Keeplock: A Novel of Crime (11 page)

I
KNEW THAT FEELING
(that illusion) of freedom would gradually die out, as it always had in the past, but I intended to enjoy it while it lasted. No cuffs, no shackles, no bars, no buzzers, no C.O.’s with their clubs and their attitudes. Only my fear of a new, straight life had kept me from enjoying it up till now, and fear, as we all know, is dishonorable.

I took a taxi up the West Side to Lincoln Center, near Central Park, and found an open coffee shop. It was going to be a beautiful day, warm and clear, especially for April. Central Park (at least the way I remembered it) would be packed—the jugglers and the hustlers would be out, the joggers and the bicycles. Magicians and street singers would perform behind upturned hats while the pockets of affluent, applauding New Yorkers were picked by their less fortunate brethren.

I ordered pancakes and scrambled eggs, home fries with bacon on the side, orange juice and coffee. It wasn’t the jazz brunch at Fat Tuesday’s, but at least the eggs were fresh instead of powdered. And I didn’t have to shuffle along behind the prisoner in front of me, wondering which one of the cooks had spit into the orange juice.

The waitress who took care of me was cute, thirtyish, and exhausted. I flashed her my best smile, willing her to ignore the scars, and shook my head sympathetically. “Long night? Hope you had a good time.”

“Yeah? Good time?” she squawked. “I been on since eleven last night. Fucking Greek bastard didn’t show up to relieve me and I won’t get outta here till four. The next time I see that cocksucker, I’m gonna do Lorena Bobbitt on his, dick. What kinda syrup you want on them pancakes?”

It was still early when I walked into the park. The New York I remembered didn’t wake up before noon on Sundays and it was barely ten o’clock when I strolled past the big statue at Columbus Circle and headed north along the road that circles the park. There were a few runners out, wearing their smartest outfits, the men bare chested despite the morning chill. The women were encased in shiny tights made from a fabric I’d never seen before and which I later found out was called Spandex. It looked like rubber.

Up near 72nd Street, I saw single-blade roller skates for the first time. Someone had set up a row of small traffic cones and the skaters were running them like a slalom, crisscrossing their skates as they went. The youngest, a girl, looked to be about ten. She flew through the course like the tiny pro she was. The oldest, on the other hand, a middle-aged man with feathery white hair, locked his skates and went over, skidding twenty feet on elbow and knee pads. The other skaters held back their smiles and helped him to his feet.

“Don’t worry, pops. You’ll get it next time.”

Pops didn’t look too enthusiastic about “next time,” but when a young lady in green and blue tights sat down next to him, his demeanor brightened considerably.

“Did you cut yourself, honey?”

Honey? Now where can I get me a pair of roller skates?

In spring, a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of … Especially if the young man’s fancy has been honed on ten years of springtimes passed in the company of convicts. The rumor in the joint was that good girls weren’t promiscuous anymore. Women ready to jump into bed with the most attractive male body available were as likely to be HIV positive as not.

Maybe that’s why my best Tom Cruise smile got me nowhere. I did manage to have a brief conversation with one woman, a blonde wearing blue shorts, a white halter, and no wedding ring. She had her son with her, a rambunctious three-year-old who zipped from place to place while she followed dutifully behind. When the kid ran over to the water fountain, I scooped him up and held his lips to the stream of water.

“Looks like a handful,” I said to his mom.

She smiled and tossed her head, sending her blond hair flying. “According to the books, they’re supposed to become more cooperative by the time they’re three and a half. Joey has a one-word vocabulary.”

The kid looked up at me and shouted, “No!” at the top of his lungs, then shrieked with laughter.

“I see what you mean.”

Joey, by way of an encore, spit a stream of water onto my shirt. Instead of squeezing his little chest until his tongue popped, I set him down.

“I told you not to spit water on people.” She gave him a gentle shake, too gentle to discourage him, then turned to me. “Did he get you wet?”

“No big deal.” I peeled out of the shirt, exposing the calculated result of all those calisthenics. “I could use a little sun. It’s been a long winter.”

When she ran her eyes over my chest and belly, hope, as they say, sprang eternal.

“It
has
been a long winter, hasn’t it?”

The boyfriend came strolling along the path just as I was about to ask her name. When he saw the two of us together, he picked up the pace.

“Jo-Ann,” he called, still twenty feet away.

“Hi, Marty,” she trilled, enjoying the drama for a moment before dismissing me. “Well, I gotta go.”

Marty threw me the darkest look in his white-collar repertoire, then walked off with his property. I stood and watched for a moment, feeling utterly stupid in my bare skin. For no good reason, I began to think about Eddie Conte. If Eddie had recruited Tony Morasso while they were both inside, if he’d spent hours trying to convince me to call him when I came out, who else had he talked to?

I stopped at a hot dog stand and bought a couple of dirty-water dogs and an orange soda.

“How much?” I asked.

The vendor looked at me like I was crazy. “Three dollar twenty-five,” he announced, pointing at the sign on his wagon.

I took my lunch to the top of one of the boulders that dot the park and settled down to enjoy my meal. Halfway through the first hot dog, two Spanish kids showed up, lugging the obligatory boom box. They looked at me, claiming the boulder for their own, and I looked back at them. Nobody said anything for a minute, then they turned and strutted down the path. I finished my hot dogs and my soda as a matter of principle, but I wasn’t stupid enough to wait around until they came back with the rest of their crew.

Up at the bandshell on the east side of the park, a salsa band shot waves of frenetic Latin jazz at a large, receptive audience. I stopped to watch the young Spanish girls dance and eventually fell into a dreamless sleep.

When I woke up, it was late afternoon and the park was beginning to empty. I wandered back to the West Side, found a movie theater on Broadway, and spent the next few hours watching a movie called
True Lies
. Luxuriating in the mindless violence and the equally mindless sex, I shoveled Goobers into my mouth while bodies flew to pieces on the screen. They show films in Cortlandt, usually in the mess hall. Prisoners file in and file out. They sit on hard benches and watch their backs as carefully as they watch the screen. A long way from the upholstered seat where I sat and the empty spaces around me. On the other hand, Cortlandt movies are free and this one had cost me seven bucks.

I went from the movie theater to a Mexican restaurant on Columbus Avenue. The Upper West Side of Manhattan was just making the turn from heroin heaven to upscale pretentious when I went into Cortlandt. It’d been dotted with small dark bars, welfare hotels, and greasy diners. Now both sides were lined with expensive restaurants and young white faces.

It was ten o’clock by the time I finished dinner and headed back to The Ludlum Foundation. Time to face the music. It was a coin toss as to whether Rico and Condon would be waiting for me inside the shelter or out on the street. I should have called them after I spoke to Eddie—that’s what they expected—but I wanted to establish a little distance, a little independence. There was every reason to believe that I’d need it sometime in the future.

I let the cab drop me at 39th and Seventh and walked the rest of the way. No sense letting the boys know I had money. No sense letting them know
anything
they didn’t have to know.

“Frangello! Get ova here!”

I found them across the street from the shelter, sitting in a black Plymouth sedan that screamed COP at every mutt on the street.

“Whatta ya say, Rico? I was just gonna call you.”

“Get in the fuckin’ car.”

“What’s the matter? You lonely?”

Despite my attitude, I was shaking inside. I was still sore from yesterday’s beating, and the morning’s workout wasn’t helping the situation. Nevertheless, I had my part to play in the grand drama. I got into the car and Rico shoved in after me, pushing me against the far door.

“You askin’ for a beatin’?” he demanded. “You askin’ for it?”

“Ease off, Rico,” Condon said wearily.

“This guy only understands one thing,” Rico insisted. “He’s a smart-ass and if we don’t shut his mouth right now, he’s gonna fuck us in the end.”

Rico was smarter than he looked.

“I think there’s something you should know,” I said quietly.

“Now he’s gonna make another smart remark.”

I looked down at my hands for a minute, then let my eyes jump into his. “I’m not goin’ down without a fight. You put your hands on me again and I’ll tear your skinny ass to pieces. You wanna shoot me, go ahead, because that’s the only way you’ll stop me. You understand that, you guinea bastard?”

Anybody can run his mouth, and cops are used to calling bad bluffs. A lot of cons think cops are yellow, but the truth is that in a violent situation the cops do just what the cons would do—they try to bring overwhelming force to bear on their enemies.

Rico stared at me for a moment, trying to gauge my resolve. I stared back at him, a relaxed smile on my lips. Letting him know that I
did
mean it. I was drawing a line and telling Rico and Condon that if they crossed it, all bets were off. If they chose to stay on their side, I’d have that independence I mentioned.

“Cool out, both of you.” Condon to the rescue.

“You tellin’ me I should let this mutt get away with that?” Rico was so mad his acne scars glowed red. They made little semicircles along the edge of his jaw.

“Get away with what? You been puttin’ the muscle on him since he walked up the street. We told him he had to call us at ten-thirty every night. It’s ten-twenty. Maybe he shoulda called us earlier instead of fuckin’ around all day, but we didn’t
tell
him to call so we’ll just have to chalk it up to experience. Meanwhile, let’s not cop any attitudes. We’re all doin’ our jobs here.”

At least I’d convinced
someone
. Condon didn’t give two shits about me, but he knew that if he gave in to his cop macho, he’d blow his big bust. It took Rico a little longer to figure it out, but I guess he finally got it too, because he dropped his hands to his lap and turned away from me.

“Your meeting with Conte go all right?” Condon asked.

“Yeah, it went fine.” I’d accomplished what I wanted to do. There was no profit to be made by antagonizing Rico any further. “Eddie’s gonna do a bank and he wants me to go along. He’s gonna go into the home of the branch manager and hold the slob’s wife and kids until after the job’s done. Two of us stay with the family, the other three arrive in the morning with the manager before the bank opens. We clean the vault, then lock up the manager and the tellers. Once we’re out of the bank, we let the family go. Then the wife calls the cops and the cops open the vault. Nobody gets hurt.”

“Unless somebody resists,” Rico growled.

“Look, Rico, it wasn’t my idea. You’re the ones sending me in there. Besides, you’re gonna take care of business before the shit goes down. Which means there’s nothing to worry about, right?”

“What’s the name of the bank?” Condon, representing the practical half of the dynamic duo, cut to the heart of the matter.

“I don’t know.”

“When’s it goin’ off?”

“Not for a few weeks. I don’t know the exact date.”

“Who else is involved?”

“I don’t know that either.”

“What’s the name of the bank manager?”

“I don’t know.”

Rico couldn’t stand it anymore. “You tellin’ me you went in a job without knowin’ what’s it about?”

“I didn’t go in on the job. I told Eddie I’d think about it and he told me that I’d learn the details after I made up my mind.”

A moment of silence while the boys digested the information. “You want out?” Condon asked. Rico was already going for the cuffs.

“I jailed with Eddie for eight years. He’s paranoid. The more eager I come off, the less he’ll trust me. If I’m gonna work with you and your partner, I’m gonna need room to maneuver. I’m much more likely to get that room if I don’t suck up to him like a puppy at its mother’s tit.”

It made perfect sense. It was just what I’d done with
them
.

“When’re ya gonna make up your mind?”

“Today’s Sunday. I told Eddie Wednesday, but I’m gonna call him tomorrow night and set up a meeting. I’m gonna tell him that if the job’s right, I want a piece of it. That way he’ll have to give me the details on the spot.”

They stared at each other for a minute, not liking what they heard.

“Look,” I said, “the deal’s not goin’ off for a few weeks, so what’s the rush?”

“I want you to call me every night,” Condon said. “You understand? Every fucking night. If you move outta this shelter without tellin’ me first, I’ll put a warrant out the next day.”

“We should take him down and book him,” Rico insisted. “We shoulda done it yesterday. Let him spend a night in Central Booking.”

“Wednesday.” Condon’s tone left no doubt about who the senior partner was. “You got until Wednesday. After that, you don’t come up with something besides bullshit, you’re goin’ over to Rikers. Now get the fuck outta here.”

“Jeez,” I said, opening the door, “I thought you were the
good
cop.”

“You could be a smart mouth all you want, Frangello, but the fact is that we
own
your ass.”

I stepped out of the car and gently closed the door. Rico, unable to contain himself, slid over and called to me through the window.

“Why don’t ya tell us what ya plan to do until Wednesday?” he asked.

“What I plan to do,” I said, “is enjoy my freedom.”