Omerta (25 page)

“No,”Di Benedetto said. “But I know what I can do. Buy a super condo in Miami when I retire. Remember, we’re going to have to live with this.”

“Taking drug payoffs is already over the line,” Aspinella said. “Fuck ’em all.”

“Yeah,” Di Benedetto said. “Let’s just make sure that this guy Heskow has the money tonight, that he’s not just jerking us off.”

“He’s always been reliable,” Aspinella said. “He’s my Santa Claus. And if he doesn’t have a big sack to give us, he’ll be a dead Santa.”

Di Benedetto laughed. “That’s my girl. You been keeping track of this Astorre guy so we can get rid of him right away?”

“Yeah. I’ve had him under surveillance. I know just the spot to pick him up—his macaroni warehouse. Most nights he works late.”

“You got the throwaway to plant on him?” Di Benedetto asked.

“Of course,” Aspinella said. “I wouldn’t give shit to a shield if I didn’t carry a throwaway.”

They drove in silence for ten minutes. Then Di Benedetto said in a deliberately calm, emotionless voice, “Who’s going to be the shooter?”

Aspinella gave him an amused look. “Paul,” she said, “you’ve been behind the desk for the last ten years. You’ve seen more tomato sauce than blood. I’ll shoot.” She could see that he looked relieved. Men—they were fucking useless.

They fell silent again as both were lost in thought about what had brought them to this point in their lives. Di Benedetto had joined the force as a young man, over thirty years ago. His corruption had been gradual but inevitable. He had started out with delusions of grandeur—he would be respected and admired for risking his life to protect others. But the years wore this away. At first it was the little bribes from the street vendors and small shops. Then testifying falsely to help a guy beat a felony rap. It seemed a small step to accepting money from high-ranking drug dealers. Then finally from Heskow, who, it was clear, acted for Timmona Portella, the biggest Mafia chief left in New York.

Of course, there was always a good excuse. The mind can sell itself anything. He saw the higher-ranking officers getting rich on drug-bribe money, and the lower ranks were even more corrupt. And after all, he had three kids to send to college. But most of all it was the ingratitude of the people he protected. Civil-liberties groups protesting police brutality if you slapped a black mugger around. The news media shitting on the police department every chance they got. Citizens suing cops. Cops getting fired after years of service, deprived of their pensions, even going to jail. He himself had once been brought up for discipline on the charge that he singled out black criminals, and he knew he wasn’t racially prejudiced. Was it his fault that most criminals in New York were black? What were you supposed to do—give them a license to steal, as affirmative action? He had promoted black cops. He had been Aspinella’s mentor in the department, giving her the promotion she’d earned by terrorizing the same black criminals. And you couldn’t accuse her of racism. In a nutshell, society crapped on the cops who protected them. Unless of course they got killed in the line of duty. Then came the tide of bullshit. The final truth? It didn’t pay to be an honest cop. And yet—and yet, he had never thought it would come to murder. But after all, he was invulnerable; there was no risk; there was a hell of a lot of money; and the victim was a killer. Still . . .

Aspinella too was wondering how her life had come to such a pass. God knows she had fought the criminal underworld with a passion and relentlessness that had made her a New York legend. Certainly, she had taken bribes, suborned felony. She had only started late in the game when Di Benedetto had persuaded her to take drug money. He had been her mentor for years and for a few months her lover—not bad, just a clumsy bear who used sex as part of a hibernational impulse.

But her corruption had really started her first day on the job after being promoted to detective. In the station-house rec room an overbearing white cop named Gangee had jollied her in a good-natured way. “Hey, Aspinella,” he said, “with your pussy and my muscle, we’ll wipe out crime in the civilized world.” The cops, including some blacks, laughed.

Aspinella looked at him coldly and said, “You’ll never be my partner. A man who insults a woman is a small-dick coward.”

Gangee tried to keep it on a friendly basis. “My small dick can stop up your pussy anytime you want to try. I want to change my luck anyhow.”

Aspinella turned her cold face to him. “Black is better than yellow,” she said. “Go whack off, you dumb piece of shit.”

The room seemed frozen with surprise. Now she had Gangee blushing red. Such virulent contempt was not permitted without a fight. He started toward her, his huge body clearing space.

Aspinella was dressed for duty. She drew her gun, not pointing it. “Try and I’ll blow your balls off,” she said, and in that room there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that she would pull the trigger. Gangee halted and shook his head with disgust.

The incident, of course, was reported. It was a serious offense on Aspinella’s part. But Di Benedetto was shrewd enough to know that a departmental trial would be a political disaster for the NYPD. He quashed the whole thing and was so impressed by Aspinella that he put her on his personal staff and became her mentor.

What had affected Aspinella more than anything else was that there had been at least four black cops in the room and not one of them had defended her. Indeed, they had laughed at the white cop’s jokes. Gender loyalty was stronger than racial loyalty.

Her career, after that, established her as the best cop in the division. She was ruthless with drug dealers, muggers, armed robbers. She showed them no mercy, black or white. She shot them, she beat them, she humiliated them. Charges were made against her but could never be substantiated, and her record for valor spoke for her. But the charges aroused her rage against society itself. How did they dare question her when she protected them from the worst scum in the city? Di Benedetto backed her all the way.

There had been one tricky situation when she shot dead two teenage muggers as they tried to rob her on a brightly lit Harlem street right outside her apartment. One boy punched her in the face, and the other grabbed her purse. Aspinella drew her gun and the boys froze. Quite deliberately, she shot them both. Not only for the punch in the face, but to send a message not to try mugging in her neighborhood. Civil-liberties groups organized a protest, but the department ruled that she had used justifiable force. She knew she had been guilty on that one.

It was Di Benedetto who talked her into taking her first bribe on a very important drug deal. He spoke like a loving uncle. “Aspinella,” he said, “a cop today doesn’t worry much about bullets. That’s part of the deal. He has to worry about the civilliberties groups, the citizens and the criminals who sue for damages. The political bosses in the department, who will put you in jail to get votes. Especially somebody like you. You’re a natural victim, so are you going to wind up like those other poor dopes in the street who get raped, robbed, murdered? Or are you going to protect yourself? Get in on this. You’ll get more protection from the wheels in the department who are already bought. In five or six years you can retire with a bundle. And you won’t have to worry about going to jail for messing up some mugger’s hair.”

So she had given way. And little by little she enjoyed socking the bribe money into disguised bank accounts. Not that she let up on the criminals.

But this stuff was different. This was a conspiracy to commit murder, and yes, this Astorre was a Mafia big shot who would be a pleasure to take out. In a funny way, she would be doing her job. But the final argument was that it had so little risk and such a big payoff. A quarter mil.

Di Benedetto drove off the Southern State Parkway and a few minutes later rolled into the parking lot of a small two-story mall. All of the dozen or so shops were closed, even the pizza joint, which displayed a bright red neon sign in its window. They got out of the car. “That’s the first time I’ve seen a pizza joint closed so early,” Di Benedetto said. It was only
10:00 P.M.

He led Aspinella to a side door of the pizza joint. It was unlocked. They climbed up a dozen stairs to a landing. There was a suite of two rooms to the left and a room to the right. He made a motion, and Aspinella checked the suite on the left while he stood guard. Then they went to the room on the right. Heskow was waiting for them.

He was sitting at the end of a long wooden table with four rickety wooden chairs around it. On the table was a duffel bag the size of a punching bag, and it seemed to be stuffed full. Heskow shook Di Benedetto’s hand and nodded to Aspinella. She thought she had never seen a white man looking so white. His face and even his neck were drained of color.

The room had only a dim bulb and no windows. They sat around the table, Di Benedetto reached out and patted the bag. “It’s all there?” he asked.

“Sure is,” Heskow said shakily. Well, a man carrying $500,000 in a duffel bag had a right to be nervous, Aspinella thought. But still, she scanned the room to see if it was wired.

“Let’s have a peek,” Di Benedetto said.

Heskow untied the cord around the neck of the duffel bag and half dumped it out. About twenty packets of bills bound by rubber bands tumbled onto the table. Most of the packages were hundreds, no fifties, and two packets were twenties.

Di Benedetto sighed. “Fucking twenties,” he said. “OK, put them back.”

Heskow stuffed the packets back into the bag and retied the cord. “My client requests that it be as quick as possible,” he said.

“Inside two weeks,” Di Benedetto said.

“Good,” Heskow said.

Aspinella lifted the duffel bag onto her shoulder. It wasn’t that heavy, she thought. A half mil wasn’t that heavy.

She saw Di Benedetto shake hands with Heskow and felt a wary impatience. She wanted to get the hell out of there. She started down the stairs, the bag balanced on her shoulder, held with one hand, her other hand free to draw her gun. She heard Di Benedetto following her.

Then they were out in the cool night. They were both dripping with sweat.

“Put the bag in the trunk,” Di Benedetto said. He got into the driver’s seat and lit up a cigar. Aspinella came around and got in.

“Where do we go to split it up?” Di Benedetto asked.

“Not my place. I have a baby-sitter.”

“Not mine,” Di Benedetto said. “I have a wife at home. How about we rent a motel room?”

Aspinella grimaced, and Di Benedetto said smilingly, “My office. We’ll lock the door.” They both laughed. “Check the trunk just one more time. Make sure it’s locked tight.”

Aspinella didn’t argue. She got out, opened the trunk, and pulled out the duffel bag. At that moment Paul turned on the ignition.

The explosion sent a shower of glass over the mall. It was raining glass. The car itself seemed to float in the air and came down in a hail of metal that destroyed Paul Di Benedetto’s body. Aspinella Washington was blown almost ten feet away, an arm and leg broken, but it was the pain from her torn-out eye that rendered her unconscious.

Heskow, exiting in the rear of the pizza shop, felt the air press his body against the building. Then he jumped into his car and twenty minutes later was in his home in Brightwaters. He made himself a quick drink and checked the two packets of hundred-dollar bills he had taken out of the duffel bag. Forty grand—a nice little bonus. He’d give his kid a couple of grand for spending money. No, a grand. And sock the rest away.

He watched the late TV news that reported the explosion as a breaking story. One detective killed, the other badly hurt. And at the scene, a duffel bag with a huge amount of money. The TV anchor didn’t say how much.

W
hen Aspinella Washington regained consciousness in the hospital two days later, she was not surprised to be closely questioned about the money and why it was just forty grand shy of a half million. She denied she had any knowledge of the money. They questioned her about what a chief of detectives and an assistant chief were doing out together. She refused to answer on the grounds that it was a personal matter. But she was angry that they questioned her so relentlessly when she was obviously in such grave condition. The department didn’t give a shit about her. They did not honor her record of achievement. But it ended OK. The department didn’t pursue her and set it up so that the investigation of the money came to nothing.

It took another week of convalescence for Aspinella to figure things out. They had been set up. And the only guy who could have set them up was Heskow. And the fact that there was forty grand missing from the payoff meant the greedy pig couldn’t resist grafting his own people. Well, she would get better, she thought, and then she would meet with Heskow once again.

A
STORRE
was now very careful of his movements. Not only to avoid a hit but also not to allow himself to be arrested for any reason. He kept close to his heavily guarded home with its five-man round-the-clock security teams. He had sensors planted in the woods and grounds around the house and infrared lights for night surveillance. When he ventured out, it was with six bodyguards in three two-man teams. He sometimes traveled alone, counting on stealth and surprise and a confidence in his own powers if he should meet only one of two assassins. The blowing up of the two detectives had been necessary, but it generated a lot of heat. And when Aspinella Washington recovered she would figure out it was Heskow who had betrayed her. And if Heskow spilled, she would come after Astorre himself.

But by now he knew the enormity of his problem. He knew all the men guilty of the Don’s death and the serious problems before him. There was Kurt Cilke, essentially untouchable; Timmona Portella, who ordered the murder; as well as Inzio Tulippa and Michael Grazziella. The only ones he had succeeded in punishing were the Sturzo brothers, and they had been mere pawns.

All the information had come from John Heskow, Mr. Pryor, Don Craxxi, and Octavius Bianco in Sicily. If possible, he had to get all his enemies in one place at the same time. To pick them off singly would surely be impossible. And Mr. Pryor and Craxxi had already warned him he could not touch Cilke.