Soul Patch (19 page)

“Larry didn’t have much money back then, so he took me here. It was perfect. He was a real gentleman, and so nervous.”

“Larry, nervous! I’m having trouble picturing that.”

“I know, but with me back then . . . That’s how I knew we were meant to be. He made me nervous too. Even now . . . Let’s order.”

“Come on, Marge. No secrets between us, not tonight.”

“Thinking about him, I get . . . I can’t say it.”

“Okay,” I said, “I’m sorry.”

“Please don’t apologize, Moe. Do you know that night when I was waiting for him at the Blind Steer, I was going to throw myself at him?
I
would have begged. I would have given up everything to have him back. Attracting men has never been a problem for me, but no man ever made me feel the way he did.”

“But he walked away from you.”

“He did. Larry could be a very selfish man.”

“You would have taken him back?”

“In a second.”

“Why?”

“I can’t explain it so that it would make sense to you.”

The waiter came by with a basket of semolina bread and two complimentary glasses of Chianti. We ordered and said very little during the meal. Margaret pushed her veal cutlet parm away from her. She hadn’t eaten it so much as push it around the plate. I hadn’t eaten much of my eggplant.

“That what you ordered on the first date?”

“Yes,” she said. “I didn’t eat much of it that night either. Larry ordered lasagna and a bottle of Mateus Rose. Christ, remember when we thought that was real wine?”

“Don’t remind me. We have a few bottles in each store. Every now and then somebody’ll come to the register with one. It’s always someone my age and we sort of laugh quietly to each other. We never have to say anything. It’s just understood, you know?”

“We didn’t know anything back then, did we, Moe?”

“I guess not.”

“I really grew to love this place. At least once a week for a year, Larry and me, we’d eat here. You know, he proposed to me right over there.” Margaret pointed at an empty table across the room. “He got down on one knee and everything. Señora came over and kissed us both and refused to let Larry pay. I’d give my soul to have those days back.” A silent tear rolled down her cheek. I didn’t wipe it away.

“You said you came here once a week for a year.”

“I did.”

“What changed?”

“We stopped coming here and went across the street.”

“Villa Conte?”

“The food’s great, but it just wasn’t the same,” she said. “It didn’t feel . . . It didn’t feel like home.”

“Believe me, Marge, I understand better than you think.”

“And we’d meet some of Larry’s old friends from the neighborhood.”

“Old friends?”

“Frankie Motta.”

“Frankie ‘Sticks and Stones’ Motta!”

“No one ever called him that to his face, but yeah, that was him.”

Life never failed to bite me in the ass. It was getting so that a few more bites and my pants wouldn’t stay up. I’d known Larry McDonald for over twenty years and, though I was never as close to him as I had been to Rico, I thought I’d had Larry covered. Apparently not. I suppose you never do truly know someone else. It was a lesson I kept learning over and over again.

Frankie “Sticks and Stones” Motta earned his nickname on the streets as a kid, because no matter what you hit him with, Frankie kept coming at you. He became a capo in the Anello crime family—the
family that ran things in the Sheepshead Bay, Brighton Beach, and Coney Island sections of Brooklyn before the Russians overwhelmed them. Word on the street was that Frankie was a particular favorite of the don, Tio “the Spider” Anello. The old man was long dead and I hadn’t heard a word about Frankie “Sticks and Stones” in years.

“How close were they, Larry and Frankie?” I asked, trying to sound casual.

“Why?”

“I’m just wondering. I never knew Larry was friends with Frankie.”

She was defensive. “It didn’t last. After a few years, we stopped seeing Frankie altogether.”

“Did something happen between them?”

“Is it important?” She answered with her own question.

“I don’t know, Marge. Probably not.”

“It was so long ago.”

I was tempted to share a quote that I picked up during the few years I had kicked around the city university system before entering the police academy. Faulkner once said, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” I wanted to shake Margaret and tell her that
so long ago
is never long enough. Just ask my father-in-law.

“Yeah, Marge, you’re right. One more question about this and I’ll drop it completely, okay?”

“Sure, Moe, anything.”

“Can you remember when you guys stopped hanging around with Frankie?”

She didn’t answer right away, but gave it some thought. Although the subject made her terribly uncomfortable, Margaret was a woman of her word.

“I can’t remember any particular incident between Larry and Frankie. It was like a few months had passed since we’d seen Frankie and whatever woman he was dating at the time. I tried bringing it up to Larry, but he told me to drop it. That was okay with me, because as pleasant and charming as Frankie could be, he made me uncomfortable. It wasn’t a sexual thing, like he was interested in me or anything. He just . . . I don’t know.”

“Okay, but can you remember the timing?”

“Sure, it was the same year you rescued the little girl from the water tank.”

“Marina Conseco.”

“It was right around then, a few months after that. Late spring, maybe. Early summer. I think that was the last time we saw Frankie.”

There was nothing that struck me about that timing, so, as promised, I dropped it. Maybe Larry’s friendship with Frankie Motta was nothing. Hell, I had friends from my old neighborhood who were connected to the Anellos, the Gambinos, and the Lucheses. None of them had achieved the level of success of Frankie Motta, but they were connected just the same. Maybe Larry wised up and understood that his relationship to a known mob figure would hurt his rise up the career ladder. It was definitely Larry’s M.O. to shed anyone or anything that might hinder his ambitions.

“Do you want some dessert, Marge?” I asked, moving on.

She shook her head no and took my hand. “Do you think he killed himself, Moe?”

“I don’t know. I wanna believe that Larry wasn’t the type of man who would run away from things, but he was really worried the last time we spoke. I’d never seen him so shaken. I just don’t know enough.”

“But I knew him. I slept in his bed. I spent hours with him inside me. It’s different for a woman, having someone inside her. A woman can know a man in a way he can never know her. I can’t explain it, but I don’t think Larry would have killed himself and not left a note. He wouldn’t have done that.”

“Maybe. Who knows? A person on the verge of suicide maybe isn’t thinking clearly about who they’re going to hurt.”

“I just can’t believe Larry would leave that way without explaining why. It wasn’t his way.”

She seemed really haunted by his suicide. I understood haunting.

“C’mon, Moe, let’s get out of here. I’m feeling sad and I don’t want to feel sad here.”

Outside, I hugged Margaret and kissed the top of her head. We didn’t really speak. There were looks and shrugs and silent understandings. I had lost a lot with Larry’s death, but nothing compared to what she had lost. I watched her pull away from the curb and I followed her taillights until they disappeared near the bridge. In an hour or so, she’d be home with Frank. I wondered if his kindness and understanding made it better or worse for Marge. Then I turned and
stared at the entrance to Villa Conte. I wondered if there were any answers behind its doors or just more hurt. It’s weird what you think about sometimes.

I HAD SPENT the night drifting in and out of sleep, staring at Katy as she slept. I couldn’t get Margaret Spinelli’s words out of my head.
A woman can know a man in a way he can never know her.
I was torn between disbelief and wanting more than anything for it to be true. Did she feel the unspoken distance between us? Was every day a long, boring ride for her as well? Was the problem me? Her? Us? Before I left the house that morning, I pulled Katy aside.

“We need to talk,” I said, brushing her cheek with the back of my hand.

“About what?”

“Nebraska.”

I expected puzzlement in her eyes, her too-thin lips to turn down in confusion, her brow to furrow, at least a little bit. But she seemed to understand.

“Long, flat, uneventful,” is what she said.

“Exactly.”

I pulled her close to me and for the first time in what felt like years, my wife pressed herself against me, threaded herself through my arms in that way she had of breaking down the walls between us.

“When I’m done with whatever this is about Larry, we’re dropping Sarah at Aaron and Cindy’s and we’re going to dinner.”

“Okay, Moe.” She kissed me on the cheek. “Then you better hurry and finish this up.”

D.A. Fishbein was happy to get me the name and home address of Captain Raymond Martello, the 60th Precinct’s commander. I imagined the D.A.’s mouth watering on the other end of the phone. Un-contained ambition, I thought, must be an incredible burden for a political
monster like Fishbein. The better I got to know him, the more I missed Larry. He was so much less obvious about it. When he sucked the blood out of you, you barely noticed. Fishbein would just rip your throat open.

Fishbein also used the opportunity to inform me that he’d come up empty on another front. As far as any of his contacts knew, there was no ongoing or recent investigation into wrongdoings at my old precinct. No one, apparently, not I.A., the city, state, nor federal governments seemed the least bit interested in the 60th Precinct. That didn’t confuse me any more than usual. For me, confusion was a pre-existing and chronic condition.

Martello lived in Great River. Unlike Massapequa, Great River was not a frequent stop for folks fleeing New York City. Tucked quietly away in Suffolk County between an arboretum, a wooded state park, a golf course, and the Atlantic, it was insulated from the neon signs and strip malls that dominated so much of the local landscape. It was a lovely old hamlet with clapboard and wood shingle churches and well-appointed houses on healthy-sized plots.

Across the street from Timber Point Golf Course, Martello’s house began life as a modest L-shaped ranch. It had since grown a second floor, an attic with shed dormers, an extension, a separate three-car garage, and a fancy brick driveway. Although the work had been quite skillfully done, the original ranch house still shone through.

Ringing the bell and knocking on the door got me nowhere, and I was about to write a note to stick in the mailbox when I heard a lawnmower start up around back. I walked the curvy, bluestone path that led to the rear of the house. I figured the worst that could happen was that I would meet the Martello’s landscaper. Before I made it to the back gates, the mower crapped out.

Short, broad, fierce, and looking at his riding mower as if it had just disobeyed a direct order, Martello had C.O. written all over him. Before announcing myself, I took a moment to admire the backyard. A two-level, red cedar deck led down to a kidney-shaped swimming pool, a basketball hoop, and a brick barbecue pit. Even with all that stuff, there was half a football field’s worth of grass to mow.

“Did you prime it?” I asked by means of introduction.

He stared at me like something shit wipes off the bottom of its shoes. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Moe Prager. I used to be on the job. I was a friend of—”

“—Chief McDonald’s. He smiled with the warmth of a hacksaw. “You’re the guy that figured out what happened to John Heaton’s kid, Moira, right?”

“With Larry’s help, yeah.” I approached Martello cautiously.

“You know a lot about mowers, Prager?”

“Nah. I still live in Brooklyn. My lawn’s the size of a pillowcase, but I figured I’d say the only semi-intelligent thing I could think of.”

“Well, I primed the fucker, but you’re not far off. I think I’m outta gas. So, if the John Deere people didn’t send you, I hope you don’t mind me asking what you’re doing here.”

“I don’t mind. I wanted to talk to you about Larry Mac.”

“What about the chief?”

On the ride over, I’d worked through scenario after scenario. Not in a single one did Martello react well. Cold bastard or not, I couldn’t see any precinct command reacting well to the news that a bug had been placed in his precinct house by the department’s chief of detectives. And that was just the half of it. I couldn’t wait to see Martello’s reaction to my questioning him about Malik Jabbar’s arrest.

“What about Chief McDonald?” Martello repeated, his jaw tightening.

Reaching into my pocket, I came out with the cassette that Larry had given me a week and a lifetime ago. I made a concerted effort not to wince, steeling myself against the inevitable barrage of questions, denials, and accusations.
What’s that? Where’d you get it? A wire? Not in my house! No way! I run a clean house. It’s a plant. It’s bullshit! Who sent you, I.A.? You’re a cocksucking rat, you cheese-eating motherfucker! You’re a . . .

But instead of thunder and lightning, I got quiet resignation and a cold drink.

“I figured the tape would surface sooner or later. C’mon, I guess we better sit on the deck and talk.”

Martello offered me something stronger, but I opted for iced tea. He had a beer. I sat and sipped, waiting for him to speak. We both knew the questions. Only he knew the answers.

“My wife and the kids are away upstate, so we’re alone here,” he said. “How’s the tea?”

“Fine.”

“You’re not gonna make this easy, Prager, huh?”

“That’s sorta up to you, no? I don’t really know anything except that there’s an illegal wire in one of your interview rooms and that you obviously know it’s there. That whatever Malik Jabbar said on this tape scared the shit out of Larry, got Malik and his girlfriend murdered, and maybe even Larry too.”