Hot-Wired in Brooklyn (18 page)

“Fast Eddie,” somebody called out from the corner table, near the bar. He was melon-headed, pudgy, early forties. A perfect
tenor at high mass. Victor Iademarco, Proprietor, and Esquire. His two favorite words, by the way, which I’d taught him during
one of my vocabulary binges.

“Want a table?”

“One I can crawl under.”

“Still have a pre-duh-lick-shun for table six?”

“Eccellente,
Victor! Sure. And a Schaefer.”

“Set ’em up?”

“Not just yet,” I said, lining up my break shot. “I’ve got to work later.”

“First one’s on the house,” he said. “On account of you’re gettin’ married.”

I almost miscued. “How’s that?”

“Tony and Frankie were in this morning, told me all about it.”

Swell. So now Frankie believed it, too. Eddie and Charlotte, the perfect couple, if Russian roulette was a family sport. I
took out my frustration on the racked balls, scattering them with an extra twist and plenty of follow. Victor set the first
bottle of Schaefer on the rail, and I lined up the number one ball.

I tried to concentrate on my game, but when my usually smooth stroke failed me, I considered the two words Phyllis had overheard.
“Sissy” and “Stork.” “Stork” was probably “Shork,” but what did the first word mean?

I gave up halfway through the second rack and drove home. I opened up Shork’s blue metal box and covered most of my living
room floor with the fruits of his vile hobby. One of these sad women figured in the exchange at the wrecking yard, but which
one? And how would I find out? Go to all the addresses Shork had written on the backs of the pictures and confront these poor
women with their shame? Blackmail them into telling the truth? I’d done enough harm accusing Phyllis falsely, and Carlson,
too, for that matter. I didn’t really have the stomach for more, not even to help Arnold. A gallery of sad, accusing faces
stared up at me and forced me to turn my eyes away.

I collected the pictures, returned them to Shork’s metal
box, and put it in my office safe downstairs. Then, I left early to do some penance.

I was going to track a prowler. And bring him back alive.

. . .

The snow held off until I arrived at St. Margaret’s, then fell steadily for the next two hours. If my run of Italian bad luck
continued, I’d spend a sleepless night freezing in my car, and the prowler wouldn’t show.

I kept the motor running at first, got out a couple of times to sweep the snow off, but finally I just let it accumulate and
went from watching to listening. Snow muffles sound, but the silence it creates also amplifies an unexpected or aberrant sound
from the normal background. A kind of shamus hearing test. Buttoning my overcoat against the cold, I turned off the engine
and listened for breaking glass as my yellow Chevy disappeared under a mantle of white.

I was almost sorry I’d brought my gun. All the prowler’d done was break the smallest window in the church four times and take
shelter inside. He was just looking for a safe place, like Chick. If and when I found him, I’d encourage him to move south,
even stake him five bucks and take him to Port Authority bus station in Manhattan if it would get him on his way. No more
threatened novenas, no more window repair. All he had to do now was show.

But he didn’t. I tried to keep my mind occupied by computing batting averages and reciting Liam’s bawdy limericks, but it
didn’t work. Sitting alone inside a snow-covered car is a
guaranteed sleep-inducer, and I went under like a bear in a cave.

It was two in the morning when I woke up. The snow had stopped. I rolled down the window, pushed away the newest accumulation
and stared in disbelief at the side door of the church. Broken glass. Window number five.

I stopped short of cussing myself when I saw the pair of shallow footprints leading to the side door. They weren’t fresh,
but they probably weren’t more than a half-hour old. With any luck, the prowler was still inside.

I stepped out into the snow, closing the car door as softly as if I were leaving Desiree’s bedroom when she was sleeping.
The street, too, was silent. The only tracks were my own, until I reached the sidewalk.

He’d come from the west end of the street, taking long strides that became longer as he’d approached his favorite entrance
to the church. His footprints were bigger than mine, and they set deeper. Suddenly, having my gun didn’t seem so wrong. It’s
one thing to
tell
a prowler to hit the road, and another to actually send him on his way.

I listened at the door before slowly pushing it open. St. Margaret’s was as dark as it was silent. I found the wall, knelt
down, and felt the floor with my hand. A trail of wet footprints led back toward the center aisle, and I followed them as
my eyes adjusted to the dark.

When I reached the center aisle, I stopped and listened again. No sound, so I peered from behind the pew. A single, hunched
figure knelt at the communion rail. I still couldn’t hear him, but he looked like he was praying. I backtracked to the side
aisle and crawled slowly and silently toward the front
of the church. A statue of the Virgin Mary was at the far end, her benevolent plaster arms extended over several rows of dim
votive candles.

When I got close enough to see her painted smile, I stood up. The figure at the communion rail hadn’t moved, and I couldn’t
see his face.

“Can’t your sins wait?” I asked suddenly.

He recoiled as if I’d fired a shot, backpedaled into the front pew and froze against it.

“Listen, pal,” I said in my best threatening voice, “you’ve gotta be movin’ on. You’re gettin’ too damned expensive for this
parish.”

He retreated awkwardly along the pew, visible only as an outline. He was shorter than I was, but stockier and stronger-looking,
even with his stumbling feet. I followed slowly, shunting him toward the statue of St. Francis and the rows of votive candles
at the end of the other side aisle, where I might see his face.

“You got any idea how much it costs to replace window glass these days?” I kept on. “It’s astronomical. Maybe you think the
Holy Ghost comes along every morning and puts in a new pane for free. Not a chance. You can forget about the loaves and fishes
here, pal, and that hokum about the lilies of the field, too. God doesn’t fix windows at St. Margaret’s.”

He kept moving away, looking for exits. I added more menace to my tone.

“The priest here, Father Giacomo, he’s a very nice man. He just wants you to stop breakin’ the windows. Me, I’m not so nice.
I want you to get lost and not come back. Disappear completely. Get the idea?”

I could almost see his features in the candlelight. As my eyes strained to separate him from the deeper shadows, I heard something
I hadn’t expected. Whimpering.

His arm rose to cover his mouth, but he couldn’t suppress the sound completely. I stopped. He backed finally into the light
of the candles, and immediately I knew who he was.

C
hick,” I said softly, but he didn’t answer. “Hey… you’re Chick Gunderson, right?” Still no answer, only a gaping mouth and
bulging, fearful eyes.

“It’s okay, Chick. I’m here to help you.”

He slunk into the corner and out of the light again.

“My name’s Eddie Lombardi. I’m a private detective, and I’m a friend of Arnold’s. I know about the fix you’re in, and I can
get you out of it.”

“Who sent you?”

“Arnold. Arnold sent me, Chick.”

He bolted suddenly down the side aisle. I backtracked and paralleled his course down the center, trying to keep him between
me and the side door. He slammed into the wall of confessionals at the end of the aisle, bounced off and lurched for the center,
but I was already there. He froze again.

“Arnold sent me, Chick. And Caroline Hutchinson. Jimmy’s sister.”

“He’s dead,” he sobbed. “Teddy, too. I’m next.”

“Not if you come with me, not if you tell me where those papers are that were in the D.A.’s briefcase.”

He braced himself against the wall, strong, sweating hands flat against cold stone. I backed off.

“You’re no friend of Stinky’s,” he said in a husky voice, bravado rising to combat his fear.

“Yes, I am.”

“No, you’re not. You’re lyin’. You’re not a private detective, either.”

I reached for the wallet inside my coat, which was all he needed to push him into panic. He charged head down, hard as a locomotive,
glancing off my left hip, spinning me out of the way and breaking for the side entrance. I was up fast. When he slipped on
his own wet tracks, I had another chance at him. I took him at the knees, wrapping both arms tight, but he kicked me away
and broke again for the door.

I slipped going outside, landed on my back and struggled to get up. Chick was halfway across the snow-covered street, running
directionless and hard when I shouted his name again. He never heard it. The sound of a pistol shattered the snowy silence
and Chick’s body recoiled in my direction like he’d been yanked with a rope. He landed face up in the snow. My own gun came
out in the same instant, but I hadn’t seen a muzzle flash so I didn’t know where to return fire. I didn’t want to take any
wild shots. There were houses across the street, and I knew the people who lived in them.

A bullet twanged just over my head, then another, and I
leaped from the top of the steps, over a handrail and behind some solid cover. The muzzle flashes had come from the alleyway
between Mr. and Mrs. DiPaulo’s place and the house the Amalfitanos shared with Mrs. Amalfitano’s mother.

Two muzzle flashes from the same spot. One shooter. I tried to draw his fire by rushing for a large elm in the middle of the
stone courtyard that separated the church from St. Margaret’s School, but no shots chased me. I waited, scooted back to the
church, but still no gunfire. Then I heard Mrs. DiPaulo scream. She was on her porch, staring at the body in the street.

“Get back inside, Mrs. DiPaulo, and call Bath Avenue!” I shouted.

“Eddie Lombardi?”

“Get off the porch, Mrs. DiPaulo!”

She disappeared inside as I moved out from my cover, keeping my .38 trained on the alley. There was nobody there. I knelt
over Chick’s body and felt for a pulse, but I knew he was dead. His blood was pooling under him, turning the snow dark red.
The street quickly filled with neighbors, including Father Giacomo, who’d bolted from the rectory in pajamas and bathrobe.
He offered me a mournful look, then knelt beside Chick, saying the last rites for the boy’s soul and hoping it hadn’t already
left his body.

After he made the final sign of the cross, Father Giacomo started to fold Chick’s hands over his chest and entwine a string
of rosary beads into his dead fingers. I stopped him.

“The cops’ll want to see him just the way he fell, Father.”

“He’s-a the prowler?” he asked, eyes wet and pained.

“Yes, Father.”

“You-a no shoot him.”

“No, Father. Someone else.”

“You-a try to help him.”

“Yes, Father. I tried. But I failed.”

He looked into the boy’s dead eyes. “He was a-very young.”

“Yes, Father.”

His eyes sought out mine. “You did all-a you could for him.”

“It wasn’t enough.”

A prowl car arrived, and then a second. I got one of the sisters to take Father Giacomo back to the rectory, and then I waited
with the beat cops for the detectives. The crowd had grown larger and was still curious, but these were all my neighbors,
and they knew not to interfere. I told the cops what had happened, knowing I’d have to repeat the story to Nick DeMassio and
knowing he wouldn’t like it.

He arrived a half hour later, parked his car, scuffed his way through the snow, and stood grimly over the body. He didn’t
even look at me when he spoke. There was no animation, no friendship, in his voice.

“You were supposed to keep in touch, Eddie.”

“I tried, Nick.”

“Not goddamn hard enough. Tell me this isn’t who I think it is.”

“It is.”

“Strike three, then.”

“Listen, Nick…”

He looked up, eyes agleam with anger. “Strike three on us, and Alberto gets to
walk.
What kind o’ baseball you been playin’, Eddie? And whose goddamn team are you on?”

“Nick…”

“Had to do it on your own again. Left out us boys in blue, left
me
out, and now fuckin’ Alberto walks.”

“I didn’t know it was Chick. I was lookin’ to roust a prowler, that’s all. He rabbited on me and somebody shot him from the
alley.”

“That’s the best story you’ve got?”

“It’s the truth, Nick.”

DeMassio looked past me and called to one of the beat cops. “Find any footprints in that alley?”

“If there were any, the neighbors stepped all over ’em,” one of the cops answered.

“Sonofabitch,” snarled DeMassio, glaring at me.

“The shot came from the alley, Nick, like I told you.” The burr in my voice disturbed me almost as much as Nick’s coldness.
We weren’t ourselves. We were becoming angry strangers in a hurry.

Nick turned back to me, his face like stone. “Let’s see your gun, Eddie.”

“It hasn’t been fired, Nick.”

“Don’t wanna ask you a second time.”

My stony look turner harder. “These are my neighbors, Nick. Yours, too. You ask for my gun, it tells them you don’t trust
me, that we’re not friends. I’m gonna take it the same way. I’m telling you that the gun hasn’t been fired, and that’s got
to be good enough for you.” He didn’t react, so I held the gun out, butt first. “You can have this if you want it, but there’d
be no undoin’ the damage between us.”

His tone softened, but not enough to change the mood. “Word’s out you went to see Alberto Scarpetti.”

“That wasn’t my choice. He sent men to get me.”

“What’d he want?”

“The files, for ten grand.”

“You didn’t tell me that, either.”

“I was goin’ to, Nick.”

“When? In your friggin’ memoirs?”

“I don’t work so well at the end of a blue leash, Nick. You oughta know that. And you oughta know I wouldn’t kill for a price.”