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Authors: Laura Resnick

BOOK: Dopplegangster
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4
 
D
etective Napoli and a patrol officer took me to the OCCB’s charmless headquarters to get my statement. Lopez, whom Napoli obviously didn’t want anywhere near me, stayed at Stella’s to keep working on the problem the cops were having with the crime scene.
I figured they were looking for evidence of a second gun. Or at least a second bullet. Because the shot fired from the street, through the front window, couldn’t have been the shot that killed Chubby Charlie. But it was still the only one the cops knew about by the time I left the scene. And unless the killer could see through walls and program his bullets to turn corners, there was no way the shot that came through the window could have killed the mobster.
If I hadn’t been hysterical after watching Charlie die, I might have realized this right away. Or maybe not. I’m an actress, not an assassin. My familiarity with guns, bullets, and firing trajectories is limited to what I see on
Crime and Punishment
.
But Lucky, whose knowledge of such things seemed to be encyclopedic, was baffled.
The cops seemed to be baffled, too. In between bouts of questioning me, Napoli had several exasperated phone conversations with CSU personnel back at Stella’s, and one
very
exasperated conversation with Lopez.
At least, I assumed it was Lopez, since there was one point at which Napoli snapped at his caller, “Miss Diamond is
fine
. Now keep your mind on your job, goddamn it!” I doubted that any other cop at Bella Stella was asking after my well-being.
Napoli asked me a lot of questions about myself, about that evening at Stella’s, and about Charlie. He didn’t ask how I knew Lopez, though. He didn’t even allude to the acquaintance. But I had a feeling he’d be asking Lopez
plenty
about it, once they were done processing the crime scene.
“You seem very tight with the Gambellos,” Napoli observed, handing me a diet soda after we’d been talking for a while.
“No.” I shook my head. “I’m just a waitress. I’ve been working at Stella’s on and off since last year, but only when I don’t have a real job—an acting job. I’m not an insider there, and I don’t socialize with anyone there. I like the place because Stella is a good employer and the customers tip well.”
“Oh?” Napoli affected casual surprise. “I thought Stella and a number of her customers seemed very fond of you tonight. Protective, too.”
“I think they were mostly trying to annoy the cops.”
Actually, I did have warm relationships with Stella and Lucky. And since a number of the restaurant’s regulars liked the way I sang, they often asked to sit in my section and I was on cordial terms with them. But I definitely wanted to quash Napoli’s attempt to suggest that I was cozy with the Mafia.
He persisted, “I thought they seemed to count you as one of their own.”
“I’m not Italian,” I said. “And I think you know, Detective
Napoli,
that people in that walk of life would never think of me as one of the family. So to speak.”
“Meyer Lansky was Jewish, but he and Lucky Luciano were like brothers.”
“Meyer Lansky was a gangster. I’m an actress waiting tables in between roles.”
“But you see a lot at Stella’s, I’ll bet.”
“I keep my head down and mind my own business,” I said firmly. “For the most part, I’m not even sure which of Stella’s customers is or isn’t a Gambello. They don’t carry business cards or wear matching shirts, you know. I realize there are real mobsters at Stella’s, and I know who the more famous ones are. That’s all.”
“Famous? Like Chubby Charlie Chiccante?” Napoli prodded.
I nodded. “Charlie has been in the news too many times for me not to know who he is. Er, was.”
I was, I admit, prevaricating a little. I didn’t like Napoli, and I was uneasy about his evident conviction that I knew a lot more than I did.
A number of the wiseguys who hung out at Stella’s, like Tommy Two Toes and Jimmy Legs, had also been in the news, so I knew about them. And wiseguys aren’t discreet. The reputations of guys like Lucky Battistuzzi, Frankie the Hermit, and Ronnie Romano were openly acknowledged by the customers at Stella’s, as well as by the staff.
But in cases where I didn’t know someone’s reputation, his status was usually easy to guess. If a man was always in the company of made guys and seemed to be working with them, it was a safe bet that he was also a made guy, a “button man,” someone who’d gotten “straightened out.” If someone seemed welcome on the fringes of those tight circles but obviously wasn’t an insider, he was “connected,” an “associate,” or a “friend of ours.” These were all terms I’d heard wiseguys use to describe various shady men and tough guys who had friendly relations with the Gambello crime family or who wanted to become part of it.
And then there were the Buonarottis. None of them were really regulars, but a few members of that crime family showed up every week. The Buonarottis were less powerful than the Gambellos and so, with the brashness born of insecurity, they liked to make sure Stella’s servers knew who they were—made guys, button men, Buonarotti soldiers. Guys with “juice”—power, influence, clout.
We also had many customers who shared the mannerisms and unfortunate fashion sense of wiseguys (loud shirts, shiny shoes, gold jewelry, and an ill-advised fondness for colorful sweat suits), but who weren’t criminals. Sometimes it was easy to tell them apart from the mobsters, but not always.
“So, besides Charlie, who else dines at Bella Stella who’s a Gambello?” Napoli asked me. “You must have some ideas. Some guesses?”
I blinked. “
You’re
a lead investigator at the Organized Crime Control Bureau. Don’t
you
know?”
“I’d like to hear your take on it.”
“Why?”
“You seem like an intelligent woman.”
“You don’t think that,” I said irritably. “You think I’m a ditz! You’re hoping I’m so eager to feel important that I’ll show off by trying to lecture you about stuff you already know—or damn well
should
know, since it’s your job to know! And in the course of rambling on about life at Stella’s, maybe I’ll let some important information slip. Except that I don’t
have
any important information, Napoli!”
“Then tell me the truth about Charlie’s death!”
“I
have
told you the truth!”
“It doesn’t work, Miss Diamond. Based on the only possible trajectory of the bullet that killed Charlie, you
had
to have seen the killer.”
I blinked. “What?”
“If you were near Charlie when he got shot, then you saw who killed him. There’s no way you didn’t.”
“That’s what this is all about? You don’t believe me?”
He shook his head. “Your story doesn’t hold up against the evidence, Esther.”
“I’d prefer that you keep calling me ‘Miss Diamond.’ ”
“So I’m wondering why you’re lying.”
“I’m telling the truth,” I said wearily, beginning to suspect there was no way I’d ever convince him of this.
“Are you trying to protect the killer?”
“Do I
look
like I’d protect a killer?” These questions were getting on my nerves. “Do I look like someone whose protection a Mafia hit man would
want
?”
“So Charlie was killed by a Mafia hit man?” he pounced.
I rolled my eyes. “I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that’s the case, Detective.”
Napoli suddenly switched tactics, making an attempt to look concerned and sound sympathetic. “So maybe you’re afraid of what the Gambellos will do if you tell the truth about what you saw. I can understand that.”
“You don’t do ‘good cop’ well,” I said. “It just doesn’t work for you.”
He scowled. “Are you afraid of the killer, then?”
“Generally? Of course! Because the killer is, you know, a
killer
. But specifically? No. Because the killer must know I didn’t see him. I mean, if he thought I did, wouldn’t he have shot me, too?”
Napoli changed the line of attack again. “Maybe you’re trying to avoid trouble with the Gambellos? Maybe you
knew
they wanted Charlie dead, and you’re afraid to talk about it.”
I frowned. “
Did
the Gambellos want him dead? I thought he was a good earner.”
“So you
do
hear them talk business!”
“No. Charlie told every waitress in the place that he was a good earner. He also told us he was good in bed.”
“Or maybe
you
wanted him dead,” Napoli suggested.
“No, he tipped me well.” After a moment, I said, “That came out wrong.”
Coplike, he changed the subject without warning. “Did Charlie ever talk about the Corvino family?”
“Not to me.”
“To who, then?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes I’d be passing his table and I’d hear him say something like, ‘Those fucking Corvinos. ’ I don’t remember anything more specific than that.”
“Does anyone else at the restaurant ever mention the Corvinos?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Almost everyone.”
“What do they say?”
“About five times a night, they say, ‘Those fucking Corvinos.’ ” I had not observed much originality of expression among the wiseguys at Stella’s.
“Did anyone mention the Corvinos after Charlie got shot?”
“Not that I remember. Mostly, I screamed a lot, then there was a stampede of departing wiseguys and screaming tourists, then Stella screamed a lot, then cops showed up . . . I don’t remember much conversation, and certainly nothing about who might have killed Charlie.”
“So you think they already
knew
who did it?”
“ ‘They,’ who? There was me, Stella, three freaked-out waiters, our accordion-playing bartender, and a couple of tourists from Colorado who didn’t see a thing but thought they should wait for the police, even so. No one else stayed inside the restaurant with the corpse before the cops arrived.”
“You know more than you’re saying.”
“You’re wrong.”
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“That I don’t like your shirt. Tan isn’t your color.”
“By lying to me about what you saw,” Napoli said, “you put yourself in more danger, Esther, not less.”
“What’s the
matter
with you? This is the third gang-land murder at Bella Stella in five years! Why is it so hard for you to believe I’m just a law-abiding waitress who was unlucky enough to see the latest killing while working there?”
“Because your story doesn’t fit the evidence,” Napoli said.
“That does it.” I rose to my feet. “I’m going home.”
“I advise against that, Miss Diamond.” He rose, too. “You’re a material witness in a mob hit. You’re in danger now. I want to take you into protective—”
“No.”
Everyone on Mulberry Street must know by now that I had insisted over and over to Lopez and Napoli—as well as to Lucky—that I hadn’t seen a thing. And whoever the killer was, he must know, too, that I hadn’t seen him. So I didn’t believe I was in danger of being permanently silenced if I went about my normal life. But I
did
believe my normal life would get screwed up beyond recognition if I went into protective custody. For one thing, the killer might wonder if he was wrong and I
had
seen something, and that was precisely what I
didn’
t want him to start thinking.
More to the point, how was I going to go to auditions while in protective custody? Or earn money to keep paying my rent? And how long would protective custody last? A week? A month? Six months? Until the city ran out of money for guarding me? The rest of my life?
None of those prospects sounded good to me.
“I have nothing to do with whatever business got Charlie killed, and I saw nothing,” I said to Napoli. “So the last thing I want is to be treated as if I
am
involved or run my life as if I
did
see something.”
“You’re making a mistake,” Napoli said.
“I’m a witness, not a suspect, and I’m tired. I’ve told you everything I know, it’s late, so I’m
leaving
.”
“You’re not a suspect
yet,
” he said ominously. “But your behavior isn’t helping your situation. And don’t think that your personal involvement with Detective Lopez will protect you from the law, either.”
“I don’t need protection from the law,” I snapped.
I slung my purse over my shoulder and stomped out of the squad room, wishing a bad case of shingles on Napoli.
 
It took me hours to fall asleep that night.
In my mind’s eye, I kept seeing Charlie’s shocked expression as he keeled over dead. I also kept remembering his ranting about how he was marked for death and nothing could change that.

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