The Con Man's Daughter (25 page)

"Ever see him barbecue anything?" Babsie asked.

"No, but that doesn't mean much. He could barbecue on the other side of Coney Custards. They got a little dirt patch out there."

"Does that seem plausible to you?"

"I could see that happening to Freddie, yeah. He's not all there, you know," Carlos said, pointing to his head.

"What do you mean, 'not all there'?" Boland said.

"Slow, I guess. Slightly retarded. But not drooling or anything. The guy has a job; he works somewhere toward Brighton Beach. I see him walking to work every morning. He walks down the boardwalk, no matter how bad the weather is."

"Does he work for Yuri Borodenko?" Boland asked.

"Doing what?" Carlos said. "Sweeping the sidewalk? That's all I can see Freddie doing for Borodenko."

The radio dispatcher sent Six-oh David to a traffic accident on Neptune Avenue. The female dispatcher, a rarity in Eddie's day, had a Caribbean accent.

"So he does this occasionally?" Babsie said. "He forgets to close the door."

"Not that often, but every now and then."

"How do you handle it?" Babsie said.

"We go in, look around for him. If he's not there, we close it."

"Ever have a problem with him?" Eddie asked. "Is he violent, or a drunk, anything like that?"

"Not with me. But I can check with the other teams who work the sector. If you're looking at him for a kidnapping, I'd be shocked. This guy doesn't have the smarts to pull off a dognapping."

"Carlos," Babsie said, "does anybody come by and help him with complicated things, like paying bills, that kind of thing?"

"Zina. She probably helps him out. She lives across the hall."

"What's their relationship?" Boland asked.

"Relationship?" Carlos laughed. "You never met Zina. Zina is a dyke, with a capital
D
. You'll see what I'm talking about when she pulls in."

"Rather than hang around and wait for Zina, why don't we do this," Babsie said. "Carlos goes in and looks for Freddie. In case of foul play, illness, whatever. We go in as a safety factor, being his partner's not here. If nothing is there, we'll just close the door and leave."

"Eddie stays out," Boland said. "Just active police officers."

'Good enough," Babsie said, and glanced at Eddie, who appeared nervous, running his fingers through his hair. It was more than a glance. Serious eye contact between friends.

Babsie entered behind Carlos and went right to the bedroom. Carlos walked around, calling Freddie's name. Boland stuck to his own agenda, looking for an address book or telephone numbers. On her hands and knees, Babsie focused on the area around the mattress as if she was looking for a lost contact lens. She checked every inch of the mattress until she found the green cloth. She called for Boland.

"It's a scrunchy," she said. "For your hair. I have a couple myself."

Boland frowned until Babsie pointed out the red hairs clinging to it. She put it in a small plastic bag she carried in her pocket. They went outside and showed it to Eddie.

"I know this is Kate's," Eddie said. "She was wearing it that morning."

"Hope this works out," Boland said.

"Just call the CSU to vacuum this place," Babsie said. "I'll call the Westchester DA, see if she can get a search warrant rolling."

Boland said, "We also need Parrot to sign an affidavit about seeing a redhead being carried in here. I'll get a better description from Carlos and we'll pick up Dolgev. He's probably at work. Then see where we go from there, but I think we're on thin ice with the courts. This search has bogus written all over it."

Babsie waved the scrunchy in his face, as if trying to remind him of the important thing. Babsie knew guys like Boland needed constant reminding.

"Okay," he said, the attitude slipping away. "I'll call the CSU. They'll fingerprint the shit out of this place. I'll ask them to scrape the sinks, drains, and vacuum around the mattress, anywhere else that looks promising. It's a defense lawyer's dream, but maybe we'll get something out of it."

"Kate will be enough," Babsie said, handing the plastic bag with the green scrunchy to Boland.

"I'll drop this off at the lab," Boland said. "But they're going to need a hair sample for comparison."

"A hairbrush," Babsie said. "She has three or four on her dresser."

"Perfect, but get them later," Boland said. "Right now, Babsie can stay here with Carlos and wait for CSU. Eddie's going to show me something in Queens."

"Show you what in Queens?" Eddie said.

"A short cut," Boland said. "To your old friend's house. Your old pal, Angelo Caruso. Somebody whacked him and his wife."

Chapter 28

Sunday

3:00 P.M.

Angelo and Ann Marie Caruso lived in the shadow of Aqueduct Race Track in a two-story redbrick home on a Queens street of identical homes. Angelo could have afforded a bigger home in a swankier locale, but Ann Marie refused to leave the neighbors she'd known since she was a young bride. In the Carusos' small front yard, the grotto of the Blessed Virgin ruled center stage. A white tin awning covered the front step. Folding chairs lined the narrow, sloping driveway. Underwear, white T-shirts, and socks were draped across the chairs, drying in the sun. Every day for the fifty-five years of her marriage, Ann Marie had washed clothes by hand and dried them this way. Paulie the Priest had told Eddie that his sister-in-law rarely used the washer and dryer. She'd never used the oven upstairs. Upstairs was for company, for special occasions. The downstairs was set up like a separate apartment. They cooked, ate, watched TV, and died in the basement.

Eddie led Boland down the driveway. Eddie hadn't been in the Caruso home since June of 1984, when

Angelo and Ann Marie threw a high school graduation party for their niece. It was held in the backyard, where Angelo showed off an immense barbecue grill he'd built from bricks salvaged from the demolished tenement in which he was born. Angelo roasted a sixty-pound pig that day. And the event had been immortalized on film by the FBI from a van across the street.

They entered the basement through the garage. A young uniformed cop sat at Angelo's workbench, where Angelo'd accidentally cut off a finger he later credited to a battle with a brutal
pistola
from the old country. The young cop said the house had been torn apart by intruders looking for money and jewelry. He expounded on how some burglars read the obituaries printed in the newspaper; the obits told them exactly when a family would be at church. Grieving people are distracted: They leave doors open, money lying around. The Carusos had probably arrived home early from the service at Our Lady of Consolation. They'd surprised the burglars and lost their lives. Paulie the Priest would have told this cop that he didn't know his ass from a hole in the ground.

Ann Marie had been shot once in the head. She lay next to her stove, covered by a sheet, the victim not of a burglar but of a poor choice in men. Angelo, her chosen, lay in the exact center of the room on a circular multicolored rug that Ann Marie had woven from loose scraps of cloth. Angelo had been strategically placed, as if he were the room's centerpiece. His mouth was stuffed with U.S. currency. He'd choked to death on money.

"Any thoughts?" Boland said.

"I always liked Ann Marie," Eddie said

"When was the last time you saw them?"

"Ann Marie, fourteen years ago. I saw Angelo on Friday at the Howard Beach Boccie Club. First time in about five or six years."

"Who initiated that meeting?"

"I did. I wanted to find out what he knew about Paulie. He said he thought his brother was still in Sicily."

After conferring with the detectives from the 106th Precinct, Boland said the Carusos came straight home after the service for Paulie. They were probably moving in order to prepare for the company that would follow. The first couple arrived not more than twenty minutes after the Carusos themselves. Whoever killed them had been waiting, and it all happened fast.

"If they all left the church around the same time," Eddie said, "why did it take the friends twenty minutes longer?"

"Food," Boland said. "They went to their own houses first to pick up whatever covered dish they'd made."

The floor above groaned with the weight of a few dozen of the Carusos' family and friends. Eddie wondered if their murderers had desecrated Ann Marie's living room. Eddie had never set foot beyond the velvet rope that declared the pristine parlor off-limits. He'd only viewed it from a distance: the plastic-covered white sofa, the tasseled velvet pillows, fringed brocade lamp shades, and the gilt-framed reproduction of the Mona Lisa. If they'd defiled her pride and joy, Ann Marie would find a way to curse them from the grave.

Boland said, "Angelo have any theories on how or why Paulie's head arrived unannounced?"

"If he did, he didn't tell me."

"He seem worried about anything?"

"Angelo always seemed worried."

"So what happened here today?" Boland said "It doesn't look like a mob hit to me."

"No," Eddie agreed. "The Italians wouldn't have done it like this. Not at home, and they wouldn't have destroyed the house. They'd know Angelo wouldn't keep money here. And they definitely wouldn't have killed Ann Marie."

"Russians?"

"That's my guess," Eddie said.

"Money jammed down his throat is saying something. Angelo get a little greedy maybe? He worked with the Russians a long time, didn't he? Going back to the seventies and the gas-tax scam."

Eddie told him how Angelo Caruso had originally struck a bargain with Evesi Volshin. Caruso had heard about the humongous windfall of the Russians' gas-tax scam. He demanded the Gambino crime family be cut in for a penny a gallon. At the time, the tax was twenty-eight cents on the gallon. The Russians were keeping it all, but they convinced Angelo they were paying part of it. After Volshin was gunned down in the Samovar, Lukin took over. The partnership continued, with Caruso now getting two cents a gallon. It all fell apart when the indictments came down and the Italians took the brunt of the fall.

"Angelo have anything to do with Evesi Volshin's murder?" Boland said.

"That's a safe bet."

"Maybe what goes around comes around," Boland said.

Eddie told him that Angelo'd sworn he'd never work with the Russians again. But the young Italian mafiosi had formed alliances with the new Russkie in town, Yuri

Borodenko. Richie Costa and the Bronx Knights, for example, doing stock pump-and-dump jobs with Borodenko's crew. As well as the partnership in the Eurobar. The Russians do the thinking and organization; the Italians provide the muscle and connections.

"This is a current beef," Eddie said. "Possibly Borodenko sending a message. He wants to be the American Stalin."

"I'm not sure I know what the hell thai? means," Boland said. "But I don't have a better answer, not yet anyway."

"Read Solzhenitsyn. Other than that, I don't know what to tell you."

"Borodenko is still in Russia," Boland said. "We'll talk to him the second he lands on American soil."

"Yuri Borodenko is going to stay overseas until this is over."

"You mean it's not over?" Boland said. "Who's left-you?"

Eddie hated it when guys like Matty played the tough guy. It came off as false. Tough guy lines were best understated. He didn't have to say, "Who's left?" It was obvious. The fact that Paulie Caruso's head had wound up on Eddie's lawn linked him to any scenario imaginable. The only reason they hadn't come after him already was because they knew cops and FBI were hanging around his house, working the kidnapping.

"I'm going home to have dinner with my granddaughter," Eddie said. "Then I'm going to look for Freddie Dolgev. Call me if you find him first."

"Dead or alive?"

"That depends on who finds him."

* * *

You could stay away from the North End Tavern for twenty years, and then the moment you stepped through the door, B. J. Harrington would start mixing your favorite drink. B.J. never forgot an old friend or a cocktail. He gave Babsie a 7 &7 because that was the same drink he'd given her on her eighteenth birthday. After five decades of bartending in Yonkers, B.J. knew all the secrets, where all the bodies were buried. Dressed in his usual V-necked sweater over a starched white shirt and black tie, he held court as much as served drinks.

"The sister of your ex-son-in-law was nosing around again today, Eddie," B.J. said. "I didn't give her the time of day."

"I'm going to need a lawyer for this," Eddie said.

"I thought you'd never ask," he said. He took a card from his pocket and handed it to Eddie. "Best guy in family court," B.J. said. "Mention my name. He's owed me a favor for thirty years." He then turned toward the end of the bar, where Grace was reaching over, trying to turn up the volume on the jukebox. "Grade," he said, never raising his voice, "get down from my bar or I'll have the police haul you away."

When the Sunday dinner crowd started to thin, Eddie and Babsie grabbed a booth. She'd already filled him in on the NYPD Crime Scene Unit's search of Dolgev's apartment. Nothing definitive had been recovered that would nail down Kate's presence. Prints needed to be checked, other evidence analyzed. The CSU guys said they'd send Boland the results. For now, he didn't want to tell anyone about finding the scrunchy. Too much talk spooked the angels.

"I have an appointment at One Police Plaza in the morning to look through your personnel file," Babsie said.

"You could just ask me."

"Might be a few too many things rattling around in your head that you haven't put together, or that you forgot."

"Like what?"

"You know what I mean, Eddie. Everything seems to be coming back to the relationship between you and the Caruso brothers-the now-deceased Caruso brothers."

"Fourteen years ago," Eddie said.

"Fourteen is an odd number to remember. Most people say ten or twenty. You have the exact number on the tip of your tongue. See, it seems that the past keeps raising its ugly head here, and that worries me. I want to read Paul Caruso's file, your file, and I want to read up on the Rosenfeld case."