Mean Business on North Ganson Street (12 page)

They Were Numbered

“I never understood why they call it toasted,” said Officer Dave Stanley, poking the tines of his plastic fork into a breaded ravioli. “It's deep-fried.”

“The appearance is toasted,” replied a short, gray-haired Italian American who possessed fifty-four years, a dyed mustache, and the wheel of the parked patrol car.

“But why not just ‘fried ravioli'?”

“That's a little obvious.”

“Less syllables.”

“True … but you don't just call a thing what it is.” Gianetto opened his takeout bag and extracted an open-faced meat and cheese sandwich that wore more paprika than did nine hundred deviled eggs.

Dave Stanley bit into his ravioli, and a flood of warm and salty ricotta filled his mouth. “They make it good here.”

“When it's fresh from the kitchen, it's a seven.”

The young officer had anticipated this comment: Gianetto rated everything that he cared about on a scale that went from zero to ten. Food, movies, actresses, cars, the nine books that he had read in college, and a pantheon of classic rock albums had all received numerical classifications, as had less obvious things like cities, countries, his wife's dresses, dog breeds, and supermarkets. The only things that had ever received tens were Italy and Rottweilers.

Gianetto bit into his open-faced sandwich, and the sound was like the destruction of a rainforest. “Six,” he said as he chewed.

“It's gone down.”

“Half a point.” Inspecting the paprika-covered comestible, Gianetto shook his head. “It goes below a six, and we're getting from Angelo's.”

Dave Stanley ate another toasted ravioli. “Sounds like you've got it all figured out.”

“I don't rate things for fun.”

The two-way squawked.

“Shit,” said the policemen.

The young officer thrust his plastic fork into a ravioli, plucked the receiver from the dashboard, and thumbed the talk bar. “Car nine. Officers Gianetto and Stanley. Over.”

“We have reports of shots fired on Worth and Leonora,” said the sexless voice that belonged to the entity in dispatch. “Proceed to the area.”

“Copy.” Dave Stanley clipped the receiver to the console.

“This call's a zero.” Gianetto swallowed chewed food and took a new bite at the exact same time. “They should report when there aren't any shots—then we'd know something was wrong.”

Unsure if this recommendation was a joke, the young officer replied with a shrug and a nod.

The corporal swallowed the tip of his sandwich, turned on the headlights, and shifted gears, coaxing the patrol car away from the curb outside of Paolo's Real Italian. “The middle was a six point five.”

It took Dave Stanley a moment to realize that his partner was again talking about the open-faced sandwich. “Glad to hear it.”

“It was the olives,” Gianetto said as he turned onto Summer Drive.

The patrol car rolled south on the main road, slowing down but not stopping at the intersections. All of the prostitutes whom they passed received low ratings.

“I'm a faithful husband,” the corporal remarked, “but I remember a time when the girls out here used to be tempting. Now it's just a bunch of threes and fours. And up in the Toilet, it's mostly twos.”

“Maybe your standards have changed…?”

“Definitely not.”

Dave Stanley bit into a toasted ravioli that had burst in the deep fryer and contained nothing but air. “Jip.”

“An empty?”

“Yeah.”

“You can return that if you want. Get an extra the next time you order—I've done it before.”

“Nah.”

The patrol car passed a gaunt prostitute who had red hair, platform heels, and a blue vinyl raincoat.

Gianetto remained silent.

Dave Stanley looked at his partner. “No rating for that one?”

“It was a man.”

The young officer turned around in his seat and eyed the diminishing figure. “You sure?”

“One thousand percent.”

“You have a good eye,” said Dave Stanley, resettling.

“My vision's good—'specially for a guy my age—but it's my mind that does the work.” Gianetto ruminated for a moment. “Remember graph paper?”

“Sort of…” Dave Stanley was twenty-five years old and had never seen graph paper. “Maybe.”

“It's this paper they used to make—maybe still do, I don't know—that's divided into squares for accounting, maps, charts, drawings—really anything can go on there. And everything you put on it is cut up into little squares, broken down into pieces in the exact same way. And that's what I do when I rate things—I put them on paper like that, but in here—” The corporal tapped his forehead, leaving behind a paprika fingerprint.

“Okay.” Dave Stanley was uncertain if his partner was a genius or an idiot.

“We're almost there.”

Gianetto drank the remainder of his soda and tossed the empty can into the night, where it clanked against the concrete. “You should only do that with stuff bums can recycle.”

“That's thoughtful.”

“Keep 'em busy.” The corporal burped.

“Should we put on our vests?”

“This call's a zero.” Gianetto patted his belly, which overhung his belt like the jowls of an Englishman. “Not sure one would fit me right now anyways.”

As the cruiser rolled south, the policemen surveyed the night. Lying upon a street corner was a brindled mongrel that twitched as it froze to death.

“Poor guy,” said Dave Stanley.

“There're worse ways to go.” Gianetto spun the wheel counterclockwise, looked to the right, and then turned in that direction. “AIDS. Starvation. Cancer. Drowning. Concentration camp.”

“I think concentration camp's the worst.”

“It's a nine point five.” The corporal flung the car onto a dark, narrow road. “This is Leonora.”

“How can you remember all these streets?”

Gianetto tapped his forehead. “The graph paper.”

A dark shape slid into the middle of the road.

The corporal jammed the brakes, and tires screeched. A distance of forty feet separated the stopped patrol car and the brown cargo van that now blocked off the street.

Gianetto honked.

The other automobile did not move.

“Can you see who's in there?” asked Dave Stanley.

The corporal thumbed the lever for the high beams. Light glared in the policemen's eyes, reflected by something in the van's passenger window.

Wincing, Gianetto killed the brights.

“One of those sun reflectors?” suggested Dave Stanley.

“Let's get official.” The corporal turned the dreary block into a red-and-blue disco.

Leaning over, the young officer picked up the PA microphone and held it to his mouth. “Move that vehicle right now!”

The order echoed up and down the street, but elicited no response.

Dave Stanley surveyed the brownstones on either side of the patrol car, and when he turned around, his jaw slackened. A cargo van was blocking off the other end of the street. Red and blue lights colored the exhaust that rose from its tailpipe and flashed dimly upon its black surface. The second vehicle was as inscrutable as the first.

“We're boxed in,” said the young officer.

“Something happens to me,” Gianetto said, “tell my wife I thought she was an eight.”

“Not a ten?”

“No way she would believe that.” The corporal snorted. “She's really a five and a half.”

“I'll say eight.”

Dave Stanley thought of the precinct receptionist, Sharon, whom he had been dating for the major part of a year, but could not think of anything that he wanted to tell her.

Gianetto grabbed the PA microphone and thumbed the talk bar. “Clear those vehicles from—”

The brown van's side door slid open, revealing an opaque square. Something clicked within the darkness.

“Down!” yelled the corporal.

The policemen prostrated themselves.

White fire boomed. The windshield bulged and became a thousand spider webs. A second shotgun blast thundered, and the milky glass burst. Scintillating shards rained upon the backs of the huddled policemen.

Cold air swept into the vehicle, and Dave Stanley began to shake. Outside, a gun was cocked.

Gianetto thrust his revolver over the dashboard and squeezed the trigger, blindly returning fire. “Call for backup!” he yelled to his partner. “Tell them—”

Something smacked against the corporal's skull and landed beside him.

“The fuck was that?” Gianetto asked, rubbing his head.

Dave Stanley looked over. Next to the gas pedal was a hand grenade.

Emptying his bladder, the young officer opened the door, stumbled outside, and yelled, “Grenade!” The pavement slammed into his chest, and he looked over his shoulder.

Gianetto bolted through the other door, but was jerked back into the vehicle by his seat belt, which had caught upon his holster.

“Fuck!” yelled the corporal.

Dave Stanley covered his head.

Sunlight appeared at midnight, accompanied by thunder. Shrapnel tore into the prone officer's boots, legs, buttocks, arms, and back. It felt as if his entire body had just been dropped into a deep fryer.

The concussion echoed.

Ears ringing, Dave Stanley slid a hand across the hot pavement. The exertion agitated the bits of shrapnel that were buried in his scapula, but he persevered, fighting through his agonies. His fingertips landed upon his holster, and he mouthed the word “Motherfucker.” His gun was missing.

Dave Stanley looked over his shoulder. Smoke that glowed blue and red swirled around the police vehicle, and three feet from its muffler lay the missing firearm. The weapon appeared to be intact.

Gritting his teeth, the young officer rose to his hands and knees and crawled. Shrapnel poked muscles and bones as he proceeded, gasping and trembling, toward the gun. A glance into the patrol car revealed the dead and armless thing that had tried to grab an active hand grenade during its final living moment. Surmounting its charred collar was a mass that looked like a rotten pomegranate.

Tears filled Dave Stanley's eyes, and the world glared red and blue.

“That one's still goin',” somebody said from within the brown cargo van.

Dave Stanley reached for his weapon.

A shotgun boomed.

Buckshot pierced the young officer's head, and he collapsed to the pavement. Ice-cold pellets sat in the very center of his skull.

“Get his badge,” said a hoarse voice.

Footfalls sounded, grew louder, and stopped.

Immobile and near death, Dave Stanley felt a hand tear the badge from his chest.

“This asshole pissed himself.”

“You get his badge?”

“I got it.”

“Okay. Now pull down his pants and cut off his dick.”

 

XIX

Executed

Bettinger reclined in his chair, yawned, and glanced at the clock on the wall. If he went to bed right now, he would get four hours of sleep before he had to wake up for work.

“Junk.”

The detective looked at the two folders that lay on the right side of his desk, isolated from the tall majority. Both cases had gone cold many months earlier, but it seemed possible that either or both of these slain prostitutes had been killed by whoever had murdered Elaine James. Tomorrow, Bettinger would visit the locations in which the women had been discovered—an abandoned apartment building and a sewer access tunnel.

A plaintive gurgle sounded within his stomach, telling him to eat before he relaxed the overworked gray mechanism that sat in his brainpan. Irked by the demands of his body, the detective fitted oversized rubber bands around the documents and opened his file cabinet.

Something buzzed.

Bettinger looked to the far corner of the desk, where lay his cell phone. The alarm was set for two thirty (which was not for another twenty minutes), and its remonstrations confused him. Picking up the device, he looked at its display and saw the name “Williams, Dominic.”

The detective unfolded the cell phone and placed the receiver to his ear. “What happened?”

“Two cops got it.”

“Dead?”

“Executed.”

Wide awake, Bettinger reopened his notepad and coerced graphite from his mechanical pencil. “Where?”

“Worth and Leonora.”

“I'm on my way.”

The line went dead.

Bettinger wrote the address and scribbled a vague explanation on the next page, which he tore off and placed on the nightstand for Alyssa to discover in the morning. After a scalding ninety-second shower, he dressed himself in a brown suit and backed his yellow car out of the garage, unsure whether he was continuing his second day of work or beginning a third.

Negligible traffic and heavy acceleration allowed him to collapse the sixty-five-minute drive up the interstate to a mere three quarters of an hour. Throughout the duration of the high-speed ride, the word “executed” sat beside him like a spectral passenger.

Bettinger snagged the off-ramp and entered the tunnel, startling the trolls, who were smoking something that had an impressive diameter. As he zoomed past the duo, they waved puffy limbs.

Nine careening minutes brought him to Leonora, a street with which he was already familiar, and soon, he descried the red-and-blue disco. There, he landed beside four patrol cars, yanked the stick, and zipped up his parka.

The detective exited his hatchback and strode toward the neon tape, behind which stood Inspector Zwolinski and nine officers, two of whom were female. Dominic was not amongst those gathered.

“Bettinger.”

“Inspector.” The detective ducked underneath the line and approached his superior. “What happened?”

“There were reports of shots fired in the area. Gianetto and Stanley went to investigate.” The inspector pointed at a patrol car that looked like it had blasphemed in the Middle East on a holy day.