Hose Monkey (7 page)

“Brooklyn, huh?”

“That’s the thing, Joe.”

“What is?”

“The thing that might help you find Jean Michel.”

“Brooklyn?”

“Jean Michel took her to an after hours club called Rien.”

“Rien?

“Rien,”
she repeated. “It means nothing in French.”

“Nothing nothing or like
nada
in Spanish.”

“The latter. Apparently, Jean Michel’s cousin owns the place.”

“Did she tell you where in Brooklyn it was?”

“Not exactly. Corral said it was on Flatbush Avenue somewhere, past the junction. Does that make any sense to you? I don’t know Brooklyn.”

“I know the area. Great. Thanks. I think I can really do something with this.”

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

“Is there’s something else?” Joe prodded.

“Jean Michel’s a sick fuck.”

“Learn that term in graduate school, did you?”

“I’m human, too, Joe.”

“Sorry. That was stupid of me. Go on.”

“He drugged her, brought her to a room above the club and videotaped himself raping her. And … And he—” her voice cracked.

“Okay, okay, I know this is hard for you, but it’s important I hear all of it.”

“He let other men have her, Joe, two at a time.”

“I get the picture.”

“It gets worse.”

“Worse! How?”

“He showed her the tape.”

“He what?”

“He made her watch it the next morning, all of it, while he masturbated in front of her.

And he threatened to send it to her husband if she went to the police. He still has it. So, if you find him, you can’t let on how you–”

“I understand. He won’t know how we found him.” Marla was confused. “We? Who’s we?”

“I’m still working on that. How did you get Corral to tell you this? It couldn’t’ve been easy.”

“But it was, Joe. I’d like to think it’s because I’m good at my job, but that’s not the reason. I just happened to be a person she trusts and I gave her an opening. She’s been dying to tell someone for a long time. It’s hard carrying shame around with you.”

“No one needs to teach me that lesson. Listen, I want you to hear this from me.”

“Uh oh. What?”

“I quit my job today,” he said.

“But you told me you love Frank and—”

“That’s why I quit. It’s a long story. I’ll tell it to you Saturday night, okay?”

“Okay. Kisses guaranteed, right?”

“Try and stop me.”

Joe found himself staring at the phone several minutes after he hung up. It wasn’t about Marla this time. He was disgusted with himself. He was disgusted with himself because of all the emotions he could have felt for Corral Lofton, anger was the most prominent. If she hadn’t cheated on her husband … If she had gone to the cops … Did Mr. French kill Cain? Maybe, maybe not. But Corral Lofton knew what a violent, horrible man Toussant was and instead of protecting other women or the people she drove in her van, she chose to protect herself.

That was life. People protected their own or themselves. It wasn’t Joe’s place to judge them. He had just forgotten how gray a cop’s universe could be. When you go into the academy, you’re certain there’s a right and a wrong. Once you’re on the job a while, the distinctions blur. When you’re a narcotics detective, the distinctions get to be as fine as camel hair. Sometimes there are no distinctions at all.

Corral Lofton had lost a lot that night in the room above the club. She just couldn’t afford to lose anything else. When he thought about it that way, Joe understood completely. Loss and Joe Serpe were far from strangers. What he had lost was gone forever, but Joe made himself a promise to try and get back some of what Corral had lost.

Out of the shower, he sat down on the couch to make a list of the people he could ask for favors. Mulligan snored loudly on the back ledge of the sofa. Joe made another list of cops and ex-cops he might ask to act as backup for him during his ride into Brooklyn. Neither list took long to complete. If Joe hadn’t testified against Ralphy in open court, both lists would have been quite long.

If he had been willing to go to prison for Ralphy’s sins, his old buddies would have respected that. That he had paid for his crimes of omission with his career, pension, family, house, and marriage wasn’t enough. That Ralph would have gone to prison with or without Joe’s testimony was of no consequence to the guys on the job. Joe was a rat. Period. No respect. No understanding. No second chances. In the course of a few short months, Joe Serpe had gone from prince to pauper. Not only wasn’t there anyone to go to for help, there wasn’t anyone who would even speak to him.

When he went back into the bedroom to collect his oil clothes and put them in the hamper he kept in the landlord’s garage, the stink of them gave him an idea. It was an idea that ten days ago he wouldn’t have believed was in the realm of possibility. That was before the world had changed on him again.

Ash Wednesday
February 25th, 2004

 

PRETZELS

 

T
he sun was almost warm on the skin, the sky cloudless. It was one of those rare February days when the weather implies that Spring might actually come. During cold, snowy winters, oilmen savor such days as this. Business slows down just enough to let you catch your breath. Your movements become less robotic. Lugo’s would be packed later. In the meantime, it was a lovely day for an execution.

The yard was busy, but in a more relaxed way than it had been for weeks. When the weather’s bad, the activity is all business. There’s no wasted movement. Trucks are warmed up and moved out. Conversation is kept to a minimum. Greetings are grunts, nods, and waves. Today, guys from the truck repair shop and auto body shop next door to the yard were stopping by to shake hands, tell stories of their latest conquests, and near misses, but Cain’s murder was still on everybody’s mind, if not on their lips.

Frank was miserable. It wasn’t an act. Still reeling from the kid’s death, he hated to lose Joe, too. Dixie was a good driver, maybe better than Joe, but he was a real yahoo from the Florida panhandle who’d come up north on a football scholarship. He quit after one semester and stayed because he was too embarrassed to go on home. That was 1998. Frank liked Dixie well enough, although they had about as much in common as Robert Oppenheimer and Richard Petty. One of the barriers between Frank and Dixie had been removed by fate. Dixie never hid the fact that he didn’t much care for “having that retard boy around.” Truth was, Frank had had business enough for months to put Dixie on full time in his own truck, but he didn’t care for Dixie’s attitude toward Cain.

Promptly at 7:30, Joe Serpe strolled into the yard as if it was a day like any other. The timing couldn’t have been better. Jesus from the truck repair place, Steve Scanlon from Black Gold, Dixie, and Pete from the deli were all there as witnesses.

“Don’t bother, Joe,” Frank spoke his lines with little enthusiasm.

“Don’t bother what?”

“Coming into the office. You’re done.”

“Frank, what are you talking about?”

“You’re a habit I can’t afford, Joe.”

“I’m fired?”

“I’m sorry, but yeah, you’re fired. Here, this is for you.” He held an envelope out to Joe.

“Why, because those asshole cops gave me those tickets?”

“Like I said, Joe, I can’t afford this shit. This is business. Maybe if things settle down, I’ll take you back. But this is costing me too much money.”

“Fuck you!” he growled, smacking the envelope out of Frank’s hand. “And you can shove your thirty pieces of silver up your ass.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way, Joe, but I got no choice.”

Joe flipped Frank the bird and turned to go. Although he knew it hurt Frank to go through this charade, Joe smiled to himself. Now if the cops came sniffing around, there’d be enough witnesses to insulate Frank. If there was fallout—and Joe knew there probably would be—from his going after Toussant, Hoskins and Kramer couldn’t justify punishing Frank and Mayday.

Before he could get to his car, Joe was stopped by Steve Scanlon.

“Joe, Joe!” Steve called to him.

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“Can we talk?”

“Why not?” Joe laughed. “I got nothing else to do with my time.”

“Come on over to my office.”

“Sure.”

Bob Healy was getting impatient. Now not only did he have the old baggage he was carrying around for Joe Serpe, but he had information about the kid’s murder. His suspicions were correct. There
was
an ongoing investigation. That’s why Detective Lieutenant Asshole had been so rough on Serpe. He didn’t want anyone stumbling into the trap that he had so carefully set, especially not a street smart ex-cop like Serpe. It had nothing to do with that Toussant guy.

Healy knew all about ongoing investigations. They become your babies. You nurture and protect them. You sacrifice for them. Trouble is, sometimes you lose perspective. Yeah, sometimes you ignore facts staring you right in the face. Sometimes you bend the rules into pretzels if it means keeping your baby alive. With the Serpe/Abruzzi Case, Bob Healy had mangled the rules beyond recognition. By the time Ralph Abruzzi killed himself, there were no rules.

One more day, Healy told himself. One more day. Then he would go find Serpe himself and lay it out for him. It was almost funny, the retired detective thought, that had Serpe not delivered his oil that day, he would have taken this to his grave. During a long, distinguished career, Bob Healy had prided himself on never sinking to the depths the renegade cops he hunted were willing to go. Once, and only once,
he
had taken the plunge. And that one time had led to suicide and disgrace. He caught sight of himself in the hallway mirror, the ashes on his forehead still fresh. If Bob Healy was ever going to get clean, he would need Joe Serpe’s cooperation.

Black Gold’s offices were in an old construction trailer dumped unceremoniously in one corner of the adjoining yard. You wouldn’t think there could be much difference between rectangular plots of dirt where men parked big trucks, but you’d be wrong. Everything about this yard was second class to the one where Frank kept his trucks. Although he didn’t own the land, Frank had paid for a layer of crushed concrete to be spread and tamped down over the dirt of his yard. This way, the trucks didn’t create ruts in which water could collect. No water, no mud, no big patches of ice.

In summer, Steve Scanlon’s yard looked like something out of the Oklahoma Dust Bowl. In winter it was an obstacle course of mud puddles and black ice. It wasn’t even his yard, really. He was forced to share it with Harry’s Truck Repair and Hot Tar Paving.

“So what is it I can do for you, Steve?” Joe wanted to know.

“It’s the other way around, Joe. It’s what I can do for you.”

“Yeah.”

“I saw what just happened.”

“You and half the population of Ronkonkoma,” Joe said. “How’d you like to come drive for me?”

“Thanks, Steve, but I—”

“No, Joe, hear me out, okay? I’m thinking of expanding my operations. I’ve had two solid years and, truth be told, I need a guy who isn’t constantly working around his firehouse schedule like my other drivers.”

Joe understood. Steve made no secret of his distaste for the driving aspects of the business. He’d done his twenty years in the fire department, built Black Gold up, and didn’t want to work as hard anymore. And since 9/11, he had never been completely thrilled with the drivers he had recruited from his old firehouses. Nearly all New York City firemen, because of their flexible schedules, have second jobs. Flexible or not, there were just too many times Steve was stuck with driving chores.

“I’m listening.”

“Like I said, I’ve had some good years. I’m gonna invest in some new equipment. You and me both know my old Fords are falling apart. I’ve already got orders in for three new Sterling automatics. I’m gonna buy a piece of land with a building on it. I’m sick of this paying rent bullshit. If I could have a solid driver like you on board, it would free me up to work on my expansion. I’ll give you twelve bucks a stop and load, plus an extra fifty bucks a day if you route the other drivers for me. I would also think about getting you some health in—”

“Let me think about it, okay?” Joe cut him off.

It was a very tempting offer and one, if only for appearance sake, Joe couldn’t afford to dismiss out of hand. He couldn’t risk raising suspicions that his firing had been a sham.

“I really wish you’d take it.”

“I’m still taking in getting fired, Steve. Besides, I’ve been working six days a week, fifty weeks a year for the last three years running. Gimme a few weeks. Fair?”

“Fair enough. I’m telling you, Joe, I’m gonna be big. No reason you can’t come along for the ride.”

“We’ll see.”

They shook hands. As they did, Joe got an idea almost as crazy as the one he’d had the previous evening. He was so taken with it he neglected to let go of Scanlon’s mitt.

“Everything okay with you?”

“What? Oh!” Joe let go. “Steve, in the city, can the fire department do building inspections without prior notice? Like in an after hours club or something?”

“Shit yeah. Especially in those joints. They do all sorts of illegal crap like blocking exits, barring windows … All kindsa stuff that’ll get people killed. Remember that fire killed all them Salvadorans? Why you ask?”

Joe reached into his wallet and removed a scrap of paper. There was an address scrawled on the paper. He handed it to Scanlon.

“You still know anybody in the house that covers that neighborhood?” Joe asked.

“Of course,” Steve said. “My last firehouse was in Coney. The captain over in Flatbush’s a good buddy a mine. But that still don’t answer my question.”

“Steve, how would you like to gimme real incentive to come work for you?”

“What’s one thing got to do with the other?”

“I was just getting to that.”

Bob Healy had fallen asleep, the clicker wedged under his chin. He was never the type of man to nap, but since Mary’s passing he found rare comfort in the occasional afternoon snooze. Now that he wasn’t sleeping well at night, Healy was nodding off with far greater regularity. Unfortunately, he’d usually startle awake. He hadn’t startled awake this time. No, this time, it was the doorbell.

He let the clicker fall to the floor, rubbed his stiff neck, wiped the drool off his chin with the sleeve of his shirt. The bell demanded his attention. He started for the door, but went back to shut off “General Hospital.” It wouldn’t do, having to explain his new addiction.

“For chrissakes! I’m coming. I’m coming,” he screamed.

When he pulled back the door, he couldn’t quite believe his eyes. It was Joe Serpe. And before Healy could invite him in, Serpe said, “I need your help.”