The Dog Killer of Utica (16 page)

Mohawk at South—Freddy Barbone shot and virtually decapitated in his liquor store, genitals severed and absent. Mohawk at Lansing—Dragan Kovac shotgunned behind Joey’s Restaurant at point-blank range—once in the chest, once in the face. Mohawk at Eagle—Toma’s Lebanese Deli and Mini Mart. In a display case up front, kibbeh, tabouli, stuffed grape leaves. At the other end of the store, several wobbly tables draped with plastic red-and-white checkered cloths. In between, four cramped aisles of sundries, beer, wine, energy bars, cigarettes, gum, detergents, bottled water.

What pleases Conte about Toma’s is its seamlessly drab appearance. The weak lighting. The crowded space. A ceiling that would give some but not a great deal of clearance to a professional basketball player. The smell of coffee, too long roasted. Toma’s—a token of the East Utica that was, where he discovered two months ago that it was possible, however briefly, to lay by his troubles.

He arrives under a still-leaden sky at 1:00 for his lunch date with Catherine Cruz, who’s always punctual, but whose car is nowhere to be seen in the small parking lot. (Where is she?) He purchases two lottery tickets, as he does weekly, both for Angel Moreno, who says, weekly, that he’ll “consider, but not promise, Jefe,” to split the proceeds 50/50. Conte hears his
name called out from one of the larger tables, squeezed into the far end of the store, where six hearty men, late seventies, hold forth on a regular basis. They know him as the sad-eyed son of legendary political boss Silvio Conte, a man for whom their respect was boundless, and so they were happy to invite him, ever since his discovery of Toma’s two months back, to join them for breakfast on Tuesdays at 9:00 and lunch on Thursdays at 1:00, “because you have too much clogging up your mind, kid, and we’re just the laxative you need.” (“Kid,” always, to Conte, at fifty-six.)

When the sight of his black-and-blue swellings draws no comment from the Gang of Six—no double takes, no stares, no looks of shock and concern—he’s seized by self-consciousness. The Unimpeachable Remo says, “We’ve all been there, kid,” Don gives the thumbs-up sign, Frankie says, “That’s life, that’s what it’s all about,” Gene says “Amen,” and Conte’s self-consciousness is suddenly banished. Remo urges him to join them, their treat, “because today, in this town, your money’s no good,” and Conte feels himself pulled pleasurably into the cheerful ambience of men who lament without letup, while having the time of their lives detailing a long list of bodily woes. They endure the surgeries, they endure the multiple daily medications and their side effects, they endure the restricted diets, they endure the insulin injections self-administered, “like junkies.” Why? In order to “hang on,” as one of them put it the first time Conte’d taken breakfast with the group, “as long as possible in this vale of fuckin’ tears.”

He regrets to inform them he has a date at 1:00 with an important person, he’ll take a rain check, and sits at a table for two, five feet away. (Why is she late?) Paulie says,
“An important person. I get it. Eye candy for us impending corpses.” The guys adjust their chairs so that he may partake of the conversation whose focus has been the two murders, the murder-suicide at the Oneida County Homeland Security Center, Mark Martello’s sensational press conference, Janet Napolitano’s statement from D.C. in which she praises Martello’s patriotism for blowing the whistle on that phony prick Rick Kingwood, now in FBI custody. This spate of terrible news utterly delights the Gang which to a man recalls the Utica of their youth, featured in
New York Times
headlines, more than once, as the “Sin City of the East”—Utica, formerly home to two major Mafia figures, the Barbone brothers, Frank and Salvatore—seven very profitable houses of prostitution (in a city of a hundred thousand)—a high-stakes poker game that drew gamblers from all over the state and southern New England—and the site, over a thirty-year span, of forty-one unsolved gangland-style murders thought to be the work of Frank and Salvatore Barbone. “Professor Conte,” Gene says, “Utica rises again. We’re back.”

The political, however, stands no chance against the personal: “Gene! My worthless prostate!” “Your prostate, Frankie? I bleed daily from below!” “Ever have floaters, Remo? I got floaters galore. I thought I was seeing little black bugs constantly right in front of my face. You know what my cold-hearted wife says, who shows me no fuckin’ mercy for decades? She goes, You’re drinking too much, Ray. You got those dts. My young doctor, who doesn’t face what we at this table face at our point in the fuckin’ journey of life, he goes, ‘Why worry? It’s natural at a certain age for the eyes to malfunction.’ ” “Gene, Gene, a fuckin’ egg! Gene, a single fuckin’
egg without salt and pepper! That’s all I can eat without suffering”—says Billy, as he chews on his third baklava. “You know what I think to myself, Gene, more and more, lately?” “Johnnie, how on God’s good fuckin’ earth can Gene know if you only think it to yourself?” “I think, what’s the point of going on? Why not take the fuckin’ gas pipe and be done with it?” “What’s the point? Is that what you’re asking? The point, Johnnie, is you don’t give them the satisfaction of watching you throw in the towel. That’s the only point at our stage.” “Give who the satisfaction, Gene? Who?” “What, Johnnie? All of a sudden you’re naive about your closest relatives?” Belly laughs all around, especially Johnnie, including Eliot.

“So, Eliot, I seem to recall you knew this
disgraziata
Kingwood when you two were at Hamilton College.” “I did.” “What was he like back then?” “The same as he’s always been.” “A smooth, smiling, rich, condescending, my-shit-doesn’t-stink scumbag, with beautiful manners?” “Too kind by half, Don,” Eliot responds, “too kind by half.” Don turns to Gene, “Too kind by half. Don’t you just love this kid? Too kind by half.”

1:18, still no Catherine Cruz. Conte excuses himself. Goes to the parking lot. Calls. Automated message. Returns. “What’s the trouble, kid?” “No trouble, Billy.” “She’ll show up, Professor.” “How do you know I’m waiting for her?” “Because only a woman of that quality could make a man of your quality et cetera. When she arrives, we’ll all feel better in our decrepitude gazing upon this Latin knockout.” “Eliot, this is what we do these days. We gaze, we fall secretly in love, and in the cold fuckin’ silence of our homes, we dream.” “Amen to that.” Conte excuses himself again, goes to the parking lot.
Calls. She picks up, “Hey, sorry, on my way. Got tied up with the Wi-Fi installer who was late.” “I got worried.” “I know.” “Real worried because—” “I know why. I’m sorry. See you in five.” He returns, noticeably relaxed. Remo says, “Romantic anxieties resolved?”

Lunch is served to the Gang. The waitress, a recent Lebanese immigrant, asks Conte if he’d like to order. He replies that he’s waiting for someone. The someone then comes through the entrance and down the aisle as the Gang starts in on the food. Remo spots her first, mumbles something, they all stand simultaneously as she approaches. Remo takes and kisses her hand. The Gang, showing impeccable courtesy, resumes eating—they quiet the cross talk, they respect, as best they can, the couple’s privacy, five feet away.

She says, softly, “I have an update. The Troy detectives have canvassed Bobby’s neighborhood three times for potential witnesses. They came up with nothing. They’ve re-interviewed Bobby and Maureen concerning the vehicles in question and report some progress. From Maureen, a white Ford, maybe, late model. She’s mostly sure of white. From Bobby, a green Chevy, new, he’s sure of it, with a partial plate I.D. Onondaga County, not Oneida as we originally thought. Probably Syracuse. Okay. Don has been coordinating with Tino Mendoza, but nothing there to report except this, and this is not small. Don kept the forensics on the Troy guns from Mendoza.”

“He dislikes Mendoza that much he’ll subvert his investigation? Wow.” (Not so softly: Gene casts a glance.)

“No. Worse. Much worse. You know how close Robby is to Mendoza?”

“You’re telling me he suspects Mendoza as the accomplice?” (Remo stops eating. Cocks his good ear in their direction.)

“He’s not ruling it out. Here’s the thing. Don has one of the department’s secretaries checking with car-rental agencies in Onondaga County. If we get lucky—”

“Car-rental agencies in Syracuse? Because what killer in his right mind uses his own car? But, Catherine, Onondaga County is big.”

“Patience and grunt work, El. That’s always the ticket. This is not the movies.”

“So we sit tight and hope he doesn’t strike again?”

“Nothing else to do. We get the car, we get our man.”

“This is what
I
have to do,” passing her his iPhone with the e-mails from Nikki Ryan and Angel Moreno pulled up. She reads: “Are you telling me that you promised this girl that—”

“I owe her. I’m putting him out of commission.”

At which point, one of the Gang, with passion,

“McLAINE! THAT COCKSUCKER!” “Paulie, McLaine has been dead, what? Forty years?”

She says, “Who’s McLaine?”

He smiles broadly, a Conte rarity, “Long story. I’ll tell you sometime.”

“El, you can’t do this. We’ll talk to her, gather the e-mails from Angel. Then I’ll have him arrested.”

“Out in twenty-four hours or less. You know this. Then what? She moves out of state in the middle of the night? Because he’ll come after her. You know this as well as I do. That’s what these abusers do.”

“What do you propose, El? In order to put him out of commission?”

“I have a plan, short of putting him on a slab.”

“Short of murder. Pleased to hear it.”

“I’m going to take a hammer to his knees. I’m going to convert his knees to oatmeal.”

(Frankie, whose hearing is almost normal, smiles and nods.)

She says, “We can’t have this conversation here. Let’s get something up front and take a ride.”

As they rise, the Gang rises. Remo says to Eliot, “Kid, you need to spend more time here. A lot more.” To Catherine, “Farewell, my heart.”

Gene says, “Look who’s here.” At the display case, Michael Coca, in shoes that do not match, several days of beard, tapping rhythmically at his nose with a popsicle stick. Remo says, “Sad bastard. Walks all over town, even in this weather.” Don replies, “He still drives, Remo. I see him once in a while in that ’65 Mustang he keeps like new. He’s nuts, but he can drive.” “Remember my brother-in-law Tommy? In and out of the psycho ward for years before he took his life. He drove too. Let’s be merciful.” Behind Coca’s back Conte steps out the door while Catherine picks up the falafels, the chips, two coffees to go.

She insists on driving. The overcast has partially lifted and the temperature fallen into the low thirties. She takes him up to the old lovers’ lane, The Eagle, it’s called by locals, overlooking the city on the high southern face of the valley, and parks alongside the huge iron eagle, perched atop its massive base. No lovers today, there for a quickie. Just Catherine and Eliot.

“Ever bring a girl up here, El, in your young manhood?”

“No.”

“How come?”

“Didn’t have a girl.”

“The lovers who now frequent this place and the woods around here are lonely old men, who don’t know each others’ names. From all over the city, the county, and beyond. Lonely old men with wives, children, grandchildren. Eleven were arrested three weeks ago for performing sexual acts on themselves and others and for soliciting an officer in uniform. We kept it out of the Utica paper, but the pricks in Syracuse decided to run the story. Youngest sixty, oldest seventy-nine. Too old in a small town to come out, too late for liberation.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I don’t know. From up here in winter … I don’t know. The city looks sad. Listen. I want to tell you something. I’ve come to terms with what you and Robby did a year ago. Tomorrow I’m ending my leave of absence and going back to work with my partner. I can’t justify what you did, but I can live with it. Some part of me even says you did the right thing. Now you want to do something horrific to this man Figgins on behalf of this damsel in distress who you barely know. That I can’t live with.”