Brooklyn Noir (27 page)

DeGraw went on, “And maybe he got in his mind that if he conks this Willy guy on the head, cuts him up and puts him exactly where he knew I’d be tonight, he can run with the opportunity I myself inadvertently provided on friggin’ Labor Day.”

“Wait, you’re sayin’ all this happens because the guy wants a shot at Sandy?”

“Smart move, ain’t it? With means, motive, and opportunity, the heat is right on me. I could go away for a long time off this or maybe even end up on Death Row.”

“I apologize for puttin’ it this way,” Mintz said, “but you yourself said many times in the past coupla years that a guy ain’t gotta murder
nobody
to get in Sandy’s pants. You call that woman a slut all the time. So who better than you would know that all it takes is a coupla seven-and-sevens and you’re in like Flynn.”

“I divorced her, didn’t I? How do you know she drinks seven-and-sevens?”

“You told me once, a long time ago. Anyway, so okay, so who needs to commit a murder and pin it on you to get a piece of yer ex-wife?”

New emotions began creasing DeGraw’s face. “’Tween you an’ me—my son don’t even look like me. I hate to say it. It kills me. But I can’t shake this feeling.”

“Stop it, stop it right now,” Mintz said. “The kid looks just like you and that’s that. If not exactly, then close enough. So put it all right outa yer head.”

DeGraw reined in his feelings and pushed on, “All right, I’ll give you another motive, Louie. We been doin’ too good a job around here, breakin’ up Wild Willy’s gravy train. Face it, they might even like Wild Willy, but if his corpse means they can get back to the way they were haulin’ hot shit outa here, Willy is dead. Or maybe they’re pissed off for some unrelated reason and want Willy out of the picture. So off of that alone, partner, maybe some enterprising mob wanna-be sees a chance to take Willy out and pin it on the very cops screwed things up on the waterfront, so he takes a shot.”

“Much as I hate to admit it,” Mintz said,
“that one
makes a certain sense. With both Willy and us gone, things go back to normal… But can we really do this?”

“Come on, partner,” DeGraw said, taking another pair of surgical gloves from Mintz’s pocket. “Nobody here. All we do is introduce what’s left of Mr. Wild Willy to the depths of the East River, where the little fishies will enjoy eating Italian once again. Then we’re home free: no murder, no suspects, no change on the Red Hook waterfront.”

“God help me,” Mintz answered, closing his eyes and trying to force a swallow through a dry throat, “but I just can’t do this. It’s too risky.”

Deflated, DeGraw slumped back against the building. “Okay, man. I understand.”

“Look, Frank, I’m sorry, but I just…”

“It’s okay, partner. I’ll handle it… how I handle it. Why don’t you just call it in.”

Mintz lifted the radio and hesitated, fingering the broadcast key without activating the call. “Wait a minute, what am I thinking? We have to do this.”

“No we don’t,” DeGraw said. “I’ll handle it.”

“No you won’t. You’re right about what they’ll do. They’ll investigate you.”

“Right,” DeGraw said, noticing that Mintz was calmer now.

“And you know, they might not find that you iced ol’ Willy, but if they nose around into your activities, they’re bound to find out about the boosted guns, don’t ya think?”

“That’s not for you, that’s for me to worry about. How many times do I…”

“I’m sorry for bringin’ it up, Frank, but you could end up stuck with gun charges off of Wild Willy bein’ found dead here, so we
gotta
do what you suggest, right? We gotta dump Willy in the channel. Just promise me, Frank, if this goes wrong, you’ll step up and protect me.”

“I got yer back from now till the tomb, partner,” DeGraw replied, slipping the gloves onto Mintz’s hands.

“Faster we’re outa here, better I’ll feel,” Mintz said. “Let’s go.”

Stomachs in knots, they collected all the parts of Wild Willy—including the Mafioso’s wallet—and packed them into a rusted barrel, which they topped off with cinderblocks. Then DeGraw used the side of his Glock to tamp down the metal tabs on the barrel lid until it was secure, and they rolled the barrel to the end of the pier where, without ceremony, they sent the creatures of Buttermilk Channel fresh Italian to eat.

This took longer than they expected. They were late, so they trotted out from the warehouses, heading along Wolcott, making a left on Richards, and sauntering into Red Hook Park.

A sector car was waiting for them.

Nico Dounis, a Greek patrol sergeant everybody called Nicky Donuts, got out of the car when they approached. “Don’t nobody answer the radio no more?”

Mintz looked down at his belt and found the radio turned off. “Shit, sarge, I guess I accidentally turned it off.”

“You two have a brawl?” Dounis asked.

“No,” DeGraw said. “Why?”

“You’re all sweaty.”

“Don’t know what yer talkin’ about, sarge,” Mintz said. “Not sweaty at all.”

“Climbing around the warehouses,” DeGraw said.

“Humid out tonight,” Mintz added. “Uh, horseplay, you know, boys’ll be boys.”

DeGraw recognized three too many excuses when he heard them.

Dounis did too. “Okay, what’s goin’ on?”

DeGraw could see Mintz’s mind go into overdrive, a panicky thought making its way toward the lips, so he took Mintz’s arm and turned him away, stepping forward himself to answer. “Little argument, that’s all. Nothin’, really. He don’t know a guy’s still got feelings for his ex-wife even if they get divorced, so I had to straighten him out.”

Dounis studied DeGraw through squinted eyes, but he stifled an urge to pursue it.

“Hey, it’s late,” Mintz said. “We should walk the park.”

“I walked it myself,” Dounis said. “It’s done.”

“But we’re not that late, are we, sarge?” Mintz asked, and again DeGraw wanted to pound him into unconsciousness, but resisted the urge.

“Forty-five minutes I’m callin’, and I got no word on the radio,” Dounis said. “What’s that on your knee, Frank?”

They all looked down and saw the purplish-red splotch visible even on DeGraw’s navy blue pant leg.

“Oil, I guess,” DeGraw said. “I knelt down to tie my shoe.”

“I ain’t no dope and I don’t appreciate bein’ treated like one,” Dounis said. “Yer late, ya don’t answer the radio, yer all disheveled like ya been fightin’, ya smell like a frickin’ brewery, and ya got blood on yer pants. Don’t tell me that’s oil, ’cuz I know the difference.”

The two patrolmen were stunned. Mintz was ready to speak again but DeGraw spoke first: “Yer absolutely right, sarge. We were negligent. We had a few beers at lunch and lost track of time. Then he insults my ex and I had to straighten him out. Only he don’t show proper respect, so we scuffled a little bit. I took a head butt to the nose and bled, after which I knelt in it when I went down to tie my shoe.”

DeGraw and Mintz waited a tense second while Dounis processed the new information.

“Over here,” Dounis said, walking Mintz about twenty feet away.

Much as he tried, DeGraw couldn’t make out what they were talking about.

Dounis then returned to DeGraw while Mintz stayed behind.

“Turn away from Mintz,” Dounis said, and DeGraw obeyed. “Exactly where was it you two went at each other?”

“Shit, I don’t know,” DeGraw answered. “What the hell did we ever do to you?”

“Where was it you bled? I need to know exact.”

“I don’t know, one of the piers.”

“The piers is your whole patrol, asshole. Which one?”

“How’m I s’posed to know? They all look alike. Like Greeks.”

“After two years, you know those piers like they was yer own pecker.”

“Somewhere around the railroad yard, I’m guessing. Can’t be sure, sarge.”

“That’s not what Mintz said.”

“What d’ya want from me? One of us is right and the other forgot. No big deal.”

“I gotta do somethin’ about this, don’t I?” Dounis said.

“Yer bein’ a hardass, Nicky Donuts. What’s wrong?” DeGraw said. “I never crossed you, not even once.”

Dounis turned to Mintz and said, “Don’t come over here and don’t you two talk to each other.” Then Dounis sat in the cruiser and made a call to the precinct while DeGraw and Mintz could only stare at each other, reading worry on each other’s faces.

When, within a minute, five police cruisers came tearing to that corner of Red Hook Park, Dounis had DeGraw and Mintz taken into custody.

Unfortunately for DeGraw, the forecast was wrong. It never rained that night. Wild Willy’s blood stayed on the pavement and was collected by the crime scene unit.

By noon, DeGraw had spent hours in an interrogation room at the 76th Precinct, where he was interviewed by Catucci and Bourne, two homicide detectives, and Gonzalez, an ADA who’d been summoned from the Brooklyn homicide bureau. Cho and Santos, of Internal Affairs, also watched through the two-way mirror.

To show good faith, DeGraw had waived the “forty-eight-hour rule,” which gives a policeman accused of a crime the chance to arrange for representation without having to answer questions. But he had invoked his right to have his Policemen’s Benevolent Association representative present, so Ken Stanley sat off in a corner.

Not hearing a radio check from DeGraw and Mintz, Dounis had sent other officers onto the piers to look for them. When they arrived, unnoticed in the thickening fog, they watched DeGraw and Mintz pack Wild Willy into the barrel with the cinderblocks and then roll it into the drink.

What was worse, DeGraw soon found out, was the fact that Mintz had turned on him under the pressure of the questioning and was offering his full cooperation against DeGraw in return for a clean walk—which he was granted. It left DeGraw dumfounded.

“But how?” DeGraw asked. “How can he say I did the friggin’ murder? I was with him the whole time, and I swear, we didn’t kill the guy, we just dumped him.”

“’Cuz you were scared you’d be a suspect,” Bourne said, and DeGraw nodded.

“Not a bad story, but not good enough,” Gonzalez said. “Mintz told us everything. And they just raised the barrel, so I got a slam-dunk case against you. Do yourself a favor, pal, cop to a plea and I’ll cut you the best deal I can.”

“Be smart, Frank,” Bourne said. “Wait for your lawyer before you cut any deals.”

DeGraw hung his head and wondered how it all could have gone so wrong so fast.

At that same moment, Lou Mintz was a free man, cruising the streets of Brooklyn in his brand new Lincoln Navigator while singing off-key to a Dean Martin CD.

He hung a right on Bay Parkway and stopped on the corner of Cropsey Avenue, half-dancing his way into Bensonhurst Park. His feet felt like they were barely denting the grass as he approached two men sitting on a bench. One was an older gentleman named Bonfiglio, although Mintz knew him only as Big Fig.

“Nice new car, huh?” Bonfiglio said. “Pretty flashy.”

“That’s my new baby,” Mintz said. “Ride’s like a dream.”

Bonfiglio reached into his inner blazer pocket as Mintz sat next to him, then stuffed a bulging envelope into a copy of the
New York Post
and placed it on the wooden bench slats. Mintz picked it up and held the newspaper open while thumbing through a thick wad of hundred-dollar bills.

“Count it if you want,” Bonfiglio said.

Mintz sat back, putting the newspaper down again. “Looks about right.”

“Suit y’self, but later, when you do count it,” Bonfiglio said, “you’ll find more than we bargained for, just to show how appreciative I can be for a job well done.”

“’Preciate that,” Mintz said, and leaned forward to look at the other man. “Ya get the same appreciation, Nico?”

“More,” Nicky Donuts replied. “I got more.”

“Why him and not me?” Mintz said to Bonfiglio.

“He set it up,” Bonfiglio answered.

“But I did all the work,” Mintz said. “And damn good work it was.”

“Management always takes less risk and gets a bigger cut,” Dounis said. “Ain’t you hip to that yet?”

Bonfiglio laughed. “God rest him, but Willy never knew that, and now look.”

“Shit, I still gotta testify,” Mintz said. “Hardly seems fair that I get less.”

“Don’t worry, kid,” Bonfiglio said. “Cashflow won’t be no problem once we’re back to business in Red Hook. You’ll get everything what’s comin’ to ya.”

“Know what? I believe ya,” Mintz said, sashaying back toward his Navigator with the
Post
and envelope clenched under his arm. “Have yerselves a great day, gents.”

Five minutes later, Mintz turned off Shore Parkway onto Bay 17th Street, parked in the driveway of a quaint little white clapboard house, and went in through a side door. Without a word, he went upstairs to a bedroom.

Entering, Mintz tossed the
Post
and envelope onto the bed. Sandy turned away from the bureau and folded herself into Mintz’s arms.

“Went off without a hitch,” Mintz said, nuzzling her neck.

Mintz, the neurotic weasel who’d shy away from a dicey situation and whine about the danger, was now gone. Sandy gasped as this new Mintz balled her hair in his fist, tilted her head back, and took the front of her throat in his teeth. Then he trailed his tongue to her ear and took the lobe between his lips, all while she rubbed up against him.

“I can’t get enough of you,” she said, and when he moaned, she added, “Shush, the baby’s down for a nap.”

“I won’t wake him up,” Mintz whispered, leading her into the baby’s room. Watching the ten-month-old sleep, Mintz couldn’t help but smile.

“Looks just like his old man,” Sandy whispered.

Mintz beamed, patted the kid’s foot, and led her out of the room.

In the hall, Mintz kissed her and said, “Dress up nice and call the sitter, I’m takin’ us out tonight, special celebration.”

“Yeah?” she said. “Where?”

“Carmine’s, Italian place in the city,” Mintz said. “Food is absolutely to die for.”

Back at Bensonhurst Park, Dounis and Bonfiglio were still enjoying the high sun and the salt air that was wafting in off Gravesend Bay.

“The case against DeGraw?” Bonfiglio said.