Blindsight (6 page)

"They're not police!" Frankie yelled.
Tony responded to Frankie's outburst by putting his Beretta Bantam to the side of Frankie's head. "One more word and you're history, kid."
"In the car," Angelo commanded.
With Angelo on one side and Tony on the other, they stood Frankie up and dragged him to the car. Opening the rear door and pushing his head down, they shoved him inside. Tony climbed in after him. Angelo ran around and jumped into the driver's seat. With a screech of rubber they headed west on Roosevelt Avenue.
"What are you doing this for?" Frankie asked. "I haven't done anything to you guys." "Shut up!" Angelo said from the front seat. He was keeping his eye on the rearview mirror. If there had been any sign of trouble, he would have turned on Queens Boulevard. But everything was quiet so he kept going straight. Roosevelt became Greenpoint, and Angelo began to relax. "All right, punk," Angelo said, glancing in the rearview mirror. "Time to talk." He could just see Frankie cowering in the corner, keeping as far from Tony as possible. Tony was holding his gun in his left hand with his arm draped over the back of the seat. Tony's eyes never left Frankie. "What do you want to talk about?" Frankie asked. "The job you and Manso did on Paulie Cerino," Angelo said. "I'm sure you guessed that we work for Mr. Cerino."
Frankie's eyes darted from Tony's face to Tony's gun, then up to the image of Angelo in the rearview mirror. He was terrified. "I didn't do it," he said. "I was just there. It was Manso's idea. They forced me to go. I didn't want to do it, but they threatened my mother." "Who's "they'?" Angelo asked.
"I mean Terry Manso," Frankie said. "He was the one." With a sudden wicked slap, Tony cracked Frankie across the face with the barrel of his gun. Frankie screamed and pressed the palms of his hands against his face. A trickle of blood oozed between his fingers.
"What do you think we are? Stupid?" Tony sneered. "Don't hurt him yet," Angelo said. "Maybe he'll be cooperative." "Please don't hurt me anymore," Frankie pleaded between sobs. Tony swore contemptuously and forced the barrel of his pistol between Frankie's fingers and into his mouth. "Your brains are going to be all over the inside of this car if you don't smarten up and stop screwing around with us."
"Who else was involved?" Angelo asked again.

Tony withdrew the barrel of his gun so Frankie could talk.
"It was just Manso," Frankie sobbed. "And he made me go along." Angelo shook his head in disgust. "Obviously you are not cooperating, Frankie. Remember about the lights. At the same time Manso threw the acid, the lights went out. That wasn't a coincidence. Who was screwing around with the lights? And the car. Who was driving the car?" "I don't know anything about the lights," Frankie sobbed. "I don't remember who was driving. Somebody I didn't know. Somebody that Manso got." Angelo shook his head in disgust. Nothing was easy anymore. He hated this kind of dirty stuff. He had entertained vague hopes that Frankie would have spilled his guts the moment they got him into the car. Obviously that was not to be the case.
Glancing up into the rearview mirror, Angelo caught a glimpse of Tony's face in the flickering light of the passing streetlamps. Tony was sporting one of his contented smiles that told Angelo Tony was enjoying himself. Even Angelo thought Tony could be scary on occasion. Once they got to the Greenpoint pier area in Brooklyn, Angelo turned right on Franklin, then left on Java. The area was run-down, especially the closer they got to the water. Abandoned warehouses lined the street. Seventy-five to a hundred years ago, the area had been a thriving waterfront, but that had long since changed save for a few isolated enterprises, like the Pepsi-Cola plant up toward Newtown Creek. In the cul de sac where Java Street dead-ended at the East River, Angelo drove through a chain-link gate. A sign over the gate said: AMERICAN FRESH FRUIT COMPANY. The car began to vibrate on the rough cobblestone surface, but Angelo didn't slow down. When he could drive no farther, he parked. "Everybody out," Angelo said. They were parked in the shadow of a huge warehouse built out over the pier that stuck out almost a hundred yards into the East River. Just across the river was the monumental mass of Manhattan's glittering skyline. Tony got out holding Doc Travino's little black bag and motioned for Frankie to get out too.
Angelo unlocked an overhead door to the warehouse, pulled it up, and motioned for Frankie to enter. Frankie hesitated on the dark threshold. "I've told you everything I know. What do you want from me?" Tony gave Frankie a shove that sent the boy stumbling forward. The click of the lightswitch echoed in the cavernous warehouse as Angelo threw the switch activating the mercury vapor lights. At first the lights merely glowed, but as they walked out the pier dragging a reluctant Frankie, they became progressively brighter. Soon it was enough to illuminate the huge stacks of green bananas that filled the warehouse. "Please!" Frankie moaned, but Angelo and Tony ignored him. They walked to the very end, unlocking a paneled door. Angelo found the lightswitch that activated a single bulb suspended by a bare wire. The room contained an old metal desk missing its drawers, a few chairs, and a large hole in the floor. Below the hole the water of the East River looked more like oil than water as it swirled around the pier's piling, flowing with the tide.
"I'm telling you the truth," Frankie wailed. "It was all Manso. I was forced to go along. I don't know anything else."

"Sure, Frankie," Angelo said. Turning to Tony he added, "Tie him to one of the chairs."
Tony put Doc Travino's bag on the desk and unsnapped it open. From within he pulled out a length of clothesline. Then, with a depraved smile, he told Frankie to sit in one of the wooden side chairs. Frankie did as he was told. While Tony tied him up, Angelo lit himself a cigarette. Tony gave the rope a couple of yanks to test his knots. Satisfied, he stood up and nodded to Angelo. "Once more, Frankie," Angelo said. "Who else was involved with the acid trick? Who besides you and Manso?"
"Nobody," Frankie sobbed. "I'm telling the truth." Angelo derisively blew smoke in Frankie's face. Glancing at Tony, he said, "Time for the truth serum." Tony pulled a small glass bottle and an eye dropper from Doc Travino's bag. He handed both to Angelo. Angelo unscrewed the cap and gingerly sniffed the contents. When he got a whiff, he pulled his head back quickly. "Geez, powerful stuff." He blinked a few times and wiped tears from the corners of his eyes.
"Any chance you want to change your story?" Angelo asked calmly after walking over to Frankie. "I'm telling you the truth," Frankie persisted. Angelo looked at Tony. "Hold his head back." Tony grabbed a handful of the boy's hair just above the forehead and yanked Frankie's head back. "Tell me, Frankie," Angelo said as he bent over the boy's upturned face. "Have you ever heard the expression "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth'?" Only then did Frankie realize what was happening. But despite his attempts at clamping his eyes shut, Angelo managed to empty the eye dropper into Frankie's lower right lid. A slight spattering noise like water hitting a hot skillet preceded an ear-piercing shriek as the sulfuric acid ate into his delicate eye tissues. Angelo glanced at Tony and noticed that Tony's smile had swelled to a grin. Angelo wondered what the world was coming to with this new generation. This kid Tony was having a ball. For Angelo, this was not entertainment, it was business. Nothing more, nothing less. Angelo set the sulfuric acid bottle on the desk and took a couple more puffs on his cigarette. When Frankie's screams had abated to choking sobs, Angelo leaned toward him and calmly asked if Frankie wanted to change his story.
"Talk to me!" Angelo commanded when it seemed that Frankie was ignoring him. "I'm telling the truth," Frankie managed. "Chrissake!" Angelo muttered as he went back for the acid. Over his shoulder, he called to Tony, "Hold his head back again."
"Wait!" Frankie croaked. "Don't hurt me anymore. I'll tell you what you want to know."

Angelo put the acid back on the desk and returned to Frankie. He looked at the tears streaming out of
the kid's shut eyes, especially the one where he'd put the acid. "OK, Frankie," Angelo began. "Who was involved?"
"You have to get me something for my eye," Frankie whined. "It's killing me." "We'll take care of it as soon as you tell us what we want to know," Angelo said. "Come on, Frankie. I'm losing my patience."
"Bruno Marchese and Jimmy Lanso," Frankie muttered. Angelo looked at Tony.
Tony nodded. "I've heard of Bruno," he said. "He's a local kid." "Where can we find these guys if we want to talk to them?" Angelo asked. "Thirty-eight twenty-two Fifty-fifth Street, apartment one," Frankie said. "Just off Northern Boulevard." Angelo took out a piece of paper and wrote the address down. "Whose idea was it?" he asked. "It was Manso's," Frankie sobbed. "I was telling the truth about that. It was his idea that if we did it, we'd all become Lucia soldiers, part of the inner circle. But I didn't want to do it. They made me go along."
"Why couldn't you have told us this in the car, Frankie?" Angelo asked. "You would have saved us a lot of trouble and yourself some grief."
"I was afraid the others would kill me if they found out I'd talked," Frankie said. "So you were more worried about your friends than us?" Angelo questioned as he stepped behind Frankie. It was enough to hurt Angelo's feelings. "That's curious. But no matter. Now you don't have to worry about your friends because we'll take care of you." "You got to get me something for my eye," Frankie said. "Sure," Angelo said. In a smooth motion and without a second's hesitation, Angelo pulled out his Walther TPH Auto pistol and shot Frankie in the back of the head just above the neck. Frankie's head snapped forward, then slumped down on his chest. The suddenness of the final act surprised Tony, who winced and stepped back, anticipating a gory mess. But there wasn't any. "Why didn't you let me do that?" he whined. "Shut up and untie him," Angelo said. "We're not here for your entertainment. We're working, remember?"
Once Tony had Frankie untied, Angelo helped carry the limp body over to the hole in the floor. On the count of three they heaved him into the river. Angelo watched just long enough to make sure that the running tide took the body out into the river proper.

"Let's head back to Woodside to pay the others a social call," Angelo said.
The address that Frankie had given was a small two-story row house with an apartment on each floor. The outer door was locked but it had a mechanism amenable to a credit card. They were inside in minutes.
Positioning themselves on either side of the door to apartment one, Angelo knocked. There was no answer. From the street they'd seen that the lights were on. "Bust it," Angelo said, nodding toward the door. Tony took several steps back, then kicked the door. The jamb splintered on the first kick and the door swung in. In the blink of an eye both Angelo and Tony were in the small apartment with their guns gripped in both hands. The apartment was empty save for several half-filled bottles of beer on the coffee table. The TV was on.
"What do you figure?" Tony asked.
"They must have got spooked when Frankie didn't come back," Angelo said. He lit a cigarette and thought for a moment.
"What next?" Tony questioned.
"You know where this Bruno's family lives?" Angelo asked. "No, but I can find out," Tony said.
"Do it," Angelo said.
3
7:55 a.m., Tuesday
Manhattan
It was a glorious morning as Laurie Montgomery walked north on First Avenue, nearing Thirtieth Street. Even New York City looked good in the cool crisp air scrubbed clean from a day of rain. It was definitely colder than the previous days and in that sense a disturbing reminder of the coming winter. But the sun was out and there was enough breeze to disperse the exhaust of the vehicles jostling their way in Laurie's direction.
Laurie's step had a definite spring to it as she approached the medical examiner's office. She smiled to herself as she thought how differently she felt this morning as compared to how she'd felt when she'd left for home the night before. Bingham's reprimand had been unpleasant but deserved. She'd been in the wrong. If she'd been chief she would have been equally as angry. As she approached the front steps, she wondered what the day would bring. One aspect of her work she particularly enjoyed was its unpredictability. All she knew was that she was scheduled to be "on

autopsy." She had no idea what kinds of cases and what kinds of intellectual puzzles she'd encounter that
day. Just about every time she was on autopsy, she dealt with something she'd never seen, sometimes something she'd never even read about. It was a job that meant continual discovery. This morning the reception area was relatively quiet. There were still a few media people hanging around for more word on the "preppy murder II" case. Yesterday's Central Park murder had made the front page of the tabloids and the local morning news. Just shy of the inner door, Laurie stopped. Over on one of the vinyl couches she spotted Bob Talbot deep in conversation with another reporter. After a moment's hesitation Laurie strode over to the couch. "Bob, I'd like to talk to you a moment," she said. Then to his companion, she added, "Pardon me for interrupting."
Bob eagerly got to his feet and stepped aside with Laurie. His attitude surprised her. She would have expected him to be more sheepish and contrite. "Seeing you two days in a row must be some sort of record," Bob said. "It's a pleasure I could get used to."
Laurie started right in. "I can't believe you didn't have more respect for my confidence. What I told you yesterday was meant for your ears only." Bob was clearly taken aback by Laurie's rebuke. "I'm terribly sorry. I didn't think what you were saying was a secret. You didn't say so." "You could have thought about it," Laurie fumed. "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to guess what such a statement would do to my standing around here." "I'm sorry," Bob repeated. "It won't happen again." "You're right, it won't happen again," Laurie said. She turned and headed for the inner door, ignoring Bob as he called out to her. But although she ignored him, her anger had lessened. After all, she had been speaking the truth the day before. She wondered vaguely if she shouldn't be more uncomfortable with the social and political aspects of her job that Bingham had referred to than with Bob. One of the attractions for Laurie of pathology in general and forensics in particular was that they tried to deal with the truth. The idea of compromise for whatever reason disturbed her. She hoped she would never have to choose between her scruples and the politicking. After Marlene Wilson buzzed her through, Laurie went directly to the ID office. As per usual Vinnie Amendola was drinking coffee and perusing the sports pages. If the date on the paper hadn't been that day's, she might have sworn he'd never left. If he noticed Laurie, he didn't give any indication. Riva Mehta, Laurie's office-mate, was in the ID office. She was a slight Indian woman with a dark complexion and a soft, silky voice. On Monday they'd not crossed paths. "Looks like today's your lucky day," Riva teased. She was getting herself some coffee before heading up to the office. Tuesday was to be a paper day for her. "How so?" Laurie questioned.
Vinnie gave a short laugh without looking up from his paper.