Cop Job (16 page)

“None of them knew anything,” said Fenton, “though some tried to act like they did. Junkies don’t make very good liars.”

“So you’re crossing local actors off your list,” I said.

“Not yet, but I’m not feeling it,” said Fenton. “Don’t get a lot of home invasions around here. I’m thinking outsider.”

As you often hear, New York is a city of neighborhoods. People like to live, shop, eat, and mug other people in familiar surroundings.

“Targeted,” I said.

“That’s what I’m thinking,” said Sullivan. “Though it’s early yet.”

“I’m thinking the same thing,” said Fenton. “She buzzed the guy in. Could have been a delivery. You can get a stick of gum brought to your door at three in the morning in this town. But my street contacts would know if there was a bad guy working that angle. Unless he’s just startin’ out. That could be.”

“So friends and family,” said Sullivan. “Sorry, Sam. You know what I mean.”

“I do,“ I said. “And coworkers. I talked to two of them today. I’m not ready to like Weeks, but he’s worth a closer look. I think I’ve prepared him for the tender mercies of the NYPD and their Long Island cousins.”

“We’ll be delivering that tomorrow,” said Fenton, waving the bartender over to refill our glasses. Some time went by while that got sorted out, along with an order of bar food meticulously specified by our host cop.

“I stay away from the chicken wings,” he said. “Spent too much time in Guangdong.”

I didn’t know what that meant, but I didn’t ask.

When things settled down I told Sullivan that I’d paid a visit to Joey Wentworth’s parents at their apartment on the East Side. I filled him in on the conversation as well as my memory would allow, leaving out the psychodrama.

“I know their place off Wickapogue Road,” said Sullivan. “About the size of the Pentagon.”

“They like a lot of elbow room,” I said.

“So Joey knew Alfie.”

“He did, but who didn’t. Alfie was always around.”

“Alfie was the DB in the wheelchair,” Sullivan told Fenton. “Joey Wentworth was another CI that got ventilated with a twelve-gauge the week before. We’re wonderin’.”

“No wonder to me,” said Fenton. “Somebody’s dropping dimes.”

“That’s what it looks like,” said Sullivan, “though I’ve been living with those people a lot of years, and it just doesn’t add up.”

“It’s the ones you least expect,” said Fenton.

“I hear you,” said Sullivan.

“You do have two new guys on the force,” I said.

Fenton looked at Sullivan like he probably looked when one of his street contacts tried to hold out on him.

“I’ve known Pete Cermanski since he was still wiping his nose on his sleeve,” said Sullivan.

“You don’t still do that?” asked Fenton.

“What about the other guy, Bennie Gardella?” I asked.

“Bennie fucking Gardella?” asked Fenton. “You’re shitting me.”

“You know him,” said Sullivan.

“Sure. Did some serious undercover during the Giuliani glory days. Compared to him, Donnie Brasco could have been in witness protection. Very highly regarded guy, even if he did spend a few years at the Retreat and went on desk after that. Sort of a PTSD thing, is what I think.”

“What’s the Retreat?” I asked.

“Rehab central for cops and firemen. Does a brisk business, not a big surprise.”

“I didn’t know any of this,” said Sullivan.

“Your chief does. Ross ran Bennie when he first went undercover in the South Bronx. Those two went through shit I hope my brain’s too stupid to imagine. Talk about PTSD.”

I remembered Edith Madison saying she had assets at Southampton Town Police. I assumed covert, meaning hidden from Ross, so that couldn’t mean Gardella.

“Goddammit,” said Sullivan.

“I probably just fucked up,” said Fenton, smelling Semple’s obvious breach of trust seeping into the air.

Sullivan made one of those hand gestures meant to make the last statement go away.

“No,
I
did,” he said. “I’m glad you leveled with me. I’ll respect what you said.” In other words, not let on to Ross that he knew Gardella’s story.

“I appreciate that,” said Fenton.

After that, to the relief of both cops, we switched topics to local sports teams, the greedy ways of every living and dead politician, and whether the slightly outsized rear end of the bar’s only waitress constituted a net plus or minus.

“Personal preferences are a strange and wonderful thing,” said Fenton, to which we all nodded, basking in equanimity.

Eventually we decided the wise choice was to retreat to our respective beds while we could still hail cabs without tripping on the curb. Out on the sidewalk, we shook hands and exchanged thanks and upbeat words of encouragement for the upcoming efforts. In the middle of this, Sullivan asked if I could look into Bennie Gardella, since he was a cop and thus off-limits. And anyway, I’d do a better job with a fellow guinea. Fenton laughed.

“That’s what everybody thinks,” he said, “but Bennie’s no guinea. Family’s from some weird place in the toe of Italy. He’s a Griko.”

“What the hell’s a Griko?” asked Sullivan.

“They’re Greeks. That was Bennie’s code name when he went undercover. The Greek.”

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN

A
s predicted when Allison woke up she remembered nothing about the attack. She could barely hear, so we were left to communicate with her by writing in a pocket notebook. Abby told Allison she’d obtained the notebook at a darling little shop somewhere in the south of France. I knew you could get the same thing at nearly any bodega in the city, but didn’t think it worth mentioning.

You want people you love in these circumstances to just wake up and start blabbing away, but that’s not how it works. Allison looked to me like she knew some horrible thing had happened to her, but was just too sick, sore, and drug-addled to do much about it but stare and try to make out what we were trying to tell her.

Abby’s instinct was to express a kind of ersatz cheerfulness that was unnatural to her normal disposition and likely unconvincing, if not disturbing, to Allison. Abby’s husband, Evan, kept his focus on Abby as if waiting to catch her as she fell, though that never seemed a possibility.

Nathan talked to Allison as if they’d just gotten home from a busy day at work and were having a good-natured moment of decompression. She held his face with her eyes, watching his mouth form the words she couldn’t hear. As he scribbled away on the notebook, she reached over and took his hand.

Amanda was there as well, having broken the ice with Abby in the waiting room. Like most of these things, the fearful expectation was wasted. They shook hands, Amanda expressed concern for Allison and all others involved, Abby said that Allison spoke very highly of Amanda, and so on. There was plenty of cool reserve in the air, but good intentions and civility more than made up for lack of warmth.

“So what are we looking at here?” I asked the doctor, before he had a chance to scoot out of the room.

“Prognosis? Not sure. Pretty major traumatic head injuries, internal trauma, though there she is, eyes opened, seemingly cognizant of her surroundings. She’ll live. The question now is restoration of function. I’d be optimistic.”

“Because pessimism won’t make things turn out any better?” I asked.

“Something like that.”

I let the other people in the room do all the talking and pad writing, but Allison knew I was there, because every once in a while her eyes, poking through the bandages, would drift over to mine. I didn’t know what they might have been trying to tell me, but I tried to tell her with mine that we’d talk when she was able. Meanwhile I’d be busy doing things I was better suited to than cooing reassurances I didn’t necessarily believe.

A
MANDA CHOSE
to stay for a few more days at the hotel in the city, but I needed to get back to Southampton to take care of a few things, like my work for Frank Entwhistle and the care and feeding of my once-feral mutt.

I knew Jackie would do a good job looking after him, but Eddie liked things the way he liked them, and that included having me around to hit golf balls and feed him Big Dog biscuits.

In honor of both these obligations, I spent a couple days in my shop in the basement of the cottage, leaving the hatch open so Eddie could come and go as he pleased. Amanda kept me informed from New York by telephone, but as predicted, there was no significant news to report.

The same was true of Sullivan and Fenton. Another two days scouring the neighborhood turned up nothing either in suspects or productive information. We were entering the long slog phase; that was certain. But both men seemed up for it, eager even, so that was encouraging.

On the third day, I went over to Amanda’s and got back on her computer so I could look at the ill-gotten file on confidential informants. I’d been focused entirely on our local snitches, but Jackie and Randall had swiped the entire state file, so I wanted to see what might be there on The Greek, Bennie Gardella.

There wasn’t much. In fact, no mention at all of his undercover work, not surprising. Success in that arena, which included survival, was highly dependent on secrecy. It was likely the only people who knew what he actually did were Ross and the DA, Edith Madison’s counterpart in the city.

I pulled out the flash drive and went on the Internet so I could look at the Southampton Town Police website. That’s where I learned that Detective Gardella had transferred to Southampton Town Police as Sergeant Gardella to oversee suspect processing and record keeping.

I called Jackie and asked her if she could find out where Gardella lived.

“You know the Internet has all sorts of ways to find people,” she said. “It’s not that hard.”

“I know. I just pick up the phone and call you, and bingo.”

To keep her company while she looked, I told her about my conversation with Detective Fenton about Bennie Gardella, and Ross and Gardella’s time undercover. Also what Mustafa told me Joey Wentworth told him. To watch out for Greeks.

“So you think there’s a connection?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Joey’s mother hadn’t heard anything about it.”

Then I told her about the conversation with the Wentworths in their big Upper East Side apartment.

“I actually met them at Burton’s,” she said. “They’re okay, if you don’t mind Jack’s bitchy insinuations and the iron pole up Sally’s ass.”

“Who would?”

“I never heard them talk about their son Joey. I guess they were pretty embarrassed by him.”

I realized she’d done a better job understanding the Wentworths’ underlying state of mind. Regret and disappointment, sure. But for people in their world, it was mostly embarrassment, a far stronger emotion.

“A. Benedict Gardella, in Hampton Bays. I’m guessing that’s the guy,” said Jackie.

“Sounds like it.”

“I don’t know if knocking on his door would be such a good idea,” she said.

“I could send a calling card. See if he wants to have tea.”

“If he’s in Hampton Bays, maybe he goes to Sonny’s.”

Sonny’s was a boxing gym up in the Pine Barrens north of Hampton Bays, not far from Southampton Town Police HQ. It was popular with cops, firemen, and ex-military living in the area, people who wanted a good workout without enduring the spandex and self-love of the gyms favored by people from the city. I’d been going to Sonny’s ever since moving back to Southampton for all the same reasons. And as one of the few guys there who actually had a professional boxing career, however brief, I was often dragged into ad hoc training sessions delivered ringside during sparring matches.

I’d never seen Gardella there, but I usually went after work and he might have favored early morning.

“That’s thinkin’,” I said to Jackie.

“I do have a good thought once in a while.”

“You’re always thinking. Maybe that’s your problem.”

“Who said I have a problem?”

“I don’t know. Think about it.”

S
ONNY
’
S WAS
owned and run by a retired Town cop named Ronny, one of the central mysteries of the place. Ronny had a small face in the middle of a big head with the type of fleshy neck that flowed seamlessly into his shoulders. He wore thick glasses on his florid face and had a giant potbelly. In short, the person who looked in most need of Ronny’s establishment was Ronny himself.

I found him in his office, where he spent most of his time, doing what I don’t know. How much office work would it take to run a boxing gym in the woods that never advertised and charged a flat fee of fifty bucks a month?

“Hey, Sam,” he said. “What do you say?”

“Not much that’s worth saying.”

“I heard about your daughter. Truly sucks.”

News travels fast in cop land. Worse gossips than hairdressers.

“Thanks, Ronny. We’re working on it.”

“I heard Sullivan’s in the city as we speak, on personal time.”

“Yeah. Hope that doesn’t cause a crime wave in Southampton.”

He thought that was funny. Ronny liked to laugh. But then he got serious again.

“Then there’s the vet in the wheelchair,” he said. “How fucked up is that?”

“His name was Alfie Aldergreen,” I said. “If you hear anything that might be useful, you can tell me. I’m in daily touch with Sullivan.”

“Haven’t heard shit, but will do.”

“Meanwhile do you ever see the new guy in Southampton, Bennie Gardella?”

“Almost every day. He’s usually waiting for me to open up the place. What about him?”

“I just want to chat about a few things. He doesn’t have to know that.”

Ronny understood, trusting me not to do anything that would make him feel disloyal to a fellow cop. Even one from out of town.

“He’s a quiet one, Gardella, just so you know. Keeps to himself. Power lifter on the free weights. Works the bag like he knows what he’s doing.”

“Sound like your typical desk jockey?” I said.

“That’s what I’ve been wondering, though I haven’t shared the thought with anyone.”

I thanked him and he wished me luck with everything. I took the opportunity to change into my gym clothes and spend a little time on the bag myself. If you’ve ever done any of that, you know how mesmerizing and soothing the practice can be, once you get into the zone. It was one of the few ways I could get my mind to stop nattering at me over all the things I should be thinking about and all the things I shouldn’t, which was most of it.