Dog tired, I dragged myself up the stairs to my office. The overhead light on the landing was out again, but a slight tap gave it new life, at least for a while. I wondered how long we two could play this game, me tapping, the light responding with a steady glow then going out again. Sooner or later, the light would be extinguished, never again to illuminate the peeling paint and scoffed linoleum, but leaving me in the dark. Just like this case, I thought to myself, the light doesn’t stay on long enough for me to see anything clearly. The whole thing seemed kinda depressing. I was pulled out my reverie when I noticed that my office door was slightly ajar. My right hand automatically went for my gun, when I remembered that my pistol was in the evidence room at the station.
I looked for something to pick up and use as a weapon. Nothing. Just me, the lightbulb and the peeling paint.
“Fuck it,” I said to myself, and opened the door.
Annabel was at my desk unsteadily writing something on a piece of paper.
She jumped in her seat when she saw me.
“Johnny! You startled me!”
I closed the door behind me.
“Evidently,” I said.
Anabel was red faced, eyes shining. I couldn’t imagine that I had scared her that much.
“Johnny,” she got out of the chair and practically ran me over.
“Johnny, there’s something going on by the docks.”
I looked at my watch. “Shape up was long over.”
“That’s not it, Johnny. I think the local boys are putting up a protest. Blaming the union leaders for Danny Alonzo’s assassination.”
“I can’t see that lasting more than a few minutes,” I said, “You know how it is down there. One guy gets the courage to speak out, a few join in, then once the muscle moves in, everyone goes back to work.”
Anabel was on her feet.
“This time it’s different Johnny. They’ve got a couple of hundred people out there protesting. The office is not pushing back except for taking pictures and writing down names. But I’m still worried. A couple of guys on both sides seem to be provoking the crowd. I ran all the way from the docks to find you.”
I asked, “Why were you down there anyway?”
“I was taking a walk,” she answered.
“By the docks?”
I could see Annabel was not being straight with me, but decided not to push.
I said, “Don’t worry this sort of thing happens every once in a while.”
“Your father is in the crowd,” said Annabel.
“Dad?”
“Yes. Up front,” she said, “I’m frightened for him.”
“Are you telling me my old man is leading this pack!? Impossible!”
Annabel grabbed my jacket from the back of my chair.
“Let’s go and see.”
I followed Annabel down the stairs and straight into a cab that was dropping some people off by the bar.
We jumped in and was at the docks in less than ten minutes.
I could see a big crowd of men, maybe two hundred.
The waterfront muscle had formed a line protecting the office. Some had police batons, a couple had guns in their belts. Each group was yelling and booing at the other, and in the middle of the thunderstorm, was my dad, Anthony Michael Sabatini, AKA Stone, bullhorn in his hand.
“Yer gonna have to account for Danny’s death.”
Joe Moloney, ex dock worker now a foreman working for the mob on the docks shouted back. “Go home where you belong, Michael. This is not place for a crazy old man!”
Someone threw a rotten tomato which found its mark on Moloney’s chest. He jumped down from his perch and ran toward the crowd. All hell broke lose.
I saw my father go down like a ton of bricks. Was he pushed?
I ran toward the scrum and pushed my way through the crowd to my dad.
He was lying on the floor of the makeshift platform. A few of guys huddled around him. I pushed further in.
“Dad!” He didn’t respond. I leaned over to see if he was conscious. There was a red circle near his shoulder blade. It was getting larger by the second. I ripped at his coat. He was bleeding pretty bad. I tore at his shirt. It was a small caliber bullet hole.
I shouted at the top of my lungs.
“Michael’s been shot!”
*****
Jimmy McDonald, the Waterfront doctor, was at my side in minutes. Jimmy took care of most of the smaller workplace accidents, mostly cuts and bruises or the odd broken arm. I’d thought a bullet wound would be way out of his league, but he’d brought his bag, and cleaned the wound expertly.
“Your Pa is a lucky man,” Jimmy told me, “Couple more inches and the bullet would have pierced an artery. If that was the case it would have been a real shit storm.”
Thankfully the ambulance got to us pretty fast.
I was just about to hop into the back with my old man, when Annabel came through the crowd.
They started to close the doors—I held one side open and told Annabel we’d be at Saint Peters. “Go see my mom and bring her down there.”
A couple of hours later we all stood around my dad. It was painful to see the old man, lying in hospital bed, looking so pale and fragile.
The doctor had told me, we were lucky, which I already knew, and that the bullet was a ‘through and through’ and now that it was clean, he just needed to rest for a few days, not use his arm for any heavy lifting.
Mom was crying. She hadn’t stopped since she’d gotten to the hospital and I figured wouldn’t let up until Easter. Toni, Angie, Annabel were all there. Annabel seemed to be holding up, Toni looked worried, and Angie made jokes. Then my father spoke in such a low voice nobody heard him. He pushed himself up and then said in a strong voice, “I need to talk with my son now. Alone.”
Everybody filed out and we were left to ourselves. I sat on a chair next to him.
“How ya feelin’ pop?” I asked him.
“I won’t lie to you son, it hurts like a motherfucker.”
“Did they give you anything for the pain?”
“Yeah,” he said. “it worked for about twenty minutes.”
“Do you want me to get the doctor back?”
Then he put his hand on my shoulder. “Nah. I’m fine.”
We were silent for a few moments. Then my father spoke again.
“Me and Danny were close. We had each other’s back. Yeah, it had been a long time since we broke bread together, but we did keep in touch, a letter here, a phone call there. I knew he was pissing them off plenty and told him he needed to back down a little,” he grabbed a glass of water that had been poured before the nurses left.
“But that boy was stubborn,” he laughed, then coughed, his face contorted with pain , “and a snake at the same time. Nothing mattered except the mission. I knew he’d found out something that was making the bosses very uncomfortable. I told him to forget it and just get back to work. The night before he was killed, he called and told me that when this “whole thing” was over, we’d have much to celebrate. I asked him, what are we celebrating? He told me he didn’t want to say anything over the phone. This was the same day that you came by and asked me about Danny.”
I could see he was getting tired now, but had to ask him.
“But you sounded as though you hadn’t seen or spoke with him in a long time,” I said, bewildered.
“I know, son. Sorry. It wasn’t going to do you any good at that point.”
I leaned toward my dad and asked, “Pop, were you involved in any of this? What did Danny tell you? I mean, at the meeting before he was killed he seemed to say that change would take a long time and people needed to have patience.”
My father’s voice was getting softer. He needed sleep. I said, “Ok. We can talk more later, you need to rest.”
For a moment, I thought he hadn’t heard me. His eyes were closed and I thought he had fallen asleep. When I got up to leave, he suddenly opened his eyes and grabbed my arm.
“Watch your back, Johnny. Just watch your back,” then he quickly drifted back into his medicated haze.
When I came out of the room, they all asked me what we’d talked about.
Toni said, “I spoke with my dad, Johnny, and he told me he would do everything he could to find out who the shooter was. They already have some of the Waterfront muscle at the station getting the first degree.
Annabel asked how long I thought he’d be in the hospital.
“The doctor told me they would keep him overnight, but barring any real problems he could probably go home tomorrow. He needs rest and quiet,” I answered.
My mom stood up and said, “Someone please take me home, I’ve got to clean up the house and start cooking.” That was always how my mom dealt with problems; cleaning the house and working in the kitchen. Toni asked if she should stay overnight with mom.
“Don’t be silly darling,” said my mom, then turned to look at me, “you have other people who need taking care of.” After an uncomfortable moment, I said, “C’mon ma, I’ll take you home.”
I didn’t wake up the next morning until 10am. I probably hadn’t had a good night’s sleep for two weeks. I showered and shaved, grabbed my hat and coat, thinking I’d go to the hospital and see how my old man was doing; see when they would discharge him and see if there was anything else that I should know about his relationship with Danny. But I only made it to the bottom of the stairs when Angie came out of the bar and said, “Hey Johnny, you got a second?”
“Sure,” I said, and we walked back into the bar. There, sitting around one of the larger tables was Toni, Annabel, my cousin Eddie and Connie, the newspaper vendor.
“Hey, what’s going on here?” I asked.
Toni spoke up, “We’re tired of worrying about whether you’re going to end your day at the police station.”
Connie chimed in, “Or in the morgue!” he said smiling.
Annabel offered, “So, we decided what you needed.”
“And what was that?” I asked.
Eddie said, “Us, Johnny. You need us.”
Toni said, “Let’s face it Johnny, things haven’t been going well for you. You’ve been kicked around, thrown into a garbage bin, accused of murder.” Toni looked around the table and smiled. “Seems to me you need some help.” She motioned to a bulletin board, with some press clippings of the murders already tacked up. “So, say hello to your assistant detectives.” Then she pulled out a chair. “Take a seat Johnny and let’s get to work.” She pulled the chair out, I looked at my rag tag assistants. I had no idea how they could help, but I sat down anyway. I immediately looked at Annabel.
“So, you were just taking a walk, huh?”
Annabel turned a shade of red, but Toni rescued her from any more embarrassment.
“Okay now. We’ve been talking and each of us has an assignment, so let me explain how it’s going to work.”
I folded my arms. I wasn’t going to make this easy for the gang, though it was true that I could use some help. But how could they help
Toni got up and went to the bulletin board.
“The trouble started with Vincent Santelli,” she pointed to his photo and an article about his death, then she pointed to Danny Alonzo’s photo and story, “Then Danny Alonzo,” she finally moved to Freddie Jackson’s photo, “and last of the good guys, Freddie Jackson.”
“And that’s not counting the Gaglioni hit.”
She stopped for a moment and then looked at me.
“We’ve decided to divide our investigation by assigning each of us to one of these murders. Annabel…”
Annabel interrupted with “Annie, for now on I want to be called Annie.”
Toni smiled and continued, “Annie is going to look into Vincent’s murder.”
She turned to Eddie, “Eddie is going to work on Danny Alonzo’s killing.”
“I’m going to look into Freddie’s murder as well as trying to get police notes on all three.”
She moved to Connie and put her hand on his shoulder.
“Connie’s going to be our ears to the ground”
Connie smiled. “Yeah, you’d be surprised at the stuff I hear. Nobody ever lowers their voice around the stall, to them I’m invisible.”
I let a moment pass and then said, “This is all wonderful, but I’m not putting you in danger. No. Absolutely not,” I said and began to get up out of my chair.
Angie, who had been standing outside the circle, leaning on the bar, spoke up, “Don’t be a big lug, Johnny. You’re getting nowhere fast on your own and your sweetheart here is getting tired of bailing you out of jail.”
Then Toni broke in. “Listen Johnny, we’re going to be very careful. Annabel, I mean Annie, is going to talk to friends and family. She’s going to tell them she’s doing an assignment titled “The Vanishing Neighborhood,” and the loss of Vinnie’s printing business and Vinnie was a loss of a good neighbor. Eddie knows all the dockworkers as well as the bar owners and the local cops. He’s going to be very careful to not ask any questions that would lead someone to think he’s doing more than just talking,” she looked at Eddie, “right Eddie?”
Eddie sat up, “Yes. No problem, I mean right.”
I looked at Angie, “And you? Are you part of this?”
Angie laughed and said, “Are you kidding me? I’m already in this up to my tits!”
I sat down and raised my palms in an okay, I give up gesture. “But I’m the boss here, and I have to know exactly what you’re all doing and not days after you do it. And if I ask anyone of you to do something for me, for the investigation, I expect you all to do it.”
Everyone blew out a breath and a wave of yesses, and of courses came tumbling out of their mouths. Then Toni said, “Ok. Where do you think we should start, Johnny?”
