Soul Patch

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

After telling the same bullshit story over and over again to detective after detective, my mind pretty well went numb. I said I had come to talk to Frankie Motta on behalf of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Yancy Whittle Fenn. Wit, I told them, was researching a project on the fall of the old organized crime families and I sometimes helped him do his early background work. The last part was true enough. I did sometimes help Wit with his research. Of course, the rest of it was utter crap.

As to the shootings, I feigned ignorance. There seemed to be, I said, some sort of dispute between the three men that had something to do with the Red Hook Massacre and Frankie Motta’s son dealing coke. Sure, I knew Kenny Burton a little bit from when I was first on the job, but I was shocked to see him walk through the door with Martello. I guess if they looked hard enough, the cops would find someone who had seen the Caveman and me at O’Hearn’s in the city or with me and Rico at Larry’s burial. And as no one had seen me at Captain Martello’s house out in Great River, I swore that I’d never met the man. Whether anything I said would jibe with what Martello would tell them was something I’d worry about tomorrow. Besides, when they rolled Martello out to the ambulance, he wasn’t looking very spritely.

The cops didn’t believe five words of what I said. I could see it in their eyes, hear it in their voices. Shit, I wouldn’t have bought it either, but they had run out of questions to ask and ways to ask them. And when I got a chance to use the phone, I called Queens D.A. Fishbein. After I gave him a bit of a preview of what I’d learned-specifically that Burton was responsible for the murder of at least two NYPD detectives-he sounded quite pleased for himself and with me.

Whether it was the detective’s choice or a fit of pique by the Brooklyn D.A. at being trumped by Fishbein, I am still unsure, but for whatever reason, I was not allowed to go home. The best they were willing to do for me was to let me wait out in my car. There, alone in the front seat, I don’t suppose I ever felt so alone. It was difficult to say by whom I felt more betrayed, Larry McDonald or Rico Tripoli. I think Larry Mac-even more calculating and cutthroat than I’d imagined-had tried to warn me in his own way, but Rico had basically let me stroll into my own execution. I couldn’t get past the gnawing feeling that he had put in a call to Martello.

I think I was exhausted beyond sleep. After about an hour alternating between forcing my eyes shut and watching aircraft lights glide over the Atlantic, I stretched my legs a bit. As I walked between all the official cars and stared at the curious faces who stared even harder back at me, I realized there were things about the case I would never know. Unless Martello survived, found God, and spilled the parts of his guts that weren’t all over Motta’s floor or removed in surgery, I would be at a loss. In some ways, not knowing would be the worst part of it for me. I dreaded not knowing.

I asked once again if I could leave or use the phone. The polite version of what I was told was to get the fuck back into my car and wait. I began sorting through the pile of mail Joey the postman had handed me just as I’d left my house to come talk to Motta. Finding three credit card bills ain’t exactly like finding a forgotten twenty in the pocket of your blazer. But there amongst the bills and expired coupons, last week’s edition of the neighborhood paper, and a letter from the PTA, was something I couldn’t quite get myself to believe.

In my hand was an envelope. The return address printed in the upper left hand corner was New York City Police Department, One Police Plaza, New York, N.Y. 10038.

My address was written by hand in blue ink. Larry Mac’s handwriting was as neat and distinctive as the man himself. I noticed my hands were shaking and that my heart was pumping so much blood so quickly I was lightheaded.

There was a sharp rap on the glass. I turned and looked up into the face of some detective or other and watched his lips moving. He rapped the window again and motioned for me to roll it down.

“All right, Prager,” he said. “You can go.”

I think he said some other stuff about keeping myself available, but I can’t really say.