3 Quarters (49 page)

Dorothea Dubrow lay on Bobby Emmet's legs, heavier than the weight of the rest of the world, her chest torn cruelly open, her eyes forever closed.

I
n the predawn on election day, Gerald Stone came alone to meet Bobby Emmet on the empty beach at Prince's Bay in Staten Island.

Bobby had called the gubernatorial candidate's private number during the night and told an aide that Stone had better come meet him that morning. He gave him the time and place on the deserted beach near Wolfe's Pond Park.

“The councilman is much too busy to meet with anyone on election day morning,” the aide said.

“Tell him it's about little Donald,” Bobby said. “He'll understand. If he doesn't see me about the kid, tell him to watch with his wife, his kids, and the rest of the state on the morning news.”

The aide had obviously passed on the message because at five
AM
sharp a blue Chevy Blazer pulled alongside Bobby's Jeep in the parking lot near the sea. Bobby watched the gulls wheel on an awakening sky as the waves rolled in like installments of a very deep and endless sadness. Bobby was weak, stained with the mental images of Dorothea's death. He had been grilled by cops for two hours, and finally Izzy Gleason told them to arrest him or cut him loose.

They let him go with a promise to the state attorney general's office that he would testify about the whole three-quarters operation and all the deaths that surrounded it. The cops that Patrick had neutralized in The Central Booking Saloon were arrested by Internal Affairs, the collars credited to Forrest Morgan.

Morgan had arranged for Sandy Fraser's aunt in New Jersey to get custody of Sandy's son. While in the nanny's house, Bobby retrieved a photograph of Sandy holding Donald.

Bobby unfolded an early four-star edition of the morning's
Daily News.
The text of Max Roth's column, along with his photo logo and an EXCLUSIVE banner, began on page one, a tabloid editorial decision made only when the paper has something truly big. The main front-page headline screamed out at the city: COP SHOCK!

Roth's column carried a subhead: Emmet Walks as Rogue Cops Talk.

In the end, Bobby Emmet did what he always did best—he busted a bunch of bad guys. This time the bad guys were dressed in blue with shiny badges, badges they abused to frame Emmet for the murder of the woman he loved.

A murder he never committed.

The woman, Dorothea Dubrow, didn't even die until last night, as Emmet, accompanied by Internal Affairs detective Forrest Morgan, closed in on her abductors in the subcellar of a Windy Tip beach house owned by a deranged, disgruntled, delusional ex-cop named John Shine. Shine was the secret mastermind behind a rogue cop pension racket that is now being called the Three-Quarters Crew.

In searching for Dubrow, to clear his sullied name, Bobby Emmet has cracked open the biggest police corruption scandal of the decade.

Emmet has untangled a web of political conspiracy, murder, revenge, greed, kidnapping, blackmail, municipal looting, and outrageous abuse of power. This morning, corrupt politicians are cowering in their miserable back rooms, waiting for the indictments to fall like trapdoors on the gallows.

All over town, all day long, greedy defense lawyers will be rubbing their hands together in glee as dirty cops race to cop pleas faster than DAs can impanel grand juries. Last night the “Three-Quarters Crew” cops were diming on each other like terrified school kids, each desperate to save his miserable behind from the life of an excop in the joint. A life that almost killed Bobby Emmet a half-dozen times in 18 months of what he calls “cop in the can.”

But today Bobby Emmet walks as a free man, today Bobby Emmet goes home to his kid with his head held high and . . .

Bobby knew the rest of the story, especially the part about Dorothea and Sandy. He folded the paper and now held the photograph of Sandy and Donald in his hand as he watched a nervous-looking Gerald Stone, dressed in jeans and windbreaker, walk across the sand to the picnic table where Bobby sat facing the sea.

“The news is already starting to break,” Stone said quietly, looking out at the foaming waves. “It's all so awful. Every paper and news station in town wants a statement.”

Bobby placed the photograph of little Donald on the table and stared silently at Gerald Stone. Bobby's eyes were tired and raw, glittering with a barely controlled anger. Stone looked from Bobby down at the picture of a smiling Donald in the arms of a proud and beaming Sandy Fraser. Stone nodded as if he were identifying a perp in a mug-shot book.

“I knew he was my kid,” Stone said. “But try to understand. I was afraid if I acknowledged him, I'd lose all my other kids. My wife. My career . . .”

Bobby picked up the photograph and put it in his own shirt pocket.

“You don't have a career anymore,” Bobby said.

“Please, I had no idea about all the things they did,” Stone pleaded. “To you. Your girlfriend. To Sandy. I was a victim, too. Me, I've been used, too . . . .”

Bobby got up and looked Gerald Stone in the eyes, the wind off the ocean twirling Stone's hair. Bobby was surprised that he had no desire to kill him. If this was maturity, he didn't like it.

“I'll support the kid: money, schools, medical, college, everything,” Stone said, desperately. “What do you want from me? What? Tell me what you want.”

“It's over,” Bobby said, and walked to his Jeep, leaving Stone alone on the shore.

On the morning news, gubernatorial candidate Gerald Stone stunned the media when he called a hasty press conference and announced he was withdrawing from the Republican primary for personal reasons and family considerations. Even if he was nominated, he would not accept.

B
ecause Maggie had completed so much extra school credit over the summer, Connie relented and let her take the whole week after Thanksgiving off from school. This gave Bobby, Maggie, and Patrick eleven full days to take
The Fifth Amendment
down to Miami to visit Grandma.

Patrick was celebrating his promotion to the rank of detective, third grade, assigned to Brooklyn PMD, Public Morals Division, for his participation in busting open the three-quarters pension scam.

Izzy Gleason had just left the boat, after dropping off Bobby's pistol carry permit and his private investigator's license. “Bobby Emmet, P.I.,” Gleason had said before leaving to make arrangements to see his own kids for Thanksgiving.

“Prisoner of Izzy,” Bobby said, reminding himself that he still owed Izzy Gleason two years of indentured servitude for getting him out of jail and having all charges against him dropped. That grim prospect was softened when Izzy also gave him ten thousand dollars in cash, ten percent of the one hundred thousand dollars Hector Perez paid to have Gleason work out his plea bargain, where in exchange for his testimony he would receive five years probation and a thousand hours community service in a city hospital.

“Where's Venus?” Bobby had asked.

“As soon as she learned enough English, she told me I had a filthy fuckin' mouth,” he said. “Last week, after I got the charges thrown out against the prick nutritionist owner of the fat farm, she took off. With him. Can you believe this ingrate? But I found a new one, Betty, Beatrice . . . Whatever her name is, she might have a beak like a bald eagle, but her body is as tight as a handball, and all she needs is a little rhinoplasty . . . .”

Max Roth was almost certain to be nominated for all the top journalism awards for his series called “The Three-Quarters Crew.”

Forrest Morgan headed a task force that rounded up what was left of the pension scam. Sol Diamond stepped down as Brooklyn DA and was being investigated by the state attorney general's office for his part in the illegal financing of the Stone for Governor Campaign. The city was investigating hundreds of fraudulently purchased three-quarters medical pensions of ex-police officers. For Sale signs started going up along the beach in Windy Tip as cops facing heavy jail time scrambled for bail and lawyers' fees. Izzy was trying to land a few as clients. The prosecution's new star witness, Constantine Zeke, turned on his fellow cops. Two of the cops, Lebeche and Daniels, were fingered for the murder of Tom Larkin. Caputo and Dixon were charged with the murder of Sandy Fraser. O'Brien, Levin, and Flynn were charged with racketeering, fraud, extortion, tax evasion, and a host of other related felonies.

Bobby Emmet buried Dorothea Dubrow in a simple ceremony in Evergreen Cemetery in a plot on a soft green hill with a clear view of the blinking red light of the Empire State Building.

Now, as a splendid trip approached, Bobby stood on
The Fifth Amendment
with the river wind blowing in his hair. Herbie Rabinowitz had painted the entire boat by hand as a repayment for Bobby's getting the Queens bookmakers off his back with a sitdown to which he'd secretly brought a pile of Herbie's brother's money. The deal was that Herbie would never bet action again in the borough of Queens.

Bobby turned when he heard his daughter's voice and saw Maggie skipping along the walkway toward
The Fifth Amendment
.

“Hi, Bobby,” came a chorus from the three sweater-clad women sipping hot cider on the Chinese junk at the next slip.

Maggie looked at the beautiful women waving to her father and smiled. “Been busy with a tough case, huh, old man?” Maggie said.

“Just being neighborly,” Bobby said, mildly abashed.

Maggie rushed up the gangplank, and Bobby picked her up in his arms. “Let's take this tub out to sea,” Bobby said.

Patrick came down from the fly deck and kissed Maggie. “Grandma is gonna cook the biggest turkey you ever saw,” Patrick said.

“Can we stop in Coney Island for a hot dog on the way, Dad?” Maggie asked.

“We can do anything we want,” Bobby said as he untied the lines and started the twin engines. Maggie sat in the pilot's seat as they backed out into the river and headed downtown toward the open sea.

Books by Denis Hamill

Stomping Ground

Machine

House on Fire

3 Quarters

Throwing 7's

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

A Pocket Star Book published by

POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc.

1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright © 1998 by Denis Hamill

Originally published in hardcover in 1998 by Pocket Books

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

ISBN: 978-1-4767-9718-2

ISBN-13: 978-1-5011-2460-0 (eBook)

First Pocket Books paperback printing January 1999

POCKET STAR BOOKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.

Front cover illustration by Don Brautigam