if he found out about it-”

“You’d have to survive and that would mean clipping him. . hypothetically speaking, of course. And he meant too much to you for that.”

“There was that, but even if he had a sudden change of heart and decided drugs was the best thing since cheese fries at Roll-n-Roaster, he’d a had to. . you know. . make an example of me for challengin’ his authority.”

As Motta spoke, things about the past were falling surely into place like tumblers on an old combination lock.

“Dexter Mayweather! You bankrolled D Rex.” I could feel my mouth turn up into a self-satisfied smile.

Frankie Motta bowed his head in respect. “That’s good!”

“This way Anello couldn’t connect you to the drugs, but you could salt away the profits and have a network in place for when the old man died.”

“Hey, that Dexter, he was one sharp fuckin’ nigger, let me tell ya. A little too sharp for his own good, maybe. We coulda been the fuckin’ kings of Brooklyn, the two of us.” He was screaming. “We coulda run this town and them cocksuckin’ Russian scumbags woulda had to come beggin’ to us for a piece a the pie. But-” Motta was gasping for air again, his chest racking violently.

“Anita!” I shouted and slid the green mask over Frankie’s face.

Motta flailed his left arm at the little table next to the bed. He made a C out of his right forefinger and thumb and squeezed the tips together. “Inhaler! Inhaler!” he gasped.

I found a mustard yellow inhaler on the bedside table and curled his fingers around it, then removed his mask. He took two blasts from the little plastic device and his breathing eased almost instantaneously. Anita bolted through the door, took a glance at the inhaler, and eyed me in that same disapprovingly way Ronnie had. I was beginning to feel like Typhoid Mary’s intern.

“Mr. Frankie cannot get excited. It puts too much strain on his lungs.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’ll have to go now.”

“No!” Frankie rasped. “He’s stayin’. I’ll keep calm, Nita.”

“Mr. Frankie, this is not good for you to get excited.”

“I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die.”

“You are not dying yet!” Anita chided as if she had a vote in the matter. She turned and wagged her little index finger at me. “Don’t make me have to come back in here. I come back and you are out, no matter what Mr. Frankie says. Understand?”

“Perfectly.”

“Okay.” She eyed me skeptically as she closed the door behind her.

“She’s a tough cookie, that one,” Motta said. “Woman cares more about me than my ex-wife did.”

“She gets paid to care.”

“So did my ex-wife. We pay ’em all, one way or another.”

Argue that.

“Before, you said something about D Rex being too smart for his own good.”

“Everybody’s a team player up to a point. Dexter thought he saw an opening and he went for it.”

“Got him killed, huh?”

He rolled the chair over to me and began patting me down before I could answer. His movements were practiced, familiar, but his touch was weak. “You wearin’ a wire?”

A wire! Talk about coming full circle. Then again, it wasn’t the wire Larry had planted that started this mess. The wire and Malik Jabbar’s taped interrogation simply marked the end of the intermission, an intermission to a drama whose opening act was played out nearly two decades ago.

“You’re clean.”

“Would it have mattered if I was wearing a wire?”

“I guess not.”

“Then why don’t you just tell me what happened, Frank?”

He thought on that. “Sure. Why the hell not?”

“I’m listening.”

“We had the distribution network in place. We had a ton a cash to expand as soon as Tio died. We were gonna be patient with him, wait him out. He was a man of respect and if we whacked him it woulda caused trouble with the other families. Then he did us a favor and he had that fuckin’ stroke.”

Another tumbler fell. “You jumped the gun. You thought Anello was gonna die when he had that stroke.”

“The fuckin’ doctor said he was a dead man. That it was a twenty-to-one shot that he’d ever regain consciousness, never mind anything else.”

“But he did.”

“Like three weeks later, the stubborn old fuck. Sometimes I wish that society bitch had just fucked him to death. He was months in therapy. Even so, he talked like he had rocks in his mouth and walked like a fuckin’ gimp. But he still knew what was what. He heard things. Those was dangerous days to be me.”

“I bet. D Rex saw his opening.”

“He knew I was in a bad place and he tried to renegotiate percentages.”

“Pissed you off, huh?”

“Nah, like I said, he was a sharp nigger. He was only doin’ what I woulda done in his shoes. Problem was, once the old man recovered, it wasn’t about percentages no more. It was about survival, my survival, my crew’s survival.”

“D Rex had to go.”

“I had no choice. I hated doin’ it. I kinda liked him and he had a real head for business. With the money we woulda generated, we coulda turned the Anellos into a powerful family, not a fuckin’ afterthought. But Dexter was the only link to me. He’s the only person I ever dealt with directly. With him dead, Tio coulda heard all the rumors in the world and it wouldn’t a mattered.”

“But you didn’t kill him,” I said. “You had him killed.”

“If word ever got out inside the family that I clipped Dexter Mayweather, people would start to wonder why. I couldn’t risk that. Had to keep my distance, you know?”

“So you couldn’t use anybody from your crew or even bring in a guy from another family. You had to use outside help, people who were insulated from the family and maybe even from the law. And it had to be done messy, nothing that could look like a pro hit. Something that would seem to be the work of one of D Rex’s rivals or an ambitious one of his own looking to move up the quick way.”

“You musta been a helluva detective, Prager.”

I let that go. “It’s easier to see things looking down when you’re standing on seventeen years of history. I guess the guys working the case back then thought exactly what you wanted them to think. It’s what everybody would think. And who would really give a shit about some black drug dealer?”

“Good question. Why do you give a shit?”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass about the vic. I’m interested in his killers.”

“Why?”

“Because one of them was a cop and a friend of mine, someone I thought I understood.”

“Oh, I get it. This ain’t about him. It’s about you, huh?”

I thought about that. So far I’d barely touched Frankie Motta, but he’d gotten a few hard, straight rights in through my gloves.

“Yeah, Frank, I guess maybe it is about me. Larry must’ve owed you something big to do this for you.”

He started laughing again, laughter even blacker than his lungs.

“Larry didn’t owe me shit. Wasn’t you payin’ no attention before when I was talkin’ about not leavin’ a wake?”

“I thought I was.”

“Larry McDonald was a friend a mine too, you know? We went back a long fuckin’ ways, him and me. He was just as hungry for stuff when we was kids as he was the day he took the pipe.”

“Fuck!”

“That’s right, Prager. Larry Mac come to me with the idea, not the other ways around. He was smart and, like Dexter, maybe too smart.”

“But you said no one else knew about you and Mayweather.”

“He didn’t exactly know, but this is Larry we’re talkin’ about here. He was on my pad to keep an eye on Mayweather and he was on Mayweather’s pad too, to keep an eye on the cops. How long you think it took Larry to figure out what was really going down?”

“Probably not too long, knowing Larry.”

“When Tio come outta the coma, Larry Mac came knockin’.”

“And you answered the door and let him in.”

“You bet your fuckin’ ass I did. Listen, it was like havin’ my prayers answered. I could trust Larry and with him being on Mayweather’s payroll, he could get in close to Dexter. He wasn’t connected to me business-wise, not so’s anybody knew about it, and, like you said, he was insulated from the law.”

“Perfect.”

“Almost.”

“Something’s perfect or it isn’t,” I said. “The difference between almost perfect and perfect is like one and infinity.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. So what went wrong?”

He smirked. “The ripples in the water.”

“We’re back to that again.”

“We never left. See, Larry found out that muderin’ somebody leaves ripples in the water that don’t never go away. He had trouble living with that.”

“You’re telling me he had a conscience.”

“Nah. . Well, maybe a little one, but that wasn’t the thing of it.”

“Then what was the thing of it, Frank? You don’t mind me asking?”

“Dexter was a big boy, wide and country strong.”

“I remember.”

“Took more than just Larry to do what needed doin’. Yeah, they fucked up poor old Dexter pretty good: broke his fingers, smashed up his knees, beat him bad.”

“I heard, but what’s. .” Then it dawned on me. “The guys who helped him. The ripples in the water.”

“Pat yourself on the back there, Prager. You got long arms.”

“So who helped him?”

Motta stared at me in a way that could’ve frosted glass. “I ain’t never ratted nobody out in my life. I coulda saved myself a ten-year stretch in prison, I opened my mouth. What makes you think I’m gonna talk now? And to you?”

“You talked about Larry.”

“Larry’s dead, God rest his soul.” Frankie crossed himself. “Nothin’ can hurt him now. Not even sticks and stones can break his bones no more.”

“That’s almost funny. Well,” I said, “at least I know the guys who helped Larry out are still alive, otherwise you’d talk about ’em.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

I didn’t pursue it further. He wasn’t going to discuss it. And though I would have been happy to waste every second of time he had left on earth, I wasn’t inclined to waste mine.

“Marge tells me you and Larry had a falling-out.”

“She still hot, Marge? Man, Larry had some good taste, always the finest threads and finest pussy.”

I ignored that. “So what happened?”

“Guess Larry didn’t like having his balls in someone else’s hands.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that if he killed for me once, maybe he’d have to do it again.”

“Did he?”

“Let’s just say Larry didn’t have much of a heart for me fter. .” He didn’t bother finishing his sentence.

Frankie Motta was spent. The frosty looks and lobster smiles were all gone now. Only strain showed on the scarecrow. He was exhausted, but couldn’t quite bring himself to admit it. Not only had my presence been a distraction, it had breathed a few minutes of life back into him. He remembered what it felt like to be powerful, to make decisions about other people’s deaths instead of watching boat wakes and waiting for his own.

“So, you happy now?” he asked. “You gonna sleep better tonight? A dead fuckin’ nigger and a dirty cop. . I mean, who really gives a shit besides you?” Motta spun the chair about and wheeled back over by the French doors. “It’s been nice talkin’ to you, Prager, but you’re startin’ to gimme agita.”

He was right. No one gave a shit. If that was as far as it went, I might actually have been inclined to let go and toss it into the water with the rest of the world’s sins. But this wasn’t just about Larry. There was too much blood and too many bodies to ignore and simply move on.

“You still here?” he asked.

“We’re not done.”

“I disagree. Now get the fuck out.”

“Can’t do it. You’ll miss the part about your son.”

Motta flinched. It was barely perceptible and he kept his eyes on the water the whole time, but I hadn’t imagined it. “What about him?”

“You should be proud of him. He’s following in your footsteps.”

“Stop talkin’ outta your ass, Prager. My kid ain’t like me.” But this wasn’t a proud father jumping to his son’s defense. If I could have

“Nice.”

“Nice got nothin’ to do with it.”

“I guess not.”

I opened my mouth to say something else, but I can’t recall what.

“Quiet!” Motta whispered, rolling his chair up next to me.

There was a conversation out in the hallway between Anita and a man. I couldn’t make out their words. I thought I recognized the man’s voice and though Motta didn’t quite tilt his head like a curious dog, it seemed to me that he recognized it, too. I didn’t like that. Why would Frankie Motta know Captain Martello’s voice? What I heard next, I liked even less. Something thumped hard against the wall-Anita? — and the conversation came to an abrupt halt.

Motta started panting again and there was real fear in his eyes. It was hard to tell whether Frank’s concern was for himself or his nurse. I reached around for my piece, but when I brought it forward my hand slammed against the wheelchair and the pistol fell a few feet behind Motta’s back. Never mind retrieving it, I didn’t even have time to bend my knees before Martello strolled fully into the room. He was pointing a cocked.38 of his own vaguely in my direction.

“Ripples in the water,” Motta whispered to me.

“Shut up, Frankie! And don’t look so disappointed.”

“Whaddaya do to Anita, you cocksucker?” Motta asked, trying to slow his breathing and failing.

“I put her to sleep for a little while. I wouldn’t worry about it, she won’t feel a thing. And that asshole kid of yours, you don’t have to worry about him either. What an idiot, Frankie. You sure he was yours?”

Frankie Motta clamped his hands on the arms of the wheelchair, trying to raise himself up, but it was no good. He fell back, defeated, his coughing worse.

“That’s right, Frankie, sit the fuck back down. All this violence, because your kid had to walk in your footsteps. He had to bring up the past. Now I gotta put an end to it.”

“You helped kill Mayweather!” I said to Martello.

“Prager, you schmuck! Too bad you figured that out seventeen years and two minutes too late. Kenny, get in here!” Martello barked, tilting his head back slightly over his shoulder.

Caveman Kenny Burton walked into the room, a black 9mm dangling in his hand. If I had any lingering questions about who had helped Larry Mac murder Dexter Mayweather, Burton’s appearance answered them. No doubt Kenny had enjoyed breaking D Rex’s bones.

“Hey, Moe, I ever tell you you were a cunt?”

“At every opportunity.”

The corners of his lips turned up.

“Stop fucking around!” Ever the commanding officer, Martello shouted some more orders, then turned his attention back to me. “That was some fancy gun handling I saw when I came in, Prager. Pick it up.”

If I had any balls, I would have told him to go fuck himself. What I did instead was pick up the gun.

“You told me it was a bad day for you when D Rex was killed,” I said to Burton as I knelt to retrieve my gun.

“I guess I lied. Go figure.”

“Yeah, go figure.”

Violence put Kenny in a talkative mood. “Good thing for me your pal Rico got cold feet that night or I woulda missed out on a big pay-day. You may be a cunt, but he’s a real fucking coward. I’m gonna enjoy killing him.”

“Not if I get to him first.”

“I like my chances better,” he said, making some guttural noises that passed for laughter.

“Shut the fuck up, the both of you,” Martello groused. “Prager, go stand over by the fireplace.”

I did.

“Shoot Frankie!”

At first I didn’t think I’d heard Martello right. Several scenarios ran through my head, none of them any good. I might be able to get one shot off at either Martello or Kenny, but not both, and I’d be dead before I found out if I’d hit the target. Didn’t seem like a good option, not yet, anyway. Besides, Motta was spasming and coughing up wads of blood-laced phlegm. He was twitching so much I wasn’t sure I

Martello had other ideas. “Then shoot at the fucking floor, but shoot.”

“Fuck you!” I thought I heard myself say.

A moment of clarity. He wanted me to be found with gunpowder residue on my skin and sleeve. Considering the volume of raw violence over the last few weeks, I thought this all very silly and elaborate. Homicide according to Robert’s Rules of Order. Apparently, the Caveman agreed with me.

“This is bullshit!” Kenny whined, raising up his nine mil. “I shoulda just killed you first at Rip’s the other night.” He saw the stunned look on my face. “That’s right, Moe, I was standing so close behind you I coulda licked the wax outta your fucking ear. You’re a lucky bastard, you know that? If that asshole Bento wasn’t there, you’d be-”

“Shut up, Burton, and let’s finish this up.”

“Fuck you, Martello.” Kenny had chafed at authority when we were on the job together. He didn’t seem to tolerate it any better now.

For the second time in as many minutes, I opened my mouth to say something but was interrupted, this time by gunfire.

Bang!

I looked down at my gun hand to make sure I hadn’t pulled the trigger. When I looked back up, Kenny Burton-legless as a drunken teenager, his expression asking, “Hey, what the fuck?”-was doing a London Bridge. He fell down, all right, his head smacking the hardwood floor with a nauseating, hollow thud. I felt it more than Kenny did. He was beyond feeling. Then again, he had always seemed to be beyond feeling.

“Don’t worry about him,” Martello said to me. “He was gonna die anyway. Now shoot the fucking gun, Prager. If you can’t tell, I’m not in the mood for any more bullshit.”

My gun hand felt completely detached from my arm. It took all my strength and focus just to raise it up and pull back the hammer. I pointed it away from Frankie, who was now desperately groping for his inhaler. For the heck of it, I peeked at Martello, but he wasn’t stupid. He had assumed the proper shooting position, his Police Special

I closed my eyes and squeezed the trigger, but there were two bangs, then a third. When I opened my eyes, Frank Motta was crumpled in a heap in front of his wheelchair, a chunk of his neck torn out, the blood barely pumping. Apparently that wasn’t his inhaler he had been groping for. If it had been, he wouldn’t be needing it now. Martello was down too, but alive, rolling around on the floor in agony, the right side of his abdomen soaked with blood. He was too busy screaming, “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” to worry about me or his lawn or to contemplate his future.

I ran over to him, kicked his gun out of the way, and pressed my foot down hard on his shoulder. That got his attention. With Martello flat on his back, I reached down and stuck the short barrel of my.38 into his mouth. I made sure he saw the gun was cocked.

“Now, you won’t have to tell me to shoot. Understand?” He did.

I had to hurry as I wasn’t sure how long he’d stay conscious and I could hear sirens in the distance.

“I want answers-short, quick answers,” I said. “If I believe them, I won’t kill you. It’s that simple. Ready?”

He was.

“You, Larry, and Kenny killed Dexter Mayweather.”

He nodded yes.

“Was Burton telling the truth about Rico?”

He nodded again.

“Where did you fit in?” I yanked the.38 just far enough out of his mouth so that I could I understand his answer.

“I was Frank’s man inside the Six-O. He made Larry take me along for insurance. Now get me a fucking doctor, for chrissakes! I’m bleeding to death here.”

“Not yet,” I said. “Is Bento dead?”

“Yeah.”

“Where’s the body?”

“Coney Island Creek.” He put a clammy hand on my forearm. I shook it off.

“And Motta’s kid?”

“The Gowanus Canal.”

“How were you and the kid involved?”

He didn’t answer. The sirens were close now. Martello’s eyelids were fluttering and he’d begun to shiver.

“Okay, listen to me,” I said, slapping his face to get his attention. “You tell the cops anything you want about what went on today. You put bullets in two men, so I wouldn’t stretch the truth too far. Otherwise, I don’t care what kind of bullshit story you come up with to explain what happened here between you and Kenny and Motta. But you mention word one about what happened back in ’72 or about Larry, and I’ll fucking kill you. That’s a promise.”

His eyes shut, maybe for the last time. Maybe not. The cops were at the front door. I holstered my gun, stood up, and walked quickly over by the French doors. I slid one open and tossed something into the water behind the house. I did it knowing Katy would understand.

All dreams have a shelf life. The expiration date on my dream of pitching for the Mets or playing point guard for the Knicks had long since passed. And now, finally, I had acknowledged that my dream of getting my career back, of carrying that gold and blue enamel shield, had gone the way of the Mets and Knicks. I took out my silvery old badge, the only one I had earned the right to call my own, and waited for the cops to sort things out.