Mitchell Smith (26 page)

There were people watching on the corner-but standing back. Oranges rolling everywhere, rolling along the gutters. Ellie jumped up on the sidewalk behind two parked delivery bikes, and ran to see Nardone sitting on top of the young detective amid more oranges, hitting the young man rapidly back and forth across the face with a long, fat manila envelope, from which, at each blow, a few twenty-dollar bills went wafting. The young man’s jacket was open as he lay there, his bolstered revolver showing. He had his hands up, trying to protect his face.

A number of people were watching-more all the time.

A woman with a baby … Ellie got hold of Nardone’s arm, and hauled at it to make him stop hitting the young cop. Money was drifting everywhere, but nobody was stepping forward to pick it up.

“Tommy! Tommy-goddamnit!” He paid no attention so Ellie kicked him in the side as hard as she could, and’ Nardone grunted and looked up at her.

“Get off him! —Get off him!”

“He resisted-“

“Get off him!”

Nardone got to his feet-giving the young man a last smack with the envelope-then bent to haul him lightly up, and took his revolver away. A man in the crowd cheered, said something in Spanish, but none of the others said anything.

Ellie started picking up the money, and an old man in a white apron, the bodega man, helped her, grunting each time he stooped over to pick up a bill.

Three of the twenties were lying near a young woman’s foot-she was wearing highheel blue open-toed shoes and she stepped back a little as Ellie bent to pick the money up.

“Are you a cop?” she said. She had such a heavy accent that Ellie didn’t understand at first, and the woman asked her again.

“Yes,” Ellie said, “-I am.”

The young woman nodded, and watched while Ellie duck-walked over to the curb to pick up another twenty. -Too many twenties for just two cops. It was a bag job, was what it was.

“Got it all?” Nardone said, standing beside the young cop. He had the cuffs on him, and the young detective was weeping furious tears. “You cocksucker,” he said to Nardone.

I ‘That’s a shame,” a woman said. “-He beat him up.”

omeone else said something in Spanish.

The old bodega man handed Ellie a handful of twenty dollar bills, and Ellie said, “I have it all, I think.”

“Come on.” Nardone shoved the young cop ahead of him down the street, stepping through bright rolling oranges. Ellie, following, turned to some people trailing along, and said, “You people go mind your own business, now.” These people stood for a few moments where they were-staring after-then wandered away, obedient.

At the Chevrolet, Nardone opened the passengerside front door, and shoved the young detective into the carthen motioned Ellie into the back an . d climbed in after her.

“You” he said to the white-haired man, “-drive downtown.”

“Tommy’?” the white-haired man said. He turned to look into the back.

“Tommy … I thought it was you.

Thank Jesus God!” The young detective wasn’t crying anymore. He was sitting hunched over, his head resting on the dashboard.

“Oh, shit,” Nardone said. “Pauly. -You fuckin’ asshole!”

“Tommy-I swear on the living God. I swear on my soul we’re just pickin’

up. Just pickin’ up! We don’t get shit outta this!”

“Who does?”

“I’m not going’ to tell you. I can’t tell you. You’re going’ to get me shot!”

“Well, goddamnit,” Nardone said, “-you got to!”

“Please don’t do this, Tommy,” the white-haired man, Pauly, said. “Don’t do it for my sake-do it for Gracie’s.

It’ll kill her, Tommy. Please don’t do this … please, please don’t do it!” His face was hydrant red; he was breathing in an odd, galloping way. The young detective sat still, silent, his forehead on the dash.

“Take it easy … come on, now,” Ellie said.

“Tommy … oh, Tommy … it’ll kill her. I’m beggin’ you—oh, I’m beggin’you.” No tears, but his heavy face a deeper and deeper red.

“If you got something’ to tell me, Pauly The older detective turned farther in his seat, furious.

“You’re tryin’ to get me killed! You want to get me killed!-I can’t tell you, goddamnit!”

The young detective-Johnson-lifted his head off the dashboard and sat up straight. “Don’t beg him anymore, Pauly,” he said.

“For Gracie, Tommy-not for me. -Don’t kill my Gracie… !” Handsome Pauly was taking deeper and deeper breaths, plucking at the front of his shirt with his thumb and forefinger.

“Come on, now,” Ellie said. “Come on, now-take it easy. . - - “

She glanced at Nardone. He was sitting beside her, silent, his heavy hands on his knees, staring at the white-haired detective as if he’d never seen the man before. He looked frightened. —She couldn’t bear it. “Whatever you say, Tommy,” she said to him. “-I figure they got some shit scared out of them. Nardone gave her the saddest look.

After another few moments, the car quiet except for Pauly’s breathing, Nardone said, “No, sweetheart-it’s not your business. You got nothin’

to do with this.” He leaned forward so suddenly she was startled, and hit the white-haired detective hard across the side of the face with his open left hand. It made a loud noise in the car. -Three men and a woman had been standing on the sidewalk, looking into the car to see what the fuss on the corner had been about. Seeing the blow, they lifted their heads like startled grazing animals, and angled away in hasty highstepping walks.

“You fuckin’ thief,” Nardone said, “-you’re making’ a lousy crook outta me! You were my friend, an’ you’re ruinin’ me here, Pauly. ‘For Gracie’-huh? You bet your fuckin’ ass it’s for Gracie! It sure as shit is not for you. . . ! “

The white-haired detective sat still, taking his deep breaths, plucking at his shirt, Nardone’s fingerprints ivory white across his right cheek.

“Go ahead,” Nardone said, “—die.”

The young detective said, “You got no-“

“Be quiet-you!” Ellie said. “Don’t press your luck.”

Nardone turned to him. “You fuckin’-a, you little scum bag-takin’ money from a fuckin’ thief, handin’ it out to a bunch of fuckin’ thieves make us all look like shit!” He bent over the seat, reached down behind the young man’s back, and unlocked the cuffs.

“Tommy,” Ellie said, “-there’s liable to be a precinct car coming by from that trouble-“

“You got some of that money?” Nardone said to her.

“Yes.”

“Give it here.” He took the folded twenties, stuffed them back into the battered manila envelope. He tore the paper a little. “-I’m givin’

this shit back to that asshole in there,” he said to the men in the front seat.

“-An’ if I catch either one of you in this fuckin’ neighborhood, I’m gonna’ turn you in. -We all go down!

You understand me. . . ?” The white-haired detective only sat, but the young man nodded. “-So, you tell those creeps you’re baggin’ for, they better send harder guys next time. Ain’t gonna be any more fuckin’ free rides.” He opened his door and got out into the street, then leaned back inside. “Pauly, don’t you ever show me your face again. -For me, you’re a dead guy.”

When his door was closed, he was lumbering on his way to the curb, Ellie said, “-You’re going to be sorry, doing this to him.- Then she took the white-haired detective’s .38 from her purse, dropped it on the floor of the back seat, got out of the car, closed the door, and hurried to catch Nardone at the magazine stand, listening for a patrol car coming to see about a fight, some money flying around.

Porfirio Cruz was an elderly, brown-skinned man with bifocal glasses and a neat, small salt-and-pepper beard.

He was standing behind his small cigar counter at the dusky back of the store, dressed in slacks, a green shirt, and a brown tie-when Nardone came in with the envelope in his hand, Ellie hurrying behind him. Two phones were ringing in the back, and Cruz was already shaking his head, No, he didn’t know that envelope, when Nardone held it out under his nose, then dropped it onto the glass countertop.

“You take this,” Nardone said, “-an’ shove it up your ass. I catch you givin’ this to any more cops-I’ll come in here and pull down your pants and shove it up your ass for you-I give you my word of honor, on Holy Mother.”

A big, thick-shouldered Puerto Rican with a round, flat-nosed face was standing against the store wall to the left of the cigar counter. He was wearing a bright blue and-yellow Hawaiian shirt. He glanced over at Seflor Cruz, then stood straighter, and stepped away from the wall.

“Are you kidding’ me?” Nardone said. “-I couldn’t get that lucky.” Cruz raised his forefinger and the roundfaced man leaned back against the wall.

“Are you a tough guy?” Ellie said to the roundfaced man in her scraps of Spanish, and stepped up to him. She had her hand in her purse, on the Smith & Wesson.

“You look more like a queer, to me,” she said, her Spanish good enough for that.

“Gracie Donaher was real nice to Connie when we had the baby . . . we had Marie,” Nardone said. He was driving down Second Avenue in a crowd of traffic. The day remained summer warm-Ellie had the air-conditioning on. “-A nice woman, you know. She came over a lot.

Her sister’s a nurse … she’s the one got us over to Beth Israel . .

. got us going’ on the exercises. . . .”

“Tommy-you did the right thing. I would have done exactly the same thing.”

“An’ you’d be dead wrong,” Nardone said, and changed lanes to pass a bus. “-I made a bad mistake. I just made a bad mistake, back there. I could get you in a lot of trouble.” He stayed in the center lane, didn’t give a cab room to shove in ahead of them.

. “Tommy, we all decide all the time to take somebody in or let them go! -It’s not such a big deal.”

“I never let a couple thieves go like that-with the money right in their fuckin’ hands. I never let that go in my life.” He glanced at Ellie, then back to the traffic.

“-Why do you think I’m on this shit squad? You think because I let guys go?”

He said nothing more while they traveled (accelerate, slow, and stop-accelerate, slow, and stop) down several blocks.

“This traffic is god-awful,” Ellie said. “-It’s rush hour all the time, now.” A couple-a bald, bearded man and a pretty woman in a white short-sleeved blouse-had passed them, were driving just ahead of them, shifting from one lane to the other and back. It was a junker rental car; they drove like tourists. -This couple, still in front of them, stopped late for the light at Sixty-sixth Street, and came close to nudging a tall, good-looking woman in an exercise outfit, crossing with a shaggy sheepdog on a leash.

The woman called to them, “Learn to drive!” She shouted it loud enough to be heard through the Ford’s closed windows. They heard the pretty woman call back, “He is!” and the rental rolled late on green.

“I wish I didn’t think those guys were laughin’, back there,” Nardone said. “-I wish I didn’t think they were laughin’ at me.”

“It’s beauty and the beast!” The speaker-Avril Reedy, a Post reporter-had been a policeman himself, long ago, was injured in a patrol-car accident and invalided out. He was now lounging against the corridor wall at the door to the squad room, with another reporter Ellie’d seen in the building, but didn’t know by name. -A News man, she thought.

Reedy was black, but his accent was solid Brooklyn, with none of the Southern slurring many New York blacks refreshed as children visiting relatives in Alabama and Mississippi. “-This company you got in there-is this on the Classman killing?”

Nardone walked past him as if Reedy had turned to wallpaper. But Ellie paused and said, “What company? -What’s going on?”

“That’s what I call a great source,” Reedy said to the other man-a short white man, younger than Reedy.

Then said, “-If you don’t know, honey, damn if I can tell you. . . .”

Ellie started to follow Nardone through the squadroom door, then turned.

“Why don’t you come in?”

“Because, sweetie,” Reedy said. ‘-Leahy ain’t lettin’ us come in!”

The squad room was crowded with cop”oing their entries and paperwork-and come in to make and take their afternoon phone calls to and from sources just beginning to stir, girlfriends for dates that evening, their wives to schedule dinner. They were there in such numbers, also, because of the death of one of their own-to share what they knew or thought they knew about Morris Classman’s killing … to hang around, to be on the scene.

Nardone tapped a detective named LaPlace on the shoulder, said,

“Frank-what’s going’ on?”

LaPlace, taller than Nardone, but very slender, sporting a handsome madras jacket, a handlebar mustache, said, “Leahy wants you guys-he’s steamin’.”

When Nardone pushed open Leahy’s office door, Ellie behind him, that fat officer iid glance up in exasperation, said something to three people crowded around his desk, rose, and managed to sidle his way to the door and out, bellying Nardone and Ellie from the doorway, out into the squad room.

“I was real glad,” Leahy said to them, “to hear that thief Johnson is down in holdin’-going’ right across town, getting’ booked.”

Nardone said nothing.

“I think he made us,” Ellie said. “-We saw him circle the block a couple of times … couldn’t see the driver.

Then, he just took off.”

“No pickup?”

“We didn’t see it,” Ellie said. “-We figured you didn’t want him brought in for a no-hold charge.”

“I wanted that thief brought in!” Leahy said. “-Now, you’re tellin’ me the guy just took off like a friggin’ bird!”

“That’s right,” Ellie said.

“Why aren’t you talkin’?” Leahy said to Nardone. He had to raise his voice over the noise of the computers, the conversations. “Hey-keep it down in here! Well … ?” he said to Nardone. “-You got something’ to say?”

“No,” Nardone said.

“Oh-that’s very nice. . . .” Leahy glared up at Nardone in unaccustomed anger, fat and furious-while his object, face closed as a vault, stared over the short man’s head, as if to great distance.