“Now two are dead, thought Johnny.”
Two beat cops were on the scene in about a minute. Sirens began to wail. Jessie came running. He saw Danny’s bloody body, stood for moment, then fell to his knees. His eyes turned up to meet mine. He didn’t say anything, there was nothing to say. One of the beat cops, Jack McMahon, bent down, felt for a pulse, nodding his head to the other cop.
“Call the morgue,” he said, as he was getting up, he brought Jessie with him.
“Steady son.”
McMahon, was about forty years old and had spent the last twenty walking the Heights.
I’d known him for that long. I remembered having my first beer with my old man at ‘The Irish Rose,’ bar on Court Street the day I turned eighteen. Jack was at a table with some other cops. They were close enough that I could hear their conversation.
One of the younger cops asked, “Hey Jack, why are you still walking a beat? What’d you do to keep you from a gold shield?”
There was silence at the table, not out of embarrassment, they’d heard the question before. Jack looked at the young policeman.
“I never asked for a promotion.”
The younger man looked stunned.
“Why the hell not?”
One of other cops interrupted. He turned to face the young man.
“I can tell you why.” He turned back to face Jack.
“Officer McMahon here has received two gold medals and about a hundred citations for saving people’s lives, asses and property in this neighborhood. Every shopkeeper, bar owner, homeowner, shit maybe everybody in Brooklyn Heights knows and respects Jack. He’s never had to eat crow or suck up to the administration, never had to bend his own rules.”
“I don’t think you have to bend the rules to get a gold shield,” said the younger cop.
I was shaken out of my memory by a cop with pad in hand. Freddie was already telling his story to another cop who was writing it all down.
“In your own words, tell me what happened,” he said. I did. The two cops looked at each other.
Freddie’s cop said, “Same story Sam.”
Two police cars were already parked in front. One of the policemen was wrapping a barrier around the area. The manager of the hotel came running out.
“Sir, does this have to be done here?”
The cop just looked at him.
“Sorry Mr., but this is where the dead body is.”
The manager was noticeably upset and maybe a little scared.
“Can’t he, can’t he be moved?”
“We’ll move the body when the ambulance gets here.”
The manager slinked back inside.
The ambulance showed up about five minutes later—and so did Captain Farentino.
A good sized crowd had formed outside the police tape and the driver of Farentino’s car had to use his body to push through and get the captain inside the tape. Farentino walked over to the sergeant in charge and they spoke head to head for a few minutes. Once or twice Farentino looked over in my direction; if looks could kill I’d be lying right next to poor Danny. Finally, Farentino finished his conversation and walked over to where Freddie and I were standing.
He nodded to Freddie.
“Jackson.”
“Captain.”
Then he turned to me.
“I thought I told you to stay out of this.”
I’d just seen a man gunned down not a foot away from me and I was in no mood to play ‘who’s got the biggest dick.’ I gave him back my own ‘if looks could kill’ look and asked with a smirk (I smirk really well) , “You wanna tell me exactly how Vinnie Santelli’s murder is connected with this hit?”
That didn’t go very well, just changed the captain’s color from red to very red.
“I don’t want to tell you shit Stone.”
Freddie piped up in my defense.
“Johnny came with me. I was doing my job, you might not remember but I’m a reporter, and the Waterfront is my beat.”
Farentino’s face reddened even more.
“Yeah, since when?”
In a very calm voice Freddie explained, “Since the Brooklyn docks have taken over the unions lock stock and barrel. Do you have any comment on the growing corruption in our community captain?”
I thought Farentino was going to deck him right there, but he just looked over his shoulder at one of the patrolmen and said, “Get this guy outta here!”
I turned to leave but the big man laid his big paw on my not so big shoulder.
“Not you, Johnny. We need your eye-witness account back at the station,” there was a slight smile on his face.
He called out, “Hey Jerry, escort Mr. Stone to the station. Have him wait in the interrogation room.”
“What? Am I under arrest or something? You can’t do this!” I protested.
Farentino just laughed.
“Sure I can, Johnny. You’re a material witness,” then he turned to Jerry and signaled like an umpire calling an out.
This guy was starting to piss me off; Toni’s dad or not. But I stayed mum and followed the cop into the squad car. The ride to Brooklyn South was short, but my mind was reeling. I got the fact that Farentino didn’t want me sticking my nose into an ongoing homicide investigation. I couldn’t blame him. Murders weren’t a common occurrence in my business, despite what people see in the movies. But somehow his fury didn’t make sense. I mean it wasn’t like he was upset because I’d missed a bullet by inches; in fact, my demise might have made his life just a little bit easier. But I really couldn’t believe that Toni’s father, no matter how protective he was of his daughter would want to put me in a meat locker, and yet, there was something else bugging my ‘as long as I live, you’ll never marry my daughter’ and it was beginning to give me a very unsettling feeling.
Three hours later I was still sitting in a smelly claustrophobic interrogation room. I’d tried the door a couple of times, but of course it was locked. By hour two I was knocking on the one-way mirror/window; I had to pee. Nothing. Finally, Farentino walked in.
“I’ve got to take a leak,” were the first words I said to the big man.
“Well,” Farentino took the seat on the opposite side of the table.
“Okay, Johnny. But first I’ve got some questions for you.”
“Shit, captain, I said in a pretty loud voice, “I’m not kidding.”
The captain just opened his notebook and took out his pencil.
“Name?”
“What the fuck?”
“I need your full name Johnny for the record.”
“Jonathan Michael Stone.”
“Address?”
I was beginning to lose it. Three fucking hours in this place, my bladder screaming bloody murder and this jackass determined to make my life miserable. The captain and I had maintained a “do no harm” relationship while Toni and I were together. I knew he didn’t like it, but I knew it wasn’t really personal. His wife had the sense to leave him years ago and taken the kid with her, but she soon found out she had cancer and it wasn’t even a year since the breakup that little Antonia went back to Daddy. Those early years were tough for both of them; he worked all the time, so the little girl was shipped off to an aunt in New Jersey where she attended Mount Saint Mary Academy in Kenmore, New Jersey. Toni, as she was called by the age of ten, visited her father every weekend at first, then by high school, maybe once a month. By the time Toni matriculated at Columbia they were barely on speaking terms. So, when I came into the picture, the captain was on his best behavior; I guess as the years flew by he had finally realized that Toni, was his only real family.
“Address,” he asked again.
“229 Court Street, Brooklyn”
“Ain’t that the address of a retail establishment?”
“You know damn well it is,”
His writing on his pad included more than the address, he wrote for at least a minute. He looked up at me and said, “Is your office located there as well?”
I stared at the guy for a good thirty seconds.
“Yes.”
“So, your office and your domicile are in the same place?”
It wasn’t really a question so I didn’t even answer.
“I wonder, is that place zoned for residential?”
I saw where this was going and started to get up.
“Sit down, Johnny,” the captain said. I stayed up.
“Sit the fuck down before I make you,” he growled.
Suddenly the door flung open and Toni, followed by a police officer I didn’t know,
stomped into the room.
This time it was the captain’s turn to stand up.
“Antonia! What are you doing here!”
He turned to the young patrolman, who quickly shrunk like a popped ballon.
I’d never seen the girl of my dreams so mad. Her pale white skin was a deep red, her whole body was shaking. She looked at me.
“You alright Johnny?”
“I guess so.”
The captain tried to regain his composure.
“Toni!”
Toni looked at her father. Her eyes flashing. Then she turned to me.
“Let’s go Johnny,” she said.
The captain was more shocked than I was.
“Toni, you have no business here.”
Toni got right up into the captain’s face.
“Did your read him his Miranda rights?”
“He’s not under arrest.”
“Then what the hell is he doing here?”
The captain moved back, tugging his waistcoat.
“He’s an eyewitness to a shooting.”
Toni moved into the space the captain left.
“And you hold him in an interrogation room? Unable to leave? For three hours?”
I decided it was time for me to speak, “And I’ve had to take a piss for half the time!”
They both looked at me for a moment, like I was a little mental.
“Dad, I’m taking Johnny out of here right now. He’s under no obligation to be here.”
Toni put out her hand.
“Johnny, give me a buck.”
“What?”
“Give me a dollar,” she lowered her voice, “Now.”
I did.
Toni spoke to both officers, the guy I didn’t know and the captain.
“Unless this man is under arrest, I’m taking my client out of here right now.”
She turned back to her father.
“We will decide if we think there is significant damage for a suit in the next day or so.”
I got up, she took my hand, and we walked out of the room, out of the police station and into the street. I still had to pee like a race horse.
The 149th was only a few blocks from my place and without a word we headed there. Toni was tight lipped and I could see how upset she was, so we didn’t speak until we were in my office. A few minutes later Toni was still fuming and pacing around the small room. I walked out of the bathroom smiling, still drying my hands with the half towel I used for just about everything. She looked at me.
“What the hell Johnny?” I sat her down, took my own seat and laid out the story from the day we left the morgue together.
“Jesus!” she said.
“I don’t think he’s involved, but I can put him on the suspect list if you want, it is pretty empty right now,” I said. She gave me her best, don’t be an asshole look.
“Johnny, this is serious. If the mob gets wind that you’re sticking your nose into this, you’ll be in danger.” Then I told her about the guy with the cigar outside of Mrs. Santelli’s house; something I’d left out when I told her the whole story.
“Jesus, Johnny!”
“There you go again,” I said, “fine I’ll put him on the list.”
Then something happened that surprised me. Toni got up and walked around the desk. She grabbed me around the collar, pulled me up to her height and kissed me, hard and long. I saw stars.
“Johnny,” she said in almost a whisper, “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“About what?” I asked, croaking out the words (I lost my voice two seconds into the kiss)
“About you. About me,” she looked into my eyes boy was she beautiful I thought.
She let go of me and started to pace around the room.
“I’ve worked really hard to get where I am, Johnny,” she said. “There’s not a heck of a lot of women lawyers out there and the firm of Bixby, Lawson and Hecht just offered me a job
I was impressed. BLH was one of the big white shoe law firms in the city, and had made a reputation, slicing up their adversaries. A name to reckon with in the world of high finance.
“Don’t be too impressed,” she said dismissively, “they’re thinking of getting into white collar criminal cases, and my asshole father being a police captain and so close to the movers and shakers in the city had something to do with that, I’m sure.”
“So where do I fit in?”
“That’s the trouble, Johnny,” she looked at me, “you don’t.” Her eyes were wet now.
“But, somehow,” she stopped pacing, “you keep popping back into my life.”
I guess this as good time as any to explain why Toni and me split up. It’s pretty simple actually. Last year I was working for the owner of a small trucking firm in Bensonhurst owned by Eddie Temkin, who was my army Sargent during my first months in boot camp. He’d been in the corps for a number of years, knew his stuff and kept us all in line. But he drank, and once in a while, he’d start a bar fight, which would invariably end up in a brawl. The last time the brawl cost the army a bunch of money in repairs, so Eddie lost his stripes and then ushered out of the army. Anyway, he’d called me up, seemed that his fighting days were over but he’d gotten into a mess with an old girlfriend who was blackmailing him with photos that her partner had taken. He’d been married since even before the war and had two kids. The day I came to his office he looked as though he hadn’t slept for a week.
“Johnny, if Myrtle found out, she’d take the kids and leave me to rot. I need help”
“What can I do, Sarge?”
“Find out who her partner is, see if you can put the fear of god in him.”
“I’m not a bone breaker, Sarge.” I scratched my chin, “but maybe I could reason with him,” I said. The Sarge, (Angel was his real name) looked at me and said, “Reason with him?”
“Yeah,” I said, “In the form of Joey So So.” Joey was in our squad in boot camp. Nicest guy you ever met, but like the Sarge he was prone to getting into a tussle once in a while, and at six foot six and two hundred and eighty pounds he could cause a hell of a lot of damage. I’d gotten him out of a jam about six months before and he kinda felt like he was under some obligation to me.
“Johnny,” he told me when I’d straightened out his problem, “I owe you. Whenever of whatever you need, you just call me and I’ll be there, Okay Johnny?” I nodded at the time, just to make him happy, but I’d guessed this was the time to call in my chit. To say the Stone strategy didn’t go to well was an understatement. A big one. It was pretty easy to find out who the couple was that was in this sort of business, there were a few in the boroughs and after the war business was booming. Don’t ask me why, maybe after the months under fire, or sitting on their asses in the desert, some guys thought they were on some kind never ending R&R once they put in their eight hours at the office or the plant or wherever they worked. Anyway, Joey So So caught up with this pair at a motel out by the Airport. Apparently we got there just a bit late because beside the lady and her partner, Angel’s wife stood three feet away with a gun in her shaking hand. The lady’s partner, (his name was Knuckles…don’t ask me) was backing away toward the back wall while Myrtle was cursing at the Lady, (her name was GiGi…at least that’s what she told Angel), suddenly he reached behind his back and pulled out a revolver. Myrtle started shooting, bang, bang, bang, Knuckles went down, GiGi hit the floor, Joey So So just stood there frozen. I started to move towards Myrtle shouting to put the gun down. It didn’t work and I got shot in the leg.
When I went down, Mrytle hit the floor, which left Joey So So the only one standing. Until the cops came. I’d woken up in Jamaica Hospital pretty out of it with the drugs that they shot into my system when Toni walked into my room. I’d been out for a while, and had minor surgery on my leg—it was a through and through and they found no fragments, so I would be fine. Apparently, Toni had been with me for the last twenty-four hours. Her eyes were bloodshot, (lack of sleep, crying?) and her clothes were rumpled. She sat down next to the bed, and took my hand. I smiled. She didn’t.
“What?” I asked.
“I can’t do this Johnny. I can’t have a life where I’m waiting for a phone call from the hospital” she brought her face closer to mine, “or the morgue.”
“Honey,” I said. This was a fluke. I hadn’t even seen a gun since I got out of the Army.”
Toni raised an eyebrow, “What about the Jimmy Smith case you had last year.”
“Oh that, yeah, I forgot about that,” I said, “but I promise, I won’t take on any jobs that seem dangerous.”
Toni stood up.
“I wish that were true Johnny, but you’re in a dangerous business.”
“You want me to sell insurance instead, or sell shoes?” I said, “I’ll do it. I’ll quit right now.”
Toni almost smiled.
“No, you won’t Johnny, and I wouldn’t want you to,” She took my hand again, “this is what you have to do right now Johnny, you and your knight in shining armor fixation. Maybe later on, you’ll see that life for what it is, a life that never let’s go get above the swamp you have to swim in to catch the bad guys.”
She let my hand slip from hers and started out the door.
“Bye Johnny.”
And that was that, until about a half hour later when Angel came roaring in, stood by the bottom of the hospital bed and said, “You fucking did it now, Stone.”
I just stared at him.
“My wife’s in Jail and my kids are at my mother in laws and she won’t even open the door for me!”
“I’m not gonna press any charges Angel,” I offered.
“You! Who the fuck cares about you? Myrtle’s been charged with murder. The guys dead!”
Angel did a 180 and strode to the door. Then he turned.
“And you ain’t getting a nickel outta me!” There was no door to slam so his left without a sound.
So there I lay, wounded, my client pissed and my girlfriend gone. I wasn’t having a good day.
And now, the scene with Toni was playing out once again. But this time things were a little different. We both learned a lot about life and each other in the year that passed. Toni was still part of my life; my parents loved her and she felt the same way about them, she had gotten to know Angie’s kid and had been her tutor. We’d never had a meal together or even coffee, but our lives collided and each time it did we both felt the attraction.
Finally, I blurted out, “I love you Antonia,” I shocked myself with that, I’d actually never told her that before.
Toni stood for a long while, walked to the door, and turned around.
“I love you too Johnny.” Then she turned the knob, opened the door and walked out.
